#it’s honestly astounding my self control has held out this long

[takeariskao3]

Honeymoon of Horrors for the WIP ask!

yessssss! here is a snippet:

“I. Don’t. Speak. Italian!” Harry enunciated loudly.

The younger man spoke again, his heavy accent sticking in Ginny’s ears. “You are Il Bambino Sopravvissuto, you are L'immortale.”

Her mouth went dry, she didn’t need to know the language to understand that last bit.

“Harry, they-” she choked on the words as fear bubbled up in her throat. “They think you can’t die.”

His head snapped around to look at her. “What?”

“Il bambino sopra… sopra- whatever!” Ginny spoke in a rush. “The Boy Who Lived!”

Harry swore. “Immortale? Immortal?”

“Probably.” Ginny answered with a bewildered look.

He turned back to the two men. “That was just with the one guy. With Voldemort. I can die! Me morire-”

“Tu non muori,” The older one interrupted, then turned his wand on Ginny. “Lei d’altro canto....”

Harry immediately stepped in front of her, all three of them shouting while she tried to work out what exactly the old man was threatening.

“Calmatevi!” The young one finally said, loud enough to drown out Harry and the old man. “Datevi una calmata!”

Gripping Ginny’s arm, Harry kept her firmly behind him, but she peeked around his shoulder to see the younger one muttering in a low voice to his companion. They spoke for less than thirty seconds, the old one’s gestures and tone unyielding.

Finally the younger man sighed and turned to face Harry.

“You help us,” he spoke, his voice even. “Or she dies.”

[honeyandbloodpoetry]

My Gender-Affirming Hysterectomy Journey

❗️❗️❗️Tldr: I wanted to write about my experience and feelings on getting a hysterectomy for both gender affirming reasons and as a medical emergency. There is a tw for suicidal ideation and organ photos are at the bottom. This does not cover everything in my journey of course, and I may write more on my experiences sometime. But this was just a very emotional write-up for me during my recovery s few days ago. ❗️❗️❗️

The lifelong journey to getting my hysterectomy was hard. As of right now, a hysto was the only gender affirming surgery I was interested in--I do experience dysphoria, but am uninterested in surgery. A hysterectomy held a lot of weight for me even before I knew I was transgender. The earliest moment I can recall dysphoria and pain over the ability to become pregnant/expectations of motherhood as an inevitability was in kindergarten. In fact, as someone with CPTSD, it is an astonishingly clear childhood memory. As I got older, the dysphoria and eventual phobia got worse and worse, no matter how hard I tried to stuff myself into a box. My dysphoria began to make my psychosis worse starting I'm high school, it affected my self esteem and bodily insecurities, it affected by sex life and relationships. Within the past four years, the dysphoria and phobia relating to having a female reproductive system began taking over my life and making me so genuinely miserable and honestly delusional over my own body.

All I wanted was a male body. And it felt like the most female and painful part of me was in a place I could never touch, but controlling everything bodily, sexually and mentally about me. Since childhood I was haunted by this and in an indescribable amount of pain. My first puberty hit and I had extreme reproductive problems--less than 15 or 20 periods in my entire life. Extreme pain. Then, starting in mid December symptoms started happening, and in January I started heavy bleeding for 80 days straight. I lost weight uncontrollably (I choose to be fat on purpose and weight loss or gain out of my control is a trigger for ED for me), I was in constant severe pain, I had cramps my doctor compared to birthing cramps, I could barely walk anymore. I fought with our healthcare system as a poor person who's trans wife was recently fired due to gender discrimination and has STILL not found justice to try and get emergency healthcare. I was told how sick I was, and that it was obvious I was at least in precancer stages, and that my entire reproductive system was basically a minefield. It was almost funny that the thing in my body that had caused me the most suffering in my life could be what killed me. My testosterone was also tanking during this time, slowing my transition and causing my estrogen to be higher than I would obviously want. It felt like my reproductive system was destroying me, and honestly it had been for a long time.

As I prepared for surgery and went to appointment after appointment, I had to keep returning to the maternity ward and gynecologist office. I was repeatedly misgendered in person and in documents and even told by an ultrasound specialist that my uterus looked fine and "there's no reason for her to have this surgery". I came out of most of my appointments crying and just wishing I had been born a man, or not at all. My mental health plummeted because I was convinced the surgery would not be successful, and overall my dysphoria was at an all time high. I never told anyone because I was ashamed, but the first gynecologist from my usual community clinic who referred me to a wider network basically walked into the room and told me I had cancer because I was fat and misgendered me the whole time. I did not tell anyone because I was ashamed and embarrassed, but my surgical team and other doctors have been amazing and let me know this was astounding medical malpractice. Still... all of these appointments really drilled into me and just hurt. It got very bad for me and I was unsure how to reach out. I felt like I was so wrong and bad inside and out, and that even my sickness was a burden. I was not sure how to go to anyone, but my suicidal ideation had gotten worse and worse since December and was beginning to peak to something that felt out of my control. It was terrifying, and at my breaking point I scheduled therapy and made the decision to go back on antipsychotics.

The day of the surgery, I felt resigned. I had hope, but I was also scared of what might happen. I have a notoriously frail body and was scared I would not make it through surgery. Or that it would be unsuccessful and... then what? I just held hands with my wife and sang to her in the car on the way there and let her love just sit with me. I hadn't slept a wink the night before and it felt like I was in a state of floating. As I was being prepped for surgery, I felt still. Somewhere in between. I got to be held by Millie one last time and I said a prayer to the diety who has walked beside me since childhood. As I was put under, all I could think about was going home and playing some video games and cuddling with my wife. Being peaceful. Being loved. Nothing wild or crazy or outlandish. Just peace.

Maybe being free of this burden.

When I woke up from surgery, the first thing I did was look around then down at my hands. My first thought was "I'm alive". After struggling so much with being suicidal, it felt so happy and real and I felt so happy to be here. I leaned my head back on the pillow and swam in and out of sleep for some time. I had no idea if my surgery was successful for an hour or so, but I was in pain and somehow felt at peace, like I knew. I finally felt like I was resting for the first time in a long time. The surgeon came to my bedside and told me that the surgery was a complete success--not only that, but it was astonishingly smooth and easy, one of the best surgeries she had ever done. I smiled and just thanked her and told her this was all I've ever wanted since I was a child. She almost cried and told me she was so happy she could help me.

Millie hugged me so tight when she could see me. We were both so relieved and so happy and I just got to tell her how happy I was. It was just tear filled joy and peace and the feeling of finally everything is okay. Finally something has went right. I will never forget how happy I was to see her and tell her it was successful (even though she knew before I did) and the feeling of wholeness I felt. Coming home really felt like coming home--plus, I had my amazing friends Nathan and Suyin there to help care for both of us and make an amazing dinner. I felt so warm and so loved and so OKAY. I'm learning to let people in and it is such a warming feeling, especially during recovery.

It's been a little over a week since my surgery and my recovery is going smoothly. My body is a lot stronger than I thought. I started my new medications yesterday, and while this isn't suddenly a cure all for my mental health, it genuinely feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. My gender affirming healthcare is inspiring me to keep going. It saved my life in more ways than one. This dysphoria is no longer active--it is now a past trauma I can healthily process. I can now feel right in my body, right in my sex life, right in my gender identity in a way I never have before. Despite the mood swings that come with menopause and despite the pains of recovering from surgery, I feel more happy and whole and not-in-pain than I ever have in my whole life. I have never experienced gender and body euphoria like this before! I just feel...complete.

I am really happy I held on and had hope. I am really happy I fought my way through the medical system to get this surgery. I am happy I get to live my life with this healthcare. I look at the little boy me still deep inside my heart and hug him so tightly because WE DID IT! This feels like a new chapter to my life that I am incredibly happy to get to be here for. It's honestly difficult to put the gravity of all of this, both the euphoria, dysphoria and pain, into words. But I wanted to try.

I am unsteady, but I am okay. I am happy. I am free.

I AM NEUTERED BAAAAABY

[anxiouslyfred]

The Stone Gaze

Summary: Virgil hates that he can temporarily turn people into stone and hopes that whatever the mirror superpower his soulmate has is able to counteract it.

He wasn’t quite expecting the energy and impulsiveness of Remus when they met in an Art Exhibition.

/\/\/\

Virgil hated his powers. He hated a lot of things really, but the power he had was the number one thing he hated and that barely even counted as self-hate or self-deprecation given a lot of the reasoning for it was how his powers impacted his life.

The only time he'd come close to thinking his 'superpower' (as society had deemed things not everybody could do) was when they were studying mythology and had covered Medusa. She had turned people to stone permanently as a gift to protect herself from those who would idolise or attack her. Before they learnt the ending that had seemed like a pretty cool thing to be able to do, but then she was killed as part of a heroes journey and Virgil realised how little people would think of his power should they learn about it. It was mythologically a villains power after all.

Hiding his powers wasn't enough to keep Virgil from the attention of bullies. They picked on him because he always wore his father hoodie after they lost him to illness. They'd call him names because he'd learnt to keep his hair, especially his fringe long enough to cover his eyes so nobody would get accidentally turned to stone. Eventually they'd even harass him to do their homework because his Dad pushed for good study habits.

Refusing to react to their insults or requests only reached the point they tried to beat him up once. When the leader of that group had shoved him against a wall his hair had fallen backwards, leaving a clear gaze directed to the bullies. As soon as the leader became stone the other kids had fled, crying for the teacher to come help.

Virgil's Dad had been called to the school to pick him up and explicitly direct everyone's attention to what had clearly been happening, given the position the boy had been frozen in while refusing to allow any punishment to be given to Virgil. Even once that was accepted by the teachers and school they tried to demand that he wore sunglasses or a visor to school for the safety of staff and children alike.

“I will not police the clothes my son wears because your staff cannot respect someone who doesn't meet their gaze directly. He has found that the long fringe is enough to counteract his powers and given the years he has attended this school without incident that should be perfectly suitable to carry on with.” His Dad has lectured the head teacher that day. He'd given more evidence that Virgil hadn't listened to, but the sentence stuck in his head. Once more his powers were up to him to control and prevent from being used and it felt like an even heavier weight to carry than he'd already found it.

The days of his schooling after that were lonely, isolated as he feared anyone he might befriend would try to meet his eyes. The only hope he had for getting through his life was that somewhere in their world was his soulmate; a person whose powers would mirror his own, and possibly, on the nights Virgil was willing to dream impossible things, counteract his gaze that turned people to stone.

/Over to Remus\

Roman had been the one to bring Remus into exhibiting his work. Honestly, Roman had been the twin to get them both into the art world in the first place. The charismatic, charming artist, whose painting were filled with energy most paintings couldn't capture and dreamt of finding his soulmate. When the art world had discovered he had a brother just as skilled in sculpting they were pulled around and paired together for exhibits constantly.

Remus had originally tried to explain the truth, that their works looked like they held more of life in them because that was what their powers did. Roman could bring paintings to life temporarily, and had often painted portraits of his friends and family so he could still talk to them while they were away. Remus in contrast brought sculptures to life when he touched them with a wish to talk. They'd always be in different positions than he'd awakened them from by the time the power wore off so he got praised for how realistic or believable his positions were.

None of that praise meant anything to Remus though. He sculpted things to feel less alone, to have people to talk to that wouldn't react in disgust or turn away when he said something a little more twisted than society was used to hearing. Each model he made had a mouth to talk and their own way to express their reactions so he could for a while feel accepted by someone other than his brother.

Today he had actually listened to Roman's claims that it's better for their exhibitions when the artist spends times at the display. Of course that didn't mean he was going to dress any differently that normal, just throwing on the torn skinny jeans and an off the shoulder top, with a jacket draped over his shoulders for when the air conditioning got too cold. Art Galleries always seemed to keep the space too cold, Remus swore on it.

“You can't be in here Mate.” An angry voice said, a hand accompanying it yanking him around to face a tall suited man, scowling down at him. “This is an art gallery and I don't care what the fuck you did to sneak in here you're gonna be-”

Remus had already started glancing for a nearby sculpture to reach for when the words cut off. The man whose voice had slowly been raising had now turned to stone, finger raised to point out the door.

“I'm the artist?” He blinked, properly turning now to try and find who else was in the gallery that might have done it.

A few metres directly behind where Remus was, there was a man looking like he would run any second, staring at the floor as though ashamed. “Sorry, I didn't mean to do that.” He mumbled, “The yelling startled me.”

“You're okay, dude. No harm, no wild birds around here.” Remus nodded, reaching back to poke the side of the angry man, focusing on him being alive and calm now.

“Apologies, I probably shouldn't have yelled, but seriously, homeless people aren't allowed in art galleries.” The man who had been yelling declared, having taken a deep breath as the stone released him.

Remus just raised an eyebrow at that. “Just because I haven't dressed all posh like you doesn't mean I'm homeless. And given I'm the one who sculpted most of the statues in this gallery, I believe your judgemental attitude can be taken elsewhere, or shoved up your ass since that seems to be where the rest of your personality is kept. Have your fun in hell, not in my gallery.” He spoke quickly, already directing the man away from the gallery, and nodding to the security guard that wandered between their exhibits.

He didn't delay any longer than that, caring more for the man who had turned him to stone than anything more that could be said. That had to be the complete opposite to his own powers, whether it had been a permanent transformation or just a temporary one, he wanted to know.

Luckily the man was still stood there, blinking at the spot where the angry fellow had been frozen. “He- he shouldn't... That never wears off that quickly.” He was mumbling to himself, not realising Remus had returned.

“Hey there modern day Medusa, you doing alright?” Remus tapped his shoulder, tilting his head when the acknowledgement was for the man to stare at his neck rather than look at him.

“F-fine. Sorry about that though. It really was an accident.”

“Why are you apologising for helping me calm the situation down before he did more than yell? I got him out of the stone and sent on his way. It's all hot stuff in heaven today.” Remus was genuinely confused over what was upsetting the man in front of him. Everything had been sorted out so surely they could move on to talking about soulmates already.

There was a quick glance up, to stare at his ear now, or maybe something over his shoulder. “You got him out of the stone? That wasn't my power just wearing off more quickly than normal?” There was a plea in his voice, as though scared of his own power.

“Yep, and while I can't really prove that here, given everything is already photographed and needs to remain the same to be sold, you can come see my works in progress. I'm Remus, by the way, Remus Windsor.” The offer was easy to give. No matter what people believed about needing to test contrasting powers in public to understand if they're completely opposites, he just wanted to calm this person down. Roman would understand that and hopefully leave to paint in the park or some sappy shit like that.

“Virgil and, yeah, please can we do that?” Virgil nodded, holding a shaking hand out towards him, while the other started pulling the hair that had fallen to his ears back in front of his eyes.

As Remus took his hand he was finally able to meet Virgil's gaze and grinned, tugging on it so they could run out of the gallery together, looking something between art thieves making their escape and teenagers causing mischief.

/To the art gallery\

“Princess, you better get your fat ass and any talking paintings the hell out of here. I've got my Medusa and we need to confirm this shit without an audience.” Remus barged through the doors still tugging Virgil along behind him.

Virgil was astounded by what had occurred in the last hour. He'd only visited the art gallery on a whim, curious over just how lifelike a sculptures positioning could be compared to what he'd seen when accidentally using his own power on people. He hadn't expected to almost add to the exhibition temporarily or to meet someone who could be his soulmate there as well.

Now he could only look around the studio that Remus had explained he shared with his brother. The walls were covered in paintings in various stages of completion. Some looked finished but missing the energy that the paintings back in the gallery had held, others were clearly completely done, but held back. A few canvases were merely sketches or only had their backgrounds coloured in.

Then there was the stone. There were throughout the entire studio several large boulders, some chipped into enough that a hand could be seen reaching out, or the nose of a dog. A few were just legs waving into the air, vague shapes for the rest of the body chipped away but the lips immaculately carved. There was even a potters wheel at the opposite end with a few vases and ceramic models left on a table beside it.

“Remus, seriously, you cannot just kick me out. I'm doing an oil painting.” There was a man identical to Remus stood in front of the only Easel in the gallery, now turned to them frowning with his brush poised to the canvas.

Virgil dithered for a moment before stepping forward. “Oil paints don't exactly dry quickly. You could spare a few minutes for us to figure our if we're soulmates couldn't you?” He muttered, for the first time in years looking up as someone turned to him. He wasn't going to deliberately use his powers without permission now, but having some evidence that Remus actually can reverse the medusa affect straight away would seriously take a weight from his mind.

The painter watched him for a moment before stepping closer, setting his brush down. “I'm Roman. Wouldn't it be more useful for you to prove this on a real person? Although I can understand the uses of turning Remus's sculptures back to stone at will. There's been a few incidents where they've been even worse than he can be.”

“Roman's volunteering to be tortured. Let's do it, see how long we can keep making him stone and real again in quick succession.” Remus stage whispered at him, cackling when Roman flipped him off.

Virgil just nodded, “Only once. I want to know if Remus actually can reverse this.” He cautioned, but turned his head enough to properly meet Roman's gaze, watching as grey stole over his body in a second.

Before Virgil could worry over how Remus would react to seeing that done deliberately, he was leaning forwards to shove his brother backwards, giggling along with the action. Roman was human again by the time he hit the floor, now scowling up at Remus.

“Okay, Rude. I offer to help my darling sibling confirm their soulmate is theirs and you shove me to the floor. I cannot work in such a hostile environment. I'm taking my leave of you, pray it won't be permanently.” He stood up, throwing the glare at them and leaving with all the dramatics of a pantomime dame.

Virgil had to snicker along with Remus as the door was slammed shut. Honestly, half of it was that he had to laugh or he might just burst into tears. In all his wildest dreams he hadn't thought his soulmate would be so excited to have his powers with them.

“Let's try on my figurines! I'm trying to make a dragon witch I can set lose to torment Roman when I'm heading out, and already have my Cthulhu baby, just waiting to be given life. Wanna see if you can turn them back to stone if I wake 'em up?” Remus was once again holding his hand and tugging him to the other end of the room as soon as he finished laughing.

“Before we do that, are you wanting a romantic soulmate, or a platonic one? I don't really care which we have but I'd be happier if we got to know each other first.” Virgil hesitated a moment, tugging back on his arm.

Remus waved off the question. “We'll cross that bridge when we reach it. If you want sex or not I'm making models I can sleep with anyway. They're funny to talk to if they realise how I made their bodies. Come on, meet my Cthulhu baby!” The whine was emphasised by bouncing and Virgil's arm being jumped up and down rapidly.

“Okay, okay, guess that explains why some are so twisted around as though trying to hide their bodies.” Virgil laughed, walking once more towards the table.

Virgil hated his superpower, and probably always would, but perhaps Remus can help him find a couple of things it's good to be medusa for.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 125

I am so sorry that this is posting late today!! I didn’t realize my queue ran out, or that I didn’t load these in there.

Thank you, every day, to everyone who helped me hang in there as long as I’ve been lucky enough to write this story.  As much fun as the weapons expo was, I swear we are working towards everything else that has changed in the time skip!  I would love to hear what y’all are most excited to find out about.

Shoutouts always go to @baelpenrose, @charlylimph-blog, and @the-raven-fae for all your encouragement, plot bunnies, and beta-reading.

The day after the weapons exhibition, the air on the Ark was still crackling with excitement. Every time I overheard people chattering over a specific performance, I smiled to myself.  That particular event had been the first that Parvati and Hannah planned without my help, and hearing the overwhelming approval for it was something I would be all too happy to convey back to them.  They really had done a great job.

Sebastian ended up bowing out after the first year, because he was unable to balance the demands of the mentorship and the Undine.  As the only one of the three who could not just change their job responsibilities, he had chosen his passion - which absolutely no one was upset about.   Parvati had even joked that we had backup Councillors, but only one Undine.

The response I received from my mentees when I shared what I heard, however, was underwhelming. Hannah gave a small smile and nodded, while Parvati waved off the praise with a scoff. “We were essentially following a template,” she pointed out.

Hannah nodded at me with a rueful expression. “Unfortunately, she’s right.  There wasn’t much of a challenge, there.”

Just as a full pout was settling into my chest, Alistair breezed in and took off his scarf - for once, I couldn’t tell myself it was just for dramatic effect, as the climate controls in public areas were phased in to mimic what was projected for seasonal changes on Von.  Currently it was the cold season, and Alistair was miserable about it. “Of course it wasn’t a challenge,” he scowled. “You both have been assisting Madam Reid since the exhibitions began. However, it is profoundly rude to ignore the feedback you received.” He glared at Parvati and Hannah, who managed to look sheepish. “One of you will be Councillor one day, and your responsibility will be things just like this. You should be pleased with a job well done, not resting on your laurels.”

I nodded and didn’t bother hiding my grin. “He’s right, you know. Besides, don’t forget that this is when the hard part starts.”

Two sets of eyes widened at me, with Hannah adding a gasp of horror. “Oh gods. The feedback…”

“Yep.” I popped the last letter as I took my seat and the coffee that Alistair offered, noticing that he did not retrieve any for my mentees. Apparently he was really miffed by their attitudes before. “And, along with coordinating the event on your own…”

“Sophia, you’re joking,” Parvati glared.

“I am most certainly not,” I shook my head. “Every event, you have to read the feedback. You can filter it all you want, narrow down the categories, whatever. But I strongly recommend that you read all of the negative feedback if nothing else.”

“But you’ve always had help,” Hannah pointed out calmly.

“I did,” I admitted, “but that doesn’t mean I ignored or delegated the important parts.  Having people who you trust to do a pulse check of what is being said unofficially is an extremely valuable tool. However, at the end of the day, the performance of the events, or the projects, or the staffing balances, comes right back to this office and only this office. I can listen to Tyche, or my partners, or other Councillors until my ears fall off. But if something went wrong, or could have been done better, I’m the one who catches fault for that. Which means, eventually, it will be one of you.”

With a deep breath, both women nodded and opened the files in question. After simply staring and scrolling for a few minutes, Parvati sat back and tapped the side of her chin. “Can we filter out all comments under five words and comments with only positive adjectives that do not contain a conditional statement?” She glanced at me and I nodded my approval.

That seemed to spark an idea in Hannah. “Prioritize comments including the words ‘dangerous’, ‘barbaric’, or synonyms of.” When her co-mentee gave her a quizzical look, she shrugged. “It’s good to have at least a count of people who object to the weapons exhibitions, and if they are just a small number at least there are guaranteed to be a few in there that are pretty funny.”

Parvati still looked like she wasn’t convinced, so Alistair spoke up. “If you do not enjoy the weapons exhibitions, why are you attending?”

“Ahhh,” she smiled. Clearly the thought had never occurred to her, which was entirely unsurprising.  Parvati hadn’t dated Xiomara as long as she did by harboring a secret grudge against self-defense and proper applications of force.

Now that they found a starting point for weeding through the feedback, it was clear they were engrossed in gathering information.  Periodically, I would hear one make a considering noise before jotting down a note to come back to later.  I quietly moved to my desk and observed how differently they handled the process - When I went through feedback with Alistair, we shared it on the table emitter so both could see.  Parvati and Hannah, however, sat across from each other, on their singular data pads, flicking particular pieces of information back and forth to each other without even glancing up.  The partnership they had developed over the last four years of working with me was astounding to watch.

“What you are feeling now is exactly what it feels like to watch you and Tyche,” Alistair murmured, startling me out of my reverie. When I glanced at him, he simply lifted an eyebrow and tilted his head. “Even after working with you both for so long, there are moments where it is clear you both are working on some sort of wavelength the rest of us are not aware of.”

“Charly is pretty tuned in to it. And Arthur, when he wants to be.”

“Miss Harper is a force unto herself.” The corner of his mouth lifted in one of his rare, fond smiles. “As for Farro, I am beginning to believe that Reidish is one of the languages he learned for historical manuscripts.” Snark dripped from his tone out of old habit - if there had ever been any animosity between the two, it was long gone.

Although, apparently the hypothetical existence of ‘Reidish’ as a language was still bopping it’s merry way around the Ark.

“Noah,” I pointed out. “They understand us perfectly well.”

“Yes, let us all congratulate you two, not only on the fact that a mind-reading alien understands your communication better than your own species, but also on the fact that you have tainted them with your mannerisms.” The sarcasm would have stung, had he not felt the need to demonstrate by tipping his index finger and thumb over his eye in imitation of an eyebrow with one hand, while making a sock-puppet nod with the other - both of which were gestures Noah used as filler for human body language. The contrast between his words, the gestures, and the absolute deadpan expression on his face sent me into hysterics.

I didn’t realize we were being watched until Hannah’s voice broke through my laughter. “Derek actually taught them the eyebrow one.  That wasn’t Sophia or Tyche.  He started doing it because he can’t just lift one eyebrow, and Miys started mimicking him when they saw how useful it was to convey tone.” When Alistair only stared at her in disbelief, she huffed and turned to her datapad before flicking a recording to the table emitter.

Sure enough, there was Derek, adjusting Miys ‘fingers’ and repeating the gesture for them to imitate. After several adjustments of where the vomu was held, Derek seemed satisfied and flashed a double thumbs-up, which was returned in triplicate.  As the recording ended, Hannah turned back with the smuggest expression I had ever seen on her gentle face.

“I’ll be damned.” Alistair’s voice was soft with surprise and a hint of admiration.

“Hannah, how do you have that?” I asked, concerned for Derek’s privacy.

She waved me off. “Zach was doing routine security sensor testing, found that in the process, and asked Derek if we could keep a copy of it. Derek said it was okay, and asked for a copy for himself.” She shrugged. “I’d never seen him voluntarily touch someone that much before, and even without that, it was adorable.”

“I’m glad he knows you have it,” I sighed in relief. “But yeah, it makes sense, honestly.” Hannah nodded in agreement, while Parvati and Alistair were clearly waiting for an explanation. I started ticking off reasons on my fingers. “Miys is very careful of personal space because they know how large they are, and Derek hates having his space invaded without permission. Miys is never ‘too loud’ for Derek, or touches without permission, or even speaks to him without Derek speaking first. There’s no pressure for eye contact, even just in Derek’s head, because Miys doesn’t have eyes.”

“Your mind is a strange and wonderful place,” Alistair stated drily before turning to Hannah and Parvati. “I hope you two have been taking notes on it. I happen to know what your next event is, and you’re going to need that level of insight.”

Arching an eyebrow at him, Parvati did not even look away to pull up her calendar, dragging it into her line of sight. Her eyes widened suddenly.

“You have three months,” I pointed out.

She reached out and shook Hannah’s arm vigorously. “Han.”

A quick glance and a second horrified expression looked at me from the table.

“Three months.”

“Sophia.”

“You’ve both helped me with it, for at least the last four years.  And you said you wanted a challenge.”

They both groaned comically, but I struggled not to smile at their antics.  I knew they weren’t really as worried as they pretended to be.

Alistair leaned over the whisper again. “I thought Tyche was the evil one.”

That did get me to smile.

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[gothic-safari-clown]

The Mind’s Power Over the Body

Part 8: Acceptance

Story summary: They only ever had each other. It had been that way since high school, ever since Elianna transferred to dreary Arlen and took Jonathan under her wing. They go separate ways for college, and when they're reunited at Arkham Asylum professionally, Elianna comes to find that they've both changed during their time separated. Can she look past the promise of danger and stay by Jonathan's side as they slide further and further into the darkness while she grapples to come to terms with the truth about herself? Can she accept what needs to be done in order to hold onto the only person who holds any meaning in her life? This is a very self-indulgent AU that draws from several different canons of the DCU and ignoring others, starting in the Batman Begins Nolanverse. This will follow the plot of the movie, although the timeline has been very slightly tweaked.

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven

Word count: 1986

Minutes after Jonathan left, Elianna was still staring at the wall, unable to think about anything other than the sudden and jarring conversation. She couldn't help but feel astounded that she had even agreed to what he was suggesting. Why would I do that? If she hadn't accepted his proposal, would he have gone along with the plan on his own? And what would have become of had she refused?

Her clock glared at her from its place mounted on the wall, reminding her that she didn't even have the distraction of a session to rush to. Damn it. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork...

Finally forcing herself into action, El gathered all of her files and situated herself on the floor with them, playing music on her smartphone to help her focus. She ended up with papers stacked around her as she reorganized all of her files in an attempt to occupy her mind with something—anything—else. Honestly, there hadn't been anything wrong with the previous system in the first place, and now she was just surrounded by mess as she reshuffled the notes in each folio to justify her decision.

Two hours later, her office was spotless, and she had gone through at least three new filing systems. With nothing left to do for an hour, she found herself still sitting on the floor against her desk, desperately trying to unwind her conflicting feelings over the new situation.

She knew that she should care about the moral implications of her decision, but the more she thought, the more she realized that she just...didn't. Not for lack of trying. For God's sake, Scarecrow had gotten Jonathan to kill his granny when they were teenagers, and she hadn't even questioned it. The old woman did have it coming, just like she had thought earlier that morning, but did that way of thinking make her a bad person? She had never been one for philosophy.

And now, when the opportunity presented itself to exact horrible, torturous revenge on Victor Zsasz, she had taken it without even fully thinking through the consequences. She hadn't even been able to through her confusion. If it comes down to it, which seems likely, can I take a life the way that Jonathan did? Do I even want to?

Yes. She did. Each thing that she came to realize about herself sent El spiraling into a new set of questions. When had she become this person? Had she always been like this, keeping busy to avoid confronting that reality?

She couldn't tell how much time passed as she took inventory of herself until finally, another look at the clock told Elianna that her first session began in ten minutes; today, she had been scheduled a series of low profile patients to be seen in her office. Sighing, she finally lifted herself off the floor. She would have time to re-evaluate her life later. For now, she needed to get to work.

.xXx.

"In my opinion, Mr. Zsasz is as much a danger to himself as to others, and prison is probably not the best environment for his rehabilitation," Jonathan spoke into the mounted microphone on the stand with steady resilience. It was getting difficult for him to ignore Scarecrow, who had become practically giddy from the anticipation of getting to "play" with the newest batch of the toxin. He was almost exploding, insisting that Elianna would finally give in to her dark side.

Both Jonathan and Scarecrow had known that it was there for a long time. Jonathan had had his suspicions when he had told her about Scarecrow for the first time, and she had accepted it, and they had been confirmed after Granny's "accident," when she had helped them cover it up and had stuck around to boot.

At a glance, someone less close to the situation would say it was denial (which she was good at, apparently), but she had no qualms talking about it when the topic came up; she simply didn't care about most things that she should. She had somehow managed to convince everyone else—including herself—that she did, and that was the part that mattered.

The trial ended quickly after Jonathan's testimony. Falcone had already paid off the judge to rule in favor of whatever Jonathan said, and the rest was just formality. As such, he had already filled out all of the appropriate paperwork for the admission and transferred the deranged man to his care.

Finally, it was over, and Jonathan was on his way to the parking lot to make it back to the asylum when he was stopped by the most irritatingly incorruptible person on the planet.

"Doctor Crane," Rachel Dawes's voice rang through the courthouse lobby. Unable to ignore her, Jonathan paused to look at her, barely breaking his gait, suddenly needing to focus extra hard on keeping Scarecrow under control; he hated her as much as Jonathan did, possibly more.

"Miss Dawes," he acknowledged, having nothing else to say. That was passable as polite, wasn't it?

"You think a man who butchered people for the mob and attacked an innocent woman doesn't belong in jail?" Right to the point with this one, always so straightforward. Ambitious. If she would only take advantage of the ample opportunities that the city provided, she might even be able to make something of herself. Unfortunately for her, she didn't have the drive.

We don't need her sniffing around, Jonny. Let me take care of this now.

Not a chance, keep quiet.

"I would hardly have testified to that otherwise, would I?" Politeness be damned, the insufferable woman could chalk it up to a bad day if she wanted, just as long as she didn't notice the distaste rolling off of him in waves.

"This is the third of Falcone's thugs you've had declared insane and moved to your asylum, and the fourth time you've done so for Zsasz individually." Dear Lord, was she implying that he was corrupt? In Gotham? Never. Impossible.

"It isn't my fault if our security officers have yet to discover his means of escape. As for the rest, the work offered by organized crime must have an attraction to the insane." There, a safely noncommittal answer, and one that held basis in fact too. He turned to leave, having just about reached his limit with the conversation.

"Or the corrupt," Dawes's heels clicked on the floor as she took a few steps after him before he stopped in his tracks again. So she wasn't implying anything, just outright accusing him. Jonathan ignored Scarecrow's outraged (and far from empty) threats and caught sight of Dawes's boss in his periphery. A little childish perhaps, resorting to involving her higher-ups, but at this point, he was willing to shoot himself in the foot to avoid continuing this tiresome discussion. Interrogation, more like.

"Mister Finch," the suited man looked at the sound of his name. "I think you should check with Miss Dawes here just what implications your office has authorized her to make." That captured his attention; Finch's brows raised as he aimed a pointed look in the direction of the woman in question. "If any." That should do it.

I'm gonna get our hands on that one. Pick her brain and spit in it.

There's something we can agree on.

.xXx.

As desperate as Elianna had been for any kind of distraction earlier, each of her sessions had been more boring than the last. She was still of the opinion that people with simple anxiety disorders didn't belong in an asylum; she had half a mind to sign them all out and send them back into the world. But until she learned more, she had to operate under the assumption that they had each been admitted for a worthwhile reason; but the second she was shown any sign of real-world competence, she would sign all of them out to keep them from taking up any more space. God, what's wrong with me today?

Before she could ponder on her behavior any further, a knock on her door signaled Jonathan's return, and she let him in quickly.

"So it's...you did it then?" She asked, still unsure of how to address the situation.

"He'll be transferred back in by tomorrow."

It was done. At this point, all she could do was trust in the combined efforts of Jonathan and Scarecrow to keep her safe with some...foolproof evil plan. No matter how much she tried, she hadn't been able to bring herself to feel guilty for wanting revenge; she couldn't help feeling justification in her decision, and it was clearly justified in Jonathan's as well, and really who else mattered in this scenario? Zsasz? Certainly not.

"Okay. Well, are you alright? You seem tense." Jonathan rolled his eyes to the ceiling and shook his head.

"Everything is fine, just this...tedious woman from the DA's office tried to give me some trouble, but it's taken care of. I, ah," he checked the time on the clock, "I just need to go finish some paperwork, and then we can go back home and talk about this some more."

"Sounds good. I'm almost done here myself; when I'm finished, do you want some help?" She offered, and he seemed almost grateful for it.

"If you don't mind, I wouldn't say no."

"M'kay, then I'll see you later. Oh, wait, actually," Jonathan looked at her expectantly, unsure of what exactly she was bringing to his attention. "How often would you say security looks at the footage from our offices?" Good god that made him worry. What now?

"...Can I ask why you want to know?" She looked embarrassed, and any ideas he had had of her doing something that might incriminate them went out the window. Dear God, what now?

"I...may have been sitting on the floor for a long time today." She said sheepishly, and Jonathan pinched his eyes closed briefly before casting his gaze up, fully exasperated by the fact that she had found that important enough to bring it up right then. "And I'm a little embarrassed about it." Scarecrow, on the other hand, found it hilarious whenever El caused him even the slightest bit of undue stress.

"It's fine; they really only review the footage from sessions. I doubt anyone will even know." Elianna seemed relieved and nodded, a tiny smile at the corners of her mouth. "You still sit on the floor when you're worked up?"

"It helps me think," came the defensive response, and Jonathan gave her a look that said that he would tease her about it later, and finally turned to go.

Jonathan left her office for the second time that day. Only this time, she had finally realized that her conflicted feelings from before were due entirely to outside influence. For as long as she could remember, she had found it impossible to feel truly concerned about the things that mainstream society seemed to want her to be. Why should she try to force herself into a box that she didn't fit in? She could at least try to keep her mind open to revenge.

Elianna's hesitant resignation to her anticipation for revenge began to chase away any confused reservations that she had had before and gradually replaced them with a hazy excitement bubbling under the surface.

[captainsonofabitch]

Tony meeting Peter

@kawasakikat requested Peter meeting Tony and, honestly, I wanted to write more but had to restrain myself... Maybe i’ll do a followup, who knows? Apologies for any OOC-ness :)

Tony hated press conferences with a vengeance; the lights were too bright, the reporters were rude and demanding with little respect for those they were aiming questions at, and the other members of the Avengers were absolutely useless at answering the multitudes of queries fired at them from their audience. That was why Tony was very much not looking forwards to the imminent press conference following their latest world-saving endeavour.

They were backstage, everyone decked out in their uniforms bar Tony who had simply donned his usual sneaker-suit combo - there was no way he was lugging his armour around just for the sake of some dumbass journalists. Looking over the top of his aviators, Tony sighed. Press conferences with everyone on the team present? Hellish. God, he could already see Cap stressing over the mini-debrief he had to give to begin with, a pre-prepared thing jotted down on neat flashcards courtesy of one Agent Coulson. Wanda, Vision, Nat, and Clint were standing in amiable silence beside the door to the small stage they’d be sat upon, Sam, Bucky, and Thor hovering awkwardly behind Steve as the man rehearsed. Rolling his eyes, Tony turned his attention back to Agent as their time out of the public eye drew to a close. He heard the weak sigh Cap gave as they were announced and, one by one, the Avengers filed out onto the platform they were supposed to spend the next hour and a half on.

Almost immediately, flashes started popping, voices clamouring over one another to be heard. Tony felt the familiar tightness behind his eyes and pushed his glasses up his nose to block the worst of the flashes. Cap made his way to the little microphone stand and Tony tuned him out as he began to speak. It was the usual drivel; what had caused the incident (aliens…), who had instructed the Avengers to intervene (the WSC…), what damage control was in place (as much as they could afford…), and what clean-up efforts were being made (whatever Stark Industries and S.H.I.E.L.D could afford… so a lot). Tony had heard it a million times before; every time the Avengers saved the world a press conference followed suit.

The speech itself didn’t take long and all too soon Tony found himself taking Steve’s place at the microphone, sending a plastic smile at the plethora of journalists seated before him. Immediately, hands began to rise. Spotting a timid-looking man sitting near the back with his hand semi-raised, Tony pointed confidently. The man in question cleared his throat.

“You mentioned the threat was of an intergalactic nature? Do the Avengers, and by association Stark Industries, have measures in the work to prevent the number of Alien attacks in the future? This is, after all, the fourth in the last sixteen months.”

And so it began. Tony pasted on a positive demeanour and got to work answering the abundance of, either completely ignorant or simply plain rude, questions that the reporters sent their way. Occasionally, the other Avengers would pipe up, but for the most part Tony took the reigns and led the conference the way he had been doing since adolescence. By the time they were just over half-finished, he had them eating out of the palm of his hand, the more insulting reporters kicked out without hesitation whilst those respectful and with genuine enquiries remained. It was only when one reporter piped up that things got remotely interesting.

Tony had selected a woman seemingly at random, skimming the crowd to find anyone looking especially impatient. The moment he pointed to her, her polite smile turned vindictive.

“Mr. Stark, what do you have to say about the recent break-up between you and Miss Potts? Was there an incident that provoked it or did you simply grow tired of the commitment? Your track record gives the impression that your commitment issues may be to blame.”

Tony’s jaw dropped. Yes, he and Pepper had split a few months prior but until now no-one had been blasé enough to broach the topic. Blasé and straight-up rude. Before Tony could formulate an answer, another voice piped up, a snarky drawl that immediately had the man’s gaze shifting across the room till it landed on the speaker.

“How is this at all relevant to this event? As far as I was aware, this conference was held to discuss the recent attacks and the contribution the Avengers made to saving the world… again.”

The man who spoke appeared to be around about Tony’s age, dark hair pushed back from his face and striking blue eyes twinkling with mirth. His thin lips were tugged up into a smirk that made something unfamiliar curl warm and tight in Tony’s stomach. Hearing the obnoxious spluttering of the invasive reporter, Tony couldn’t contain a chuckle. The other man shifted to look up towards the stage, meeting Tony’s gaze.

“Something funny, Mister Stark? I was simply trying to keep your conference on track,” he announced, a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Ah, I appreciate it, honestly. God knows somebody has to. I do so try my best but… well, you know how unpredictable people can be Mister…?”

“Hale. Peter Hale. From ‘The Beacon.’ A pleasure to formally make your acquaintance, even if it did involve me defending your honour at your own event.”

Tony barked out a laugh and grinned wolfishly at Peter. Reaching up to his face, he tugged his glasses off and tucked them into the front pocket of his suit.

“The pleasure is all mine, Peter. I’ve read a few of your articles actually; I’m particularly fond of that series you do… what’s it called again? Oh, yes. I do believe you call it your ‘Weekly Review of Tony Stark’s Ass.’ The commentary on my leather pants really spoke to me.” Tony chuckled, watching the way the corners of Peter’s eyes crinkled in amusement whilst the faintest of flushes became apparent under the fluorescent glow of the lights.

“It’s well received, I assure you. The readers love it. My personal favourite, though, is my ‘Iron Man; the Real Leader of the Avengers’ segment. It’s why I’m here today actually. Gathering new material, you know how it is.”

Peter held up the clipboard in his hands and gave it a half-wave, Tony following the movement with his eyes. The man on stage nodded his head in amusement, feeling the tell-tale brush of heat creep up the back of his neck. He was familiar with the segment in question; it was his go-to reading material when the self-doubt and worthlessness came creeping in. Peter was always glowing in his reports of the advancements S.I was making, of the things Tony had been up to that the general press never really wanted to report (the hospital visits, the Make-A-Wish trips, the donations and free-of-charge appointments with Veterans and the likes), and in his adventures as Iron Man, with or without the Avengers. Many times had he made clear his opinion that Tony was the best-suited to lead their ragtag group of Superheroes, backing up every point he made with such a broad plethora of evidence that people couldn’t really argue. Peter’s segments practically had their own fan clubs, and Tony was thrilled to put a face, a personality, to the name.

“Ah, I see. Using my pain and suffering for your own selfish gain,” Tony teased. “I should have known you were too good to be true.”

“Mister Stark I assure you, your pain and suffering are the furthest thing from what I want.”

And suddenly the mood was a lot more serious. Peter’s entire being screamed sincerity and Tony found himself speechless. The duality of the reporter was astounding and it took a moment for the man to regain his voice and reply.

“It’s alright, I was just messing with you, but you knew that, right? Thanks, though. Seriously. It’s not often people in your position actually care about the person they’re reporting about.”

At that moment, Tony would swear Peter’s eyes blazed a bright blue, flashing intensely before returning to their usual state. Thinking it must simply have been a trick of the light, he smiled wanly.

“Well I am most unlike most people in my position.”

Sucking in a breath through his teeth, Tony opened his mouth to respond when a pointed cough from behind him interrupted. Before he could say another word, he heard Coulson announce that ‘That’s all we’ve got time for. Thank you for your questions.’ And then he was being ushered, roughly, off of the stage. Cap was hissing in his ear but Tony didn’t pay him any attention whatsoever, trying instead to find Peter in the surging crowd of reporters. There was still so much he wanted to say, to talk with the man about. Vowing that he would find the reporter as soon as he could lose the rest of the team, Tony let himself be dragged away backstage.

[disaster-deku]

Literally no one asked but here’s some headcanons I have about Bakugo’s parents, I guess.

Disclaimer: I have not read into the manga past the alignenf of manga material and the end of the third season of the anime

Masaru

- Masaru has the ability of creating small explosions from sweat on his palms but not to the degree Katsuki can since he cannot consciously secrete sweat.

- His hands just explode when his hands naturally sweat and if he rubbed his hands together, which was a nervous habit of his. Masaru also couldn’t use it much because it would cause him to burn his fingers and hands due to not having much thick skin on his body besides his palms.

-He often bandaged his hands to not hurt himself until he got his quirk under control and found a way to avoid sweaty palms or avoid rubbing his hands together in a habitual way as he did.

- Masaru never thought his quirk was amazing or cool like many told him because it constantly caused him pain so why the hell would he like it? He also didn’t think he’d ever be a hero and had no desire to be one.

- However, he wanted to design hero costumes because Masaru is actually a very creative man but he’s always had a softer and quieter demeanor so he was often someone in the background, unnoticed.

- Masaru is of the belief that if someone pushes themselves hard enough and gives 120% that they can succeed in whatever they do. He always strived for better things, pushing himself harder and harder to achieve his goals. He submitted costume designs to random agencies to try and get a job though he was often rejected. But it didn’t slow him down and he kept it pushing.

- Masaru worked hard in school and was accepted in his final year of University to work in a fashion company that doubled to make clothes for the ever growing market to offer clothing for all types of quirks but also made hero costumes. Masaru enjoyed his work because he was in the background and didn’t have attention on himself which he enjoyed.

Mitsuki

- Mitsuki had always been praised as a child for her beautiful skin and youthful look. Her whole life she was told she was beautiful and had people fawning over her despite her bratty and shitty personality that festered and grew. Mitsuki had been put on such a high pedestal that she thought she was the absolute shit and that everyone around her was simply there to make her look better or push her up.

- Mitsuki was a model from a young age and still does modeling (Katsuki doesn’t mention it because why the fuck does he care what she does?) and Mitsuki met Masaru when she was going to be modeling for the fashion company he worked for.

- Mitsuki ignores the male models and locks in on the young man with glasses and bandaged hands, tape measure loosely draped around his neck who was helping to hem an outfit.

- Masaru rejects Mitsuki after she asks him out because while she’s very pretty, he doesn’t really know her so he doesn’t think he can just suddenly go out with her. Mitsuki is absolutely shocked and astounded that Masaru rejected her because no one has ever done so. While a lot of her team expected her to get heated and explosive like she normally did, Mitsuki took it as a challenge to get him to date her.

- Over the time it takes to try and get a date with Masaru, Mitsuki starts to reevaluate her life and how she’s treated people in an attempt to understand why Masaru would reject her of all people.

- In her deluded mind, people worshipped the ground she walked on because she was the best but honestly... they hated her. Her shitty attitude, her cockiness, the way she treated people; everything about her. But even after learning all this, she didn’t know how to fix it?

- It was kind of inset into her but soon after she comes to the realization and thinks that she’ll never get a date with Masaru, she gives one last attempt. It’s not a grand gesture or aggressive “date me now!” type approach. Just Mitsuki giving him a bouquet of flowers and saying she thoight he was cute and wanted to try going on a date with him, if he wanted. He blushes sweetly and shyly accepts.

Masaru + Mitsuki

- After Mitsuki realizes how many bridges she had burned to get to the top, Mitsuki feels the devastation it is to fall. She had no real friends who thought she was anything outside of her looks or were just using her to get ahead. After constantly pushing down any genuine friends she had had in her life, constantly belittling them until they grew tired of it all and left Mitsuki to travel her own path. Mitsuki’s team/agency didn’t care about her as long as she was working hard and making money and spreading their label further and further. Even her own family had come to distance themselves from her because she had made no attempt to be kind to even them.

- Mitsuki decides to step away from modeling for a few years to try and repair herself.

- Masaru is patient with her even when she really thinks he shouldn’t be. Masaru helps Mitsuki get counseling to work through her anger issues, her narrsisistic tendencies, and the walls she had put up around herself. It’s hard for Mitsuki at first.

- Eventually, Mitsuki settles down and becomes a housewife. Despite what a lot of people thought, Mitsuki was amazing at cooking and cleaning because she held herself to an intense workout/diet regimen and also had lots of people come to her apartment to work so she wanted everything to look immaculate and beautiful to match herself.

- Masaru was accepting of what she wanted to do and later encouraged her back into modeling after she expressed wanting to do it some more a few years after Katsuki had been born.

- Masaru and Mitsuki work to help each other in their relationship and they balance each other out. Mitsuki learns to be kinder to others and stops viewing herself as some amazing gift of the universe that has been graced upon humanity. Masaru learns to be more assertive and allow himself to not take as much bullshit from some of his coworkers which is good for him.

- Mitsuki has Katsuki three years into her and Masaru’s relationship (they married after two years; obviously she proposed). Masaru and Mitsuki are completely enamored with Katsuki and love him to pieces. He’s just so tiny and precious and holy fuck, they made a tiny person and here he was! He was a sweet bundle of joy and Mitsuki was so proud of herself and Masaru.

- Mitsuki will admit that in her excitement of being a new mother, she spoiled Katsuki a lot. Let him have whatever he wanted, treated him like he was so, so amazing (he was to her because he was her child and she adored him), and told him to be confident and strong despite what people said.

- This began to backfire on her however when Katsuki took this as “I AM A GIFT TO THIS WORLD AND I AM AMAZING!” Many people also telling him exactly that— that he was amazing and was gifted with an amazing quirk— made it worse. Mitsuki began to worry about Katsuki but once Katsuki was developing his own personality and own views as he grew, it was too late.

- Mitsuki tried for so long alongside Masaru to stop Katsuki from becoming like her. Mitsuki hated her former self now and never wanted her son to be like her. Mitsuki had spent many nights worrying about how she had failed as a mother.

- Katsuki and his mother fight a lot and seem very aggressive to one another but they do love each other. They both just totally suck at talking about their feelings especially to other people. Both also have different ideas. Mitsuki wants Katsuki to shape up and realize he isn’t any better than anyone else and not destroy himself. Katsuki wants to make his parents proud and prove that he can be the best with his dedication and hard work.

- Katsuki oftentimes ignored his mother to shape up and stop being so damn obnoxious but he didn’t listen to her; he heard her but he never really listened. He focused on achieving his dream by any means necessary and he was going to be number one.

- It’s never shown but I think Mitsuki became very Mama Bear after Katsuki was kidnapped and even Masaru was firmer and stronger with Katsuki. They both love him so much and they were terrified this had happened to their son.

- Masaru and Mitsuki had always had disagreements about Katsuki’s choices for his future because while his mother thought Katsuki shouldn’t be put into a school that the country would be watching. It could give him more popularity and more recognition which could potentially cause him to become even more big headed and possibly hurt his future more than help it!

- Masaru disagreed. Masaru was very encouraging to Katsuki because he believed his son should be able to achieve his dreams if he worked hard and kept pushing himself to achieve more. However after the kidnapping incident, they both feel like maybe Katsuki should leave UA.

- They both felt hopeful though when they saw what Aizawa had said about Katsuki. While everyone else only saw their son for his gifts, Aizawa saw Katsuki for him and they decided UA was actually the best decision for him.

Miscellaneous

- Mitsuki does only a few modeling jobs here and there when they are for good products. While having no intention of becoming a full time model ever again, it is something Mitsuki can do to help pay the bills at times.

- When Class 1-A find out that Mitsuki Bakugo was a well known model before they were born, all of the girls and boys (excluding Midoriya who already knew since he had known Kacchan since they were kids) begin to fawn over her. Things are said such as “wow now I see where Katsuki gets his looks from” or “your mom modeled for this brand?! My mom loves this brand!” or “wait isn’t that like a super popular brand?!” and “dude why didn’t you tell us your mom was so hot?” (That was said by Mineta and Katsuki proceeds to yeet him out of the fucking classroom because what the fuck?)

-Katsuki always felt that being weak was the worst thing ever (his father often was pushed around at work and Katsuki had heard his mother always say “don’t be weak!”) so he pushes himself harder than he needs to to be the best. Mitsuki tells Katsuki not to be weak but she means it in a different sense. Not the traditional meaning but more along the lines of “don’t be a weak and shallow minded person. Become more accepting and understanding of things and don’t think you are so amazing!” but she sucks at articulating herself (like Katsuki does) so she can only say “don’t be weak!”

- Mitsuki and Masaru unfortunately do not know and have never really known about Katsuki’s extreme bullying/behavioral issues besides the ones he exhibits at home. They don’t know about Katsuki bullying Izuku because well, no one really knew. The teachers at their school probably didn’t pay much attention to Izuku since he was quirkless and well... everyone kind of picked on Izuku. Also, so many of the teachers thought Katsuki was so amazingly gifted and skilled so they sort of let him slide on some of his behavior. Katsuki kept his grades good and was talented so he was kind of let go with any behavioral issues that were really bad. The worst was the teachers saying Katsuki had some slight behavioral issues and it would be great if they could work with him on it.

[rickktish]

Do you ever just...

look at the stuff you know you can never publish without somebody saying “kinky” and turning it into a fetish thing, even though it’s really not a fetish thing at all, and feel sad?

There’s stuff I know I will never be able to share with anyone because it reads as being super kinky. It’s not kinky. It’s world-buildy. But other people don’t think how I think, other people don’t look at things the way I look at them, and other people don’t have the opinions I have. 

I just... I yearn for a platform where I can share something without being afraid of accidentally making someone uncomfortable because of what they think is a sex thing when I don’t view it as a sex thing. I yearn for a society where I can share something creative without having to worry about social issues and opinions and pushing everyone’s triggers by describing the human body.

Today I was scrolling through one of my favorite tags and found someone crying for everyone to unfollow someone else because they supposedly drew child pornography and fetishized trans people. Except that nothing in their argument actually looked like there was any porn or fetishization occurring whatsoever, so I decided to explore the person being defamed myself. And you know what? I just read one of the most beautiful, heartwarming fan comics I’ve ever seen, with a masterfully organized story and wonderfully done EVERYTHING and I loved it to bits and it takes place in a fantasy world which the author of the original work outlined but (as far as I’m aware) never fully fleshed out. One of the characters is shirtless as originally drawn by the author of the original work. The (cisfem) fan artist headcanons this character as trans, and states in her explanation of the story that she spent a long time debating how to incorporate that into her work, and ultimately decided that the character shouldn’t be forced to have recieved top surgery in a medieval setting or to change his outfit in order to “qualify” to be trans. So she draws him throughout the entire comic series, which is at least a hundred posts long and totally worth reading through, as having his breasts exposed when he’s shirtless.

The person who was defaming that artist whose post I initially read was incensed that this cis artist had chosen to depict this character in this way. They held the belief that the artist was sexualizing an underage character and fetishizing his transness by using he/him pronouns for him while exposing his breasts. They argued that the artist clearly hadn’t asked the opinions of any trans people on this matter and ought to be degraded for it.

Except... as a trans man, reading about a trans man who is comfortable enough and free enough in his world to not have to get top surgery or cover up to be accepted was enormously freeing for me. It was incredible to me how accepting literally everyone in the comic was, even to the point of punting me out of my suspension of disbelief several times. Literally no one misgendered this character even once. The only time in-universe that the character’s sex was discussed was for a gag referring to a child he and his partner had accidentally adopted. And the artist’s style is wonderfully unique and simplistic and hardly graphic, to the point that while it was sometimes clear that the character had his breasts exposed, there was never anything uncomfortable or sexual about it. It was literally just another piece of character design, another facet of his apparel reflecting his personality and character. It was glorious, and I revelled in the absolute freedom that this character experienced, that I deeply envied and longed for. (which is not to say that I want to be able to walk around with my chest exposed, because I’m honestly usually not comfortable even in just short sleeves; I prefer to stay well-covered regardless, but the element of acceptance was astounding and deeply moving to me.)

But apparently several people have gone after this artist for “sexualizing” a character and “fetishizing” his transness by not requiring that he “pass.” Not only the person whose discourse initially led me to that artist and their comic, but others as well.

And it makes me sad. Because I write stories about trans men who accept their bodies. I don’t have the experience of a trans woman to feel comfortable writing about that without being afraid of incorrectly portraying that experience, though I’d like to someday try to do that as well in my storytelling. I write stories about trans men who hate their female shape when they’re referred to by female pronouns but can accept and love it when they use male ones-- because that is my experience. I have pages upon pages of journals examining my own perspective, exploring why “she” hates her body and “he” loves his when they are both me and I am both and I have been both but somehow they define my paradigm, my self-view, my world, and I have no answers but I can only write what I know and what I know is taking comfort in accepting my body as it is and my pronouns as they are. This artist, although she is cis and has not experienced what I have, managed to portray that perfectly, and it resonated so deeply with me that I read everything she’s created for that series in a single sitting.

I write about breasts. I write about men with breasts. I write about women with breasts. I write about uncomfortable things, about different perspectives from the norm, about possibilities I have never seen explored. 

I write about an A/B/O universe where it’s not about sex, it’s about a society shaped by a biology entirely different to the one which has shaped our own. I write about Dom/Sub/Switch worlds that don’t have a single drop of citrus in them but have a whole lot about what it means to be “safe” and why it matters how much control you hold over your every moment of breath upon this earth. I write about fetishes in a de-fetishized context, because when you get bored enough to read every single fic on a list for a fandom you learn things you never imagined were a thing, and personally when I learn things I start creating.

But I can never post stories I write about trans men who breastfeed their children, not without editing that part of it out. I can never publish stories about people in their earlyi  teens who are aware of and formulating opinions on this “sex” thing, because even though American kids are taught the mechanics of sex when they’re twelve and thirteen and fourteen the internet doesn’t want to know that they-- that WE-- think on it and consider what the things we learn mean in an actual, world context. I read an argument recently that boiled down to “don’t headcanon fourteen-year-olds as ace they shouldn’t even be thinking about sex what’s wrong with you” and all I could read was “sure, we TEACH them about sex at that age but they’re not supposed to actually THINK about it” and I don’t think I’ve ever read a more accurate description of the American education system and it burned me, down to my very core.

This got a lot longer than I intended, but I guess all I’m really trying to say is that it makes me sad how pervasive our expectation of sex as a perversion is in this culture. This online culture, this world culture-- we talk and talk and talk about sex and shame those who do or think anything outside the “norm”-- whatever that qualifies as for the two week period you happen to be writing during-- and I don’t think anyone on this fucking hellsite even really understands what sex even is on a fundamental level. I’m sure it sounds insane to anyone outside my own head, but the very first thing we fetishized as humans was sex itself and I kind of really wish we hadn’t done that, because it led to the setting of a billion other rules of what is “normal” in regard to procreative acts and what is “kinky” and what is liable to give the next everyday joe to happen upon the pose a boner. 

Sex is an act of procreation. It is an expression between people of an understanding deeper than words can depict, whether that is one of love or one of shared escapism or one of impulsiveness. As soon as it was turned into an act of pure recreation, it became a hot mess that you all can’t help poking at and making weird faces. I have a friend who can’t even stand to listen to a health class discussion of sex because it makes her so deeply uncomfortable and that makes me so fucking sad you have no idea. 

I just... I wish the societal view of sex and its relation to the body didn’t exist sometimes. I wish people didn’t think in terms of sex first and ideas after. I wish people could actually be mature for once in their lives and remember that it’s not all about who can get the biggest orgasm from the weirdest shit.

i know other people’s opinions are different from my own. I try really hard to respect them. really hard. But sometimes, when things don’t make sense in my mind, when I see what I’m 98% positive is a better way of looking at an issue, I just... my empathy function shuts down and I jsut want people to listen and think for once in their lives about why they think of sex the way they do. Why they think of anything the way they do, really. But sex especially. 

Maybe I just want everyone to be able to compartmentalize the way I can, and I know that’s not reasonable in any way shape or form but it’s 3 am and I’m tired of bullshit and i’m’ sad and i’m angry except I’m not really angry I’m actually just sad. Really, really sad. and kind of hopeless.

[hahaha1d0that]

Let me start by saying that I apologize for the coming post. I know a lot of people love the Star Wars sequel trilogy and characters, but I’m angry about this right now.

Disclaimer: This argument is based solely on the movies, NOT Resistance/comics/books/etc.!!

As a Star Wars fan, I am very disappointed in the sequel trilogy. There are many problems with it.

The fact that J.J. Abrams admitted that the trilogy would have been better if they had a plan

The three movies are not very cohesive in telling one story/there seems to be no one superior goal in mind to accomplish by the end of the trilogy

The characters development is nearly nonexistent and honestly pathetic

The characters had so much wasted potential

The amount of fan service was astounding and it still doesn’t make up for the other atrocities of this trilogy

The story wasn’t very compelling

Making money was the primary objective

There are many good things in the trilogy and things that I liked but overall it is my least favorite part of Star Wars. It makes me angry simply because its so repetitive and confusing.

Was Snoke a Sith Lord? If he was, why wasn’t it made clear to the audience in the movies he is supposed to be a major villain in? If he wasn’t, then bringing Palpatine back breaks the Sith Rule of Two. How did he rise to power? Who is he? Where was he throughout the franchise?

These are questions about one character, that anyone might have after just watching the movies.

Who formed the First Order and when? How did it become as powerful as the Empire? How was the New Republic reduced to almost nothing over a couple decades?

The storytelling is so incomplete. There are so many gaps and plot holes.

The antagonist across the trilogy is whiny, not very intimidating, has a poorly developed origin story, and questionable motives that are so vague that it is difficult to inderstand his reasoning and beliefs. In the end, he is redeemed only to die after some slight consideration and persuasion from the main protagonist. So he rethinks his entire life and trauma because a woman told him he could do better? That’s not how real disturbed people think…

The main villain of the third movie wasn’t even present (or even known to be alive) for the first two movies in the trilogy. The movie starts and all of the sudden “somehow…palpatine returned.” That’s it?? That’s the explanation? How did he survive? How did he get to Exegol? How did all of those star destroyers get on Exegol? The Empire was gone, his army was dismantled, few lotalists remained. Was he cloned? Because honestly, I’ve seen the movie several times and I’m still confused. It doesn’t make any sense.

Not only is Palpatine alive, but the main protagonist is his granddaughter. So much for ‘you don’t have to be somebody to be important, as long as you work hard, you can achieve anything.’ Now Rey has force abilities that she never had before (or that didn’t even exist in the franchise before this)?

Rey’s character is so tragic because she had so much potential and it was wasted. She was abandoned as a child and is forced to scavenge around dangerous wreckage to make a living supporting herself on one of the worst planets in the galaxy. Does she hold that against her parents? No, she hopes that her parents will come back for her. She gets anxious when she’s been gone for a while because she’s afraid they’ll finally come when she’s away. She never let herself become bitter or hateful. She was hopeful, innocent, and passionate. However, her character develops to make it her personal mission to take on the First Order and Kylo Ren if it’s the last thing she does and she’s plagued by stubbornness and self awareness of her power and strength as a Jedi.

This annoys me deeply. Her character never really progressed from this from TLJ to ROS either. It’s almost like its a different person from TFA Rey, despite TLJ immediately following TFA in the timeline.

I’d also like to point out that Poe’s character was also shit on by the writers, especially in ROS. For the first two and a half movies his entire character can be summed up as: I’m a hotshot flyboy; I want to fight no matter the consequences; I fly X-wings; I have an adorable droid that I am highly protective over. That’s it. And then, in ROS, suddenly its revealed that he was a former criminal and drug smuggler?? Poe? Poe Dameron?? What?

How about Finn’s character only being in the background to yell “REYYYY” whenever she puts herself in harms way (which is often). The amazing lightsaber duel against Kylo Ren? In which Finn held his own for a decently long time considering he had little to no training with a weapon of that kind against someone proficient in the ways of the dark side (which typically made force users more ruthless in their attacks)? Doesn’t matter. The hints of his force-sensitivity? What hints? Finn, a Jedi?? Hahaha, no.

Dont even get me started on Rose. Great backstory, sister sacrificed herself for the cause during a desperate hour and saved the day, but in doing so left her grieving sister behind. Beautiful. Rose was such a big part of TLJ’s plot and then she’s just kinda there for ROS...it’s sad. Not to mention the romance between Rose and Finn that was never developed??

You know what, all of the protagonists were done dirty, as well as their actors. It’s clear what Disney’s goal was: making money, and lots of it. How do we convince people to buy movie tickets/merchandise/toys/etc.?? Well, let’s cast some minority actors/actresses to make people think they’re going to be represented only for the white man‘s character to be the most developed by the end of the trilogy. Daisy Ridley (a woman), John Boyega (a Black man), Oscar Issac (a Latino man), and Kelly Marie Tran (an Asian woman) were cast as protagonists. And who got the most attention/praise/development? Adam Driver (a White man). Dont get me wrong, Adam Driver is a great actor and he did an amazing job with what he was given, but really?

Even the returning characters were poorly handled. Luke’s character development is controversial so I’ll stay away, but Han?? So they decided after ROTJ that Han was the type to leave his wife and son to travel with his best friend?? Uh ok

The sequel trilogy’s plot, if you can even say that, is so repetitive to the original trilogy it’s embarrassing. A force-sensitive main protagonist, whose parents abandoned them and left them to live on a desert planet to avoid the truth about their family heritage, met an old guy that was significant earlier in his life, went on a quest with him which effectively roped them into fighting the fascist dictatorship controlling the galaxy that they previously didn’t give a shit about, teamed up with an ex-imperial deserter along the way, was trained by a different old guy that was also significant earlier in his life but decided to exile himself and live in seclusion because some of his padawans were murdered by the Skywalker villain, learned the truth about their family and the darkness within their blood, became a great unofficial Jedi knight anyways, destroyed weapons capable of obliterating entire planets, and eventually defeated Palpatine by teaming up with the main Skywalker antagonist that sacrificed themselves to save the main protagonist’s life. Sound familiar?

It’s truly sad. If you look into George Lucas’ plan for the sequel trilogy before he sold Star Wars to Disney, you’ll find that it’s much better different from what we got and it is actually pretty similar to what The Mandalorian is trying to portray. (Maul was brought back from the dead to be the sequel trilogy’s big bad guy but we never got it)

[boothanita]

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[turnsoutnoonewasexaggerating]

Part 12 of The Sam Diaries

Read on Ao3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10507836/chapters/27875511

“It’s my hen night tomorrow and we still haven’t finished the guest list.”

“It’s not my fault my father decided to unearth the fact he has six siblings and a huge extended family only last year.”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t notice your family was in a feud with another family. Your grandparents didn’t say anything?”

“Nope and same family actually. All the weird comments about my father being a disgrace when I was in school make more sense now though. And that time my brother kissed Abigail Rosewood way worse.”

“Isn’t she one of your newly discovered cousins?”

“Yep.”

“Your brother makes me want to retch.” Eunoia declares, coming into the lounge and throwing herself onto the couch, her feet in Sam’s lap. She pokes him in the stomach with her toe to get him to take his head out of his hands, watching his face for just long enough to see his begrudging smile before going back to her morning make-up routine.

“How are you doing that without a mirror?” Sam says in awe as she succeeds in not poking herself in the eye with the mascara brush.

“Practice.” She replies, round the mouth that she always pulls while putting on make-up, one similar to the face people make when feeding a baby. Sam always gets the urge to put his finger in her mouth, just to see her reaction. The only reason he hasn’t is he’s worried her instinct reaction would be to bite off the end of his finger. She finishes with the mascara, puts it back in the tube and then fixes him with a look.

“At the end of the day, this wedding is for us. Me and you. If you want your crazy recently de-ostracised family there then invite them. And if not, who gives a fuck. This day is for us.”

Sam reluctantly unfolds the guest list and scans it again.

Sam: • Mom • Dad • Sage

• Auntie Sabina • Uncle Joe • Sabella (+1; Grayson) • Sandra • Salem (+1; Hailee)

• Auntie Saffron • Uncle Cameron • Salvador • Sang • Sapphire • Sarah

• Uncle Sasha • Auntie Emery • Saul • Saveria

• Nan • Great-Aunt Scarlett • Granny Rose • Pops

• Dad’s family??

• Winter White • Yasmin Harris • Talon Anderson

Eunoia: • Julia García • Adoración García • Vasco García

• Rosa DeRosales • Bennett Johnson • Corinna Johnson

• Rashawn Jackson • Serenity Thomas • Kacey Jones • Lainey Jones • Iesha Williams • Madyson Davis • Jaden Brown • Nash Miller

• Neil Josten (!!!) • Andrew Minyard (!!!)

• Odin Wilson • Paxton Moore • Qiana Taylor

“You’ve got all your Exy team, the guys from the shop, and uni right?”

“Yup. And you’ve got your three and only friends, two of whom have the strangest names on the planet.” She teases. Sam rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

“I keep telling you; it’s Yasmin who’s the strange one.”

“We shall see. At least I have more friends to make up for my disappointing lack of family members.” Eunoia says, with a hint of black humour. Sam reaches over to squeeze her hand.

“You ok?” He asks, looking at her closely. Eunoia’s eyebrows pinch together for a second in thought, then smooth.

“I’m ok.” She smiles at him and they share a moment of calm before she gets off the sofa and heads for her shoes. “You’re not expecting me to remember any of the names of your family members once I’m tipsy right?” She calls over her shoulder.

“If you just call them all ‘S’ they’ll probably just think you’re being chummy.”

“I get that it was your dying great-grandad’s wish and all but he was really far into dementia by that point for God’s sake! Poor man probably didn’t know he was condemning all his future line to suffering ‘S’ names.”

“Great-Aunt Scarlett changed her name when he died. Did I tell you that? No-one can remember what her original name was.”

“She’s definitely always been your Aunt right? You didn’t have a transgender Uncle who reappeared as Aunt Scarlett?”

“I mean at this point…”

The impossible happened about two months before Halloween in that Andrew Minyard, renowned emotionless midget with no interest in anything besides Neil, sweet food, occasionally spite-filled pursuits such as stopping a goal in the stupid stickball game he plays for a living, fast cars, cigarettes, keeping promises- (Well shit Andrew thinks, How long have I had multiple interests for?) well, anyway, Andrew had taken part in a bet with his cousin Nicky.

Even more astounding, breaching not just impossible but feats not even alternate universes could have come up with, Andrew lost the bet. The bet was this; Nicky bet Andrew a favour that, if pressed, Neil would say he most liked hugs from Matt, not Andrew. At the moment that Nicky had suggested this bet over their skype call, Neil had wandered out of their bedroom, stark naked, hair sleep-mussed and expression completely content. Andrew’s eyes had travelled so slowly down Neil’s body from head to foot that Neil had flushed the pretty pink colour that Andrew can admit is one of his favourite things.

“Yeah, um-hmm, sure Nicky. Do you want to speak to Neil?” Andrew hadn’t taken his eyes off Neil while he spoke; honestly he was impressed he’d had enough self-control that he hadn’t launched himself off the couch and started devouring the redhead, which meant he had gotten to see the delightful change in expression from content to horrified as he dived back into their room to grab some clothes.

Andrew had smugly gone to make himself a hot chocolate, only drawn back into their living room when Nicky’s crows of excitement had become loud enough to annoy the cats into coming into the kitchen too. “Andrew you owe me a favour!” His cousin had yelled excitedly when he’d seen Andrew come back into view.

“What?” Andrew deadpanned, unimpressed with what he had been sure was more of Nicky’s usual antics.

“Our bet! Neil prefers Matt’s hugs to yours!” At this Neil had looked startled.

“Hey you just asked whose hugs I like the most! Andrew doesn’t hug me. You’re making it out to be different that it is.” Neil had argued, as Andrew felt dawning horror ruin his appetite for hot chocolate.

“What’s the favour?” He had asked, through gritted teeth, barely resisting the urge to slam the laptop screen down (the only reason he didn’t was it would catch Neil’s fingers, much as he’d go to his grave before admitting that was the reason). Nicky had looked more smug than Andrew had ever seen him, which was an impressive feat after last year’s; ‘Allison your fiancé is cheating on you with a man’-‘no he’s not’-cue Allison ‘walking in on her fiancé and the pool boy’ debacle.

“I get to pick your Halloween outfit.”

Skip forward to present day, the 31st of October, and Andrew had spent the plane ride over to Germany resigning himself to the fact that he was going to have to spend an evening dressed in a tutu with rainbow colours painted on his face or something equally ludicrous, but that Nicky hadn’t said anything about not stabbing him for calling in the ‘favour’. Neil was much too amused by the whole thing for Andrew’s taste, though he was less sure about going to Nicky and Erik’s work Halloween party. Though his German remained as impeccable as ever, his only friends outside of Exy were Eunoia and Sam, and even they had a connection to the sport and himself. Luckily he doubted Andrew would be interested in socialising either, and just turning up was always enough for Nicky.

Neil tapped the fingers of his free hand against the balcony impatiently, a cigarette held lightly in the other, as he waited for Nicky to finish dressing Andrew up. It was a testament to how far Andrew had come that he was letting Nicky do this at all, bet or not, and Neil could admit he was curious as to what mortifying or objectifying outfit Nicky had picked out. Neil himself was dressed in the exact same zombie cowboy outfit that he’d worn to Eden’s the first year at Palmetto, something that made Nicky equal parts disgusted and nostalgic, and 100% obsessed with taking at least six selfies with Neil per hour. Considering he usually took five per hour, it wasn’t too much of a burden.

Neil turned when the door to the room opened. Andrew stalked in, his eyes sparking with barely leashed fury and maybe the tiniest hint of defeated amusement, his hands angrily rolling up the sleeves of his outfit that had clearly been made for a slightly taller adult man. Nicky trailed in after him, giggling, with Erik steering him from crashing into the doorframe with a wide grin on his face.

“Do you get it Neil? He’s a pilot because he hates flying!” Neil did indeed get it, but Neil had also lost all motor functions and was only just aware enough to drop his cigarette when it almost burnt out and started dropping hot ash on his wrist, let alone try and reply.

Even though it was just a costume and the trousers would be dragging on the floor if it wasn’t for Andrew’s thick muscular thighs bunching them further up his leg and the sleeves of the jacket were practically bursting at the seams around Andrew’s biceps… What was the point Neil was trying to make again? Neil didn’t even hate the pilot hat, perched atop Andrew’s freshly short-cut hair. In fact, his mouth was so dry Neil wondered if he was living in Arizona again. Where was he? Did it matter?

“Don’t tell me you had a traumatic experience with a pilot.” Andrew mocks when the silence has stretched on for just slightly too long, but the anger in his eyes has dimmed replaced with blooming concern.

It’s a conscious effort to tear his eyes away from Andrew and onto Nicky and Erik, but he thinks if he stares any longer he might be in for a much more embarrassing situation to get himself out of, especially as the muscle he’s put on since that first night at Eden’s has made his trousers tighter in a way that would not help him at all.

“How long do we have until the party?” He manages eventually, hoping his voice sounds less hoarse to them than it does to him.

“About twenty minutes. Erik and I have got to get into our costumes- are you sure you’re alright Neil?” Nicky asks. Neil manages a somewhat convincing nod (though not without some confusion as to what exactly about his outfit Nicky doesn’t already consider a costume) and they leave with a few more light-hearted jabs at Andrew’s expense. Andrew’s in Neil’s space the second they’re out of sight.

“Yes or no?” Neil asks, before Andrew can say anything.

“Yes.” Andrew replies without hesitance and Neil leans forward but stops himself. He doesn’t trust himself to not just grab at everything he can reach.

“Fuck.” Neil wheezes instead and Andrew is getting more confused by the second because this behaviour is indicative of a panic attack but the look in his eye is the same one he gets when Andrew saves an impossible goal on the court of his own volition, or smirks at Neil in bed, or when he says yes to Neil asking to suck his-

Oh.

“You have a thing for a man in uniform Josten?” Andrew tries not to acknowledge the way blood is rushing away from his head at the breathy sound Neil makes in response.

“Men, eh. You, very much so.” Then he says something so filthy in Russian that even Andrew’s tempted to blush.

“That fucking mouth.” He growls and closes the distance between them, liking how he can pull Neil’s hips into his using the gun slings on either side of Neil’s thighs, something he’s fantasized about doing since that first Halloween.

“Guys you ready to go?” Andrew may be able to get rid of his boner through sheer force of will but Neil’s pretty sure he’s a lost cause. Twenty minutes wasn’t long enough to get themselves into any kind of activity Andrew’s current attractiveness is worth, but Neil doesn’t understand how he’s supposed to get through this party without combusting.

He groans into the pillow when Andrew’s hand tugs lightly through his hair to remind him they have to go, and when he finally gets up he’s determinedly not looking at Andrew.

“Neil this is supposed to be a classy party!” Nicky complains when he sees Andrew. Neil raises an eyebrow in confusion. “Like, did you try to eathim?”

Neil sneaks a look at Andrew’s neck. He hadn’t realised he’d left quite that many hickeys but he doesn’t regret a single one. By the smug way Andrew refuses to do up the buttons on his jacket, Neil thinks he feels the same. It had taken a long time for Neil to be allowed to leave any kind of mark on Andrew, and the first few times Neil had been more freaked out by the bruise forming than proud. That was, until Andrew had had a bad day that had him convinced Neil was just as much of a pipedream as he always thought. Neil had prompted him to look in the mirror at the marks on his neck, proof of not only the existence of their relationship but how far Andrew had come with being able to trust Neil. It had helped, and while Andrew was still off for a few days, Neil caught him checking the marks in the mirror with an almost relieved look on his face.

“Will you let me do up the buttons?” Neil asked him finally, when Nicky’s pleading eyes had become too much to ignore.

“Yes.” Andrew said finally, turning to him. Neil buttoned his jacket with careful fingers, including the top button Andrew hadn’t even had done up before their make-out session. He stepped back to admire his handiwork and gulped at how the high neck accentuated the strong line of Andrew’s jaw and the colour was bringing out his eyes that were still slightly darkened with desire and- fuck.

They needed to leave. Now.

Nicky had asked Neil in rusty Spanish if him and Andrew had somehow managed to get into a fight without speaking seeing as Neil had immediately moved to sit in the passenger seat next to Nicky instead of in the back with Andrew. Why Neil had sat in the passenger seat was twofold, but the main reason was because he didn’t think he’d be able to make it all the way to Nicky’s ‘classy’ party without kissing Andrew again if he was sat so close to his not-boyfriend. He had no intention of saying this to Nicky though and instead went with the other reason; Andrew wanted to talk to Erik.

Nicky had gone immediately pale; looking in the back mirror to make sure Andrew wasn’t holding a knife to his husband’s throat. Andrew and Neil might have attended their wedding but, well, Nicky still remembered how Andrew reacted to Aaron’s girlfriends. To his utter shock Erik is grinning, almost shyly, his eyes wet with unshed tears, while Andrew very awkwardly pats him on the shoulder, looking like he wants to be literally anywhere else.

Nicky has to park the car he’s laughing so much, Neil not being much better.

“What, did, you, say, to, him?” Nicky wheezes, before cracking up again when he looks at Andrew’s face. Andrew shrugs.

“Thanks.” Erik’s smile hasn’t dimmed, even though the tears threatening to spill have mostly gone.

“I stand by what I said in that letter.” Erik says, in accented English. Andrew’s fist clenches and then relaxes.

“What letter?” Neil asks, feeling like he’s been left out of the loop, but when he glances to the side Nicky looks just as confused.

Erik’s eyebrows pinch together a little. “I sent Andrew a letter after Nicky told me what happened outside the club. Nicky’s a fighter, but not like that. Andrew saved his life, and therefore my world. Don’t get me wrong- you were still- Nicky how do you say the mean word for penis?” Nicky snorts, collapsing into giggles again.

“Dick?” He suggests, when he’s calmed down a little.

“Yes. A dick but you’re always welcome at our home. Just maybe when you were a teenager you would have been in the furthest away room.”

“Well into being an adult too.” Nicky chimes in, ignoring Andrew’s glare. “Let me guess, you finally thanked Erik for the offer?”

“He thanked me for helping you enough that he got a family.” Erik admonishes quietly. Neil blinked at Andrew, not expecting that was the reason he’d wanted to speak to Erik. Andrew swallowed and looked up at Nicky, who was staring back, misty-eyed and choked up.

“Oh.” Nicky said softly.

“I told your father about Drake to try and get his help in keeping Drake away from Aaron.” Nicky flinches. “He told me it must have been a misunderstanding, but he promised he wouldn’t let Cass foster any more children.” Andrew’s voice is carefully composed and blank as he continues. “I met one of the other children that your father let Drake attack. We talked. She said something that… I didn’t want you to think I hold any of your father’s misdeeds against you.”

“I can’t give you a hug from here.” Nicky says, eventually, tears spilling over.

“Why did you think I arranged this for the car journey?” Andrew deadpans.

“We’re not that far from the party.” Nicky says, determined, throwing the car into gear and driving them to the venue with the recklessness left over from his university days. He practically dives out of the car as soon as he’s put it into park and goes round to Andrew’s door.

Andrew winds down the window, unimpressed. Nicky holds out his hand like he’s passing something to Andrew but his hand is empty. Andrew glances at it and then Nicky’s face before slowly raising his own hand, wondering what the Hell Nicky’s doing. Nicky grabs his hand and squeezes it once, tightly, before letting go.

“Come on. I’ve got a surprise for you both.”

“I don’t like surprises.” Andrew says mulishly, ignoring the way his heart feels full and warm with how Nicky had somehow managed to give him the feeling of a hug without bypassing his personal space.

“Neither do I.” Aaron, from behind Nicky, holding hands with a slightly paler than normal Katelyn, agrees, staring darkly at Nicky.

Neil looks between them both and realises Nicky had invited both the twins without telling either of them the other was coming.

“Well shit.”

[philsdrill]

Chapter 19: Painkillers Won’t Ease The Pain

Fic Summary: “Everyone had a link with their soulmates, some could hear some of their partners thoughts, some had a tattoo that would appear with their partners name; for me, I knew when they got sick.” For a while Phil has thought that his soulmate might have an eating disorder and doesn’t expect to meet him in the restaurant where he works.

Genre: a lot of fluff, recovery, really fucking domestic, waiter!Phil

Warnings: eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, hospitals, panic attacks, references to past abuse, mentions of suicide, mentions of self-harm, a lot of awkwardness, small amounts of smut. This is potentially triggering so for your own sake, please think twice about reading if anything this might affect you.

Disclaimer: I don’t have personal experience with eating disorders, but have done some research. If I have anything about them wrong, feel free to send me an ask and I’ll sort it out.

Word Count (for this part): 6.8k

[Uploads will be approximately every couple of weeks! (hopefully)]

A/N: Apologies that this took so bloody long; I honestly don’t know where the time went. I can’t promise that the next update will be any quicker, but I’ll try my best. PLEASE NOTE, TW - MENTIONS OF SELF HARM IN THIS CHAPTER - thought I’d highlight that as it hadn’t come up until now.

MASTERPOST 

<= Previous Chapter 

Phil’s POV:

Dan’s brother was on his train up here long before Dan or I were out of bed. We awoke to a message on Dan’s phone; Adam telling him that he had changed trains for the final time and was now on the one that would take him the local station.

The last leg of the journey was about an hour long, so that gave us plenty of time to get up, get showered and dressed, eat breakfast and get organised.

We were picking Adam up at the station just after midday. I drove there so that Dan could get out to greet his brother while I waited in the car.

I parked in a space conveniently close to the station building. Dan let himself out and I sat in anticipation; I was unsure how the next few days would go. I knew that Adam’s soulmate issues wouldn't make it easy, but I didn't know how much it truly affected him. I guess now we would see.

Despite being stronger now, Dan's state of mental health probably wasn't ideal for having his brother's problems loaded onto his shoulders​. I felt that I would likely be dealing with breakdowns from both of them, so I'd done my best to have as few work shifts as I could this week. Yes, I'd be working harder next week, but it would be worth it.

Dan greeted his brother with a couple of words, silent to me through the car window, and a hug which screamed how much Adam needed the support. His face was instantly buried in Dan's jacket, there being a slight height difference as Adam still hadn't finished growing. He looked just like a mini version of Dan, something I had thought before, when I met him for the first time.

Their hug lasted a good ten seconds and Adam finally retreated, Dan ruffling his brown hair in an annoying big-brotherly way. The resemblance between them was astounding, their hair almost exactly the same shade of brown and their posture very similar, with their faces even moving the same way when they spoke. If it hadn’t been for the eight or so years between them, I’d say they could almost pass as twins.

Dan took Adam's suitcase and wheeled it towards the car, opening the boot and lifting it in. Meanwhile, he told Adam to get in, so it wasn't long before the back door was opening for him to climb in.

“Hi Adam,” I said, turning around in my seat to speak to him, “How’re you doing?”

“Alright, I guess; could be better but I'll cope,” he replied, “Everything is just so difficult at the moment, trying to deal with what I'm feeling through my soulmate bond.”

“Aww, I feel for you, buddy,” I told him, “Although being one of the coolest, the telepathic ones are rarely all plain sailing.”

During our brief conversation, Dan had shut the boot and was now getting into the back seat next to Adam, “Right let's get going.”

“Are we just heading to you guys’ flat?” Adam asked.

“Yup,” Dan replied, “We thought it was best to let you get settled, we'll leave the going out until tomorrow.”

Back at the flat, Dan showed Adam to the guest room, Adam towing the wheely case behind him. I held back, taking a while to shut the front door as I didn't quite feel close enough to Adam to follow them into​ what was now his room for the next week.

I laid my keys down, took my coat off and sat in the living room, waiting for Dan to come back through. It was about five minutes before he appeared, but I got that he probably needed some time to speak to his brother in private.

“Hey,” he said, settling next to me on the sofa, “I'm giving him some alone time for... say half an hour. I asked him how the situation is with his soulmate. He's been really sad, miserable and depressed for the last week or so and Adam’s pretty sure he’s self harming now too. As you can imagine, Adam’s been feeling a bit down and he’s been in public for so many hours that I think he needs to be alone for a bit.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, “I can see why he needs time to himself, to get his thoughts in order. I can’t even imagine how it would be to deal with all that. Like I know all about feeling the need to help my soulmate and not being able to, but it’s on a whole ‘nother level for him.”

“Hmm,” Dan nodded, “I’m sorry if I made things difficult for you.”

“It’s fine,” I told him, hugging him, “It’s not your fault; mental health isn’t something you have much control of.”

“I wish I did,” Dan mumbled, “Like taking these antidepressants for my anxiety is helping a lot, maybe in more ways than one, but I’m still not right. Like I’m still having panic attacks, or whatever the fuck that was the other night and I don’t know how to help it. I hate not having control and I know the doctors are doing their best, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough.”

“I think you should organise another appointment with your mental health therapist soon,” I suggested, gently intertwining my fingers with his, “You’ve said before that it’s helped, right?”

“Yeah, I think I will,” Dan said, “I’ll probably wait until after Adam’s gone home, because we’re probably already dragging him to the doctors once this week because you have your appointment on Friday.”

“Okay,” I nodded, “Yeah, we need to let him enjoy his stay here, but get it booked, okay.”

Dan nodded, probably adding it to a mental list of things he needed to do. I let myself cuddle with him, knowing that we weren't going to get much cuddling time as we were planning to avoid shoving our relationship in Adam's face.

“I hope Adam finds him soon,” I mumbled after a while, getting back onto the subject of Adam’s soulmate.

“Yeah,” Dan nodded, “It’s not nice seeing him in so much pain and distress. I wish there was more we could do to help.”

Around half an hour after he'd left Adam, Dan went back to check on him and see how he was doing. He was only away for five minutes, this time returning with Adam, an arm slung around him protectively.

Taking in the slight redness around his eyes and the way he sniffed loudly, I could tell he'd been crying a bit. I guess Dan had dragged him out of there for a change of scenery and some company to distract him.

Dan sat down with him on the other sofa, talking to him in a such a soft tone that I would need to be closer to hear it. Taking account of his runny nose and damp eyes, I got up to get some tissues. I could see that Dan was doing his best to comfort him emotionally, but he’d maybe forgotten about the physical side of things.

In mine and Dan's bathroom cupboard, I found a box of tissues. Maybe it seemed a bit overkill to take him the whole box, but I could sense that it wouldn't be the only time we'd need them. I took them through to Adam, opening the box as I went and having a tissue ready to pass to him when I got there. Adam sniffed a 'thanks’ and I laid the box of tissues on the couch next to him, in case he were to need another.

“Phil, you know those amazing hot chocolates you make?” Dan asked suggestively, nodding at Adam while he blew his nose.

“Sure thing,” I responded, getting the jist, that he thought Adam could do with one.

I got up and made my way to the kitchen, where I made a hot chocolate while subtly watching Dan and Adam through the doorway.

I could hear snippets of their conversation and it sounded like Dan was trying to be a comforting big brother, “It sounds like he’s being kept an eye on, yeah? His parents don’t know about you yet, so they have no reason to do anything radical yet.”

“Yeah, but he feels really really sick of hiding it and he's depressed because he knows they'll disown him when they find out,” Adam responded.

“Let’s hope you’ll meet him before then,” Dan said positively, “We’re going to go out tomorrow, get you out and about amongst people and see if anything happens. There’s no saying he lives near to us, but you’re destined to meet him pretty soon, so it’s more possible than not.”

“Can’t we go out today?” Adam asked, “Like I just want to get a feel for my surroundings.”

“There’s not a lot left of today, but sure, if that’s what you feel like,” Dan replied, “Phil’s making you a hot chocolate, but after you’ve drunk that, we can go for a little walk around town.”

Once I’d given it it’s final stir, I carried the hot chocolate into the living room and across to Adam, who was now sitting up and looking a little bit less miserable. I passed him the drink and retreated to the other sofa.

As Adam slowly sipped at the hot chocolate, Dan mentioned to me how he and Adam were going to go for a walk and did I want to join them? I said that I would, feeling like I would enjoy some fresh air and it would be an opportunity to get to know Adam a little better.

There was a small smile on Adam’s face by the time he’d finished the hot chocolate, which was a positive sign. He laid the cup down on the table and looked over at me, “That was great, Phil. Thank you.”

“S’no problem,” I replied, with a light hearted laugh, “Glad it helped.”

The three of us left the living room to get ready for our walk. Dan seemed to disappear into Adam’s room with him for a bit, so after I visited the bathroom and put my own coat on, I got Dan’s coat and shoes out for him. I double checked that he had his emergency anxiety medicine in his pocket and grabbed a bottle of water to take with us.

Before long, we were all ready to go. Dan had been talking to Adam while he put his shoes on, I guess being a further distraction against what was going on in his head. We locked up, made our way down the stairs, and into the outside world.

My subconscious had my hand trying to find Dan’s, but the second my hand touched his, he batted me away.

“Sorry,” he said, leaning over to mumble in my ear, “Remember we’re not shoving what we have in his face.”

Mentally face-palming myself, I let my hand drop back to my side and then slipped it into my pocket. Dan flashed me another apologetic look and reluctantly put his own hands in his pockets too.

“We should walk to your restaurant and back,” Dan suggested, “That way, Adam can see where you work and we’ll get to show him most of town on the way.”

“Good idea,” I agreed, turning right out of the gate and leading the way.

Conveniently, the pavement was wide enough to accommodate the three of us across it, so we walked in a line, Dan, then Adam, then me.

For heading there, I decided that I would avoid my usual shortcuts and we’d take the main roads to help Adam to get a better understanding of the area. We could take the shortcut on the way back if we wanted.

As we walked along the main street, Dan pointed out a few of the best shops, the road that led down to the park and a number of other things. I got the odd word in now and then, but Dan was doing a pretty good job as tour guide so I left him to it. I probably still knew the area in general better than him, so I'd probably be taking the lead on the way back if we took the shortcut.

We stopped in the restaurant car park for five minutes before we headed back. We told Adam that this was where I worked, and Dan added in that if was also where we met.

I noticed Adam eyeing up the menu on the wall and studying it in close detail, “The food sounds pretty good; will I get to try it?”

Seeing Dan's hesitant glance at me, I replied, “I don't know… Dan has been in here since we met, but it doesn't hold the best memories for him. We’ll think about it.”

Dan shot me a thankful look but I could see that he was losing focus on the conversation.

“Ahh yeah… Let's not if it'll make Dan uncomfortable,” Adam said, also looking at Dan concernedly, as he didn't react to his name being said.

“Dan,” I said firmly, placing a hand on his back, “Earth calling, you in there?”

“Sorry,” Dan mumbled, slightly dazed, “I'm fine.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, hoping he might explain where his thoughts had been.

“Just kinda remembered some of what happened that night,” he explained, “Don't really want to talk about it.”

Respecting his decision, I rubbed my hand up and down his back a couple of times before dropping it back to my side, “Right, let's head home. I know a shortcut that's a little quicker.”

As we walked, Dan was almost silent and it seemed to be me doing most of the taking. Something didn't seem right, and I knew that just seeing the restaurant wouldn't have provoked that reaction by itself.

When we stopped at a pedestrian light, I got the chance to mumble something to Dan, “I know you're not wanting to, but please just take my hand if you need to, yeah?”

Dan nodded, but kept his hands in his pockets. As we passed a cafe that I didn't really know, Dan seemed to glance inside out of curiosity. I guess he didn't really know this part of town. It was after that I noticed Dan slowing down and breathing very deeply. I could feel the panic radiating off of him, but I had no idea what had triggered it.

“Dan, d'you want to stop for a minute?” I asked, bringing my arm around him.

“No, need to keep going,” he said, walking a little faster.

I slightly ignored Adam in trying to figure out what was up with Dan, but he was still keeping up, walking next to me but not saying anything.

Dan slowed down again after a minute, this time more than accepting of the arm around him. He was still breathing too quickly and looking a little flustered, but he didn't seem to be having a full on panic attack.

I pulled him into a half hug, forcing him to stop walking. I laid my hand on his chest and felt as he attempted to take big slow breaths.

“What's wrong?” I asked him, using my soft, caring voice and keeping an arm around him to make sure he felt safe.

“N-nora works in that cafe back there and I saw her through the window,” Dan spluttered.

“Okay,” I nodded, now understanding the situation, “You're safe, she's not going to get you. You're doing well, just keep up your breathing.”

Dan nodded into my side, focusing back on his breathing again. I could feel that he was a bit shaky, but it was nothing compared to some of his panic attacks.

“D'you want to take your medicine or d’you think you're okay?” I asked him.

“I don't know,” he groaned.

Seeing that he wasn't jumping at the chance to take it, it couldn't be too bad. I agreed with that from what I could see from his physical symptoms.

“Okay, I don't think you need to, but let me know if you do,” I told him, “We're only about ten minutes away from home now; you good to keep going?”

“Yeah, I just want to be home now,” Dan said, as we started to walk again, “Also could I have that water? My throat’s really dry.”

I handed Dan the bottle of water I had brought, which he accepted like a panting dog, readily downing some of it to quench his thirst.

Adam hadn't said much during the whole exchange, but now he spoke up, “Just wondering what's for dinner?”

“Lentil and tomato pasta, and I think we have garlic bread if you want,” I told him, the meal having been carefully chosen to suit a lactose intolerant, a recovering anorexic and a fussy fifteen year old.

I knew that I wouldn't​ be able to have the garlic bread thanks to it having garlic butter and Dan probably wouldn't eat it, so it seemed only sensible to offer it to Adam.

“Sounds good,” he mused, “I’m starting to get hungry.”

“Well that’s okay, I’m going to start making it when we get in,” I told him, “You won’t have to wait too long.”

Once we were home, I had a couple of minutes in private with Dan. From what I had seen, he had pretty much recovered from his mild anxiety spell, but I wanted to make sure that he was okay emotionally, as well as just on the surface. Dan assured me that he was feeling better, grabbed a blanket and headed off to the living room to be with Adam whilst I cooked.

Soon enough, I had a vat of pasta sauce on one burner and a pot of pasta gently simmering on another. Adam and Dan were having an in-depth conversation about video games in the living room. I was glad to see them talking about their shared interests rather than just their problems. Adam particularly needed something to get his mind off what was going on; clearly he’d still see and feel it in his head, but if the focus was shared with something else, he wouldn’t feel the pain quite as strong.

Filling a glass of water for Dan and making a glass of ribena for myself, I called out to ask Adam what he would like, “Adam, what d’you want to drink?”

“What’ve you got?” he asked, directing the question more at Dan as he was closer.

“Apple juice, orange juice, ribena, milk, wat…” Dan listed.

“Milk would be good, thanks,” Adam replied loudly, cutting off Dan’s list.

I felt a pang in my heart at the mention of milk. I tried not to feel sad about it, but every time it crossed my mind that I couldn’t have milk anymore, I thought about the full extent of the things that I wouldn’t be able to eat.

“Sure,” I replied, my voice cracking slightly as I replied.

I hid myself by opening the fridge, hoping that Dan hadn’t noticed the falter in my emotional stability. I needed to be the strong one here; I couldn’t let something so small get me down.

“I’ll come and help,” Dan called out, the sound of the sofa moving as he got up filtering through to my ears.

I heard Dan’s footsteps as he walked into the kitchen, then felt his presence as he came up behind me and pressed his body gently up against mine.

“Phil,” he murmured softly, “It's okay. I wish you didn't have to deal with this, but things'll improve after this week, yeah.”

I could feel myself slowly starting to lose my control, so I hid my face in my hands and turned towards Dan, resting my head against his shoulder.

“D'you want to go to our room and take a couple of minutes to get yourself sorted out?” Dan asked, “I'll take care of serving the food and I'll come and get you once it's out.”

I nodded, waiting for Dan to let me free from his embrace. As I turned to go, Dan stopped me and pressed a small kiss to my forehead, “Breathe slowly, try and keep yourself calm. It works the same way.”

I left Dan and the warmth of the kitchen and made my way to our room, feeling tears pricking in the corners of my eyes. I took a couple of deep breaths, following Dan's advice to try and sort myself out.

Dan's POV:

I’d encouraged Phil to head to our room to try and calm down, but the second he'd gone, I wondered if that had been the right thing to do.

On one hand, I felt like he needed to be alone, but on the other, I felt like I should be comforting him. Not being able to decide, I thought I'd give him a bit of both. I'd get the dinner served and then go and see how he was doing. Adam could get tucked into his food and if Phil needed time, then I'd give him it.

I poured a glass of milk for Adam and placed it next to the other two glasses that Phil had filled. I carried the three of them through and placed them on the dining table.

Adam looked up when I entered the room, “Is something up with Phil?”

Realising that Adam must've seen or heard some of our exchange, I thought I'd better explain, “He got diagnosed as being lactose intolerant the other day and he's struggling to come to terms with it.”

“That's a milk allergy, right?” Adam asked.

“Kind of,” I started, heading back to the kitchen to serve the pasta, but talking meanwhile, “Lactose is a sugar in milk, rather than just milk in general. And it's not like a sneezing, rash, can't breathe kind of reaction. It gives him a really sore stomach and sometimes makes him a bit unwell.”

Once I'd finished explaining, I brought through the three plates of food and laid them on the table.

“Adam, you get started,” I told him, “I'm going to get Phil and I don't know how long we'll be.”

I made my way to mine and Phil's room and gently pushed the door open, “Phil?”

Phil wasn't in the bedroom, but I could hear some water running in our bathroom. The bathroom door was wide open, so I poked my head around to find Phil washing his face.

Noticing the slightly red-rimmed eyes he was splashing water on, I approached him, resting a hand on his back, “Phil, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, his voice sounding a little rough.

“You've been crying,” I stated, letting him know that I knew, “You sure you're okay?”

Phil was usually fairly strong emotionally and I knew he didn't let down the strong façade that easily, but I had to do what I could to help him when I knew he was feeling down. Phil squeezed his eyes shut and I could see a couple of droplets fall from his eyes and run down his already wet cheeks. I pulled him into a hug, trying to give him the support he needed. Phil cried quietly into my chest for a minute, before a violent sob erupted from him.

“Hey, it's okay,” I murmured, attempting to be comforting as he unleashed a second sob.

With Phil now sobbing loudly, he was talking massive gulps of air in between and I could tell it wasn't helping him. Okay, he wasn't having a panic attack, but getting control of your breathing generally helps to control crying, whatever the situation.

I walked Phil back into our room and sat with him on the edge of the bed. I did what he'd done for me so many times and encouraged him to breathe with me, making sure it was nice and controlled.

I continued to rub my hand slowly up and down his back and I occasionally lifted my other hand to his face to wipe some of the tears away.

Eventually, Phil reached a calm enough state to get a couple of words out, “Sorry, I kinda lost control.”

“It’s okay,” I told him, “Honestly… We're all going through difficult times and you have the right to cry as much as you need to. Obviously, it would be easier if you didn't, but I'm here for you. Just speak up if you need some support, okay.”

Phil nodded and rubbed his eyes, sniffing a little bit. I handed him a tissue and put my arm around him as he blew his nose, “You ready to go and get dinner now?”

I knew I'd been trying to avoid much PDA around Adam, but I put my arm around Phil as we walked out of our room and along to our dining table. I only dropped it back to my side when we had to split to sit down.

At first, we ate in near silence, but as we all started to get our energy back, we became more talkative. Phil was back to his usual self by the time we were finished, cheerily heading off to do the dishes.

--

We watched a couple of films in the evening, something that didn’t require much effort from any of us. It had all been going well and we were halfway through our second film when I noticed Adam was acting oddly. His attention was elsewhere and he was biting his lip, his right hand firmly clamped around his left wrist. It only took me a couple of seconds to figure out what was happening, thanks to what he’d told me earlier about his soulmate self-harming.

“Just going to the bathroom,” Adam choked out, instantly getting up on having made eye-contact with me.

“Adam,” I called out to him as he hurried out of the room, “Hold on.”

I ran to catch up with him, but only made it to the bathroom door as he locked it in front of me.

“Adam, please open up,” I begged, “I know I can’t really help, but I know what’s going on and I’d rather you had some company.”

Thankfully, it didn’t take much persuasion to have him open the door and when I saw his emotional state I realised why it had been so easy. He was full on crying, tears pouring down his face as he ran his wrist under the cold tap.

“I… I went to a soulmate therapist… a couple of days ago… and she says there’s no way I can stop the pain,” Adam choked out, “I… I need to be s-strong and deal with it… m-making it cold helps a l-little.”

I grabbed the hand towel from the rail, turned off the tap and gently rubbed Adam’s wrist dry, “Come with me; we’ve got an ice pack in the freezer.”

Adam cradled his arm to his chest as we walked to the kitchen, a stream of tears still flowing down his face. I quickly opened the freezer and found the ice pack. I prised his arm away from his chest and brought the ice pack slowly down onto his wrist. I took the towel and wrapped it around to keep the cold in.

“You can sit with that on it,” I told him, still holding the towel and the ice pack on for him.

“Dan, do you need me to do anything?” Phil asked, sticking his head into the kitchen.

“Uhh… I don’t think so?” I said hesitantly, not sure if there was anything he could do to help.

“How about a cup of tea for Adam?” he suggested, looking between us.

“D’you want that?” I prompted Adam.

“Yeah,” he nodded timidly, rubbing some tears off his face.

“D’you want to go back to the living room or to bed?” I asked him, wanting to know where I should take him.

“Bed,” he said wearily.

“Phil, bring the tea through to his room when you’ve made it,” I called out to Phil as I made my way there with Adam.

Holding the towel and ice pack for himself now, Adam pushed the duvet back, climbed up onto the bed and wrapped it around himself like a cape. I perched next to him on the bed, placing a hand on the duvet that covered his back, “Is it still hurting a lot?”

Nodding, Adam replied, “Yeah, and it’s hurting me to think about him doing that too.”

“I know the feeling,” said Phil as he walked into the room sporting a mug of tea, “This guy here used to worry me a hell of a lot by throwing up every meal he ate. It hurt a lot that I couldn't help, but there's not much you can do to make it easier.”

Phil handed Adam the tea, patting him on the shoulder, “You’re doing great.”

“But at least you didn't actually feel sick every time,” Adam retaliated, “I'm currently getting like all his pain and depressed thoughts and everything.”

“I did sometimes, like when it was particularly bad I would worry so much that I felt sick myself,” Phil explained, “I kinda get where you’re coming from. Did you go and see a soulmate therapist in the end?”

“I’ve been once and she wasn’t that helpful,” Adam explained, “She said that there wasn’t really anything I could do to stop the pain. Painkillers won’t help at all ‘cause the pain’s on his side and not mine. The ice kinda helps because it’s so cold it numbs it. She told me that there’s not an awful lot she can help me with, that it's really my soulmate that needs the help. She said that she might try prescribing me antidepressants but they might not make a difference, depending on how many of the depressed thoughts are mine and how many are his - she really needs to treat both of us together, or have him see someone that she can make contact with.”

“When will you be going back?” I asked, “Like to hear if she’s going to prescribe you them.”

“We’re giving it ten days, so just after I get back home,” Adam told us, “I need to keep note of my thoughts and feelings and why I’m feeling them. That’s going to help her see where all my feelings come from. I’m scared though; I’ve never been on a prescription medication of any kind and I’ve heard that antidepressants can make you have suicidal tendencies. There’s no hope for me and him if we both head down that path…”

Adam started to cry a bit harder with what he was saying. I brought my arm around him and Phil sat down at his other side to hold onto his cup of tea before he spilt it all over himself.

“It’s antidepressants that I take for my anxiety,” I told Adam, “I haven’t had much problem with them. I know it varies from one case to another, but genetically, we’re pretty similar.”

“Were you scared to take them?” he asked, shaking a little.

“Not really,” I told him, “I was pretty desperate for something to help with the panic attacks and constant anxiety I was experiencing and I’d been putting my body through all kinds of abuse anyway, so adding another pill into the mix wasn’t going to be much different.”

“Anyway, taking them doesn’t bother me,” I added, “I wouldn’t be worried about it. I’m sure mum’ll keep a close eye on you if you’re worried about anything. Just let her know how you feel, yeah. I can’t help as much as I’d like to from up here.”

“Are they just like normal pills?” he asked, “They’re not like giant or anything?”

“I’d say they’re pretty normal,” I told him, “I’ll let you see tomorrow morning when I take them.”

“Thanks,” Adam mumbled, falling into a silence and sipping on the tea.

I stayed with him as he finished the tea, although the conversation had pretty much run out. Adam was still crying, so Phil left at one point to get him tissues, but overall, we had the situation under control.

When the mug was empty, I laid it to the side, to take away with me when I left. His hands now free, Adam pulled the duvet a little closer around him.

“I think I’m just gonna take my jeans off and get some sleep now,” Adam mumbled.

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it,” I said, “D’you need any extra blankets or are you good?”

“I think I’m good,” he replied.

“Kay, goodnight then,” I said, “Come and find Phil or me if you need anything; also don’t hesitate to wake me up if anything happens in the night; if you need someone to talk to, I’ll only be next door.”

Taking the mug with me, I left the room, shutting the door behind me to let Adam get ready for bed. Phil was waiting outside for me, and joined me as I walked to the kitchen.

“Shall we just head to bed too?” Phil asked, as I put the mug in the dishwasher.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “I’m pretty tired…”

I made sure that the TV and all the lights were turned off, and Phil went to check the door was locked. We’d developed our own little routine in terms of the small insignificant jobs we had to do before we settled down for the night. On my way to mine and Phil’s bedroom, I quietly poked my head into the guest room to see if Adam was asleep. Eyes shut, snoring gently, curled up tightly and clutching onto the duvet, he was definitely sleeping. I felt a little relief, knowing that he was getting some rest; I’d been concerned that with everything going in his head, he wouldn’t get to sleep that easily, but then, he had had a long day.

I met Phil in our bedroom, where I didn’t hesitate in removing my clothes until I was just in my underwear. Phil did the same, but he kept going until he was completely naked and headed for the bathroom.

“You not coming for a shower?” he asked, as he realised that I was still sitting on our bed.

“I’m tired and I’m feeling a bit stressed and I really just want to sleep,” I explained, “You go ahead, I’ll probably shower in the morning.”

“I’ll let you go to the bathroom and brush your teeth first then,” Phil said, momentarily pausing to put his underwear back on.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, getting up and walking past him into the bathroom.

Phil kept me company as I cleaned my teeth. Something was bugging me about him being there; I think I just needed a little time to myself, but I’d feel bad to push him away. It felt like there was an elastic band in my back which had gradually been pulled tighter, and something told me that it wouldn’t be long before it snapped.

“Dan, are you okay?” Phil asked me as I got into bed, “You’re really quiet, d’you want to talk about why you’re stressed?”

I shook my head, hoping he would get the message and just bugger off for his shower. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the bed next to me and looked down with what I felt was an aura of concern.

“Phil, I’m fine,” I groaned, “Just go for your shower.”

“Dan, you’re not fine,” he said softly, bringing his hands to rest on my back and starting to rub it, “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“NO,” I snapped harshly, feeling that the elastic band had finally snapped, the pot of stress that had been brewing inside of me, boiled over. I pushed Phil off, “Just leave me alone, okay.”

Feeling the tears welling in my eyes, I ignored Phil and curled up in a ball, crying into the mattress. He seemed to stay for a minute or two, but eventually I felt the bed move a little as he stood up and I heard him walking into the bathroom. Finally.

What I wasn’t expecting, but maybe I should have, was for Phil to come back. The footsteps returned and the mattress sank again as Phil sat down, “Dan, I’ve brought your medicine if you want to take it.”

“I’m not having a fucking panic attack,” I growled, my voice coming out slightly angry but mainly just sad.

“They might help,” Phil said, not appearing fazed by my outburst, “If you change your mind, I’ll keep it here.”

Phil went quiet for a bit, finally giving me some of the peace I needed.

Phil’s POV:

I quietly considered what else I could do to help Dan. He was completely freaking out any time I tried to get too near him. It wasn’t a normal panic attack, but he was showing some of the same symptoms. He was crying, he was trembling a little and I didn’t know what was going on in his head.

I knew he wanted space, but I didn’t really want to leave him alone like this. I did what seemed like the best option in this situation and decided to sit it out. It might take a while, but I knew he come around eventually. I sat close to him, but not too close and made sure that my body language was open and welcoming for him.

It hurt me to sit by his side and do nothing as he sniffled and cried, but it was rewarding, when, after about ten minutes, he shuffled the small distance between us and finally allowed me to hug him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled as he nuzzled his face into my stomach.

“It's okay,” I told him, wrapping my arms securely around him and holding him there, “It's over now, you're okay.”

Dan's tears and snot started to make my stomach a little sticky, but I was still planning a shower so it didn't matter in the slightest. Dan had said he'd shower in the morning, but he now seemed cold and sweaty so I thought I'd double check that.

“You sure you don’t want to shower?” I asked him, “No offence but you're a bit sweaty.”

“Yeah, I know,” he nodded, “Sorry, but I don't have the energy so you're gonna have to deal with me being a bit sticky for tonight.”

“I'm still going to have a shower, but I'll stay 'til you're asleep,” I told Dan, “D'you want some water to some tea or anything?”

“I’m good,” Dan replied, “Sleep’s all I want right now.”

Dan had to leave my embrace while I sorted out the duvet. I brought it around his curled up form and tucked the edge in underneath him. I left my side loose, ready for me to join him after I'd had my shower.

I sat cross-legged on top of the duvet, while Dan lay underneath it beside me. His tears having dried up, he now looked exhausted, his eyes reddened and half shut already.

I brought a hand to rest on top of his duvet-shrouded form, not wanting to get so caught up that I'd be unable to leave for my shower when the time came.

“Can you just talk at me for a bit?” Dan asked, “That'll help me get to sleep.”

“Sure thing,” I responded, picking out the first thing I could think of and going on what became a slightly nonsensical ramble on the topic.

I stopped blabbing on about houseplants just after I noticed that Dan was asleep. I'd kept going a little for a little while and then slowly got quieter, in case the abrupt arrival of a silence could awaken him.

I felt a pang in my heart at leaving him alone, but I was determined to have a shower. I quickly shed my boxers and hopped under the flow of water before it had even warmed up.

I kept my shower quick, as once I was in it, the tiredness hit me and I was now longing for bed. I brushed my teeth and eventually found some pyjamas in the darkness of our room. The first pair I had attempted to get on turned out to be Dan's as they were a bit too small. I knew I could've given up my search and slept naked but I felt a bit exposed that way. We had a guest in the house and then there's always that risk that the fire alarm goes off. I might've seemed a bit paranoid, but there was no harm in being careful.

Next Chapter =>

[bestfriendforhire]

Entry 273

  I stared out over a river running through the city and sighed.  Over a week had passed since Jarod’s bachelor party.  I received another challenge upon returning home.  Aaliyah and Mila had taught me Russian over the course of a few nights following the letter’s arrival.  My parents didn’t desire to come this time, ― I honestly believed they wanted to avoid another dinner with Adelmar. ― so I was left without company and decided to explore the city.  Well, I did have to escape from some unwanted company first.

 “Such a heavy sigh doesn’t suit you.” came a soft voice at my side.

 I could tell at a glance that he wasn’t human and was disturbed that I hadn’t noticed his approach.  Thick, dark brown hair nearly the length of his shoulders framed a face utterly devoid of blemishes.  A spell formed around him faster than I could see, and the alarm I had tried to smother rose to the surface within me.

 “Oh, James… No need to be startled.  I’m a friend.  An ally.  A vampire!” he exclaimed, completely disregarding the people nearby.  “Don’t worry about them.  Think.  I’m speaking far too softly for human ears, and the nearest immortal ones aren’t nearby quite yet.  Well, unless Aaliyah is around.  You never know with her, do you.”

 His fangs were quite prominent, but I knew from experience with Cosette that he had to be doing that on purpose.

 “Pardon?” I asked, completely unsure of how to respond to this person’s admission about knowing Aaliyah.

 “My apologies.  I should start with an introduction.  I am known as Zachary Blood, and meeting you is a pleasure, James.” he insisted.

 “Nice to make your acquaintance, but I’m still at a loss.” I told him, but my mind was racing through memories.  There was something Ariadne had mentioned that would have seemed insignificant if not for Cosette’s reaction.  Oh!  “Do you know Ariadne?  I do recall her mentioning vampire brothers.”

 “Of course, assuming you refer to Aaliyah’s ‘auntie’.  She’s a delight!” he told me.

 “Excellent!  Might I have your autograph for one of my employees.  Cosette seemed rather excited when Ariadne mentioned…” I was saying, stopping when he suddenly dashed off.  He was incredibly fast.

 “Here you are.  I composed a letter for her.” he told me, though only seconds had passed.  Seeing my astoundment, he said, “I actually wrote that to her after Ariadne told me of her.  I just needed to pop home to get it.”

 “‘Pop.’, you say.  Do grow up.” stated an elderly looking man who appeared beside Zachary.

 “As if you can talk, Vito.” came a gruff voice from over the side of the bridge.

 I peeked over to see a monstrous face wink at me.  He had a large, squat nose and elongated, pointy ears.  His eyes looked far too small for his enormous head, and I could see a wing stretching from his back.

 “Please, Papak.  You haven’t changed your name since 300 B.C.” stated Vito.

 Smiling, Zachary said, “These are my older brothers, Vito Sanguinem  and Papak Khoon.”

 “A pleasure to meet you all.” I told them.  “I take it that you’re a bit older than Ariadne then.”

 “Has Aaliyah really not mentioned us at all?” asked Vito.

 “Aww... don’t be offended!  James needs things at his own pace.” claimed Aaliyah, from where she suddenly appeared on my shoulders, hugging my head for support.

 I realized a moment later that we were no longer at the bridge.  Somehow, all of us were now in a well-furnished lounge with very high ceilings.

 “You’ll eventually get used to that happening.” claimed Zachary.

 “Speak for yourself.” stated Vito.

 “Well, I like it.  You two don’t have to take the long way into buildings.” claimed Papak.

 “You haven’t taken ‘the long way’ in centuries.” argued Vito.  “You could have stopped much sooner with a little more self control.”

 Papak reached forward and picked Vito up about the waist with a single large hand, pulling him close as he stared him down.  Vito seemed completely undaunted.

 “Don’t fret.  This sort of thing has happened regularly since we came to live on this island.” explained Zachary.  “We had grown accustomed to living apart.”

 “Will you three settle down?” asked Ariadne as she stormed into the room.  Spotting me, she said, “James, nice of you to visit.  Care for a drink?”

 I nodded and thanked her, and a tray with a complete tea set appeared in a flash of light beside me.

 “Auntie!  You didn’t offer me any!” pouted Aaliyah.

 “You’re stirring up mischief, and I will not encourage you.” replied Ariadne.

 Aaliyah fell off my back and slammed into the floor with her arm over her head.  “My own auntie won’t even encourage me!  I’m doomed, boss-man, sir.  Doomed!”

 “James, what did she do to these three now?” demanded Ariadne as I tried some tea.

 “Nothing really, except maybe transporting us here.  We had barely gotten introduced when she arrived.” I explained.

 “Well, don’t put up with her nonsense.” commanded Ariadne.  “She has a tendency to treat these three as playthings, despite the fact that they’ve been helping guard humanity for thousands of years.”

 “You, my dear, are absolutely adorable when you’re being sassy.” stated Vito, still held aloft by Papak.

 Ariadne crossed her arms and looked away from him.

 “What do you think, James?  Is that one really her niece?” asked Papak as he set Vito down.

 “I’ve learned not to argue with Aaliyah.” I told him, glancing down to see her still being melodramatic on the floor.

 “Zachary, James thinks I’m melodramatic.  Please tell him I’m not!” pleaded Aaliyah, now on her knees in front of him.

 “Umm… I don’t really want to be on your aunt’s bad side.  She spends more time with us.” he replied.

 “My…” started Aaliyah, stopping to count on her fingers.  “One of my somewhat oldish friends likes my aunt better than me!” she cried.

 “I wouldn’t say that I like her ‘better’, really.  I just know she’ll get moody if I take your side.” explained Zachary.

 “Moody!?  I haven’t been moody in at least a thousand years.” argued Ariadne.  “And as for you, Papak, I cannot believe you still don’t believe that Aaliyah is my niece.  Shame on you!”

 One of his enormous wings moved in front of him as if to shield him.  “You do have to admit that her being older than you makes that seem a bit improbable.” he insisted.

 “You know Carl.  Argue with him about it.” retorted Ariadne.

 My phone had started ringing as they argued.  I reluctantly decided to answer when I saw that Adelmar was calling.

 “Hello?” I asked.

 “James!  My team reported that they lost you, and my cousin got… you know how she is.” he suggested.

 “Ah.  I’m with some friends.” I told him.  I had spotted and ditched Adelmar’s lackeys shortly before making my way to the bridge where Zachary had found me.

 “Friends?  Here?” he asked.

 “Tell Adelmar that you’ve joined his nemeses to see how real men party.” yelled Zachary.

 “I… see.” stated Adelmar.  “I wasn’t aware that you knew them.  Though I wouldn’t presume to tell you what company to keep, I feel I must inform you that some in my family will take your current company as a personal affront, given that you are likely to marry into the family.”

 “Aaliyah’s here with me, so they can take up their grievances with her.  She simply loves hearing that people disapprove of her company.” I replied.  “Please tell Alma that I’m fine.”

 “As you say.  I look forward to dining with you tomorrow.  I asked the chef to prepare something extra special.” he assured me.

 “Ridiculous, isn’t he.” stated Vito as I hung up the phone.

 “That family forgot how to have fun ages ago.” agreed Papak, grabbing his brothers and roughly embracing them in his enormous arms.

 “I assure you, we’ll show you how to have a good time.” insisted Zachary with a grin.

This was most certainly going to be an interesting night.

[jmrphy]

Social science and the radical politics of not knowing

The amount of bullshit circulating at the moment is astounding. And to be clear, it appears to be just as bad in left-wing circles. In fact, what I see happening on the left is the most troubling to me because that’s where I’m positioned. There’s this idea you should “punch up” or focus one’s criticisms on one’s “enemies” but I think that’s a fatally mistaken notion. If you and your friends are thinking or doing something incorrectly, that is the most urgent issue.

As a political scientist, the truth is I usually don’t have that much to offer regarding current affairs. I think most social scientists, if they are being honest, have to admit this with respect to most issues at most times. But if there’s one thing my “expertise” gives me, if I have one valuable thing to offer in a time of crisis, it’s a highly refined bullshit detector. If there is one thing you learn as a well-trained social scientist, it is this: it is so hard to make correct inferences about what is going on in social phenomena. Most of the training of a social scientist is learning all the reasons why you cannot make certain inferences. So in times of crisis, when most people seem over-eager to make inferences (as a way of dealing with all of the cognitive and emotional anxieties), it is perhaps here that social scientists are most useful, to remind you that, whatever you think is going on—you are mostly wrong.

To be clear, when I say most people are “wrong” about most of their inferences, I don’t mean that nobody ever gets anything right, or that nobody understands anything. We all know a great deal, but it’s mostly embodied, practical knowledge. We know not to put our hand in a fire, and a million other important things. But when our mind starts trying to identify causal patterns in a hyper-complex situation (and really all social phenomenon are hyper-complex), collectively we will generate thousands of hypotheses and most of them will be false. Some will be true, but remember that some would be true even by accident. Monkeys typing on a keyboard long enough would produce true statements in some portion of the text.

Recognizing our incapacity to know things shouldn’t be distressing or disempowering; it’s humbling, liberating, relaxing, and empowering. It reminds you that the little ball of fat in your skull is actually a pretty faulty device and it’s not really your job to figure out everything going on in the world. Nobody can do that, but a lot of people think they can (and should); if you think you have this responsibility, not only will it drive you crazy but, as I said, on net you will not actually be contributing or helping anything. Again, don’t get me wrong, I think everyone has a lot to contribute—but not in the form of objective explanations of what is happening in the world. We have this ridiculous, faux-democratic notion that everyone is entitled to their own reading of what is happening, but this is wrong. We are all equal, but if anything, I would say we are all equally disentitled to our own readings of what is happening—we are disentitled by objective reality, which is ultimately chaos, and which does not allow any of us the privilege of knowing exactly what is happening or what is causing what. I think we can find a radically more true, honest, and ultimately connective/solidaristic community in the shared realization that I don’t know, you don’t know, but we both know we have each other in this moment. Crucially, you can adopt this attitude in good conscience as well, because it’s nobody’s moral or political burden—not even social scientists’—to save the world or a country or a people by pretending to have knowledge nobody can have

We are seeing right now the extraordinary mass-delusional implications of a media environment in which every agent believes they are capable of understanding what is happening, there are cultural and often monetary incentives for pretending to know what is happening, and no mechanism for sorting true from false. The primary problem isn’t fake news or purposeful deceit; the problem is massive new injection of noise in the system, everyday cognitive biases, and perverse incentives to perform knowledge where there do not exist mechanisms for testing and sorting knowledge claims (and I would add, absurd Western notions about personal control and responsibility which were temporarily useful in early modernity but are now leading to a kind of mental heat death in the context of the information age).

One of the other reasons an academic social scientist comes in handy here is that we do not primarily get paid to make prognostications about what is going on in the present moment. Sometimes people think this makes us “useless,” but indeed our “uselessness” is what makes us useful in times of uncertainty, deception, and mistrust: it is precisely because we generally don’t care about pretending to be useful that if we feel compelled to comment on current affairs, if only to say it is impossible to know something with any confidence, it should be relatively more trustworthy than someone who gets paid to provide useful commentary on a daily basis. In other words, the uncertain offerings of an academic social scientist are more likely to be a signal and articles by professional commentators are more likely to be noise. There is certainly a new cottage industry for academics who wish to enter the culture market of disingenuously over-confident inferences, but our real value is that generally if we are shooting from the hip with little to gain or lose, then you should be able to trust the academic social scientist, relatively. I would ask you to remember, especially if you are passionate about contributing to politics, that false answers are typically more responsible for evil than honest admissions of uncertainty.

We have to remember that the human mind has evolved to find patterns, even where they don’t exist. This is because, for the greater part of our history, if there was a snake in the grass and we failed to identify it, we could be fucked. But if there was not a snake in the grass and we thought we identified one, no big deal. So we evolved to err on the side of identifying patterns even where there is nothing. But what’s useful for avoiding snakes may very well be collectively suicidal for avoiding an infinite set of possible global threats via the internet. Right-wing people do this with crime and terrorism but left-wing people are doing this just as badly with the new semi-global, right-wing shift. As we now have screens that fling unprecedented volumes of noise at us all day and night (and which allow us to fling noise back into it!), I think we are really underestimating the degree to which our highly faulty human cognition, combined with our individual incentives to perform knowledge, can generate extraordinary harm to individuals and groups, sending collective understandings down systematically erroneous and divergent paths, and ultimately shaping actual behaviors of masses of people. And when the behavior of people is based on any degree of systematic error that is not being corrected over time, this is arguably the most potent recipe for almost all of the worst historical disasters.

To put it yet another way, even highly educated and otherwise trustworthy people right now are doing what social scientists call “overfitting their models.” In other words, developing theories that can fit all of the data they are observing, without realizing that a great deal of that data is noise. The thing is, a good explanation of noise is a really bad explanation of reality; what this means is that if you act or behave as if such explanations are true, almost by definition it will produce consequences other than the ones you are hoping to produce.

Again, this should all be liberating and relaxing to reflect on. If there is honestly a lot of uncertainty, and one honestly does not know, then one honestly deserves to try and relax, pay attention, learn, think, consider possible hypotheses, update them as you go, and in the meantime patiently focus on what you do know (inner convictions, empathy and solidarity for the people you encounter, etc). You are not obligated to go “do something” or “say something” immediately if the actual reality is such that really you are just scared because you don’t know what is going on.

Of course, be vigilant, be courageous, say and do what you believe in, but radicalism is an all-or-nothing proposition. If you want to be politically radical, you better also be radically honest, radically humble, and radically transparent. All I’m calling for is intellectual honesty regarding uncertainty. I’m not saying anyone should dampen their convictions or compromise with anything they find unjust. I’m just saying there’s nothing radical or even defensible about effectively making shit up because you want to produce some consequence, whether it be the soothing of your own anxiety, the production of “hope” for others, or the recruitment of others into your group. One of the most radical things you can do at any time is be correct. And in highly uncertain times, the most correct diagnosis of many things will be “we do not know.” You can still maintain deeply held convictions, and act passionately on various projects, while also maintaining the basic self-discipline of trying to honestly separate signal from noise. Speak and act decisively, at the highest intensity you can sustain, but only on the most correct possible interpretation of information. This is where I think social science converges with the most radical, progressive politics.

from Justin Murphy http://ift.tt/2k3ohGF

[ohwowbabee]

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You can’t see how you’ve created everything you see around you…but that’s because you’re thinking about the wrong “you.” Look, we already know that we take in 40x more information unconsciously than we are ever consciously aware of. Once you understand this principle, you can “dig in” to those parts of your unconscious mind that are creating the things you see around you and things that happen in your life and once you find them, you can pluck them out, or change them. This book is DEEP. It might be too deep for some. But if you’ve ever been remotely curious about radically transforming your life with new insights you certainly never knew existed before…if you want to become inspired with a river of “ah hah” moments… if you want to see how others have used these principles and techniques and actually have transformed their lives from the inside out. It’s a new 5-step easy method to transform any situation, heal yourself, feel better fast, erase emotional blocks and even reduce physical pain in minutes. I can’t make any huge claims (and neither do they) but the creators of this system have infused ancient techniques for rapid self improvement with modern technology and research. You’re about to experience a transformation that you can measure. It’ll help vaporize any tension, stress or emotional “charge” around a thought, a memory, a stressful event, any fear or even a traumatic experience.

This is a free gift to humanity, to help enlighten the world. This is worth your time and attention. This really is helping people all over the world. Also, there’s a crazy good book that’s being given away on that site. I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but it’s jam-packed with secret knowledge that will blow your mind. And all you’ve gotta do to receive a free copy, is tell a few people about the Self Improvement System (which is completely free.) Believe me, you’re going to love this little book! But regardless, I encourage you to check this out. Use the free system. Benefit from it. Feel a transformation. Then, you can go further down the “rabbit hole” if you want. Well, it’s been 7 days since I started telling you about The Self Improvement System and the blockbuster release of UBERMAN: 2nd Edition. You’ve had a while to start using and benefiting from the Self Improvement System and if you’ve been experiencing measurable results with it, I’d love to know! I genuinely care about my subscribers, and I want to keep you guys on FIRE! You’re going to love it… although it might challenge your beliefs. We’re conditioned to think one way for years (or our whole life) and then suddenly something comes along that just demolishes that long-held belief and we don’t know what to think. Or how to feel.

UBERMAN 2nd Edition Review and Bonus by Jason Mangrum – The Secrets That Unleash The Unlimited Power of Your Mind is the best. You will be like a professional.

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Inside these pages, you’ll learn amazing things like:

How to turn yourself or a friend into an instant “lie detector” – this misunderstood technique can be performed by anyone, anywhere at anytime…and once you learn how to use it the right way, the results will astound you!

An awesome secret about your subconscious, and how you don’t need countless years of meditation to communicate with it…that’s right, you can meet the wiser, deeper, enlightened part of you in minutes!

How you can influence another person’s strength, without ever touching them! (once you see this, you might have a hard time picking your jaw up off the floor!)

The only thing that robs you of your natural “superhuman” abilities, and how to crush it!

The secret behind the figure-eight “infinity” symbol…and how you can use it to easily unscramble your energy fields, allowing you to instantly think more clearly, make better decisions, have less stress and so much more!

Why some public speakers can drain an entire audience within minutes…while others enlighten, inspire and motivate people just by being in their presence! (If you want an ‘unfair advantage’ over any social situation, you must see this!)

 How an “imaginary line” drawn straight down the middle of your body can actually remove tension, pain, illness, disease and stress within SECONDS. (Once you learn this powerful technique, you’ll want to demonstrate it on everyone you know… in fact, other folks might start calling you a miracle worker…)

And this barely scratches the surface. You’ll also learn…

Two incredible “power tools” you can begin using to start immediately manifesting a happier, more magical life in five minutes or less…use these two simple tools every day and witness huge positive shifts in all areas of your life!

A master technique for manifesting the energy of money (or anything else)…you’ll begin to understand how energy is transformed into physical experiences using a law that goes way beyond the Law of Attraction and gives you actionable steps you can take to begin creating experiences that match your desires!

A ‘deceptively simple secret’ that’s like giving yourself “admin” access to the command prompt of your mind… and then gives you commands you can use to begin influencing physical reality!

Why “bad” things happen, and what to do about them…if you’ve ever wondered why you create bad things in your life, this gives you exactly the answer you’re searching for…and could cause you to see the world in a whole new way!

The one thing you MUST do to manifest anything you want into your life… 99% of people trying to create their reality miss this crucial step, and then wonder why ‘nothing happens.’ Once you learn this, you’ll never again have to ask yourself this question, because your manifestations will begin flowing into your life faster than ever before!

How to have a one-on-one personal experience with the famed, “Zero Point State.” This will no longer be a mystery to you, as you discover you can get there as many times as you wish, anytime you want!

The “Bow & Arrow” Technique for Instant Manifestation – This was developed from a combination of the most powerful quantum consciousness technologies available today. Things like this used to be kept so secret, whoever spilled the beans would have their tongue ripped out (no joke!) But today, you’re going to learn it!

The problem with Visualization, and how to fix it…Most people have a huge problem with visualizing anything…or, at least they think they do…here’s how to master visualization, literally overnight!

How your entire world (as you perceive it) is created through SOUND, and how you can use this knowledge to raise your vibrations and experience new realities through resonance!

How to overcome any challenge, no matter if you think you’re at the end of your rope and there’s no hope left! (regardless how you feel, or what you believe this is virtually guaranteed to work for you…)

The Secret of ‘True Love’ and what to do when your other half isn’t on the same path you are… you really can be happy, stay with the one you love, and keep growing and learning together!

The secret science of “miracles” and how you can perform them. Once you learn this ‘consciousness technology’ your limitations will be shattered!

How to find your purpose…most people go through life wondering what their purpose is… “why am I here?”, “what am I supposed to do?”, “what is my true calling?” – here’s how to find these answers and fulfill your purpose!

How to cure any addiction…there’s something about “addiction” that you were never taught in school, or anywhere else. And once you learn this invaluable lesson, no substance, concept, idea or experience can ever be attached to you again, unless you want it. Do this technique and you can be free, and in control of your life.

The Secret of ESP, Telepathy & Precognition – once you learn this secret, your mind will never be the same. Imagine being able to see into potential futures, the past, remotely see across vast distances…it’s all REAL and it’s here for you to enjoy and experience…but you MUST learn the secret of how your higher mind works to make this actually possible!

UBERMAN Is Like The Workbook That The Producers Of “The Secret” Forgot To Include!

But that’s still not all… in these 112 pages of this 2nd Edition you’ll also discover:

Why most people struggling with money think of it as paper with dead presidents on it… but the real value of money is __(Hint: It isn’t time – or Bitcoin)

Eight steps to consistent and scientifically reliable money manifestation (that has nothing to do with ‘coincidence’ or planning on purpose)

Are you unconsciously attracting bullies, misery and drama in your life? (Sometimes, you’re too deep into the matrix to tell which). The evidence is hard to find, but here is your way out.

How a simple tweak of your perception can help bring us all closer to global peace.

__, and __, along with __ and __ are 4 powerful phrases that can generate instant healing, even for the critically ill. ( And you don’t have to be in contact with them to get verifiable results)

7.2 billion humans are raised on a single question that ignites enslavement programming inside them. Here’s how to regain control and switch to a new program effortlessly.

While most other people feel like they’re blown about like a tumbleweed in the desert of life, you’ll learn the shortest, most direct path to smashing through any goal you want to achieve!

Some who get it, don’t really get it. Make this tiny mistake, and you’ll find yourself among the hardened ‘skeptics’ who’ve tried it all and failed miserably, then blamed the info!

Are you “at the table” OR “on the menu?” __ and __ are 2 words that determine where you end up every single time. Find out inside.

A working solution for anyone who struggles with feelings of being perpetually stuck in life, and weighed down with frustrations of the “been there, done that” syndrome.

A surprising technique that helps put you at ease and strengthens your confidence in your own inner-power, reinforcing your self-trust so your limitless self can begin flowing abundantly!

A way around the annoying “doubting Thomas” inside who always soils your progress through unbelief in your own full potential that zaps your unstoppable true power.

While other methods barely ever generate verifiable, repeatable results you’ll learn secret skills, techniques and hidden consciousness technologies that ONLY produce these kinds of results!

And much, much more!

Inside these 112 pages, you’ll learn things like:

How you can influence another person’s physical strength, without ever touching them! (once you see this, you might have a hard time picking your jaw up off the floor)

How an “imaginary line” drawn straight down the middle of your body can actually remove tension, pain, illness, disease and stress within SECONDS. (Once you learn this powerful technique, you’ll want to demonstrate it on everyone you know!)

An awesome secret about your subconscious and how you don’t need countless years of meditation to communicate with it…that’s right, you can meet the wiser, deeper, enlightened part of you within minutes!)

Why “bad” things happen, and what to do about them…if you’ve ever wondered why you create bad things in your life, this gives you exactly the answer you’re searching for…and could cause you to see the world in a whole new way!

The “Bow & Arrow” Technique for Instant Manifestation – This was developed from a combination of the most powerful quantum consciousness technologies available today. Things like this used to be kept so secret, whoever spilled the beans would have their tongue ripped out (no joke!) But you’re going to learn it inside the book!

The problem with Visualization, and how to fix it…Most people have a huge problem with visualizing anything…or, at least they think they do…here’s how to master visualization, literally overnight!

And much, much more…

forget about wasted time end payment high price,. UBERMAN 2nd Edition is something I’ve been waiting for, I had seen these kinds on many sites before but didn’t now of any tool that could create like UBERMAN 2nd Edition. My advice don’t wait around, jump in! UBERMAN 2nd Edition will pay for itself as soon as you start using it.

UBERMAN 2nd Edition is the best software on the market right now (as far as I know). UBERMAN 2nd Edition comes with easy to follow instructions. You don’t need any technical experience to make these improvements. is good news for online bussiness. UBERMAN 2nd Edition by Jason Mangrum Bonus

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