#here you just get a social security check which they are somewhat generous with except for rent and childcare

[br1ghtestlight]

the american food stamps system is CRAZY to me it doesn't work like that at all here lmao. a government benefit but you're only allowed to use it to buy specific food in front of god and everybody at the grocery store too like whats the point?? idk just seems overly strict compared to how i grew up anyway

[redwallthoughts]

Redwall Midwinter Miracle: Day 4 Part 1

As promised, it has not taken another three years to update! Just... well, you know, six months... which is better than last time!

On a more serious note, I’m sorry for taking so long to update. I had hoped to have this chapter up sooner but as I’m sure most of you know, this past year has been rather crazy, for lack of a better word, and that slowed down the writing process.

The original work I mentioned at the start of the last chapter hasn’t fared much better, unfortunately, although the blog is still up! Go check out @moiranvall-official if you’re at all interested in getting updates once I get further into the story.

Once again thanks to @raphcrow for her help with editing, beta-reading, and generally being there for me to spout ideas at until something sticks

On with the story!

FF.net, AO3, DA

[Ch.1] [Ch.2] [Ch.3] [Ch.4] [Ch.5] [Ch.6]

The next morning dawned dark and gray, accompanied by a bitter wind that blew so fiercely it rattled the windows of Great Hall in their frames and was so cold that, even with the warmth rising from the kitchens below, Rose felt the chill in her bones. Her footpaws ached so terribly that she could not rise from bed without Sister Amyl’s assistance. The good sister helped her bundle into the warmest clothes she had and wrapped a thick woolen shawl securely around her shoulders before accompanying her down to Cavern Hole for breakfast.

Great Hall, when they emerged, was far quieter than it had been the past few mornings. The dibbuns, it seemed, knew better than to ask to be allowed outside in this weather. A great gust of wind buffeted the windows as it howled past, rattling the windows and sending a shiver down Rose's spine. She turned as she heard the great wooden doors close at the far end of the hall. Rowanoak and Ballaw stood speaking quietly before the doors, occasionally glancing over their shoulders as though they could still see the snow on the other side. A light dusting of snow covered both their shoulders, though it didn’t seem that they’d spent long outside.

Ballaw huffed, twitching his ears this way and that until the snow was gone. “Well,” he said as they drew closer, “I s’pose there’s no helping, after all.”

Rowanoak nodded her great, striped head. “It would seem so. Good morning, Rose,”

Rose nodded to the pair, trying to smile but grimacing instead. “Good morning, Rowanoak, Ballaw.” She leaned heavily on her crutches, slowly turning to make her way to Cavern Hole.

“Care for a lift, dear?” Rowanoak asked, holding out a paw to Rose.

“Yes, please,” Rose said. She surrendered her crutches to Ballaw before Rowanoak swept her up with gentle paws.

The festive air that had permeated Cavern Hole the previous mornings was subdued, but still present. Rose gazed out across the room from her vantage point in Rowanoak’s arms, spotting familiar faces scattered throughout the crowd. Keyla and Tulgrew had integrated seamlessly with Redwall’s otter population, sitting and chatting with the new friends as though they’d lived here for seasons. Celandine appeared to be flirting shamelessly with three different young squirrels at once. Rose couldn’t see Grumm, but she was sure he was present somewhere, enjoying his time with the mole crew.

“Auntie Rose!”

The familiar cry came from a table off to Rowanoak’s right, and Rose had to crane her neck to see her eldest niece, Myrtle, seated on a bench between Mayflower and a young squirrelmaid Rose didn’t recognize.

“Good morning, Myrtle,” she said as Rowanoak turned. “Good morning, Mayflower.” Now that she was no longer contorting herself to see Myrtle, she realized her niece had joined a larger group of similarly aged dibbuns that included Mayflower’s brothers and Tintin. The group was supervised by yet another familiar face. “Good morning, Trimp.”

The hogmaid looked up at her, dark eyes twinkling as she smiled. “Good morning, Rose.” She patted the bench next to her. “Care to join us?”

Rose considered for a moment before her gaze moved to the head table, unbidden.

Down on the bench, Trimp laughed softly. “I haven’t seen Martin yet today, though I’m sure he’ll show his?face sooner or later.”

Rose squeaked and resisted the urge to hide her face in her paws as she realized she’d been caught. “I’d love to join you,” she managed to say, shoving down her embarrassment so that her voice was only slightly squeaky. Guilt bloomed in her chest as Rowanoak settled her onto the bench and Ballaw tucked her crutches carefully under the table before leaving to find their own seats. “I’m sorry I’ve been so preoccupied the last few days.” She’d meant to spend time with Trimp when she saw her friend that first night, truly she had. But then Martin had walked into the room and her world had turned on its head. To her surprise, Trimp only grinned at her.

“I was the one who said you’d like Martin, if I recall correctly, “ she said. “Seems I was right.” A mischievous twinkle shone in her eyes as she patted Rose’s paw gently. “Besides, he seems quite taken with you as well.”

Rose did hide her face in her paws at that, certain her ears had flushed a brilliant crimson. She suffered Trimp’s gentle laughter in silence. Protesting further, she was sure, would not help the matter. Eventually, Trimp’s laughter faded to a soft chuckle, and Rose allowed herself to be coaxed upright by the smell of food.

Trimp was still smiling at her, but the expression had softened somewhat from pure amusement. “My apologies,” she said, catching Rose’s paw in a quick squeeze, “I’ll try not to tease too much.”

They ate in silence for a time, listening to the gentle hum of chatter from the dibbuns around them.

“So,” Rose said, “You’ve told me how you came to Redwall, but not why you stayed. I thought you planned to wander until the season turned you grey?”

Trimp nodded slowly, spreading a scone with honey before she answered. “That was the plan, originally, until I came here.” She split the scone and offered half of it to Rose. “You remember how I told you that my family used to live near the North-western coast?”

Rose nodded, her mouth full.

“I got to see the place, on that same adventure when I met Chugger. It was so strange and quiet, lonely, even. I remember looking up at those cliffs and feeling so terribly alone and small.” Trimp smiled again, her eyes soft and far away. “And then I looked down at the beach below and saw all the friends I’d come to love while we traveled.” She laughed quietly. “Little Chugger was waving his paws for my attention and the others were all preparing for the return journey, and I suddenly found myself thinking that I was ready to go home. Except home wasn’t really a place anymore. It was the creatures I’d met and shared such a wonderful adventure with. So when we returned I didn’t feel the need to leave again. I was home.”

Rose had to blink back tears before giving Trimp’s paw a gentle squeeze. “I’m glad you’ve found your home,” she said. Some small part of her had hoped, seasons ago, that Trimp would settle in Noonvale when she finished wandering. They had so few visitors that found the hidden town and each one was a treasure. That hope had grown smaller with each new season, however. And now, having joined Rowanoak and Ballaw on their final journey, Rose could see why Trimp hadn’t settled in Noonvale. The town was too small and isolated for such a social creature. Trimp would have felt stifled, just as Brome had when they were young. She wondered if Martin would have felt stifled, had he returned. Sighing heavily, she rubbed her paws across her face. It had been a long time since she found her thoughts so consumed by Martin. She wanted to focus on Trimp and forget everything else for a while, but now even Trimp was tied to Martin in her mind. A gentle touch on her shoulder pulled her from her thoughts as she let out a long, shuddering sigh. “I’m sorry, Trimp. I haven’t been very good company this morning.”

Trimp’s face, when she looked up, was full of concern. “Are you okay, Rose?”

“I’m fine,” Rose said, forcing a smile onto her face, “Just a bit sore due to the cold.”

Trimp held her gaze for a long moment before turning back to breakfast. Cavern Hole was beginning to clear as others finished their food and turned to doing chores or enjoying the day together.

“I don’t think it’s just the cold,” Trimp said after the dibbuns eating with them left.

Rose didn’t look up from her plate, her breath caught in her throat.

Trimp glanced around Cavern Hole, presumably checking to ensure no beast would eavesdrop when she continued. “You’ve had a far-away look on your face all morning, I’ve seen it before.” Her smile was almost sad, and Rose could feel her own smile slipping slightly. “Lavender told me about your search for your old friend. I assume that’s who you’re thinking of when you look like that.”

Rose bit back a sigh. There was no reason to hide the truth, even if she wasn’t sure how to explain everything just yet. “It was seasons ago,” she said quietly, “I fell in love with a memory.”

Trimp patted her paw yet again, and Rose got the feeling she would have been pulled into a hug if Trimp wasn’t being careful of her spines. “Your mother told me,” she said. “She said you’ve fallen in love half-a-dozen times over the seasons, but none as deep of true as your first love. She said you followed him into battle, that he promised to protect your life more fiercely than his own, and that he never returned.”

Rose closed her eyes and bit her lip, but she couldn’t stop the tears welling up to overflow. She’d known that Martin had made a promise to her mother, but she hadn’t known what exactly. “He was so brave,” she whispered, “So determined to protect as many as he could. And…”

“And Martin reminds you of him,” Trimp finished for her.

Rose opened her mouth and shut it again. She wanted to shake her head, to explain everything, to shout ‘it was Martin! It’s always been Martin!’ But words failed her and she could do nothing more than cling to Trimp’s paws as the tears poured down her face. She’d fallen in love with a memory, and now she was falling for him all over again. He was not the same Martin she’d known in those wild summer days. He was older now, and wiser, and the rage she’d seen in him when they were young had been tempered by the seasons. But he was still as driven and kind and gentle as she remembered. He still had a deep-seated need to protect those around him. And she was starting to hope, in some small corner of her heart, that there was a chance that he might come to return her love. If she could find a way to remind him of the past. She wasn’t sure she could bear it if he remembered nothing, or worse, if he denied it had ever happened.

It felt like a long time before the tears stopped flowing and she was able to loosen her grip on Trimp’s paws, but Rose felt better for having shed the tears and Trimp was still looking at her with gentle hope.

“Im sorry, Rose,” she said, “I just want you to be happy.”

Rose brushed the last of her tears from her eyes and offered a watery smile. “I think , for the first time in a long time, there’s a chance for that to happen.”

Then sat and talked for a while longer, Trimp more than happy to distract Rose with tales of her travels prior to arriving at Redwall, as well as a few stories from her time already spent at the abbey. Rose allowed herself to become lost in the stories, reveling in time spent with an old friend. It was all too soon, however, that Rowanoak approached the table and Rose had to make her apologies for leaving in the middle of a story. Trimp merely waved her off with a laugh and promised to finish the tale at a later time.

Brome couldn’t help but feel a touch smothered in the crowded library as they waited for Rowanoak and Rose. The original members of the Rambling Rosehip Players, Ballaw, Trefoil, Celandine, Buckler, Gauchee, and Kastern were all in attendance, settling themselves on the floor or various pieces of furniture. Keyla and Tulgrew, who usually sat out these meetings, were cuddled together against a bookcase. They hadn’t had any specific ideas when Brome asked for their help the evening before, but had been willing to sit in on the meeting in case either thought of anything useful. Brome had settled himself into a low chair next to a sizable pile of blankets he’d prepared for Rose, knowing the cold surely had her footpaws aching terribly.

Gonff the mousethief sat a bit apart from the others, perched on the edge of the desk that sat before one of the windows, his footpaws swinging idly back and forth. He looked vaguely unsettled.

Brome’s thoughts were broken when the library door swung open and Rowanoak strode in, Rose carried safely in her grasp. Once he was satisfied that Rose had been suitably tucked into her seat, he passed her a mug of tea with a wink and a smile. “Our friend missed you at breakfast,” he teased, smiling when her ears flushed pink.

Rose smiled and watched her tea studiously. “I was catching up with Trimp,” she murmured into the mug.

Brome bit back a smile and forced himself to observe his sister with a more discerning eye. She’d been crying, he could see, though she hid it well. Whatever had been weighing on her mind seemed not so troubling anymore, or else she’d pushed it aside in favor of the issue they were meeting to discuss. Her eyes were on her tea, but her mind seemed far away, judging by the soft smile on her face. He’d seen that look countless times before, but this time it didn’t hold the usual sad taint.

“Well then,” Ballaw said, drawing everybeast’s  attention as he squeezed into the small space at the center of the room. “Now that we’ve all arrived we’d best get down to business.”

Rowanoak nodded and fixed her gaze on each member of the party in turn. “I know Brome has told you all the most important reason we’ve gathered today, discussing how to help Martin recover his memories.” She paused until everybeast had nodded silent affirmation. “However, before we can discuss-” she broke off suddenly and looked about the room, counting heads on her claws. “Where is Grumm?”

“You’m’ll ‘ave ter fergive Grumm, Mizz Row’noak,” Buckler said. “Foremole Dinny askered ‘im if’n ‘e’d loik t’ ‘elp wi’ ee zoop fer ee feast.”

“I see,” Rowanoak said, nodding.

Grumm was, after all, quite talented at making soup.

“Very well,” Rowanoak returned to her earlier thought. “The first thing we need to discuss is our stay here at the abbey.”

Brome saw Rose tilt her head in confusion out of the corning of his eye. She’d missed that conversation at breakfast.

“The snowfall has been consistently heavy since we arrived,” Rowanoak explained. “Travel, at this time, is possible but likely difficult. Thankfully, both Bella and the good Mother Abbess have offered the abbey’s hospitality for as long as we may need to stay. The question now is, do we wish to risk continued travel? Or shall we stay at the abbey until the weather lightens?”

They sat in silence for a few moments before Gonff piped up from his seat on the desk. “I know you lot’ll need to head back North eventually, but it seems to me that the snow’ll just get worse the further North you go right now.”

“And there’s no point in traveling further South,” Keyla added, “Not when the only reason we even came this far was to search for Martin.”

Gonff nodded. “Exactly. Besides, I know there’s quite a few creatures here who’d like to see you stay a bit longer.”

Brome nodded thoughtfully. It would certainly be nice to not need to wade through heavy snow on the way home. He looked to Rowanoak and Ballaw. “You’ve led us well thus far,” he said, “I’ll trust your judgement on this matter.” Murmurs of agreement sounded from around the room.

“Very well, then,” Rowanoak said. “We’ll stay until the weather improves for travel.” She nodded decisively. “The next matter of business is to consider what to do tomorrow evening, given that Ballaw has already promised a performance to the dibbuns.”

Ballaw grinned and twirled his ears. “We could always do the Marshank play,” he suggested. “Two birds with one stone and all that nonsense, wot wot. Give the good abbeybeasts a thrilling story and jog the warrior lad’s memory at the same time. It’s abso-bally-lutely brilliant.” The hare was beaming with pride, but Brome had a feeling things wouldn’t be so easy as that.

“No,” Rose said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t feel right.”

Rowanoak looked at the maid curiously. “While I’m inclined to agree with you, I would like to hear why you feel it would be wrong?”

Rose sat quietly for a moment before speaking. “It’s one thing to perform that story at home where nearly everybeast knew Martin personally or at least knows of him. Or when we perform for strangers who don’t know us or Martin at all. But this is his home now. It wouldn’t be right to tell his story here when he doesn’t remember it himself.” She stared resolutely into her mug as she finished speaking, her expressions set in a way Brome hadn’t seen in ages.

“I’m with th’ missy on this,” Gonff said. He’d pulled a small dagger from somewhere and was twirling it easily in his paws. “It’s going t’ take a bit more than just puting on a play t’ bring Martin’s mem’ries back.” He tossed the dagger in a lazy arc and sighed, looking around the room before settling his gaze on Rose. “I doubt it’s a terribly fun story you have t’ tell, but I think I can be of more help if’n I know what Martin’s fergot.”

Rose nodded and began her tale. Brome had heard her tell of the events many times before, but as he sat watching Gonff’s face he tried to imagine hearing the tale for the first time from Gonff’s perspective. Some parts were so undeniably Martin, he was sure Gonff would have no difficulty believing what had happened. Other things, such as meeting Aggril, or when father forbade the carrying of blades in Noonvale, were met with looks of disquiet.

Gonff had returned the dagger to its place on his belt by the time Rose finished, his eyes hard and serious. Though, Rose didn’t seem to notice through the haze of memories. Gonff’s mouth had set into a grim line when Rose explained how she’d attacked Badrang and been thrown against the wall for her efforts. His own gaze was nearly as far away as Rose’s.

“Well,” he said, some time after Rose had lapsed into silence, “That would explain a thing or two.” He looked around the room again, fixing each of them with his bright stare before returning his attention to Rose. “I’m certain, now, a play isn’t what Martin needs to remember his past.” He hesitated a moment, his gaze softening slightly. “It’s going t’ have t’ be you who reminds him, Rose.”

Rose sat up straighter, tilting her head in confusion. “Why me?”

Gonff sighed and looked down to his paws grasped in his lap, then up again to glance around the room. “I’ve got my reasons, though I’m not sure…” he trailed off and looked at his paws again. “It’s something I haven’t spoken of but once since th’ night it happened.”

Rowanoak nodded. “A private matter, then.” She motioned to Ballaw, “Why don’t you take the others and work on choosing a play. Rose and I can join you once we’re finished here.” She turned to Kastern. “I’m trusting you to speak in my place until I arrive.”

Kastern nodded her agreement and stood, joining the others as they filed toward the door.

“I’m sorry,” Brome said, “But could I stay, please?” He glanced at Rose, uncertain how exactly to voice his concern with leaving her to such a serious discussion without offending her.

Gonff interjected before he had to. “I think that’ll be alright.” He waited until the door shut behind the others before speaking again. “I’ll warn you, it’s not a pleasant story. Hopefully, if all goes well, I won’t need t’ ever speak of it again.” He sighed again and kicked his footpaws back and forth before settling them on the edge of the chair in front of him.

“It happened one night during the war,'' he began, “While Martin, Dinny, an’ meself were traveling to Salamandastron.” He spoke to all three of them, but his gaze was fixed firmly on Rose, all signs of his usual joviality gone and his tone far more serious than it was during his performances in the evenings. “We were getting so close to our goal. Dinny an’ Log-a-log were already asleep.”

Gonff closed his eyes and drew in a long breath, as though the action could transport him back to that far-away night. “I saw Martin sitting by th’ fire holding his sword hilt. He was staring into th’ fire like he was a world away. I remember saying to meself ‘such a shame ‘is sword’s broke, must o’ been a beautiful blade at one time.’”

“It was,” Rowanoak said quietly. “Well made, too, with a near perfect balance. It’s no wonder Badrang wanted it.”

Gonff smiled sadly, and continued. “I got up, wasn’t sleeping yet anyways, plopped meself down next to him, an’ waited fer him t’ notice I was there.” He chuckled. “That took a while.

‘Something wrong?’ he asked me.

‘Think you’ll ever find a new sword, mate?’ I asked back.

He went quiet again. I figured he was just thinking it o’er, ‘til I looked at him.” Gonff ran a paw across his face, turning his gaze to the wall behind Rose. “He weren’t crying, but the look on his face was worse, some’ow. He looked like his heart had been torn out an’ cut t’ pieces. I almost wish he would‘ve cried. I would have known what t’ do. It was like he’d already cried, like he still wanted t’ cry, but he’d run out o’ tears.”

Brome swallowed past a sudden knot in his throat and blinked back his own tears. Looking at Rowanoak, he saw her doing the same. Briefly, he recalled what she had told him seasons prior.

“He didn’t speak at all, except when he woke after the battle and the day he left. As soon as he was strong enough, he would go into the forest daily to grieve alone.”

It seemed likely, then, that Martin had indeed run out of tears.

Gonff continued. “An’ then, when he spoke he was so quiet I almost didn’t hear him.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I can’t. If Boar is willing, I’ll ask him t’ remake th’ blade, but I will never take up another sword again.’ He were clinging to that broken blade like it were th’ only thing b’tween him an’ death. ‘She died because I insisted on getting it back,’ he said. ‘I swore to protect her, but I failed and she died.’” Gonff broke off suddenly, clearing his throat and wiping a paw across his eyes. “He told me- he told me it should’ve been him that died instead. But he didn’t, so now he needed t’ live, because she would’ve wanted that.” He lapsed into silence, the quiet broken only by the occasional sniffle.

“Who was it?” Rose asked. “Did he ever say?”

Brome didn’t have to look to know Rose was holding back tears, he could hear it in her voice.

Gonff shook his head. “He never told me th’ name. Just said she was a maiden as sweet as summer with a heart of gold who didn’t deserve to die so young.” He focused his gaze on Rose again. “But I’ve got a suspicion.”

Rose let out a strangled sound and this time Brome looked at her. She wasn’t crying yet, but he could see tears gathering in her eyes. “Trimp told me this morning- she told me-” another strangled sob “-she said Mama told her that Martin promised to protect my life more fiercely than his own. She didn’t know it was Martin but-” A tear spilled over and trickled down her whisker before she buried her face in her paws. “You’re saying he thought I was dead?” She shook as she cried, and Brome felt his heart breaking for her and for Martin.

“I’m sorry, Rose,” Rowanoak rumbled, breaking the daze that seemed to have settled over them. “I should have told you.” She crossed the room and gently gathered Rose against her chest, one huge paw rubbing across the mousemaid’s shoulders. “I knew that Martin thought you were dead. All of us who stayed with Polleekin thought you were dead. We didn’t know otherwise until we returned to  Noonvale, and by that time, Martin had already gone. There didn’t seem to be any reason to tell you and bring you more pain. I thought he left because of memories of the others who had died in battle. If I had known how deeply your supposed death had affected him specifically, then perhaps- perhaps we might have tried harder to find him again.” Rowanoak pulled away, her voice full of sorrow and regret.

“I’m sorry, Rose,” Brome murmured, moving closer to clasp her paw between his own. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

Gonff cleared his throat softly, drawing their attention back to him.

“Unfortunately, there’s more.”

Gonff froze when Rose looked at him, a few tears still trickling down her face, and he almost wanted to take back the words. To say he was mistaken, that he’d mis-remembered and that she’d already heard all there was to hear. But that would hardly be fair to her, or Martin. He was sending her into battle, in a sense. This was Martin’s best, if not only, chance to remember his past and put old ghosts to rest. He would not do Rose the disservice of sending her in without telling her what she needed to know.

“What else happened?” Rose asked quietly. Her voice was small, but firm and she’d wiped the remaining tears from her face.

“After the war,” Gonff said, unable to meet her gaze, “Once we’d realized ‘ow much Martin had fergot, I set t’ helping him remember.” Exactly how long that had taken and how badly Tsarmina had wounded Martin he didn’t say. Martin could tell her later, when the knowledge was less likely to send her back into tears. “I was going o’er our adventure with him, figuring out what he knew an’ what he’d fergot, when I remember that evening I just told you about. I asked him if he remembered it, and what he’d said.” Gonff voice caught in his throat, the words hanging on the tip of his tongue.

They were all watching, waiting with baited breath for Martin’s answer. Brome had shifted closer to Rose again, but she sat straight, not leaning into the comfort her brother offered.

“He got real quiet,” Gonff said, staring at his paws again rather than meet Rose’s too-bright gaze. “Then he said, ‘please don’t ask me about that. I don’t remember who we spoke about, but I remember the guilt.’ He had that look again, like he wanted to cry but couldn’t. ‘It hurts too much when I can’t remember,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I can bear remembering again.’” He sighed and dragged a paw across his face. “He didn’t talk again for the rest o’ th’ evening, an’ he seemed to forget by the next day.” He forced himself to meet Rose’s gaze. “That’s why it has t’ be you that tells him. Everybeast has a weakness, and Martin’s weakness is you.”

He half expected Rose to burst into more tears and refuse to be comforted, but she didn’t. Instead, she met his gaze, her eyes rimmed pink from her earlier outbursts, and nodded. “I understand,” she said. Her voice rang hollow, and looked like she was clenching her jaw to keep from crying. “I-I’ll have to think about how to remind him, but I promise to do my best.”

Brome looked as though he were about to say something, but stopped before the words escaped. Gonff didn’t blame him. Rose had all the information now, what she did with it was up to her.

Gonff found that he suddenly felt extremely tired, as though he’d set down a burden he hadn’t known he was carrying. In a way, he realized, he had. The responsibility of helping Martin remember, and come to terms with, his past no longer rested on his shoulders. And while he did feel a slight bit guilty for placing such a heavy burden on Rose’s slim shoulders, he was also unshakably certain that she was up to the task. Even with her face streaked with evidence of her tears, she still radiated a quiet strength that reminded him in many ways of his own wife. He made a mental note to Columbine as soon as he was finished here, and make sure he told her just how grateful he was to have her in his life.

Rose nodded again. “Thank you for telling me what you know. I’m sure it will be most helpful.”

Rowanoak huffed out a woosh of air. “Well, now that that’s settled, let’s go make sure Ballaw hasn’t suggested too many more crazy plays for us to do.”

Gonff took his leave quietly as the trio went to join the rest of the troupe. The sun was still obscured by the storm outside as he made his way down to Great Hall, though the faint murmur rising from the stones beneath his footpaws told him it was likely later in the afternoon than he had thought. Columbine would be working in the kitchens again, he thought, turning toward the stairs with a re-energized skip in his step. Perhaps he could convince her to spare a scone or two before the feast, after he stole a few kisses, of course.

[genesisrose74]

um hello 😳 I would like to request a fic 🥴 uhM could I get a (general, platonic lol) fukurodani with a shy third year manager? with like a subtle bokuto x manger 😳 ? oh and one day, the manager builds up the courage to give them a very quiet but motivational speech ? (bonus poiNts if they’re like,,, “protective” over them ahaha 🥴) anyways uh,, ty ty ! 😳 - @your-local-bnha-writer // bean ! ☺️

Okay first off thank you for being my first ever ask and second I ADORE THAT! Here you are darling, hope I did something to your liking!

The school halls of Fukurodani Academy bustles with activity, students hurrying to start their weekend after leaving the campus grounds. Well, all but yourself. You were zipping up your backpack and preparing to make a beeline towards one of your favorite places on campus. As the manager of Fukurodani’s volleyball team, you always made it a rule to be standing in the practice gym on time, note taking clipboard in hand and first aid kit slotted neatly between the legs of your chair. God knows you needed one (or three) on hand. Today, you were running a bit behind after being chosen to clean up the room, so you felt ready to hightail it across school.

However, you were stopped in the doorway of your now empty classroom, effectively halting your movements to get to team practice. You recognized the figure in front of you as one of your fellow third year students from the class down the hall - quite a popular soccer player if you were remembering correctly - but you internally panicked when you couldn’t put a name to the face.

“Hey, you’re the one who scored super high on the midterms a while back, right?” He asks, and you nod, feeling a little impatient but too timid to excuse yourself.

He didn’t seem to notice your antsy behavior, however, a grin widening on his face as he leaned closer to you in eagerness. Your lungs squeeze in your chest with his proximity.

“That’s super awesome! Do you think that, maybe you could tutor me sometime?”

Social interaction was something you were not very skilled at. While many people had asked you before for after school help and such, it was usually over text or around your friends, where you felt a bit more comfortable. Usually they would understand and politely go on their way. Yet now, you were having trouble conversing with this guy, let alone tutoring him, and there was no one else you knew in sight to help explain as you only became more fidgety.

“Well, I’m really sorry,” you clasp your hands in front of you, looking down as you fiddle with your fingers, “but I don’t think I can tutor anyone currently.”

The boy tilts his head, eyebrows furrowing. “But I thought you tutored Bokuto. Why not me?”

Your eyes widen. Now it looks like you’re just turning this guy down because you don’t like him, doesn’t it? “Oh, Bokuto is…” how do I explain?

Not many people knew that you were the manager of Fukurodani’s volleyball team. Such a lively sport and an even rowdier team didn’t seem like a very fitting place for someone as reserved as yourself. If they did know that, they might be able to see the large chunk of time it took up in your schedule, not leaving much room for everything else. Bokuto was an exception for tutoring, because you would help him out in the club room after practice, but that was really all you had time for.

Maybe if you could explain that, this boy might understand. Yet he was so close to your personal space, it was making it more difficult to speak than usual.

How long have you both been standing here? You’re already late for practice at this point.

“Did I do something that made you upset? Or are you just interested in Bokuto or something?” the third year presses.

Your body jolts at his inquiries, voice a bit higher pitched than before when you answer. “N-no! It’s not like that!”

“Then what’s the issue?” he leans forward even more, and now you can’t tell if he’s intentionally trying to be nosy or if he’s just being inquisitive. It doesn’t matter to you as you keep stumbling over your words.

“She’s our manager, that’s the issue,” a voice speaks up behind the unnamed boy, and your shoulders loosen up when you recognize the new presence to be Akaashi. There’s another figure beside him, his trademark hairstyle easily identifiable, and he only makes you feel more at ease.

Bokuto is next to you in a moment, already in his practice gear. You look up at him with confusion written on your features, eyes conveying a silent question of why are you here?

“You’re never late,” he explains with an easy grin. “So we wanted to check up on you.”

His hand is on your arm as Bokuto gently guides you over to the open hall, watching as Akaashi explains your occupation as their manager to the third year from earlier. As impassive as the setter is while he speaks, the male he’s talking to does not look very secure under the hardened stare of the Fukurodani captain beside you.

Before you can properly register or wave it off, the boy apologizes profusely to you before scurrying out of the building as quick as he can. Akaashi turns to you with a soft smile, although the rest of his posture expresses concern. “Are you alright?”

“I’m okay,” you confirm. “I don’t think he was trying to be pushy on purpose.”

“Still,” Bokuto speaks up, unusually serious, “he shouldn’t have kept getting that close to you. It was clearly making you uncomfortable.”

His mood suddenly shifts when he looks into your eyes, voice energized and inviting as he juts his thumb over his shoulder in the now less-crowded hall. “Want to get to practice now?”

A nod is all the setter and spiker duo need to string you along on their trek back to the gym. Akaashi is relatively quiet, sometimes throwing his two cents in but mostly letting Bokuto take the lead on conversation. The second year offers you a stick of Pocky that you gladly accept, laughing gently about something Bokuto said in his class that afternoon. When you all reach the entrance of the gym, there’s no longer tension in your body, and your heart warms when you spot the entire team waiting for you to arrive.

Komi, who’s in your classroom, greets you with a somewhat guilty expression when you enter. “I didn’t realize you got stuck with clean up or I would have stayed behind to help.”

You shake your head at the sentiment. “It’s alright, you would have been cutting it close getting here.”

The rest of the boys wave at you, sharing their concern for your whereabouts when you weren’t in the gym on time. You can’t help but shy away a bit from the attention, but a smile tugs at the corners of your lips as you help set up with the knowledge that your team truly cared for you.

While you’d only known some players on the team for less than a year now, it already felt like they were part of the close friends you had accumulated over your last three years in the volleyball club. As much as it seemed out of character for you to be open to such an unruly team and their sport, it was one of the places that you felt the most comfortable. Leaving the job behind you when the time came later in the year was something you hated dwelling on, as you knew it would be one of the hardest things to let go of.

Konoha hitting that line shot just right, Washio and Onaga high fiving after stuffing a block, Komi spitting out his water in laughter when Saru completely botched his jump serve. Things so trivial, but the moments that you’d remember for a long time coming.

Of course, you’d stay in touch with your team, especially the third years with which you’d spent so many memories. But you wanted to give them something to remember you by, something to convey how special your three years with them had been. It was difficult, though, seeing as you were more soft spoken than others. It felt like a hindrance on how much appreciation you could show your team, even more so when there were so many kind and outgoing members who could brighten your day in an instant. You could barely even muster up the courage to speak to the whole team at once, despite the progress you had made with being more sociable during your time in the club.

So what could you do?

“Someone looks happier,” Bokuto notes, snapping you out of your thoughts. He takes a seat on a folding chair beside you, drinking his water while giving you the side eye.

You hum in agreement with his observation, and the captain sports another one of his easy smiles, although his eyes seem more affectionate this time around. “I’m glad.”

Your cheeks turn rosy whenever he looks at you like that, and you’re hoping he just thinks it’s a product of your shyness, regardless of the fact that you feel the most confident and outgoing whenever said third year is around. Fortunately for you, he doesn’t seem to notice it, instead standing to rummage through his bag behind the set of chairs.

A large piece of fabric is placed around your shoulders, which you notice to be Bokuto’s team jacket as it covers you. You push your arms through the jacket sleeves, much too over-sized for your figure, but you’re very much content as it instantly warms you up.

“You always forget yours,” he chides, although his sweet smile betrays his scolding tone. “I’m starting to think you like mine better.”

“Mine’s in my locker, which I never go past cause I’m always rushing here,” you mumble, looking away from him in embarrassment.

It had become a very usual habit of yours to take the captain’s jacket during practices, and it was even more common in the past year as you’d grown even closer to him. It was just so comfy and big on you, not to mention it smelled like him.

Hahahaha what-

Bokuto falters for a moment when you glance back up at him, sweater paws adjusting the clothing to look less awkward on your sitting form. He feels his heart skip a beat when you give him an appreciative half-smile. “Thanks.”

The ace clears his throat and scratches the back of his neck, becoming the shyer one in that moment as his gaze falls on anything but you. “Yeah, no problem.”

While the Fukurodani captain returns to his place on the court for an end of practice scrimmage, you take the time to look around the group of players you’d come to know and love so much. The final regular season tournament was closing in quicker than you hoped, and then it might very well be time to say goodbye. Still, you felt only a content warmth as you watched your team - from the jacket around your shoulders or from something else, you weren’t sure - as you came to a decision.

You were going to give the best damn pep talk that your boys have ever heard.

For the remainder of practice you sat in that same folding chair, clipboard in hand and first aid kit between your feet, and you scribbled the hell out of your notes. Every draft would start off strong, and you felt good about the direction of what you wanted to say, but then you hadn’t the slightest clue of how to convey your next message in the following sentence. Nothing flowed correctly or seemed good enough, so you scratched out your words and started again. That cycle continues for what seems like forever, and before you know it, the sounds of team encouragement and sneakers squeaking on the floor no longer fill your ears.

You jump a bit after registering the team calling you over for a quick huddle, scurrying beside Coach Yamiji as you freak out over the fact that practice is already over.

Shit, shit, shit. Not enough time.

Coach discusses the upcoming tournament with everyone, but you’re falling in and out of focus, frantically tapping a pen on the clipboard in your grasp. There was practically nothing you could use on it’s pages, everything either scratched out or just not even completed. The concrete resolve you had built up beforehand felt as if it were falling away like eroding sand while insecurity bubbled up inside. If it weren’t for the intense focus the boys were putting into today’s post-practice talk, a few might have noticed your fidgety demeanor, but the meeting felt much too quick until it was already time for the last cheer.

Did the moment really pass away?

Worry on what to say fell away into disappointment as each team member joined their hands in. Maybe you should just leave it be.

But your own, jacket-covered hands hesitated to meet in the middle, instead reaching out to the side and grabbing at an unassuming Akaashi.

No. That’s the only thing that crossed your mind once the doubts passed through. You tug at the setter’s practice shirt a bit, the second year looking over to you with curiosity. Bokuto also looks your way, and the rest of the team follows suit when they realize their captain-vice captain duo have their attention captured. Hands drop from the middle of the circle as you make no move to include yours.

“You alright?” Akaashi asks, face impassive except for his worried eyes.

You nod, taking in a breath as you scan the group of inquisitive boys. “I’m fine. I just - c-could I say something?”

Your voice barely raises above a murmur when addressing the team, but the widened eyes of each member indicates that everyone heard you. The shake out of their surprise quickly, though, expressions encouraging of your request.

“Of course you can, y/n!” Bokuto animatedly supports with a huge grin. “Go ahead, team manager!”

A smile of your own tugs at your lips, the captain’s boisterous attitude easing your nervousness. You hug the scribbled upon clipboard to your chest as you start, knowing for a fact that your words wouldn’t be written anywhere on there.

“I just wanted to say…” your voice is soft but sure as you begin, “I wanted to let you know, how much you all inspire me. It’s kind of scary thinking that this next tournament might be my last one with you, but I’m really confident that you will give it your all - and probably even more - to make sure we keep our time together going.

“Our school banner says to put your heart and soul into each ball, which I think you’ve always done, so that’s all you can ask of yourselves. Be proud, and show off, and maybe we can show the whole country this team that I’m so happy to be a part of. I-I don’t care what happens, but just promise me...that you’ll give it your best?”

Every person in the gym is silent as they listen to you, eyes ironically owlish while you give the first major pep talk of your three year managerial career. If you looked closer, you would have noticed the glassiness of their stares that hinted at oncoming waterworks, some of the boys biting the insides of their cheeks to keep themselves together. You can’t tell if the dead quiet is due to your awkward speech or not, so you attempt to wrap things up.

“Uhm, I’m being pretty cliche right now, so I’ll stop here...” your voice drops off, but it’s hardly noticeable to the guys at this point. The distinct sounds of sniffling reaches your ears, and it’s then when you realize that nearly the entire group appears emotional.

Komi, being one of the more outspoken players on the team, is the first one to truly pipe up, voice uncharacteristically cracking when he asks, “Is it alright to hug?”

Your cheeks grow warm with the question, your own eyes welling up as you choke out a small laugh. “Yeah, go on ahead if you want.”

The entire team engulfs you in a big, emotional, quite sweaty sandwich of a group hug, but you don’t mind the perspiration or the proximity at the moment. The third years were quickest to embrace you, their tears staining Bokuto’s jacket that you still wore - the ace’s own most definitely among them.

“That was so beautiful!” said captain wails, a blubbering mess as he hugs your waist tightly. A number of the boys share a similar emotional state, Sarukui, Anahori, and Komi spouting ‘we love you, manager!’ like it’s the only words they can remember. Akaashi gives you a light squeeze around the shoulders, while simultaneously trying to calm down the bawling squad around him. Even Washio, ever the silent one, has a gentle hand on your back in the mess of an embrace. “Thank you,” is all he says, but the phrase is more than enough to warm your heart further.

When everyone manages to peel away from the group hug eventually, wiping at teary eyes and runny noses, Bokuto takes the reins. He’s got one arm slung across your shoulders, the other one curling his hand into a fist.

“Alright team, let’s give it our best!!” the captain declares, his watery smile paired with the boys’ shaky resounding cry spurring a laugh from your throat.

Overall, a pretty great first pep talk with a pretty darn great team. If you were lucky enough, maybe there might be a few more in your future, but if not, you felt perfectly content with your time spent. From the reaction you got, your boys seemed to agree.

[thisstableground]

do you have any hcs for if usnavi's parents hadn't died? it would change him and his story a lot and I feel like it could be really interesting, how he's still him but with such different experiences. and you write him and get his character so well so you're definitely the person to ask about this kind of thing if you're up for it :) (also as a fellow brit the uk au is really really weird to me, I can't quite work out why)

(lmao ikr? i wouldn’t actually call it a uk au because i firmly do not believe it could work as a fully-fledged idea without changing way too much about a very culturally specific story in a way that has very uncomfortable implications, tho it is hilarious to briefly entertain the idea of ITH except it’s all set in fuckin milton keynes or something because Simply No Thank You)

THIS WILL BE LONG, BUCKLE UP

i think that a lot of canon usnavis traits are perhaps things he already had but that got magnified by a huge amount after losing his parents, because they could also be seen as ADHD traits; particularly the anxiety and the difficulty with making changes or starting new things. he’s still worried about messing up, about making a fool of himeslf, or just doesnt have the executive functioning to do things. but the difference is prior to losing his parents he had a lot more optimism and self-confidence to push himself past those anxieties or to find it easier to listen to his friends and family when they encourage him, because he has this certainty when he’s younger that things will turn out okay. an usnavi who never loses his parents carries that certainty into adulthood (i think even after abuela passes, because while it’s difficult and tragic for him, it isn’t deeply traumatising in the same way). so this version of usnavi still worries about failure, but the stakes are so much lower; he might embarrass himself but he has the safety net of his parents support, whereas the fear that fuels canon usnavi’s difficulty with changing things or moving forward is “what if i fuck up and lose someone else important to me again?”, where things which aren’t actually literal life-or-death tend to feel that way to him, and he’s a lot more cynical about whether things will have a positive outcome.

with his parents still alive doesn’t find it so terrifying to look into the future – “today’s all we got”, he says in the opening song, and i think he would still say that but in a way that means “live for today, live in the moment, enjoy life”. that might be the attitude he’s trying to get across in canon, but he also uses it as a way to hold himself back and keep himself stuck in place, to not let himself hope for anything in the future: in canon, he knows in a very painful way that he isn’t promised a future, and nobody he loves is promised a future, so why make plans or hypotheticals or even seriously believe that he’ll ever go back to DR? (i genuinely think there’s a subconscious part of him that’s firmly convinced he’s going to die young, but that’s a whole other tangent). he’s living in the moment because he’s scared of what he’ll see when he looks past it; usnavi with his parents still around lives in the moment because he likes the moment he’s in.

i wonder if him and vanessa would have ended up dating, or at least if they’d have been so successful and long-lasting as a couple. they’e always known each other and got on well, but i see their deeper feelings as growing out of  this shared understanding between them based on the difficulties they’ve been through – would they have still had the champagne bet, if usnavi didn’t have that grief and loss and extra responsibility that drives his vague non-plans to go live in DR? would he even want to leave new york, in this version, or would he still be content with the place he grew up because it doesn’t have those painful memories? 

the character arc of reconciling moving forward from a place that symbolises a painful past without having to completely sever from the good things about it is something that both of them share in canon. without those moments of both being given too many responsibilities and too much independence way too young because they don’t have parents who can ease the transition into adulthood, or this unspoken recognition that even with all their barrio family around both of them are very much on their own in some ways, would they make the deeper emotional connection that makes them work so well together in a more long-term way? or would they just have gone on a few casual dates that didn’t stand out from any other casual dates they might have with others?

and hell, maybe usnavi would’ve already been in a relationship with someone completely different – he’d be working at the store with two other people who were experienced in running it. he’d have so much more time to go out, have a social life, go to clubs and hang out with more people his own age. usnavi after losing his parents became quite disconnected from the larger group of people him and benny would hang out with at school; he doesn’t have the time, he doesn’t have the energy, and for a long time while he’s still so deep in grief i think they find it hard to know how to be friends with this quiet, broken, listless usnavi. they’re all still friendly but internally i think he loses his sense of place with his peers because he’s been rapidly catapulted into a stage of life that none of them are in. an usnavi who doesn’t lose his parents also doesn’t lose his sense of being around the same level and life stage as his peers, so who knows who he meets or develops feelings for?

his relationship with sonny is definitely different. his love and care for him isn’t so full of fear, because he doesn’t feel this need to protect him from every little thing or like it’s his personal responsibility to keep him alive, because it doesn’t really occur to him that he could lose him. canon usnavi i think has a lot more of a somewhat parental vibe, and often an overprotective parent at that. i think this usnavi, because he doesn’t have to grow up so quickly and he isn’t sonny’s boss, has much more of a fun big brother role. and i think sonny in return doesn’t feel so much responsibility for usnavi as he grows up - he doesnt feel like he has to force him to have fun or get some rest or put himself first every so often because usnavi doesnt push himself nearly so relentlessly and because his parents can look out for him when he does. 

maybe sonny doesn’t start working in the bodega until much later, either – a lot of why he spends so much time there is because usnavi watches him while his mom’s at work but can’t just close the store. if his parents are there to keep working then usnavi watches sonny at one of their homes, or they go out and do more stuff. the bodega is still important to both of them but it isn’t nearly as much a main setting for sonny’s adolescence as it is in canon.

on that note, since in my version the first thing that makes usnavi hold an instant vendetta against pete is catching pete tagging the store only a few weeks after losing his parents, where his feelings are still so intense and raw. the store hasn’t reopened and so the graffiti feels like someone else making a claim on the only thing he has left of his parents. in this version he’d be annoyed to catch someone tagging the store at most but much quicker to forgive and forget. so in a world where usnavi doesn’t lose his parents, usnavi also doesn’t hate graffiti pete.

 if we’re assuming that things did go roughly similar to the point of usnavi being in the club with vanessa on the night of the blackout, here’s the things that would change:

- sonny isn’t the one at the bodega, his parents are, and they’re together so usnavi doesn’t feel the same urgency to get back and check on things there when the power goes out. instead he finds vanessa and walks her home and by the time he’s back at the store, i think his mom would already be with abuela making sure she’s okay, and usnavi would focus on helping his dad make sure everything was safe and secure at the bodega

- he’s also probably still pretty drunk at this point, so there’s a chance that when everything at the store is secured he just goes straight to bed; it’s been a long night, and he’s tired, and he doesn’t have the trauma of past loss making him feel like he personally has to check every little thing himself. he trusts his parents to take care of abuela, it isn’t all on his shoulders. so they don’t have their moment together on the roof.

- whether the store gets looted in this version or not, i don’t think usnavi’s waking up at sunrise to deal with it, but even if he is then he gets up, helps his parents, is upset and annoyed but not in the same visceral, overwhelming way that he is in canon because he doesn’t have all those other long-term anxieties building up in him, he doesn’t have that pressure of his parents legacy tied up in the store when they’re still right there, he doesn’t have that conversation with vanessa where she’s hurt and betrayed that he left her in the blackout and didn’t check up on her.  (sidenote this may even mean that vanessa doesn’t move downtown, because if he isnt looking for a way to make things up to her before he leaves then he might not think to speak to dani about co-signing her apartment)

-  this means he probably doesn’t get overwhelmed and abandon cleanup to go visit abuela in the morning like he does in canon when we get Hundreds of Stories. he might not even be around, since he tells sonny in canon to get a generator and candles to the church and that’s probably an errand he’d do himself while his parents manned the store. this means he probably does not see abuela that one final time or have that one final meaningful conversation with her before she passes.

final sad note: in a version of events where usnavi never loses his parents, christmas is still his favourite time of year.

[devinetheory-2]

I found this unnervingly accurate and fascinating.

Things Narcissists Do When They Think No One Is Looking ..

1 – Go through your personal things

2 – Create numerous dating profiles

3 – Try to get in touch with their exes on social media

4 – Visit websites of very dubious merit. KIK Skype etc.

5 – Try to turn your family and friends against you

6 – Plant spyware on your devices or install hidden cameras etc.

7 – Sabotage your finances

8 – Spy on you

9 – Flirt with your best friend (or even your adult children)

10 – Plan secret rendezvous with their side-supply

11 – Hoover old sources of supply (a.k.a., their exes)

12 – Pave the way for their next relationship

If you’ve been in a relationship with someone you suspect is a narcissist, there has likely come a time when you developed a burning desire to know the things narcissists do when they’re by themselves.

If we’re to be sophisticated about it, we must consider that like other citizens of society, they engage in activities that are conducive to maintaining a certain level of livelihood.  Things like going to work, having their cars serviced, and going to doctor’s appointments.

But apart from those harmless undertakings, things turn rather bleak.

Narcissists rarely ever admit to it, but all your worst fears regarding your relationship are playing out just underneath the radar of your awareness.

You know that ever-present, vague sense of dread you have in the pit of your stomach, wondering if they’re lying or telling the truth?  That’s your intuition, which can cause physical sensations in the body.

Our “gut feelings” are called that for a reason — research suggests that emotion and intuition are very much rooted in the “second brain” in the gut.  In fact, Michael Gershon, professor and chair of pathology and cell biology at Columbia, says, “The gut can work independently of any control by the brain in your head—it’s functioning as a second brain.  It’s another independent center of integrative neural activity”.

But don’t take my word for it.  You can read all about it on Psychology Today in an article titled, Your Backup Brain.

My job here is to give you a breakdown of what the narcissist in your life – employing very specific techniques of psychological depravity – does when they think no one is looking. Hidden secrets that would literally bring you to your knees…

Here, I map out thirteen of the most common things narcissists do when they think no one is looking.  The possibilities on this topic are endless, but the following is a sampling of the ones I’m most familiar with, some of which I personally experienced. 

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Things Narcissists Do When They Think No One Is Looking ..

1 – Go through your personal things

Narcissists are constantly doing things that they will eventually be confronted with.  Therefore, they spend inordinate amounts of time trying to dig up the most minuscule piece of incriminating evidence against you so that they will have ammunition when they are finally caught.

Many times, what they find “incriminating” is just a figment of their imagination or something entirely fabricated.  For example, I used to work in the banking industry for years before I left to become a teacher and, later, to create this space for narcissistic abuse recovery.

As a bank employee, I wore suits which required me to wear pantyhose.  One day, I accidentally tore a hole in a pair of them and discarded them in the trash.  My ex, during his regular “dirt diving” practice, found them and confronted me with them, accusing me of having been unfaithful.

Of course, he was entirely wrong, but you can probably imagine how it turned out.

Long story short, narcissists engage in sneaky, underhanded behaviors every day. In many cases, they think other people are like them, but just better at hiding it.  In others, they simply want to have something to throw in your face when you discover they’re still doing ‘that thing’ they promised you they would stop doing.

A general exception to this shady practice is the cerebral narcissist, who uses their intelligence to lord over others.  They think most people are simpletons who don’t have anything interesting going on in their lives, except, of course, other academics and scholars whom the cerebral narcissist is insanely jealous of.

2 – Create numerous dating profiles

Not all narcissists cheat, but most of them do.  The ones who don’t tend to be of the “cerebral” ilk and simply do not enjoy having intimate relations with other people.

But if the narcissist you know is attractive, extroverted, and likes being the center of attention, it is very likely they are doing things you would be horrified to learn about.

To the narcissist, seducing people is another tool for manipulation, control, exploitation, and destroying the self-esteem of their partner(s).  In most cases, there’s serial cheating, withholding affection, degrading requests, verbal assaults, and addiction to off-color websites.

Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, they’re so skilled in the bedroom that their partners often stay in the abusive relationship because they’ve never had it so good, which creates a twisted dynamic leading to self-loathing, guilt, and shame.

At any rate, narcissists have a track record of being serial cheaters.  This explains why they generally have their cell phones on lockdown, leave the room when certain calls come in, and are oddly obsessed with a text exchange as you’re sitting down to dinner during your anniversary.

If you’ve caught them doing this, don’t be fooled by their seeming attempt to earn back your trust.  It doesn’t matter if they let you go through their phone if they’ve secured a secret line behind your back.

If it feels weird, you’re probably onto something.  Don’t ignore your gut on this one.

3 – Try to get in touch with their exes on social media

Imagine this scenario.  You’re sitting at your work desk and decide to call your partner (whom you suspect is a narcissist) to check in and get a feel for how things are going.  They seem fairly friendly and the two of you make plans for dinner and a movie that night.  You hang up feeling relieved and begin to think your recent arguments were probably just normal relationship issues.  You feel slightly elated thinking about how the evening will unfold.

The narcissist, however, hangs up and goes back to liking their ex’s Facebook and Instagram photos.  The two of you have been arguing a lot lately (due to their relationship crimes), so they have to line up another source or two of narcissistic supply to have as a backup for when you finally come to your senses and give them the much-needed boot.

Moral of the story?  Never trust that the narcissist will be a decent person.  Ever.

4 – Visit websites of very dubious merit.

Webcam sites, porn, KiK, Snapchat, Tubmblr etc.

Since the media powers-that-be are now filtering and blocking certain terms and phrases, I am unable to express the exact terminology I’d like to use here, but, suffice it to say that many narcissists, when alone, spend hours on various websites of very dubious merit.

Sites that would break your heart and devastate you for weeks on end if you’re in a romantic relationship with them.

If you have discovered your narcissistic partner has been visiting such sites, you can bet with 99% certainty that he or she also has online dating profiles and is probably hooking up with other people behind your back.  At the very least, they are likely engaging in things via the internet with people they’ve met online that would make you feel unwell.

5 – Try to turn your family and friends against you

Contrary to popular belief, the narcissist’s smear campaign doesn’t begin just after your breakup.  In many cases, it’s been alive and well for some time.  You just weren’t aware of it.

The reason everyone now runs in the opposite direction from you or, at the very least, looks at you with a raised eyebrow, is that the narcissist has been smearing your reputation since before the relationship even ended.  The two main reasons for this are:

All relationships are doomed in the narcissist’s mind and they want to get a running start on assassinating your character.

They assume you will vent to people in your shared social circle and want to ensure they cut you off at the pass so you will look unstable when you muster the courage to start talking about your experiences.

These actions are to preserve the false image they’ve portrayed all along.  Unfortunately, they’re often very successful at doing this.  If your friends or family have suddenly started pulling back or questioning your judgement, the narcissist has likely planted the seeds of doubt in their minds.  If they openly side with the narcissist when you begin sharing your relationship struggles, it’s time to start whittling down your inner circle.

6 – Plant spyware on your devices or install hidden cameras in your shared residence

This can happen a few different ways.

If you’re dealing with a narcissist, don’t assume they aren’t smart enough to track you using your devices.  I’ve seen this assumption come crashing down around people’s ankles more times than I’d like to admit.

One common method that abusers use to legally track you is by using the geolocation services built into all smartphones; if you know, or can guess, the password to someone’s cloud account, you can follow their movements via the software designed to find lost or stolen phones that comes installed on many devices.   Many times, the abuser sets up a cloud account for the person they want to track, giving them full access to their target’s location at any moment.

If you suspect you’re dealing with a narcissist, don’t accept a phone from them that they’ve set up for you using their cellular account.  If you do, you can assume they’ve set it up to track you.

Another way abusers can keep tabs on you is by installing spyware on your electronic devices.  Some of these spyware can be installed remotely.  It’s somewhat more difficult to install spyware this way than it used to be, but it still happens.

Most spyware is designed to track not only your location but also monitor your calls, voicemails, texts, and emails – and even watch you using the camera on your device.

7 – Sabotage your finances

I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve worked with in my coaching practice who’ve been financially devastated because they gave in to the narcissist’s seemingly genuine requests to give them access to their accounts.make you feel unwell.

They may have loaned you money or paid for a big-ticket item at some point to make you believe they are generous, but it was only to instill in you a sense of obligation in preparation for the debilitating shaft you’d get from them later.

Another scheme that falls into this category is their asking for your support while they are unemployed. These schemes are all designed to “break the seal” in the area of financial matters so they can take shocking liberties later, such as:

Getting loans in your name

Taking out a second mortgage on your home without your knowledge

Not paying IRS taxes, resulting in your possible confinement in jail

Expecting you to pay for everything while they save their own money for themselves

Forcing you to get all the utilities and insurances in your name so you’ll have to pay for them all

…and so on and so forth.

If you’ve been having problems in your relationship and believe your partner is a narcissist, it would be in your best interest to avoid mingling your finances in any way.  If you already have, start a secret account and begin adding money to it whenever you can.  Have your statements delivered to a family member’s address.

Prevent narcissistic financial abuse early by stashing away money when you can and refusing to put your name on any legal documents with them.

8 – Spy on you

We already covered spyware and tracking apps that narcissistic abusers can use to keep tabs on your whereabouts in #6.

However, many narcissists will literally stalk you so they can see what you do when they’re not with you.

While legal definitions of stalking vary from one jurisdiction to another, a good working definition of stalking is unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual toward another person through the carrying out of behaviors intended to frighten, distress the victim, and/or instill a sense of guilt and hopelessness in the victim (which often leads to learned helplessness).  Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and usually include following the victim (in person) and monitoring them.

According to Lamber Royakkers, author of The Dutch Approach to Stalking Laws (California Criminal Law Review 3, October 2000):

“Stalking is a form of mental assault, in which the perpetrator repeatedly, unwantedly, and disruptively breaks into the life-world of the victim, with whom they have a current relationship or a recent one. Moreover, the separated acts that make up the intrusion cannot by themselves cause the mental abuse, but do taken together (cumulative effect).”

Disruptions in daily life that are necessary to escape a stalker can include changes in employment, residence, and phone numbers.   Many targets of stalking have had to move to another country and basically go into hiding.

Many of my coaching clients have been stalked by their narcissistic partners.  Stalking behaviors carried out by narcissists can include:

Constant texts, emails, and phone calls

Frequent, unwanted deliveries of gifts, cards, and flowers

Constantly driving by your home

Showing up at your place of employment or favorite hangout

Spreading rumors or publishing personal information about you on social media

Cyberstalking

Using social media to follow and friend your social media followers and friends in order to keep an eye on you

Installing spyware on your computer or cell phone

Finding out about you by using public records or online search services, hiring investigators, going through your garbage, or contacting friends, family, neighbors, or co-workers

Using technology, like hidden cameras or global positioning systems (GPS), to track where you go

Threatening to hurt you, your family, friends, or pets

Stalking is often mistaken as hoovering in that once a source of supply expresses a desire to end the relationship, the narcissist refuses to give up their power by forcing themselves into the victim’s world through harassing, following, and monitoring.

Stalking is a common behavior of narcissists when a source of supply tries to initiate No Contact.  When stalking begins, the victim typically has a clearer picture of what kind of person the narcissist is…which is why they want to go No Contact in the first place.

If you believe you are being stalked, you should avoid downplaying the issue as it will only get worse over time.  You may have to take protective measures to secure your sense of peace, privacy, and security.

9 – Flirt with your best friend (or even your adult children)

When it comes to narcissistic cheaters, no one is off-limits.  In fact, narcissists often derive a twisted sense of accomplishment if they can get your loved one interested in them, like your best friend or adult child.

So, imagine you’re at work and it’s the narcissist’s day off.  You think everything is relatively calm and feel a spark of emotional safety.  Then, you get a call from your best friend and they give you the very unsettling news that the narcissist has made a pass at them.

If you’re best friend is truly loyal, they will tell you about this the moment it happens.

But in some cases, the flirting continues while remaining a secret.  Maybe your friend has experienced a string of failed relationships.  Or they’ve recently gone through a difficult divorce.  Vulnerability makes a person a prime target in the narcissist’s mind and this may well include your best friend.

My best advice?  Never trust the narcissist alone with your friends or family members.

10 – Plan secret rendezvous with their side-supply

Speaking in very general terms, when a narcissist has an out-of-town trip planned, whether for work or for their third cousin’s wedding, there is a strong likelihood that they will meet their side supply there or even take him or her with them.

Narcissists are creatures of economy and rarely pass up an opportunity to groom supply.  In fact, the narcissist could well be dubbed The Constant Gardner because they are perpetually trolling for and grooming new targets, even though they always have a main source of narcissistic supply.  Furthermore, they are continuously ending relationships for various reasons, especially with those who require a lot of “maintenance” (i.e. normal human interactions) or have stopped giving them money or other fringe benefits.  Therefore, they must fill in the gaps left by those they’ve discarded by securing new supply sources.

Those work trips the narcissist always goes on?  They could very well be genuine, but don’t be surprised when the new supply calls you, asking who you are and what you’re doing calling the narcissist!

11 – Hoover old sources of supply (a.k.a., their exes)

Narcissists typically don’t let go of their exes completely (unless their exes completely let go of them).  They’ve been known to contact old flames out of the blue, sometimes as long as ten years post-breakup!

Not all narcissists do this, but most do.  When a person has passed the litmus test for being “good supply”, narcissists literally can’t help themselves and will often reach out in an attempt to resurrect old relationships (albeit, one-sided ones).

This explains why you may have noticed how the narcissist in your life likes to remain “friends” with their exes or wants you to be friends after your relationship has ended.

It gives them an ‘in’ if they ever need to cycle back around.

12 – Pave the way for their next relationship

You’ve probably read a hundred times how narcissists leave relationships and then swan dive right into a new one.

Maybe this happened in the aftermath of your own relationship with a narcissist.

The main reason this happens is because narcissists don’t bond with people.  Not romantically, not traumatically (at least, not for them), nor matrimonially.  We from these bonds with narcissists, but they are not able to form emotional bonds with us due to their true lack of empathy and inability to attach to others.

Another reason narcissists are able to form relationships so quickly is that, any many cases, the relationship isn’t so new.  If you’ll remember from earlier, narcissists are always combing for fresh sources of narcissistic supply.  Because of this, most narcissists are perpetually in various stages of relationship with other people, from the shiny, newbie supply to those who are enduring varying levels of the narcissistic abuse cycle.

Therefore, when they showcase the new supply on their social media accounts, it’s usually not someone they’ve just met, though narcissists are often very skilled in making it appear so.

13 – Emotional abuse of partners and spouses

If you’ve ended a romantic relationship with a narcissist, you probably saw them out and about, loving up on the new partner and seemingly having the best time of their life.  You see them flashing an engagement ring on social media and sending out ‘save the date’ notifications, broadcasting how silly in love they are and giggling about how they feel like a couple of teenagers.

Your first reaction might be to (stunningly) wonder what this new person has that you don’t.  Just maybe, the narcissist had been right about you all along.  Perhaps you really ARE the reason your relationship with them didn’t work out.

Then, you feel completely disabled by the seeming about-face the narcissist has made with the new supply, sending you into a depression so deep you can barely get through the day.

This is just another phase of the narcissistic abuse cycle and applies to you the same as it does everyone else.  The narcissist you know is no different from the others.  As personal and unique as it all may feel, it’s just another blueprint narcissistic manipulation.

When you see this happening, it’s crucial not to take it personally.  This is one of the narcissist’s favorite times, when they are love-bombing new supply while simultaneously making you feel like discarded trash.  The narcissist can’t help but gloat over how they’re able to make you feel emotionally destroyed, left to pick up the pieces while they’re off living their life as though your history together means nothing.

What you’re not thinking about is how the new supply will be subject to the same emotional abuse that you’ve endured.  There are no exceptions to this.  Don’t listen to the new trend of so-called professional advice which states that narcissists are only abusive towards YOU because your personality is incompatible with theirs, which is on my list of ‘Stupid Sh*t Therapists Say’.

Narcissists are abusive towards everyone.  Regardless of status, ethnicity, intelligence, religious beliefs, or how tiny their waist is.  The new supply simply won’t be spared, unfortunately.

Dealing with a narcissist

Healing From the Trauma of Narcissistic Abuse

It’s absolutely crucial to come to terms with the unsettling things narcissists do when they think no one is looking so you can make educated decisions for your future and your wellbeing.

Don’t let yourself fall into a false sense of security because the narcissist knows what to say to soften your defenses and make you doubt your judgement.  Pay attention to patterns because patterns don’t lie.

With the right support, you’ll be shocked how amazing it feels when you can flourish on the other side of abuse and heal your life in ways you never

[guiltysecretpasttime]

Airbender’s Wife (part 2)

Hmm, posting this fanfic before the weekend is over *twiddles thumbs*. Still incomplete though; will add the continuation within the week.

The Airbender’s Wife (part 2)

Note: This is literally a continuation of The Airbender’s Wife, which is an off-shoot of Contentment – which follows the “what if” Lin Beifong and Tenzin had a happy ending/beginning (all posted under the linzin fanfic tag in my tumblr).

Pairing: Legend of Korra: Lin / Tenzin; not canon compliant

------------

Tenzin’s body clock has always been programmed to be on time for morning meditations. No matter how tired he was, he will feel restless and wake up at the same time (getting up is a different thing altogether though).

That day was not an exception.

He stretched his arm to his right, intent on drawing his wife closer for a few more minutes before rising, but instead his hand landed on cool bedsheets. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he got up nimbly and wandered around the house, hoping to catch his wife before she left.

The airbender found Lin standing in the dining room, garbed in a long Earth Kingdom-styled dress, a small face mirror propped in front of her at the sideboard as she attempted to clip a rather stubborn curl of her hair.

“Up early?” He approached her, landing a kiss on her cheek.

“Ba Sing Se day, Tenzin.” She responded, not looking away from the mirror.

“Ah, here, let me.” Taking the clip from her, he easily pinned her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “How about I join you today? I don’t have any council business.” He gave her a hug from behind, squeezing her hips lightly, hinting of a promise that would likely end up with a less than productive day for them both.

“Right,” She brushed him off. “But you’re off to train the Avatar -.”

“Korra, dear.”

Lin rolled her eyes affectionately. “You don’t have council meetings today because you have to train Korra.”

“Then how about I bring Korra to Ba Sing Se?” Tenzin persisted, placing a kiss on her shoulder.

“You also have scheduled meditation with the air acolytes today. And Tenzin, do be serious,” She finally faced her husband. “The girl has barely gotten used to Republic City – you wouldn’t want her presence to cause intrigue in Ba Sing Se. Next, you’ll hear Izumi would be requesting for the Avatar to drop by the Fire Nation.”

“Fine,” The airbending master glumly conceded as Lin pushed him slightly to get around the table to prepare for her trip. “Can’t say I didn’t try though.” 

In general, the airbender disliked being apart from his wife for long periods of time – what more today when she was looking particularly radiant. As much as she did not prefer what she called as business outfits, they suit her well. He also knew that Lin dresses up accordingly as what is expected of a Beifong lady.

Tenzin observed Lin who was in a layered dress of forest and emerald green, with a low v-collar, lined with golden accents. The dress also had slits, which he (as a husband) appreciated on her but (also as a husband) especially minded that other people would likely appreciate it on her as well. His wife insisted on them though (“That is too high, Lin.” “No, it’s not – it’s functional, enough for bending”), explaining that a tight dress would only hinder her bending, and in turn be an obstacle in protecting herself.

Not like there was anything he could do to sway her when she has set her mind to something.

“What,” He pulled her closer to him as she paused as she caught him staring, raising an eyebrow in return. “I can’t help it, are you sure you don’t need a bodyguard to join you?”

“Bodyguard – you? Mr-Violence-is-not-the-answer?” She felt his lips creep from her cheek to the side of her lips. 

“You know what I mean.” Tenzin said seriously as they stood close to each other.

“I’ll be fine,” Lin responded and adjusted her bangles and bracelets. “I’m prepared as always.” The metal bangles and bracelets would function as more than fashion accessories should need arise. She swept the folders and other envelopes into the beaded bag she had on the dining table. “I’ll be back before you know it, I just need to reach the train station in time for the first train to Ba Sing Se.”

“No, you’re not riding the train to Ba Sing Se in that!” Tenzin sputtered, gesturing to her clothes.

“Why? As far as I know, the train stations are pretty safe,” Lin was offended. “I made sure that there were roving guards and security checks. People travel via train daily.”

“Well,” Tenzin conceded. “But not you!” He tugged at his beard in slight agitation, as Lin placed her hands on her hips. “Take Oogi with you.”

“Travel via sky bison -no thanks!”

“For my peace of mind, take him please.” He softly requested and he saw his wife ready to give in with a slight incline of her head. “And, wait a second.” Tenzin hurried to their bedroom as Lin finished packing her bag.

Lin felt the familiar weight of a pendant and the silky ribbon on neck when she straightened up. Her husband gave her neck a small kiss after he fastened the necklace.

“There, everyone will know that Lady Lin Beifong has yet to leave her airhead husband.”

“Tenzin.” Lin said with warning.

“Oh come on, you know what they think of me in the upper ring. I bet some of them have been hoping that you leave me or have had me offed for whatever nefarious reason.”

He was well aware of how, despite being middle-aged, desirable his wife was in all aspects. He might be the prized airbender but in the modern world (or even in the not-so-modern Earth Kingdom), she was definitely worth more with the literal Beifong legacy of wealth, power and social clout, not to mention her own bending skills were far more superior than most, and of course her position in Republic City was nothing to scoff at.  And of course, barring knowledge of any of those, he recognized that his wife posed an attractive (albeit mysterious) figure.

“I think I can handle myself,” She said ironically, as the safety of Republic City’s entire population did rest somewhat on her hands. “Okay fine,” She gave in, seeing her husband not budging, arms crossed. “I’ll take Oogi but only to make it easy for me to travel back and forth.”

“You’re the best,” He gave her a light kiss and strode off to the stables.

-----

“Good morning, Korra.” Lin watched in amusement as the Avatar slowly inched her way to the dining room, rubbing her eyes and rolling up her air acolyte clothing sleeves, mumbling a response.

“Tenzin’s not going to like your outfit, kid.” She raised an eyebrow at the teenager.

“What?”

“Your sleeves.” 

Korra unfolded her sleeves and plopped on the nearest chair as Lin poured her tea.

After taking a sip, Korra became aware of a far-away noise and that it was the Chief of Police sitting in front of her.

“Wow Lin, going somewhere?” 

“Hmm?” Lin absentminded fiddled with her betrothal necklace; she appeared to be waiting for something as she had already finished preparing for the trip. “Ah yes, Ba Sing Se for estate and business matters.”

“Not in your police uniform?”

“No, I don’t think the business people will take me seriously. They’ll probably think I’m my sister’s bodyguard.” She snorted, an action seemingly out of character with the fine clothes she wore. “I have to know how to play the role of Lady Lin.”

Now, it was Korra who snorted and coughed, realizing that this was Lady Lin. The Avatar took the opportunity to inquire, to learn more about her airbending master’s wife.

“What does being Lady Lin Beifong entail?”

“Ah well, I just don’t think I should be called Lady anything. Sounds a bit archaic, if you ask me.” 

“But why are you Lady Lin?”

“My mother is currently Lady Beifong. So I guess my sister and I just follow? And they just haven’t been sure what to call the wife of Master Tenzin I suppose.” The earthbender shrugged gracefully, exhibiting the result of years of being trained in etiquette befitting the Ladies Beifong.

“But still…” Korra’s eyebrows furrowed as she sipped her tea. “What’s in Ba Sing Se?”

“Well,” Lin continued. “It’s the mid-point across Gaoling, Republic City and Zaofu so that’s where my sister and I conduct regular meetings with the board and the executive committees of the Beifong companies and properties.”

The Avatar was about to probe further when there was a commotion outdoors and the Avatar vaguely heard Tenzin talking to an air acolyte about saddling Oogi.

“He’s a bit overprotective, sometimes.” The metalbender stood up, ready to leave.

The presence of the airbender halted their conversation. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

“Yes, dear. I’ll be safe.” 

“See you later.” Tenzin gave her a quick kiss as she passed by him.

Lin slung her bag and nodded to Korra. “Avatar.”

“Chief.” The Avatar gave a small wave.

“Well, let’s get to business.” Tenzin beckoned for his pupil to follow him outdoors.

Korra quickly finished her tea, scalding her tongue. But at least she would be awake.

-----

Unfortunately, there was not much difference from the previous day. Korra was still unable to release a puff of air from her hands and had difficulty getting through the airbending gates. Tenzin was similarly frustrated with himself.

It was at this sad state of things that Lin arrived at early evening.

Korra was lying on the ground trying to airbend when Oogi made a landing and sent dust skittering off.

“You okay there, kid?” Lin checked in on her as she slid off Oogi’s back, several packages in hand.

Korra just made an X with her arms, while having her eyes closed.

The earthbender smiled sympathetically. “It’ll get better.” She stepped over the defeated Avatar-in-training and gave her thanks to the air acolyte who had taken Oogi’s reins to lead him to the stables. “Clean up and dinner will be ready soon. I brough home food from Ba Sing Se, including Water Tribe dishes.” She entered the house, coming across her husband in the living room.

Tenzin eyed the packages that Lin brought home. “Had fun shopping, dear?” 

“Just a bit,” She shrugged as she carefully placed them on the dining table. “Here’s the contract for the renovation; the Zaofu workers will be in Republic City early tomorrow morning.” She tossed him the folder. “I’m assuming you can file this in city hall?”

“Thanks.” He absentminded took the folder. “How is Suyin?”

“Su is Su. She lives in her own world – literally. I had to make her promise to avoid visits to Republic City for the time-being given the increasing clashes between benders and non-benders.” She looked up and knew from his expressions that he was worried. “How was training Korra today?”

“I can’t get through her,” Tenzin disclosed, frustration coloring his tone. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Be kind to yourself,” She began unpacking the food she brought home. “Republic City wasn’t built in a week. You’re both adjusting. These takes time, and you’re a pretty patient man and I know that from experience.”

“I don’t feel patient today,” Tenzin allowed himself to be embraced by his wife, murmuring in a downcast tone. “How about let’s eat quickly and retire early tonight?”

“Unfortunately for you,” She pulled up the newspaper from the sideboard and pointed to an article. “Tonight’s the Pro-bending semi-final qualifiers and you know I can’t miss it.” 

Tenzin groaned in disappointment. “Liiiiin.”

“Tenzin,” She laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ll have dinner before I join the boys.”

-----

“Where are you going?” Korra asked.

“It’s Pro-bending night.” Both adults responded to her, one excited and one sullen.

“You don’t like Pro-bending?” The teenager asked her airbending teacher. “It’s been my dream to watch one of the matches live. Never thought I would be a ferry ride away from the arena!”

“It’s a mockery of the traditions of bending!” He threw up his hands.

“Oh come now, Tenzin,” Lin inclined her head to the grumbling airbender. “It’s no Agni Kai but it’s adequate entertainment.” 

“That’s just it – entertainment.”

Korra looked back and forth at the volley of responses from her hosts.

“Spirits forbid anyone have fun in your vicinity, Airhead.” Lin took it in stride. “Mother did say you were always the serious one.” She tugged lightly at his beard before standing up to take the trays of food and drink outside.

“Can I listen too?” The Water Tribe born Avatar tentatively asked.

Tenzin frowned deeply as he met Lin’s amused face, eyebrow raised in challenge. “Fine, but meditation for you starts 15 minutes earlier tomorrow.”

Letting out a whoop, Korra stood up and took the other tray of drinks and followed Lin outside, where the White Lotus sentries were gathered around the radio.

“Hello, men.” Lin made their presence known as she placed the tray on the wooden table at the station.

“Good evening, Lady Lin, Avatar.” The sentries chorused as they scattered to make space in the half-circle to provide seats and to take the trays from Lin and Korra’s hands (“Call me Korra!”).

The Avatar-in-training watched in amazement as Chief Beifong sat among the White Lotus sentries, comfortable in her Earth Kingdom dress. The lady was laughing in camaraderie and was even exhibiting that she knew them all by name. She chatted with them as they shared the finger food she brought home from Ba Sing Se while waiting for the commentator to finish with all the introductions and recaps. Korra figured it was not their first time to do this.

“How is your daughter, Hung? Did she like the mini pots and pans?”

“Oh yes, Chief, she enjoyed having a mini kitchen set to play with.”

“Lady Lin, my mother sends her regards.”

“Ah yes, Minha, I hope she’s getting used to the South Pole well.”

“Yes and she appreciates the coat you sent her through Lady Kya.”

Korra enjoyed herself immensely, freely laughing and feeling the start of an affinity with the White Lotus sentries. It was a far cry from the feeling of isolation she experienced back in the South Pole. They booed and cheered accordingly as the matches went by. They did not seem to particularly take her Avatar status with a lot of fanfare, which she liked.

She watched the metalbender at the corner of her eye – for all her misgivings, it would seem that the airbender’s wife was not all that bad as literature and media made it seem. The woman was laughing, no condescension in sitting and eating at the same space as the sentries. If it were not for the golden filigree and her attire, Korra would have thought her a part of the team. She was pleased to see that Lady Lin had no airs, which was more than could be said of her own Northern Water Tribe cousins.

“Excuse me, good evening everyone.” Tenzin’s voice cut-through the din. “Just checking if I may now take my wife home?”

The sentries stood up to give a bow, which the airbender returned and waved off.

“But we’re just getting to the good part,” Korra almost whined. She anticipated that she would be told off to go to bed too.

“No, no, it’s fine.” Lin accepted her husband’s hand as he helped her up from her stool. “I’ll go ahead, you all have stay and finish the match.” She motioned to the group. “I trust you’ll be able pack up later and finish your shifts?” At everyone's affirmative, she placed a hand on Korra’s shoulder. “Alright, see you all tomorrow – well, maybe not all: Aki and Sansan, I think you're both off duty tomorrow.”

With that, the group bid the pair good night. 

“Say what you will about those two,” Head sentry Yao, one of the more senior ones in the group, jerked his head towards the couple going back into the house, with the airbender still tightly holding his wife by the waist, tripping with faint laughter trailing behind them. “But they’re definitely a love match.”

“Never seen a more dedicated wife like the Lady Lin,” A dimpled sentry (Aki was his name, if Korra was not mistaken) commented wistfully (“And vice versa on the airbending master as a husband!” Another piped up). “I don’t get it why they get so much flak from the Order and the press.”

“Tradition,” Yao scoffed. The rest of the sentries turning to face him, relying on his experience as fact, being that he had been on Air Temple Island as a junior sentry during the previous avatar’s term. “If anything, they know the Lady would not be held down but they expected Master Tenzin to at least be a bit more pliable. A little bit more steeped into tradition, you know?”

Korra accepted a mini fruit tart that was being passed around the group, as they wait for the advertisements from the radio to finish. There was a lot, given that it was probably the third to the last ad slot. 

“It’s not like Chief Beifong was wasting her time in Republic City,” Han revealed that he used to be part of the Metalbending police department until five years ago when he decided to heed an offer from the Order of the White Lotus. “She had always been fair – very strict – but fair. Highly competent and much more capable than the entire City Council put together in protecting the city (“Shhh, don’t let Councilman Tenzin hear you!” “He meant keeping the city crime stats lower – that can’t be achieved by peacekeeping alone.” “Ah, right right. True.”).”

Into the third round of the last match (the Fire Ferrets were proving to be a well-trained underdog) , they felt the ground trembling.

Korra immediately stood up, tensing. “What on earth is that?” Earth tremors were uncommon in the South Pole, and if any, it did not seem to forecast good fortune. She distinctly noticed the unease among the sentries as they communicated non-verbally with each other. “Should we prepare for something? I can go inside and warn Tenzin!” 

“No!”  The vehement chorus of No’s surprised her.

“Well, okay – no.” She was confused now. “Is there an evacuation plan or is this normal?”

The sentries looked at each other, appearing unsure to Korra.

“Well?” The Avatar-in-training was poised to run into action at the first sign of danger, putting down her cup of water on a nearby tray.

Finally, head sentry Yao cleared his throat. “Don’t worry Avatar, this is very normal.”

Eventually, the floor ceased its apparent movement and there was a collective sigh of relief.

The rest of the sentries cast furtive glances at Korra as she sat back down, unable to fully focus on the game. The sentries, though, were easily engrossed in the match.

The match soon ended (“And the Fire Ferrets wiiiiiin!”) and everyone pitched in to clear the area. Korra hovered awkwardly, still on alert and very wary of the earth tremors.

As the last of the cups and trays were brought away, Yao took pity on the Avatar and wanted to give her peace of mind.

“You sure that was normal?” Korra twisted her hands in slight agitation. “That won’t cause the island to split and sink or something?”

“Yes, Avatar, there is no need to worry about it.” The head sentry accompanied her to the door of the Air Temple residential building.

“I don’t remember the island sitting on any fissure that would cause it,” The young woman wracked her memory for any geological feature near Republic City that could result in an earthquake. Man, she really needed to brush up on her studies. “I don’t think I’ve read about a phenomenon in the text way back.”

“Uh, it wasn’t a fissure,” Yao looked downright uncomfortable now. “And it’s a fairly new, uh, phenomenon; just a couple of years old.”

They have reached the entrance to the house; Korra paused and tilted her head in question. Just then, the ground shook a bit more for a few seconds long then every thing was still. “Tell me I didn’t just imagine that.” 

Two sentries (Ming and Jian?) passed by as part of their rounds. The head sentry nodded at them, “Will the two of you check The Area tomorrow?”

Ming and Jian saluted and Korra was left pondering why “The Area” sounded like it was said with capital letters, as though the White Lotus were talking about a very specific location.

“Better get some rest, Avatar. Good mood or not, Master Tenzin and Lady Lin wouldn’t appreciate it if we,” Yao rubbed the back of his neck as he turned back to the Avatar who was waiting for answers. “Continue to discuss the, eh, aftershocks of their evening exercises.”

Oh Agni, please swallow me into the ground now.

----

Welp. Playing with the idea on what the pair looked like to others they interact with on a day-to-day basis for more...~domesticity? Eh 😏 lemme know what you think.

===

My related posts:

Prologue (Contentment) 

Airbender’s Wife 1 | 3 | 4

[skvaderarts]

Chapter Eleven: Rumination

You can check out the Masterlist Here for more links to places to read!

Note: As per usual, I want to extend a warm thank you to Aureux, HunterJamie, BeansWithBones, RubixaSeraph, Random Reader Nothing Special, and He Who Wanters for their wonderful comments. I smiled like an idiot when I was reading your feedback. In fact, I wasn’t originally planning on writing out this part of the story, but I was so happy that I did. This intermission dinner chapter is for you guys! Enjoy it before things… change a bit. Thank you once again for your continued support. Means the world to me!

-~-

A bay window that spanned the entire outward-facing wall that overlooked the street below was all that separated the cozy dining room from the raging torrent of stormwater just outside the stone rowhouse. As the windows whipped and churned outside, the interior remained dry, even as the window rattled slightly in an earnest effort to not open in response to the prodding storm that it held at bay. The well-built structure served its purpose gallantly, those that dwelled within its walls not needing to worry if their home was going to come crashing down on top of them at any moment. And considering the fact that it was now time for dinner, that was a welcome relief.

In the center of the room sat an oblong table with seven chairs around it. Although generously sized, the eating space had originally been designed with six people in mind. This was clearly illustrated by the presence of the seventh chair at the table. Although it matched relatively well (I mean, what doesn’t match a white table?) The seat clearly originated from an alternate source; the custom stitched patchwork cushions in each seat being the only thing that tied everything together. And it was all very charming in a rather arts and crafts farmhouse sort of way.  

Various eating apparatuses were carefully positioned around the table, the placements having been set by the children while Kyrie was busy importing food front the kitchen into the eating space. As a result, several things on the table were crooked, but no one honestly minded. The little ones had tried their best, and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day.

While Kyle, Carlo, and Julio clambered into their seats, their adoptive mother opened the curtains to allow what meager light there was outside to shine into the room. While the space was not claustrophobic, at this given moment in time, it was a bit crowded. Four adults and three young children made for quite the dining experience, especially when everyone present was so vastly different than everyone else. Or, at least they were at first glance. It was true that their personalities were quite different, but they were all united by common goals and the care that they showed for one another. Even when that care was thrown for a loop as the children bickered with one another, causing a bit of a ruckus before Kyrie shushed them gently. They had a guest, after all. This was no time to be rowdy. 

“Now now,” She said with a happy but stern tone,” were at the table. No fighting.”

Just as Kyrie was in the process of setting down the ceramic bowls she had ladled hot soup into, Nero emerged from the living room with V in tow. A moment later, Nico joined them. She came down from the second floor of the house and slipped into the dining room, eager to experience whatever culinary delights Kyrie had prepared for them today. To say that she was a wonderful cook would be an understatement, and Nico was not a picky eater. She would eat just about anything that the brunette woman put in a plate in front of her, as long as she had cooked it.

Nico sat down between the two oldest boys, prepared to pester them senseless if the need should arise. V, almost predictably, sat nearest to the corner of the room, his back facing the doorway as if he were poised to take flight should the need arise. This entire situation was entirely foreign to him. In his entire life, he had never been invited to or subsequently experienced a family dinner. That was most certainly due to the fact that he hadn’t any family to speak of until now. In the blink of an eye, he had died, returned from the brink of damnation, and then awakened as if it were all an unpleasant dream, only to find out that he had quite the extended family. It was all a bit much to take in all at once, but he was trying. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he longed for Griffon’s familiar -if not antagonizing-  voice within the confines of his mind. He had grown used to the wisecracking bird’s little jabs and jests, as they had always provided ample entertainment and distraction from the concept of actually having to socialize with those around him. As much as he wanted to get to know everyone, his social battery was rapidly depleting and he would be remiss to not acknowledge that being alone in his new room was a tempting venture.

In his current state, he felt very exposed and vulnerable, and that was not a sensation that he generally enjoyed. V couldn’t pinpoint what it was but, in a way, he felt like he was missing something. Yes, obviously he was missing much at the moment. Namely his loyal summons and their accompanying tattoos, but this was born of something more than that. When his mind wandered, his hands normally stopped that from occurring by turning his attention to something else entirely. But that something had been misplaced, and V was just now realizing what it was that was amiss. As he combed over the remnants of his still marginally fragmented memory, it occurred to him that he hadn’t the slightest idea where his beloved book had gone. Or his cane for the matter. While he didn’t require it to walk, it most certainly made him feel more secure in his person, as it reduced the risk of him falling flat on his face and breaking every bone in his body, or something else equally tragic and dramatic. And his book served a similar purpose, only for his mind instead of his body. He desperately craved a distraction despite not having a clear reason to need one.

As his subconscious drifted into idly thought, he was suddenly made aware of his surroundings again when a small hand tugged on him. He snapped out of his delirium only to find that Carlo had clambered into the seat beside him. While Nero, Nico, and Kyrie were engaged in some sort of conversation with one another about the dinner that he had yet to taste, the small child had seen fit to take his bowl of soup and relocate. No one seemed to notice except for V, as their current conversation proved a formidable distraction.

The young child smiled shyly at him before reaching for the nearest spoon with the intention of eating his soup. V felt a wave of silent panic hit him as the thought of the young child tipping the bowl by mistake and scalding himself crossed his mind. He was on the taller side for a child his age, but not quite at the height required to reach the table safely. V held his hands out and gently stopped the child, garnering a curious look from him as he scooped him up and sat him down next to the table. V then took the cushion out from underneath himself and sat it on top of the existing one in the child’s chair before ushering for him to climb back up. After noticing the child’s hesitation, it occurred to him that he might not be able to do so, so he lifted him up under the arms and plopped him back down into his again.

Carlo smiled and then turned back to his soup, ready and eager to finally eat his dinner. V internally sighed, unnaturally relieved that the sweet child before him hadn’t managed to harm himself. While the liquid wasn’t hot enough to do any notable harm to an adult, it was to a child his age, and he felt compelled to prevent that. V then turned his attention to his own bowl of soup and somewhat hesitantly ate a spoonful himself. Admittedly, he hadn’t been that hungry before now, which was uncommon for him. But now that he had tried it, he was beginning to warm up to the concept. There were descriptor words that he could use to describe how good this soup was, but he had made the decision a lifetime ago to only use those specific words under special circumstances. This wasn’t quite what he had in mind when he had set those restrictions. Regardless, this soup was delicious.

After eating several spoons of the soup, it occurred to V that he hadn’t thanked Kyrie for dinner. He glanced up from his bowl and was slightly startled when he noticed that Nico and Nero were both staring at him like he’d grown a second head while Kyrie giggled happily. V mentally kicked himself. Why was his spatial awareness and concentration so bad today? Sure, he had plenty of reasons to not be feeling quite himself, but this still. Concentrating wasn’t something he had ever had an issue with. This was... unsettling.

V stared back at them, his eyebrow raised. What had he done this time? See this, this was why V was bad at small talk. The eye contact made his skin crawl, even when it came from people he actually liked. He could physically feel himself recoil in discomfort the longer they looked at him like this. After a moment he glanced back down at the bowl and continued eating. “... This is delicious. Thank you.”

If it was possible for a smile to physically render a person blind, then Kyrie succeeded. V stared at her and in surprise as she smiled, practically radiating actual light from her happiness. “Oh, thank you! I’m glad you like it! I noticed the weather, so I thought this would be a perfect time to make soup. And then you Nero brought you home and you seemed sick, so my mind was made up!”

Nico smirked and folded her arms as she gestured towards him. “I didn’t think you even ate food, V! Wow, it’s weird seeing you do… normal stuff, ya know?”

Nero nodded in agreement. Obviously, V ate food. He was a living, breathing being. But there was just something so oddly unnatural about having him over to eat with them. V was too mysterious and subtle to bother with petty normal people things like eating over with family. Or so Nero had figured for some reason that he couldn’t pinpoint. He didn’t really know what to say about it. In a way, he had been so wrapped in mystery and suspicion when they had first met that nothing he did or didn’t do didn’t seem unnatural or suspicious, but now he knew him much better than he had before. And yet somehow this was still just so surreal to him.

V shrugged as he finished eating his food, unsure of what to really say to that. “I would imagine that’s because I’m not exactly normal.” 

That all too familiar smirk returned as he put down the empty bowl, not at all noticing that he was the first person to finish eating by a longshot. He hadn’t exactly eaten the food quickly so much as he had simply not stopped eating it for even a moment from the second he tasted it. Part of him wanted to ask for more of it, but he decided against it. He had felt quite queasy earlier that day. It was best not to push it for now. He would sleep on this and see how he felt tomorrow.

Nero shook his head before going back to his food. “You got that right, V.”

-~-

When Kyrie had asked Nico to throw the clothes in the laundry while she put the kids to be, she didn’t hesitate. It was a better idea than allowing her to try and get them to calm down and actually go to bed. A much better idea. The last time that she had tried to do that, they had been up until three in the morning, and she had fallen asleep only to wake up the next morning to a catastrophic mess in the kitchen. No one wanted that.

Nero had volunteered to do the dishes in an act that had led to no small amount of friendly teasing from Nico before they had all gone their separate ways. And in an act that actually took every adult at the table by surprise, V volunteered to help him. Kyrie had insisted that he didn’t need to help since he was a guest, but he had politely insisted, partially from an incessant need to feel less useless, and because he had literally nothing better to do. And that was how they had ended up alone in the kitchen.

As Nero finished washing one of the dishes, he passed it to V who then dried it and placed it effortlessly in the overhead cabinet. Nero shrugged as if to ask his brother a question, testing the limits of how far he could push V in regards to jokes. 

“So what the hell,” He said as he handed him another cup. He accepted it nonchalantly as he leaned against the counter,” Have you always been this freakishly tall?”

V scoffed at the comment, idly drying the plastic drinking cup,” Absolutely. Walking with a cane simply makes that less apparent.”

Nero nodded. That made sense. “Then… why didn’t you just get a longer cane?”

V seemed to consider the question for a moment. Or rather, he debated if he should go into that right now. “I… wasn’t afforded the opportunity to pick in the situation I was in. I needed to act fast, or I wouldn’t have lived long enough to think about it later.”

An eyebrow went up at the answer. What the hell was he going on about? Had he been under attack? Nero knew just by the way that he answered that question that he wasn’t going to elaborate any further, at least not right now. But he still couldn’t help but wonder what he was referring to. His life before they had met seemed to be just as chaotic as ever. Would he ever tell him about where he came from? One thing at a time.

He gestured towards Nero’s arm almost lazily.” So, how did your arm grow back?” There was genuine curiosity in his tone, masked under a thick layer of sarcasm. He asked the question so bluntly that it nearly gave Nero whiplash. He stopped washing the dishes for a moment and gave V a sideways look. He didn’t sound like he didn’t care so much as he sounded totally unimpressed, almost like he already had an idea what had happened. Nero briefly considered showing him his Devil Trigger instead of just telling him about it and then came to his senses. If he triggered in the kitchen, he'd probably break everything in here. That, and he’d probably give V a protracted stroke, and he already had enough problems right now.

“I got some new powers and they just kinda fixed it. It’s complicated. I don’t know how to make it make sense,” Nero shrugged, unsure of how to really explain what happened. He wasn’t honestly one hundred percent sure himself. Just grateful.” It works like a normal arm and everything, but Nico modified the Devilbreakers so I can still use them. It’s pretty sweet.”

V nodded to himself, taking in what Nero had just told him. “So it didn’t grow back so much as it replaced itself, then.”

Nero paused for a moment to hand him the last dish before nodding to himself. “Yea, basically,” Nero turned the tap off and wiped his hands on the dish towel,” Why, you planning to cut something off and taking notes? I don’t recommend it. It’s fucking painful.”

He dried the dish and placed it in the cabinet, pausing for a moment. V gave Nero a subtle yet sympathetic look, nodding slowly. “Yes… I imagine that it did,” he reached over his head and closed the cabinet door,” And no, I don’t plan on losing any parts of my body. Dying again isn’t on my agenda as of yet.”

Nero stared at him for a moment in disbelief at the deadpan way he had just said that before bursting out into genuine laughter. Seriously, what the absolute fuck was wrong with him. He leaned on the counter for support for a moment as he tried to stop laughing, slightly lightheaded. V let slip a brief snicker before going totally silent again, trying not to let Nero’s stupidity get to him. When Nero finally stopped laughing, he shook his head and just rolled his eyes. “

“You’re the darkest asshole I’ve ever met in my entire life, you know that right,” Nero folded his arms and shook his head, suppressing a final laugh,” I and saw you fucking laugh.”

V shook his head once, his serious facial expression remaining. “No, I didn’t. I don’t laugh.”

Nero rolled his eyes again. Uh-huh. I’m sure.”

V scoffed, smirking wickedly. “That wasn’t a laugh. You’d be able to tell the difference.”

Nero turned in the direction of the doorway, en route to the stairs. “Whatever, V. Just-” Nero stopped for a moment, something occurring to him for the first time since they’d first met,” Actually what the fuck is your name anyway?”

He folded his arm, blinking a few times quickly. The totally calm look that he had on his face never wavered. V figured he’d ask that at some point, but it still didn’t change his answer. At least for right now. “No. Go to bed.”

Nero just looked at him for a second before. He had never thought that V actually had a sense of humor until now. Well, at least more of one than Vergil had. That wasn’t a very high bar to meet. Nero practically shuttered at the thought of Vergil ever trying to tell a joke. No, Dante had inherited all the funny genes. He utterly refused to believe that Vergil could be funny. And he never wanted to hear him laugh. EVER. He had just developed a phobia he didn’t even know existed.

As Nero took a step towards the bottom stair, he glanced back at V. For a moment the gravity of everything that had happened in the last two days hit him all at once and he couldn’t help but feel slightly emotional. He liked V. He didn’t know if he would ever tell him that straight to his face, but he did. And he was glad that he was back. Maybe they could start over. After he’d lost Credo, he didn’t think he had it in him to be close to anyone like that again. Not with that kind of relationship. But he was a different person now, so he could only hope, even if hope was a dangerous and foolish thing.

“... I’ll see you in the morning, V.”

V smirked, quietly pleased with himself. He turned towards the guest room, glancing back at him as he headed down the hall. “Yes,” he stopped for a moment, turning back to face him,”... Goodnight, Nero.

-~-

Finally, some wholesome family time for V! It only took his entire life, but here we are! As always, thank you guys for reading! The next chapter will be out on Friday, June 5th between Noon and 6 pm, depending on what’s going on. And also, how do you feel about these slower chapters. Obviously, we’re working towards something with some ACTION, but I hope I’m not boring you with the pacing. Let me know! And thanks for the kudos, everyone! Yes, you too, anons! This is the most read fic I’ve ever written. Amazing. Just wow. I couldn’t be happier!

P.S.I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I made a website just for reading my fics. It’s free if you want to check it out. I hope you like it. I made sure everything was really easy to navigate. Here’s the link: https://skvaderarts.wixsite.com/skvaderarts

[aspiring-dm]

Three-Headed Puppy Is Back On His Bullshit

So, some of you may have read my previous post about Paolo Manchado, the Cerberus from a game of Monsterhearts I’m playing in.  The game has mostly just been me playing and the GM torturing me with the awful choices I impose on myself.  Paolo has ended up being one of my favorite characters to play due to the deep, painful, emotional trauma I experience while portraying this innocent monster.  This post is going to be a more in-depth look at the first three sessions I’ve played with him.

So in session one, we’re off to a somewhat slow start that many powered by the apocalypse games experience where the GM is frustrated trying to figure out what the player(s) want to do and the player(s) are frustrated trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do.  I’ve never been a fan of any games that take place inside a school because the act of roleplaying the menial act of going to classes bores me sooo much (I was in many free text role plays on supercheats and figment that had this problem).  

Paolo is a Cerberus.  In particular, THE Cerberus “gave birth” to him, a phrase which here means he woke up in Unity, New Hampshire, knowing he was Paolo Manchado, son of Cerberus, put here on earth to ensure that the beings of light and dark remain in their place.  That goal makes up every fiber of his being the same way blood and bones make up you and me.  He gets very frustrated because humans keep trying to get him to feel human and he keeps telling them “I am incapable of feeling the same way you do about life, relationships, and purpose.  Not I DON’T feel the same way, not I WON’T.  I CAN’T.”

So we started off in a classroom, and then there was a car crash outside.  The car had crashed into nothing, so Paolo was searching around for invisible creatures, visiting her in the hospital, gazing into the abyss, trying to find answers but nothing was really going anywhere.  

Then he encounters Ronan, who directs him at Elijah, who he’s apparently trying to avoid.  Paolo could smell death on Elijah and chased him under a bridge, demanding to know what he was.  Turns out, he’s basically a zombie.  

Elijah’s backstory is that he was seduced by Ronan, who took him back to his cabin, starting making out, started getting handsy, started getting knifey, and then sacrificed Elijah in a dark ritual.  Elijah came back, though, now in undead form, with some dark violent tendencies he can’t control.

Paolo lets Elijah go and goes to track down Ronan, the true problem here.  Specifically, Paolo’s not concerned with the mere existence of zombies or warlocks in his town, just when they start interfering with mortal lives, which Ronan had willfully done.  After talking a bit to Elijah’s ex, Hero, Paolo manages to track down Ronan’s house.  They traded lots of high philosophy arguments that I forget most of, which mostly amounted to Paolo demanding that Ronan not hurt anybody else and Ronan shrugging and going “What can you do?  Gotta break a few eggs.”  Ronan is frustrating and clearly Neutral Evil.  His alignment doesn’t concern Paolo, though, only his risk factor of exposing the dark side of the world.

So Paolo leaves.  By the way, having been born without parents, or money, or a social security number, Paolo’s only possessions are the clothes on his back.  As such, he lives in an abandoned boxcar, like the Boxcar Children.  This is important to note because when he gets back there, Elijah is waiting, depressed.  They talk a lot about Elijah’s issues with being dead, his personality defects both before and after dying, his relationship issues, etc.  Then they both went to sleep together.  Before you ask, yes, there were gay vibes, but that’ll just make it worse later.

That night, Paolo discovered he had the ability to enter a sort of mindscape, which was essentially Elijah’s Metaverse Palace where there was a courtroom where he played judge, jury, defendant, prosecutor, and defense.  The people on the stand were all the people Elijah had fallen in love with telling the judge Elijah how quickly he’d fallen in love with them and what he did that drove them away.

Then Paolo discovered the ability to interact with these mind-Elijahs, and took the stand before taking the role of one of the attorneys.  Thus began a long and emotional and philosophical monologue by Paolo trying to help Elijah learn how to control his emotions, how to not love to eagerly, and especially not to love people like Ronan.  See, Elijah was still in love with Ronan, even though Ronan had only used him for the sacrifice (Ronan’s mind had also gotten pulled into this Palace).  A little bit of progress was made here.  

This was about the end of session 1 I think.

Later, Paolo went to Ronan.  He’d at some point looked into Ronan’s emotions (because these are powers a Cerberus has for some reason) and learned that Ronan was obsessed with being remembered for his “scientific” achievements.  So, Paolo went to Ronan and said “I am the only creature of my kind in the entire world.  Maybe you can put your... creative energies into studying me, rather than murdering people.”  Paolo is not confident in Ronan’s agreement having a lasting effect, but as long as it’s working he’s not complaining.

That night, Hero came to Paolo’s boxcar saying that Elijah needed help.  Paolo was apprehensive at first, because it’s not really his job to help in general, but when it came to his attention that Elijah was attacking someone he agreed to follow her.

Elijah’s dark side had given him a need to be feared, and was hitting a guy’s car with a baseball bat, with the guy inside the car.  Paolo transformed in front of Hero (his eyes turn black, his hands grow bone claws and fur, and his teeth sharpen) and tried to threaten Elijah down at first, but that didn’t work, so he then convinced Elijah to come back to the boxcar and talk.

Elijah, defeated, came to the boxcar and began smashing the door with his fist repeatedly, droning and punching.  Paolo had asked this before, but he asked it again, what did Elijah want.  Elijah’s answer was always the same: he either wanted to go back to the way things were before he died, or be able to move on and die.

Paolo thinks very hard, and very conflicted.  He and Elijah had become close friends over the course of these two sessions, but Elijah’s worsening condition made him a threat to the balance between worlds Paolo was sworn to protect.  Paolo asked this wanting an instruction on what he could do.  While he knew his purpose, he was very directionless on how to achieve it.  

Paolo asked Ronan if he could reverse Elijah’s curse, but Ronan’s experiments to look into such a task would be both risky and time-consuming.  Time Paolo might not have.

So, while Elijah slept in Paolo’s boxcar, Paolo stared at his confused and broken friend and made a horrible decision.  He set about the gruesome work of chewing Elijah’s head off.  He didn’t bother trying to clean the boxcar- he knew the police would find it.  He simply buried the head in the snow, left the body in the car (in case they could reconnect somehow), and wandered off into the woods.  He stopped in the cemetery where he made his new home.  The next day, on Hero’s birthday, he told her what he had done.  It broke her more than it broke him, to say the least.

While Elijah had been alive, he’d asked Paolo what kinds of girls he was into.  Quote, “What about Jessie Lynn?... She’s cute...”  After Elijah died, somehow the words stuck with Paolo.  He’d gotten very close to Elijah very fast and it ended very badly.  Paolo just wanted somebody he could be friends with and take very slowly, without needing to deal with the whole monster thing.  So he started talking to Jessie Lynn, who played a sort of Magic the Gathering Parallel that Paolo likes because Cerberus is one of the cards in it.  And they started being friends, and that’s where session 2 ended.

AND THEN THE BULLSHIT BEGAN.  Oh, you think murdering your zombie son who you wanted to teach how to love but whose psychological illness made him a danger to himself and to society so you ATE THROUGH HIS NECK was pretty raw and emotional?  Well session 3′s the game that made me feel actual anger and cry actual tears.  This is the game where Jonah starts yelling at NPCs at 1 AM and waking up his parents.

By the way, here and there have been some interactions with Jupiter, a ghost in Paolo’s class, but she doesn’t bother him too much cause she’s not very active and can never remember anything anyway.

Fast forward three weeks, Paolo and Jessi Lynn have been getting along pretty well, nothing super serious has happened except for all the student life trauma of finding out your classmate was mysteriously murdered, police had questions, etc.

Paolo gets back to his graveyard he’s been sleeping in, because that’s his life now, and he finds Hero lying under his tree.  Who knows how she keeps finding where he sleeps.  Anyway, she looks up at him and she’s a vampire now and says she needs his help and Paolo and Jonah both go “Welp.  This’ll end badly.”  She starts telling him about how she’s been on a drinking binge since Elijah’s death and she met this vampire and she asked him to turn him because he said she could see Elijah again, and she takes Paolo to the body of someone she killed.  Paolo at this point is honestly not very conflicted.  The vampire who turned her would only be a problem if she hadn’t literally asked to be turned, but Paolo still wanted to identify the guy so he could be aware of vampires in his town.

As for Hero, he sent her to Jessie Lynn’s house (the girls were both good friends) and tried to find out anything he could about the vampire, but to no avail.  He went back to Jessie Lynn’s house to check up on her when he heard a scream, ran into the room to find Hero feeding on Jessie Lynn.  Already Paolo is panicking because if Hero’s gonna have Elijah-like impulses, it won’t be good.  Paolo tries talking, he tries pulling her off, he tries hugging her, he tries playing wounded puppy dog, but I ROLLED SIX FAILURES IN A ROW during this whole segment, giving me two level-ups within ten minutes.  AND THEN I DIED cuz Hero ripped my throat out.  Luckily I had just taken a move last session that meant I never stayed dead, so a few hours later Paolo wakes up propped against the dresser, Jessie Lynn lying on the floor with a damp towel against her neck.

Paolo is thinking, one, okay this is weird, but of course since I’m the child of the guardian of the underworld, they’d just send me back.  Two, gotta make sure Jessie Lynn is okay, yep she’ll be fine despite the big hole in her neck.  Three, gotta find Hero.  Eventually Paolo finds her in a crawl space on the staircase and get her to talk to him, reassuring her that rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated.  

Then Jessie Lynn wakes up and Paolo keeps Hero hidden in the crawl space until there’s and opportunity for her to get away, and he tells Hero that if she can’t get into her own house (due to needing an invitation) he’s recently been sleeping near Ronan’s cabin in the woods, which no one lives in.  Jessie doesn’t remember much about the attack, and Paolo struggles to find a good lie, but luckily “I don’t know” seemed to work well enough.  While Paolo’s wounds have vanished, his clothes are still coated in his blood (which right now we’re going to pretend Jessie thought was her blood), and she offered to let him borrow some of her dad’s clothes while she washed those.  So the fanfiction begins, and then while Jessie is making tea and dinner Hero runs out the door.

Fanfiction continues, a moment where Jessie reaches for Paolo’s mug and he thinks she’s going for his hand so he reflexively takes her hand awkwardly.  Then of course they end up sharing the same bed, and then the smutty stuff began.

I’ve been portraying Paolo as semi-aromantic?  Not exactly fitting that label, the main idea being that as he is a Cerberus, he doesn’t experience the same range of emotions that humans do, but he does still possess a human-ish body with sexual urges.  I think it’s possible he’s capable of romantic love, but so far such a thing couldn’t happen with any creature from this world.

So anyways, after a somewhat awkward first time for both of them, Paolo basically confesses as much as he can about himself without outright telling Jessie monsters exist.  He tries to explain that if she had known the parts he can’t tell her about they might not have happened like this, but she doesn’t seem concerned about it at all.

So onward from there, Paolo heads out the next morning to the cabin to find Hero’s broken into it and slept on the bed.  Paolo scrounges up some clothes for her and gives her his hoodie hoping it’ll be enough to protect her from the sun, but it’s not enough.  Also we later retconned, because the fanfic nature of this game demanded it, and decided that Paolo made no attempt not to watch her change and Hero made no attempt not to be watched changing, which may or may not be relevant in future sessions, idk.  They decide they’ll have to wait til nightfall, and Paolo leaves for school.

Now, Paolo has never not worn his hoodie anywhere.  Given as its one of the only things he owns, he doesn’t really take it off much.  But in this case, he’s forgotten to get it back from Hero, exposing the snake tattoos on his back (there are many snakes, all of their heads coming to the back of his neck while the tails slide down his back and curl around his upper arms).  Several students were curious about them.  Things during the day with Jessie were about the same, except she kept giving Paolo playful looks of “I know what your dick looks like.”

Paolo spends that day trying to get Jupiter to not walk through walls and then spends some time with Jessie before returning to the cabin.  Having discovered that his blood sates Hero’s hunger and also he can’t die even if she overfeeds, he decides to become her personal blood bank to keep her from attacking people.

Then the two of them go shopping to get her some clothes that don’t look like they were made for a lumberjack twice her size.  She immediately gets into the vampire look, with the black, and the fishnets, and yadda yadda.  She also gets Paolo a black leather jacket, to which his response was “I already have a jacket though... I wear it everyday.”  She also insists he pick something out, so he gets a pair of fingerless gloves, which apparently Elijah also wore and Hero gets quiet for a moment.

Paolo then takes Hero home and invites her into her own house before her dad comes downstairs and grounds her.  Paolo returns to the cabin.  Previously he’d been sleeping outside under a tree because he didn’t expect Ronan would appreciate him breaking in, but now that Hero’s already broken a window and now that Paolo’s experienced what a real bed feels like, he decides to go in and sleep on the bed.

So, Saturday, Paolo and Jessie meet up and they decide to go help Hero (who at this point, I believe Jessie thinks she was sexually assaulted based on the vague approximations of what Paolo’s told her) and spend time with her while she’s grounded.  Paolo knows that grounding is a punishment given by parents to their children, but he’s unclear on what exactly that means, so he spends a little while just trying to find a roundabout way of getting Hero to say what grounding is without him directly asking.

Hero’s got garbage bags up on all the windows, saying she sunburns super easily now.  Jessie goes into another room to try to find something more permanent, leaving Hero and Paolo to FUCKING discuss the fact that Paolo hasn’t told Jessie Hero’s a vampire, or what he is.  This is the part where I started feeling Paolo’s anger and frustration, because they get into an argument and then Jessie enters the room and Hero goes “Hey, I’m a vampire, and it’s his job to kill me!”  Paolo tries to play it off like a joke, and then Hero shows Jessie her fangs.  Paolo, in his anger, just shuts down for a moment, goes to close the door, and slumps down in front of it, now trying to process in his head if this information is going to leave this room, or if he has to repeat what he did with Elijah with the girl he slept with and also Elijah 2.0.  Jessie runs out another door in the room, Paolo makes no attempt to stop her and angrily starts yelling at Hero about his job and how her actions were totally reckless, if Jessie tells anyone there will be panic on both sides of the divide and basically a war would just break out.  Hero’s trying to act like it’s not that bad and Paolo’s not having any of it, and he’s trying not to bring up the fact that it’s very possible he has to KILL both of them now.

So he leaves and tracks down Jessie hiding in the hollow of a tree.  Some notes about Paolo’s role play, his voice is always very ineffectual and emotionless, he often hums three times while trying to think about things he doesn’t find super serious.  In this moment, though, he angrily stands outside this tree and demands Jessie talk to him.  She tries to leave multiple times during this conversation, but he keeps stopping her.  Says “Guess now I have to tell you.”  He explains everything about Elijah being dead and Hero being a vampire and his job to make sure normal humans never find out about it.  Looking back, he never actually said anything about what he is, just his job.  And then he gets to truth of what happened to Elijah and he says “It seems manipulative to tell you this!  It feels like a threat, and there’s no way to get around it being a threat!” And he tells her that he killed Elijah.  Then she leaves, and he just stands there.  In his mind, he’s making a gamble.  He’s gonna hope Jessie doesn’t tell anyone, and if she does... well, he can start killing people later.  For now he just wants to feel like he’s accomplishing something, so he goes back to help Hero with her window situation.

Hero and Paolo have a long argument containing many typical elements of Paolo arguments, such as “it won’t be that bad if people find out,” and “you can choose your own destiny” vs. “I literally cannot I am not a human.”  Somewhere in here I started crying actual tears as Paolo’s defeated by the world.  He wants so badly to not have to kill anybody and he’s remembering how awful it was with Elijah when he failed him.  

Hero leaves the house for a bit, and when she comes back Paolo is still standing in the middle of the room.  He’s so lost on what he should do he can’t even figure out if he should go anywhere or move at all.  The first time she tries to comfort him, he turns away from her, in his mind the current situation is her fault to begin with.  The next few times he shows no sign of accepting or resisting.  She hugs him, makes him sit on the bed, makes him lie on the bed, and plays with his hair after calming him down a little.  She tries to get him to stop thinking for a bit, which only happens when she starts humming a song, but beyond that his mind is racing.  She falls asleep and Paolo assumes she expected him to, but his version of sleep is actually consciously gazing into the abyss, so his options are either think while conscious in this world, or think while conscious in the abyss.  The abyss is the more informative and intimidating of the options, so he just stays awake until she wakes up again.

That’s where we are now.  Fucking three sessions and Paolo’s already broken.  Oh: right after sleeping with Jessie he took the move Loyal, so Jessie’s basically his master.  ALSO, though, Jessie hates him now and wants nothing to do with him, so unfortunate timing on that.  *shrug*

[catsbest-uk]

Dog and Cat getting used to each other -  Behaviour with other animals

HOW YOU CAN HELP YOUR CAT TO ACCEPT OTHER PETS

“Open-minded and sociable house cat seeks flatmate!”. A cat living together with other pets in a big patchwork family – Is that really possible or does this automatically lead to stressful situations?

A kitten is socialised as of the 4th week of its life. This usually happens together with their siblings, “single kittens” are merely the exception. During this period, they learn everything about feline social behaviour and are educated by both their mum and their siblings. If a cat has grown up in that kind of species-appropriate environment, it will still go hunting alone – but for the rest of the time it will happily engage with others. In that regard, cats are very sociable animals! They love the physical contact with other cats, they clean each other and play together – also, relaxing is far more enjoyable together than alone! 

In that case, who would be a desirable candidate for your cat`s “flat share”?

Who is the best company for your cat?

And which two would merely “eat each other up”?...

What animals get along with cats?

Every third German household keeps at least one pet, if not two or more.

Cats are the most common pets but they often share their habitat with other animals.

But which animals get along best?

If your cat is to get company, you need to choose carefully and check who they harmonise with best on a long-term basis – otherwise the new situation can become a burden to everyone involved.  

A future cohabitation of two or more animals should therefore be planned with care!

Cats and rodents

“You look so good I could eat you up!”

Cohabitation of rodents and cats – at least in their natural habitat – is at best short if non-existent: Any encounter can quickly take a dramatic turn! Eating or being eaten – since rodents are natural prey to cats, their life expectancy in case of an encounter is unfortunately rather limited. 

If hamsters, rats or mice share the living room with cats, you should definitely make sure that their cage is secured and safe to look at but not to touch…

Permanent lurking can otherwise turn into long-term stress for both parties involved.

Cats and birds

“Separate Tables” –  Spacial separation must be a given for the entire time the bird is spending outside of its cage. A few hours per day need to be reserved for them to fly and roam freely.

During that time, your cat should always be separated from them, because a bird will not keep circling close to the ceiling – at times it will land on the floor or furniture and take a rest.

No matter, how well your cat is socialised and even if it usually doesn’t pay any attention to the bird – this is too tempting a situation to withstand: “Isn’t something moving on the floor there and smelling really yummy?!”

This could mean that suddenly, the hunting instinct is back. Without further ado, the cat prepares to leap – and you can’t even blame it. 

If you can afford to give both species their needed habitat and space, this combination can still work. However, in a one-room-flat or studio, the challenge might be a little extreme for everyone involved.

Cats and rabbits

Grown rabbits normally don’t have problems with cats, given that they are not coming too close. This would quickly be perceived as too intrusive.

They would then try to withdraw – and if that is not possible or if they feel cornered, the rabbits will defend themselves, with force.  

Dwarf rabbit and rabbit kids still fit into the prey category for you cat – so be watchful during the hours your rabbits are running free. 

Do not leave them alone and unsupervised – even when they have grown up. An open door may tempt a saint...So make sure to create a surrounding for them where they can run free but are safe from your cat at the same time; especially when alone. 

Cats and dogs

“Like cat and dog” – means two that do not go together without tearing each other to shreds!!

Most proverbs contain some truth – so what is behind this one?

Cat and dog, living together in harmony – can we make this work? 

– Yes, we can!         

Depending on the individual character of the animals, some breeds actually have no problem with this at all – and if the animals have grown up together, everything should be fine in any case.

Though cats have learned to live with us, they preserve their hunting instincts nonetheless; and there are some dog species bred for hunting especially. But there are dog breeds that have a more sweet-tempered nature, even with cats who cross the line once in a while.

If cat and dog learn to read each other’s behaviour patterns early in life, friendships can be established that last for a lifetime.

Cats and cats

Normally, cats can get along with their own species. However, the “chemistry” must be just right!

It obviously makes it easier for them if they already know each other or even stem from the same litter. But don’t be fooled: Just like in human families, siblings also like the occasional tussle. However, serious fights are not to be expected here.  

If a kitten is integrated in a household with an older cat, make sure that the senior gets its rest once in a while. Even a teenager gets tired eventually – and many older cats are well capable of setting and protecting their boundaries.

A female cat might even consider adopting the little fellow!

It is in any case advisable to keep the cats apart in the beginning and to give them enough time to get to know each other. The hierarchy must be set and during this process, some fierce fighting can be expected. But not to worry – this matter is usually quickly settled. Just make sure to keep out of it and let them work it out among themselves.

As soon as the new order is established, the hatchet will be buried again quickly.

After choosing the animal

If you want to keep several animals but are not sure which one would be the best match, do not only follow your own wishes but also consider how much of a chance there is for the pets to get along with each other. 

What are the prospects for the new combination to become the future “dream team”? – This obviously entails that you consider upfront what kind of living conditions the cats require and if you are able to provide them. 

All animals living together in peace, like on Noah’s Ark – this would obviously be ideal.

But the reality often looks somewhat different and things can even get pretty dangerous!

If you are considering keeping animals of the same species together, make sure upfront that the chance for success is maximised by providing ideal conditions.

Previous experience with other pets

A basic prerequisite for harmony is that no negative experiences precede the encounter – if the animals connect only positive memories with their own species, half the job is done already!

In that case, there should be no fear of contact, as a basic tolerance already exists. But even here the rule applies: Every new animal needs to become part of the family.

And as each group has its own dynamics and rules, it requires sensitivity and patience to make the arrival easier for the newcomer. 

Cats who have had contact with other animals at a young age will usually have less problems with socialising, because a positive conditioning has already been established. 

Monitoring behaviour with other animals

If your cat has shown aggressive behaviour and general difficulties with accepting other animals, you should consider not bringing other pets into the house. The same goes for easily stressed and frightened cats. 

If your cat has a strong hunting instinct, the addition of a smaller pet to the “cat-share” is an equally bad idea. 

Watch the body language and the size of the pupils! This scenario could quickly lead to permanent stress for both the animals and you – as you would not be able to leave them alone for one minute without having to fear for the worst. And with that being practically impossible, the catastrophe is virtually predestined.

The “prey” would have a very limited life expectancy…

Look for a good match

But even the most “dog-proof” cats won’t necessarily get along with ANY dog. 

The character of the pet is of the utmost importance!

An old cat may always have been getting along well with an elderly, white-snouted dog and may even have snuggled in front of the fire with it – but it wants nothing to do with the young puppy and its boisterous attacks!

Before, a wink of the eye was enough communication between cat and dog – the two were a well functioning team, getting along quite smoothly. “But this young rowdy won’t leave you alone, even if you arch your back and hiss at it – no fun at my age in the first place – and I constantly have to defend myself. All I can do is withdraw. Joyful old age looks different!” an old cat might think

Conflicting body language

Surely, the fact that varying species avoid each other in the wild is problematic. An encounter is made even more difficult by conflicting body language – the most basic signals can be read completely differently – between cat and dog they can even mean the opposite!

If the dog wags its tail, it feels jolly. The cat however moves its tail in nervous anticipation – a clear sign to keep your distance, also for a dog! As opposed to being playful, this gesture means that the cat feels far from playful, maybe even tense, enervated and stressed out! 

Growling or purring? When a cat purrs with delight, the dog may anticipate this as a dangerous snarl – just to give an example. (However, there are also purring dogs...hard to believe, but true!)

Misconceptions are very common – except in the case that the animals know each other well and have learnt to cope with the differences. This however takes a good deal of trust and long term experience. 

Passive encounter.

Few animals will happily great new arrivals on their first encounter – as in “Where have you been all my life? Nice to finally meet you!” Rather, the newcomer will be perceived as trespassing on the territory. Therefore never let them meet each other without warning – even if they are members of the same species – in most cases, this will not work out!

The “new one” will be stressed out from the trip and the new territory, with strangers – both two-legged and four-legged – whom it has not met before. Wouldn’t your own first thought possibly be:

“Run, if you can’t hide!”?

To feel safe, first of all a quiet room should be provided. There should also be food and water, maybe a litter box (if the newcomer is a second cat) and a comfortable basket, so that the newcomer can take its time to arrive and get some rest. 

The first night may be sleep-deprived nonetheless...since all of this is much too nerve-wracking as it is!

Further tips for cohabitation: 

Maybe you can ask a friend to become godmother/-father to one of your pets and be there for it alone? – best would be someone who already knows the animal. 

Provide a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere – no loud noises, no visitors, no hustle – all of that could stress the animals even more. 

Getting used to scents

Act carefully and let your newcomer get used to the scent of those who have lived on the territory before actually meeting them. And vice versa, of course. 

Not only does a cat smell much better than a human – but their olfactory sense is much more developed – meaning they can literally “see” someone with their noses.  

This serves the situation perfectly! For the passive encounter, this is the first step:

Before the protagonists meet in person, they can thus get used to each other via their respective smell – that means, they know each other to an extent before actually having met. 

If they then meet for the first time, they may not be great friends automatically – this is obviously not possible – but the scent of the other animal seems at least familiar and non-threatening. The first baby step has been taken – via the nose. 

Positive conditioning by help of scents

Positive conditioning can encourage and consolidate a certain desired behaviour. Praise them if they have shown the right reaction, or even reward them with a little treat!

It will leave a positive impression because it is connected with the reward. 

In order to initiate the positive conditioning you can for example gently rub the cheeks of the newcomer with a cloth and let your “old” housemate smell it afterwards. If your cat shows curiosity and smells the cloth, praise and reward it thoroughly!

This is how you conduct the approach to the new “fragrant messages” – because these are important steps for getting to know one another. 

TIP: Best to bring a cloth or blanket of the new housemate and deposit it at home a few days in advance!

You can also connect a relaxing verbal signal – a certain word or command – with the scent of the newcomer: 

Especially during the first period of adjustment, this can be very helpful with easing tense situations. 

Spreading the fragrance around the feeding bowl “Food is ready!” – Feeding time for a pet often equals the highlight of the day!

Even the favourite spot will be deserted when it comes to being first at the food bowl. You may know the feeling of a stare “drilling” into your back while standing at the opened fridge – and whoosh! Suddenly your cat has materialised out of nowhere.

“I happened to be in the area – would a quick snack be possible, maybe?” Obviously garnered with a glance from velvet eyes that can dissolve steel and stone in a flash…somewhere routed in the genes, passed down from generation to generation and simply irresistible! You can open your fridge or cupboard as soundlessly as possible – Your animal will already be there, circling your legs. 

But this time, the evolutionary imprinted greed is actually helpful!

To connect the fragrant of the newcomer with something pleasant, you can position it in a way which yields positive conditioning: Place the scented cloth or blanket in the feeding area, or present it during play or cuddling time – that way, the scent will automatically be connected with positive experiences.

By the time the first encounter happens, the scent emanating from the newcomer will be loaded with positive sense memories. 

Staying in each other’s space

After keeping the animals in separate rooms for a few days, you can risk an interchange: Each animal is invited to check out the territory of the other. By sniffing every corner of the room, the two animals will get to know each other in absence, via the nose. 

A whole room will smell much stronger than any cuddle blanket, at least for fragrance-sensitive animals. We as humans only register these things marginally, while animals will smell each other even after days of airing! 

The animals will thus be confronted more intensively with the unknown odour – without the threat of a physical encounter. However, by the time they meet “in person”, the “total stranger” will almost seem like an old acquaintance. 

This process initiates the actual “getting to know each other” in a very gentle way – and will make the first “face-to-face” encounter a lot easier – for all parties involved.  

Using the other animal’s blanket

Sleeping blankets or cushions are especially perfect for this, because our feline friends spend much of their time in and on them. 

For cats that are not out hunting, the sleeping place is a haven during the night as well as for many cat naps during the day – quite obvious that these spots are full with odours! Here, not only the biggest amount of their time is being spent – but it is also used for rolling about and cuddling – all of this leading to  a lot of messenger substances being released. 

Many dogs will start scraping at their nest to change it to the their liking – much as in the wild, where they would dig up a hollow to sleep in. House dogs only mimic this with a symbolic gesture – thank goodness – as no house owner will look on benignly while “Bello” is digging up the parquet floor... 

During this scratching activity – similar to cats rubbing their cheeks on something – messenger substances are being released from the paws to mark the territory. 

Place the fragrant blanket in the house a couple of days ahead of the arrival of the new pet. This will give the “old” four-legged housemates enough time to get used to the new odour. 

Adjustment by ear

Silence of the lambs? Not in the least – pets can be loud, and how!

Every animal has a whole repertoire of sounds at its disposal. These can be used as a kind of audio business card – given that there are unique sounds that are typical for the respective newcomer.  

With cats and dogs, this is quite easy; here you can record their meowing or barking. But also small animals make a lot of distinct noises such as the high, piercing squeak of the guinea pig or the lighter pitch of a mouse or rat (no! – do not squeeze – they will deliver the sound voluntarily!

In any case, you should use typical sounds with a high recognition value.

The sounds must be clearly recognisable – admittedly this is a little harder with rabbits and other small animals, but the main goal is to get them used to the noises of cats or dogs. Afterwards, the bigger animal will appear much less threatening!

Playback of pre-recorded animal sounds of the newcomer

The animal sounds are recorded and then played back, beginning with a low level – then you increase the sound until a realistic volume is reached. 

If you conduct this audio performance carefully, a loud bark may still be threatening – especially if coming from a 60 kilo strong resonance body – but at least it will not scare the wits out of your animal completely any more – because by now, it now somehow seems at least familiar. 

A good old tape recorder will do the trick as well as any dictation device, a mini disc recorder – or you can simply use the notes/recording function on your smart phone.

Place the recording device in the vicinity of the animal and play the sequence from time to time – no need to pester the pet with a non-stop soundscape though, as that might be rather counterproductive!

Too much will produce aversion!

Please stick to a bearable dosage and volume level – otherwise your neighbours might start complaining...

Spatial separation

The animals should be living apart from each other in the beginning, with the newcomer getting a room of its own and the “old” pet roaming the rest of the premises. 

Each room obviously gets a food and water bowl as well as a litter box. 

The old territory should be kept available – to avoid resentment. 

The “old” cat should still be number one, even though a potential rival has arrived. All of that is very stressful for a cat – do not underestimate its feelings!

Obviously, anything new is attractive –  especially if it is a fluffy kitten with big eyes and soft fur, looking so sweet, demanding all of your attention and assistance! But do not make the mistake of neglecting your “old” cat! It is not helpful to regard them as extras or boss them around – this does not work with cats any way! They will never “function” according to your will. 

Include them and spoil them so that they don’t feel left behind. When you have visited the newcomer in its own room, always make sure to spend some quality time with the other pet as well. 

Separate bedromms

As the whole new situation is new and stressful, all parties – and that includes you – should enjoy an uninterrupted night’s sleep, to gather strength for the next day.

Even if the newcomer already moves around quite confidently in the new environment during the day – at night it should still have a place all to itself, with no danger of intrusion.

This private sphere is immensely important!

If there are cases of friction and confrontation, a safe refuge is important even during the day! A secure place to retreat to can be a lifesaver – even if things get tough; here your newcomer will feel safe and snug.

And that exactly is the feeling that’s missing for the newcomer: feeling safe. 

So please try and create one or several peaceful retreats. The resting place must be taboo for everyone else, at all times!

This is a private zone – “Entry strictly prohibited”.

An elevated spot for the food bowl

Friendship often ends where feeding begins. 

As to avoid resentment, simply place the food bowls in separate rooms and keep the door shut!

An open door may tempt a saint...

There are enough cats who won’t hesitate to steal from right under their housemate’s nose! To them, impudence wins the game and is also a way of showing dominance.

To avoid bullying and make sure that the new pet does not end up looking like skin and bones, simply place the food somewhere else and that’s that!

That way, the newcomer must not risk life and limb to defend its food.

Here, the new pet can eat in peace and without interruption – an important factor of feeling at home. This is not just about nutrition – food distribution is a matter of hierarchy – the highest ranking animal gets to eat first. 

In one house with cat and dog, you should feed your animals at different times in different rooms to prevent jealousy. You may also want to place the food bowl for the cat higher than the one for the dog especially when you give it dry food, which will not be consumed in one go. Otherwise, the dog might be tempted to dig in at intervals.

Many dogs just love cat food! Wonderfully different in variation! And tasty fish dishes...

Protecting the litter box

The cat’s toilet should always be taboo for other pets!

Cats can be very peculiar when it comes to bathroom habits.

Choose a place for your cat’s litter box which allows for discretion. Also avoid placing it near the feeding area, or in a spot where noise or other sudden interruptions may occur, e.g. near a door, washing machine or tumble dryer.  

Many cats are very sensitive to interruptions of their private sphere. 

Also, some dogs have the habit of “cleaning up” after them!

That a dog will go near the litter box is a no-no in itself. But then to mess with it – that is the last drop for a cat!

Some cats react with avoiding the litter box altogether from then on and start choosing other spots...

Open Sesame!

As soon as the animals have adjusted to the new situation, you may open the door.

A protective safety gate has proved to be useful: Thus, a first face-to-face can be made possible without a direct, physical contact. 

Anything is possible now – from sympathy through to aggression!

Don’t be surprised if the first fleeting encounter is not running smoothly.

A growl, a snarl or a hiss – noisy resentment may happen – even the odd hit with the paw. That is absolutely fine if it is not repeated. This keeps the counterpart at a certain distance – a warning shot, so to speak.

Now you can open the door – still with the safety gate in place – for several minutes each day. If that goes smoothly, the “old” resident may be allowed access.  

If this passes without a serious escalation – be it fight, hunt or mobbing – then you’ve made it: You can now remove the gate and keep the door open. 

All of this however may not happen in a flash (though the much quoted exception as ever makes the rule) – in some cases it can take days if not weeks on end.  

TIP: As exciting as all this may be, try and stay calm and avoid erratic movements: There is no rush! Otherwise, your nervousness may affect the animals and make the process even harder. 

Dog and cat getting used to each other

Who was here first? – Dog or cat?

This question is of great importance if dog and cat need to get along with each other. As a member of a pack by nature, dogs are usually a little more open to the idea. Cats however don’t think much of newcomers in general – and that applies not only to other species but also to their own. In most cases, they are simply “not amused”. Having said that, it may also be a matter of gender, age and character.

While a dog, as a highly social creature, may accept a new member to the family soon enough, most cats will be sceptical and regard the new arrival as an intruder of their sphere. To introduce a cat to a household with a dog is therefore usually easier than the other way round.  

If you are planning to share your home with both cat and dog, you should try and follow the above procedures and conduct the introduction as gently as possible, by keeping the animals apart and only slowly bringing them together – step by step. Allow enough time for them to smell each other, as the scent usually is the entry ticket. Both of the creatures have extremely sensitive noses – dogs even more so than cats – and will immediately know that there is someone else around, simply by sniffing the air.

Also: Keep the same daily rhythm and well-known rituals – for both. This guarantees a feeling of security. 

Keep the dog on its leash

It is a bad idea to put the cat or even both animals into the box for an encounter – or to hold the cat on your arm while “introducing” it to the dog. This is practically the worst possible start the animals can have! (Even though I can already hear the old catch line: “But we have always done it that way and it worked!”

That may well be the case, but no two cats are the same and offering good advice means to prevent the worst case scenario. Again – there is no doubt that the exception makes the rule!)

Surely you have taken your animal to the vet in a travel box before – and that means pure stress for your cat!

Stuck in a box with a multitude of other animals around is never enjoyable. Especially, if there are dogs nearby – not exactly the species they are most friendly with in the first place – yapping and staring at them.

There is only one wish for the cat: Out of here! – and it is not possible. 

MUCH BETTER:

Put the dog on the leash and take it to the middle of the room. Now the cat can approach freely; it will decide when to come in and how close it wants to get to you both.

In most cases, the cat will chose a safe spot from which to watch and assess the scenario.

Observe, how both of them are reacting –  and praise neutral to positive behaviour. 

Presence of trustworthy persons During the first encounter, you should not be on your own if possible. 

If a person is present whom you trust and in the best case is an “animal person”, you have some reinforcement when things get out of hand. Knowing this will relax both you and the situation upfront. 

Now, after having secured the dog by putting it on the leash, the cat may come in: 

Open both door and safety gate and make sure that the cat has enough options to retreat – to feel safe; it may prefer emigrating to higher ground, i.e. shelves, wardrobes or scratching posts – given they are high enough. Please make sure that your cat has unlimited access and keep those surfaces free of clutter. Otherwise a few breakables may fall victim to panic and flight. Afterwards, all items may be safely returned to their usual spots.  

In case of straight out antipathy in the beginning and things going awry, it is good to have someone by your side who has the pluck to jump in and help you with keeping the opponents apart. 

– However, this is only necessary when things really get out of control!

All eyes on the animals

Watch both animals closely – however, do not overreact to any small sign of irritability!

“Helicopter animal keepers” like to overdo it – with the result that the cohabitation may not work out. 

The more relaxed and calm the introduction, the easier the next few weeks of adaptation will be – for everyone involved. Try and be as easy-going as you can, because your fine-tuned animal will register any change of mood and react accordingly. Emotional highs and lows are something that your pets will pick up with their antennas immediately – and they will always respond to whatever is “in the air”. 

When a cat meets a dog in the wild, it will try to escape. The dog might enjoy hunting after it for a while but usually gives up when the cat reaches higher ground. 

From here, the cat will watch the dog for a while, the tip of its tail flinching in anticipation – still nervous but not panicky or afraid to death. 

With the space at home being naturally restricted, a confrontation is sometimes unavoidable. 

A hiss, a growl or a quick stroke with the paw to show dominance still counts as “tolerable cat behaviour”; also a yapping dog straining forward is acceptable. Don’t worry – this will ease up after a while. 

Growling dog? Reward your cat

Even if weeks have gone by without confrontation and the two have gotten used to each other – misunderstandings may still happen. 

This is due to the conflicting body language of the two species, or may be the result of jealousies. 

The newcomer will still be regarded with suspicion at times – especially when it comes to feeding or cuddles from your side. Try and be fair with giving out these tokens of affection so that none of the animals will feel rejected. Especially the pet who was the first on the premises should never be put in second place or bossed around. Setting boundaries doesn’t count, if the behaviour warrants it. 

– But remember, praise is often more effective than punishment!

If the dog is growling at the cat, simply lure your feline friend to come to your side and reward it. That way it will understand that it can relax even if confronted in that manner and will automatically approach you the next time – which will also be helpful if the dog decides to go after it. 

Thus, you can defuse the situation – as the cat is definitely safe with you. 

To enhance the praise you can use treats, or simply your voice or cuddles to anchor positive behaviour: 

Reward friendly behaviour on both sides

As soon as the first encounters take place, this should happen within a peaceful, comfortable atmosphere. Thus, the animals will connect encounters with a good feeling: “It may be a dog, but it is not as scary as anticipated,” And: “That cat does not run away from me – maybe it doesn’t have to? No fun running after it then.” Or: “This seems to be our own cat now – so I will try and protect it just like the rest.” 

A bit of tearing and pulling on the leash during the first phase may still be happening and is OK!

 It is a dog after all. Rather distract than punish it. Give calm yet distinct instructions and only praise the dog when it calms down and behaves in a more relaxed way.

Reward it when it does a good job at being more serene – in that case, a special treat is not out of place!

Watch out: Some dogs may grab the treat only to resume the attack afterwards – make sure to reward the animal only if the behaviour is one hundred percent reliable and not a matter of chance. 

– The same obviously goes for the cat!

Interrupt negative behaviour and separate the two pets

Sometimes, a situation builds up out of nowhere and becomes aggressive – for whatever reason!

That may happen quickly and all you can do is stand amazed. 

If that is the case and one has to fear for things getting out of control, make a “cut!” – at once!

Don’t wait for one of them to get hurt. The verdict is: Act swiftly and separate the opponents. No matter who started it. 

Try not to overestimate slips like these! There will always be “bad days”, even if things are normally running smoothly. 

Better to wait a while, until the waves of aggressions have subsided. Only then it is time for the next attempt. 

Grant your animals the right of being moody. They can’t be the same every day. Often, it depends on the mood if and how an attempt of socialising works out: Today is a no-go; but tomorrow we might be great friends again!

The exception: If rivalries or attacks increase or become the rule, the alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear: A harmonious co-living situation may not be possible after all.

In that case, a solution must be found for the benefit of the animals, even if this is hard for you. If you are uncertain, ask an expert such as a coach or vet – or an animal psychologist.

Grant your pets a break

The first encounter should never take longer than a few minutes. Just enough time to get a first impression: “Aha! So that is the new housemate!”

Don’t ever leave the animals alone with each other; stay with them for the entire duration. 

In the beginning, a maximum of five minutes is often enough, then you can carefully extend the meetup bit by bit: If you realise that the animals react calmly, you can leave them together for ten to fifteen minutes at a time.

No rush though! – Slow and steady is the rule. Observe closely how the animals behave and watch their body language. Keep in the background but always be ready to step in when needed.

Everything takes the time it needs, so try not to push things. The animals usually know best when they are ready to share their home with another pet. At some point, curiosity will win over reserve...

The more time the velvet noses have to get to know each other, the better the chance of getting along. Allow for three to four weeks to make it happen. 

Precaution is better than mending wounds

Animals know all about jealousy and envy. Feelings of neglect are not to be underestimated: Suddenly not “number one” any more – how on earth did that happen? Such a thing is hard to understand and can lead to withdrawal and fasting – in short, depression. But it mustn’t come to that!

Even if the newcomer is interesting to an extent because, well, it is something new, and may be even a cute little puppy or kitten – the “older” resident will always want to maintain the rights of “the one who came first” – the king or queen of the castle. Attention and cuddling should not decrease – on the contrary; more is more in this case.

This helps a lot to prevent uneasiness and the fear of becoming the odd one out. 

Resting and feeding areas should be in separate places for the two pets, so that each has its own “realm” or “sanctum” – exclusive and safe from any form of intrusion. By placing these spots well apart from each other, you can avoid mobbing – which the newcomer might otherwise automatically be subjected to. 

TIP: Spend the same amount of time with both pets, so that no one feels neglected. 

New pet, new luck

Be aware that any newcomer to your household also triggers a new order. 

This means that even animals who used to get along fine all of the sudden might start bickering again. The roles are newly distributed and – depending on situation and time – can always be overturned again. 

Such an animal team is of a dynamic nature – nothing is ever set in stone. For example, if one of them dies or goes missing, the team will react accordingly. By the way – animals grieve, too...and opponents often become friends for life, who will be sadly missed.

[lukes-writing]

Chapter 4: Living the High Life

Project introduction | Previous chapter | Next chapter

Word count: 3000 Warnings: Alcohol consumption

September 22nd, 2:21 PM, The First University of Trinity Gate

Finally, the last recruit.

This time, Wiccan takes his Chevrolet to the Republic of Northeast district. The Northeast is the smallest of the three territories, but their technological and scientific potential is unmatched. It is a liberal territory and provides both agricultural technology for Great Moors and advanced weaponry for the Confederation - of course, this kind of help is not for free. The money is usually invested in further research which is ought to increase the country’s turnover even more.

The Northeast district in Trinity Gate looks like something from a science fiction movie. The district’s elegant white skyscrapers tower high above the tallest buildings in the remaining two districts. There are futuristic buildings made mostly of glass, large shopping malls and displays of the latest technologies, such as holographic signposts or self-driving taxis in the streets.

So the place won’t appear too sterile, there are also patches of greenery weaved between the magnificent buildings and also vast parks which aren’t as beautiful as in Great Moors, but can also make up for a good walk. Wiccan prefers the Great Moors since he finds the Northeast a bit too cold, but he has to admit this place has its undeniable charm. The only issue is that his old Chevy looks ridiculous next to the graceful electromobiles which the Northeast’s inhabitants prefer over classical gas cars.

This time, he doesn’t have to roam the district for too long to find what he needs - the First University of Trinity Gate is a large complex of buildings near the district center. It differs from traditional universities like Harvard or Yale. The complex doesn’t resemble anything medieval - the buildings feel as modern as the rest of the city, yet the whole campus feels somewhat homely. The architects put all their effort to make the students feel good both inside and outside the school.

Wiccan drives past the large park in front of the main building, he thinks it’s the Faculty of Arts. There is a fountain in the center surrounded by lovely small gazebos the students use to form small groups and discuss both their studies and private things.

Looking at the university, Wiccan almost starts to regret he never studied here. There is no tuition since the Republic of Northeast pays all the expenses for the students - they realize that educated people are the backbone of their society and they spare no expenses when it comes to raising the future generations. The country has also advanced welfare and healthcare systems. Almost like a utopia.

Wiccan parks his car in the university’s parking lot, checking in as a guest with a thirty-minute limit - more than enough. Then he stands by the gatehouse and waits for a specific car to arrive. He takes a glance at his wristwatch - the recruit should be here any time soon.

Then finally, a dark blue Lamborghini electromobile drives past the checkpoint. The metallic paint shines in the afternoon sun. The whole car is unbelievably beautiful. A sports car that has seemingly only one purpose - to send a message about its owner’s wealth. It has almost feminine curves and the designers paid attention to every tiny detail, so nothing would be a scar to this machine’s beauty.

Wiccan gets upset that two of the new recruits have a better car than him. But he would never abandon his old, faithful Chevy he has since he turned twenty.

He keeps an eye on the blue Lamborghini until it finds a parking spot. Then he strides towards the car, ready to have a talk with its owner.

The car’s scissor door (how cool) opens and the driver steps out.

It is a girl, or a young woman - twenty-two, according to Wiccan’s files. Even though Wiccan is married, his eyebrows rise up at the sight of her. The owner truly matches her car… or vice versa.

She has short brown hair which reveal the elegant curve of her neck. There are no imperfections on her face - not a single pimple on her fair skin, not a trace of any wrinkles. The girl is beautiful. However, Wiccan realizes, it’s not that kind of natural charm he sees for example in Whisper and his wife, Ophelia. It’s for sure this girl willingly spends a long time in front of the mirror, trying hard to make her appearance perfect.

The only thing that can be called an imperfection are prescription glasses she’s wearing. However, they don’t make her look nerdy; maybe a little, but it’s that type of chic nerdy. Wiccan suspects she wears them on purpose, as a part of her style, otherwise, she would get laser surgery. Also, the glasses aren’t cheap at all - there is a barely noticeable Cartier logo on them. These can cost even thousands.

The girl finally notices him with her bright blue eyes with long eyelashes and raises her perfectly trimmed eyebrows. Even though she’s undoubtedly beautiful, Wiccan doesn’t catch sympathies for her immediately. To put it simply, she seems a bit too snobby. Her apparel offers another showcase of expensive, luxurious brands. She’s wearing a light blue blouse with a short spring jacket of a navy blue color over it. Black skinny jeans accentuate her long legs and her feet rest inside shiny court shoes on short heels.

“Hello. Are you Sienna Joy Corwin?” Wiccan finally approaches her; against his will, he’s rather intimidated by her upper-class aura. He has a feeling the contents of her Chanel purse bind more money than he ever saw.

“Yes, and you are?” The girl speaks with a soft voice containing a slight undertone of condescendence. She gives him a charming smile, but Wiccan has a feeling it’s more like a smile of a politician who speaks with a lower-class person to gain some popularity points. “I hope you will be quick, my lecture starts in a few minutes and I don’t like being late.” Her pronunciation is precise, with a hard-to-define accent.

“Okay, I will be short,” Wiccan speaks and can’t resist adding a slight caustic tone to his voice. “I have a job offer for you which can make the best use of you and your talents.”

“I don’t need a job,” Sienna replies arrogantly. “I am financially independent and I sometimes make some pin money as a model. Now, if you allow me…” She starts to stride towards the university building, her shoes clopping on the pavement. Wiccan would love to just let her. Financially independent, he thinks. For sure it means ‘using daddy’s credit cards to the fullest.’

On the other hand, it’s no wonder she’s this arrogant. She’s a daughter of James Corwin, after all. James Corwin, the CEO of the most prominent technology company in Trinity Gate. Corwin Enterprises produce everything from wearable electronics to miraculous equipment for hospitals. Sienna is his only daughter, so it’s no wonder she drives a Lamborghini to school and wears all these expensive things.

Wiccan has already heard a lot about the Corwins, especially from his brother. James Corwin and John Archer are something like business rivals even though their companies are nothing alike. They are just the two richest people in the city and that probably makes them opponents.

In his mind, Wiccan compares two daughters of these men - Whisper, bubbly and humble, and Sienna, arrogant and condescending. Even though it would be better to compare Sienna Corwin and Libby Archer-Gutenberg. Comparing these two would probably bring some results.

He would love to just let the girl go, but he also knows this is not an option. So he just sighs and catches up with the girl who is making long, firm steps like a model on the catwalk. “Miss Corwin? Excuse me.”

Sienna turns around once again - now she looks at Wiccan with unrestrained disgust. Like she was offended by the mere fact someone like him has the nerve to approach her, a girl from the high society.

It’s true that compared to her, Wiccan looks more or less like a bum. Actually, his clothes are clean and the leather jacket he’s wearing cost a pretty penny. Usually, he refers to his style as rugged elegance, but next to Sienna Corwin, he simply looks like a vagabond.

“Leave my presence now or I will call the campus security,” Sienna utters between clenched teeth. Wiccan realizes she probably has numerous experiences with creeps of all different kinds. After all, besides her perfect face, she has also a strikingly well-shaped, lean body, probably a result of regular exercising and a balanced diet. She is also about the same height as Wiccan, which is rather tall for a female.

“Just let me say a few words,” Wiccan insists. “Three minutes. All I ask for.”

Annoyed, Sienna looks at her lush wristwatch, then folds her arms on her chest. “Three minutes,” she states. “Then I am going to attend my lecture. I wouldn’t be a 4.0 student if I wasted time with… people like you.”

“Okay,” Wiccan speaks, ignoring the contempt in Sienna’s voice. “I’ve heard you are quite proficient in certain fields, such as technology, IT and such. Is that true?”

“Yes, it is,” Sienna starts to boast, but then, she realizes and scowls. “Who told you?”

“I judge based on your posts on social media,” Wiccan makes up a convincing lie. “It seems that your knowledge about these topics is outstanding. And we are looking for exceptional people such as you.”

It seems that flatters are a way to win Sienna’s attention. She gives him a slightly cocky, yet warm smile. “Yeah, it can be said I know a thing or two about technologies and I know how to operate a computer. Dad taught me well.” This is quite an understatement since Wiccan knows Sienna once hacked the university’s database to erase one class she missed for some reason and make her attendance perfect once again.

“In that case, I can offer you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Wiccan says.

“I’m sorry,” Sienna replies with more genuine regret in her voice, “but as I said, I’m not in a need for money and I have to focus on my studies.”

Wiccan looks her in the eyes. She finds it uncomfortable at first, but Wiccan’s steady gaze is rather pleasant and calming. The man feels that her antipathies are ceasing. “This is not about money, Miss Corwin,” he speaks. “I know you are an ambitious woman and we have ways to use your talents to the fullest. Yeah, at first glance, it seems you enjoy living the high life as daddy’s girl. You have to be popular among your peers. But deep inside, you know you’re destined for more. That you deserve a different label than that rich daughter of James Corwin. Is that so? Do you lack the self-actualization you need to be happy?”

Sienna’s blue eyes look at him with a mix of doubts, surprise and fear. Wiccan knows he hit the right spot.

“Since the three minutes are about to pass, I’m just going to ask you to think about what I said. You have a whole day for it. If you realize something is missing in your life, then come to the chapel on the Heap of Ashes. Tomorrow, at eight PM. Think about it thoroughly. You know… we usually tend to regret things we didn’t do instead of those we have done, do we?”

With that said, Wiccan just turns around and leaves Sienna dazed on the parking lot. Then, she looks at her wristwatch. She has to run to make it to class on time, but she manages to do it. When she takes a seat and puts her laptop on the desk in front of her, she tries to forget about the whole encounter.

But for some reason, she can’t.

September 23rd, 7:13 PM, Club Babylon, The Northeast District

As nearly every young person of her social status, Sienna likes to attend parties. This one starts rather early, but is going to last until the early morning hours.

Club Babylon is already filled with people chatting and drinking. They are almost always people of Sienna’s age. The dimly lit dance club seems to vibrate because of the electronic dance music played by a DJ in a strange mask behind the music rack. A laser show accompanying the music illuminates the faces of the people so it seems their skin is constantly changing colors.

Sienna takes off her light denim jacket and puts it on a hanger standing by the entrance. Underneath, she’s wearing a glittery, golden crop top with a halter neck and black leggings.

“Look, Ennie’s here!” one of Sienna’s classmates shouts after he spots her. Soon after, there is a significant crowd of people around her. Her friends. She feels the best with people around. They start to chat and laugh and soon after, Sienna gets her first glass of wine to start off the evening.

Of course, all her friends drink on her. It’s only a small expense for her bottomless credit card. In return, Sienna can enjoy their company and enjoy herself.

Then, she realizes one thing. A thing that never really bothered her. Would they still act as her friends if she didn’t buy them drinks? Do they enjoy her company, or her money? She quickly dismisses such thoughts. I guess that vagabond from the parking lot makes me think about such things, she thinks.

Of course they are her friends.

After two glasses of wine, Sienna decides it’s time to step up the game and use her charms. She enjoys the company of men, but also isn’t type for one-night stands. She already had several boyfriends, but she ultimately broke up with all of them. She wouldn’t admit it was always her who initiated the breakup. It’s a punishment for every slightest imperfection her partner shows.

She leaves her friends and starts to check out the local guys. She finds it somehow natural that a girl of her social status should only go for the finest specimens. Being seen with someone imperfect could damage her reputation. “Watch out, Ennie is on a hunt,” she hears one of her friends remark after she leaves the group.

Sienna starts to rate every man she sees. Too short. Fat. A metal dude? Not in a million years. Goth? Even worse. This one is fine, just looks like some kind of nazi. What a nerd, what is he even doing here? A looker, but needs some hours in a gym.

She pauses for a while, suddenly horrified by herself. Is she really this shallow? For the first time ever, she starts to question her ways when it comes to finding and dating men. She always preferred a handsome face and manly body over any other quality - and for the first time, she’s horrified by it.

That’s all because that parking lot man. His words are causing her to question everything she considered normal until now. What if she’s living such a life only because she finds it somehow natural? Is she really happy, or does she secretly desire a change?

She looks at her wristwatch. She completely dismissed the man’s offer to come to the Heap of Ashes, a hill near the city center. Didn’t even consider it once. But now… she realizes she would be able to be there at eight if she left the party now and drove there.

Sienna stops and starts to think. But then, her thoughts get interrupted by a voice: “Excuse me, beautiful. Mind if I invite you for a drink?”

She turns around to see a tall young man, about twenty-five, with handsome, manly face and perfectly trimmed dark hair. A white T-shirt clinging to his athletic body reveals a firm six-pack. Sienna gives him a smile. Yes, this is the type she’s looking for, a fitting boyfriend for Sienna Joy Corwin. He reminds her of the actor Theo James, he looks even slightly better than all her past partners.

“Why, of course!” Sienna’s smile changes into a flirty smirk. The guy winks at her and takes her by the hand. Sienna feels jealousy of other girls at the party. Only the most privileged girls can make a claim to such perfect men. And the guy seems satisfied that he managed to pick up that Sienna Corwin.

It’s a deal beneficial for both sides.

They sit on the bar and start to chat. It’s a small talk since they seem to have nothing in common except beauty and privileged parents, but Sienna doesn’t care about such things. He’s more or less a macho, just like her previous boyfriend… and the one before him. She can’t expect much intellectual stimulation from him.

She once again remembers the dreadlocks man. Deep inside, you know you’re destined for more.

The guy pays her several sloppy compliments and makes several sorry attempts to act romantic, but Sienna knows he’s just trying hard to keep it in his pants. She’s going to give him what he wants soon, anyway, it’s a part of the deal. By midnight, she will have a new, classy boyfriend.

But the parking lot man still haunts her mind.

Sienna checks her wristwatch. 7:46. Then, she just spontaneously decides. She pulls her phone out of her purse and pretends to check it even though there is no notification. “It’s my dad, he needs me at home,” she lies, aware that the guy won’t question the decisions of the famous James Corwin. “Maybe I’ll come back later,” she winks at him, then strides towards the entrance, takes her jacket and leaves the club.

What the hell am I doing? Sienna thinks when she enters her car and starts driving towards the city center. She didn’t even take that guy’s phone number.

That’s not the behavior of the girl she thought she is… but, for some reason, she enjoys the change.

Author’s Note

Hoo boy, that’s three chapters in one day, but I wanted to complete the introduction of new characters so we can move on to some more interesting stuff. This is where the fun begins!

I wholeheartedly thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and if you did, please leave a comment, send me a message or share and let more people know about this story! You can also consider a small donation at www.paypal.me/lukassladky. Have a great day and stay tuned for the next chapter!

[devoverest]

Getting to know me: a novel

@ignisgalaxia @imaginationdrift @bizships @lodessa and @streepmulgrew  have all tagged me for this, and I just can't take the peer pressure any longer. However, I'm so long-winded everyone will surely be very sorry that you five ever asked me. I will try very hard to put most of this below a "read more" link, but my mobile app doesn't play nicely with that feature any longer, so I truly deeply and sincerely apologize if yours doesn't either and you get a callus scrolling past all of what follows on your way to the gifsets you're on Tumblr to enjoy.

1. Relationship status: married -- legally and everything. It was the mid-'90s. I was considering having a religious ceremony but forgoing the state-recognized marriage license part, in solidarity with same-sex couples who at the time and for many years afterward were denied that privilege. However, my father absolutely put his foot down (something he almost never did with me, especially in my young adulthood) and insisted on the marriage license. He supported marriage equality, but he was thinking of my economic security in case our marriage didn't last. He was right to do, as I ended up taking many years out of the paid workforce to raise children, which I hadn't planned on doing when I decided to marry.

In case Tumblr is stupid, right here is where I’ve inserted a “read more” link as I’m writing this post. I tried. 

2. Lipstick or chapstick: Usually neither. Actually, never literal Chapstick because that stuff is made out of petroleum and isn't good for your skin. I learned that when I was playing a lot of flute in high school and college and had to take extra special care of my lips to play well. If the weather gets really cold and dry, which it rarely does where I live, and if I can hang on to any of the half-dozen tubes I buy every year but which invariably get swiped and then lost by family members, I use a Burt's Bees lip balm. I seem to have a knack for finding them barely-used in the bottom of my purse during the warm months and then never having one at hand when I actually need it. I think I own one lip pencil currently and I'll sometimes use that to outline my lips when I'm doing some sort of special-event public speaking kinda gig but I don't wear any make-up normally. My husband claims that I knew full well it was a date the first time we got together socially because I wore make-up. I have never admitted to him that he is correct, but he is.

3. Three favorite foods: Too many to narrow down to just three. I enjoy and appreciate a wide range of foods. Things I enjoy and appreciate perhaps a tad more frequently than I ought to in the strictest interests of nutrition are chocolate in almost any form, ice cream (especially that of the chocolate persuasion and most especially any form of peanut-butter/chocolate), and Starburst brand jellybeans, which my son and I share somewhat ritualistically most evenings after dinner (which is somehow not the same thing as for dessert.) Why yes, I do have a sweet tooth -- why do you ask?

4. Song stuck in your head: Currently "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive (I had to google that.) I don't know why but suspect it was on TV this evening, which makes me fear that it may be the campaign song for some politician I would never vote for. Which reminds me -- US citizens, please double-check that you are registered to vote and make a plan for voting in the upcoming midterms! This will probably the most important election of your entire lifetime, past or future, no matter what your age, and in many races in many states, voter turnout will be the single deciding factor in who controls the future of our country for a very long time to come. Please vote!

5. Last movie you watched: "Crazy Rich Asians," with my husband, unwisely just two days after I had minor (but surprisingly butt-kicking) surgery. We went to the first matinee showing on a Saturday and actually arrived at the theater before it even opened, a sure sign of mature middle age if I've ever heard of one. We both loved the film -- it was glitzy, funny, extremely well-written and -acted, got all the Chinese cultural details right, offered caricatures but no stereotypes, was very female-centric and multi-generational, and of course starred the exquisite and inimitable Michelle Yeoh who also plays Philippa Georgiou on Star Trek: Discovery. Laughed until my belly hurt (literally, sadly) and then went home and slept the rest of the day.

6. Top three shows: This will sound really strange for someone who is on Tumblr because of TV show fandom, but I don't watch TV. I grew up with Star Trek TOS reruns and movies, then TNG in college & grad school, then Voyager until extended stays abroad made it impossible to keep up with (back in the days before streaming and VPNs.) I reconnected with Star Trek in summer 2017 when I was home alone for six weeks and binged all of Voyager and then started digging up fanfic for all the reasons all the Voyager fans turn to fic -- to fix what the show's writers mutilated -- and now here I am, but I don't watch TV, and when I do it's the nightly news or whatever sports my husband is watching and then it's just because I feel like sitting in the same room with my husband at that particular time. The one exception to this fact about me is that I did watch Star Trek: Discovery as it was being released last year, and even got my teenager into it. (He is a Netflix addict but never watched any Star Trek anything before that. I don't know where I went wrong with this child.)

7. Books I'm currently reading: Eternal Tide by Kirsten Beyer because @voyager-book-club; Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (audiobook but I'm counting it); Five Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. LeGuin, Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations by Margaret Benefiel; Pachinko by Min Jin Lee; and Selecting and Using Breastfeeding Tools: Improving Care and Outcomes by Catherine Watson Genna. Except that the last three books on the list are ones I have at hand and keep wanting to read but haven't so much as opened yet. But including them gives you a more complete sense of my interests.

8. Last thing I googled: "you ain't seen nothing yet lyrics" because #4 above. Before that, "instant pot beef stew recipe." No need to look further back in my search history (she said during a break from writing smut.) *whistles innocently*

9. Time: 10:30pm as I write this. No idea when I'll post it or when you'll read it. This seems like a silly question to include for a post of this nature.

10. Dream trip: India. But I've also never crossed the equator and really feel I should someday, so who knows, maybe I'll find a way to drop in on all the Australian friends I've made in Voyager fandom. Now wouldn't that be lovely?

11. Anything you want: Anyone who knows me in real life (and anyone hanging around the Voyager Book Club discord server) knows I never shut up about breastfeeding support and advocacy. But I always try to make it clear that I'm not preaching at parents about how they should feed their babies; rather, I'm working to help parents who want to breastfeed overcome any challenges they encounter. I save my preaching for the folks involved with policy and institutional barriers to breastfeeding, and when it comes to the unethical and demonstrably harmful advertising practices of the infant formula industry, my preaching leans hard toward the hellfire and damnation variety because that is some truly evil shit, folks -- the advertising practices, not the formula milk itself; let's be very, very clear about that.

Rules: Tag 15 people you want to get to know better.

Here I shall echo @imaginationdrift: "(Really?! That sounds like a number chosen by an extroverted maven.) / Ok, here goes. / FEEL FREE TO: never complete this. I won’t be disappointed, promise." Also, apologies to those who have already responded -- feel even freer to ignore. 

@garrulus  @rikerssexblouse  @klugtiger  @ussjellyfish  @kate-coleman-writes  @lameraextranjera  @armitagetrekkie  @warp6  @admiralkatcornwellfan @zjofierose  @writtenndust @trekkiefeminist @quirkette100 @nerdfishgirl @hoidn

[ofheroesandvillains]

Playing To Lose (2) - Bucky Barnes

Words: 2.7k Warnings: None, AU! Summary: Bucky gets called into the principal’s office...then continues to do bad things.

(gif not mine!) 

Thursday had come around quickly.

It had been a busy week for you, which was nothing unexpected considering the sheer size and reputation of the company you were in charge of. Never had you been more grateful to have Maria by your side, the woman was so on top of everything that you had to honestly question whether or not she was human. 

But it wasn’t just Maria…everyone had been relatively welcoming during your first week in charge. Everyone except James, or Bucky as most people called him. You were the only one who maintained professionalism -other than Maria of course- and called him Mr Barnes. It was one of the many things that bothered him about you, despite the charming smiles he forced whenever he was in your presence.

You weren’t stupid. You knew what he must have been feeling, because you would have probably felt the same had your own father done the same to you. Despite this, you tried your hardest to be polite. Even if he seemed hellbent on breaking every rule the company had…and one in particular.

In the four days that you had known James, you had already seen him leaving the building with two different women. Now, you didn’t care about his womanising ways, it was nothing new to you. Men, particularly handsome or rich men, could do what they wanted without complaint. And there was no doubt that James was both handsome and rich.

So whenever security called you, asking what to do about the new floozy that was loitering in the lobby, you’d simply roll your eyes and tell them to call Mr Barnes instead. It had been four days and you were already certain that there wasn’t much more to James than women and alcohol. But that was okay, you could accept that.  

But the one thing you didn’t accept, the one thing you couldn’t accept, was the reason he was currently sulking in your office.

“You fired her?” He asked as if it were the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.  

“Of course.” You murmured.

Bucky’s eyes widened in shock when you waved a hand nonchalantly, not even taking your eyes off of the paperwork before you. It was like you didn’t care at all, and Bucky scowled when he realised that you didn’t.

“What do you mean ‘of course’?” You finally looked up at his affronted tone and cocked a brow. “You can’t just fire her, how’s she supposed to…to…” he paused, stuttering as he tried to think of a reason. “Pay rent! And- and buy food, huh?”

You studied him for a moment, the way his brows furrowed and the way he held himself. Pay rent...and buy food. You mentally tsk-ed. You knew he was just looking for another reason to hate you, he was hardly subtle. Did he really think this was your fault?

“Hm, you’re angry. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” You dropped the pen, choosing to entwine your fingers atop the desk and give him your full attention.

“What did you think would happen, hm?” Your brows shot up pointedly, and he didn’t know what to say.

What did he think? It had never been a problem before, then again, his father had never been aware of his fling with the old secretary. But it seemed like whenever he wanted something you’d snatch it out of his hands. He was getting real sick of you taking things that didn’t belong to you.

“That I’d turn a blind eye to the fact that you were in a sexual relationship with a subordinate? Do you have any idea what that could do to your reputation? To this company’s reputation?”

Bucky paused, halting whatever argument he may have had. Damn it. You were right, he knew you were right and he hated it. It seemed every move he made was the wrong one, and you had all the right answers. Granted, he was intentionally trying to get on your nerves with all of his dates -he used that term loosely- showing up to the office everyday.

“Technically, I’m no longer her superior.” His sly smirk dropped the moment you shot him a glare filled with enough venom to kill a man.

But it was true, wasn’t it? You didn’t need the constant reminder, but you’d taken his job and it would take him some time to get over it.

He figured what did it matter? Either way he wasn’t going to be in charge for the next 6 months, he’d behave himself when he had to, for now…he’d enjoy his social life while he still had one. The fact that it probably annoyed you was just icing on the cake.  

But you were right on this occasion. The last thing he wanted to do was get into any legal trouble, that would completely ruin everything and he hadn’t thought about that before. But the damage was already done, and firing the woman would do nothing but make her vengeful.  

“Alright, I’m sorry.” He sighed, slumping in his seat. “But what? You think she’s not gonna tell anyone about it?” Bucky crossed his arms over his chest.

“No. I know she’s not going to tell anyone.” You swiftly retrieved a folder from your drawer and dropped it on the table in front of him. “That’s what NDAs are for.”  

He straightened up in his chair, his lips twitching sheepishly. He’d never admit that he was grateful, but you had taken care of it all for him and he was more than a little relieved. He didn’t know what he would do otherwise. His father would have killed him.

“Have it all planned out, huh?” His voice was quiet now, somewhat ashamed at the lengths you had to go to in order to clean up his messes.

You stood up, checking your watch before smoothing your hands over your blazer. His eyes followed the movement, how could they not? The only reason he hadn’t tried to sweet talk you into his bed was because of who you were.

Yeah, you were stunning, he’d have to be blind not to see that. Exactly his type of girl, despite his feigned disinterest. Those girls he fooled around with were not the type of girls he’d care to remember. Not the type of girls he’d want prolonged exposure to. They were just a quick fix, and if you weren’t you then maybe you’d be worth getting to actually know. But you were you, and his anger and (not that he’d ever admit it) jealousy were enough to ensure you’d lost a whole lot of your appeal.    

“Despite what you think, Mr Barnes, I’m not out to get you.” 

He met your sincere gaze, but there was still an underlying irritation in your eyes that almost made him smile. Okay, so you weren’t that bad. You tolerated all of his bullshit and it hadn’t even been a whole week yet. But he was still hurt by his father’s doubt, and more importantly, your rejection of his work. That was something he would never forgive you for.

“In fact, I couldn’t care less about you.” His eyes followed your every move as you walked around the desk, ignoring the odd feeling your words gave him.

“I’m here to do a job for the next six months and by the time I’m gone, I’m really hoping you’ll have a little more respect for how hard it is to run this business- though I doubt anyone will be intentionally trying to sabotage you when that time comes.”

You looked at him pointedly for a split second before a knock sounded at the door. Oh good, your 1 o’clock was here.

Bucky’s eyes almost softened in apology, but you barely spared him a glance as you made your way to the door. It was a constantly battle in his mind. Whether he should let go of this grudge or stay strong in his resolve. You made it hard, because as much as he didn’t want to admit it, you were a pretty decent person…considering who your father was.

But you had wronged him too greatly for him to just sit there and accept you as his boss. You had done nothing to earn this opportunity. You came into the building, bringing your posse with you, firing familiar faces, and rejecting his ideas. His irritation had bubbled up to the surface once more and there was no changing his mind at your next words.

“Ah, Mr Odinson. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Bucky’s eyes snapped over to the door in shock.

“Loki, please. And the pleasure is all mine, Miss Stark. My family speaks very highly of you.”

“Likewise.” You smiled politely. “Please, come in.”

Bucky scowled as soon as his suspicions were confirmed, and he sprung up from his chair in a blur of movement.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Loki cocked an unimpressed brow, but a small smirk played at his lips.

“Good to see you too, Barnes.”

Bucky ignored him, turning to face you instead.

“What the hell is he doing here?”

You sighed in exasperation, smiling apologetically at your guest and waving a hand to welcome him to a seat.

“You’ll have to excuse Mr Barnes…” You shot Bucky a stern look. “He was just leaving.”

“Like hell-“

“James.”

It was the first time you had ever called him that to his face and he paused for a moment, drawing back his anger. You seemed to have a silent conversation, begging him to leave it be, while simultaneously reprimanding him for his lack of diplomacy.

Bucky tried to regain control of the conflict raging in his mind. He didn’t want him anywhere near you. He didn’t want him near the damn building in general! Why was he even there in the first place?

But he knew that any resistance would be seen as him trying to ‘sabotage’ the whole situation. You wanted him to leave, and in order to show you that he wasn’t some petty child, he’d grit his teeth and do as you had asked. Why should he care anyway? It wasn’t like you’d listen to him. Just as he thought you might redeem yourself in his eyes, you prove once again why you shouldn’t be there. Why he needed you gone.

“Fine.”


With a glare so strong it could have knocked down a wall, Bucky stormed out of your office, all but slamming the door shut behind him. You winced at the sound and pinched the bridge of your nose. Not a single day…he couldn’t go a single day without making your life difficult.

“I’m really sorry about that, Loki.”

The man in question merely offered a placating smile. “Think nothing of it.” He hesitated for a moment. “James and I have a tendency to not get along.”

Loki could see the curiosity in your eyes, and he was prepared for the question when you inevitably asked.

“And why is that? If you don’t mind me asking…”

He shook his head as if to say ‘of course not’. There was a reason you had arranged a meeting with him, and if it was for the reason that he hoped, he needed to be honest.

“We took a liking to the same woman a few years back, needless to say, it created some tension between us.”

Loki cleared his throat lightly when you cocked a brow.

“You get the girl?”

He chuckled at the question. “No, unfortunately not. But neither did he.”

“She told him there was another, and he believed it was me…” He elaborated.

“And let me guess, you did nothing to correct him?” You asked dryly. Men were so petty.

“I honestly doubt he’d believe the alternative. Either way, it’s all in the past now.” He offered a charming smile.

“Hm. Good.” Your small smile dropped, and you adopted a new air of professionalism. You had called him in for a reason, and it wasn’t to discuss his love life.

“You know the reason I’m asking…”

Loki nodded, he was very perceptive after all. “You want to know if placing me on the board would create conflict.”

You sighed quietly, and leaned back in your chair, eyes scanning the man before you. He was regal in appearance, high cheekbones and raven hair. The complete opposite to his brother, but you could see how they would balance each other out.

Loki was a clever man. He had excellent ideas and his family owned Mjölnir Construction - the very same construction company that had been building your father’s casinos for decades. Thor was on the board of directors where your father’s business was concerned, and you knew Loki had been trying to join the board of W & R Hotels for years now. At least now you knew why he had never been accepted.

He’d be a great asset to the company, and even if it meant giving James another reason to loathe you, you wouldn’t be missing this opportunity. With The Red Room’s grand opening in Moscow scheduled for the following year, you needed all the help you could get, and it looked like James wouldn’t be taking his advising duties seriously anyway.

“I spoke to George Barnes yesterday…” You straightened the pens on your desk absentmindedly. “He said the reason you were never selected was because he feared his son losing interest in the company if you were on the board.”

Loki hummed lightly in acknowledgement, but patiently waited for your decision.    

“I personally think that if James does lose interest because of a childish rivalry, he shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

Loki’s hopeful green eyes darted up to meet your own.

“I need the best, and that’s something you can offer me and this company.”

“He won’t like this.” Loki warned, but he already knew your mind was made up and his shoulders dropped in relief.

“No, he won’t.” You stood up with a humourless smile. “Which is why you’ll leave him to me.”

“You sure you want to do this, Barnes?”

Bucky cocked a brow in challenge. “Didn’t think you’d be one to turn down a pay-day.”

“I’m not, but this is a Stark you’re going up against.” Brock reminded him pointedly.

Bucky scoffed. “What, you scared?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked to ruin a reputation, and as a private investigator he’d dug up his fair share of dirt. But like he had said, this was a Stark. You start digging into their lives and you get the damn CIA at your door the next morning.

He’d have to be careful, but for the price Barnes was willing to pay…

Oh no, he wasn’t scared at all. If he did this, he’d be set for life.


“I’ll do it. But I thought all you rich folks went golfin’ together. What’s the deal here?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen the news lately.”

Brock rolled his eyes. Rich boys like Barnes were always so…whiny. Daddy didn’t let me take over the business, big deal! What did it matter anyway? The Starks and the Barnes’ were partners, they had been together through thick and thin, and this kid was willing to sabotage that because he couldn’t wait six damn months?

Brock almost scoffed at the thought. He’d shine the lady’s shoes everyday if it meant getting the whole damn company after 6 months.

“So, you in?”

Brock threw back the rest of his scotch, before slapping the glass back down on the counter.

“Yeah, yeah I’m in. But unless you want to be suspect number one, you better lose the frosty attitude.”

Brock pointed out. The very first person they’d point their finger at would be Bucky if he didn’t warm up to the young Stark. That really defeated the purpose of keeping their deal a secret.   

“Fine. I’ll work on it.” Bucky huffed. 

“Then you got a deal.”

Good, Bucky thought, ignoring the stab of guilt that made his stomach twist unpleasantly. It was for the best, he tried to reason. He could apologise when it was all said and done. When he was in charge of his company, then he could maybe even consider you as a friend, but now he had to do this. If you were serious about meeting with Loki of all people, who knew what other mistakes you’d make. He couldn’t risk his company like this.

He wouldn’t.

It’s all for the best.

@marvelnersworld @bookgirlunicorn @spidey-linquentimagines @sawdustandsugar @roxytheimmortal 

I’m sorry if I forgot anyone!  

[icontherecord]

"Confronting the Cybersecurity Challenge" - Keynote Address by Glenn S. Gerstell, NSA General Counsel

2017 Law, Ethics and National Security Conference at Duke Law School

February 25, 2017

Good morning, and thank you for having me at this impressive conference. I'm happy to be back here at Duke. I've had the pleasure of visiting the school on several occasions, including for recruiting for my former law firm as well as attending a wedding of a good friend at the Duke University Chapel. And back at NSA, we are delighted to have two fantastic members of your class of 2012 with us in the Office of General Counsel and we are looking forward to having another recent graduate join us this fall.

Yesterday, you heard from many experts on the topic of cybersecurity, which is a timely theme for this conference. Right now, that topic is at the forefront of American minds: there has been a proliferation of high-profile intrusions against U.S. companies, and malicious cyber activity will forever be associated with the 2016 election cycle. While I can't say I have the same qualifications as some of yesterday's exceptional speakers, I would like to talk to you today from my vantage point of not only a lawyer who spent many years in the private sector counseling companies around the world, especially in the telecom and technology sectors, but also -- and more importantly for today's purposes -- as the General Counsel for the past year and a half of the National Security Agency.

Now, many of you may be wondering why the General Counsel of NSA has decided to speak to you today at all -- indeed, for its first few decades the Agency's very existence was officially denied so there was no question that anyone on behalf of the Agency would ever speak in public. Fortunately that's all changed. But you might be expecting me to talk about surveillance rather than cybersecurity. After all, in the wake of the Snowden disclosures, most people associate NSA with spying. Foreign surveillance -- or "signals intelligence" to use the precise term -- is, however, only half of our work. The other half, which is increasingly significant, is information assurance. In common terms, information assurance involves protecting and perhaps defending information and information systems. Our specific charge is to protect and defend national security systems, which include all classified networks along with those unclassified networks that involve intelligence activities or equipment that is critical to military or intelligence missions. So that includes all of the Department of Defense's networks around the world, and such specialized networks as the President's nuclear command communications system. This aspect of our mission, though somewhat unheralded, is of critical importance.

NSA is uniquely positioned to make key contributions to the nation's cybersecurity because, through its two missions of foreign surveillance and information assurance, it lives on the cutting edge of the global information space. Those twin missions complement each other in a way that enhances the agency's ability to detect and prevent cyber threats. NSA employs experts in signals intelligence, information security, and computer network defense and exploitation, and as a result of this expertise, NSA has end-to-end insights into malicious cyber activity, internet infrastructure and networks, the activities of hostile foreign powers, and cyber best practices. Although significant cybersecurity expertise resides elsewhere in the federal government, NSA is often regarded as possessing the leading collection of information security talent in the U.S. government based on the sheer breadth and depth of our focus on the subject.

So this morning I want to use that platform - informed by our twin missions - to explore new strategies for the organizational structure that underpins U.S. cybersecurity. I know that everyone here is a disciple of national security law, and as a result, this audience is more cognizant than most about the cyber threats we face today. But I will spend a few minutes just to make sure we all have a clear picture of the current scope of the threat, how we are currently postured to address that threat, and where gaps remain in that approach. I would then like to explore with you some thoughts on how our federal government should organize itself to address those gaps.

You hardly need me to point out the ever-increasing dependency on connected technologies in our everyday lives. In fact, I bet about quarter of you have already checked your cell phones since Major General Dunlap introduced me...maybe even half if my skills as a speaker leave something to be desired. The increasing interconnectedness of our networks and devices enhances convenience in an astounding way -- it's nice to know that I can use my smartphone to order an Uber car around the world and also adjust the water temperature of my home spa -- but along with that convenience -- for individuals as well as businesses and governments and other organizations -- comes heightened vulnerability. The vulnerability can take many forms. It wasn't that long ago that cybersecurity simply meant deleting emails from a Nigerian prince who needed your help in making a bank deposit. Beyond basic email hygiene, there are threats to an entire network - true, the network owner can take extra precautions to secure the network, but that security can be undermined by the one user who connects to it with an infected device or downloads a spearfishing email. Network threats by definition can be as serious as the criticality of the infrastructure or equipment controlled by the network or the sensitivity of the information conveyed by the network.

A great deal of time and attention has already been spent assessing today's cyber threat. Study after study has echoed the gravity of our country's cybersecurity vulnerability. Experts agree that the threat is so grave because barriers to entry are extremely low while potential rewards are great, and the risk of getting caught for mischief is low. Malicious cyber tools are cheap and widely available on the internet. One lone actor with few resources now has the power to wreak havoc on a network anonymously. Cyber crimes are notoriously hard to track, and attribution can be challenging at best. These same studies typically put malicious cyber activity into one of three categories: cyber crime, in which criminals are seeking money outright...or something of value to resell, such as credit card numbers, tax IDs, and social security numbers, or they hold corporate data for ransom. Another category is cyber espionage. This category typically involves nation states, and it includes both political espionage and espionage for commercial gain, like the theft of trade secrets for economic advantage. And third, there's just general cyber mischief. This category includes hacktivists, those who use cyber vulnerabilities to spread propaganda, like ISIL, and those who seek to disrupt services or sites, like the recent DDOS attacks facilitated by Internet of Things botnets on the website of cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs and on Dyn, a domain name service provider, that took down popular sites like Twitter, Spotify, and Reddit. And it's only a matter of time before this category also includes the deletion or alteration of data -- just think of the havoc that can create, especially in the case of the latter, where the malicious action might not be apparent.

So we know the nature of the threat -- and to give some sense of the scope of it, it's no exaggeration to say that cyber vulnerability is one of the biggest strategic threats to the United States. I was alarmed when at the first annual threat assessment I had the privilege of attending before the Congressional intelligence oversight committees, the Director of National Intelligence placed cyber threats ahead of terrorism. There are 23 victims of malicious cyber activity per second according to a 2016 report from Norton, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies recently estimated that such activity costs our national economy $140 billion each year. By comparison in just economic terms - and I don't mean to suggest they are really equivalent ­- the Institute for Economics and Peace, which publishes a yearly Global Terrorism Index, estimated that the global economic impact of terrorism was about $90 billion in 2015. And in case you were worried about the stock market bubble, the Chair of the SEC last year said that the gravest threat to the American financial system was cyber. The threat is so grave, in fact, that former CIA director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta described our nation's cybersecurity weaknesses as amounting to a pre-9/ 11 moment.

But surely we're doing something about it? Although the Bush Administration took steps to address cybersecurity policy on a national level, for example through the issuance of National Security Presidential Directive 54 in 2008, the issue remained somewhat obscure -- and indeed a year later the topic wasn't even mentioned in President Obama's inaugural speech. Over the ensuing eight years, however, as the topic rose in national prominence, the Obama administration took significant steps to implement a whole-of-government approach to dealing with the multi-faceted cybersecurity threat, , including through issuance of PPD-41 and Executive Order 13636. The first laid out the framework for the US government's response to significant cyber incidents; the second provided a risk-based approach for managing cybersecurity threats. Executive Order 13694, also issued by President Obama, enabled sanctions against malicious cyber actors. He used this new Executive Order to issue sanctions against various nation state cyber actors, including against North Korea after the Sony hack and, most recently, against Russia for its cyber interference in the U.S. election. The Administration also authorized high­ profile prosecutions of nation state-sponsored cyber actors. For example, the government indicted five Chinese military hackers for espionage against U.S. nuclear, metal, and solar companies, and it also brought charges against seven Iranians working for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who carried out intrusions against the U.S. financial sector and a dam in New York.

In addition to these Executive Branch efforts, and after much debate, at the end of 2015, Congress passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, which is designed to improve cybersecurity in the U.S. through enhanced sharing of threat information between the public and private sector. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone believes that CISA by itself is adequate to the task. The statute's slow development was perhaps an indication that at the time CISA was being debated, the full scope of the cyber threat had not yet sunk in for all parties to the conversation and also, perhaps, that concerns about government surveillance remained high in the wake of the Snowden disclosures.

To further advance the discussion, the last Administration created a Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, which recently issued its report containing some useful recommendations to enhance the government's cybersecurity efforts. Others, including think tanks, commissions, commercial companies, and professors, have also studied the problem and contributed proposals. To date, however, political will has not yet coalesced around one preferred approach, and the US government's response to cybersecurity challenges remains largely reactive.

Perhaps that is because, as many critics have noted, cybersecurity roles and responsibilities are unclear. Currently, cybersecurity responsibilities are shared across several federal departments, agencies, and congressional committees. To start off with, there are no fewer than six Federal cybersecurity centers – the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) run by DHS, the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF) led by the FBI, the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC) housed within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense's Cyber Crime Center, US Cyber Command's Joint Operations Center, and NSA's own Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center (NTOC). NSA itself sits at one extreme of the operational model, with NSA being responsible for securing national security systems. That means, for example, that NSA is authorized to review and approve all standards, techniques, systems, and equipment related to national security systems. NSA also gathers foreign cyber threat intelligence and works to determine attribution of malicious cyber intrusions. But even for national security systems, however, there is no end-to-end solution. Within the Department of Defense, in which NSA is housed, there are procedures in place for enforcing network security standards and best practices for national security systems. For national security systems outside DoD, however, those procedures are less robust because the network owners – namely the other federal agencies -- have more autonomy and varied resources.

Contrast that operational model with the more advisory model that is used to protect the "dot gov" domain, which is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. That department is responsible at least in principle for securing the remaining entirety of the federal government's networks along with critical infrastructure, although in reality each government agency has a major share of that responsibility. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, which is organized under the Department of Commerce, develops the mandatory standards and guidelines for federal agencies' information systems. DHS is also principally responsible for communicating and coordinating in the cyber arena with the private sector, but nowhere in the federal government is there any meaningful authority to regulate, police or defend the private sector's cyber domain. Such authority as there is, is dispersed among not only DHS, but also various federal cyber centers that have been established, such as the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, and such disparate agencies as the Federal Trade Commission -- which has an important role in, for example, seeing that private entities safeguard consumer information from cyber data breaches -- to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which among other things regulates cyber protection for our nation's securities exchanges and registered stock brokers. And let's not forget the role of the Secret Service, which has a key role in combating cyber crime involving our banking system.

I could go on, but you get the idea -- cyber responsibilities are scattered across the federal government. To be sure, there are understandable reasons why it evolved this way and some good reasons for continuing a multifaceted approach at least in part. With the multiplicity of agencies involved, it's no surprise that simply coordinating incident response is a major undertaking. PPD-41 lays out a framework that assigns responsibilities for federal cyber response among FBI, DHS, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, but as you might expect, no one really thinks this is an optimal solution. And on Capitol Hill, while Congress has been active in holding many informative hearings over the past few years on aspects of the cyber threat, almost any Member of Congress (not to mention many outside commentators) would bemoan the fact that jurisdiction over cyber is spread among many committees and subcommittees - leading some Senators and Representatives within the past year to push for the establishment of a single committee to oversee cybersecurity.

In short, we can all agree that glaring gaps remain in our nation's cybersecurity posture. Former Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker correctly pointed out that "Even though the Internet is now ubiquitous in our lives, cyber remains the only domain where we ask private companies to defend themselves against Russia, China, Iran, and other nation states." For physical threats to the health and safety of our citizens, we do not ask each person to stand up their own personal Army, Navy, or National Guard - and for good reason. If dozens of Target or Home Depot stores were physically attacked, all at once, across the United States, the government would not stand by and hope that their own contracted security guards both repelled the threat and then healed the victims. Indeed, we are finding out seemingly every day that we are vulnerable to cyber intrusions in ways that we didn't expect. The recent reports about hacks of political institutions with an intent to influence the Presidential election reminded us that just because a network does not fit within the definition of a national security system or fall within the sectors designated as critical infrastructure does not mean that it isn't a vital component of a fundamental American institution.

In addition, under the current structure, the private sector in general continues to have little to no incentive to concentrate resources on cybersecurity. Admittedly, there are companies in some sectors, such as finance, where the value of the product or service is intrinsically network-based, which do regularly share cybersecurity information and have sophisticated cybersecurity efforts. For the most part, however, private companies are incentivized to rush new products to store shelves in an effort to capture market share, and generate profits for shareholders. Delaying a product's release in order to assess and upgrade its cybersecurity can cost a company dearly, particularly if its competitors have not taken similar care. Many companies are even reluctant to share too much information because of concerns about protecting trade secrets and perceived antitrust collusion. It's by no means clear that the average consumer picks products and services based on a solid understanding of the comparative cyber risks present. That may be attributable to a lack of consumer education, or a conscious choice to weight other factors in product selection higher or industry's unwillingness or inability to address the risks - or all of these factors and others as well. But no matter what, it's incontrovertible that we do not yet have fully developed standards or practices in place that cause private companies in general to ensure the products they are selling are secure.

My purpose in reviewing the nature of the cyber threat is not to browbeat you with the severity of the problem, which I am sure you accept, but instead to implore you to join me in the conviction that the time to act is now. The incessant and rapid pace of technological development in the cyber arena continues to outstrip our ability to organize ourselves to address cyber threats before they become major cyber incidents. Some of the factors that might have contributed to our slow or tepid response to the threat -- ranging from lack of awareness to an unrealistic hope that somehow a public-private partnership would miraculously evolve to address the problem - have dissipated. We don't need to study or admire the problem any longer. Presidential elections have often served as the springboard for national initiatives and the new President has already signaled a strong awareness of the threat and an intention to do something about it. Moreover, interest in cybersecurity is high in the wake of the Russian malicious cyber activities, and the public is now more familiar with the role of intelligence agencies in protecting the national security. A major undertaking for the new Administration and Congress will be to take a hard look at the nation's cybersecurity and formulate a long term approach in an attempt to prevent a cyber equivalent of 9/ 11 -- one that simultaneously addresses both organizational obstacles and the underlying legal framework.

So let's turn to what should be done. As I've already alluded to, there has been no dearth of strategies proposed to address the cyber threat on a national level. They range from a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies report (advocating for making cybersecurity an independent operational component at DHS while also strengthening other key agencies), to GWU's Center for Cyber and Homeland Security (recommending the development of a framework that would allow technologically advanced private entities to engage in level of proactive cybersecurity measures that fall between traditional passive defense and offense). Separately, the Presidential Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity recommended, among other things, improving public/private partnerships and increasing use of the current Cybersecurity Framework laid out in Executive Order 13636. Meanwhile, Representative Michael McCaul, the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has been working to pass a bill that would codify certain cybersecurity authorities at DHS's National Protection and Programs Directorate, which would be renamed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Agency.

As you can see, much attention has been paid to the nation's cybersecurity, but a consensus has not yet developed regarding the preferred approach. What's revealing, however, is that virtually all of these studies seek to advance two overarching goals: integration and agility. Any new approach to cybersecurity must be integrated, in that it must include major national-level structures in which all divisions of government know their roles in clearly defined, non-duplicative assignments appropriate to the particular expertise and position of the government entity. Integration isn't merely a governmental imperative. A national coordinated solution by definition must involve both the public and private sectors, and equally must take full advantage of the intelligence and insights generated by our national security apparatus. Most importantly, it must coalesce around a national will -- the creation and sustaining of that should be the work of not only the executive and legislative branches but also corporate America and academia.

A new framework must also be agile. From my position at NSA, I've witnessed the challenges in sharing classified threat indicators within government and across the private sector, and I've also seen firsthand that the process for determining who can act and what approach should be taken in response to a cyber threat is slow and cumbersome, involving formal requests for assistance, several layers of approval, and time-consuming fiscal considerations. It is akin to calling county water officials when your house is on fire, who must ask for assistance from the fire department, which must then receive approval from the mayor and money from the city treasury before a truck can be dispatched. By the time this administrative legwork is complete, our cyber house has been reduced to cinders. It is essential that our cybersecurity framework be equipped with both the resources and the authority to anticipate, protect against, and respond to cyber threats with the speed that will make a difference.

So how do we accomplish this? One obvious and affirmative strategy, and the one that I think may have the most potential for achieving real gains, would be to unify the government's cybersecurity activities by establishing a new lead department or agency for cybersecurity. Easily said perhaps -- but exactly how would one go about doing it? Well, much as we did two centuries ago, we can again look to our neighbors across the pond for ideas. The United Kingdom faces the same cyber threats we do, but for a variety of reasons one could speculate on (perhaps having to do with their size, institutional strengths and political culture), they sometimes are able to achieve solutions more quickly than can our arguably more fractious democracy. The UK within the past few months has selected a new integrated model, by creating the National Cybersecurity Centre or NCSC. Like the U.S., the UK had various entities, all with disparate responsibilities for cybersecurity. Their new center brought together and replaced four different entities. The NCSC is intended to act as a bridge between industry and government, providing a unified source of advice, guidance, and support on cybersecurity and management of cyber incidents. In other words, the NCSC model is intended to address both prevention and remediation of cyber threats and incidents by pulling together under one roof the full range of critical cybersecurity functions, including research, advice and guidance, and incident response and management. I am not necessarily proposing this precise model as the solution; after all, the UK has, as I noted a moment ago, a different culture, it is smaller, and the actual details of its legal system are quite unlike ours despite being obviously erected upon similar concepts. It is still useful, however, to examine the ground that they've started to break to determine whether there is anything that we can and should import.

The understanding that victims of cyber attacks were receiving conflicting advice and views depending on the government agency to which they turned was a major rationale for the UK to establish a unified cyber center -- but what really kick-started the UK to action was that the realization that relatively unsophisticated cyber intrusions, such as the attack against TalkTalk, a UK telecom provider, by a teenage boy, were turning into national level events because of a lack of basic cyber hygiene and because the government was not appropriately transparent about cyber threats and intrusions. Increased information sharing alone, however, was not the answer; UK experts decided that a more interventional approach was required in order to create consistency and coherency.

The UK carefully considered whether to organize the NCSC inside or outside the intelligence community. Much like in the U.S., there was apprehension in the UK after the Snowden disclosures about the role of its intelligence apparatus. Ultimately, however, the UK elected to stand up the NCSC as an agency wholly within the Government Communications Headquarters, which is the UK's version of NSA. This was done because, as I mentioned previously with respect to NSA, GCHQ already had the technical expertise and the intelligence insights that would be needed by the new organization. In order to overcome the public's apprehension, the NCSC committed itself to transparency: it publishes comprehensive data on cyber threats and, whenever possible, includes supporting evidence. Its facility is largely unsecured, so that it can bring in subject matter and technical experts from the private sector to teach NCSC personnel about their industries.

In conjunction with the establishment of the NCSC, the UK also rolled out its comprehensive National Cyber Security Strategy, which sets out the UK's approach to tackling and managing cyber threats to the country. It advocates for developing an innovative cyber security industry and provides for an active, nationwide cyber defense program. As an example, they've begun deploying a web check service, which scans for web vulnerabilities or misconfigurations in the websites of all public sector organizations in the UK. Website owners are provided a tailored report about any issues identified. Overall, the UK has committed to investing over $2 billion over the next five years to transform their cybersecurity posture.

Naturally, there are drawbacks to a model such as the NCSC. For example, concentrating cybersecurity responsibilities in one lead agency misses an opportunity to marry cyber expertise with the unique insights and understanding of requirements possessed by each agency in their own fields. In addition, as we've seen with the Department of Homeland Security, there are always bureaucratic and political issues associated with standing up a new national organization. The potential advantages of this approach, however, seem for the UK to outweigh the disadvantages.

Could we do the same thing here? At least on its face, this could satisfy the two principles I suggested a minute ago -- namely, integration and agility. Most importantly, through unification, the cyber protection mission would be informed by the foreign intelligence mission that uncovers malicious cyber activity from nation states and political groups adverse to us. The benefits of that proximity are precisely what led NSA, in an internal reorganization last year, to combine its information assurance teams with the signals intelligence ones in a combined operations directorate. And in a slightly different but still highly relevant context, the decision to co-locate and partially integrate the new US Cyber Command with NSA was a critical factor in seeking efficiency and synergy for the new organization. If we were to follow the UK model, cyber security would be the principal mission for a newly-created organization, rather than a secondary or tertiary support function, as it currently is for many federal agencies, and it stands to reason that that focus would yield better outcomes. Unifying cybersecurity responsibilities in one organization would enable the federal government to eliminate redundancies and to concentrate and streamline cybersecurity resources and expertise -- both of which can be hard to come by in an era where the cost of purchasing and updating equipment and retaining cyber talent creates challenges to the implementation of cyber best practices. And manifestly, housing the cyber threat discovery, protection, defense, and remediation capabilities in one entity would afford the agility and timeliness that is critical to an effective cyber strategy. In short, I think the case for such a unified, central approach is fairly compelling.

Even if we all concurred that such an approach was the right one, there would still be many details to be worked out. One key question would be how to sufficiently empower the new organization so that it could effectively defend the various networks of many federal entities -- which would include the power to, in some sense, police those networks, setting and enforcing standards, perhaps even shutting them down if needed -- while at the same time letting each entity have some authority and responsibility for its own unique operations. A unified and nationally prioritized budgetary authority would clearly be a critical component of such an approach. Similarly, Congress would need to embrace this approach on multiple levels, including centralizing to some significant extent the jurisdiction over cyber matters that is now accorded to many committees and subcommittees. The very process of deciding what we are going to do, however, will require us to face these questions head on. This exercise will be valuable in forcing us to decide how cyber responsibilities will be shared across the government, how the public and private sectors should work together, how to enforce compliance with standards, and how to respond to malicious cyber actors.

If this nationally unified approach were adopted, I am not necessarily proposing that such an organization fall within NSA. Although that is certainly worth exploring, we recognize that there are very real concerns about the scope of government surveillance and the potential use of "zero-day vulnerabilities" or cyber vulnerabilities that could be discovered by the government -- but at a minimum, NSA should have a special relationship with any new cybersecurity organization. It would make no sense to deny such a new organization the insights and warnings about cyber threats developed by NSA through its foreign intelligence mission. That would fly in the face of the very need for integration and agility. Whether that relationship takes the form of, for example, some deeper partnership between NSA and truly integrated cybercenter in a new Cabinet-level Department of Cyber, or housed, say, within the existing DHS, is something that the executive and legislative branches will have to sort out.

I want to make clear that by advocating that we avail ourselves of the infrastructure already paid for with taxpayer dollars and of the expertise and position of NSA, I am not, however, suggesting that NSA be granted additional surveillance authorities. We recognize that -- while increased communications monitoring might be an inevitable byproduct of confronting the cyber threat -- it's equally true that monitoring and implementing other technological approaches are fraught with understandable concern about government intrusion. Undoubtedly, there are portions of the population with unanswered questions (or worse) about us, but just because that perception exists does not mean folks like me are doomed to silence. Instead, I feel like we owe it to ourselves and to the public to enter the debate on topics like cybersecurity. The cybersecurity threat is grave, and we've got the unique expertise needed to help safeguard the nation against those threats. It's important to share some of our knowledge, developed over many years, in order to foster a vital public debate about the right way to address threats to our national security, and part of that debate includes an honest discussion about the pros and cons of locating a lead cyber agency or department within the intelligence community.

We at NSA feel duty bound to discuss these types of issues, and we'd like to do so transparently and openly to help reach a consensus as to the best approach. I hope that I've done that here today. Thank you for listening, and since I just spoke so highly about fostering discussion, I'd like to open up the floor for a few questions in the time remaining.

via NSA.gov

[violetsystems]

#personal

I write here sometimes because it’s incredibly satisfying to be understood.  Some people take pictures.  I took pictures for years.  For a time I really believed that what I was doing was connecting with the world.  I traveled all over.  Spent weeks at a time in Asia by myself just wandering.  I shared it with ghostly friends and attachments.  I had understood it to be a precursor to a real connection.  That I was putting out this information on the internet to connect with someone.  Much like I had tried to make it in the music scene at one time to find likeminded people.  The one thing I’ve learned through failure is it doesn’t always work out the way you want it to.  It may just be from repetition that I’ve become more talented writing about the things I see and feel.  I’m never good enough at anything to be recognized or treated with some value in the real world.  I’ve had some of the same cryptic names cycle through my dash for years.  I’d argue sometimes that media here isn’t very social.  It’s rather communal.  A shared almost secret history of memes, idols, art and music.  You never have to clarify much.  Something here is cringe to one person and high art to others.  There’s this silent understanding that we’re all trying to move closer to what moves us.  We’re adrift in hidden connections plugged together like a Rhizome.  It’s all romantic shit if you grew up reading Gibson playing pen and paper Cyberpunk with a bunch of nerds.  But the world gets harder and harder to plug back into outside these delicate ebbs and flows of information.  I never really spent much time on Usenet back in the day other than to dig for mp3′s.  I grew up running Bulletin Board systems with my mother.  I was always writing.  I almost got expelled from a Christian High School for publishing a zine.  Some younger kids on my bus got a hold of it and claimed it was Satanic.  Half of the zine was about illustrations from people I met in real life.  Most of them were reminiscent of Pushead.  Very gory skate graphics.  The guy who drew them also designed flyers for punk bands.  Decades later I don’t really think there’s much difference between Tumblr and Zine culture.  Of all the things you’d have to wear the badge from high school, nobody really empathizes that I have become the patron saint of zine culture.  Of all the shit people could talk about me over the years.  He was a jungle dj.  Oh he was a footwork dj.  He was a white rapper.  He tried to skate but my friends are better than him.  He tried to make his own shirts.  I sold a lot of those here on Tumblr.  More so than knowing anyone in real life.  People get the impression I’m a lot of things.  I’m that guy you see helping the lady in the wheelchair in the grocery store find help.  This happened yesterday.  The woman thought I worked there.  There was an awkward sign on the door looking for a security guard for hire.  I spoke with the deli and got someone to assist.  For some reason everyone made the mistake of labeling me as a graffiti artist for years.  The police didn’t help.  I’ve had varying degrees of mistaken identity and my share of surveillance.  But I’ve never done anything other than run an apartment gallery for street art.  I was in the walk thru for an outside atm yesterday.  There was an angry white man scrubbing off some purple tags  with some orange zep.  I joked and said “get the led out!  He didn’t think it was funny.  He replied the people who lived in this neighborhood should do something about this.  I replied I lived here and there’s not much you can do.  He scolded me saying Chase could remove the atms as punishment.  He didn’t work for chase.  I told him I was more of a JP Morgan kind of guy.  Everybody on the internet thinks I’m the next roaring kitty but doesn’t want to admit it.  Or is that the other way around.  One thing I’m for certain.  I’ve been a lot of things and someone always tries to outdo me at being me.

I write here to parse the reality that nobody keeps score.  I keep track of my finances often.  For some reason, I’m doing about the best fiscally I’ve ever done just waiting for Godot.  I spoke with my dad last night about things.  I’ve had four packages go missing since mid April.  I’ve had people follow me around and give me weird looks.  I’ve had my locks tampered with.  I’ve had consistent fraudulent charges I’ve had to contend with.  It never ends.  It’s like a literal nightmare shit show outside the door at every moment.  I write here about it to simply let people know I do not think any of it is normal.  And generally, I start to believe that it never was.  I don’t drink anymore.  I don’t really have a problem with people who do.  But when people overdo it they forget how far they cross the line.  My biggest fear for this summer is the yolo effect.  That people will be so frustrated with being held back that they will use this summer as their ultimate party bus.  The shoe will be on the other foot.  If you wear a mask you are crazy to them.  Everyone will have the chance to speak their mind in public now.  They’ve been practicing on Facebook for fifteen months to tell you off.  Sometimes I feel like there’s a whole generation of people who think they stan me here.  Who go out into the wild and whisper what they think they’ve learned through reading comprehension about me.  I relish this.  Sort of like how Zizek talks of surveillance.  Let the dogs and the secret police learn something I say!  And you put it out there on the internet in any fashion and they will learn.  Often not in the way you want them to.  Which is why as a writer, obfuscation is the biggest weapon you have against nosy neighbors and pinkerton spies.  If I am even a writer at all.  This kind of activity just like my music isn’t considered anything of a skill.  There are a lot of people out there who can’t even reply in an email on LinkedIn with the spell check on.  If I have all these skills.  If I have all these things I’ve been.  Why am I in this situation particularly?  Why hasn’t anyone noticed how badly it is I am suffering on the inside?  Technically I’m not suffering as near as I was a year ago.  I’m out of debt.  I’ve gotten rid of a lot of excess baggage.  I’ve kept healthy by working out in my home.  I’ve adjusted to the reality that nobody ever gets it but me.  I’ve plugged myself into investments that I took the full risk on.  I’ve literally crawled from the ashes of a situation meant to break me.  And my consolation prize is that nobody ever.  And I mean EVER.  Talks.  About it.  What happened to me.  How fucking horrible it is.  How fucking wrong it all is.  All the way back to when I first started trying to be recognized as me.  To be valued.  I have to stop myself there.  I write here often and I feel to a certain group of dear friends it is valued.  That my context is understood a little more deeply than “maybe we can use this guy.”  I’ve been used on levels that would make you vomit in public.  And I’ve been gaslighted enough to know that there’s no use in trying to prove it.  I’m supposed to move on and understand the rules.  There are no rules out here.  There’s a semblance of order when people stand in front of cameras or their zoom mic.  When they’re shouting from their “platform” to change the world.  Nobody ever talks.  Nobody really listens.  And for that I feel we’re all growing tired of a world that simply shouts out it’s demands.  I wake up to the same reality every morning.  Nobody texts.  Nobody invites me out to socialize.  Everybody has something to say to me and it’s never “How are you doing?”  None of it really matters to me from simple statistical observation.  If I haven’t changed your mind by now, you don’t really want to know what I’m thinking.

When you get stuck.  And who knows if you will.  But when you get stuck like me.  It takes a lot of positivity to stay focused.  I go out and try to do things often.  But people will spoil that solitude with some bullshit excuse like “This is America.  I’m free to do what I want when I want.”  At the expense of others.  And out here, I’d love to tell you how I survive when nothing changes.  I stay out of the way.  I am so fucking disassociated from this place that it feels evil.  I’ve been in this city over two decades.  You would think a person like me would have some kind of culture other than being hunted and tested every turn.  Who knows who the ring leader is anymore.  People read what I write and then take it their own way.  Nobody really cares for my well being out here.  That’s self love talking.  And I am being real.  People have manipulated my entire life and put my safety at risk for the sake of some sort of performance.  Some of that is just life.  Some of that I accept because it’s the way this lane operates.  But nowhere in this journey have I sacrificed my authenticity for some big payoff.  I don’t even know what the fuck is going on with people anymore.  It is okay to remove yourself from a series of toxic situations.  It is okay to reset.  It is okay to understand that the pandemic might have reset everything for you back to square one.  It is okay to let go of social obligations that never valued you as a person.  It is okay to keep wearing a mask.  It is okay to say no.  It is okay to walk away from a disrespectful situation and rely on yourself.  It is also hard as fuck in practice.  If anyone can learn anything from me it is that you literally are asking for it.  The old fuck around and find out.  Except I’ve found out a lot more than just how charming I can be to the right person by being thoughtful and consistent.  I’ve learned the FOMO of trying to participate in a pyramid is not the kind of leverage I’m interested in.  I’ve learned that debt rhymes with net.  I’ve learned how to keep that somewhat stable in one of the most fucked up economic shitstorms in America.  I’ve learned I’m not eligible for the things people assume I’m on.  Like unemployment.  I’ve learned health insurance costs as much as my rent.  Which is a great deal on rent.  I’ve learned that making hamburgers and freezing them are delicious.  But even then you’d have to pay me more than fifteen dollars an hour.  I’ve learned this entire thing is my fault.  And I’ve written about it for years.  And yet nobody seems to want to have a conversation about it.  They just keep on assuming.  People are sleepwalking out there.  Some people are really good at faking it.  But then you follow their lead and end up in the same laugh out loud shit show.  When you get stuck, it’s best to count your blessings.  At least people might somewhere understand why I do the things that I do.  Why I think it’s completely futile to try to do anything drastic when everything always fails.  Why I’ve given up on believing that people have my best interest at heart in a city that’s ignored me for over a year.  I write to keep a clear narration of how I’m trying to tackle a problem far bigger than me.  I deal with it by staying out of the way.  Out of sight.  Trapped in a corner shack lighthouse in a highly accessible city.  With no end of people trying to access me.  To chip on through.  I wonder if you got to the center of all this.  If you really solved the mystery.  I wonder if you’d finally break down and cry.  That you’ve been wrong about me for this long.  There’s no mystery to solve about me other than why I keep writing on a dead platform.  And why the general public secretly pays so much attention to every word I type.  I don’t really “wonder” anymore.  I just know.  <3 Tim

[gryffindormischief]

Phlegthon

A/N: YAY a thing!!  Check out the definition of this title here lol.  It’s a little shorty and I think it’s kinda fun :)  This was a prompt I got a while ago when I reblogged this text post.  Obviously Harry and Ginny aren’t my OCs but I think it works with them :)

Also available on FF and Ao3!

Over the years, Percy Weasley has managed to mellow somewhat.  Probably some combination of the obvious life events – a lot of people changed after the war – and simply the passage of time.  Everyone has youthful failings that seem embarrassing in hindsight, and Percy’s no exception.  In fact, depending on who you ask, he’ll be haled as the poster child for youthful foibles.  Which is surprising to some, considering his less than staid and sedate brothers, but true enough to those who hold the opinion.

Harry’s not sure he’ll go so far as to call him the ‘poster child’ – that’s generally a term used by Ron and George on their monthly Weasley (plus Potter) brother’s night – Percy was always a bit of an overbearing swot.  Which did get him into a bit of trouble to say the least, but who didn’t have the worst brought out during the fight against Voldemort.  And yet, all these reservations aside, Harry really can’t think of a person more adept in driving Ginny Weasley up the proverbial wall.

Audrey, Percy’s fiancé, having a strong desire to get closer to each of the Weasley siblings and their partners as relevant and apparently came to the conclusion that bi-weekly one-on-one couple’s dinners were the best choice.

And as far as proposals for forced socialization go, Harry is fairly at peace wit the proposal and had even volunteered a location suggestion.

It’s one of his and Ginny’s favorite restaurants – a small but authentic Mexican restaurant they particularly enjoy after long days of practice and training.  The portions are large enough that they have on occasion taken home leftovers.  But on most nights, they each order their preferred meal – Ginny the green chile enchiladas and Harry an order of one of their taco trios – and split a plate of empanadas.

And Harry’s secure enough to admit that Ginny is most definitely the more tolerant of spiciness between the two of them.  

Which is why, when they sit down, chatting easily as they look over the laminated menus, Percy’s commentary on Ginny’s proclamation that she’s going for the chile enchiladas – big surprise Harry says with a smirk – is a bit grating.

“Ginny, are you sure? I’ve heard green chiles are a bit rough.”

Audrey eyes the siblings for a moment while Ginny’s jaw ticks and Percy seems to up his level of snootiness by just existing, until Ginny finally breaks the stalemate, “I’ve ordered this once or twice, Perce.  Don’t worry yourself.”

The way things manage to fall back into comfortable chatter after that is really a testament to Audrey’s conversational skills and the tight grip Ginny has on Harry’s hand beneath the table.

And foolishly – particularly given how long Harry has known Percy and the Weasley family’s tendency toward tempers in general – Harry assumed the issue had passed.  So he is a bit surprised when the food arrives and Ginny reaches for a paper napkin from the dispenser near the condiments and Percy clears his throat, “You know you may want to sample that before you add hot sauce, Ginny,” and then he nods toward the hot sauce Ginny definitely wasn’t reaching for.

Audrey’s eyes widen and she seems to be waiting for the storm to rush in, but Ginny doesn’t reach beyond a momentary pause and a short intake of breath through her nostrils, which flare a bit worryingly.  “Thank you Percy, I think I know my own tastes.”

And then she bats the napkins she intended to reach for aside and grabs the bright red bottle with a definitive move, nearly elbowing Harry in the sternum as she pulls it back toward her.

Before any of her tablemates can stop things, Ginny flips the top open and turns it over completely and shakes the sauce out with repetitive flicks of her wrist, gaze never leaving Percy’s.

Without hesitating, Ginny slices a large bite from the first of her three enchiladas, scoops it up on her fork, and swallows it in one without batting an eye.

And for the rest of dinner, she proceeds in the same fashion, never showing the slightest hesitation, though Harry does note a slight tremor in her lip when she’s about two thirds done, but only because he has a particular interest in Ginny’s mouth.

But in true Ginevra Molly Weasley fashion, she powers through with such ease Harry’s nearly forgotten it was an issue by the time they’re waving Percy and Audrey off and strolling down the sidewalk toward Harry’s flat.  Until Ginny jerks to a halt as the twin pops of apparition sound from a nearby alley.  “We need milk.”

“I have –“

“A normal amount – I need at least two litres,” and then she’s tugging him toward the overly-bright quick shop and nearly knocking the door from its hinges, and already halfway down the dairy aisle before it clacks shut.

Ginny grabs the first carton she sees and tosses entirely too much muggle money on the counter, leaving Harry to pocket the change proffered by the disinterested cashier and follow Ginny out into the light drizzle.

Where she’s already cracked the cap open and is drinking directly from the carton.  After a few gulps, she swipes the back of her hand across her mouth and grins at Harry, then winces a bit at the stretch.  Ginny turns in the direction of Harry’s flat and Harry throws his arm around her shoulders.  “Sacrifice your salivary glands and whatnot to prove Percy wrong?”

Pausing before she takes another swallow, Ginny doesn’t hesitate.  “Worth it.”

[sexaki9523-blog]

How to Sharpen Meat Grinder Blades?

Ground meat is perhaps the most underestimated cooking fixings. With ground meat available, you can prepare burgers, meatloaf, meatballs, and even set up your own hotdogs. It's simple enough to purchase ground meat at a store, yet wouldn't it be smarter to deal with the pounding yourself?

In the event that you realized How to Sharpen Meat Grinder Blades, at that point you can set aside time and cash while as yet concocting similar scrumptious dishes as in the past.

In this article, we will speak more about the way toward keeping up and honing the processor sharp edges so you presently don't have to make excursions to the butcher just to get your ground meat.

How to Sharpen Meat grinder Blades in Easy 3 Steps?

Consistently keeping up and honing the sharp edges of the meat processor is basic since you need them to stay workable for to the extent that this would be possible. Neglecting to appropriately keep up your meat processor could prompt it done getting useful route sooner than anticipated and by then, you'll simply be left with a costly paperweight.

It's additionally imperative to realize how to appropriately hone the meat processor edges since you generally need that machine to be available. On the off chance that you need to rapidly prepare burgers for supper, you can do so on the grounds that the meat processor is prepared to work immediately.

Stage 1: Gather and Pre Pare The Items You'll Need For Sharpening The Meat Grinder Blades

How about we start by social event all the things that you will require to finish the edge honing measure.

Most importantly, you will require things that will protect you while honing the cutting edges. This implies that you will require a couple of security gloves. Ensure that the gloves you're getting aren't dangerous or probably you may leave yourself powerless against a mishap.

Feel free to get forceps and a screwdriver since they will be required when you are dismantling the meat processor. A checked holder will likewise prove to be useful while you're confining the sharp edges. You ought to likewise have some water close by for tidying up the pieces of the meat processor and some piece paper will likewise have the option to take care of you.

In conclusion, remember about getting some sandpaper at the store. The sandpaper is the thing you will use for honing the sharp edges so they are significant. With all the things presently prepared, you simply need to locate a level, stable surface to use for working. We're managing cutting edges here, so don't consider chipping away at them on the off chance that you have no steady surface to utilize except if you need to expand your odds of getting harmed.

Stage 2: Detach The Grinder Blades

Get your forceps and screwdriver and will chip away at segregating the sharp edges from the meat processor. This cycle will be so a lot simpler if your meat processor has a manual.

On the off chance that the meat processor doesn't accompany a manual, at that point you should be cautious during the separation cycle. Keep the parts you're eliminating in a stamped compartment. Organize them in a consecutive request so you realize which parts ought to be introduced first once it comes time to return the meat processor together.

Stage 3: Work on Sharpening The Blades of The Meat Grinder

In the event that you didn't put on the wellbeing gloves while you were dismantling the meat processor, well now, you totally should wear them since you're going to begin chipping away at the sharp edges.

This next thing isn't really a fundamental piece of the cycle, yet it might demonstrate accommodating to you. What you need to do is to snatch either some paper and afterward cut it utilizing the cutting edges of the processor. Note how simple or that it is so hard to cut through the paper. That can fill in as your reference point for later on.

Proceeding onward, you presently need to lay some sandpaper down on a superficial level you will chip away at. From that point forward, get the processor cutting edge you need to hone and arrange it according to the sandpaper. Attempt to line the edge and the sandpaper-concealed surface at a 45-degree point.

Begin scratching the outside of the sandpaper utilizing the edges of the processor now. Scratch the outside of the sandpaper in a roundabout way with the goal that every single piece of the cutting edge is connecting and being honed.

This piece of the cycle will be somewhat monotonous in light of the fact that you should rehash it around multiple times or perhaps significantly more than that on the off chance that you need the best outcomes.

To see whether you have honed the processor's edges adequately, rehash the test you did before. On the off chance that you can see that the edges are cutting the paper better, at that point you can proceed onward to the completing segment of the honing cycle.

The completing cycle includes plunging the now honed processor sharp edges in some water. Allow them to douse a spot with the goal that the abundance particles can be shaken free. Remove them from the water straightaway and wipe them down utilizing a perfect material.

It is critical for you to give the sharp edges of the processor the occasion to dry totally. In the event that they aren't totally dried, there's a decent possibility that they will begin to rust while working inside the meat processor.

However long you are cautious, utilize the correct things, and perseveringly follow the means recorded above, you ought to experience no difficulty honing the edges of your meat processor. It's even acceptable practice on the off chance that you need to take a stab at honing blades later on. By seeing how to accurately hone meat processor cutting edges, you would now be able to guarantee that you'll have the option to utilize that thing inside your kitchen for an exceptionally prolonged stretch of time.

A Guide to Sharpen Meat Grinder Blades and Plates

The honing cycle of meat processor cutting edges and dishes should be possible in 3 most accessible methods:

Utilizing a belt sharpener

Utilizing a honing stone

Utilizing sandpaper

Utilizing a belt sharpener

A large number of you probably won't be comfortable with the belt sharpener thing. It is a blade and instrument sharpener that arrives in a belt-formed structure. It is prescribed to begin honing with a decent and productive belt sharpener. For that, consistently pick a fine coarseness, in any case. The coarse sand can likewise be applied on the off chance that you can't crush meat and clogs. The following stage is to hone your cutting edges and plates. The most ideal approach to get the ideal honing is by dealing with each surface in turn. Focus on each surface in turn and move to the next a while later. Keep in mind, the objective is to make a mirror honing. Along these lines, proceed until it turns so. This way finishes all the surfaces convincingly. The technique suggests to give the ideal honing to the edges and plates if properly executed.

Utilizing a honing stone

By the name, you would already be able to figure that a stone will do the honing. Take the stone that functions admirably for honing. The jewel stones are a lot of dependable in this case. It is constantly prescribed to take a fine coarse or extra-fine coarse (for better honing) coarseness stone for the cycle. The better coarse coarseness gives you the best honing inside little work. Make a point to utilize it properly. After you take the stone, the cutting edges and plates should be scoured on it. There are no limitations for scouring the edge and plates on it. For serene purposes, you can do the to and of each side multiple times in a row. Observe subsequent to doing that. On the off chance that the sides become honed, you don't have to do that further. As such, you can hone all the hands of the sharp edges and plates and make them productive for additional employments.

Utilizing sandpaper

Perhaps the most characteristic and most utilized cycles for honing the cutting edges and plates of the meat processors is sandpaper. The sandpaper is a powerful, grating layer of glass or paper with rough material pastes on one surface. For the honing, take a glass material on a strong level surface. Rub the surface with a little water to clean it. Subsequent to making the entire surface somewhat soggy, place the sandpaper over it. The surface and the stage are prepared takes you to hone the cutting edges and plates. Prior to that, test the sharpness of the cutting edges and plates by paper or fabric. It will give you an away from of the amount to hone them. Rub the cutting edges and plates one surface at a 45-degree point multiple times per portion. It will give the ideal honing and will empower the most ideal approach to hone. There are no limitations in steadily scouring them. Rub it until you feel it is honed convincingly. The cycle is the most accessible and utilized method among the other. The result is likewise apparent. You can apply this anyplace whenever. If you need more products then see our website click here.