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agent-cupcake · 4 years ago

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Can I ask your opinion? So, I feel like everyone into 3H is in love with Dimitri, but I can't connect with him. I don't dislike him, but I feel like there isn't much to his personality without all his various mental health issues. It's hard to get a feel on what he's really like, so I end up just seeing him as a walking ball of trauma and not a three-dimensional character. Do you have any thoughts on Dimitri himself and how to separate him as a person from his psychological issues? Thanks!

Hmm, I guess my first thought is that everyone resonates with characters differently and so if you don’t particularly feel connected to him, that’s not wrong. Fictional parasocial relationships are very similar to real-life relationships, so it follows that nobody is going to like every character. I can’t say that a portion of my love for his character doesn’t come from his mental issues because that’s something I personally relate to and feel drawn to in others. That’s just who I am and how I build relationships. There is also something to be said for the unavoidable way mental illness informs a person’s behavior and character, it’s as much an aspect of them as being born with blond hair or losing an eye.

That said, I will do my best to explain why I think Dimitri is wonderful. Not in spite of his mental illness, but because I don’t think that’s all he is.

So, Dimitri is, as he says, a very clumsy person. This unfortunately extends to his social skills. He has a lot of very socially awkward tendencies and a general lack of self-awareness. This contrasts with his innate desire to please people, or at least avoid upsetting anyone. The thing is, Dimitri doesn’t always completely understand what upsets people or how exactly they might feel. His childhood isolation left him rather emotionally unaware and desperate for the acceptance and approval of others. That’s not to say he doesn’t try to understand other people’s feelings, but it’s not an intuitive process. He has a habit of saying kind of dumb or uncomfortable things out of nowhere, which is most likely his real feelings coming out in rather inept ways. He means well, but he’s just so dang clumsy.

The desperation to be included and validated I mentioned, I think, can be seen in the way he tries so hard to make the other Blue Lions see him as a peer and equal all the while keeping himself rather closed off from them. Dimitri approaches conversations as a means of focusing on the other person, trying to make an appeal to them rather than as an interaction where both parties could be seen as vulnerable. Of course, just like most other socially awkward introverts, he opens up when he feels closer to the person, but that takes a while. Gotta unlock the supports, you know? Although it’s not necessarily obvious, his incredibly stiff behavior (especially pre-timeskip) and the way he switches between overly formal and awkwardly friendly in his interactions with people as he tries to figure out how to socially and emotionally navigate relationships really gives me the impression of someone trying desperately to fit in without even the faintest clue of how to actually manage that. He also does his best to avoid social situations, which, mood. Basically, Dimitri’s a big dumb massive introvert trying to act like he’s not.

FURTHERMORE, he is a dork. An absolute goof of a person. Dimitri canonically thinks so-bad-its-good puns and jokes are hilarious. His own style of telling jokes is saying things that may or may not have contextual humor in a normal voice and then claiming after the fact that he intended it as such. Now, his supports with Alois are absolute factual proof of the so-bad-its-good humor, but might I also direct your attention to the scene before the battle against Miklan in Conand Tower (the event name is “Tower in a Storm (Blue Lions)”). Basically, Gilbert is explaining the history behind Conand Tower and Dimitri says, in an incredibly earnest voice, “You’re very well informed, Gilbert. Please, tell us more.” This is a joke. Supposed to be, at least. The delivery is somewhat emphasized, but not in a recognizably sarcastic way. Gilbert, who knew Dimitri very well when he was young, realizes it’s a joke after a second. But there are other things Dimitri says that I believe are his bad “jokes” and since nobody knows him well enough to tell, they don’t call him on it. There’s no proof, but his line in the Lord’s intro where he says, “And here I thought you were acting as a decoy for the sake of us all.” to Claude has to be an attempt at sarcasm. Dimitri is oblivious, but not stupid. In his Goddess Tower conversation with Byleth, when discussing the topic of wishes, he says, “Perhaps it would make more sense for me to wish that we’ll be together forever. What do you think?” In a completely normal voice. Following are two speech bubbles of “...” before he laughs and proclaims that it’s just a joke and that he’s getting better at telling them. Now, this is a two-parter because I see this as both his horribly awkward tendency to say things he feels without thinking too hard beforehand as well as his silly deadpan style of “jokes”. Granted, he does apologize. Dimitri’s got socially awkward zoomer humor. It’s endearing.

Here is a video of Dimitri hitting on Byleth pre-timeskip. I’m not sure how far it goes to endear someone to him, but the mostly awkward and occasionally smooth attempts of Dimitri’s flirtations are absolutely a highlight of his character.

Now, this isn’t quite as cute as all that, but I think character arc and change do a lot for making a character feel more three-dimensional. Dimitri is hypocritically selfish. Although those are both negative terms, I don’t necessarily mean them as such, at least not in their totality. Both are things to overcome, which he does. And that’s why I feel like they’re a valid point of discussion when trying to explain the allure of his character.

The hypocritical part comes from the way he easily allows and forgives the flaws of others while constantly castigating himself for the same reasons. He says things that show an absurd amount of a lack of self-awareness. For example, he tells Edelgard, “Hm. You will prove a lacking ruler yourself if you look for deceit behind every word and fail to trust those whom you rely on.” All the while straight-up lying to and emotionally avoiding his friends. Dimitri also tells Marianne, when she is punishing herself for putting other people at risk, “What matters is that they came back safely in the end. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that.” Really, his C and B with Marianne is an exercise in hypocrisy. The standards Dimitri has for himself are incredibly, unattainably high. He’s setting himself up for failure in that way and, to an extent, knows what he’s doing because he knows that those same standards are too much for his friends and allies to meet. He wishes to take on everything himself. But, what I find so beautiful about this, is that Dimitri eventually realizes that he can’t do that. He is not strong enough to take on the weight of the world on himself, he comes to understand that it’s something he must allow himself to share with the people who care about him. He comes to realize that, as difficult as it is to accept, he is a weak person. Despite all of his introversion and inability to emotionally open up, he figures out that having a support system and allowing yourself to rely on people who love you is a necessity. Personally, I think this message is incredibly important in real life. Watching Dimitri come to that conclusion and argue it’s importance really rounded out his arc and journey as a person. Now, the relatability of this conclusion will differ, but I don’t think it has to do with his mental illness as much as it is a fundamental aspect of growth.

The selfishness is basically outlined above. Dimitri is selfish about his pain and secrets, purposefully and selfishly driving people away because he wants to keep the burden to himself. His vice is guilt and he indulges in the pain of it like an addiction. Hatred, too, is a drug. He thinks he needs it to keep going, even though all it does is bring agony to himself and others around him. Learning to accept and let go of these feelings is, again, something I think is important and a character arc that I really love, especially when you see him suffer as much as he does. Now, the execution of this is lacking, I admit. But that’s an issue for another time I think.

I am not quite sure if I did much to change your opinion, but this is all I can think of for now. There is probably a lot more than I’ve left out because I think about Dimitri far too much to be healthy. So, I’ll leave you off with some honorable mention aspects of his character that I think are super fun:

Pre-timeskip Dimitri has his hair tucked behind his ear. He can lift a wagon by himself. In the DLC, when faced with an impossible-to-open gate, it was not muscle man Balthus who said he couldn’t open it, but twinkish teen Dimitri. He’s not really smooth with one-liners. Like, at all. Notably, when attacking Manuela post-timeskip, he says, “Perhaps I should have appeared before you holding a bouquet of flowers, rather than the weapon that will end your life.” Adding to this, at one point, Dimitri fucked up a pick-up line so badly the girl came after him. Areadbhar has a mitten on it in the Azure Moon final picture. He breaks everything. His Crest activation ability even supports this, using twice the durability of any given Combat Art. One of his post-timeskip counselor messages is, “I lived in the slums for a long time, and I saw how the people there suffered from poverty and the ravages of war. There must be something I can do to save them." His room in the academy is right next to Sylvain’s, meaning that for almost an entire year Dimitri was a single wall away from hearing whatever nonsense Sylvain was getting up to. Dimitri is the only Lord that takes the throne and doesn’t abandon his people in some form or another.

And, finally, he is pretty sexy. And that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

#dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #fe dimitri #dimitri #fire emblem three houses #FE3H #Anonymous

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jackcinephile · 4 years ago

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LO Fans: "I love Lore Olympus because it deals with serious themes, like sexual assault, abuse, gaslighting, trauma, and mental health issues!"

Me, who spent my life discovering and obsessing over masterpieces like this:

"You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that to impress me."

Yeah, I never understood that kind of praise. For one thing, people act like LO is groundbreaking for that reason, despite there being countless movies, books, tv shows, comics, and video games that also deal with the same themes. That isn't to say there can't be more stories like this, however. I, for one, am begging for another video game that comes close to the emotional resonance of Silent Hill 2, or for a faithful adaptation of Dracula and/or Phantom of the Opera, or for a horror movie as unsettling as The Howling! But to say any new story that deals with these themes is unique for doing so, is just simply not true. Lore Olympus is no more unique than any of these stories. Also, I don't understand the praise that Lore Olympus is great just by virtue of having these themes in the first place. Just because a story has serious themes, doesn't automatically make it good. Far too often does LO use its themes as a crutch for a plot that is standard issue among romances, as opposed to stories like The Howling, which has a very intriguing, outlandish plot that serves as a catalyst to explore themes of very real and relatable horror. Lore Olympus, without its intense themes, is just another story about the CEO falling in love with his intern. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE those kinds of stories, but Lore Olympus just doesn't really do it for me. And the poorly executed themes just hamper it even further for me.

If it wasn't already apparent, has anyone noticed a pattern between these titles? All but one are horror stories. In my opinion, that is one of the key differences between them and LO: Horror! The themes within, are ones that illicit terror, and the stories reflect that (even Phantom of the Opera--don't listen to anyone who says it's a romance). Starting with Dracula, one of the scenes that horrified me the most in the book was the one where Count Dracula sneaks into Mina's bedroom. The book describes him slitting open his own vein and forcing her to drink his blood. Mina then expresses feelings of violation, much akin to what rape survivors feel. It doesn't pull any punches in its shocking, horrific portrayal, but it never comes off as exploitative. That's because the best horror stories rely on the audience's empathy. In this case, nobody wants to feel violated, so we feel as horrified as the characters do when we read about this grotesque event. And because it is about illiciting fear through empathy, Dracula succeeds where Lore Olympus fails. Lore Olympus, before all else, is a romance. And rape should not be in a romantic story. Especially not when the narrative of LO uses this trauma to validate the relationship between the two leads. I'm not a fan of stories that use trauma to validate a relationship between romantic interests, and I think that partly stems from reading the Phantom of the Opera.

If you ask me, Phantom of the Opera is one if the best books to discuss abuse and gaslighting ever written! Despite misconceptions generated by the popularity of the musical, PotO is very much a horror story with hardly any romance at all. And it's one of the best examples about why using trauma to validate a romance is a very bad idea! You see, all the conflict of the story begins with The Phantom and his trauma. He was born with multiple physical deformities that cause him to look like a living corpse. Because of this, he is despised and rejected by the world in order to escape the hatred of the world, he commissions the construction of the Paris Opera House, complete with intricate catacombs where he can live out the rest of his miserable days. Then one day, a woman named Christine comes to work at the Opera as a chorus girl. She is sad and alone due to her being orphaned, without a friend in the world. She too is emotionally damaged and the Phantom thinks this means she'll understand him. The trouble begins instantly when he claims to be a character from a folktale that Christine's father used to tell her. This is when the manipulation and gaslighting begins. Part of what makes this so effective is how we see it from an outside perspective. The protagonist, Raoul, is in love with Christine and we get to see his confusion and growing concern when he starts realizing Christine is showing signs of an abusive relationship. What makes the relationship even worse is the fact that Christine actually does understand The Phantom. So she doesn't run away not only out of fear, but also compassion. She knows what it's like to feel isolated and dead to the world and The Phantom uses that against her. The more I describe this, the more parallels I begin to see to Hades' and Minthe's relationship. Yes, Minthe abused Hades in much of the same way as The Phantom abused Christine. Notice how Minthe keeps convincing Hades that they're the only people who understand each other, even going so far as to say, "We're the same." The funny thing is, that's exactly what the narrative uses to validate Hades' and Persephone's relationship! It tries to establish that Hades and Persephone relate to each other and they say, several times, "We're the same," to each other. But this is exactly how Hades got stuck in a toxic relationship with Minthe, so why is it suddenly okay now? Relationships that use shared trauma to validate themselves are almost always doomed to become toxic, in one way or another.

So what about the healthy relationship in Phantom of the Opera? Well, it's kinda interesting actually. You see, Christine eventually comes to realize that she needs help, so she turns to the protagonist, Raoul, to get her away from the Phantom. Raoul has an interesting character arc because he starts the novel being pretty immature and kinda selfish. He doesn't really take Christine's feelings into consideration. It's more like a boy chasing his childhood crush (actually that's exactly what happens). However, over the course of the story, as he becomes increasingly concerned with her well-being, he learns to care more about her feelings and her needs. This culminates in the climax, when he's willing to crawl through hell itself for her sake. I bring all this up because I wanted to compare Raoul with Hades as well. Hades is a very consistent character. He doesn't need an arc like Raoul because, from the very beginning, he's willing to put all of Persephone's needs before his, to a fault! That is his entire purpose within the narrative of LO. He exists to serve Persephone. Raoul didn't exist to serve Christine. He had his own journey of growing and maturing. And Christine didn't exist to serve Raoul either. It bothers me that a novel from 1910 has a more well-rounded relationship than a modern comic! Actually, now that I think about it, isn't Persephone's entire character arc supposed to be her learning that she shouldn't exist to serve others? Well, that totally contradicts Hades' role in the story, doesn't it? He exists to serve her! I guess, in the eyes of LO, it's only okay if men serve women, but not for women to serve men. Newsflash: neither is okay.

Now Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) remains, to this day, one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen! That's all thanks to its brutal depictions of domestic abuse. So Dr. Henry Jekyll believes the solution to enlightening the human race is to separate the good and evil in our souls. He solves this problem by creating a drug to do just that, which transforms him into Edward Hyde, but he becomes addicted and starts terrorizing a woman who was once a former patient of his. I think what makes this so effective, when compared to LO, is one simple factor: Fear. I am terrified of Edward Hyde, but whenever Apollo shows up, I'm just annoyed. That's because Hyde isn't being used to sell an agenda, while Apoll is. Apollo is all about making a statement about toxic masculinity, which always bothered me from the very beginning! Being an abusive cunt who rapes women has nothing to do with masculinity! It doesn't matter if you're masculine or feminine, anyone can be a cunting abusive rapist. If you are a rapist, it's because you're a monster who lacks empathy, not because of masculinity. And if you think masculinity has something to do with a lack of empathy, fuck off! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not about toxic masculinity. It's about how drug addiction can often hurt other people around us just as much, if not moreso, than ourselves. It also doesn't use rape to validate a relationship between characters. I'm sorry, but that is just the laziest storytelling technique. When the antagonist is a rapist OF COURSE the male love interest is going to look better by comparison! But when you take Apollo out of the equation, Hades stops looking like a desirable love interest real fucking quick.

So yeah, I think Hades makes for a bad love interest. That's mostly because he's so much like Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Yeah, the one title from the list above that's not a horror, but is no less relevant. The thing is, both Hades and Shinji have a lot in common, such as hating themselves, having a bad relationship with their father, and not caring at all about their own wants and needs. Oh, also Asuka's a better written character than Minthe, but that's a whole other topic. What makes Evangelion work, in my opinion, is that Shinji's whole journey is about learning to love himself, while Hades is portrayed as being perfect the way he is. Hades in LO is like a flawless beacon of virtue, solely because he worships the ground Persephone walks on. But the guy just doesn't care about himself at all! Like I said earlier, Hades guilty of the same self-destructive behaviors as Persephone but he's praised for it, while Persephone is encouraged to look after herself more often. Compare this to Shinji, whose life only gets worse the more he neglects himself. The only time Hades does something beneficial for himself is when he breaks up with Minthe, but immediately after that, he starts devoting every ounce of energy to Persephone! All that matters is her! He doesn't give a single fuck about himself. Sorry, but that's not good qualities in a male love interest. In all fairness, this is a problem with the romance genre as a whole. Most romances give priority to the protagonist (in this case Persephone) while neglecting the love interest (Hades). It's why I have a serious problem with the entire genre.

Now what could Silent Hill 2 have that is in any way relevant to Lore Olympus? Two words: Nightmare Fuel. Personifying trauma as literal demons is one of the smartest ideas anyone's ever had, because speaking from personal experience, that's how it feels. I just don't feel like the trauma experienced by the characters in LO is a waking nightmare like it is in real life. For one, the characters' trauma only pops up when it's convenient for the plot. Like whenever Persephone starts experiencing ptsd, it happens when she's with Hades so we can get a scene with Hades cuddling her. After that, it shows up in a scene to make her look badass by confronting Apollo. No, just no. The Howling did it better too, by making the protagonist's trauma such an inconvenience in her life! I never felt that way in LO. When you uss traumatic encounters to make your character look like a badass, kindly fuck off.

#lore olympus

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ronnytherandom · 4 years ago

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I forgot to watch content all week so i wrote about games ive been playing

9/2/2021: The Truman Show

You should fear your fears but embrace them and use them to guide you into the unknown, to explore and experience what life has to offer. Fear stands between you and the fullest experience of life so you must pass through it to better yourself. Heed not the walls built about you and the chains made to hold you. Though the architects insist it will preserve your life, containment is anathema to life. Do not take in faith the benevolence of powers that be; instead trust those who would support and liberate you, guide you through fear and into life.

As best I can lay it out, I think this is the philosophy of the Truman show but there is so much more to read into it also. There is critique of systems of commodification and celebrity (i.e. capitalism) reducing human beings to a consumable good as well as encouragement to find and pursue your goals despite adversity and even sensibility which is also tied to the illusion of economic responsibility. You can’t put a camera inside a human head, you can never “know” them without being an active and intrinsic part of their life, but also there is need for reciprocation. If one half exists with ulterior motive then the entire relationship is rotten; sincere humanity is what creates real connections. Without such your world is fake. A world built around one person is a world where no one can truly live. All these actors have given up basically their entire lives for the sake of watching Truman have his life built around him by outside forces, have allowed themselves to be commodified and dehumanised for the good of one man, Christoph. The man at the top has delusions of grandeur and thinks only of his own bottom line, he cares not for his subjects but simply wants them to do as he tells them because it benefits him to commodify their lives and interactions. Even then he cannot stand to lose control and in seeking to demonstrate Truman’s “realness” he structures his life so thoroughly that eventually there’s no reality left, only a script and adverts. But the people watching still empathise with Truman because everyone in the working class understands what it is to be trapped because real life is our own Truman show and one day we must all pass through fear, step out of the dome and create a real life for ourselves outside of the system of commodification which consumes everyone’s life and removes all realness and sincerity and emotional catharsis from it.

I unreservedly love this film.

14/2/2021: Assorted Game Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn (Unfinished due to technical issues, 45 hours inc. parts of Frozen Wilds): This game is really cool and really fun. I think it is defined by its incredible setting which somehow creates a fresh feeling post-apocalyptic environment. Said environment creates intriguing alt-future lore and some very interesting environments to explore. I love the machine designs (especially tallnecks!) and was very sad to hear one of their contributing artists passed away recently but I’m glad their work lives on in this visually stunning game. I’m a sucker for Ubisoft-style open world games simply because it tickles a certain kind of itch and somehow this non-Ubisoft game has outdone Ubisoft on their own formula, which is hilarious, but also good for me as running around this world exploring and clearing map markers is engaging fun. Not least because of the combat. I have a minor criticism here that the combat feels slightly awkward on mouse and keyboard, the arrows never seem to go where I’m aiming, but aside from that the experience of fighting is a grand one. Enemies never lose their threat and I love the weak spot system the game employs which makes every tool useful in niche circumstance and rewards curiosity. It specifically manages this in a way that I feel the Witcher series could learn from if it ever returns; by making head on assault less viable and encouraging tactical hunting. I do feel this system makes hunting robots so fun that by contrast hunting humans becomes a chore however, though I noted this improves in the dlc with the addition of humans with elemental weaknesses limited in number as they are. I cannot speak for the story in entirety but what I encountered was pretty good, though I feel as if it was only just really getting going at the point where I could not continue. I find Aloy to be a compelling and well portrayed protagonist and though I can guess about her origin and the ultimate end of the alt-future apocalypse I still want to see how it plays out on screen, so will return to this as soon as I’ve fixed it.

Rimworld (122 hours. Familiar with but do not own Royalty Expansion):

Rimworld is one of those super special games that I don’t think I have a single problem with. Fair warning it can be brutal and is heavily dependent on RNG but this allows it to create truly unique and interesting scenarios on a constant basis. In the wider perspective it could be described as formulaic, with regular cycles of managing the settlement between raids and random events, but the devils in the details. Colonist traits, health and skills dictate how you play and sometimes you’ll be forced to adapt as some colonists simply refuse to perform some tasks. The depth of health particularly amuses me, in that each little part of someone’s body is modelled in a way. If you’re in a firefight you may take a single bullet which grazes your finger and you’re fine. Alternately it could pierce your human leather cowboy hat, your skull and kill you instantly and the game will tell you exactly what happened. The risk/reward element is addictive enough, and that’s without accounting for just how cool it is to see your colony slowly expand. Establishing more and more options for crafting is fun and shows off the full range of different items in the game which is fucking extensive. Between clothing, weapons, armour, sculpture and drugs to name only a few you have the opportunity to create many varied production lines either for your colonists or to trade for money and there is a lot of fun to be had here as well as it is quite satisfying to see psychoid you have grown personally become the cocaine your colonists snort to help them stay awake on limited sleep. From an archaeologist’s perspective it is especially cool to look back over your base and see the hints of how and why structures were built and remember the history of your limitations and development through structure. I think the lore of the universe is really cool too, a very 40k-esque kind of place except with far less order, somehow. But the universe does an excellent job of feeling alive and moving constantly on both a planetary and interstellar level. You can fully believe that while you build wooden shacks to shield yourself from terrifyingly low temperatures there are simultaneously rich pieces of shit living it up on the glitterworld that’s one system over. The music does an excellent job of creating the wild west frontier atmosphere the game cultivates to great effect. Ultimately, for just being a grid with a series of different numbers attached, this game does a fantastic job of creating a compelling, brutal and very real colony management experience. I dont think I can properly put into words the grandness and scope of this one. I didnt even mention the modding scene, which is expansive and tailors to basically any need you could have. The Rim is a terrifying place but theres so much fun to be had.

Factorio (86 hours, mostly 1.1): Having completed a game of Factorio I can tell you reliably that this is one of the best games ever made, thoroughly addictive and fun. If you like numbers, logistics, TRAINS, its gonna be your thing. Not to mention its probably the only documented case of a game with no bugs (so far as official forums are concerned). Strictly speaking this games combat is not the most engrossing thing but good lord do you feel it when you acquire a flamethrower. The way each aspect of the game (production, research, logistics, combat, upgrades for everything therein) feeds into the next is a really well constructed balancing act such that you must experience the full game in order to complete it and I always appreciate this kind of design. I think its one of the best tenets of factory game design especially as its something present in Satisfactory too. Beyond all of this generalised good the game is also excellent in its intricacies, the architecture necessary to build a maximum efficiency base, the level of planning and organisation that can be employed is mind-blowing. Not to mention the mod community, factorion is already an extensive experience and some mad bastards have seen fit to complicate it further, hats off to them. This really is a great moment in gaming.

Destiny 2 (198 hours, all expansions, played some post Forsaken release, mostly Season of Arrivals onwards, spent roughly £20 on microtransactions):

This is a very interesting and enjoyable experience, but I must say it can be a bit controversial at times. What its does particularly well is moment to moment gameplay and design in all aspects. The game is stunning; between environments, cosmetics, shaders ships and ghosts there’s a vast range of incredible things to see, all rooted in the “pseudo-magi-science” aesthetic it’s got going on. The class design is excellent and you really do feel like you embody this rampaging madman / agile gunman / space wizard archetype, whichever you choose to play. The abilities, especially supers, are very satisfying. Everything has heft and power behind it which can be felt in all aspects of design; sound and animation is top notch. Movement is cool, you can feel how fast you move both on foot and in vehicles and the navigation has a little fun subtlety depending on your class jump, even if you can bounce unpredictably occasionally. But for the love of god why is the wall kick in there? It has only ever served to push me from a ledge into a bottomless pit. You're looking to remove antiquated content? Start there. Some guns are not so good to shoot but there’s such a great range of guns that are fun its like complaining about one drop in an ocean; and enemies are fun to shoot at, each faction distinct in meaningful ways and presenting an effective challenge. Speaking of oceans, that’s one way to describe the lore. I haven’t dived too deep but it keeps going down forever and everything I’ve read is intriguing. As a former Elder Scrolls lore nut this is something I could definitely sink my teeth into, though its much more of a pulpy sci-fi vibe than a pure nonsense vibe. I do think the game has a bit of a loot problem, primarily in regards to the conflict between high stats and looking good. This should never be a conflict, and yes you can apply ornaments to any purple gear but that’s not enough when I spend the entire time grinding power levels and thus must change armour and weapons on a constant basis to progress. This game needs a true transmog system and if not that, rethink how gear power level works. Perhaps rather than earning new instances of gear you always possess a version of it and the loot you acquire in missions just upgrades your instance to your current overall power level? This would serve to do away with the current upgrade system which I think is a needless additional grind. Perhaps it could be retained in using enhancement cores to empower gear as present but necessitating a whole upgrade module to keep your favourite weapon on hand is kind of painful honestly. There is also at present the issue of sunsetting gear, mildly controversial to say the least. If it’s necessary to streamline the game and make it function moving forward so be it but surely loot pools should be adjusted so you can actually get useful loot from older locations? And why sunset personal instances of gear which can be acquired at the regular power level anyway? I had to throw away my favourite bow and hunt down a new version of the exact same weapon for… what reason? I do think destination navigation leaves a little to be desired also. I get that having a physical hub world is meaningful but Destiny does not have a very extroverted community; I can count the times someone noticed me in the tower on one hand. And its not even like there’s fun activities to be found in the same sense as say Deep Rock Galactic, which really does take advantage of its hub. Perhaps for players who simply want to go about their business all of the vendors could be set into a menu system where just clicking an icon takes you to their menu from anywhere in the system rather than, per se, having to go through an entire loading screen (Which takes you to orbit and back) to reach a location which serves simply as the front for four menus. These are established player problems. As a dedicated PvE player I can say that this game is immensely fun in combat and growing in power does feel really good. It’s something I recommend getting into, there’s just some very large creases that need ironing which the Bungie should really take the time to address rather than pushing out new in game content every three months.

#the truman show #horizon zero dawn #rimworld #factorio #destiny 2 #d2 #film #movies #video games #i dont know what im doing #hzd #opinion

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sp00kybitme · 3 years ago

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Okay so this is really personal but I feel like I need to share it in order to better my health because being upfront about your trauma is a good way to heal from it. So buckle up because this post is gonna be a real doozy:

So let's start by backing up about 4 years ago in the summer of 2017, I was 17 since my birthday follows the year number and I was going through my own personal turmoil, dealing with my already medically diagnosed PTSD, OCD, Anxiety disorder, and severe depression. I had falling outs with most all of my irl friends due to my declining mental health but the decline started around august as my therapist who worked the best for me was leaving the clinic. She was openly queer and I related a lot to her since I felt like for once I wasn't alone yet after she left I was distraught. Also at the time I had a falling out with my father and my brother was a recovering drug addict so you could say shit was really complicated around that time and my head space was not well.

So back in 2016 I was able to get a PS4 and I hadn't used it until 2017 due to being more focused on my mental health but I caved and began playing Overwatch and there I met some folks who made life seem somewhat normal for once, no high end conflict, no drama, just simple fun with friends is all I wanted and for a while I actually had that! That was until the coming month september.

So September was when I started breaking off from big friend groups and settled with 2 people, let's call them Z and J for context, So Z was someone who I would say had undiagnosed mental health issues and J was someone who was mutual friends with Z because they went to high school together. Z and J were some of my only friends and we as people really bonded over stuff and I felt like life was actually turning up after losing so much shit that year.

So just for preface/context: at this time I identified with she/her pronouns and went by the term pansexual/demiromantic but now after much time I identify with they/them pronouns and am at least asexual, as for romantic I'm still figuring that out. So November rolled around and I noticed conflict immediately, Z and J were subtly arguing and J was using a victim complex mentality to guilt Z into caving yet at the time I was an oblivious 17 year old who was just desperate was friendship to the point of trying to always be a mediator.

Z was always talking about how lonely they were and how every relationship they had never worked out and at the time I was not out about not being cisgender and so they perceived me as a girl. Throughout September to november they would CONSTANTLY ask me out to the point of it being a desperation and a guilt trip and at this point I was afraid. I had lost EVERYONE in my life here and it was so frustrating but for a month I would keep my boundaries up and say no because I genuinely wasn't interested in a relationship and I didnt feel taht way about Z but they continued to push me and eventually I gave in and I remember the exact place it happened.

So we all 3 had a daily routine of getting on and playing Overwatch for hours just to talk shit and goof around so that day we were skirmishing on the "Temple of anubis" map and I said yes and in retrospect it was a horrible time to do that because it was in front of J and in turn made them feel loke a 3rd wheel. I wanna say that me conceding into a relationship while having no attractiom or interest was wrong of me and that I apologize for but again I WAS pressured as a minor. Also I forgot to say that Z was 19 and while that kind of age gap isn't inherently the worst, I was still an emotionally vulnerable minor being coaxed into a relationship.

So things went on relatively the same except for the fact that J was beginning to sound more spiteful and ended up getting upset easier and volatile which I blamed myself for but we'll get more into J very soon. So Z and I were noticing the change in behavior but tried not to bother J with it because they always didn't wanna talk about it. J confided in us at one point by telling us about their living situation being troublesome, they claimed they had no privacy, were verbally abused by their mother, and had relatives who were also abusive. We both had empathy for J and I was strongly affected by that since I had a strong disconnect from my father at the time who was abusive in a religious way.

We tried to keep things relatively normal at this point for the sake of J but Z was always trying to be bluntly romantic with me and I wasn't interested although they did ask me for "thigh pics" (lemme preface by saying I was still a minor at this point) but I was coaxed into that and virtual s*x which I was extremely uncomfortable with but Z had a strong tendency to victimize and guilt trip and I just wanted friends and had PTSD from friends levaing me and calling me selfish. It's not something I'm proud of but I genuinely was THAT scared of losing friends. In instances where J would get spiteful and resent Z, J at one point left our group chat and group and didnt reply to us because they attempted s*icide. We were HORRIFIED to find that out and really tried to keep a close eye on J into the new year.

2018 rolls in and now is the year that I consider my worst, I will TW// onward for talks of verbal abuse, emotional manipulation, talks of s*xual assault, s*icide, homophobia, and gaslighting. So after J's s*icide attempt I felt even WORSE in a relationship that itself was already one sided but I powered through as to not upset Z. The friendship dynamic we had at this point was gone as it only seemed to be arguing and fake excitement. One thing we all did in the game was idolize specific characters and obsess over them for mental comfort to the point that we got emotionally distraught over their deaths in game, genuinely very unhealthy for all of us. One thing J would do at times was purposefully pick me and Z's characters in game in commit s*icide in game with them just to upset us and would sometimes mentally torture Z by forcing them to be the character Z hated which only screwed up Z's Mental health. J would also alwsys victimize and act like they weren't being treated fairly and that all culminated in January.

January 2018, J began putting the thought of a polyamorus relationship on the table as in J, Z, and I would all be in a relationship together which I wasn't too keen on but was open to if it made everyone happy. Z wasnt interested at all and for the span of 2 weeks of January, J kept trying to manipulate and coax Z into a relationship and had me try to convince Z as well which I didn't know was wrong but granted I didn't understand Poly relationships until years later. Z eventually half caved and gave it a try but a day later Z backed out because they felt uncomfortable. I was a bit irritated at that time and so was J but I didn't personally know why because I was very oblivious to love and how it was supposed to be. We also would play 1v1 type games for fun until this time because both of them were seriously bothered by losing in 1v1 games and would gloat when they won. I personally didn't care as much and would joke around for the most part just to have fun. After this month we stopped playing 1v1 type games.

Early February came and we all began hanging out in skirmish (which means like a map where you just freeroam for 30 minutes until it refreshes), sometimes we would do ship dynamics with each other for fun and at the time we were joking around. Me and J joked around about two male characters (Junkrat and Roadhog) being together and if you have seen the two characters then you'll know why. Their dynamic as friends is flawed but a popular one yet nonetheless I liked their dynamic as a relationship at the time. Around this time, Z was beginning to do what I would call "selective homophobia" as in they would like some gay ships and despise others. When Z was presented with a WLW (lesbian) ship, they would be 100% supportive yet when a specific MLM (gay) ship was presented, they would make gagging noises as if they were trying to throw up. I should also mention how often Z would send Overwatch porn to group chats and how it made me incredibly uncomfortable, especially as a minor.

J would ultimately hold the blatant homophobia against Z and tried to turn me again Z for it. During this time, J was messaging me privately to try and convince me that Z was a bad person and that I should break up with them. Ultimately I agreed and broke up with Z over this and me and J distanced myself from Z to just hang out together. I was personally distraught in just finding out that a friend I was close to ended up being Homophobic all this time and emotionally it broke me a lot. At the time, J was there to help me emotionally and that initially helped me build trust with them. Eventually in mid February they asked me out and since they had helped me so much mentally, I felt out of a sense of obligation that being with them was something I almost owed them.

Side note: I wanna bring up this point as just a weird coincidence: February itself has always been one of the worst months for me every year, something horrendous has happened to me each February of each year and its weird because of how often I can recall this still being the case.

So After being around J for so long we started to just joke around and have fun as friends. They actually showed me their face for the first time over a video call which actually surprised me because they looked different then I thought they were but nonetheless I enjoyed their company because I felt like I had a friend. March rolled around and my birthday was coming up, my 18th birthday which was more of a big deal to J than me. They wanted to see me in provocative pictures and were constantly talking about how excited they were for it and I didn't understand why really. They were also 19 btw and they seemed way too excited for something as simple as that kind of picture. The day rolled around and I felt uncomfortable, I was told to send pictures and I did which admittedly made me uncomfortable as hell yet I still did and I was given positive affirmation for it. Little fact about me is that one thing I didn't get much growing up was positive affirmation so getting that made me feel like I was actually doing something right for once.

Over the next few months, J went from supportive and well intent to showing their true colors. As time went on they began to get more and more controlling with the things that I did as an individual. It went from supoorting the fact that I struggled with PTSD to using it as a reason that I shouldn't be making other friends besides them. From being supportive of my open mindedness with sexuality to coaxing me into spewing hateful rhetoric. Their family was actually really supportive of me at first, the thibg they had said about their mom turned out to be a lie used to play on my sympathy because their mom adored me as a person and constantly would ask if me and my mom needed anything. They sent us two big care packages through the mail with food and money for food and I originally was against that not just because I'm genuinely horrible at taking gifts but because they had my physical address and knew where I lived in case they wanted to "visit". The care packages meant a lot to me and my mom because we've been low income since I was little and having the luxury to live in a house or not have to worry about food consumption was something I never had.

During late spring, J began to be a lot more forceful with me by manipulating and gaslighting me into thinking many toxic things. I was afraid at this point of both J and being alone again. They would tell me that I should start acting more feminine and "like a girl" and that was REALLY triggering to me since over a big part of my life, I was questioning my gender identity and being forced into this feminine box made me hate myself. They would tell me to wear "panties", talk higher pitched, and even tell me to be a submissive partner who just lets them lead and me follow. I'm naturally a more dominant person in general so it was like I was disregarding a huge part of my identity. I was almost silenced into this role that J wanted me to be. They would force me to do lewd things online and while you could say that I shouldn't have been worried since it wasn't irl, they knew my address and last name.

One instance I remember was that J asked about my deadname and I told them and then questioned why I would change that name since it "was more feminine and fit me". It was upsetting to hear that but at least they didn't deadname me after finding out. They also kept telling me that I wasnt allowed to be attracted to anyone but them. I wasn't allowed to protest because they would threaten killing themselves and actually send a picture of them with a knife to their throat as if to threaten me.

A detail I left out intentionally was something that disturbed me the most about them and really makes me think they have a serious form of some kind of dissociative mental disorder. (Context: I'm not stigmatizing folks who have Dissociative disorders, my mother has one and the symptoms J exhibited make me think of someone who experiences detachment or disillusionment. Im not going to diagnose them but my instinct makes me believe that it could be something similar yet they have never been medically diagnosed.) J would constantly talk about a friend they had in elementary school who had taken their own life and how the spirit of this friend still keeps near them since they were close back then. This friend almost seemed to become a way to manipulate me later on in 2018.

This friend of theirs almost seemed to be a way to seperate themselves from how they treated me or avoid blame. This friend would threaten me that if I didn't let J r*pe me that they were gonna commit s*icide and that it would be my fault for not doing what they wanted. They also would threaten me to do what J said or else they would "possess" me. I'm someone who has had bad experiences with spirits so I didn't want to have more hell. J themselves would sometimes get extremely angry when I stood up for myself or expressed stuff I was really interested in and would threaten to track me down, assault me, and kill my mom. They also began pitting me against my mom because I would talk about how my mom was getting worried about me being hurt but J said that my mom was faking it and manipulating me and I almost believed J but I know my mom and I know she cares too much about me to do something like that.

Around September, I was practically an emotionless shell. I wasn't excited about anything, I wasn't angry anymore, I was barely feeling much of anything but a deep seeded sadness. I lacked in a lot of places and repressed any emotion I had so deep that I couldn't react to anything anymore. I think J began to notice because they started to actually act concerned after a while but that was flickering like a light switch. One of the last instances that I broke down was august of 2018 when I began crying heavily over microphone and begging them to not hate me. They had no reaction, no remorse , no empathy and when their mom came in they just left me there crying without affirming me at all.

During this time, I was sending hundreds of nude photos a day to appease them and they would get off and go to sleep and during the night I would secretly cry and look at queer based things in private to try and keep some semblance of my identity in tact. I actually started watching Sanders sides around July 2018 and enjoyed the series and how nice the fanbase seemed and it somehow helped me get through this rough period of time.

October was probably some of the worst time because I ended up missing my favorite holiday, Halloween which was the only time I personally enjoyed being myself because the element of the holiday made me happy. That halloween I spent on overwatch with J, overall miserable and hating myself. I also forgot to mention that J would dictate what I wore, they would hate that I wore boxer briefs and men's cologne and deodorant, they constantly questioned why I was trying to be masculine when I was AFAB but again I was also closeted with my gender identity and this shoved me even more into the closet when they would argue with me about it.

November rolled around and I had practically been at my breaking point, J was trying to convince me for weeks to move down south to live with them and their family and I was practically being forced. I have a fear of flying and I kept saying that I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my disabled mom by herself and my mom also hates flying. J was trying to get things their way and forced me too and I was looking into flights even though I was deadset on not going. November 11th 2018, I wasn't replying to J's texts right away because I was actually standing up for myself. They began HEAVILY threatening to end their life and I remember sitting there and crying without emotion then I hung up on them and told them to stop calling and texting me as they had begun to text and call me incessantly. I said I needed a break and finally let out a breath when they said ok.

Around late November, I felt as though I had misjudged Z and unblocked and messaged them, apologizing for being a dick to them. They initially forgave me and I was just going to move on but they asked if we could play in a public chill server and I accepted just to try and get my mind off of J. As we entered into the game, J suddenly started spectating and Z left instantly out of fear. I only talked to Z just to apologize and give context as to what happened, I was desensitized and just needed a friend. J messaged me apologizing frantically and saying "if you've moved on to date Z, just tell me so I can move on" and I said "no, I just needed a friend right now and I need my space. Don't talk to me for a while, respect that one thing." And thankfully, I was actually left alone.

December rolled around once again and at this point I had finally blocked J and moved on from everything, J's mom had messaged me on Facebook and told me that I was a "filthy cheater who just used J for their kindess and didn't care about them" but I did actually genuinely care deeply about J yet he abused my compassion by gaslighting me and putting me into this false sense of security. Before I could reply, she blocked me so she never actually took the time to ask me. I was feeling guilty for leaving J but I was reassured by Z during that time period and Z had apologised for previous comments as well. Z ended up introducing another friend to the group, we'll call them A. We would first play Overwatch but immediately switch to Minecraft which I had bought when still with J to play with their family. Around this time I had begun to cling to Z uninitentionally due to recovering from my trauma and needing that affirmation that I wasn't some terrible abuser, as J had manipulated me to think I was. Z was getting a bit bothered by this yet they had never publicly told me nor did they understand why I clung to them in the first place. Z knew I had PTSD and I had told them exactly what I had just described earlier about what J had done to me and Z was initially very empathetic though I was never told that my clinginess was bothering them because I was in recovery mode. Eventually towards the end of January, I was told by A that they knew why I was so clingy with Z. At first I was confused because they both had known that I had PTSD but A proceed. "The only reason you're so clingy with Z is because you're secretly still in love with them, I can read you like an open book and you would do best to stop denying your obvious feelings for them" Hearing this made me personally disgusted, appalled, and upset mentally. Z kept to the side during this discussion and didn't go against A however they didn't deny A's words.

I retorted by speaking about my trauma and how it made me cling to people unnecessarily but then A proceeded to invalidate my trauma by implying that I was over exaggerating what I had gone through. I felt awful and I forcefully distanced myself from them both only to go back once again out of fear of being alone. This continued for a while until July 10th, 2019 when I finally distanced myself from Z for good. I made my own account on Instagram and over the span of 2 years, I built up a community of people who liked my work and I got my sense of individualism back give or take. I recently changed accounts because this era in my life is brand new and I couldn't be happier with where I'm at.

This post is more so a form of being vulnerable and a bit of exposure therapy. Sure im not a perfect person, I can't even publicly out my abusers but I think it would do more harm than good. If anyone wants to have a warning for their accounts, at least on YouTube, message me on my Insta in my bio. I'm sorry if this was long and possibly upsetting but I wanted to just get this out. I dont know who would be seeing this but if you read this far: thank you, honestly its upsetting to have to go through so much bullshit and I hate talking about it because it's difficult to really put shit out there without feeling like its some tupe of attention thing. I don't want to post this for sympathy, I want to post this for me, just to feel better about where I'm at and also face my trauma head on to heal from it. I'm not saying this to compare who's life is worse or not but I am posting this to better myself.

Thank you again,

Spooky

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themangledsans0508 · 5 years ago

Text

Grasping at Control

Allie can suck my wee if she’s reading this you bitch.

TW: Self-Harm

Tweek Tweak considered himself the most fucked-up person in the entirety of South Park, which was quite an achievement considering he went to school with actual sociopaths, murderers, and drug dealers.

Yet here he was, a cocktail of addiction, anxiety, ADHD, and depression. He felt pretty alone, despite all the years he had to make friends and come to terms with himself. One of two kids out as gay, and very few adults in their town understanding, much less out themselves; he had no one to talk to.

Just thinking about it made him want to curl up into a ball and suffocate.

And he tried.

He wrapped himself up in blankets and cried.

He cried for what felt like ages before he got sick of feeling miserable from the stale air that had just enough oxygen in it to keep him alive.

He crawled out and sat, shaking violently. Why did he want this to happen? Why didn’t he want to be alive?

Mr Mackey had lectured them many, many times on what to do if you or someone you knew felt like they wanted to kill themselves, and Tweek wouldn’t hesitate to act if someone else felt the same way he did.

So why didn’t he care about himself?

He thought back to fourth grade when Kim Jong Un marked him as a possible target if war were to break out and Craig brought him to an amusement park.

“Well, I’m sorry that I’m actually in control of my goddamn emotions, you baby!”

That exchange had only been a minute long, but Tweek had never forgotten it. Craig was right, he wasn’t in control of his emotions. For fuck’s sake, he wasn’t even in control of his movements.

He wasn’t in control of anything. He snapped back to the present from the pain of his hair being torn out by himself, and he tried to stop himself.

His movements were involuntary, even when putting his force against them he couldn’t stop himself.

He screamed in frustration. He didn’t care if anyone heard him, because he knew from experience that nobody would do anything even if he was being murdered. His own parents didn’t care for him. The only reason his dad kept him was because having a kid helped his coffee shop. As he got older, his dad also got free labour out of him as the form of “chores.”

His hands flew from his hair to his arms, tearing up his skin to the point he bled. He looked down to see the mess and rushed to the bathroom to prevent his room from turning into a crime scene.

He stared at himself in the mirror. Small patches of hair missing from his scalp, large bags under his eyes that served to highlight the tears running down his face. There were scratches down his cheeks from his nails dragging down his face and when he raised his hand to feel them, his arms showed a nightmare of red lines intersecting so much that they looked like a terrible map.

He reached for the bandages under the counter and felt a flash of pain from a tear dropping onto an open wound on his arm. He bit back a yelp of pain and a horrible idea came to him. He reached for a razor in the cabinet.

Maybe there was something he could control.

Craig Tucker liked to call himself a “good boyfriend.”

Sure, he wasn’t perfect, nobody was. He still had spats with his lover just as everyone else did. However, as they aged and matured, those spats stopped being physical very quickly as they aged and by eleven they were purely verbal.

They didn’t have them frequently either, and they didn’t last very long.

So, as a good boyfriend would be, he was concerned when Tweek didn’t come to school. He tried texting him, then calling him to no avail. He didn’t like that, Tweek would usually tell him if he was sick, or pick up the phone when Craig called.

“Craig, dude,” Token said, “maybe he’s asleep or something.”

“He doesn’t sleep Token. He breathes coffee,” Craig sighed.

“Okay, maybe he left his phone somewhere,” Clyde offered. Craig nodded.

“Probably.” Craig could hear the static noise of his friends talking about girls, football, or other things he would usually be amused by.

Concerned was not something that people would normally think Craig Tucker was capable of being. Once upon a time, they were probably right. Tweek taught him how to comprehend emotions instead of pretending they didn’t exist, even if he still preferred not to express them.

Tweek brought out the best in him. Craig helped him find his center. They balanced each other out pretty well.

Craig would be lying, however, if he said he didn’t keep secrets from Tweek. His secrets weren’t anything terrible like he murdered someone or he was cheating on Tweek, but that he had anxiety himself.

He never told Tweek because he decided early on he could deal with it himself. He was constantly worried that something would happen to Tweek or any of his other friends. With the town that they lived in and the fact that he had actually been kidnapped and dragged to Peru once, he felt those fears were justified.

While he would never claim his anxiety was as bad or even worse than Tweek’s, it had given him his fair share of sleepless nights and long days.

Situations like this had happened a few times before and never failed to set off his anxiety.

Perhaps his friends were onto his lies, or maybe they could simply tell that this was bothering him more than he would let on, but they gave him some space.

He appreciated that.

Tweek sat on his bed, staring at his arm. His room was littered with lego bricks, empty coffee cups, and bandage wrappers.

While he was in general rather prone to accidentally hurting himself, the sheer amount of fresh wounds dancing down his arms exposed what actually occurred.

He couldn’t risk anyone finding out about it, especially Craig.

He loved Craig too much for him to have the burden of this on his shoulders. He couldn’t imagine what he would say when he found out.

If he found out.

Tweek had no intention of telling him, and he wouldn’t let him see either.

But he couldn’t skip school forever.

He sighed in frustration. He didn’t know what he was feeling. Anger, sadness, frustration, regret, or maybe a mix of it all.

He felt lost

Craig inserted his copy of Tweek’s house key into the lock.

They both had a key to each other’s house, and they had for a long time. Since they began dating to be exact. They respected each other’s privacy though, and if Tweek told him to leave, he would.

He opened the door and poked his head in. The house was dark, which didn’t really surprise him since both the matriarch and the patriarch of the family were working in the coffee shop.

“Tweek? Are you in here?” he called

The house was still, yet Craig went in anyways. He shut the door behind him and flicked on the light. There was no one downstairs, so he swiftly moved to the second floor and approached Tweek’s room. He knocked on the door gently.

“Tweek?” Craig listened for a response. He heard nothing but quiet breathing on the other side. “Tweek, is it alright if I come in?”

The boy on the other side remained silent.

“Tweek?”

“Go away, Craig.” His voice was sad and quiet, and the promise Craig had made got lost in the wind.

“What’s wrong Tweek?” Craig couldn’t stop the worry from flowing out in his voice, even though he tried.

“I’m sick Craig. Just go away. I don’t want to see you right now.” Tweek’s voice shook as he spoke, along with small jitters and whimpers. Craig could sense something was wrong and turned the doorknob.

He gently pushed against the door and to his surprise, it didn’t open. There was a weight against the door. It wasn’t heavy, well he wasn’t heavy. Craig knew exactly who was against the door. Tweek was never heavy, not even when they were little. He had gotten scrawnier and scrawnier as they aged since sometimes his anxiety made him just not be hungry, or even scared to eat. He would also forget, or be full from drinking so much coffee even though he drank far less than he used to.

Craig stopped pushing and heard the door quickly snap back into its place with a click. He wasn’t going to force the door open and possibly hurt Tweek, he wouldn’t risk that.

“Craig, please. Just-” he heard his voice break, “Please.” His voice broke, along with Craig’s last straw.

He silently went back down the stairs and out the house, turning to look up at Tweek’s window. The shades were drawn and the room behind them was dark.

Craig turned to look at the twin pines that grew next to the house. They had been there for longer than either boy had been alive, and had grown past the height of the window.

He walked over to the lush green plant and grabbed a hold of it’s lower branches, hoisting himself up. He repeated the movement multiple times until he was at the tip of the tree. The entire tip shuddered with his every breath and threatened to snap with his every movement.

The tree leaned over slightly, allowing Craig to reach over and tap the window. It flew open and Tweek pulled open that shade.

“Craig! What the hell are you doing?”

“Hanging out. Can I come in?”

Tweek cursed under his breath and reached his hands out. Craig accepted them and jumped into the window, cutting his legs on the branches of the tree. He tumbled through the window, landing on top of Tweek with an “oof.” He felt the stinging in his leg and light wetness and realised trying to climb into a window from a pine tree was a terrible idea.

“Tweek-”

“Craig, what the fuck?” Tweek panted. “Why did you fucking do that?”

Craig looked at the blonde boy underneath him. He was skin and bones, the bags under his eyes were huge. His face was tear-stained and scratched.

“Tweek, I know something’s wrong.” Craig pushed himself off Tweek and offered to help him up. Tweek simply stared at him, mouth slightly agape.

“You’re an idiot, Craig. Why don’t you ever just listen to me?”

Tweek let out a quiet sob and looked up at Craig.

“Craig, I’m a mess. What the hell do you want from me?” Craig lowered himself down to the floor and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Tweek, I want to know what’s wrong. We have to work together through these things, remember? Beat them together, expectations, resentment, all of it.” Tweek pushed Craig’s hand off him and jumped up.

“You want to know what’s wrong? What’s wrong is the fact that no matter what I do, I have no control over my life! Something that only I should control! Me and me alone! Everyone else controls it! I never became a knight or a queen, I’m still just a pawn in someone else’s fucking game! And guess what, pawns are expendable! I’m expendable. I’m not needed. That’s what’s wrong! I’m only a fucking tool for the entire world to use.”

Tweek waved his hands, exasperated. His voice shuddered with every word he said, tears ran down his cheeks. He twitched and whimpered every few seconds. His hands tore across his body, flying from his arms to his shirt to his hair.

Craig stepped forward and embraced him. He pulled him tight against his body and felt him tense up and wince slightly. Tweek pushed against him slightly in a poor attempt to break free of his grip, before he simply caved in and buried his face into Craig’s shoulder.

“I-I’m just replaceable Craig. My parents didn’t have to sell me into slavery because I’m already a slave to them. They control me, Craig.”

“What can we do about that, Tweek? There has to be something.” Craig tangled one of his hands in Tweek’s hair and had the other one rub circles into his back. His voice was not sarcastic or mocking, but gentle and genuine.

“I don’t know Craig. I’ve tried so many things, so many things. Nothing works, Craig. Nothing.”

“Let’s try something else then. Something together. You don’t have to do this alone, Tweek.” Craig lowered them down to the floor, sitting with his legs crossed and Tweek in his lap. “We can run away together. Get our own house.”

“We can’t do that. Your sister needs you. She’s only thirteen.”

“Fine. I’ll take you home with me then. You can live in my room.” Tweek shook his head.

“No, no. All these things put stress on you too. I want to deal with it myself,” he scolded. Craig sighed.

“I won’t let you do that. The whole point of a relationship is to deal with things together. If I can’t help you directly, then I want to be able to at least support you.”

“Where were you when I needed you? Why aren’t you ever here when I need you?” Tweek pushed himself out of Craig’s grip and stood up. “Why the fuck does everything go the shit when I’m not with you?” He shouted.

“What do you mean Tweek?” Craig slowly stood up and put his hands into his pockets.

“I mean why am I even more of a fucking mess without you?” Tweek’s hands flew up to his hair, causing his sleeves to slip down.

Craig didn’t miss the small movement, he had become very perceptive since they had started dating. He noticed the red lines and scabs weaving down his arms. He reached his hand over to intertwine their fingers and grab his attention.

“Tweek, what happened to your arms?”

“Huh?” Tweek looked down to the subject of Craig’s curiosity. When he realised what it was he attempted to pull himself out of Craig’s grip. “It’s nothing! I just fell!”

Craig’s grip strengthened just enough to keep a hold on Tweek but not enough to hurt him.

“Tweek, those weren’t from a fall.” Craig locked his own green eyes with Tweek’s blue ones. “Tell me the truth, Tweek. What are they from.”

“What the fuck do you think they are from? You aren’t dumb,” he snapped. Craig lurched forward, wrapping his arms tightly around Tweek. He pressed his full weight into him. For the first time in perhaps ever, he had no control over himself.

They toppled backwards onto Tweek’s bed. Craig manoeuvred them so they weren’t at risk of falling off the bed and rested his head so his ear was directly above Tweek’s heart.

“Dude, what the hell?”

“What were you thinking?” Craig’s voice was different. It wasn’t monotone or bland, it was raw and emotional and occasionally breaking. “Why would you do that?”

“I was in control. I knew what I was doing. Nobody was in charge of me.”

“Yeah, well, you could have fucking died! Those could have gotten infected. They could have gone too deep and cut a vein! Is a brief relief really worth that risk?” Craig let out a quiet sob and gripped Tweek’s shirt.

Everything hit Tweek suddenly. He wiggled out from under Craig to lay beside him instead. He placed his hands on his cheeks and pressed their foreheads together.

“Hey, hey, I know it was stupid, okay? I’m not going to do it again.” Tweek whispered.

“You better not,” Craig muttered.

“And if I’m feeling like shit,” Tweek continued, “I’ll call you or text you to come over.”

“Or you can come over to my place,” Craig countered.

“Yeah, that’s true.”

Craig rolled Tweek over and pulled him against his body. He moved his arms from his shirt to his waist and pulled him down so he could rest his chin on his head.

“Well, I’m tired,” he yawned. “Text my mom and tell her I’m staying here tonight.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Tweek asked.

“Well, because I’m about to take a nap.”

“Wait, right now?”

“Yep.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Tweek said, “I have stuff I need to do.”

“Not anymore you don’t” Craig grumbled. “All you need to do is stay right here. I’m not moving until it’s time for school.”

“I fucking hate you.”

“Well, we’ll have a terrible marriage then.”

There's gonna be a part two the angst isn't over my dears

#south park #creek sp #sp creek #creek #craigxtweek #craig tucker #craig x tweek #tweek x craig #tweekxcraig #tweek tweak #tw self harm #chara writes

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flameontheotherside · 4 years ago

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Honesty Is My Best Policy

I hate feeling like people are just saying things to be "nice".

I can feel when they don't mean it. It feels like shit because behind closed doors you know damn well they fucking hate you for no fucking reason. I dealt with and put up with it from my ex "in-laws" and for the sake of keeping the peace I said nothing about it.

But its like if you call someone on their bullshit, you can't fucking win. They make you feel bad for being assertive or honest or just telling them how you feel. Wouldn't life be less complicated if you were just honest?

I'm a really shitty liar.

Maybe it was clear I didn't like my ex in-laws to begin with and they retaliated by being assholes to me. My body language is obvious. My bf points it out to me all the time. I never really cared for my ex in-laws because of how they treated my ex over his drug addiction. It wasn't fair. So its likely they smelled a whiff of my disproval and went off by that.

This is why I hate people:

You can't stick up for yourself because it makes you the asshole.

You are honest, it makes you the asshole.

Double standards. Hypocrisy.

Gaslighting and bullying.

Lying to people is too much fucking work for me. There's so much anxiety trying to appease people. I have no time or patience to fucking lie. Oh and then to be accused of lying gets me really fucking boiled. Oh my God does it piss me the fuck off. It's one thing to get caught in a lie. Like, I can own up to it. But holy shit if you want to see me go off, that's one way to do it.

Especially in person, because it's more personal. Even if on accident. My bf will say some shit and I go off because I hate being told I'm lying when I'm not. Then he has to be clear that what he's saying isn't accusatory because I'm too impatient to wait for an explanation. Lol 😆 Oh well...

Being honest saves time.

It's like ripping off a bandaid. Wanna see who is a real friend? Be honest with them. If they can't handle your honesty, they aren't good for you. Friends should always be honest with each other without anyone getting extra salty. But don't just say a bunch of shit. If they ask for your opinion, just be honest and remind them you are on their side.

Life is simpler, easier to manage, and happier when you don't have to worry about covering your tracks all the fucking time. I never could understand why people can't just be honest. What is so wrong about standing up for yourself? What made saying nothing such a normal thing to do?

😘💕 Stay warm yall!

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randomrichards · 4 years ago

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BEST MOVIE MOMENTS OF 2020

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Abe Makes Dinner from ABE

Teen chef protégé Abe (Stranger Thing’s Noah Schnapp) hopes that his dinner blending Israeli and Palestinian dishes will mend a bridge between his Israeli and Palestinian families (as well as his atheist father). But he gets a sad dose of reality when he learns the hard way that a wedge between families can’t always be solved with a meal.

“Wait for It” from HAMILTON

On June 16, 2016, Leslie Odom Jr. surprised many by beating Hamilton star/creator Lin-Manuel Miranda for the Best Actor award at the Tony Awards. And now they understood why thanks to Disney+ presenting the musical. And it all has to do with the song “Wait for It.”

In this soulful musical number, Odom Jr. allows us to understand Aaron Burr’s beliefs in letting fate leads his path. Whether it’s winning the heart of a married woman or watching all his loved ones parish, Burr is willing to wait for destiny to reveal why. It also showcases the contrast between Burr and Hamilton. This song changes Burr from History’s villain to a complicated anti-hero.

10) Deku and Bakugo go full Super Sayan in MY HERO ACADEMIA: HEROES RISING

My Hero Academia always delivers great action scenes and they truly shine in their latest round in the cinema.

In his final battle to protect young brother and sister Mahoro (Tomoyo Kurosawa in Japanese, Dani Chambers in English) and Katsuma (Yuka Terasaki in Japanese, Maxey Whitehead in English) from ruthless power-stealer Nine (Yoshio Inoue in Japanese, Johnny Yong Bosch in English), underdog hero-in-training Izuku “Deku” Midoriya (Daiki Yamashita in Japanese, Justin Briner in English) transfers his “One-For-All” power to hotheaded classmate Bakugo (Nobuhiko Okamoto in Japanese, Clifford Chapin in English). The result is an image of the in super powered form resembling Super Sayans.

When Deku reaches 100% power, the film suddenly turns white then stretches into abstract imagery.

Honestly, the main reason I put this on the list is because it’s pure awesome and I’m not afraid to admit it.

9) A Survivor Model from COLLECTIVE

This documentary follows the reporters of Romanian Newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor as their investigation into the Colective Club fire in Bucharest that killed 27 people and left 180 injured exposed vast health care fraud that caused survivors to die in the hospital and would bring down the government. Another key focus is a survivor who was so badly burned she lost most of her fingers. The camera focuses on her as she watches conferences about the fire.

In a standout moment, she models for photo shoots. In this moment, we see a beautiful woman who refuses to allow her disability to stop her, revealing her power.

8) the Wuhan Flu Song from BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM

Many best scenes of 2020 will focus on the bed scene with Tutar and Rudy Gulianni. But I prefer to focus on the scene where Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) performs the “Wuhan Flu Song” at a Anti-Masker Rally. Not only is it deliciously cringy and hilarious, but It perfectly captures all of Cohen’s strengths as a comedic performer.

As with Borat’s previous cringy yet catchy “Throw the Jew Down the Well, Cohen uses the Borat persona exposes the ugliest side of America. Watching the Qanon conspiracy theorists cheering on Borat (under the guise of Country Steve) singing about injecting Obama with the Coronavirus horrifies while splitting sides. This moment reveals the dangerous consequences of misinformation and conspiracy theorists on society. Plus, the song is shamelessly catchy as hell.

Add the fact that Cohen was nearly attacked during this scene shows how far he’s willing to go to make a point and get a laugh.

7) The Dinner Scene from LET HIM GO

This scene is a perfect example of how you put subtext in a scene. On the surface, It’s just Weboy matriarch Blanche (Lesley Manville) serving porkchops to her daughter in law Lorna’s(Kayli Carter) former parent in laws Margaret (Diane Lane) and George Blackledge (Kevin Costner). But with the context of Margaret and George trying to deliver Lorna and their grandson from her abusive husband, you can feel the hostility in the atmosphere.

It’s a credit to the actors and their ability to hide their aggression under a mask of southern hospitality. It’s especially true for Manville, who brings to life a woman who is a master of hiding her cruelty under a pleasant smile. She may sound welcoming to them, but you can tell something’s off about her. No wonder she’s able to manipulate the police into siding with her. Hell, many audience will be surprised when they find out she’s British in real life.

Lane matches her every step of the way with the most nuanced jabs.

It won’t get as much appreciation due to it’s unassuming nature. But it’s a perfect scene to show how to bring nuance to a performance.

6) The Restaurant Scene from THE INVISIBLE MAN

At first, it seemed Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss) finally has the drop on her sociopathic control freak ex Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). After days being tormented by him, Cecilia finally has proof of how he turns invisible. Now she goes to a public restaurant to convince her sister Emily (Harriet Dyer). But then a levitating knife appears out of nowhere and slits Emily’s throat before flying into Cecilia’s hands.

Director Leigh Whannell and cinematographer Stefan Duscio do an excellent job using everyday envirnoments to create a sense of unease. Whenever the camera lingers on a kitchen, you search with anxious eyes for any sign of Adrian. In this case, they use the ambience of a crowded fancy restaurant to create a false sense of security. And yet, you can’t help but wonder if Adrian’s still watching them.

It’s in this scene where title character goes from a good villain to a great villain. Here we see what a cunning monster he truly is. The scene also showcases Moss’s terrific performance as her desperate eyes showcase the complete helplessness she feels in this scenario.

5) Edna sheds her skin in RELIC

Rarely do the words “horror” and “heartbreaking” go together, but that describes the ending to this underrated gem.

Kay (Emily Mortimer) returns to her family home to care for her mother Edna (Robyn Nevin), who seems to be suffering from dementia. Now she and her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) find themselves trapped in the crawlspace while fleeing a warped Edna, who has been warped by a supernatural force. With contorted joints and decaying flesh, she has become monstrous. At first it seems they have defeated Edna and are heading out the door.

Then Kay looks back to see her mother lying on the ground, struggling to breath. This brings the film into a unexpected turn as Kay carries the creature that used to be her mother to bed. When Kay peels the skin off Edna’s body to reveal a charcoal skinned, dying creature, the film goes from creepy to heartbreaing. Anyone who ever lost a loved one to dementia will recognize to devastating feeling of watching them fade away right in front of your eyes.

4) The one-take action scene in EXTRACTION

Well, we can’t have a best movie moments of 2020 list without mentioning the 10 minute action sequence from Extraction.

As black market mercenary Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) shields the kidnapped son of a drug lord from other mercenaries, his race across a Bangladesh village delivers all you want from an action movie. Fast paced car chase? Check. Semi-automatic gun battles? Check. Hand to hand combat? Check. Parkour across rooftops? You bet. Sometimes you’ll even get people get hit by cars during hand to hand combat. All of this happens while cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel makes it look like one take.

Sure, sophisticated viewers will recognize there the cuts are hidden. But when director Sam Hargrave is willing to ride on the hood of a car as it races across dirt roads for the sake of a shot, you can’t help but be impressed

3) Opening Bike Ride from THE CLIMB

The film begins with what sees like a regular bike ride. American Mike (Director and Co-Writer Michael Angelo Covino) and Kyle (Co-Writer Kyle Marvin) are racing across the road of a French mountain before Kyle’s wedding. But then Mike reveals he’s slept with Kyle’s fiancé, resulting in the furious Kyle to chase Mike. Unfortunately, they’re both too exhausted to commit to a long chase.

The whole opening sequence could be its own short film. Covino and cinematographer Zach Kuperstein) shoot it all in one unbroken take, allowing the awkward exchange to flow more naturally. It leads to a hilarious moment when Kyle tries to chase Mike, but neither have the energy to keep going. Plus, it summarizes the reoccuring cycle of the film with Mike becoming increasingly self-destructive and a terrible friend and Kyle being nice until pushed too far.

2) The Ending from UNCUT GEMS

After spending two hours in a state of panic, it looks like the audience will finally breath a sigh of relief. After locking his pissed off brother in law Arlo (Eric Bogosian) and his goons Phil (Keith William Richards) and Nico (Tommy Kominik) in the Jewelry store with him, smooth talking jeweler and gambling addict Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) makes the biggest win of his life via pinpoint accurate predictions of a basketball game. Now he has millions of dollars; way more than enough to pay off his debt. Everything’s coming up Howard. That is until the furious Phil puts a bullet in Howard’s head and proceeds to rob his store.

With all his reckless behaviour (including putting his girlfriend at risk) and overconfidence, you knew at somehow Howard was going to be punished. But when the flilm cuts to scenes of Howard’s family celebrating the game and his girlfriend leaves with the money, you can’t help but know how bad they’re going to feel when they find Howard dead.

Then the camera zooms into Howard’s bullet wound to reveal the same colourful kaliedescope imagery as shown within the title uncut gems. With Daniel Lopatin’s enchanting new wave score playing, this moment gives the audience a moment to finally relax before closing with Gigi D’Agostino’s L’amour Toujours.

In spite of (or because of) his flaws; Howard is himself an uncut gem.

1) The little things inspire Joe from SOUL

Everyone recognizes “The Pixar Moment”; that scene that elevates a Pixar film from great to extraordinary. No one can truly define it, but it’s the one scene from the film everyone talks about. It’s the ten-minute prologue from Up. It’s Anton Ego’s reaction after trying Remy’s dish in Ratatouille. Even a lesser Pixar film can have this moment; a perfect example is when Lighting McQueen allows Ramirez to race in his place in Cars 3. Now we can add another film to the list thanks to Pixar’s latest masterpiece Soul.

After a day of escaping the afterlife and being trapped in the body of a therapy cat, Joe Gardner’s (Jamie Foxx) has finally achieved his dream of being in a Jazz band. And he feels…nothing. So, he heads back to his piano to ponder his direction in life. Then he finds the items 22 (Tina Fey) collected while in his body. What results is a moment fans will be coming back to in their moment of need.

As Joe rests 22’s items in front of his piano and starts playing, he comes to realize how a pizza crust and a seed truly meant to her. In the process, he comes realize the moments that seemed meaningless at first had some magic in them. The joy of playing for his father. The feel of the ocean waves flowing on his feet. The taste of a café’s pie.

In a time when many people can’t do any major activities, this moment serves as a reminder of to appreciate the little things in life. I imagine many audiences will return to this scene in their lowest moments.

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eidolonlathi · 5 years ago

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The Issue with Gen’s wasted Character Potential

With the manga about to reach its end I thought it worthwhile to have a closer look at how Gen’s character has been written. And the conclusion I'm coming to is that things started promising but then ended with already established potential not getting used.

Let’s start at the beginning. I don't believe that by the time of their introduction, any of the Sato squad’s new members had a clear and finished backstory. Or if, that it must have gotten changed while the story was progressing.

At this point it is difficult to say what the initial intention had been. But looking at Gen’s introduction, I always had the impression he and Takahashi didn't use to know each other before, came to the meeting alone and met there for the first time, instantly developing sympathy for each other. Something of the body and facial language in their first panel just seems too distant for me to signal anything else. And taking into account that until chapter 66.5 it hadn’t been confirmed that they shared a backstory, I view an individual arrival still as a possibility. Gen stating some time after the Grant Pharma arc that he possesses no ghost is no contradiction; just because Kou was clumsy enough to attract attention and got caught doesn't mean Gen wouldn't have been able to attend the black ghost meeting undetected.

Either way, only moments later, as soon as Sato's plan was established, he and Takahashi were able to quickly adapt to the situation and work together in harmony. Be it because they used to already know each other or by forming an instant strong connection. This moment already established the pattern that functioning together came easy to them while with Tanaka in the equitation friction would develop easily. But interestingly on the newly formed team all disharmony vanished at first, the operation on Grant Pharma ending a success.

I think this is about the only time in the manga where Gen is completely on his own and it’s impressive how good his nerves are during this moment. He stays calm, analyses the situation and delivers the needed information. And he has to do all of this while Takahashi is constantly being killed right next to him, yet Gen doesn’t get nervous at all.

That kind of levelheadedness would last until into the Forge Arc. And then getting reduced for the sake of preparing a “twist” lacking any solid foundation. Regardless of what one thinks of Gen being human or him and Takahashi supposed to have been brothers all along, from a storytelling perspective it makes zero sense to hide this all away from the reader until the last second. Like, that’s it? That’s the twist? How is this supposed to be relevant again? One of the random sidekicks to the main baddy –who you always knew wouldn’t have a chance to make it to the end- died instead of having gotten captured. I doubt anyone but the less than 20 people who used to ship takagen cared. These characters were about to disappear from the story either way, the average reader wouldn’t care about the surrounding details because these two were not the kind of characters that were given enough relevance. Or more, after a strong introduction, relevance and focus kept getting taken away from them.

Because relevance is the second factor why the reveals at the end were a bad way to progress the story. Since it got clear that some intended surprise was along its way (being shocking for the purpose of being shocking always looks forced), Takahashi and especially Gen were shoved further away into the background of happenings, given little to do. And that was a waste, frankly, taking into account how active both of them were allowed to behave shortly after their introductions. Remember them both supporting Sato with their sniping skills during the Grant Pharma attack? Sniping is a task complicated to do right but both of them were proving to be capable. Together and on their own: The moment Takahashi was taken out by enemy snipers, Gen was perfectly able to calmly overview and asset the situation, like this gathering together the information Tanaka needed to advance further and deal with those threats.

So, you have these two characters who have proven to be capable during stressful situations with a reliable mind and then the manga just… shoved them aside. Not just by lessening focus on them but by downright ignoring the ways they would have been able to contribute to their team. Cutting their teeth and claws further and further, first by putting more of a focus on their drug using habits (edgy. Now we know they’re bad guys for sure. Don’t get me started on addiction getting used as an indicator of morality) and then taking this further until they were reduced to not much more than moving props clowning around in the background. Compare that to Okuyama, whose early established technical skills kept getting efficiently used to advance the plot.

The curse got broken. After years of silence chapter 59 finally allowed Gen to speak again. Unfortunately barely anyone still remembered he existed or what he had brought to the plot so far.

Letting all this potential go to waste, for what? Because more of a focus would have threatened to reveal those wannabe twists? Something that turned out as boring as “one was human all along but the writing never told us that for no good reason”. It is hard to imagine after all the Sato squad was unaware about this important little detail: Not with their habit to regenerate themselves or their injured comrades via shooting themselves back to life during operations. With this they would have needed getting informed about Gen not being an ajin.

And the sudden sibling status about to get introduced resulting in “Gen’s dialogue needs to get reduced into nothing, otherwise it would become too obvious he and Takahashi being brothers was a last minute idea, with them going against local conventions by not calling each other “brother”, instead using their last names ever since.” Yeah, how did that work out? Now we have actual implied canonical incest because Takahashi and Gen being related changed nothing about the fact they were giving off the most obvious couple vibes this manga had to offer, making it look they were actively hiding being related. Where did it go wrong? Was “Gen is human” installed as a possible twist last minute late in the game, kept nebulous in case some better idea came up? (The hints were always vague guesswork at best, supposed to be able to go both ways, and unlike the anime the manga didn’t have the foresight to prepare it as believable by keeping Gen out of the most dangerous situations and reducing this drug consuming habit to a zero. So, am I supposed to look at it as a deliberate suicide mission on his part in manga context? Was his nihilism this deeply rooted here?) And what about the sibling retcon? Was “he joined this non-human extremist group for the sake of supporting his friend” sounding too gay an explanation, so in an attempt to erase that away they were retconned brothers? Would at least explain why those two look absolutely nothing alike despite supposed to be related.

Ironically this accidental incestuous implication was the only element working here in favour of story telling and character development. Disillusioned incestuous couple disappointed with life drifts into nihilism and thus resonates with Sato's ruthless modus operandi? Now that's the kind of variation and originality I like to see in fiction.

Interesting how Gen just shrugs his shoulders and goes back to routine once told the hostages already served their purpose. Zero sentimentalities to be seen.

I’m glad the story at least let those two stay loyal to Sato until the end, keeping the last bit of relevance in place that differentiated them from their (former) teammates. Takahashi and Gen had bloodthirsty motivations long before they met Sato, so it makes sense those shared similarities kept deepening the bond of those three. It makes sense on a level of characterization and interpersonal relation as well: I’d go as far as to say that Sato was most likely one of the few (the first?) people who accepted them the way they were. Attentive as he was it is hard to imagine he would have missed any aspect of the nature of their relationship. Yet his demeanour towards them never changed, more, as time went on the three of them grew closer. Being met with this kind of acceptance, it is easy to see why Takahashi’s and Gen’s loyalty towards Sato would have strengthened over time as well. Add to this that those three had a pretty similar mind set and voila. A unit that could have had it all, hadn’t it been for the story’s need to play it safe and prepare circumstances so the “good” guys (anyone seriously believing the status quo of using captured ajin for experiments would have changed without outside pressure?) win because of reasons.

This manga has many strengths but the recent habit to insert plot threads that keep dangling and are leading to nowhere or constant retcons that backpedal on what was previous established are none of it. Seeing how the manga started losing its way shortly after the Forge Arc ended and how the plot is now stumbling around in an attempt to reach an ending has been a disappointment, exactly because the story already has proven so many times that it can be excellent under the right circumstances. Alas, hope gets snatched away last.

#ajin #takahashi #gen #takagen #satou #eidolonlathi writes #lathi writes ajin

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marvelsbestsuperheroine · 5 years ago

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Waiting - IronWidow Request

TonyNat angst with a happy ending? Natasha's secretly in love with Tony but she thinks after his break-up with Pepper, he would never even try to love again. She was wrong.

A/N. Hello! Apologies for the delay. My laptop is no longer usable and I need a new one. I’m posting this on mobile and I’m still getting used to the formatting so forgive me if it looks weird. I’ll work on the next request as soon as I can.

- Rose

Tony and Pepper’s split was highly publicized. For ten years, it was impossible to get a public appearance of Tony Stark without spotting his assistant Virginia Potts somewhere in the background, running the show and overall just keeping everything together. Over the course of Ms. Potts’ tenure there had been rampant speculation about her and Mr. Stark. Her progression to CEO of Stark Industries was not a quick one but even then people speculated that she only got the job because of Stark’s fondness for her.

And it was true. He was fond of her. But that wasn’t why he made her the CEO in 2010. She was truly the most capable candidate with the most experience and highest qualifications. But most importantly, she had proven time and time again that she was trustworthy, something Tony valued her highly for.

They did get together not long after her promotion, which sent rumours flying. But neither of them cared that much what the paparazzi had to say. They needed to have good PR for the company, sure, but they didn’t have to believe anything that was said.

For a while, they had a good relationship. Tony put his all into being there for her. He dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions, to make Pepper happy. Anything she wanted, he would give her, even things she maybe didn’t want but Tony thought she might appreciate. They communicated openly and were honest with each other. But like every couple, they had their problems.

As Iron Man grew in popularity, so too did Tony Stark. As Tony Stark became more Iron Man, he became less involved in Stark Industries. When the Avengers formed, Pepper was happy that Tony finally had people he could talk to about the whole superhero thing. But then Tony became busier than ever, more traumatized, more hurt more often. Pepper worried herself sick over him constantly. His myriad of pre-existing issues intensified the more traumatic events he had to live through and she hated watching him suffer. Watching was a suffering on its own.

After the battle of Sokovia, when Tony broke his promise of toning down his obsession with the suits and when he accidentally built an evil robot that nearly destroyed the world, Pepper asked for a break. Nothing permanent. Just time apart to reflect and be alone.

Tony had resisted. Hard. He’d put his foot down, dragged his other foot behind him, and threw a tantrum when nothing else worked. That had been the last straw. Pepper didn’t want to marry someone who still had tantrums like a child.

So she packed up her things and left and Tony kicked himself until he was blue and broken. When he stopped to think about it, he picked himself back up and vowed to win her back. He threw himself into his work - not as Iron Man but as Tony Stark, owner of Stark Industries and major player in the clean energy sector and liaison between the U.S. government and the Avengers. He hoped that signing the Sokovia accords would relieve him of some of his duties as Iron Man, that maybe then Pepper would see that he was trying to compromise, to make it work... for her.

Natasha watched all of this with a careful and sneaky eye, never snooping too much but always prying a little more than strictly necessary. Her heart broke for Tony, who had nothing but good intentions and a desire to save the world and everyone in it. She knew better than anyone what it was like to try to redeem yourself. She also knew how people who got too close could hurt you the most and she sympathized. There had never been anyone after Alexei, never anyone who could even come close. Steve was her closest friend and confidant but even then she kept him at arm’s length. He was too good for her, anyway.

But Tony... Tony was a deeply flawed human being. He was broken in ways that Natasha wasn’t and vice versa. He was an addict. He could be so single-minded that it blinded him to anything else. He was impulsive. He was cocky.

Natasha was in love with him. And she couldn’t for the life of her understand why. It had been years - years - since Natasha had felt like this. But she was fascinated by him, utterly entranced. Nothing would please her more than to hug him and tell him that everything would be okay.

So she sided with him in the civil war to come. She had her own reasons too. But if she was being honest with herself, at least a small part of her just wanted to stand by his side and say, ‘I’m here for you’. He didn’t seem all that grateful, so wrapped up was he in his longing for Pepper.

Natasha knew, then, that whatever she felt for Tony would never come to fruition. Tony pined for a woman who complemented him in every way, a woman who was his polar opposite, a good woman with no shady pasts or murderous ways. A woman he could trust. If there was one thing to be said about Natasha that everyone agreed on, it was that she wasn’t very trustworthy.

In the end, she had proven that to Tony in the worst way possible by betraying him to side with Steve, the one man who had put all of his trust, all of his faith in her.

When the dust was still settling, after breaking the other Avengers out of the Raft, Natasha paid Tony one final visit to say good-bye and to apologize. She found him in his bedroom, two bottles deep into a stupor, one eye still back and blue and one arm still strung up in an awkward position. It struck her then, just how alone Tony must feel. His best friend was in the hospital recovering from being paralyzed, his girlfriend of four years had left him, the team he’d called a family abandoned him...

Natasha folded herself to climb through his window and he let her. What was the point in stopping her? He had nothing now. It had all back-fired in his face.

She sat on the floor next to him, cross-legged. For a while, they sat together in the darkness and said nothing. He continued to drink and all the while the room only smelled worse (which is why Natasha left the window open).

“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “For everything.” Her whispers seemed like screams in the silence.

Tony took a while to respond. “I should be angry,” he croaked, taking another swig. “But I can’t feel anything. I should hate you with my whole being. You betrayed me when I needed you most. I wish I could hate you. I want to hate you. But why can’t I?” He pondered this as he took yet another swig, finishing the bottle and then letting it roll away from him.

“You can,” she said quietly back and tugged her knees in towards her chest. “You should.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t because I understand why you did it and all it does is make me hate myself for putting you in that situation in the first place.”

“Tony...”

“Am I a horrible person?” He turned to look at her with sunken eyes, red-rimmed and watery. His head hung low, heavy with the weight of the world.

“No, Tony,” she assured and scooched closer. They sat with their backs against the end of the bed, their hips touching. “You’re just a man looking for redemption.”

He buried his face in his hands. “I thought I had it. For Christ’s sake, I thought I had it. I had the perfect girlfriend and I stopped my company from selling illegal arms to the enemy and I became a freaking superhero and I worked okay with the others and-” He was shaking.

Natasha hesitated. She wasn’t very good at this stuff. But she wanted to try. She slowly wrapped an arm around his shoulders and soothed him, rubbing his back and holding him close.

“Why are you here?” He asked suddenly, clamming up.

Natasha froze. “Me?” She repeated stupidly. “I, uh, I’m... I’m here to...” Her first instinct was to lie. But he didn’t deserve that. Not after everything. “I’m here to apologize.”

He gave her a disbelieving look.

“No, I’m serious. Look, watch.” She pulled back a little so she could more easily look him in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Tony. For everything. I never wanted to hurt you and Pepper was a fool to leave you, especially like this.” Too honest, she panicked. Too honest!

Tony merely blinked. “You think Pepper made a mistake?”

The hope in his eyes made Natasha’s gut sink. Nonetheless, she agreed. “Yeah.”

And then he was kissing her, warm lips pushing firmly against hers, clumsy hands pawing at her hair and his weight shifting to lean over her, to knock her over. She let him and they tumbled to the floor in a heap, toppling the other empty bottle and making it roll away. His breath reeked of alcohol but she didn’t mind.

It felt so good to be passionate like this. She had forgotten what it felt like not to fake it, to let it happen spontaneously, naturally. It was addicting, like inhaling a drug and feeling immediate effects. She opened her mouth to let in more, guided his hands to her hips, pulled him closer.

She didn’t stop to think because thinking would mean stopping and she didn’t want this to ever end. Whatever the consequences, she would deal with them. But for now she let herself enjoy this, let Tony have this. Together, they shared a night without regret or guilt, something they both sorely needed.

—————

Natasha woke up to a man she had pined over for years naked beneath her and playing with her hair.

“Morning, beautiful,” he said.

Her answering smile was so bright that it looked as if it made Tony’s hangover even worse. He kissed her anyway.

“Good morning,” she returned and snuggled closer, pulling him tighter and vowing never to let go. “How are you feeling?”

“In pain,” he replied honestly, “but happier. Just knowing that someone thinks it was Pepper who made the mistake and not me... It gave me a lot of my self-confidence back.”

“Oh,” said Natasha, wondering if she should be disappointed.

“You valued me,” he continued. He stared up at the ceiling as he spoke but he was most definitely speaking to her in an impossibly intimate sort of way. “And you had faith in me. Even when I fucked up, you had faith in me. And I... I can’t possibly begin to explain what that means to me.

“And you’ve shown me that there’s a world outside of Pepper. That if I don’t get her back I can still....”

Natasha wanted to say that she wouldn’t be his second choice. But she knew in her heart that she would. If he asked her, she would. Because she didn’t feel this way about anybody else and she didn’t deserve anyone at all, let alone this kind, generous, selfless man whose bed she was lying in.

Oblivious to her inner turmoil, Tony plowed on. “I still love her. I’ll always love her. And I’m not ready for anything else just yet. But tonight- er, last night... you helped me. I’ll remember that. Maybe someday I’ll be ready but-”

“I’ll wait,” she blurted, not registering that her brain and mouth didn’t seem to be communicating very well.

Tony shifted to get a better look at her. “You will? Cause I think someday I could be ready for whatever “this” is but not today. Someday. You’ll wait?”

Their eyes locked. In his, she saw only sincerity and a broken man whose fractures matched her own.

“I will,” she promised. “I’ll wait.”

#fanfiction #marvel #mcu #iron man #black widow #ironwidow #prompt

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the-cookie-of-doom · 5 years ago

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Orange Haze 2.0

I was binging AHS: Coven last night, because that’s what I do when I’m miserable apparently, and now I suddenly really want to write an au. I don’t have all of the details hammered out yet, mostly just a few scene ideas, but then i started talking with @missleeismyname instead of sleeping and it got even more detailed, so here are the thoughts:

Mitch and Stiles are two of the handful of students at this boarding school for witches. Witches are a dying breed, so this place is left derelict compared to its heyday, when it housed as many as 60 students. Now there’s less than six.

Mitch has been at the school much longer than Stiles, ever since he was about 14/15 years old. He was strung out and exhausted after a week of not sleeping, unable to due to the voices screaming in his head nonstop, when he finally overdosed on prescription medication he stole from one of his parents in an attempt to escape. He woke up in the hospital hours later still drugged to the gills, and everything was finally, blissfully quiet. The only voice in his head was his own, so he kept going and never looked back. Now that I think about it, he is very much like Klaus. I wasn’t even thinking of that, I guess I just have a type. .

Now, Mitch is a clairvoyant addict with a bad attitude and issues with boundaries, whose powers also include astral projection and communication with the dead. Possibly full blown necromancy later down the line, who knows. On top of all of that, he’s an orphan. His parents died in a car accident shortly after he was sent to the school, and he’s been there ever since. Now he’s 18/19 and since it’s not a conventional “high school” and he’s got nowhere else to go, he stays. It’s not like college is a concern when he still hasn’t got a grip on his powers yet, anyway.

I haven’t fully decided on Stiles, but his powers include telekinesis for sure. He’s possibly a late bloomer because while Mitch came into his powers at around 15, Stiles was in his late teens. John knew about the school because Claudia went there when she was younger, and he should have sent Stiles sooner, but he was hoping the magic skipped Stiles’ generation like it did with his grandparents.

Mitch doesn’t want anything to do with Stiles because close proximity means everything is louder and he would actually like to get some sleep at night, thanks. That’s going to be way harder to do with someone sleeping ten feet away. Especially when that someone won’t shut up. Stiles tries to be friendly for the sake of peace among roommates, but Mitch just blows him off. Stiles doesn’t take too much offence because he’s used to it. It’s not until later that night that he finds out more of what’s going on with Mitch, as they’re getting ready for bed.

“Yes, I’m doing lines. Yes, Irene knows about it. I have no intention of quitting, so don’t waste my time with an intervention.” Mitch came sauntering out of the bathroom with no shirt, an orange pill bottle in one hand, and a razorblade between two fingers. Stiles’ attention was torn. “Any other questions?”

“Um.” Stiles stared at him wide-eyed. Where did he even begin? “What are you on?”

“No idea.” Mitch held up the bottle, squinted at the label, didn’t bother to read it off, shrugged, and said, “It's good shit, though.” Then as an afterthought, “I’m not sharing.”

“I didn’t ask you to...?”

The conversation was clearly over. Mitch went over to his own bed and stashed the pills in the nightstand, replacing them with a pair of earbuds he plugged into his phone. He fell back into his pillows and was passed out minutes later. Stiles could hear his music clear across the room blasting from those tiny speakers. It sounded like Metallica’s Enter Sandman.

Stiles laid back on his own bed and looked up at the ceiling. “What the fuck?”

Mitch can hear every thought that crosses Stiles’ mind, including all of his naughty fantasies, and he’s a total dick about it. He decides to take advantage, because if he’s got to listen to Stiles lusting after him all the time, he may as well get something out of the situation too, right? Which is why one evening he comes in, locks the door, and tells Stiles to shut up and get on his knees. Stiles is dumbfounded. He’s never had someone be so forward with him (self-deprecating thing that he is, he doesn’t think anyone would ever want him, much less someone like Mitch) but he goes along for the ride because there is no way he’s going to turn that down, he may never get another chance.

What he doesn’t know is that Mitch’s overt sexuality actually serves a darker purpose…

After that things are awkward. Stiles avoids him, and Mitch doesn’t really care. If Stiles is interested he’ll come back around, if he’s not, then he won’t, makes no difference to Mitch. He doesn’t make it a habit of getting emotionally attached to people since it only leads to trouble.

Sometime a while later Stiles is having a naughty dream about Mitch, who decides to eavesdrop and watch for a while before finally giving his position away, because Stiles is so cute and wrong.

“That’s not how I’d do it, you know.” Stiles screamed. He jerked away from the man on top of him to find Mitch leaning casually against the doorframe. The real Mitch. An instant later the dream copy is gone and Mitch watches in amusement as Stiles hastily tries to cover himself.

“What are you doing here!?” How long has he been standing there?

Stiles tells him to get out but Mitch ignores him, instead challenging Stiles: doesn’t he want a taste of the real thing? His fantasy was adorable but in reality Mitch would hold him down and make Stiles scream his name, if he wanted. And Stiles does, damn him. Besides, it’s not real, so it doesn’t count, right?

Unfortunately for Stiles the affect in the morning is very real. He’s awkward and avoids him because he doesn’t know where they stand. As far as Stiles can tell Mitch is really only in it for the sex and doesn’t seem to like him much for anything else, because Stiles is loud, in every way.

Later he confronts Mitch and straight up asks if he’s using him, and Mitch agrees that yeah, pretty much. (Although not in the way Stiles thinks) So. Okay. That’s a thing. Stiles needs to work through that blunt honesty. It’s the answer he expected but it still felt like a slap in the face.

Mitch leaves him alone to think because they both need to get themselves straightened out, and they can’t do that in the same room, and Stiles realizes they haven’t even kissed yet. Why should he believe Mitch wanted anything else when they hadn’t even done that much? Mitch never even reciprocated the blowjob. Clearly Stiles has been deluding himself.

While Stiles is angsting Mitch can hear all of it, and he goes on a little bit of a bender because he can hardly deal with his own feelings when he can’t even discern them from Stiles. He needs everything to be quiet so that he can fucking think.

Sometime late in the night Stiles goes looking for him when Mitch doesn’t find his way back to their room, and finds him passed out somewhere he shouldn’t be. Stiles has a brief heart attack thinking Mitch has overdosed again, but he’s fine. Stiles gets him picked up and into bed to sleep it off, and a very delirious, barely lucid Mitch asks why Stiles likes him when he’s such an asshole. Stiles replies that he doesn’t know, and that he’d seriously rather not. Mitch is too fucked up to know that both of those are lies, but not too fucked up to remember it in the morning. He doesn’t ask about it, though.

Mitch doesn’t want to hear the truth of what he thinks he knows. Of fucking course Stiles doesn’t want anything to do with him; he’s worked hard to make sure no one does, because it’s easier when no one wants to be around him. Then he doesn’t have to constantly listen to every thought that crosses their mind every second of the day. He tells himself it doesn’t hurt when people leave when he’s the one pushing them away.

Fortunately for Mitch, Stiles has decided he’s his, and Stiles doesn’t give up that easy on what belongs to him.

This time it’s Mitch doing the avoiding until Stiles is finally fed up and confronts him, asks what the fuck his problem is, shouts that he isn’t a damn mind reader and that if Mitch has got an issue he needs to speak up! Unfortunately that’s the #1 way to make him not talk, however. At least, he won’t be saying anything Stiles wants to hear.

What he does say broadly translates to “fuck off I don’t need/want you here”, and confirms everything that Stiles had already begun to suspect. That Mitch is lonely, starved for affection because of his self-imposed isolation and using sex to get it, when that isn’t what he really needs. It’s probably the last thing he needs, just another self-destructive habit he’s cultivated over the years. But it’s easier to use his body than to admit he needs something as basic as simple affection, especially after spending so many years pretending he doesn’t.

Mitch is in denial so that results in yet another fight and Stiles is so fed up with this stubborn asshole.

Mitch storms off and after a little bit, giving them both time to cool off, Stiles tracks him down to the library. He’s got his music playing loud as always, so he isn’t paying attention which gives Stiles the chance to walk up and kiss him. Since words apparently won’t get through to him, maybe actions will. And Mitch already knows that kissing is a thing for Stiles, which is why they haven’t done it yet. But despite knowing Stiles has wanted to, he’s still surprised when stiles actually does

The kiss is brief, a challenge. When Stiles pulls away Mitch can read the intent in his eyes, hear the “your move now, asshole,” as clearly as if Stiles has said it. He knows he can fall into old, comfortable habits, turn this into what it’s been for weeks now. Stiles wants him enough he’d probably even let him, because something is better than nothing. Or, Mitch could take a chance and step out of his comfort zone, let this become something more.

So, throwing caution to the wind, Mitch pulls him back in and throws himself into the unknown, because for some ungodly reason Stiles is willing to take a chance on him. Mitch is the clairvoyant but Stiles is the one that saw something in him worth more than just sex. Just worth more, than anything Mitch has previously thought of himself. Arrogance born from a lack of self-worth, anyone?

Of course it takes one to know one, Stiles is everything he accused Mitch of being. Just like Mitch bartered his body for what he wanted, Stiles was willing to let himself be used to feel wanted, until he realized that he deserves better than that. They both do.

They don’t make it back to their room that night, staying holed up in the library, kissing and just touching each other, petting and caressing because they can’t get enough. This is what they both have wanted but have been afraid to ask for.

Morning finds them curled up on the couch, snuggled under a blanket, and passed out cold. Mitch can count on one hand the amount of times he’s slept without being drugged up, and all of them were after at least a week of no sleep. For the first time his mind was quiet, not overwhelmed with everything going on around him. He could finally drown it all out because he was so caught up in Stiles.

It’s not love yet, but it could be if they nurture it and let it grow. But whatever it is, it’s exactly what they need.

#cookie writes #ATTEMPT 2 #god #stitch #stiles stilinski #mitch rapp #finally done #this monster is 2k #idk when ill write the actual fic but i really want to #they're stupid damaged boys who suck at communicating and i love their dumb asses #they really are perfect for each other #tw: drugs #tw: suicide #just an attempt tho!!#nodoby dies #I mean except Mitchs parents and Stiles' mom #rip #omggg John is totally going to adopt Mitch #he's gonna see that poor sad boy and be like yep into the kitten basket with you

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negasonicimagines · 6 years ago

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TEAM (Part One)

request: hey can you write an ntw x reader pleeeasssee? maybe angst w a fluff ending?? you're literally my entire resource for ntw fics and i lov you for it thanks so much sweetie. i'm sorry i don't really have like a plot line for you but i mean wade as a shipper is always good (also Colossus being Done With Him)

hey everybody! hurray for more consistent writing, yeah? next part will be the funner, fluffier part, but this is the angsty part!

tw for: abusive drug addict mom (because even I can’t escape that trope), addiction, lots of crying, your death (mentioned), starving yourself (not anorexia or bulimia, also just a mention), depressed!reader, and basically an overall tw for some dark themes. Let me know if I missed anything.

“Your mom said she’d call the cops on me if she caught you crashing here again.” Deadpool, despite being in his suit, wears a robe. He said what he did as he came out of his bedroom to discover you on his couch, obviously having just woken up. He doesn’t mind, though, he never does. Your best friend is a grown fucking man. And that’s the least weird thing about your life.

“She probably doesn’t even remember saying that, dude,” you remind him as he continues walking, to the kitchen. “She was tweaking out of her goddamn mind.”

Wade sighs heavily. He despised your mother, despised any parent who would choose drugs over their own kids. “Why don’t you just stay at Xavier’s full-time instead of just going to school there? Then, she couldn’t call the cops,” he replies, turning on the stove. You finally follow him, sitting at the kitchen island.

“The resources are better spent on someone else. It’d be a waste if I lived there.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t need to eat, or sleep. I don’t need a bed or food.”

Wade scoffs. “Just because you come back to life, doesn’t mean you should kill yourself for the sake of ‘saving resources.’ You need to be more responsible for yourself.”

“Seriously? Coming from you?”

“Hey, I eat and sleep all the time. If eating and sleeping paid the bills, it’s all I’d do. You should be more like me,” he proudly says, and a smile actually makes its way onto your face, surprisingly enough. “There she is!” he happily remarks, and you roll your eyes. “You seem especially down, what’s up?”

“Nothing,” you fib.

He doesn’t buy it.

“I always say that I had another superpower long before Weapon X: I can tell when someone is lying. What’s really going on?”

You scoff. “You never say that. But, uh, you’re right. She stole my fucking Xanax.”

It wasn’t common for Xanax to be prescribed to minors, but nothing else worked for your depression. Xanax was strong enough to break through your metabolism, at least for a little while… But after doing some research and finding that it was addictive, you stopped taking it. You never wanted to end up like your mom.

“You think she might get hooked on that, too?”

“Oh, no, I figured that was gonna happen eventually. I guess the bright side is that I know it’s not pressed fentanyl. But, uh… I’ve been selling it. For food and whatever else it’ll cover. So, not having it really sucks. Who knows how many customers I’ll lose, and I probably won’t be able to eat anything for a-”

Wade places a plate in front of you, silencing you.

“BLT. I know you hate breakfast food, but I wanted bacon and pancakes.”

“You shouldn’t have,” you tell him, meaning it. “Thank you.”

“I’m always going to,” he argues in a sing-song tone. “No problem. I buy in bulk, anyways. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something…”

“Yeah?” you wonder, interested to know what he’s going to say. People always bitch about him being a blabbermouth, but at least the things he says are interesting. He’s not boring, even if he’s loud and never shuts up.

“Have you ever considered looking for your father? I know you’ve said that he’s probably a POS like her, but maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s a cool guy who just doesn’t know you exist.” You have the vague impression that that’s not what he was planning to say, but you dismiss your intuition, as you have no idea what else he would’ve said.

“And he’s probably better off that way, man. Who wants an asocial, gay, mutant teenage daughter?”

“Ellie’s parents seem to like her, and you’re a lot nicer than she is, even if you’re both obsessed with self-imposed isolation. Hey, if you start living at Xavier’s, you’d see your mutual IRL!”

“I will strongly consider living at Xavier’s School for Gifted Losers if you never use the terms ‘mutual’ or ‘IRL’ ever again, you rotten old man.”

“No promises!” He tells you with a laugh.

Speaking of your mutual, Ellie messages you on Twitter. You take a bite of your sandwich, and respond.

ellienegasonic666: Hey what r u up to today

[your twitter handle]: Hanging w wade, why?

ellienegasonic666: Why would you subject urself to that sksjksjdl

[your twitter handle]: He’s like one of my best friends??? and mom was being a pain again

ellienegasonic666: You should just live @ Xavier’s lol

[your twitter handle]: That’s what wade said lol, I think he’s just trying to get rid of me

ellienegasonic666: Really???

ellienegasonic666: Maybe he’s MY best friend too

[your twitter handle]: You think it’s a good idea???

ellienegasonic666: DUH. You’re like the only person I can stand like at all

[your twitter handle]: Wow… thank you??? Kind of a big compliment coming from you jsadalksjdlak

ellienegasonic666 is typing…

One thing that made you both want and not want to live at Xavier’s was the possibility of seeing Ellie more. She was your only true friend that was your age, and even the same species as you. (You’d befriended many a stray animal in your wanderings about the city.)

And you had the biggest, most embarrassing crush on her. Developing feelings for any girl that shows you basic human kindness? Yeah, you were that person. So, on one hand, more opportunities to admire her. On the other, more opportunities for her to see what a fucking loser you are, at least, in your opinion.

You lock your phone, putting it down and continuing to eat your sandwich.

“Come on, kid. Dish. What were you two talking about just now?”

“How do you know I was talking to her?” You ask him.

“Your eyes light up every time your phone vibrates,” he explains. “No one else makes you that happy. Except for me, but I don’t make you happy in that way. That’d be gross.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes at his antics. “Listen, when I go to school tomorrow, I’ll discuss it with Logan… If you let me crash here tonight,” you negotiate.

“Fine, but I get to feed you breakfast in the morning,” he replies.

“Sounds good,” you tell him, giving him a thumbs-up.

The rest of the day goes smoothly, you and Wade playing Fortnite and watching Golden Girls together.

You rest your head on your best friend’s shoulder.

“I wish I never had to go back there,” you confess tiredly at around 10 PM, and he sighs.

“Me too,” he admits. “But it’s not safe here. This neighborhood is shitty, and-”

“I live in a shitty neighborhood already,” you cut him off with a reminder.

“And this is Deadpool’s house.”

“I can’t die forever,” you tell him, as if he could ever forget that. Like it wasn’t the only comforting thought when you were assigned to missions, even the safe ones.

“I know,” he replies with a deep sigh that unwinds the tension woven into every fiber of his being. “I know. I’ll consider it, if Xavier’s is at capacity”

The next morning, you wake up at 6 AM for school, silencing your alarm and enjoying the warmth. Before you know it, you’ve slipped back to sleep.

“Y/N. Y/N. Hey.” Each word is punctuated by a poke to your face by a gloved finger. “Listen, kid, I know you need the sleep, so I let you sleep in, but you’re gonna be late to school if you don’t get up and chow down quickly.”

You jolt straight up with a choking gasp, realizing you fell back asleep. You scarf down the toast with (favorite toast topper, be it butter or peach jam or whatever) and bacon, multi-tasking as you get ready.

“I’ll drive you, so don’t worry about makeup and all that junk. You can do it in the car. Just get your teeth brushed and get dressed and shit,” Wade informs you, starting Al’s old klunker so the shitty heater will warm up the car a little bit before the two of you are forced into it by time.

You dash out of the bathroom, small makeup bag in hand and shoes untied, and Wade follows you at a slower but still brisk pace.

“Why’d you let me sleep?” you ask him frustratedly, applying your lipstick(/gloss/balm/whatever) while you wait for his answer.

“I told you, you needed it.”

“I didn’t need it this badly,” you retort, working on your eyeliner next. The two of you hit a bump, so you get out your concealer and salvage what you can.

“You needed it. I’m sick of watching you die of neglect, why is that not enough of a reason for you?” He punctuates his words with a terrible groan, as if he’s pained by this bickering..

“I come back!” you argue, confused about why he’s pushing this taking-care-of-you thing more than usual.

“I know your mom doesn’t give a shit about whether you live or die, but I do! I’m not letting you die, ever again! Get over it!” Wade practically screams in frustration, effectively silencing you.

You sit there, in complete stillness, before getting back to work on your makeup. You put on foundation and blush, contouring before you set it all with translucent powder, sweeping the soft brush over your smooth skin.

“I’m sor-”

You shake your head, pressing your limps together firmly so that no sobs leak out, blinking hard.

Wade knows you hate yelling, not to mention what he said was over the line.

He pulls up to the school.

“I’ve got some business here, later. Do you want me to bring lunch and hang around to pick you up?”

You shake your head. “I’ll walk home, or something.”

“Have a good day?” he offers, and you just walk away, entering the school.

At least I’m on time, you think to yourself, stumbling to homeroom in a haze. Homeroom’s Chemistry, and you definitely didn’t do your homework last night.

“Mx. L/N, your homework?” the teacher says at your desk.

“No,” is your only response.

The teacher sighs, shaking his head in hopelessness before moving on to your lab partner, Ellie.

“Here it is,” she hands it to him. Once he’s moved, she hisses to you: “Why didn’t you just ask me if you could copy mine?”

You curl in on yourself a bit, putting your head on the desk and guarding it with your arms and hands. “Please don’t…” You whisper back, and you mentally chastise yourself for how pathetic you sound.

She places her hand on your back, unintentionally sending rather calming tingles through it.

“What happened? Your mom didn’t hurt you again, did she?”

“I mean, she did, night before last,” you mutter, moving your arms and letting one hand support the weight of your head boredly. “But that’s only a small part of why today is shitty. Don’t worry about it, El. It’s not your problem, okay?”

“Fine, if that’s how it’s gonna be,” she scoffs, but you know she’s not really that offended.

“I’m gonna talk to Logan during lunch about moving here. Crashing at Wade’s isn’t working out anymore.”

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Ellie asks.

“He just yelled at me this morning. He’s too invested, he was mad ‘cause I don’t eat or sleep enough and I keep-” You remember that Ellie doesn’t know. “I keep getting dizzy spells. But, uh, you know me. I’m a pansy, can’t stand yelling.”

“You’re not a pansy for having trauma,” Ellie grumbles. “Hey, let Logan know that if there’s not another room, I’m fine sharing one with you.”

“Really?” you wonder, taken aback by her kindness. Ellie was always nicer to you than she was to other people, but this was a bit out of character.

“Yeah, why not? You get me,” she says.

The teacher scolds you and other classmates for talking, and the few of you become quiet and try to focus on the lesson.

A couple class periods later, and it’s lunchtime.

“Hey, Logan?” you approach him.

“I didn’t know, or I would’ve told you.”

“About what?” you ask, and if you thought he was frowning before, he definitely wasn’t happy now.

“Forget I said that. What did you want?”

“I wanted to talk about, uh, living here…” you say quietly, and he looks confused.

“Really? I thought you wanted to live out in the city.”

“Yeah, uh, that’s not really working out for me,” you admit.

“You didn’t get attacked by any of those anti-mutant gangs, did you?”

“No, uh, my mom’s not a gang,” you drop the bomb. “Just a physically and verbally abusive bitch.”

“And you’ve been staying with Wade occasionally, haven’t you?” he guesses.

“Yeah, uh, how’d you-? Not the point. We had an argument this morning, and um… I don’t think he’s gonna want me around.”

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Why does everybody keep asking me that? No. The problem is that he’s too concerned. It’s not good. I don’t die forever and he still acts like it’s the worst thing in the world for it to happen every now and then.”

Logan sighs. “Right. Probably about the thing I didn’t know until recently that I know now and probably shouldn’t tell you.”

“And that is?”

“I should probably let him tell you,” Logan says, looking behind you. You turn around to see your best friend.

“Well, let’s hear it,” you say.

“I- I’m- I don’t want to be friends anymore,” he says. “It’s not appropriate for someone my age to be hanging around you like I do.”

“What? I thought you didn’t care about that shit,” you disagree. “You know you’re not a creep, I know you’re not a creep. Who else does it concern?”

“I don’t want to be friends with you anymore! Get over it, okay?! Don’t come to my house looking for a place to crash when your druggie mother beats your ungrateful ass! Don’t look for me when you’re in town! Don’t text me any boring, unfunny memes! Don’t Snapchat me stupid pictures of you and Ellie being losers! Don’t fucking speak to me! Ever! I don’t wanna see you ever again, got it?! I’m gonna be going now, Logan. Don’t expect me back anytime soon.”

He quickly leaves, and you turn back to Logan.

“What the fuck is going on?” you ask your mentor in a hoarse whisper, keeping your volume low to keep from crying. A tear slips down your face.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting that, I… You can stay here, but I don’t know where. We might have to squeeze you in with someone.”

“Ellie said that I could room with her if there wasn’t enough room,” you tell Logan, imagining wrapping a ribbon around your sadness, so tight, so that no one can see it. So that it won’t come out.

“Sounds good. I’ll let the Professor know. You, try to have a better rest of your day.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The rest of your day is not good. You skip your last two classes and just sit at the foot of Ellie’s bed, choking sobs throwing themselves from your lungs like you wish you could throw yourself off a bridge, sinking into the water and going down, down, down… Drowning every time you awaken from death, only to die again. Perfect Purgatory. No problems other than fighting the instinct to rise to the surface.

Every time you calm down, start breathing normally, splash your face with cold water and blow your nose, thinking you might actually piece yourself back together by the time Ellie gets back from Photography Club, you remember what he said, again. Think about his face, the fury in his eyes when he yelled at you this morning.

And the cycle continues.

“Y/N?!” Ellie. Crap, Ellie can see how fucking pathetic you are. “Y/N, what’s wrong?!”

“He- He hates me… I- I don’t know what I- What I did- I- I can’t fucking breathe,” you cry out. “Everything was fine, and then he was just so- Just so fucking mad today. What did I do, Ellie, do you know?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Wade’s just a fucking bastard.”

“Not to me,” you weep. “Never to me…It hurts so bad, in my chest, I- I- I-” you gasp, again and again, desperate for air. “He- He was my...b-b-best f-friend… Only f-family I had… And he- he hates- hates m- he h-hates me…”

“Shh, Shh…” Ellie says, unsure of what else to do. She’d never been the one to comfort a crying friend, usually leaving that to someone else. But you, you didn’t have anyone else. “He doesn’t hate you. Maybe he was having a bad day. Whatever he said to you, he probably wishes he didn’t. And if he doesn’t, well, I’ll make him fucking wish he didn’t.”

“No!” you scream, an animalistic howl. “Don’t- D-don’t hurt him…” you whimper.

“I won’t, I won’t, I’m sorry. Was just trying to help. Wade-” She sighs, not liking that she has to reveal her feelings, too. “As much as I wanna hate the guy, I can’t. Because he’s a good man. And he loves you, so much. I don’t know why he said what he did, but I get the feeling there’s more to the story.”

“B-but he s-said such awful things…” you whine.

“Here, come on the bed. It’s more comfortable.” Ellie helps you up from the floor, taking off her shoes and lifting her black duvet so that you can slip under. Surrounded by a darkness that includes not just your second best friend, but your crush, was soothing in a way you’d never felt before. You struggle to breathe ends, even if your tears don’t. “What’d he say?”

“Just… Stuff about my mom. He said he didn’t want to be friends anymore, that he didn’t want me staying at his place or even talking to him.”

“That’s really fucking shitty. Do you- Do you want me to hold you?”

“You don’t have to,” you tell her, and she realizes that if she’s going to help you she also has to be emotionally vulnerable. “Why are you being extra nice to me? You really don’t have to, you could just make me lock myself in a bathroom or something.”

“I want to,” she confesses, and you scooch closer to her. She moves you so that your head is on her chest, and her arms are securely around you. As the two of you fidget, your legs tangle together. “I’m sorry about what happened today. I know that he’s your best friend, more than me, and I’d consider us pretty close.”

You hum in acknowledgement, her body’s extra natural warmth lulling you into a haze of emotional numbness and half-sleep. She strokes your hair.

“I love you so much, too. Not like he does, though. I wish we could stay like this forever. I always wanna protect you, even when you’re not in danger. I- I wanna do more than cuddle. I wanna kiss you, and get you flowers, and watch chick-flicks and pretend that I don’t like them just as much as you do. Sing along with stupid, funny voices to Pitch Perfect because we’re both too embarrassed of our real singing voices. I- I want to do all that, forever, and I don’t want you to do that stuff with anyone else, at least not the same way you do it with me. You get what I mean?”

But you don’t answer, having fallen asleep at some point in her ramblings, probably before she confessed the romantic nature of her feelings.

“Damn it,” she mumbles to herself, but is kind of grateful. Now really isn’t the best time, she realizes. She strokes your hair, glad to see you getting some rest after all you’d been through today. She stays there for w while, eventually lifting her arm from on top of you and unlocking her phone. She blocks Wade on every platform.

Normally when Ellie’s on her phone, she’s talking to you. It’s part of the reason she’s so attached to the damn thing. She plays some of the games she has installed for about an hour, before finally admitting to herself that she’s bored out of her mind.

But, it’s dinner time, meaning she has an excuse to wake you up.

“Y/N…” She quietly says, brushing your hair out of your face. “It’s time for dinner…”

“Hmm?” your eyes flutter open, but your eyelids are still heavy. You can’t believe you’re really cuddling with Ellie. You’d thought you dreamed it.

“Dinner,” she repeats.

“Jeez, was I out that long?” you wonder.

“Just for an hour and a half,” she tells you. “Dinnertime is a bit early, to make sure that everyone gets to eat before bedtime.”

“Oh. Cool,” you say, and then you remember why you’re here. You’re all cried out, for now, but you start to shake again.

“Hey, hey, no more of that,” Ellie discourages you. “He doesn’t deserve your tears. You should think about blocking him, on social media and whatever numbers of his you have.”

“B-but what if he wants to be my friend again?” you ask meekly, and she looks down at your hopeful face, sighing.

“Then he can tell you in person, not that he deserves the opportunity.” Ellie tries to calm down, be sympathetic. It was easier at first, but now you’re wearing her down. She doesn’t get why you can’t just get over it, tell your thoughts of him to fuck off. Wade didn’t deserve this mourning, especially not after what he did to you. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, and then we can go to dinner. You can borrow one of my hoodies, if you want.”

You nod, and she gets up, going to her closet and pulling out one of her many dark-colored hoodies. This one is a dark purple, one she doesn’t wear often. She tosses it over her shoulder, popping into the bathroom to grab the pack of makeup wipes.

It’s cold, and the chemicals sting against your sensitive cheeks.

You twitch, and she takes in a sharp breath.

“Sorry,” she quietly says, taking an even more careful approach. She wipes your face, and you have to admit, you do feel refreshed. She takes the purple hoodie from where she threw it over her shoulder, and hands it to you. You pull it over your head, slipping your arms through the sleeves and letting the hood rest on your head. “It looks better on you than it does me.”

You huff out a small laugh at this. “I don’t look good in anything.”

“Calling me ugly?” Ellie asks, snickering. “It’s good to see you smiling.”

You smile a little wider at her compliment. She always makes you feel better.

“Let’s go to dinner,” you tell her, and she nods, taking your hand and leading the way.

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olboypacman · 6 years ago

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8. Who I Am (Trigon, the Benevolent)

A/N: The author of following claims no ownership of Teen Titans. Trigger warning: Mentions of suicide.

Just a bit closer…

Come on…

A little more…

A brown cat snatches a piece of meat out of the hands of a young girl. The cat finishes its share just as fast as it snatched it. The feline expectantly looks to the young girl as if to ask for more as it licks its teeth.

OK little guy, I’ve got you.

The little girl reaches into a pocket of her white cloak, taking out a small clear bag within which wet meat can be seen. She goes to another pocket in the cloak, this time taking out a handkerchief. She places the cloth on the grass and pours the remaining meat on to it. The cat beings to eat its share of the splendor the girl has blessed it with.

The little girl takes in everything around her. From her perch on the opulent fountain she’s sitting on, she can see the park is brimming with people and activity. Families enjoying a walk. Couples enjoying picknicks. Older gentleman enjoying games of chess. Occasionally a passerby lock eyes with the girl.

She can see and feel what some their mouths don’t say.

Fear.

Hate.

A few even have a barely restrained desire to take the matter into their own hands.

She pushes down how that makes her feel, for if an accident were to happen…

Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos

The cat has finished off the last of the meat and begins to purr in contentment. It rubs itself on its benefactor’s legs. The girl’s reverie is broken as the cat has gotten her attention.

The girl removes herself from her seat, taking a knee in front of the feline. She begins to pet the cat as its purrs continue. She then picks up the cat, retaking her seat at the fountain, placing the cat in her lap.

Yells of, “Raven! Raven! Raven!” can be heard in a nasally high-pitched voice as boy in a royal blue robe is running toward them.

“Xavier,” answers Raven as he stops in front of her. She notices he’s got his hand behind his back.

“Hey, Raven!” Says the winded Xavier. Despite having not yet caught his breath, Raven’s senses are almost overwhelmed by the boy’s almost overbearingly positive attitude. His sloping prominent nose is pointing straight at her as his upturned lips are causing his dimples to be more evident on his boyish caramel brown face. His green eyes are alight with joy at the sight of his friend.

Friend…

People are funny. Azarathians especially. Despite the original Azarathians intent behind leaving the Earth behind, they are just as hateful, fearful, spiteful, discriminatory and willfully ignorant as those that inhabit Earth. Suffice to say, whenever Raven or her father is among the public, she’s given a wide berth by some under the best of circumstances from the denizens of this dimension. Other Azarathians are somewhat bolder, letting the little girl know exactly how they feel about her very existence. Other than her mother, father, Azar and a few of Azar’s understudies, Xavier had been one of the few people in this dimension to show her the smallest bit of common decency. When Raven’s empathy had begun to manifest itself, she found herself even more distant to the people of Azarath. Either through his own ignorance of the common perception of her or because he doesn’t care for such things, Xavier had sought out Raven’s friendship much to her chagrin.

Xavier doesn’t have any family of his own. His mother died giving birth, and his father handed the infant Xavier over to the monks of Azarath. He said something to the effect of, ‘I’m not sure I can care for a child that killed wife.’ He committed suicide soon after.

“You know, I saw these,” said Xavier, presenting what was behind his back. In his hand there’s a bouquet of purple lilacs, the roots of which having a significant amount of dirt on them. “They reminded me of you, they’re pretty like you and purple like your hair.”

Azar and her parents had warned Raven of becoming addicted to the way certain people made her feel. She very much used to the emotional signatures of Azar, Trigon and Arella. That makes it’s easy to stay in control and avoid accidents. Unfortunately, she’s not use to her new friend and his behavior is very much difficult to predict. At the complement, blush begins to creep its way up her cheeks.

BANG!

A spot of grass had imploded, a result of the emotional influence on Raven’s abilities and the warm offering of young man in front of her.

Startled, the cat jumps from Raven’s lap and flees the two children.

She once again leaves the fountain to take her friend’s gift, until she’s overtaken by a shadow.

Looking up she sees the elder councilman who the most out spoken of her father and anything having to do with him.

Councilman Younger.

He breaks into a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He takes the lilacs Xavier had offered to Raven.

“Hey those are for Raven!” Screams the cross little boy, as he attempts to forcefully take back the flowers.

“A loathsome creature such as this doesn’t deserve such a beautiful offering,” sneers the councilman, his rough throaty voice grating on the boy. The council then forcefully pushes the small boy to the grass. “And you shouldn’t associate with her kind, boy.”

Xavier picks himself up from the grass, dusting his now ruined robe off as best he could. “I don’t know what problem you have with Raven, but if she’s fine with Lady Azar she should be fine with you.”

“Do you not know what her and her father are, boy? Are you not aware they are demons?”

Despite Raven’s fear of the outspoken councilman, she moves to tug one of Xavier’s sleeves as if to drag him away from the wrathful councilman. Unwilling to budge, Xavier throws a sneer of his own to the older man. “What does it matter?” He shoots to the elder.

“What does it matter? Trigon has brought destruction to an untold number of worlds and realms long before you were even a twinkle in your pathetic father’s eye.”

Further incited, Xavier responds, “You lie, you old fart!” Pulling his sleeve from Raven’s hold. “Trigon only would do harm if it meant protecting someone!”

“…stop…” Raven quietly pleads.

“Protect?” says Councilman Younger before breaking into a condescending laugh. “If by protect you mean killing scores and scores of innocent people, then you’d be correct! Don’t you get it, you foolish boy? Should Azar further place her faith and trust into,” he gives Raven a lingering, disgusted look, “her kind our world will be next.”

“…please, both of you…”

Having heard enough of having his friend’s father’s name being drug through the mud, Xavier charges Councilman Younger.

The councilman, having worked himself up (his own fault mind you), pushes the little boy once more into the grass. “You move to attack me, child? Fine. I’ll show the discipline Azar isn’t capable of dishing out.” The councilman brings the pilfered lilacs to his nose, giving them one last sniff. “Such a waste,” muses Younger. He then recites an incantation, the lilacs igniting into fire. The enflamed plants burn and collapse into a ball, floating just above the palm of Younger’s hand. “May this lesson stay with you, boy.” Says Councilman Younger before he launches the fireball at Xavier.

Raven can only watch, as the ball of fire gets closer and closer to her young friend, until…

The ball explodes, seemingly an invisible wall in front of the boy.

Raven then feels a gentle touch on her shoulder. This brings her senses back to her as she feels the aura of the one who touched her. Looking up she sees the white cloak and dress of her and her mother’s mentor.

Azar.

The hood of her cloak is down revealing her graying her hair. The older woman’s usually soft and friendly grey eyes are trained on the Councilman in anger and disappointment, her somewhat pouty lips are in a thin line reflecting the same. “Xavier, behind me,” she commands, her usually quiet and soft voice is accentuated with a rarely used firmness telling the young man the time for argument isn’t here. “Now.”

“Lady Azar. How good of you to join us.”

“Cut it, councilman. Do you accost these children?”

“I was merely enlightening the girl to her father’s true nature and teaching the boy a lesson in how one should treat an elder of the council.”

“By incinerating him?”

“Lessons taught in pain, are not lessons that are soon forgot, Lady Azar.”

“Councilman, I’ve known you for a long time and have reared and taught the young Xavier myself. He’s a headstrong young man and fiercely protective of those he cares for. And I know you can turn antagonistic at the drop of a hat. Can I guess you were bad mouthing Trigon or Raven?”

Younger laughs incredulously, “Bad mouthing? Telling these children of that demon’s history isn’t bad mouthing it’s all true! Tell me I’m lying!”

She looks down to Raven. The older woman doesn’t need empathy to tell the girl is scared and confused by the day’s events and revelations.

If I can change the past, I most certainly would for the sake of this young lady.

“To reveal such things to Raven isn’t your place, Councilman Younger. Arella, Trigon, her mother and I decided to tell Raven when she’s older. To tell her now, I’m not sure what could come of it. Leave us councilman, I’ll deal with you some other time.”

“So, you say, my lady.” Says Younger, as he leaves the scene.

Upon the councilman’s departure, Xavier immediately attempts to excuse himself. As one could imagine, Azar’s having none of it. “Xavier, I’ve told you countless times. Don’t entertain Councilman Younger. Don’t antagonize him. Do not give the man a reason to bring harm to you as he would take anything you give to him. In his mind he’s justified based off your association with Trigon.”

“But Lady Azar that’s not fair or just, or right.”

Azar takes a knee, to getting to eye level with the young man. She lovingly caresses the young man’s head as she says, “I know, and I fight every day to change the minds of our people. To make people like the councilman just a tiny bit more open minded, so they can see not all demons mean to do harm.”

“But what about what he said about Trigon? Did he really take over whole worlds and kill lots ‘a people?”

She looks forlornly away from the boy, to Raven, who’s taken his flank behind him. “It’s not my place to say.”

“But, “inquires Xavier before he’s cut off by Azar.

“If you wish to have a conversation with Trigon about the subject, I won’t stop you.” She says softly. “But in the meantime, you’re to refer to your scriptures and report to me 5 am every morning for the next 3 weeks, are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Crystal, what young man?” Asks Azar maternally.

“Crystal, Lady Azar.”

Azar brings in the young man for a hug and a forehead kiss.

“Not in front of Raven,” he complains.

Azar laughs at the young man as releases and dismisses him and turns her attention to Raven.

“So, it’s true then?”

“Raven…”

“You didn’t correct him!” Yells Raven, as the stone of the nearby fountain begins to crack under the pressure of Raven’s unrestrained emotion (and in turn power).

Seeing the little girl close to an outburst of emotion. “Raven repeat after me. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos.”

Raven begins to repeat after her mentor, “Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos.” Until her center has been found.

“I’ll ask you like I asked young Xavier. Do you want to talk to your father?”

“Yes,” answers Raven.

“Would you like me or your mother present?”

“If you could both be present if at all possible?”

Trigon waits in a bland featureless white room, the only amenities being a wooden table with a faded golden-brown finish.

Trigon wasn’t at all happy with the circumstance.

Not that it really matters. Now. Tomorrow. Sooner, or later he would’ve had to dealt with the look of disappointment of daughter find out what a he was in the past.

When Azar let him know what the loathsome Younger had told his daughter today.

When he saw his little girl enter the room with her mother and Azar in tow.

Arella takes a chair placing on the other side of the table, across from Trigon.

Raven sits in her mother’s lap across from her father.

Arella smiles forlornly at Trigon.

“Papa, please tell me if Council Younger was lying.”

“He wasn’t. It’s true.”

“Papa, you’re a murderer.”

It absolutely broke his heart to hear it.

“I’ve no excuse for my past Raven but I suffer the consequences of my actions everyday.”

“How do you suffer papa? You’re alive. You enjoy the company of those who love you. Those people, they just aren’t around.”

Trigon has no answer for his daughter.

“Why did you do it?”

“That’s a complicated question dear. But I may be able to show you instead of telling you why. Do you trust me?”

“I’m…I’m not sure.” Says Raven as buries her face in her mother’s hair.

“Raven,” says Arella, “open your senses.”

She obeys.

“Focus entirely on Azar and I.”

Again, she obeys.

“Tell us do feel anything coming from us that would suggest a betrayal of your trust?”

“No,” says Raven, still nuzzled up to her mother.

“Then we’re asking you to trust your father.” Says Azar.

Trigon gets up from the chair he’s sitting in and immediately takes a lotus position.

“Meditate with your father, Raven.” Implores Azar. “It will reveal all you want to know.”

Raven leaves Arella’s embrace to meditate on the floor with Trigon.

He presents both of his hands palms up to Raven.

“It’s ok.” Implore Azar one more time.

She takes his hands, which are gigantic comparison.

“Breath, Raven. Find your center.” Requests Trigon.

Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos.

Once Raven’s found her center, he opens himself up to her.

Raven’s psyche is assaulted by memories, feelings and sensations not her own. She experiences the unnamed Azarathian who came to be Trigon, the Terrible. His put fate into motion by volunteering himself for the negative emotion purge.

How wrong that procedure went.

Having his physical body burned from his soul.

She experienced his first conquests. Done entirely on his own. She’s seen lesser demons surrendering their services to him, lest they be next in his cross hairs.

But above all else she hears the screams of all the emotional fragments constantly telling Trigon to do the horrible, awful things he’s done.

Eventually she sees the face of a woman. At first glance one would think its her mother, but hair color, brown, is a dead give-away. As encounters and experiences with the woman pass the influence of the emotional fragments begin to die down. The last vison of the woman is her tied at what appears to be a stake. Before she’s to be burned, she screams to Trigon, “You are more than the circumstances of your birth. I love you.”

After that Raven experiences her father abandoning his previously destructive ways, which isn’t easy considering the emotional fragments continuously trying to influence Trigon’s every move.

Eventually she sees a sunrise threw a patio door and a bundle of purple just below his eye sight. The bundle of purple rises to the center of his eye sight revealing a face.

My face.

The memory of Raven wipes the crust from her eyes, having just woke up. Apparently using her father’s chest as a pillow. “Papa, is there any tea?” Asks the sleepy Raven. During the memory, Raven can’t help but notice the voices of the emotional fragments are completely silent.

Read this and more @https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6330123/Ol-Boy-Pacman

#raven #Teen Titans #FF.net #fanfiction #fanfic #azar #Arella #Trigon #papa trigon

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magalarajoonideprohvetid · 6 years ago

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blackouts [transgressive anthropology]

«Wow! I thought the lights went out!» (sudden exclamation by prof. Carlo Cubero at Debates in Anthropology lecture on the 15th of March 2018)

This moment is embedded in my memory, an ultimate manifestation of honesty, said out loud with no restraints, the peak of the lecture, the peak of the whole course – a sudden darkness. I do not know about you but I have on several occasions felt a sudden blackout, like the blink of an eye and I am not sure – did I just blink, did the lights go out for a micro-second, did my brain shutdown for a second, did I have a stroke, did only I (not) see it? Usually I have had others around me to calm me down, «Yes, we saw it also, I think the electricity flickered for a moment.» Is it you, Niko, sending us inter-dimensional messages through your most known invention, chthonic news through alternative current? If there would not be electricity in our households, would I even be writing about this phenomena, is momentary blackout a ‘thing’ without the light bulb? Or am I writing about something completely different, the blackout our unconsciousness creates when our consciousness is not ready for the incoming message?

writing culture

If there are any dogmas in anthropology, it is the inclusion of fieldwork into the methodological frame - for it to count as anthropology, a researcher needs to step out of academia and come back with outsourced data. Yes, it is extremely valuable that there is something new added to the usual academics circular referencing, agency has been given to the unheard and original voices. But in the same time questions arises - what is and when is anthropology? Is it students reading the theories? Or is it anthropologist on the fieldsite? James Clifford analyzes the cover picture of Writing Culture, where Stephen Tyler is writing during his fieldwork:

«In this image the ethnographer hovers at the edge of the frame—faceless, almost extraterrestrial, a hand that writes. It is not the usual portrait of anthropological fieldwork. We are more accustomed to pictures of Margaret Mead exuberantly playing with children in Manus or questioning villagers in Bali. Participant observation, the classic formula for ethnographic work, leaves little room for texts.» (Clifford, 1)

This picture gives the impression than an anthropologist does everything in the field, he participates, observes and simultaneously writes. In reality the ‘real’ writing happens retrospectively, and that might be one of the biggest problems of anthropology – there is no anthropology of the present, the reproducible anthropology is classically done in the post-fieldwork stage. This is valid for both ethnographic writing and film, as both ‘texts’ are produced afterwards. Doing currently auto-fieldwork, being on ‘ramadan-mode’, I am deeply stressed as I cannot do much writing, my notes are scribbles bearing no great weight, I am too heavily influenced and too stuck in the actual experience to do any reflective writing. Vincent Crapanzano says similar things about Goethe’s experience of the carnival:

«A conventional Ash Wednesday meditation, perhaps, Goethe's conclusion marks are turn to contemplation, introspection, and concern for the meaning of what we do. His “return” parallels a return in the ceremony he describes. During the carnival there is no reflection, just play, masquerading, and, as we say nowadays, acting out. With Ash Wednesday begins a period of penitence, and, we must presume, a return to introspection, order, and individuality.» (Crapanzano, 68)

After the experience thou, the author becomes active and starts to describe the lived experiences; how the description is done, how it is reflected and to whom it is directed, that depends on the author. Crapanzano describes the ethnographic encounters of George Caitlin with the Mandan tribe in North America and their initiation rituals of O-Kee-Pa:

«Here Catlin moves from his (objectifying) metaphorical perspective to that of the tortured; despite this move, his intention is not phenomenological, but rhetorical: He does not describe either the Indian's or his own experience of the torture. The «imps and demons as they appear» (to whom? to Catlin? to the Mandan?) is stylistically equivalent to «there is no hope of escape from it.» They are directed to the reader, and it is the reader's reaction that will guarantee Catlin's perceptions.» (Crapanzano, 57)

So Caitlin’s intention was to captivate the reader, to tell the story in a way that it works specifically on the reader, it is not him nor Native Americans in the story he has written, it is the reader he is trying to drag into the story. In Caitlin’s case, the author is playing around with the reader’s morality and the reader’s possible endeavor toward morality. Crapanzano gives another example, where the author is more inclined to play on the ‘dirty’ thoughts of the reader by using contemporary puns:

«The title of Clifford Geertz’s essay «Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight,» written about the time the film Deep Throat was all the rage, announces a series of erotic puns—puns, Geertz maintains, the Balinese themselves would understand—used throughout his essay. Puns are frequent in ethnography. They position the ethnographer between his world of primary orientation, his reader's world, and the world of those others, the people he has studied, whom at some level, I believe, he is also addressing (Crapanzano 1977a). Through the pun he appeals collusively to the members of one or the other world, usually the world of his readership, there by creating a hierarchical relationship between them. He himself, the punster, mediates between these worlds.» (Crapanzano, 68-69)

Crapanzano’s general theme for the article in Writing Culture is anthropologist/ethnographer as god Hermes, someone who is always bringing messages, someone who is a translator between ‘gods’ and ‘humans’, but whose messages might not contain the whole truth, they (singular!) might be lying for the sake of themself, the informants or for the sake of the readers, they needs to make a convincing case (Ibid, 52).

transgressive fiction

If I have to name three books from high school that really influenced me (both literally and literary), then these books were not and most probably will not be in the obligatory reading list. Two of them were loaned to me by friends, they had read them and suggested that I would be interested – Dead Babies by Amis Martin and The Beach by Alex Garland. Both stories travel in closed communities where sex and drug usage is common among the characters, where atrocities happen to them, and in general the environment of the book, its locus is a degenerate one. If one is to make charts, then Dead Babies is in my opinion a few grades more on the transgressive fiction side than The Beach. Now the third book was Check-out by Estonian author Kaur Kender, the first and last book in Estonia that has had «PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT CONTENT» sticker on it (only for advertisement reasons, there has not yet been such restrictions in the literary scene). The protagonist of this book is a filthy rich business-man, whose main efforts in life revolve around fornication and intoxication, both fueled by boredom and leading to the humiliation of others as he is capable to do whatever he wants with other people, it is self-destruction and liberation, mirroring society back at itself. Having grown up watching movies like Pulp Fiction and Dobermann, where protagonists are the ‘baddest’ on the conventional moral and ethical paradigm but in the same time there is something likable about them, they stand on the right side of life whilst doing bad things, Check-out did come as a shocker because there was nothing good about the main character, he was utterly bad, none of that misunderstood Robin Hood type of ‘badness’. For the first time I had been transgressed by the author, and I transgressed into the character. In retrospective Kender has said (heard it on a public event of the re-release of the Check-out in 2016), that the character was based on the stories he had witnessed and heard of local businessmen, and of his own alcohol and drug addictions (especially the ending of the book, where the protagonist starts using heroin). His book was based on participant observations and autoethnographical method.

Chuck Palahniuk is most known for his novel Fight Club, made famous by movie adaption and Brad Pitts’ six-packs’. I have not read that novel but I have read Haunted by Palahniuk (that one also has a PARENTAL ADVISORY sticker on the cover, Kender’s book was released almost a decade earlier). It tells the story of a group of people who apply for an experimental creative writing course and are then locked up in an abandoned art-house cinema. Every chapter consists of a poem about the main character of that chapter, a story of her/his origin, and a part of the main narrative with her/him as the leading character in it. The first chapter tells the story of a character named Saint Gut-Free, it consists of three different stories about ‘masturbation gone wrong’, onanism that might have killed the onanists. On page 17 of this 400 page modern horror story I have a blackout, the story becomes so disturbing, so real in my head, every word brings me closer to the conclusion of the story, and in my mind I already know where it is leading, Palahniuk has given enough hints, there is no happy ending, and every word brings it closer and my heart is rushing and I feel noxious… I blackout, I skip a paragraph (of course I read it later), I calm myself and continue reading. Palahniuk writes in the afterword a longer explanation how this story came to life, and how the reception has been so far. We tend to hope that the craziest stories are not the ones taken from real life, that these are made up, the fruit of fantasy. Palahniuk ruins the illusion the same way Kender did:

«No, this week, my writer friends just laughed, and I told them how the three-act story of ‘Guts’ was based on three true anecdotes. Two had happened to friends, and the last had happened to a man I’d met while attending sex addict support groups to research my fourth novel. They were three funny, gradually more upsetting true stories about experiments with masturbation gone wrong. Horribly wrong. Nightmarishly wrong.» (Palahniuk, 407)

Without mudding the water, I say out that in my opinion he was performing a participant observation, he, as many other writers, are ethnographers without the academia and without theory. Palahniuk’s emphasis is not on the credibility, it is on style and on affect:

«Reading ‘Guts’ takes a full head of steam. You don’t get many moments to look up from the page. But when I did, the faces in the front row looked a little gray. Beyond that were questions and answers. The book signing. The End.

It wasn’t until I’d signed the last book that a clerk said two people had fainted. Two young men. They’d both dropped to the concrete floor during ‘Guts’ but they were fine now, with no memory of anything between standing, listening, and waking up surrounded by people’s feet.» (Ibid, 408)

I could have been one of these two fainters, or at least fluctuating between consciousness and blackout. The main question for me is in the affect of the text, how something that is usually considered ‘unreal’ can make us feel physically sick?

transgressive ethnography

In a way, ethnographers have always written transgressive texts, most of the texts describe social norms and activities very different from the one of the audience of these texts. One of the dogmas for transgressive fiction is that the protagonist emerges through the violations of norms as a free(er) individual. One way of describing anthropologist is that they are like translators, who translate different cultures to an understandable format (as a colonialist discipline it used to be for the Europeans but things should have changed?). Another way of describing anthropologists is not so much as an interpreter but an inventor, s/he invents a culture, dogmatizes its principles into an ethnographic ‘holy book’, how this culture should be, has been, and will be, not understanding that it is not how it used to be, that is not how every single person inside that environment and/or space relates to that culture, and people do not have to spend their lives fulfilling the dogmas set in the ethnographer’s ‘holy scripture’ (most probably half a year later there will be a missionary there and everyone is wearing pants and singing songs of our Saviour Jesus). Vincent Crapanzano unites these two description into one:

«Like translation, ethnography is also a somewhat provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of languages – of cultures and societies. The ethnographer does not, however, translate texts the way translator does. He must first produce them.» (Crapanzano, 51)

Lets take for instance the infamous case of Margaret Mead and the Samoans. As we know by now, Margaret Mead went to do fieldwork with Samoan, came back and wrote an awesome ethnography on how Samoan teenage girls are sexually liberated. Derek Freeman waits a few years after Margaret Mead’s death, publishes a book on how she was wrong and that Samoans have actually very strict rules for sexual conduct. Now, there are several interpretations for this controversy, and explanations, some of them, like Paul Shankman’s The History of Samoan Sexual Conduct and the Mead-Freeman Controversy gives more ambivalent interpretation to the sexual norms and behaviors in Samoa (Shankman 1996). It could be possible that both Mead and Freeman just saw different sides of the same society, if there only would not be this moment when one of Mead’s informants tells a retrospective view of the incident:

«Yes she asked us what we did after dark. We girls would pinch each other and tell her that we were out with the boys. We were only joking but she took it seriously. As you know Samoan girls are terrific liars and love making fun of people but Margaret thought it was all true.» (Heimans 1988, 3:36)

So what did she do – ‘translate’ the culture in the wrong way, had wrong data, or maybe she was in a way creating something the readers wanted to hear? Looking at both Mead and Palahniuk I must come to the following conclusions: Samoans lied and we were happy, Palahniuk presumably told the truth and it is disgusting. We as readers, we like to read about ‘sexually liberated’ women, and Samoan girls played that role in Mead’s ethnography really well. In a way, Mead’s ethnography tells more about her own society and herself than about the Samoans, she was giving liberation to the Western world and to herself.

In a discussion about transgressive fiction, we cannot continue without talking about Untitled 12, a modern horror story by Kaur Kender, where the first person protagonist is a pedophile (and sadistic sexual pervert in general). I read the whole story on Nihilist.fm on the night it came out and it was a devastating experience, I skipped parts of it as I was not capable to read even the obviously exaggerated and absurd descriptions of sexual violence, I felt hollowed after that experience, and that was something he wished to accomplish (Kender 2015). What happened was that someone reported to the police, that it might be child pornography (Estonian laws include a very wide range of material from pictures and videos to written text as it might depict underage children in pornographic situations), and police went after it. It was taken to court and got media coverage even outside of Estonia (as it is not usual any longer in Western societies that known writers have been taken to court for these specific charges) (ERR 2017). In the end he was declared innocent by two levels of court, and has since then left Estonia with a promise to never write in Estonian again. But what was very interesting with this case was the possibilities for alternative situations and how would they have been perceived. For instance, if it would have been someone’s personal experiences, someone who had been raped as a child and if that someone writes about this experience with graphic details, could that be also considered child pornography? Or if someone describes their sexual experience as a minor (depending on the explanation of the Penal Code it could be either under 14 or 18 years old), could that be considered child pornography? As a reader, was I consuming unknowingly child pornography if Kender would have been found quilty? These may sound as hypothetical questions, but if one is active in literary world (both as producer and consumer) then these questions become rather substantial.

Untitled 12 is made up, it is fictional, and from this fictional world it became very realistic, I was in court during a few of the open hearings and those benches, the jury and the prosecutor, they were all very real. But how is this all connected to anthropology? In some cases anthropologist are not the good guys, friendly scientist, who participate with respect and observe with sincerity. For instance José Padilha’s documentary Secrets of the Tribe deals with several controversial incidents what different anthropologist researching Yanomami tribe had caused. One of these anthropologist was Jacques Lizot, who according to his victims had raped and sexually abused several young Yanomami boys (Padilha, 42:44-55:08). This was known by other anthropologist and researchers, but it was overlooked for many years and until today there has been no court cases nor other serious consequences for his real transgressions. He transgressed in real life, not in a fictional world, his victims are real human beings and not made up characters. His contribution to anthropology? Yanomami dictionary, with specific terms for sexual activities like masturbation etc.

Lizot case is a real pedophilia case, this kind of behavior is not accepted in the current Western society nor in Yanomami society, it is a taboo. Gilbert Herdt’s case is a little bit different, but the similarities reside in the transgression, in his case it is the witnessing and writing part what matters. Herdt has done fieldwork with the ‘Sambia’ tribe (pseudoneum he created for the tribe) in Papua New Guinea and has published several articles on them and a collection of these articles Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays From the Field (Herdt, 1999). The Sambia tribe used to have a rather controversial initiation rituals for young boys (current situation with these rituals is unknown for me) – they were taken from their mothers at age 9, put through painful purification ritual of bloodletting from the nose, and then forced to perform oral sex on older boys. Later on they become the boys who receive oral sex, and after that they become adult man who will marry a woman and presumably only participate in heterosexual activity. Reasoning behind the ritual is that the bloodletting will purify them from the attachment to their mother (and women in general), and that men are born without semen and to have semen one has to digest semen. Herdt seems to view these rituals from a less negative stance, as a form of bisexuality and gives agency to free sexual desires. James Giles, who has written a review of Herdt’s book, is less enthusiastic about it and clearly questions the rituals as in his opinion they are not connected to desire at all:

«… sexual behavior can be engaged in for numerous reasons, many of which have nothing to do with sexual desire (Giles, 2004). This fact is especially important to be aware of when one is studying the sexual desires of people from a sexually nonpermissive and prescriptive culture like that of the Sambia.» (Giles, 2004, 414)

Now my point is neither condemning of Sambian rituals nor Herdt’s presentation and analyze of them, my point lies much more in the product, in the ethnography. If an anthropologist writes on a similar topic, something that is in generally considered a taboo topic, that s/he describes with graphic details, then there is a chance, at least in Estonia, that someone might complain to the police, as was the case with Kender’s book. Police will then forward it to the “Porn-committee”, expert committee in Ministry of Culture, who will then decide if it is pornographic or not. We might say “But this is science and it is protected by the constitution”, but this was also the case with Kender – both are protected by the constitution:

«§ 38. Science and art and their teachings are free. Universities and research institutions are autonomous within the limits prescribed by the law.» (The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia)

What is problematic, is the Penal Code, definition of child pornography is rather broad and thus it can include different forms of it:

«§ 178. Manufacture of works involving child pornography or making child pornography available

(1) Manufacture, acquisition or storing, handing over, displaying or making available to another person in any other manner of pictures, writings or other works or reproductions of works depicting a person of less than eighteen years of age in a pornographic situation, or a person of less than fourteen years of age in a pornographic or erotic situation, is punishable by a pecuniary punishment or up to three years’ imprisonment.» (Penal Code)

I have been so far talking only in the context of written text, most probably the situation becomes more difficult if the text includes pictures, Allah forbid if it is not text but a film. In case it includes pictures, or if it is a film, then we have a serious ethical and moral problem, and that is not even connected to the child pornography laws. It is a question for us anthropologist, can we and should we show visual data to others, are we abusing the right for privacy, are we exploiting our informants? A great friend of mine had a self-made zine which he called National Pornographic, he had taken old National Geographic editions, cut out all pictures of naked ‘indigenous’ people and glued them together with added sensual texts. He did it purposely to show how Western society has sexualized the ‘natives’, how their breasts and nipples can be shown without censoring, as if the same rules do not apply to ‘them’ as do to ‘us’. National Geographic is a safe haven for monsters like Lizot.

[non]clusion

There are occasions when anthropologists truly transgress. And there are occasions when anthropologists write truly transgressive ethnographies. Unfortunately it usually happens after they themselves have been transgressed. Such is the case when reading Eva Moreno’s chapter Rape in the field in collection Taboo: Sex, Identity, and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork (Moreno 1995). First, and basically the foremost, she builds the story (ibid. 219-232), like the rapist built the assault on her, she builds it the same way as Palahniuk built his story, the reader is obviously hinted from the title that there will be rape but she is calmly leading the reader toward the rape, adding with the suspension until one fatal page she hits us with it. And I do blackout again, skipping paragraphs ashamed as I have a privilege to do it, she did not have a chance to skip it. The reflection part of the chapter (Ibid, 236-248) adds other layers, it elongates the rape but in a weird way calms the reader as you will see the surviving after the rape. I do not know her feelings about the chapter and writing it, but it does feel as if she has done something that is more on the positive side than on the negative one, that this text has been written with traumatic emancipation.

What seems to be essential in this inner discussion is the role of the author. These texts (both literary and audiovisual ones) would not exist without the author, people and culture and practices and incidents would abide in their own realm as they are, but these texts need the author. And as much as these texts need the author, so does the author need the texts, it is a validation of their experience. Having just finished Michael Muhammad Knight’s Osama Van Halen, sequel for his debut novel Taqwacores, I feel compelled to do something with the author. Knight’s take on the author was that he included himself as character into a fictional story, as Michael Muhammad Knight and as ‘the author’, he tossed himself around in the novel until he is beheaded by one of the main characters, by ‘burqa wearing riot grrrl’ Rabeya (Knight 2009, 207). Is the symbolical beheading of the discipline, the removal of the ‘mind’ and revival of the body, is that something that I am after as an author? Sometimes we need to blackout to flashin.

«Sun set a few hours ago, and moon is not around. Sky is striped with clouds, stratocumulus and stratus clouds, altocumulus and altostratus clouds, they are all there. Midnight prayer was already 2 hours ago and I look on horizon as the rays of dawn shine there. Smoke diffuses and the bud drops in the ashtray, I recede to lay on my bed and to watch the first season of Narcos. As the violence on screen escalates, I have doubts in my sanity, I think I am hallucinating as I continuously see flashes of lightning outside of my window. Delusions were happening already on the first week of Ramadan, I saw glimpses of movement, small swirls of energy in midair, flashes of something from the corner of my eye. Today there is lightning I see from the corner of my eye, moments of flash/ins instead of black/outs. It’s not raining and the clouds are not dark, air doesn’t feel as it has been electrified to that extent. Kristi is sleeping and I can’t get verification from anyone. After the first flash I think maybe it was some kind of trick my mind played on me, after second one I think maybe it was a reflection from TV, after the third one I assume it was an ambulance car light (I live next to a hospital). After the fourth and final flash I am afraid to look out from the window, instead I drink my last glass of water and pray dawn prayer. 17th day of Ramadan has a weird start. As I fall to sleep, I hear the rain arriving, it sooths my fears of going insane. I saw the lightning and heard the rain, but I didn’t hear the thunder nor see the drops.» (Fieldwork notes; 17th of Ramadan, 1439 / 2nd of June, 2018)

References

Clifford, James. 1986. Introduction: Partial Truths. In James Clifford & George E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography ( 1 – 27 ). Berkeley, California and London, England: University of California Press.

The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia.

Retrieved June 5, 2018 from

https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/530102013003/consolide

Crapanzano, Vincent. 1986. Hermes’ Dilemma: The Masking of Subversion in Ethnographic Description. In James Clifford & George E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (pages of chapter). Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

ERR. 2016. Finnish PEN club: Kender’s ‘U12’ is a ‘grotesque thriller’, not child porn. Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR). Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://news.err.ee/118569/finnish-pen-club-kender-s-u12-is-a-grotesque-thriller-not-child-porn

Garland, Alex. 1999. Rand [The Beach] (Turu, Rein, Trans.). Tallinn, Estonia: Varrak.

Giles, James. 2004. Book Reviews: Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays From the Field. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 33(4), 413–417.

Heimans, Frank (Director). 1988. Margaret Mead and Samoa [Documentary]. Cremorne, New South Wales: Cinetel Productions. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8puR-AaSrg

Herdt, Gilbert. 1999. Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays From the Field. Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

Kender, Kaur. 2001. Check out. Tallinn, Estonia: Pegasus.

Kender, Kaur. 2015, January 14. Mõned sõnad Untitled 12 kohta [Few words about Untitled 12] [Web log post]. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from http://nihilist.fm/moned-sonad-untitled-12-kohta/

Kender, Kaur. 2014. Untitled 12. Nihilist.Fm : ZA/UM

Knight, Michael Muhammad. 2009. Osama Van Halen. Brooklyn, New York: Soft Skull Press

Martin, Amis. 2000. Surnud lapsed [Dead Babies] (Metsaots, Kati, Trans.). Tallinn, Estonia: Olion.

Moreno, Eva. 1995. Rape in the field. In Don Kulick & Margaret Willson (Eds.), Taboo: Sex, identity, and erotic subjectivity in anthropological fieldwork. London, England: Routledge.

Padilha, José (Director). 2010. Secrets of the Tribe [Documentary]. Brazil: Avenue B Productions Zazen Produções. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd7SXbsn0hU

Palahniuk, Chuck. 2006. Haunted. London, England: Vintage Books.

Penal Code of the Republic of Estonia. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/522012015002/consolide

Shankman, Paul. 1996. The History of Samoan Sexual Conduct and the Mead-Freeman Controversy. American Anthropologist, 98(3), 555-567.

#anthropology #transgressive #transgression #autoethnography #literature #eesti kirjandus #kirjandus #ethnography

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