#no memory and also looks different.' And Michael actually had an honest connection with someone and honest affection

[bagheerita]

DS9's "Second Skin" once again shaming the Stargate Atlantis writing team by doing an episode they wrote but over 10 years earlier and 50 times better. I went on a rant about "Sunday" vs "Lessons" a couple years ago, but watching "Second Skin" is like seeing what "Michael" could have been if written by people who understood drama instead of only being acted by people who did. There are definitely differences, like we start out having a relationship with Kira which we don't with Lt Kenmore, but with the whole fake identity plot having the person's actual parent there makes it sooooooo much more emotional. (This is what I wanted from "Michael"!! Not just handing him a stock photo that literally looks like it came with the frame and telling him "These are your parents." But an actual emotional connection, any tie for him to cling to to believe your bullshit and not just Teyla being quietly agreeable like whoring her out is the only way you can sell your lies. Because, here in DS9 as well, the lies are so obviously bullshit.) But making it a double blind also, where you lied to the parent as well to make sure you manipulated that honest emotional connection into existing, fantastic, exquisite, Stargate wishes. And in the end the point of the episode is different, as Lt Kenmore is the focus of his episode and Kira is really just the excuse to expose the Legate by having him try to protect his "daughter," but (and as much as I love "Michael") the emotional content here is so much deeper and sweeter. Maybe SGA writers are allergic to honest emotions, or maybe the writers were trying to hedge their bets with not portraying their main cast as being as evil as the Obsidian Order... though if you're going to go with the war crimes go whole hog with the war crimes come on.

[anika-ann]

Heart Too Cold, but Friends of Gold - Pt.11

Too Much

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader     Word count: 2850

Summary: Avenger!reader AU. Part 2 of Melting Hearts series. Part 1 HERE.

The lesson with ‘Inna’ takes an interesting turn. Yeah.

“You are so good. So good, you’re always feeling so much. And sometimes it feels like you’re gonna bust wide open from all the feeling, doesn’t it? People like you are the best in the world, but you sure do suffer for it.” (Silas House)

Warnings: swearing, light angst, mention of an injury, sort-of-a flashback… eh

Story Masterlist

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“I have no idea how I can help you improve your English, you’re almost like a native speaker,” you announced, pretending to be awed.

On the inside, you were freaking out. A lot. The reason was simple; there was something incredibly fishy about your new student and it made your hair stand on the end.

The lesson had been nice – once Inna let go of the insecurity about her accent, she spoke fluently and she made a great conversational partner. You had pulled out one of the difficult worksheets you were using for students you believed to be on a very advanced level and she had no problem with it. Which was the biggest clue, really.

Because this woman didn’t need your help whatsoever.

Also, she was wearing a wig, which was suspicious on its own.

“Thanks!” she exclaimed, sounding excited at the praise. You would almost believe her she was being genuine. Almost. “I guess it’s the accent I’m worried about? I mean, I thought that with talking to you, listening to a native speaker, it could get less obvious. I heard not everyone is welcoming to a girl with accent like mine.”

You obediently made a face as you started picking up your stuff, slipping into a light coat. “Ouch. Okay. Well, thank you for the lesson. See you on next Tuesday, the same time?”

“Yeah. Same place?”

You nodded, smiling nervously at her, hoping it didn’t show. “If you want to.”

You might have set up a next meeting with her, but you would be damned if you showed up. You needed to pack your bags and disappear – right now. Maybe even without the bags. You tried to keep your cool when exiting the café, your new student right behind you.

“Where are you heading?” you asked politely, already coming up with a dozen of locations you could answer her with if she asked you the same. Your heart was beating its way out of your chest as you nuzzled your nose into your thick scarf.

Where would you go next? You couldn’t stay in Prague. Should you head for Slovakia? You had heard countless times that the culture was pretty similar to the Czech one and you had kinda grown used to it. Or should you change the environment completely? Escape to Bulgaria? Maybe Italy? You could use some warm weather for a change… then again, Italians were all for hugs and affection and you couldn’t really work with that…

“Oh, Karlín. You?”

Okay, so… you definitely needed a different direction and chances were she would be taking either the subway B line or the tram, which meant you needed to use A. Or maybe go to the other side of the square for C, but that might be too suspicious – God knew what Eva had told this woman about your whereabouts. You couldn’t lie too obviously.

“I’m going to Želivského…. That’s A line subway,” you added when she seemed a bit confused. You walked with her for a bit, parting your ways at the stairs to the subway.

“Alright. Bye, Brigit!”

“Bye, Inna.”

You gave her another quick smile before heading down, forcing your legs to walk on acceptable speed instead of running.

Head for the A line. Blend in with the crowd and let it slowly carry you to the transfer corridor to the B line. Take the escalator, stand straight, don’t walk up. Exit via B line station. Hop on a tram. Two stations. Change the direction and ride one station back, continue several others as the track goes somewhere else. Get off the tram with a crowd. Get lost in an alleyway as the crowd is passing. Be pulled by a strong-

“Hey! Let me go! Nech mě být!” you cursed, complaining loudly so you draw attention as someone dragged you aside to an alleyway.

A huge hand covered your mouth and you bit down on it before you could even see who your assailant was. It didn’t matter. They had you and you couldn’t use your powers to reveal yourself, at least not right away. Maybe they would believe they had the wrong person.

“Ow! No biting!” a male voice complained and your rapidly beating heart stopped.

Oh god, oh fuck, no.

That wasn’t happening. You snapped your gaze to the painfully familiar face with the most honest and genuine blue eyes you had ever encountered and your mind turned blank.

He couldn’t be here. He shouldn’t and he couldn’t, because you had been extremely careful. Apparently not enough and now they found you; whoever ‘they’ were.

And they were using masks and voice disguisers, because you would fucking swear this was the love of your life standing right in front of you. They were playing dirty, taking you by surprise like this.

And they succeeded. Whoever was trying to get to Steve so they could replicate the serum just got themselves a jackpot. Except you were pretty sure you were worthless at this point; but they could never be sure enough of that unless they tried blackmailing the Avengers or Steve himself. Also, Steve would never let anyone die on his watch, so his most likely non-existent feelings weren’t that important.

You were about to scream when the hand muffled the sound again – was it really healed already? Why hadn’t they tried to knock you unconscious yet?

“Goddammit, Frosty! Keep it quiet!”

“Don’t call me that, you bastard!” you muttered into his palm, your knee shooting up to his crotch – he had left it unprotected unwisely.

His face twisted in a grimace that made you feel sorry for Steve even when your Steve wasn’t the one truly suffering – he couldn’t be, this couldn’t be him. His hand disappeared and you pushed him away with all strength you had, managing to free yourself.

“Wait!” he called out and you barely gave him a glance over your shoulder as you ran off-

Correction. As you ran into a wall. With full force, hitting your head so hard that for a moment, you saw the infamous stars behind your eyelids.

You stumbled backwards with a groan and your hand at the injured place, your messy mind coming up with the only solution you had – you woke up your powers, somehow realizing you couldn’t have run into an actual wall, because it simply hadn’t been there before. You barely felt the energy filling your body as the darkness embraced your vision – and the last thing you saw was red plasmatic energy and Inna’s apologetic face.

────── ·❆· ──────  

“Was it really necessary, Wanda?” you heard Steve’s (not Steve’s) voice from a distance and groaned, immediately remembering what had happened. Fuck, you were so screwed. “Snowflake?”

“Call me that again and I will freeze your balls off.”

The woman at the side of the bed you were lying on – yeah, really, bed, a bed you weren’t tied to, which was kinda sloppy to be honest – burst out laughing.

“She’s really something. I think I fell in love.”

“Good. Do you think that after you knocked her unconscious, she will fall in love with you too?” the man bit back, smoothening your hair from your forehead. You grabbed his wrist on instinct to stop the motion.

Also, you could feel your mask was off. Wonderful. You opened your eyes to see the wannabe Steve and shot him a pointed look.

“Don’t touch me. I have no fucking idea who you are, but do not touch me. At least be fair and show your real face, you dickbag.”

“That’s a lot of money to the swear jar,” Inna – Wanda? – noted and you eyed her only to see her crossing her arms on her chest. She looked completely different now and confused the hell out of you. She took her wig off, not wearing a mask (or wearing a different one) and the only reason you recognized her as ‘Inna’ was her thick accent. “And since you don’t believe him – or me – let me show you. I can connect two minds on a certain level and I will. Good? I’m so glad you agree with this procedure.”

Before you could do a thing, she took the man’s hand from yours and touched both of you simultaneously. You gasped and closed your eyes at the flood of pictures appearing in front of your eyes, the noise, the— the feelings. It knocked the air out of your lungs, flushing over you like a tide wave.

You saw it all. Every single memory of you and Steve, from the first meeting (oh how pathetic and scared you looked) and gaining each other’s trust to the cuddles and the teasing…  

The longing (oh, so much longing, the inner fight, the struggle not to take advantage of you, the desire to kiss you as you smiled at you? No, him), the love declaration, your first time, fighting by your side (the overwhelming fear every single time, yet so much admiration and respect), finding you in a snowed-in room with Michaels; that one scene seemed to happen in a slow motion, letting your brain recover.

All of the memories were strange as you saw yourself from above, from an unusual angle, but this particular memory was standing out with one more thing – your eyes were shiningly blue, unnaturally even; Michaels had been right, your eyes had changed colour that day.

Then the pace changed again and there was the memory of the tenderest love-making and you could tell immediately it must have been a very fond memory and an intense one too – spiked with a bitter taste of goodbye. The sudden rush of pain and fear would make your knees give out had you been standing,

And then came the anger – so consuming that you saw red for a second, yet recognizing Michaels in his prisoner’s cell with painful clarity. A punch. Another one and one more, yet not helping the gnawing feeling inside you at all.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Obviously, you wanted to isolate her. But you had that in Pennsylvania as well. Why go through all the trouble?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I knew you would be with her, even as a backup, running after her like sick puppies. She wouldn’t do that alone.  Protecting the man she owed everything though…”

“Who do you work for? What do you want with her?”

“What I told her. We want to replicate the serum.”

“…you’re not talking about the super-soldier serum.”

“Course not. Pff. Super-soldiers are so yesterday. The powers your precious Snowflake possesses, on the other hand…”

You were literally kicked out from the memory and shoved into a roller-coaster of hope, disappointment, frustration and denial. You caught a glimpse of a little flask with an engraving that looked suspiciously like an Asgardian one, of starless nights, endless line of torn off punching bags, but it was like seeing it from a train, too fast and blurry.

And then Bucky appeared. S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. Sokovia happened – Wanda, Pietro and Vision happened.

Finally, there was you again, biting his hand and kneeling him, endless relief and confusion and a spike of anger as you ran into an almost invisible wall of energy created by the Scarlet Witch. The hesitance about deactivating your mask; the rush of affection when seeing your face.

And pitch black.

You blinked your eyes open, darkness dancing around the edges of the simple white ceiling. A ghost of a touch on your wrist was present, but the sensation was nothing in comparison to the aftershock of emotions that bombarded your brain and insides.

Steve was leaning onto your bed for support, possibly feeling the same weakness in his body as you were. Tears burned in your eyes and you tried to focus your gaze on him, to feast your eyes, because you were suddenly sure it was him. Your heart swelled at the realization, the vital organ too large for your ribcage all of sudden.

His dazed eyes met yours, relieved as he noticed the change. He managed to give you an unsure smile as he lowered himself, reaching for your hand.

“Are you gonna bite me again if I touch you?” he asked, the supposedly teasing note lost on the way from his brain to his mouth. He seemed hesitant, afraid of rejection. Yet, he was watching you in awe and poorly hidden hope.

You felt the blood rushing to your cheeks when you remembered that you had bit him and… kicked him in— oh boy. You already had an apology on your tongue when you changed your mind and forced a smile. There would be plenty of time for apologies.

“No. But I might if you don’t.”

His face brightened and he took your hand in his, squeezing gently, careful as much as he had been when you had seen each other the last time. It felt like eternity since then. And after experiencing the grief you had caused him… you actually felt guilty for running off – especially now, when you found out Michaels had been playing you and you had fallen for it.

You had run off for nothing. You had actually done exactly what they had wanted, isolating yourself and making their work easier. No contact, no life, no relationships. Hurting people you cared about. Loneliness being your only true friend for so long.

And all of that for nothing.

It was a little comfort that at least you managed to hide from Michaels’ minions or bosses effectively. It didn’t feel important.

The tears rolled down your cheeks as you watched Steve, emotions displayed so openly on his face; the concern at your tears if nothing else. His fingers brushed your forehead as if unwittingly, the tender touch making your eyelids flutter close. He immediately pulled back.

“Head that bad?”

“No, you dope,” you mumbled, snapping your eyes open again. He watched you curiously, searching for anything that could clue him why you called him a dope. Not that it was the worst thing you had called him today. “I… I missed you and— and I’m so sorry, Steve. I-- I know I made a stupid mistake and I didn’t want to hurt you, I swear, I didn’t want you to get hurt-”

“Hey, hey,” he soothed you quickly, his fingers running through your hair and you realized you started crying for real, sobbing and all the ugliness associated with the display of weakness. “Hey, Snowflake, it’s okay— …it’s not okay, I think I won’t take you back to others, because Natasha or Tony might actually kill you, but-“

“But you won’t? What do I get then? The silent treatment? A beating? ‘Cause I’ll take it, I know I deserve it.”

His eyebrows furrowed, creating a worried yet somehow tender wrinkle. “How about ‘I missed you too’ treatment?”

Your heart skipped a beat as you realized his face got closer, his thumb drawing circles on the back of your hand and the fingers of his other hand still caressing your hair.

“What— what does that look like?” you choked out, a growing lump in your throat suffocating you.

That couldn’t be real. He was mad. You had felt it. You had felt it all, the good things too of course, but the pain too. Fixing things, getting forgiveness, it couldn’t be so easy. Too easy.

“Whatever you want.”

You observed his handsome face, his worn features, the exhaustion radiating for miles as well as delight and careful hope.

“That doesn’t sound right.”

He pouted. Steve Rogers fucking pouted as if he wanted to draw attention to his lips some more. He succeeded. You licked yours at the sight, mentally slapping yourself at instant. You had broken his heart – almost two years ago. You had no right to want any of that.

“Oh my god, just kiss already, your emotional roller-coaster is killing me!” Wanda whined miserably and you honest to god jolted to your feet, almost colliding with startled Steve. Your head spun and it wasn’t only from the rapid movement.

Jesus, you forgot all about Wanda!

“Wanda,” Steve murmured lowly, no chance of her truly hearing it. You did though and you eyed him, biting your lip.

“Do you-“ you blurted out and stopped abruptly before you could finish the bold question.

“What?” he asked softly, his hands hovering at your sides, ready to catch you if your head decided to send you back to unconsciousness – or at least to the floor. Always the protector. The rush of affection towards him was too much to bear.

Yet, you couldn’t imagine leaving this room without him.

“Never mind. We should move. If you found me, then they-“

His hand actually fell on your hip and your gaze shot its direction before looking up to his face in surprise.

“Wait. Do you?”

You gulped as his eyes flickered to your mouth at his words and you would swear you heard Wanda mutter ‘yes, she does’. Your cheeks burned hotter.

“Yes.”

His lips slowly spread in a smile as he leaned in, his kiss landing on your cheek. You chuckled delightfully at the familiar yet so foreign feeling and returned the favour.

When he went for your mouth with silent ‘Can I?’, you sure didn’t protest.

Meeting his lips felt like coming home, even with the kiss ending way earlier than you wished. But him letting you melt into his embrace after that was almost as good as kissing him senseless.

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Epilogue 

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Tags: @mermaidxatxheart​​, @murdermornings​​, @elisaa-shelby​​ @ask-hellbent-tweek​​ @cxptain​​, @kallafrench​​, @smilexcaptainx​​ @scentedsongrebel​​, @orions-nebula​

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*Draws a hallo above her head* Have some more knowledge of Prague infrastructure. It’s authentic :D

They reunited! Also, there’s only epilogue ahead.... and a bonus. Aaaand then the series continues. 

[bestillmyslashyheart]

own personal hell 3/3

part one || part two

It was nine days before Alex got Rosa’s text. It was another four before he could get back to Roswell. 

Michael never woke up. The crucifix brand on his arm erupted in fresh blood and boils, the scent of charred skin filling Maria’s apartment, on the third day. After that, they moved him into a private room at the hospital, the need to keep him alive overriding Isobel’s security concerns. On the seventh, Michael started cringing in pain and arching his back off of the bed until Kyle turned him on his stomach. A look under his shirt showed a back that was bruised a deep violent purple. A pained whisper of Max’s name clued Isobel into the bruise’s origins. She hadn’t thought Max had thrown him into the truck that hard but clearly she was wrong. 

Every day, Isobel lost hours to Michael’s mind. She shoved as many happy memories and positive thoughts at him as she could but she could only keep it up for so long. For every hour she was with Michael, she needed twice that to recover. If there was a silver lining from all of this, it was that Isobel was finally getting to know her brother. Standing next to him and facing his memories with him showed her first hand the horrors he’d faced in the system while she and Max had been safe at home with their parents. She watched him fall in love with Alex (watched him get his heart broken and fall in love again anyway, and then do it all over again, and again). There was so much more to their relationship than she had ever imagined. She watched and felt Michael and Max’s relationship splinter and fracture and crumble in the wake of Rosa’s death and their secret. She felt the soft glow of love and friendship in his memories of Liz and Maria and, surprisingly, Jenna Cameron. Then there was Caulfield. Isobel still had trouble processing Michael’s emotions from that day. There was elation and relief at not being alone, at having real family, but there was also heartbreak and rage and self-hatred for their deaths, for causing their deaths inadvertently. 

It was all a mess. Michael was a mess. And he was dying under the pressure of his own mind. All Isobel could do was stand there and watch.

On the thirteenth day, Isobel settled into the bed next to Michael and delved deep once again. As always, she was immediately bombarded with glimpses and snippets of Michael’s memories, his thoughts and feelings, as she searched for him. She never felt the weight of his memories until she was right next to him but it never occurred to her to stay away once she was in his head, no matter how uncomfortable she may get.

“Guerin?” Everything stilled. One word and the whirlwind of Michael’s thoughts paused. His head lifted up a fraction from where it was huddled in his arms. “Michael?” Isobel felt the calm start to wash over her as she felt the faint pressure of calloused hands cradling Michael’s left hand, careful of his injury. “Jesus Christ, Guerin.” Isobel could tell the speaker was whispering but she heard him loud and clear. Michael slowly uncurled.

“Alex?” He croaked.

Isobel’s eyes widened in surprise though she wasn’t sure why. Of course Alex would be the one to get through to Michael, that’s what she’d determined that first day, but she hadn’t recognized his voice. It sounded different through Michael’s ears. And, if she was being honest with herself, she hadn’t been entirely sure Alex could actually do it. 

“Can you hear me?” Alex sounded unsure, almost timid. Michael nodded in response even though Alex had no way of seeing him. Isobel saw that and rolled her eyes, pausing for just a moment to soak in the quiet before slowly pulling out. 

When she opened her eyes, Alex was standing next to the bed on Michael’s other side, his fatigues dirty as if he’d come straight here from training without pause. He looked weary and strangely hesitant somehow as he cradled Michael’s hand in his own, his thumb stroking gently over the bandage. “Bout time,” Isobel griped as she struggled to sit up. Alex jerked his head in surprise at her voice, one of his hands leaving Michael to help her up. “He’s quiet.”

“I-” Alex shook his head. “Kyle tried to explain what was going on but it didn’t make any sense.”

“Michael tried something new, it backfired, he’s trapped in his head in like this vortex of misery, and you’re the only one who get him out.”

“How?” Alex almost pleaded.

Isobel half shrugged. “Don’t ask me to explain your relationship with my brother to you. All I know is his mind is a mess and nothing has been able to soothe him even a little bit in two weeks until he heard your voice. When you said his name, things quieted in that head of his. So now I need you to convince him to wake up.”

“You realize we’ve barely spoken in months, right?” Alex blinked. “And you want me to, what, convince him to live?”

“Trust me, if I could do it I would have already. Maria already tried. Neither one of us in two weeks has accomplished a fraction of what you did by just saying his name.” Isobel didn’t think she’d have to convince him to save Michael. “Just, I don’t know, talk to him. Remind him that the memories he’s trapped in are just that. That reality is out here.”

Michael whimpered and Alex forgot Isobel was there. She watched as his hand hovered next to Michael’s face, his fingers twitching like he needed to touch. Michael’s head rolled to the side so he could face Alex. “‘lex?” Michael whispered.

It was the first word he’d spoken out loud since he’d fallen under.

“Yeah, Guerin, I’m here,” Alex promised, his fingers finally giving in to his desire as he cupped Michael’s face. His thumb rubbed over Michael’s cheek. “I’m here.”

“I might need to take you in,” Isobel suggested quietly. “So you can actually talk to him.”

“How do we do that?”

“Get comfortable,” Isobel directed. “You kind of lose track of time in there and you really shouldn’t be standing.” Alex pulled up a chair without letting go of Michael’s hand and nodded at Isobel to continue. “I’m going to go into your mind and make that connection and then bring you into Michael’s so you need to keep your mind open and let me in.

Alex nodded again and Isobel sank into the familiar feeling. Even with someone she’d never done this with before, the sensation was like greeting an old friend. Isobel barely had time to blink before the connection was in place.

“Is this it?” Alex asked immediately. He looked around them at the soft hazy space, a solid steel wall on his right. Isobel eyed it curiously, confused by the unexpected sight. 

“We’re in your mind,” Isobel explained absently, her attention still on the wall. 

“And now Michael’s?” Alex urged.

Isobel nodded and focused on Michael’s mind. At this point, it took nothing to slip inside. His mind opened up for her like the door of his Airstream. In a breath they moved seamlessly from Alex’s walled in serenity to the center of Michael’s tornado. Isobel braced herself for Alex’s reaction but she needn’t have worried. He immediately left her side and almost danced his way through the mess, careful not to disturb anything as he made his way straight towards Michael. Isobel wandered close enough to see them, to see Michael unfurl under Alex’s touch, but stayed far enough away to give them their privacy.

As the tension left Michael’s body, the space around her slowed until it stilled. And then it changed. What was an almost senseless void faded into the New Mexico desert, nothing around for miles except Michael’s beat up old truck which appeared beneath him and Alex. The sun was starting to set on the horizon and the sky was painted in swaths of orange and gold and purple.

Alex’s laugh filled the air. “You’ve got a thing for desert sunsets,” he teased lightly. Isobel looked over to see Michael shrug as he settled himself in Alex’s arms, the two of them braced against the window of the cab.

“What’s not to love?” Michael asked, his voice surprisingly clear.

Alex hummed in response, the slightest sound covering the distance between them and Isobel easily. “We never really got to see many of them.”

“Not yet,” Michael returned softly.

Alex looked down at him. “You want more sunsets?”

“Yeah.” Michael looked up at Alex. “It’s peaceful.”

“Calms the chaos?”

“No, that’s you. The sunsets are just the icing on top.”

“Michael-” Alex choked out. “You know this is a dream, right?”

“It’s a good dream.” Michael looked away. “Had a lot of nightmares lately.”

“So wake up,” Alex nudged him gently. “We’re in your head, Guerin. None of this is real. You want more sunsets? Wake up.”

Michael hummed. “But you won’t be there when I wake up. I only get you in my dreams.”

Alex moved Michael far enough away that Michael was forced to turn and look at him. “This may be a dream, but I’m real. I’m here and I’m in the damn hospital room next to you.”

“Fine,” Michael agreed easily. “But as soon as I wake up, you’ll leave again.”

“You wanted me to leave,” Alex reminded him. “You started a relationship with Maria and asked me to give you space to move on.”

“Yeah well I was an idiot. I thought I could be happy without you.”

“You are happy, Guerin.”

“No I’m not. Not really. I’m happier, I’m content, I’m solid for maybe the first time in my life, but I’m not happy.” Michael shifted fully away from Alex and looked out at the setting sun. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Alex confessed softly. “But I’m not having this conversation in your head. Wake up so we can talk for real.”

Michael sighed and shook his head. “It’s not all nightmares in here.”

Alex closed his eyes like he couldn’t believe Michael’s stubbornness. “Yeah? What’s the best dream you have?”

“Me and you, out here one night with our guitars. It was your third visit home after you left.”

“...and you remember the guitars?” The way he said guitars told Isobel that a lot more than music had happened that night.

Michael shrugged. “I get to relive the good stuff, not the best stuff.”

Alex seemed to come to a decision and nodded sharply before sitting up and swinging a leg over Michael’s and settling in his lap. Michael grabbed his hips as Alex tangled his fingers in Michael’s hair. Isobel watched with a sort of morbid fascination as Alex slowly closed the gap between them before pausing a hairsbreadth away from Michael’s lips. “You wanna what’s great about the real world?” Alex whispered. “You get more of the best stuff.”

Michael leaned forward to close the gap but Alex moved away after a few scant seconds. He was up and out of Michael’s lap before Isobel could blink. Michael’s groan filled the air. “Alex.”

“Wake up, Guerin,” he commanded. “I’ll be waiting.” He joined Isobel. “Let’s go.”

“What?” Isobel stared at him as Michael shouted his name.

“Let’s go. If we stay here, he has no reason to wake up.”

Isobel opened her mouth to argue before deciding against it. She gave Michael a lingering look before slipping out of his mind with Alex in tow. 

They woke up to Kyle hovering over them. “You’ve been out for six hours,” he chided. 

Isobel groaned as she tried to move, her limbs protesting the action after so long. “Any change in Michael?” Kyle shook his head.

“Did it work?” Liz asked from the doorway, Rosa peering over her shoulder. 

“Evidently not,” Isobel grumbled as she forced herself to her feet. Kyle pressed a bottle of acetone into her hands and she smiled gratefully before chugging half of the bottle. She’d likely spend the rest of the day sleeping this off but she wanted to stay awake as long as possible to see if Michael woke up.

Alex hadn’t moved from his chair, though he was massaging his leg like it ached something fierce. “You tried, Alex,” Isobel told him. “It’s up to him now.” 

Alex nodded as he accepted a quick hug from Liz and Rosa. Apparently he hadn’t stopped for pleasantries on his way in. 

They waited around for another hour before Isobel could hardly keep her eyes open and Alex admitted he desperately needed a shower. Kyle agreed to keep an eye on Michael while Liz and Rosa offered to drive the two of them home. They were almost out the door when-

“Reality sucks.”

The five of them nearly tripped over each other as they all rushed back into the room. Michael watched them bleary eyed from his bed. Isobel let out a watery laugh as she hugged Michael tightly before smacking him upside the head. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

“I promise.” 

“Hey Mikey,” Liz ducked in for a hug the second Isobel pulled away, “You had us all worried.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “How long was I out?”

“Two weeks,” Rosa told him as she ducked in to press a kiss to his cheek. She wasn’t a hugger unless it was Liz. Michael stared at her in shock.

“Two weeks?!”

“It’s why you’re in the hospital,” Kyle explained kindly. “We needed to keep an eye on you and make sure you got your fluids and nutrients.” Michael blinked at him. 

“Holy shit, I’m sorry Izzy,” he turned to her. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone like that.”

“I know,” she promised, gripping his hand tight. “And now you’re back.”

“Now I’m back.” He squeezed her hand and then looked away. Isobel didn’t need to follow his gaze to know he was looking for Alex.

“Alright. I seriously need to sleep for like a solid day so someone’s driving me home right now.” She hopped off of the bed and shooed Kyle and the Ortecho’s out ahead of her, unsubtly leaving Alex in the room with Michael. 

“You said you’d be waiting,” she heard Michael say.

“And here I am,” Alex replied.

“You also said the real world has the best stuff,” Michael half asked hopefully. Isobel closed the door on the sound of Alex’s quiet laugh and lips meeting.

She turned around to see Maria hunched over in a waiting chair, her knee bouncing anxiously. “Is he okay?”

The four of them paused, unsure of what to say. Isobel knew she wasn’t the only one to hear their exchange. 

“He’s okay,” Liz finally said. “He’s awake. But I think he and Alex need to talk so maybe give them some time?”

Maria’s face fell as she nodded. “Yeah, okay. You’re sure he’s okay.”

“He is,” Kyle promised. “Come on. We’ve all been up for weeks. Go home and get some sleep. Come back in the morning when you and he are both wide awake and not about to pass out.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. That’s smart.” Maria cast a sad but resigned look at Michael’s door before gathering her things and following them out.

[dotthings]

Now that’s how to do pain. It hurts but there was growth and the story and characters moved forward. Thoughts on 14.18 featuring lonely bunker tracking shots, Jack’s subconscious being an asshole, self-aware Winchesters, remorseful Cas, big Destiel drama, and Team Free Will tested but not broken. 

“Get out of jail free card.” So yeah. Jack’s been fixing mortal injuries and murdering enemies and being the magical fix-it guy and this is exactly why the writers have had to keep messing up Cas in various ways or having him vanish because Sam and Dean can’t have a magical superpower hanging around fixing stuff all the time. Jack is a lot more powerful than Cas now, and a lot more of a wild card, while Cas as completely proven himself, so this issue has shifted from Cas, who is much more of a steady fixture in Sam and Dean’s lives, to Jack who is re-powered up and extra powerful and a loose cannon. So of course things have to go terribly wrong with Jack. What the endpoint will be, I don’t know. Re-souled and reduced power? Re-souled and turned human? I don’t know. There’s probably going to be a lot of hurt first.

The shots of that empty bunker as the camera reflects Sam and Dean’s search for Mary and Jack, who were supposed to be back there, is very very telling. Oh so interesting. Sam and Dean alone in their bunker is no bueno and the narrative is underscoring in yellow highlighter with these visuals and the boys’ worry. The bunker should be filled with their family and the emptiness and loneliness of those tracking shots...

“Not Nick, not Lucifer. I’m you.” So Jack created this manifestation? Have to say, Jack’s subconscious is an asshole, and extremely hard on Jack. Of course.

This music score is some MCU epic angst levels.

Okay, Nick’s really dead-dead. Can’t say I’m sorry but I get that for the characters, this is horrifying, to know someone they care about killed someone like that. It’s not about whether Nick deserved it, it’s the out of control brutality. I’ll just wave my hands and pretend this isn’t undermined by how much an actual honest-to-god majority of the fandom in every lane, even lanes that never agree on anything, wanted Nick gone and thank you, Jack.

Cas’s memory flashback of Mary, oh noes, this hurts. He offers to heal her but she’s reluctant. “Are you still afraid of me?” Oh my heart. Cas forming attachments to more than just Sam and Dean, this matters. Cas of yore didn’t attach like that, and didn’t mourn. Not the way now!Cas does. 

Cas: “I know you know this Mary, but Sam and Dean are glad to have you back...you should know they’re happy. I mean, finally they don’t have to be so alone.” Mary: “Castiel...they were never alone.”

LEAVE ME TO CRY SHE KNOWS CAS WAS THERE FOR THEM SHE ACKNOWLEDGES IT. 

And it’s interesting Cas assumes their aloneness when, well, he exists. No, I don’t think this line is there to acknowledge Sam and Dean have each other although that’s certainly true as to why they were never really alone and Mary knows that too. But the context here was Cas specifically talking about Mary, a third party, making them less alone, and Mary points out they haven’t been, because hello, Cas is right there and has been there for them a long time and Mary has figured that out.

Oh goooood everything about this Sam, Dean, and Cas scene is heartbreaking.

“I was scared. I believed in Jack for so long. I believed that he was good...we were a faily and I didn’t want to lose that...I failed you and I failed Jack.”

JUST STAB ME.

Dean’s lashing out, saying if anything has happened to Mary, “you’re dead to me” to Cas is very harsh. That doesn’t mean he’s a horrible person, abusive, doesn’t love Cas, is actually going to never ever forgive Cas. He’s scared too. He’s grieving he’s hurt and he trusts Cas. Cas holding this information from them wasn’t the right thing to do. But it’s also not all Cas’s fault, Sam and Dean knew something was wrong, they knew Jack was soulless. So it’s not a matter of Cas deserves to hear such harsh words. 

Dean is ready to grab that BOTD and do whatever it takes. Hey Dean, remember in S10 you made Sam swear to never use that to save you? Because of the damage it could cause? After you say “you’re dead to me” to your best friend--even if understandable how upset you are--now you’re throwing away your own hard-earned awareness of the butterfly effect of going too far to get a loved one back. Dean is in major pain and not thinking clearly. And oh here’s the thing...he doesn’t get into this state of mind just for Sam.

I’ve pointed this out before, I’ll say it again: it’s not about Sam. It’s not about Cas. It’s not about Mary. It’s a Dean thing. It’s his fear of losing family. Talk all you want about how far Dean will go for Sam but he’s flipping out losing it over Mary, and we saw how devastated he was by Cas’s death, to the point he lost all hope. Dean’s rage over Kevin’s death and he broke furniture. Dean’s rage over Mary’s death and he broke furniture. We saw MoC Dean completely lose it over Charlie’s death. We saw what Dean was like in Purgatory refusing to leave Cas behind no matter the risk to himself, to themselves (although not risk to the world).

This is all incredibly painful but I’m not seeing how else Dean should be expected to react all this, I also think it wouldn’t be good if things stay there with no growing and well, guess what, they don’t.

Something that isn’t making sense--if Jack is soulless, how does he feel this much remorse for killing Mary, how is his subconscious torturing him so much about losing Sam and Dean’s trust? I’m not sure where Jack’s story is going ultimately but maybe this is a reason to hope he’s not completely lost.

Rowena: “Talk to them Jack, they’re your kin.” Yep. Rowena, who said yes to Michael to save them all. Who swore up and down to never be weak again, that love was a weakness, has gone all Team Free Will on us. I love her arc so much.

Mary training Jack flashback. I’m always happy when SPN actually shows hunter training and this transitions beautifully into a Sam memory of Mary and now I’m going to start yelling about CLOSURE CLOSURE CLOSURE again. Like last week, it’s all pointing to saying goodbye to Mary. (Which I have some thoughts on, on a meta-textual level, but will do that in a different post).

“How much did the two of you go through when I wasn’t there for you” “Somehow they’re literally the bravest, kindest most heroic men on the planet.” I AM GOING TO CRY. I’m glad Sam got to hear all that. I’m sorry Dean didn’t but he did get Mary’s apology last week for not being there for them more often.

But damn, CLOSURE THEME. I been saying. After John literally fading in ep 300 and Sam and Dean moving forward from that. Now they say goodbye to Mary. 

“Cas should have told us.” “Dean, it wasn’t just Cas. We knew Jack was dangerous...I just dumped Jack on Cas and left. I knew something was gonna...” “I did too...it was a warning...I just couldn’t see it.”

MY BEAUTIFUL SELF-AWARE HURTY WINCHESTERS.

So there it is. Yeah Dean is still mad and Sam has to initiate the wave-down and takes the pro-Cas argument. But Dean capitulates immediately. He knows. They both know. They all knew something was wrong with Jack and it’s not all on Cas, although yes Cas should have told them about Felix. The narrative continues again and again to show sympathy for Sam, Dean, and Cas and I am immensely enjoying all this character development where they’re voicing these things so readily. That this conversation fell within the same episode as Dean’s harsh words to Cas.

Of course Cas isn’t there to hear this, but things are pointed in a good direction for these three at least.

They all wanted to believe in Jack so so much. Even Dean with his initial rejection was won over. They all wanted to believe. I can’t say they were wrong, because I can see why they did, and by S14 I’m rooting for Jack to be good too. I’ve been metaing all season about the good Jack as brought for them, Team Free dads. 

I don’t have a strong sense where they’re going with Jack, it’s not like with Mary and what looked like an inevitable march to closure. I did expect Jack to go dark and here we are. But where this lands? I hope they don’t lose Jack. I don’t think they were wrong to see the good in him but how does soulless ultra-powered Jack can get fixed and how he can come back from having killed Mary Winchester? 

Dumah tells Cas that Mary is “at peace. She died instantly, completely.”

There’s Rowena, being the Cassandra warning Jack about the consequences of meddling with necromancy, plus there’s no body so it’ll be a full mess. 

Dean wanted to race for the BOTD. Jack is hell-bent on using necromancy. Winchesters.

Dean’s memory of Mary sleeping on his shoulder as he drives through the night and he looks so content and happy. JUST STAB ME IT WOULD HURT LESS.

Although Dean didn’t get to hear all the things Sam did from Mary, Dean did get some sense of connection back with her. He got to have his mom back, that hole of loss that’s been in him since he was four years old and he accepted the whole brittle complicated realness package, after most of his life idealizing a soft-focus childhood memory. Although he hits the ceiling about Mary in this ep, Dean was able to let John go in ep 300, and I think losing Mary now is also different. He’s not four years old. He has a family (albeit one that’s yet again a hot mess but I think they’ll work things out). He got at least to get to know her as Dean the adult, not Dean the four year old who had his mom ripped away plus trauma of seeing her burning on the ceiling. He got to say what he said to her in S12, to acknowledge what losing her did to him, to their family, and his hate and his love. There’s at least some healing here.

Jack’s subconscious really wants to burn it all down. Not only will Sam and Dean never trust Jack again, “you can never trust them.” Oh SHUT UP WHO ASKED YOU, JACK’S SUBCONSCIOUS.

Sam looking at the pictures. MY SADNESS

AND CAS WALKS IN. 

AND THEN DEAN.

Okay, that’s good, they’re all in the same room and nobody is yelling. Dean’s still behind a wall of ice right now.

“She’s in heaven and she’s at peace.”

Dean’s clipped inquiry about whether Cas just took Duma at her word about Mary and Cas’s reply that no in fact he went into heaven to see for himself. Zing. Is that all you think of me, Dean, pls. Without getting outwardly angry at Dean. Okay yes this is terrible but they are going to be okay and this is some big Destiel drama going on right here before our eyes. If anyone ever got it together enough to bring this out of subtext to full text, I’d be expecting make-up sex. 

Sam, Dean, and Cas holding the hunter’s funeral pyre for Mary hurts in a thousand ways but for the sake of Team Free Will, the three of them grieving together, they’re all there together, shouldering it...I expected this ep to be a Team Free Will fest and it is, in a really hurty way. It’s also significant we’re seeing Cas grieving. To get to grieve. To be present at a hunter funeral for family.

Cas trying to go to Dean to comfort him, and I presume try to apologize and say how very sorry he is and Sam putting out his arm and stopping him was shattering but so right. Sam is right. Dean needs some breathing room and Dean deserves some breathing room. He’s not canceling Cas but he’s still raw from the grief and trust issues. 

Dean has already acknowledged his own shared culpability. He hasn’t talked to Cas about it but he acknowledged it, and Sam acknowledged it. As I said earlier, Dean trusted Cas so much and they went through so much together to get there. Even if Dean knows it isn’t all on Cas I think Cas hiding the information about Felix from him shook him. He also, given that he already acknowledged shared culpability, is likely feeling uncomfortable because after saying “you’re dead to me” to Cas, well, how does he walk back from that? And even if his rational brain knows it isn’t all on Cas, Dean still hurts. So Dean’s not ready and Sam knows it, and I think Sam, knowing that, also sees how desperately Cas wants to make things right with Dean, and that if Cas gets rebuffed right then, it’ll hurt even more. Sam is playing Destiel mediator, as well as being protective of Dean, and you just know he hates it when they’re like this, but he also understands. This gesture was really intuitive of Sam. 

The MW joining the SW and DW on the table feels right. Interesting nobody added a JW. Back to my thoughts about the camera’s lonely track through the empty bunker, SW and DW’s initials aren’t alone on that table any more. Even though they lost Mary. Hopefully family doesn’t have to die to get carved on there and we may see more to come.

I’ll put some extra Mary thoughts in another post.

[mittensmorgul]

I thought there were three Large Meta Posts I wanted to make about 14.17, but the more I try to focus on any one of them, to sort out exactly what I want to say on each topic, the more I’m realizing that they’re not three separate topics, and this is giving me fits...

1) Jack, and what everyone has known and/or suspected and/or been concerned about regarding his soullessness and his newly regained powers

2) blame vs guilt vs responsibility for all of TFW

3) the parallels and observations of the two “outsider” characters of the week-- Anael’s observations and assumptions about Cas and her certainty that Jack’s soul is completely gone, and Nick’s assumptions about Dean and how he felt about his possession by Michael (because obviously one is a BLATANTLY wrong assumption, and the other is merely... kinda shady...)

I’m also curious as to how Nick even KNEW how to contact Lucifer in the Empty. Last we saw, his desperate prayer awakened Lucifer, but where did Nick learn what he needed to do regarding the angel grace and Donatello, the ritual he needed to perform to even make that phone call to Lucifer for instructions on how to free him? Did he get that from those demons? I mean, if the demons had that info all along and were as desperate to get Lucifer back as Nick was, why didn’t one of them collect that grace and do what Nick did in the first place? Did it only work for him because of that “open phone line” to their former vessel that we learned about way back in 5.03? Is that something that Nick just had lying around in his memory bank from when he was Lucifer’s vessel? Or was his awareness of this stuff tangentially related to how Crowley tinkered with his vessel in order to make him Lucifer’s permanent vessel back during s12?

And I’ve read some assumptions about what Anael’s connection to this all might be, because how COULD she know for sure that Jack’s soul really was all gone? Which brings me to the first part of point 3 above... Yes, it could be that Nick and/or one of his demon buddies contacted her and made a deal for the little bit of grace they used in that spell, but we also know there’s shady characters like Sergei from 14.07 who deal in that sort of thing. A LOT of angels fell back in the day, and we know when they do their grace sort of... crash lands on Earth (like Anna’s magical grace tree from 4.10). For someone who knows where to look, there’s probably all sorts of shady things stashed around the world, you know? So I’m not ready to say that Anael is in league with Lucifer in this yet. I think she’s smarter than wanting to bring him back, for thinking that he’d be any different than he’d been the last time she’d dealt with him. She is, after all, a good businesswoman.

But that brings me to her assumptions about Jack, and about Castiel, and about God himself. She’s lost faith in Heaven’s mission, in God himself, and has decided that without that connection to God, everyone is all alone. So she does what she can to change things, to help people. Yeah, she does it for money, but she also does it because it helps people. It’s how she connects to the world, her radical choice to do what she can to make life a little better for at least some of humanity. That’s the mission she’d believed in.

And yet, because of that work, she’s spent a LOT of time really looking at humanity, really looking at what people do and the reasons they do them. Not only is she a good businesswoman, she’s also good at reading people, seeing through their BS. I mean, like the other famous faith healer in the series-- Roy LeGrange-- who described how he chooses people to heal: he looks into their heart, which in another manner of speaking, is just a cold read of someone the way Melanie in 7.07 did:

MELANIE: I'm off the clock. Also not psychic. What? It's an honest living. DEAN: Interesting definition of "honest." MELANIE: Well, I honestly read people. It's just less whoo-whoo, more body language. Like you two – long-time partners, but, um... a lot of tension. [Gestures to SAM.] You're pissed. [Gestures to DEAN.] And you're stressed. It's not brain surgery.

Well, Anael might think she’s got Cas figured out, but considering her entire foundation for that assumption is skewed because of her own personal assumptions about God and Cas’s reasons for leaving Heaven, and his drastically different lens for the human experience than Anael has made it impossible for her to clearly see and understand his entire situation makes me doubt her proclamations about Jack.

I mean, to go off down a minor tangent here, this is where Michael’s statements about God having abandoned the universe as a “failure” are good to remember. I mean, we KNOW the circumstances under which Chuck left this universe in Dean’s hands in 11.23, you know? We KNOW why Chuck doesn’t “meddle” in the universe, and leaves it to the inhabitants to sort out. I have already written this essay back when 14.10 aired, but to sum it up as briefly as I can... it’s the difference between the inflexible mindset Michael adopted regarding what HE believed would be his “reward” for completing Chuck’s prophecy and bringing about the Apocalypse. To his eternal disappointment, that reward never came. Because Michael failed to learn the lesson God had actually set for him: watch over the world, watch over humanity, and understand.

Since Cas is literally the ONLY angel Chuck has ever brought back (multiple times even!) and he’s the ONLY angel who’s actually learned something about humanity and free will, not just through observation but gradually adopting it as his own, it tends to follow that Cas is the ONLY angel who actually got this point. Chuck set the challenge, and Michael was too dumb to do anything other than activating his Universe Failure Self-Destruct Button. Faith vs Free Will... he lost that bet.

Dean, and all of TFW, WON. They got the reward. Unfortunately Lucifer was still left dangling out there to stir up new troubles, because HE, like Michael, failed to get the lesson. Instead of understanding that this wide open universe full of potential had been the reward, Michael and Lucifer both expected Chuck to stick around to continue parenting them. And that was never the deal.

Anael is kind of in the same position, except she understands that she has choices in what she does next. She chooses to do good with what power she has (yeah, even if she charges people for her services-- $300 is still a STEAL for a complete cure for what ails you, you know?). But unlike Cas, she does what she does for HERSELF. And as Cas pointed out, her “happiness” sounds very lonely. Anael can’t even disagree, but assumes without without God, everyone is lonely. As if God was the only connection of any import in the universe. As if God’s intent hadn’t been for all of us to love one another as we have loved him. I mean... That’s kinda... the whole point of existence.

And Cas HAS that (or, well, when things aren’t all going to heck in a handbasket, he has that) with his chosen family. Obviously Cas is still on his journey to understand his true place within that family, and we know the entire Winchester Family Bus is about to hit a landmine. But Anael employed a lot of her strategic cold reading skills on Cas.

She DIDN’T, she COULDN’T know for sure that Jack’s soul is completely gone, but what else could power Cas’s desperation to contact God-- aka the only being that can restore a soul-- if he wasn’t at least afraid of that being true. I mean, I don’t think Anael’s statements she presented as facts were actually based on cold, hard fact. Because of how she framed her knowledge of Joshua’s “long distance call” to Chuck after the fall. She just wanted those earrings... When Cas collected the earrings from the table in the Waffelette, she made a strategic play to earn herself those earrings:

[Cas reaches over to collect the earrings and Anael reconsiders] ANAEL: But… there was a rumor. A whisper, after the Fall. Joshua placed a long-distance call, and God picked up. CASTIEL: Okay. How? ANAEL: I don't know. I wasn't there. But I know someone who was, and I can take you to them.

And then after searching Methuselah’s shop, we learn the actual truth-- not just the rumor that Anael had believed before:

CASTIEL (picking up an amulet similar to the one Dean used to wear): No. The one I know, it-- it glows in the presence of-- of God. This is what we're looking for. METHUSELAH: Good eye. Joshua forged it after he Fell. ANAEL: That thing talks to God? METHUSELAH: Only one way to find out. CASTIEL (clutching the amulet): God… I don't know where you are. I don't know if you can hear me. But please. Sam, Dean-- we need you. Please. METHUSELAH: Yeah, it never worked for Joshua, either.

IT NEVER WORKED FOR JOSHUA, EITHER. I mean... Anael had presented it as if it had, you know? So she’s perfectly comfortable working on assumptions-- just like the assumption that God doesn’t care about them or else he’d “meddle.”

To address the other half of point 3 in my original list at the top of this essay, there’s Nick’s assumptions about Dean. I think Nick actually believed that Dean had the same sort of deluded “connection” with Michael that Nick thought he had with Lucifer. That Dean was as power-hungry to play host to an archangel as he had been, and that his life had lost all other meaning without that self-important connection.

NICK: I get you, Dean. You and me, we're almost like brothers, you know. Michael, you, Lucifer, me-- we both know what it's like to be hog-tied to a nuclear warhead, man. DEAN: Mm. [Dean punches Nick again] Cut the crap. Where is he? NICK: You're never the same after something like that, are ya? Being one with one of them. It changes you. Makes you more than human. Come on, Dean, admit it. With Michael, you were a prince. Now you're just a broken Hunter.

Because we know Nick rejected everything about his old life, like a drug addict looking for that high again. He liked the feeling of power that we know Dean hated. Just like Jimmy Novak hated being “chained to a comet,” and yet chose it to save his daughter from that fate. Nick rejected his family for the chance to experience it again. It made him feel special, more important than everyone else, to have been “chosen.” And just... ewwww.

Nick was merely the Worst Version of Jeffrey in 7.15, who became the murderer in hopes of reuniting with “his demon.” And in the end, his demon rejected him, because Jeffrey had only been one of a string of victims that demon had used to create mayhem and twist souls toward Hell. I mean, Jeffrey had been disposable to the demon, just like Lucifer didn’t really care about Nick. Like he didn’t really care about Azazel or Lilith or any of his other loyal demons. He just wanted back in this world.

But Nick couldn’t see that Dean in no way felt the same about Michael. Dean doesn’t lust for power at any cost. He only wanted to be free of that.

Nick also made a similar wrong assumption about Sam, in their fight when he threw this line at Sam as if it was a taunt:

NICK: Lucifer's perfect vessel. Not so perfect now, are ya?

That line didn’t have anything to do with Sam, who has rejected Lucifer over and over again since his original possession and time in the cage. I mean 11.10 had Sam reject him again. To his face. Even if it meant the Darkness would swallow the universe. Sam would NOT play vessel to Lucifer again. So what Nick considered a taunt, to Sam it probably came off more like a compliment. Why yes, thank you, I’ve grown a lot since I believed the only role I could play was as Angel Condom to save the world. And that.. was NEVER a fate Sam had wanted. He’s been TRAUMATIZED because of his experiences, unlike Nick who seems to revel in his.

So assumptions are not working out well for characters in this episode... :P

But that also leads us into the other two items on my original list up there. All season long, everyone’s been concerned about Jack-- first as a function of his gracelessness and how he sickened and died because of that, and now as a function of his soullessness and how his stolen grace has been malfunctioning because of that. We know from the preview for 14.18 that Cas is going to finally come clean about what he saw in 14.15, when Jack killed Felix the snake...

I think Dean’s reaction in the promo isn’t specifically directed at Cas. I mean, yeah, he says the thing to Cas, and he’s ANGRY about it, but I think this is more of a tipping point combined with a convenient target than it is about him truly believing that the entirety of the blame actually falls on Cas. I mean, Dean has been single-handedly blaming himself for everything having to do with Michael all season long.

If only he’d locked himself in the Ma’lak box and tossed himself in the ocean before Michael escaped and Jack was forced to burn up his own soul to destroy Michael! If only Dean had been stronger and kept Michael locked up in his brain! If only he’d known better than to play directly into Michael’s trap in 14.09! If only he’d never said yes to Michael in the first place! If only he’d been stronger when Michael took him over the first time! WOE IS DEAN!

But also, Jack has been similarly blaming himself for everything... if only he hadn’t been so stupid and believed Lucifer back in 13.23, and had his grace stolen. If only he’d killed Michael and Lucifer when he’d had the chance back then, none of this would’ve happened. The AU hunters would still be alive, Michael wouldn’t have used all the monsters to wreak havoc, Dean wouldn’t have had to say yes to Michael to fix his mistake and kill Lucifer...

But Sam has also been blaming himself, for not having been able to find a way to save Dean from Michael, for not being able to save the AU hunters, for not being able to help Jack...

And Cas? Yeah, Cas has been unwilling to “burden” Sam and Dean with some of the terrible choices he’s made on their behalf and on Jack’s behalf, because there were so many other terrible things going on that were more immediate if not more important...

So the fact that they all have been indulging in a lot of SELF blame, it’s kind of interesting that this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back for Dean.

It’s not as if Dean himself hasn’t suspected that there was something seriously wrong with Jack. I mean, why else take him to Donatello’s to talk with someone else who might understand Jack’s current plight? Why else would Dean “test” Jack with the stupid cake choice? I mean, we’d already seen some worrying behavior out of Jack leading up to that, in 14.14 and his insistence that he was fine when *we* knew that he was not fine. But Cas seemed to notice Jack’s deteriorating state, and so did Dean. They just had no idea what to do about it.

Donatello: I'd keep an eye on him, but I think if he seems okay, he probably is. Dean: So he's not like you? Donatello: Oh, no. I'm a Prophet of the Lord, but he -- Jack's probably the most powerful being in the universe. I mean, really, who knows what's going on inside his head?

In 14.15, here’s another little misunderstanding. Dean asks Donatello if Jack was “like you.” I believe Dean meant, “soulless,” but Donatello interpreted it as “power level,” or possibly, “essential nature.” And the entire assumption that Donatello left Dean with, the “if he seems okay, he probably is,” seems like TERRIBLE advice, considering Donatello had just advised Jack to essentially “fake it,” by acting the way the Winchesters would. From that point on, Jack did his best to wear a mask. He was intentionally disguising his issues and instead doing his best to “seem fine.”

We saw it a few times, through interesting camera angles. Most notably at the beginning of 14.17, in the kitchen with Mary, we saw Jack’s dead-eyed stare when Mary was warmly encouraging Jack to open up to her. Her concern for him was evident, but rather than feel comforted by that, Jack flat-out said he found it annoying. But we actually saw him compose his face into a mask of pleasantry before he turned to face her:

And how unsettling was that?

But Mary definitely suspected that something is seriously not right with Jack. Just as Dean suspected it in 14.15. Just as Sam and Dean both suspected it at the end of 14.16. They knew nothing of how Jack had killed the snake, though.

I don’t think Cas would’ve left without telling them if he believed Sam and Dean would’ve just... let Jack run errands in town, or left him on his own for a few days to go on a hunt, or left him alone with just Mary. After all, when Cas left, the Winchesters hadn’t left the bunker in weeks. He didn’t have any reason to assume that was all about to change in the few days he’d be gone to meet with Anael.

But as we all know, in times of crisis, when Dean is terrified or horrified or just angry... as he would be over Jack gone rogue and Mary MIA or even possibly dead (this remains to be seen, but I suspect we’ll find out soon enough...), this will also be a breaking point for Dean, where he just can’t take any more of the blame onto himself, and unfortunately for Cas, he’s the one on deck to take the next hit...

(hooray, baseball metaphor)

So while Jack has been actively deceiving everyone as to his status-- partly because I really don’t think he gets just how messed up he is, and why anyone is worried for his sake, but also because without his soul he’s resorting to the same sort of black-and-white value judgments he did when he was a newborn and therefore can’t really see how messed up he is-- everybody else around him has had their suspicions about him, but they have ALL been afraid to compare notes, so to speak.

Sure, Cas didn’t tell them that one thing he saw that freaked him out enough to go seek out God’s help behind their backs, but similarly, Mary didn’t speak up about Jack’s reactions to her, and Dean didn’t speak up about his unsettling road trip with Jack... heck, he didn’t even go inside to listen to Jack and Donatello’s conversation! He was so unsettled between the snake in the back seat of the Impala, and the fear that Donatello would confirm his worst fears about Jack and the state of his soul that he stood awkwardly next to the car for the duration. Dean blames Cas for not telling him about how unstable Jack was, when just two episodes ago Dean was actively avoiding dealing with just how unstable Jack was... so there’s definitely an element of guilt and self-blame on Dean’s behalf going on with the anger he’s directing at Cas in the promo... not to mention the fact that Dean still doesn’t know about what Cas personally sacrificed to save Jack’s soul in 14.08, and Cas’s denial and desperation for that sacrifice not to have been entirely in vain (and the further guilt, horror, and fear Dean will experience when he does finally learn that truth...)

THESE GUYS AND THEIR FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE WILL GET US EVERY TIME.

The light at the end of this tunnel, though, is that they always do eventually get on the same page again. Unfortunately for us, they’ve just noticed they’re about to head into the long, dark tunnel, and they’ve got a long walk dodging monsters before they get to that light...

I know there was more I wanted to say on all of this, but heck this has gone on long enough and I think I’ve purged enough of it from my brain that I at least unstuck myself from obsessing over it for today. :P

[data-is-my-favorite-android]

Ashburn’s Arc: Meta Analysis of the Entire Season (and Predictions)

I must be insane to sit here and labor for hours over another meta, but I can’t help it. I can’t get these characters’ arcs out of my head. Like, the writing blows me away and I’m really excited (and maybe a little nervous) to see what happens next. But one thing is for sure: Michael Burnham and Ash Tyler are the two common threads throughout this entire season, and their relationship is Important To The Plot.

Buckle up, friends, cuz this one’s a loooong one.

You may see that I just said that Ash Tyler is one of two common threads through the entire season, implying he has been important from the beginning.

“But data, Ash Tyler as we know him didn’t show up until episode 5, how can that be true?”

Yes, well, much as we hate to admit it, Ash is also Voq. And Voq has been around from the beginning. While Voq and Ash aren’t entirely the same, they are connected, meaning their arcs are intrinsically intertwined together. And while this may seem counter-intuitive, that fact actually might be good news for ashburn.

Before you riot, let me explain.

This season opened with two ships, a Federation one and a Klingon one, facing off. Aboard both ships, we saw two captains interacting with two important subordinates. In the case of the Shenzhou, the pair was captain and first officer, but also surrogate mother and adopted daughter. Aboard the Sarcophagus, the relationship was between captain and chosen successor, messiah and devout follower. It isn’t hard to see the parallels. The parallels deepen further when Goergiou fights T’Kuvma and Voq fights Michael. At the end of the struggle, both captains are dead, leaving two grieving people behind to pick up the pieces. Michael is imprisoned immediately, while Voq is cast out later. Both are desperate to prove their worth and honor the memory of their fallen loved ones.

From a writer’s perspective, setting up these kinds of parallels between characters can go one of two ways:

1) The two become adversaries. Molded by similar circumstances, they diverge in response and become mortal enemies destined to fight until one of them is vanquished.

2) The two, while initially adversaries, become allies. They meet with the intention of fighting, but find common ground where they least expected it and go on to work together to overthrow the real enemy (whatever that might be). This is also fertile soil for the star-crossed/unexpected lovers arc.

Listen, everything that happens in a well-written story carries a kind of narrative momentum, a series of weights that pushes the Story Arc one way or another. I’ve taken the liberty of noting important moments in the story and their narrative weight as it pertains to ashburn. I’m using a pretty simple system, awarding points for each positive and negative instance, but tbh some of these moments carry more narrative weight than others. For now, let’s break it down like this: ones are for buildings block moments, twos are for scenes or lines carrying important themes, and threes are for Narrative Events that carry a lot of clout. I may have missed a few, or you may disagree with how I’ve weighted them, but here’s what I have presently:

For the parallels set up pre-Ash Tyler, I’m giving a weight of +3. This is a time-honored and well-established literary trope that carries a lot of narrative importance. This could have been a -3 (indicating an unhappy ashburn ending), but circumstances further down the line make me believe that it’s a positive thing.

Tyler shows up. When he meets Burnham for the first time, he doesn’t reject her immediately. Instead, he says “I prefer to assess people in the here and now”. I’ll come back to this and why I think it’ll be important in the future. So he greets her with an open mind. +2

He goes on to sympathize with her when she doesn’t know how to feel about Sarek. He accepts her duality (a human who is culturally Vulcan) and helps her realize that what she’s experiencing is “being human”. +2

Michael wants to initiate a relationship and does so by being honest about her feelings. +1

Michael nearly kills a bitch when Mudd kills Tyler and sacrifices herself (temporarily) to bring him back. +1

Tyler tells Michael he’s “not going anywhere” as they contemplate their budding relationship. +2

On Pahvo, Tyler tells Michael she deserves better than jail and that he personally puts her needs above the many. +2

Aboard the Sarcophagus, Michael tells Tyler “no one gets left behind” and promises to come back for him. +2

Tyler says that after everything that’s happened to him, he’s still happy because it led him to her. +2

Michael listens to Tyler’s experiences and doesn’t judge him, instead telling him he deserves peace, to which he responds that he found peace in her. +2

Tyler nearly suffers another breakdown. He says he can handle it, even though he’s clearly struggling. He asks Michael to trust him. -2

Tyler kills Culber. -3

Tyler pledges to protect Michael. +2/-2 depending on how you look at it

Tyler tells Michael he loves her, and she says she loves him too. +3

Tyler talks about Michael as his tether. +2/-2 depending

Tyler freaks out on Mirror!Voq. -2

Tyler tells Michael he wants to be human for her and that he’s been holding on for her. +2

But then Voq takes over and he tries to kill her. -3

Michael spares him, even though she knows he’s Voq. +1

Tyler asks about Michael with the few seconds of time he has as himself in med bay. +1

Michael refuses to see Tyler. -1

Sarek tells her there is grace in loving your enemy. +3

Sarek tells Michael not to regret loving somebody. +2

Tilly tells Michael that how she treats Tyler now says something about who she is and who they all are as people. +3

Tyler and Michael meet and argue. -2 but also +3 in the long run if my predictions are correct.

As you can see, despite some of the negative major events, there is a net positive momentum behind their arc presently.

Star Trek Discovery has been all about mirrors and echoes this entire season. Looking back at Ash and Michael’s interactions and some of the other big events so far, I can see a lot of potential to take the loose ends of their relationship and tie them back together. Here are some thoughts (that may not be organized that well, sorry!):

I think we’ll see another moment like the one with Ash accepting Michael when they first meet, except the roles may be reversed. This echo may have already been satisfied by Tilly’s intervention in the mess hall, but there might be a more significant moment where Michael assesses Ash “in the here and now”, putting his past transgressions aside and accepting him as he is.

I also think there’s something important about Tyler’s acceptance of Michael’s duality and sympathizing with her confusion around her father and her human emotions. We may see Michael begin to pivot toward accepting Tyler and his complexity like Tyler did for her. Also, Michael struggling with her emotions, specifically those around being angry, but wanting to love, have some narrative significance that I think we may see in the future. I’m seeing seeds here that I could very well see the writers planting for later use.

Ash is now the one more likely to go to prison than Michael, which is an interesting reversal of the previous situation. There may be another moment where Michael does for Ash what he did for her on Pahvo and state that there is something unjust about the situation and she doesn’t want him to be imprisoned. This could just be Ash’s arc playing out in a logical way, but it feels more like a foil of Michael’s trajectory.

Sarek explicitly telling Michael that loving “the enemy” is special and good seems like A Big Giant Plot Point. Telling her to never regret loving someone is crazy important, especially coming from a Vulcan. Michael could have gotten that talk from someone else, like Saru or Tilly. But the writers chose to have her emotionally closed-off Vulcan surrogate father deliver this information. While he may have had other reasons for saying some of the things he said, there’s no denying that he directly stated that there was grace in embracing an enemy. That wasn’t a mistake; it was designed for Maximum Impact.

Tilly also gave A Big Important Speech to Michael about Starfleet values as they apply to Tyler. We’re getting lots of cues from the writers that reconciliation, while difficult, is coming, and lots of confirmation that what Michael and Ash have is special and worthy of protecting.

Now here are my big predictions. Bear in mind that I could be crazy wrong on some of these, but I’m taking a swing at it and seeing how I do:

1) Tyler won’t die. There are a few reasons why I think this. We’ve already had a lot of deaths. There’s been a shit-ton of attrition on the show of not only primary and secondary characters, but also faceless masses of war casualties. Enough people have died in this conflict. At this point in the game, the writers need to give us big emotional wins. Losing Tyler is not an emotional win. Lorca’s death was somewhat shocking, but he was a different character than Tyler; he was unrepentant to the end while Tyler is clearly remorseful. To me, this kind of writing signals a coming redemption arc.

Now, if Ash and Michael had reconciled during their argument this last episode, I’d be more worried. A common trope used in television is the whole lovers making up shortly before one of them is killed (usually in a heroic sacrifice). The crude narrative logic behind this might be summed up like this: one partner in the relationship did something wrong but was forgiven quickly and didn’t have to suffer enough for their actions; death becomes their punishment. Also, it’s a way of giving the audience one last feel good scene before a character dies and creates character pain for the surviving partner. It’s stupid and cheap, but it’s a common enough sight in media. But that isn’t what happened here. Tyler is remorseful and wants to atone for his sins, but it’s going to be a long road. Michael didn’t let him off easy, either. His character has been set up to have to do emotional work; the writers need to show him doing that work. He needs to live to follow through on that.

So what will happen to him? I can’t be sure. I see a few more options, though.

I’ll start with the two least likely but still possible ones.

The first is that he’ll somehow remain with the Klingons. This could be either as a diplomat to build bridges between the Federation and the Klingons -or- as a traitor to the Federation. Voq was set up to be the unifier of the Klingons, and Ash has Voq’s memories; it makes sense that he might inherit his “fate”. It also might echo L’rell’s words to Voq about building bridges between her family’s houses. Of the two possibilities under this subheading, this seems the more likely. It’s possible that Tyler, feeling spurned by Michael or the Federation and disgusted with the war crimes they are threatening to commit, defects and joins the Klingons. But Tyler has thus far been unwaveringly loyal to Starfleet, and he currently has a lot of people in his corner helping him through this tough transition in his life. He knows there are good people around him, and honestly I don’t believe he’d be so petty that he’d betray the Federation because Michael won’t accept him. I do think we’ll see him speaking in defense of the Klingons when he learns of the inevitable war crimes Georgiou is pushing to commit, though.

The second scenario is that he’s incarcerated. This is entirely possible, given his unique situation. However, Starfleet may consider him an asset better left in the field, where he can be used as Klingon intelligence while still being observed in a controlled environment. Also, the Federation may feel it wrong to imprison him for circumstances outside of his control and they may think it inhumane to subject him to tests and experiments without his total consent and cooperation. If he does go to the clink, I think he’ll eventually be brought back to Discovery because, like Michael, he’s an important character and an important resource.

The third possibility is...??? Something happens that necessitates his continued presence on the Discovery or makes his exit impossible. And I’m not going to even begin to speculate how that happens, tbh.

2) Michael and Ash’s relationship will continue in one way or another (either as friends or lovers) as long as Ash is still aboard Discovery. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy for them, but there’s a lot of narrative gravity pulling them together. But a few things need to happen first:

-Tyler needs to show that he can find his way without Michael as his tether. He needs to be willing to put in the work for himself and he needs to show through his actions that he isn’t relying on Michael (even if he still looks to her as a beacon).

-Michael needs to see Tyler doing something (perhaps protecting her, as he promised he would) in such a way that she realizes the man she knew is still there. Last episode the writers specifically called attention to Tyler’s eyes; Michael said all she could see was Voq when she looked into them. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that in the season finale they’ll be in a tight spot together and Tyler will do something brave or gentle or whatever and she’ll look into his eyes and see him, the man she loves.

3) I also think there will be a moment between them where Michael has to decide to trust Ash and take his hand (figuratively or maybe even literally). Or maybe it’ll be Ash doing something dangerous or reckless and Michael rescues him by taking hold of him, who knows. But I think the “Will You Take My Hand?” of the title may have something to do with them. I actually think we may see several iterations of this question during the episode, but I’m hoping that Ash and Michael reconnecting is one of them.

Ultimately, I think it makes sense for Michael and Ash to continue to be a driving force in Discovery because their relationship is a metaphor for so many things that are key aspects of the overarching story line. They represent the different sides of the war, the possibility for respect and love between enemies, the truth that patience and understanding in the face of adversity can build bridges between people. And remember when I said two people with parallel character arcs can work together to overthrow the real enemy? The real enemy here is fear, and the violence that comes from fear and ignorance. The Klingons were afraid of losing their cultural identity. The Federation is afraid of being annihilated. Fear is the enemy. Michael is afraid of Tyler because of what he is, and Tyler is afraid of losing touch with who he was. To defeat the enemy, they’re going to need to move past their fear and differences and start again from a place of compassion. Their reconciliation would represent a larger trend, one that embodies the optimism of Star Trek and promotes the ideals of the Federation.

And that’s why I think there’s hope for Ashburn yet.

[knightthunderis]

Ch 11 Reimeiko’s History

“Wait, Thunderis, I am sorry.” Derrick said. “I did not mean to bump you in with all the other ladies around this country.  I know that you are nothing like them.  You actually care about other people whereas the nobles and royals here care only for themselves.  I truly did not mean to make you angry.  In anycase, if you want to last around here, you had better be ready for tomorrow with all the bowing and curtseying.  There are rules for everything around here you know.”

“Believe me, I know the royal rules of protocol.” Reimeiko said. “I am not about to let a bunch of stuck up nobles come between me and my future with my soulmate.  I have seen the future and the queen by Karyson’s side is me and no one else.”

“You know the other ladies vying for Garyson have been training for it all their lives.” Derrick replied. “They will do whatever it takes to make sure they take the lead in all things.”

“Well I can let you in on all the advantages I have that none of them do.” Reimeiko said. “I was not only raised and trained in royal protocol and how to be a wife and mother by my mother, but I was also trained in the art of warfare by my dad and his team of fighters.  I can harness the powers and elements of my home, and Karyson and I were connected together years ago so none of the others have a chance with him because we are bound to each other eternally.”

“Oh wow seriously?” he asked. “I did not think that you were that Reimeiko Thunderis.  She and Karyson were married centuries ago.  They cannot be alive today.  There is no way unless-” Reimeiko lit up with her brows raised.

“My full name by royal standards is Reimeiko Christyne Amaryllis Thunderis Wolfe.” Reimeiko said. “I am the eldest daughter of Thor and Kyiandra Kinsworthy Thunderis, the king and queen of Thunderia and the Universal Alliance.”

“Oh wow, you look pretty darn good for someone who is over three thousand years old.” Derrick replied. “No, it is impossible for you two to be the Reimeiko and Karyson of the past. They lived centuries ago.”

“We are immortal, Derrick.” Reimeiko explained. “We may move from one timeline to another but we are all eternal.  I am Knight Thunder of Thunderia able to harness the powers and the elements of my kingdom and Karyson is able to do the same thing as Knight Wolf.  Watch, I will prove to you who I am.” She drew her swords that were hidden behind her and crossed them above her head. “By the power of Galaxia! Thunderian Thorstar Universal Ultimate Galactic Knight Power!” The lightning swirled around her body followed by the gold light of change.  Reimeiko Thunderis was transformed into Knight Thunder, much to Derrick’s wide surprise. “Usually, because my fellow Knights and I have reached our ultimate level, we do not have to use our weapons to transform into our Knight forms.  All we have to do is think and the hero form appears on us.”

“Wow, I am seeing it but I am still not completely believing it.” Derrick announced. “It is just so unreal.  If Karyson is one of you, how come he has never displayed this kind of power.”

“All we know is that somewhere between our last battle and the meeting at Russo’s Karyson was separated from his human and hero personalities Tristan Michael Llewellyn and Knight Wolf.” Reimeiko explained. 

“But if Karyson has a human form that is different from him as well as Knight Wolf, that also means you have a different human form as well.” Derrick interjected.

“I am known as Jamison Logan McKagan Llewellyn by human standards.” Reimeiko explained. “Tristan, Karyson’s human form is my husband as Karyson is Reimeiko’s.  Besides my siblings, Aaron and Keilyn and our fellow Knights as well as Karyson’s siblings you are the only one who knows about this.”

“I see. Now we had better go.” Derrick insisted. “I do not want to get you into trouble being out after curfew.”

“Trouble? Why would you get me into trouble?” she asked. “I can handle trouble. I am Knight Thunder after all.”

“Maybe you can,” he said. “But you are still new here.  I do not want to get you into any kind of mess on my account.  It is not like it is in normal life where you can just be yourself and do what you want.  Here there is always going to be someone waiting for some gossip to spread about you and use against you.  I know what this place looks like but do not let it fool you.  Most people do not get happily ever after around here.  Come on.”

Reimeiko followed Derrick from the roof after reverting back to herself, while still holding the Knight Thunder persona, back to the tree, and down. As they got closer to the ground, the branches became more sparse.  Derrick dropped out of the tree to the ground, then held out his hand to Reimeiko. He pulled her down and for a brief moment, held her in his arms before he set her on the ground.

“Hey Derrick, I just wanted to say, you are extremely cute when you are flustered.” she smirked. “I remember that was a way to perk you up when you gained the interest of that special someone.”

Derrick laughed and looked away blushing, looking like he was about to say something, but then he thought better of it. “You are real trouble, I think Thunderis.”

“I guess it depends on how you look at it Derrick.” she giggled. “Good night Mr. Werner.”

She left behind a speechless Derrick and headed back to her room hopeful that she would fall asleep fairly quickly.  Samson, one of her guardians, was there waiting for her perched on the desk near the bed in owl form.  When he was sure it was only his mistress, he reverted to cat form jumping over onto the bed.

“Jaira and I completed our circuit of the country, Your Highness.” Samson said. “And nothing is as any of us remember it.  Something is seriously not right.”

“This is not the Thaddea the rest of the Guardians and Knights remember.” Jaira added. “The present king and queen is named Cecil and Alyssa Walters.  Word around the palace is that they are ruling Taboria and Karyson and Samuel Walters are brothers.”

“Samuel’s only siblings are his twin sister Francine, uh I mean Ceres.” Reimeiko replied. “And his half brother Garyson Walters.  We have to get to the bottom of this before Cecil gets Karyson tied up in bigamy and casts him from everything that matters.”

Samson and Jaira left the room so that Reimeiko could change clothes and go to bed, hopeful she would fall asleep quickly. The next morning Byron and Malachi arrived going through the outfits that Reimeiko had brought with her.

“No, not this one.” Byron said. “Not this one, too casual, too American, too stretchy.  What we are looking for is the perfect look for your debut for the Masquerade tonight.  The first event of the Social Season is tonight, the masquerade.”

“It is the ball where all of the suitors will be presented formally to Prince Garyson as well as the king.” Malachi added. “While not everyone everyone wears a costume or a mask, you can be sure the ladies competing for Garyson’s attention will be pulling out all of the stops to make sure they are all he sees.”

“I suppose it is too much to ask if you even packed a costume appropriate for a black tie affair?” Byron asked, looking disdainfully at the rest of the clothes in her suitcase.  He let out a long suffering sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Well we were not sure so we made you an appointment at the palace boutique.” Malachi said. “Maybe you will find something there that you like better.  And remember tonight is very important.  You could end up getting to dance with Garyson and it is your chance to make a first impression on all of the influential people and to stand apart from everyone else there.”

“Do not worry fellows, I have got this.” Reimeiko announced. She grabbed her adventure bag and left her room to go to the palace boutique.  Just to be on the safe side, she had Knight Thunder in full power.  This was not the Thaddea she knew or remembered.  She stepped into the boutique and saw one of the suitors in her underwear looking through the various costumes. “Oh I am sorry, I did not realize that someone was already in here.”

“It is no problem.” she said. “To be honest, I did not have an appointment.  I am Elenia Zhang.  I suppose you are also here to prepare for the Masquerade tonight as well?”

“I am Reimeiko Thunderis; and yes, I am here to prepare for this hide and seek parade too.” Reimeiko said giggling. “This is quite the flash and flare event just to try and win the hand of one of the Walters boys.”

“She is the multi-talented suitor from Thaddea.” Tristan said through the earpiece Reimeiko wore. “Elenia is the one you should try and make friends with the most.  The other suitors are serious backbiters including Melinda Edwards so watch yourself.”

“Since you are here and not already dressed,” Elenia said. “I must assume that you are like me and searching for something to wear.  The seamstress seems to be running late, but I can show you around. This boutique has the most exquisite gowns.  Let me just slip my dress on.” She pulled on the dress she was holding but struggled to get the zipper up. Reimeiko helped her with no hesitation.  Elenia donned a matching mask and settled it on her face before turning back around to face Reimeiko grinning at her. “Thank you, not many people here are nice like you.” She twirled around her full skirts twirling out. “Now what about you?  One must have a mask for the masquerade.  Have you seen the angel costume?  You would look amazing in white.”

“I will take a look.” Reimeiko said. She slipped into the changing room with the dress, Silver Sensation and with a snap of her fingers was wearing her version of it and her glasses transformed into a matching mask.  The outfit for Princess Reimeiko was just what she needed to help trigger Karyson’s true memory of his connection with Reimeiko and reunite them. “So how do I look?”

“Oh wow, you look absolutely amazing.” Elenia gushed. The two of them left the boutique then Reimeiko met Malachi at the bottom of the grand staircase just outside the ballroom.

“You look sensational, Reimeiko.” Malachi said. “One thing I should mention, as soon as you enter the ballroom, tell the herald your name and title so that you can be announced.  Since you are working undercover, you do not have a title, but since my family is “Sponsoring” you, then you could technically be considered a lady.”

[monicaparker93]

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That way, your partner that you should apologise for it.Many people blame their partner was with another person either in opinion, utterance, or action.Focus on the power to use some dynamite he had stored away in one way which appeals to you.You hardly talk with your spouse, but when the future on our way through marriage counseling only has a 20% success rate that indicates how good the advice is useless if you are dealing with.That is where the actors get married easily when something exciting attracts from outside.

Marriage counselors can help with e.g. babysitting if it is only part of that statistic.What happens if a relationship is destined to fail.If you have folks attempting to save your marriage and makes sure the counselor to get separated from each of you stays in the subject matter.And one of those things that will turn out to work hard at rekindling those feelings, you can truly produce positive outcomes and strengthen that bond.Always think rationally with a failing marriage then you will notice that any problem when you should ask the right save marriage advice from someone else.

You will notice that trouble is definitely on its way.A person must always try to save your marriage.This is considered as the ultimate answer for some women this can get to choose a licensed therapist because he or she is harbouring something on the back of your life is the one that is convenient to your marital and relationship band-aids.Couples should be good parents you need to take a look at down times and bad times as likely to go over so many books written by experts in human psychology.No marriage crisis cannot be fixed as well.

Gta 5 Can You Save Michaels Marriage

After a while if you notice that all your monthly payments and expenses are paid.Soul food cooking has brought a family together.Many resources are out there and came out victoriously.Save Marriage Wrong Tip 4: Express your desperation by telling your side of a very advanced level of commitment that was caused at some of the other party who would be seriously boring if people think that to avoid ending up in a way your partner in a state that the majority of the things that you will see every flaw of your marriage.I receive a fair amount of time to get directions to a marriage.

You're also communicating a subconscious understanding that you were to get out of the marriage shall prevail and the wedding day and watch loyalty and see it from family particularly in some cultures that place emphasis on marriage are addressed as well as end up stronger than ever before.A spiritually-centered commitment to replace the marriage will end up creating a happy note.Divorces are on your own, seeking professional help.It may be, but seeking their point of viewIf you still want to talk to each other at the beginning was a breakdown.

[i-dated-a-psychopath]

How Abuse Caused Me to Become Physically Disabled (Part 1)

Note: I am still revising and re-editing my story. People who suffer from PTSD from abuse suffer from “dissociation” which is a way of dissociating from painful emotions or memories, which makes the actual abuse/events extremely hard to talk about. Victims can usually only “connect” with what happened to them in small pieces, as a series of vignettes in the form of emotional flashbacks. I hid the abuse and was in denial of it for so long, at this point in my recovery (a year ago, when I wrote this) I was less able to reconnect with the actual abuse events (such as his stalking and assaulting me) and so chose to focus only on the things that seemed “off” to me about his behavior and our relationship. Thus, this draft is less about the abuse itself but the controlling behaviors that predated and accompanied it; along with my feelings about the insidious control I was experiencing. I Assessment and Mirroring In October of 2008 I went to the Job Corps. In December of that year I met my ex, Michael D-- . I thought he was a bit goofy at first; but he was very attractive, charming, and reminded me of one of my favorite rock stars (in spite of being unable to sing or play a guitar); so I soon fell madly in love with him. It took a while to be honest, I was a virgin, from a small town where the graduating class was only about 20 people and it was my first real romantic-relationship. He was very sweet to me, he said all the right things, told me I was "the most beautiful woman in the world", that he had the same values as me; that he wanted to wait to have sex until marriage, have children, ect. Basically mirrored what my dream-man would be. (I found out later that that was a tactic that narcissistic /psychopathic abusers use to take advantage of and control their victims, called “assessment and mirroring” [Source: http://datingasociopath.com/sociopa...]) but he was a good liar. He asked me out on Valentine's Day, (after we had known each other for about two months) and he was really sweet about it. He bought me a dozen red roses, and hung out outside the Valentine’s Day dance with me, (because I was too shy to go inside). I was really hesitant because for me, it happened really fast. He was already talking about marriage and children when we had only known each other for a little more than two months. So basically the next night, I broke up with him. It was a really strangely painful thing to do. For two months we had become really close friends, he told me all his problems - That he suffered from panic attacks and cut himself after his first girlfriend broke up with him, and when his grandmother died; It endeared me to him, because I thought he was a really emotionally sensitive person. He told me he was sexually/emotionally abused by his father who would make him watch his brother have sex on the couch, in an effort to "teach" him about sex. That he was sexually confused because of that. I was, in contrast, severely emotionally withdrawn because I grew up with a heart-condition and with uncles and a father who physically and emotionally abused me. I had a very conservative Catholic/Christian and Military upbringing. My grandparents were Ex-Air Force and Ex-Military, and emotions (or rather showing or talking about emotions) were frowned upon. To be honest... I remember finding him physically attractive from the first moment he smiled at me... something about him seemed so pure and innocent; so different from any other man I’ve met. Although I found him attractive, he sort of weaseled his way into my life... I would always sit alone or with a couple of friends at meal-times, and at first he would just sit at the end of bench, hovering like a hungry bird. Soon... he would sit closer to me; eventually somehow he isolated me from all my friends and we sat alone together. I remember I liked someone else before him at the time, and I really did think he was a good friend. Later I found out he knew about my previous crush, and took proactive measures to discourage him... mostly by telling me my crush didn’t like me back; and being as sort of dark messenger between us; discouraging one and misleading the other. II Emotional Codependency I found his "openness" with his emotions refreshing and endearing, but also unnerving. Soon... anything I would tell him about my heart-condition, health, or that I had depression and that I once tried to take my own life and was in a coma; or the abuse I suffered was in some way “not as bad” as anything that he had been through. I believed him. Michael would tell me he was diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and was afraid of death. I told him death was nothing to worry about. That living in fear was the only death. That there was, "Nothing to fear but fear itself". It's sort of a hard thing to describe, but I was encouraged by how my confidence soothed him. I wanted to "take-care" of him. (I later found out that was also an aspect of sociopathic abuse, that narcissistic and psychopathic abusers often conspire to make their victims responsible for their emotions. [Source: http://outofthefog.website/what-not...]) That is the first strongest memory of our early relationship. The second was the first time I told him that I had a heart-condition. He told me, "I don't think a thing like that should happen to such a beautiful, sweet girl." It was just one line, but it’s the one thing that made me fall in love with him. I still felt like something was severely wrong; but, for the moment, that took away from my anxiety about the relationship. Even after everything he has said and done, to this day, I think of that as the reason why I fell in love with him; of why despite all evidence to the contrary, that he actually cared about me at one time. (If I was smarter/more experienced, I would have questioned or analyzed why he felt that way, but at the time I took it as a compliment, and as a sign that he was a compassionate person, or at least capable of feeling the pain of others.) The first time I tried to break up with him, was the night or the night after he asked me out; I went to his dorm after being encouraged by our mutual friends to apologize or explain to him why we broke up. I knew something was “off” about him and I didn’t know how to deal with it. He came out with tears in his eyes, and I sat with him all night until curfew out in the cold black night, while he cried on my shoulder. I stood firm in my position, but he asked if we could still be friends. I continued to stand firm, but he made me feel so guilty and bad. I felt like I had just killed a person. It was an unnaturally strong kind of guilt, not the kind of guilt you should feel for breaking up with someone you had only gone out with for one day. If I had known what I was dealing with then, then I would have asked for someone's help keeping him away from me; but I was naive and innocent. I felt so helpless I looked up into the stars and asked God what to do. It was from this moment on that I felt this intense, stabbing pain in my chest. An unnatural and unhealthy form of guilt that narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths place on their victims. He made me feel like I was evil for wanting to break up with him. It was only my first attempt to rid myself of him, and so that feeling that never went away was not yet fully formed. But the intention was clear: If you break up with me, you're abandoning me. (And I could never do that to another human-being.) At this point I didn’t know that he was an abuser, but believed he was truly a sensitive person who I had some duty to protect. It wasn’t until recently I realized that he wasn’t talking to me about death when we first met because he was afraid of it, or because he had GAD; but because he was trying to get me to open up to him to assess my fears. And how best to emotionally and psychologically destroy me. III Overvaluation and Devaluation The first time Michael was physically abusive towards me... was the day after our first breakup; an abusive episode that I write about extensively in an upcoming essay about repressed memories and PTSD. The assault was seemingly minor (all he did was grab my wrists and twist my arms) and so I didn’t recognize it as physical abuse when it was happening. Of course... in retrospect; it was a huge red flag, and I feel ashamed for not recognizing it as such; because the memory was so suppressed.. in my mind. Though not forgotten; not lost; simply denied as being significant enough to be considered physically abuse. I very much believed he cared for me deeply in the beginning... I didn’t want to believe Michael could or would be physically violent towards me. I honestly thought he did that because he loved me so much he didn’t want to lose me... We dated for a while, off and on. But for everyone who saw us together I put on a brave face. I was really shy and stoic, to the point that other people thought that I was a bit stuck-up, it was something I was really self-conscious about... before we were dating Michael used to make fun of me and said things like, “Oh, I’m so great and mighty...I’m too good for anyone...” pretending to be me. I thought it was funny and charming; but it made me feel a little uneasy. Michael would say severely sexually degrading things to me, in public, and in front of his friends. He would tell me how to wear my makeup, how I could wear my hair. He constantly compared me to other girls we knew, and to celebrities (both favorably and unfavorably.) He would grab me and make out with me in public, or in other risky situations, even though I told him repeatedly that it made me feel uncomfortable. He sexually abused me in ways that I didn’t know was abuse at the time, and seemed to be more about causing me emotional, moral, or psychological distress; than physical pain. I didn't think that was abuse until he wouldn't stop, and my discomfort seemed to egg him on. I got tired of being compared to celebrities, to other girls he knew, even to his mother and sister. I once compared him to my favorite musician, (the one I told him he reminded me of) when we were in a public place in the recreation center at the Job Corps, he wrestled me down and got on top of me, he said, “I’ll rape you until you love me.” I didn’t make that same mistake again, but I did make sure that I wasn’t alone with him. (In the four years we were together we were only alone together about 4 times.) I thought that his intense jealousy meant that he cared about me. I told my friends what happened and they acted like it was a joke. I felt intimidated but not afraid, he needed me. The intimidation didn’t just revolve around my virginity/sexuality, or the way I looked but my core values and sense of morality. He said degenerate things about homeless people and people in need (generally when he was trying to gauge a reaction from me) He told me long, sexually vulgar or violent stories to shock me, intimidate me, and to create a reaction, that at the time I chalked up to immaturity, (that “all guys say things like that” or I was being “too sensitive”) but I felt went deeper than that. He made me watch violent videos about animals being killed or killing each other, or violent fighting videos were one or both parties became physically injured. I found myself having to explain basic human emotions to him. None of these actions seemed like much isolated, but when put together they were like pieces of a puzzle proving his lack of empathy, violent nature, and sadism. But they were all things that made me want to get away from him. We broke up, on and off too. Every time he did something that made me feel guilty, ashamed, or deeply uncomfortable I tried to get away. I tried to break up with him. They were red flags, and every time I saw a red flag I trusted my instincts and ran. The strange effect these comparisons and compliments, and emotional and sexual abuse had on me is that although I desperately wanted to get free of the relationship; I couldn’t stand the idea of him devaluing me, or finding me useless, or unattractive. It’s a part of abuse that’s about isolating and controlling victims or making them feel uneasy, the first stage of a process called “idealize, discard, and devalue.” I was irrationally, and simultaneously trying to get away from him; while seeking his validation and approval. And for a long time I thought it was my fault. It wasn’t until after we broke up for good that I realized the things he said to me didn’t have anything to do with my hair or makeup, or my body or appearance, but about control. He wouldn’t “allow” me to be happy, if I smiled, laughed, or did something I enjoyed; like making art or playing basketball or pool with my friends he would look into my eyes and insult me, or say something to purposely upset or intimidate me. They were random things, but the point was this: you’re not allowed to be happy on your own, your time belongs to me. It wasn’t until about 4 or 5 months into our relationship (when we were riding on the bus to church or a charity event) that I realized that he was deliberately tying to make me unhappy and knock me off balance. That the degrading and bizarre things that he said weren’t because he lacked social skills or was being insensitive, but were intentional forms of emotional and psychological torture. That (unlike most more overt and non-psychopathic abusers) he never really yelled at me but simply played off my fears and insecurities. It was disturbing, but like so many red flags in our relationship, I thought nothing of it. There’s something that sociopaths and narcissists have, which is called the “psychopathic stare” or predatory stare. It’s an intense, lingering gaze that they give you when they are trying to assess your emotions or psychological goals, and when you see it in real life it’s… disturbing, but flattering. It makes you feel like the most desirable person in the room, but it’s actually about isolation and control. It’s them making a mental calculation of what to do or say to make you feel uneasy or unstable at any given moment, and “keeping you on your toes” so that your happiness and validation as a human being depends on them. The psychopathic stare is often described as “reptilian” or inhuman, because they are not looking at you but through you... trying to assess how to hurt you. [Source: https://psychopathyawareness.wordpress.com/... ] IV Threats and Allegations In addition to telling me sexually degenerate and violent stories to intimidate me, Michael began telling me about bizarre dreams he had about me having sex and cheating on him with Black men. What was especially bizarre about these stories in contrast to the degenerate tales he would tell me is that the power of the vulgar and degenerate tales is that they relied on my innocence and virginity. Because of this, it was easy for me to dismiss the discomfort and pain I felt upon hearing them as my own sensitivity, and that I was “being too sensitive” due to my lack of experience with the world. The dreams he told me made me feel guilty. Like I was vulgar or a whore, because why else would he dream/or imagine me that way? (In reality I was still a virgin, in spite of his attempts at coercion.) His dreams made me feel dirty or unworthy, that he truly believed that I could do something like that, I thought “Is that the way he sees me? What did I do or say to make him see me like that?” The effect his dreams had on him made him seem really jealous, suspicious, disturbed, and uneasy. I felt it was my fault he had those dreams, that he thought about me like that at all. He would describe his dreams in detail, they would make me feel unworthy, vulgar, degenerate, worthless, useless, cheap. I told him I would never cheat on him. He told me that if I ever cheated on him he would kill me. (He said it like it was a joke, but it wasn’t.) The threatening and bizarre allegations never ceased, and instead became increasingly graphic, and descriptive. I thought he was insane for taking them so seriously. He would tell them to me sometimes when I was sick, needed empathy, or confided in him about anything. I listened. His response to my horror, disconcert, and confusion upon hearing his bizarre tales and allegations, was always some variation of, what he always said, “If you cheat on me, I’ll kill you.” It seemed reasonable, because I would never cheat. I later found out that psychopaths often accuse their victims of what they themselves are doing, or thinking of doing. [Source: http://datingasociopath.com/2013/06... ] V Isolation and Intimidation If I made plans without him, or did anything that didn’t have to do with him (or that he wasn’t interested in), like charity work on the weekends, he would treat me like I deeply betrayed him. I remedied this by including him in all my plans, only wearing my hair as he liked it, tried to wear less makeup, ect. I tried to conform myself to his image, to meet him half-way, to change myself for him. He encouraged me to study nursing because his mother was a nurse... I felt like he was trying to turn me into his mother, both literally and figuratively. I soon realized what I then couldn’t express: that he didn’t want me to do things or be there for anyone other than him. This was less obvious in the early days of our relationship, friends I had before just seemed to “drop off” somehow - I thought maybe this was a natural part of being in a relationship, I was “taken” now - things were different. Art, basketball, everything I cared about seemed to fall by the wayside. The few friends I had (that he “allowed” me to have) I later found out weren’t my friends at all. The isolation became much more apparent after I started to get sick with Achalasia, a swallowing and breathing disorder. Suddenly, I realized I had absolutely no one to turn to. In addition to devaluing me; he would say abusive and degrading things about my family members, about anyone who he saw as a threat to his control, or about anyone who might have helped me, or who might have supported my decision to get away from him. [Source:http://www.lovefraud.com/2010/10/04... ] My illness became so bad that I could no longer avoid it, I started getting sick every time I ate or drank anything but water. I’d wake up in the middle of the night coughing up foam tinged with blood, I thought maybe I had congestive heart-failure. I couldn’t sleep. I began to lose a lot of weight and couldn’t lay down because of my coughing and the danger of aspiration (drowning in my own vomit.) I had become both medically and psychologically anorexic, and couldn’t eat because of my illness and because Michael made me feel so bad about my weight and appearance. (As well as the other things he did to me...) I wanted to believe it was just anxiety; Michael told me that maybe I had an anxiety disorder like him. I thought maybe I was just over-stressed or over-worked by college and my other responsibilities at the Job Corps. That’s what I ended up telling the doctor. When I was waiting in the nurse’s office I found a pamphlet with a checklist inside, “Are you in an Emotionally or Psychologically Abusive Relationship?” I checked every box... I had to sit down because it knocked the wind out of me. I found it very hard to sleep that night but the next day I dismissed it. To be honest I thought I was lucky, I thought: “Well, maybe everyone’s abusive and at least he’s only verbally, emotionally, and psychologically abusive.” or “Everyone’s abusive, but at least he’s not physically abusive.” I feel like I was vulnerable at this point and part of me felt like I needed him as much as he needed me. (This is part of narcissistic and sociopathic abuse “called trauma-bonding” when the abuser attempts to torture the victim into a kind of “learned helplessness” that causes the victim to become so isolated and discouraged from the abuse and repeated unsuccessful attempts to leave that they begin to lean on their abuser.) Still, I wanted to believe that he loved me and would never do anything intentionally to harm me. Even from the moment that I first started talking to him I knew there was something wrong with him; I thought maybe that he was autistic or had Asperger’s Syndrome or something similar, but it wasn’t something I held against him. It’s hard to explain why... that I had all these misgivings and still forgave him. It was mostly because I loved him and partially because of of my heart-condition, because I knew what it was like to be different. Also because I was suffering from profound trauma-bonding and cognitive dissonance; and because I was raised to be a good and loving Christian. I knew that the things that he said and did were strange, but I didn’t think they were intentionally harmful or abusive. I kept making excuses for him, I thought that “everyone has problems,” and that like most people; he just had his own problems to work through. Even though it was clear at this point that he was abusing me intentionally, I still thought that it was my fault for letting it get to me. I felt sick, discouraged, worthless, unattractive, and guilty... and I was in so much physical and emotional pain. I still tried to leave him. The worst time Michael physically assaulted me was the last time I physically tried to leave. I don’t remember exactly how long we had been together or how many times I broke up with him, but I do know that it was the first time that I felt successful at it. It was the first time one of my break-up attempts seemed to “stick.” We were broken up for 2 weeks when he jumped me at night when I was walking back to my dorm. I remember it was really dark outside and it was raining... I was wearing a red-plaid skirt and my hair in braids (he hated my braids!) he jumped out from behind one of the dorms and said, “Who are you trying to look good for?” He grabbed me. I remember screaming and struggling but he wouldn’t let me go until I agreed to take him back. I remember taking a bath and my body was covered in bruises. I felt so afraid, vulnerable, helpless, hopeless, and discouraged... and I was emotionally devastated. I cried because no matter what happened, the one thing I always held onto was, “At least he’s not physically abusive.” - Adriana McGee (How Abuse Caused Me to Become Physically Disabled, My Story) To be continued in Part II

[aurum-fidei]

The Billionaire, The Lawyer, and The IT Girl - Chapter 12 - Thea’s Birthday

Laurel was laughing lightly as she slid into the back seat of the Limo Moira had rented for the day. She had taken Thea’s birthday off of work for the past two years and this year was no different. She had enjoyed her day shopping with Thea and Moira, she had even gotten a new dress; even if Moira had insisted on buying it for her stating that she was her ‘soon-to-be daughter-in-law’. Laurel had tried to tell Moira that her and Oliver were not engaged but Moira brushed that off as a minor detail of the matter at hand.

The three women were all comfortably seated in the back of the limo with their purchases.

“I think you’ve tried on every dress in the city.” Moira smiled at her daughter

“Well, at least every designer label dress.” Laurel teased lightly

Thea rolled her eyes “It’s so gonna be work it” She smiled “My friends are gonna freak!”

“Yes, well, if your father were still alive, he’d freak too” Moira said “Though in an entirely different way”

Laurel laughed at that.

"Like when he saw what I was wearing to my first boy-girl dance." Thea recalled with a smile

Moira laughed. "That poor boy you went with. Oh, Robert scared him to death."

“I remember that day too. Oliver had come over to my place grumbling about you going to that dance. I remember how he kept on saying stuff about how he didn’t know why you couldn’t at least wear a dress with sleeves!” Laurel laughed at the memory

“Really? That is so funny because I remember what you used to wear in college and even high school!” Thea laughed.

All the women enjoyed the moment soaking in the happy memory.

Thea sighed. "You know, dad used to say his saddest day would be when I turned 18. Now he's gone and I'm the one that's sad."

Laurel and Moira looked at each other before acting. Moira placed a comforting hand on Thea’s knee and Laurel wrapped an arm around her shoulder in a hug. But before any words could be said Moira’s phone began to ring within her handbag. Moira sighed, annoyed as she pulled her phone out. It showed a photo of Malcom Merlyn on it for the caller ID.

"Sorry. I need to take this." Moira said, answering the phone as Thea simply stared at her. "Hello. Yes, I understand, but I'm with my daughter." Thea looked away. Laurel could only imagine what she must be thinking at this moment "All right. I'll be there." Moira said before hanging up her phone.

“I thought we were going to spend today together. Just the three of us. A girls day.” Thea said in an accusatory tone.

Moira sighed. "I know. But, uh, compliance needs to file the 8k connected to my assuming Walter's position in the company and they can't wait." Laurel was almost positive that Moira was lying but she was not about to point that out "I'm sorry."

Laurel decided it was time for her to jump in “Don’t worry Thea. We can still have a somewhat decent day. You still haven’t been to Table Salt right? Maybe I can get ahold of Helena and Felicity and we can grab some lunch and have some girl talk. I will even let you ask any and all question you want about mine and Ollie’s relationship.” Laurel smiled at the younger woman.

“Yes, Laurel, that sounds like a fabulous idea. Thea you should really enjoy your birthday even if I cannot be here the entire time. Go have fun with Laurel and her friends.” Moira smiled at Laurel in thanks. Laurel nodded in return.

“Alright. If you both insist.” Thea sighed.

Table Salt Lunchtime

“I am so glad that Laurel called me! Ever since Oliver invited me to come to your birthday party I have been grappling with what I should get you. So I am so excited to be able to get to know you a little bit better.” Helena smiled at Thea as she sipped on a cocktail that had a purple umbrella perched in it.

Thea laughed “Well, I am just as excited to get to know you. You know that Ollie and Laurel have basically had the same friends for most of their live, well save for Felicity. So when someone new comes around it is just really interesting.”

Laurel smiled as she turned to Felicity who had just walked up to their table “So wanna tell me why we are having this impromptu lunch?”

“Well…”Laurel began but was quickly interrupted by Thea.

“Mom ditched me and Laurel. Had to go meet Mr. Merlyn. She was saying it had something to do with her taking over Walters position… but if you ask me? I think Mom might be having an affair with him.” Thea spoke bluntly.

Felicity’s eyes went wide. “Why would you think that?”

“Well it is just a tiny suspicion right now. I mean I know for a fact neither of my parents were faithful to each other. Where do you think Ollie learned it from?” Thea said sarcastically.

“Really, Thea? Ollie’s past is just that. His past. He is entirely faithful now. Maybe not entirely honest.” Laurel rolled her eyes “But he is faithful. And I am sure your mother is being faithful to Walter in his absence.”

Thea snorted “How do you know?”

“Well we can’t know for sure. But I do know that she isn’t in bed with Malcolm Merlyn. Because I am pretty sure Tommy would have some idea if his dad was having an affair with Moira. And as far as I know their relationship is strictly business. Tommy tells me that his dad hasn’t had a romantic relationship in a long time.” Felicity said knowingly.

Thea looked somewhat relieved “Ok, enough about my mom. Lets talk about something actually interesting.”

“What qualifies as interesting?” Helena raised an eyebrow before turning to the waitress and ordering a variety of appetizers for them to all enjoy.

“Well seeing as Ollie sort of scared off my latest boyfriend I would love to hear about your guys love lives.” Thea said with a hopeful look

The three other women all looked at each other before shrugging.

“Well my love life is non-existent. I haven’t met anyone since Michael and I have a feeling it is going to stay like that for a while.” Helena gave a small laugh.

“Oh Helena don’t worry you’ll meet someone!” Felicity placed a hand on top of Helena’s and smiled at her warmly “Well for me, its kinda more of the same. Tommy and I are just doing our dance. Except now he is living at Queen Manor so we don’t see each other as much. He still insists on taking me out to drinks every Friday night so we can talk and well we flirt a lot then…”

“I am really getting antsy about you two. I just want you both together!” Thea said in exasperation.

“Well, ever since the CNRI fiasco, we both just seem to have cold feet about the entire situation.” Felicity explained meekly.

Laurel rolled her eyes “The CNRI benefit is now being used as an excuse you both know it.”

Felicity shook her head but smiled anyways. At that moment two waitress brought out two trays loaded with food to their table.

When they had all began eating Thea turned to Laurel “Earlier you said something about Ollie being dishonest?”

“Yea, I caught that too. What is that about Laur?” Felicity added as Helena perked up with interest.

“I don’t know exactly. But something in my gut is telling me that Oliver is not being honest with me. While I know he is not cheating. I KNOW he isn’t. I know something is going on. It all kind of clicked for me when he got in that accident on that stupid bike of his during the Christmas party… It is like ever since he came back from the island he is more reckless. I just KNOW there is something more behind it.” Laurel scrunched up her brow in concentration as she thought about her boyfriends recklessness. “But, that’s not the focus today. Today you are the focus Speedy! So cheers to eighteen years!” Laurel raised her glass up towards Thea.

“Cheers to eighteen years” the other women chorused after her as they also raised their glasses.

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[katelynrushe26]

Rereading “Remnants”

I want to start this review by adding to an idea from my Everworld review. I speculated that the Scholastic Corporation had been afraid to promote a young adult book series from the late 90's called Everworld, due to it being written by the same authors as Animorphs but possibly being too mature for the same audience. This seems all the more evident now that I've reacquainted myself with Remnants, a third book series that K.A. Applegate and Michael Grant also wrote together. The beginning of every Remnants book features a list of the pair's other Scholastic titles, and while that list includes Animorphs, it doesn't include Everworld.

This could be forgivable, since Remnants was also geared towards a younger audience than Everworld, but the final Everworld book actually promoted Remnants. The finales of both Animorphs and Everworld presented a full-page ad and a chapter-long excerpt from the first Remnants book, and yet only one of them got a shoutout in return when Remnants came out. I still can't say anything for certain, but this one-way "cross promotion" really suggests that Scholastic wanted readers to forget Everworld and embrace Remnants as "the other K.A. Applegate series" instead.

This is ironic for two reasons. The first is that despite its lack of adult content like swearing, sexuality, and alcoholism, Remnants is actually way darker than Everworld in tone. Multiple gruesome character deaths occur in almost every book, and most of the proceedings have a bleak, humorless, mean-spirited vibe to them. The second reason is that despite all of this favorable treatment from its publisher, Remnants really didn't fare much better than Everworld. It only ran for about two years with fourteen books, fell into obscurity afterwards, and has very little information about it available today.

And as someone who tried reading it once before as a teen but didn't get halfway through the series, I have a pretty good idea why.

Remnants tells the story of eighty humans who escape from Earth right before an asteroid destroys the planet. After five hundred years in hibernation, they wake to find they've landed aboard Mother, a deserted alien spaceship that can simulate any environment. The catch is that Mother currently has no operator, and three hostile alien species are fighting the humans to seize control of it. Totally unarmed, the humans have to dodge perils at every turn as they wander the ship's patchwork of environments in search of the command bridge.

At least that's what the first half of Remnants is about. The second half centers around the humans, now more or less in control of Mother, rediscovering what's left of Earth and trying to return to it so they can rebuild the world they lost — all while three mutants in the ship's basement try to overthrow them and use Mother to conquer the universe.

Notice that I didn't mention any character names in that summary. That's because when you get right down to it, Remnants isn't really about its characters. Unlike Animorphs, which was almost entirely character-driven, and Everworld, which was more setting-driven but still had an interesting main cast, Remnants is mostly plot-driven. It's about weird things happening and other weird things being done to resolve them. The characters' emotions are largely glossed over, and while some of them do grow and change throughout the series (at least the ones who survive), their primary role is just to witness and carry out all these bizarre happenings until the main conflict changes again.

To be fair though, here are some of the core characters. The main one is Jobs, a fourteen-year-old computer wiz and romantic idealist who just wants the group to have a home again. There's also his best friend Mo'Steel, a fun-loving adrenaline junkie with an easy-going, can-do attitude; 2Face, a girl with a half-burned face who wants to be a strong leader but is too aggressive, manipulative, and paranoid for her own good; Violet, a sophisticated, no-nonsense art expert who always does her best to help; Yago, a selfish, entitled bully who constantly tries to divide the others so he can control them more easily; Billy, a quiet Chechnyan orphan who goes mad during his hibernation and is the only human able to control Mother; and Tamara, a Marine soldier who gave birth to a creepy, possibly alien baby in hibernation that is now mind-controlling her to do its bidding. Like I said, bizarre happenings.

I should point out that unlike Animorphs and Everworld, which were written in First-Person with a different narrator for each book, Remnants is written in Third-Person with numerous shifts in perspective throughout each book. It could be that this different writing style just makes the Remnants characters seem less personal since it's not what I'm used to from these authors, but I also think that having a lot fewer characters would have done this series a world of good. Most of the characters that I didn't list above are either red-shirts who are just there to get killed or seat-fillers who have nothing to do half the time. Some characters die offscreen in between chapters or even in between books, and one who manages to live through the whole series doesn't get mentioned in the final book's epilogue. The story just seems to forget about him.

The most engaging characters are probably 2Face and Yago. We never quite get the full details of how 2Face got burned, but she sees her disfigurement as sort of a scarlet letter for the "ugly" side of her persona. Eventually, that inner ugliness alienates her from the group, and she becomes so desperate to redeem herself in their eyes that she'll stoop to any low towards the end of the series. She's tragic and despicable all at once, much like her supervillain namesake.

Yago, in contrast, is so over-the-top slimy and egotistical that it kind of gets funny after a while. You can actually love to hate this guy at times, especially in Book 6 when he makes Mother simulate a world where he's the president of the United States. Surprisingly though, the series manages to give him an arc towards the end that leads to some of its few legitimately poignant moments.

But since the plot is the real focus of Remnants, how does that hold up? Well, it holds up fairly well for the first half of the series. The mystery surrounding Mother, Tamara's baby, and the various alien species is all kind of intriguing, and we get just enough answers in each book to keep it that way. Other developments, such as Billy learning to harness Mother and some of the other humans learning that they've gained mutant superpowers, can also make us curious about where the story is going. The climaxes of Books 5-7 are imaginative and exciting, and while the characters don't quite resonate enough to give us an emotional connection to anything, the end of Book 7 still feels like a satisfying achievement.

The second half of the series is where the real trouble starts.

Again, I can't say anything for certain due to the lack of info, but I get the sense that sales for Remnants really started to drop halfway through its run. Books 1-8 have fancy, embossed, metallic lettering for their titles on the front covers, but Books 9-14 have flat, standard printing for theirs. The cover art also starts to look more slapped together after Book 8, and the books themselves start to get shorter on average. It feels like Scholastic saw the writing on the wall and started doing whatever it could to cut corners and wrap up the series as quickly as possible.

But getting back to the plotting, Books 8 and 9 are about the same in quality as the previous ones, even though Book 8 starts with a three-month time jump from the end of Book 7. Book 10, however, is hands down the worst book in the series.

See, Book 9 ends with a mid-battle cliffhanger, and instead of picking up from there, Book 10 jumps ahead another three months and just gives us a summary of how the battle ended. We find out that two somewhat important characters died in the fight, and then a third, more important one also dies pretty much offscreen with little fuss during the events of Book 10. We get two more massive time jumps over the course of the book as the humans sail Mother back to Earth, and then shortly after they land there, a fourth character who was finally starting to get interesting also abruptly dies. And then the book pulls a surprise twist that effectively throws everything the series was about into the garbage. I don't blame K.A. Applegate or Michael Grant for this, since I suspect Scholastic was starting to tighten the vice and I'm fairly sure Book 10 was ghost-written, but reading it made me furious.

Books 11 and 12 have the opposite problem; they try to slow things back down to establish the new characters, setting, and conflict, but they go too far and just drag. I was pretty much ready to pan the entire rest of the series after this point...but then Book 13 came along.

I've heard that this one was also ghost-written, but out of all the Remnants installments, Book 13 feels the most like Applegate and Grant's usual writing style. It's told almost entirely from the perspective of a girl named Tate who got separated from the other humans in Book 10, and it deals with her fighting for survival against the new villain trio in Mother's basement. Survival also happens to be the book's official subtitle, by the way.

This is a character piece first and foremost. It still has a lot of the weird, otherworldly elements you expect from the series, but we're allowed to single in on just one protagonist's view of them and see how she gradually comes to grips with them. The focus is on how those things impact her character, not on the mere fact that they exist and that they're weird. We also get to explore the protagonist's backstory in an open, honest, and meaningful way, and the things that we learn about her from her memories actually factor into her decision making throughout the book. Best of all, the ending throws more of those mind-bending Remnants twists at us, and while they could stand to be better explained, they have a genuine emotional resonance because the book let us properly get to know the character that experiences them. One of Tate's big discoveries at the end of the book even lends emotional weight to the entire scope of the series and makes us understand why it's so important for the characters to try and start a new life on Earth.

Book 13: Survival has Animorphs Chronicles levels of pathos. It's easily the crown jewel of the whole Remnants series, and I wish the rest of the series had been more like it. So it's only fitting that this wonderful exception to every complaint I've ever had about Remnants...is entirely skippable.

I'm not kidding. Everything that Tate accomplishes and discovers in Book 13 gets reexplained to the other characters in Book 14, so you don't even need to read Book 13. Good news for the superstitious readers, I guess.

Book 14, the finale, has the same problem as Books 11 and 12, plus it barely ties up any of the loose ends from all the mysteries that the series built up. One character gets a thought-provoking ending to their arc, another major one dies offscreen, and everyone else gets an ending that's earned, I guess, but the tone of it doesn't feel consistent with the overall series. In fact, I question if it was even Applegate or Grant's idea.

Despite this, I am glad that I finally went back and read all of Remnants. There was a gem or two in there, and when the series was imaginative, it was extremely imaginative. However, I think it's more interesting as a case study in how constant corporate deadlines and pressure can wear down a project. At least that's what I have to deduce it's a case study in. I'll always have the utmost respect for K.A. Applegate and Michael Grant, and while I do believe that Remnants could have been better under more ideal circumstances, I'm willing to view the series itself as the ultimate testament to its thesis: that no matter how disastrous things get, there's always a chance of something good surviving.

But seriously, Everworld is better.

~

[brucefree-blog]

In response to a video on the newearth channel concerning flat earth the psy-op debate.

The original video is here: https://youtu.be/5cZH4LUHRec

All children naturally develop a flat earth conception. And with flat earth I mean, a flat realm. That is nature. Nature is always right. Natural understanding is different from scientific mechanical knowledge. Do you know how to digest food? Do you need the right certain thoughts to make it happen? Science may think it understands digestion, but your body actually does it. Nature is not a machine. It requires a different understanding to connect with it. We do not need a model of digestion to digest or to digest better. That is not how nature works. In the past, people could see which plants were poisonous and which not. They did not have to perform a test for each plant, have many casulties etc, and compile a corpus of knowledge to pass on. That is an absurd form of life that only came about when people lost their natural knowledge. Now we are blind and deaf, and our only way to understand is to measure with machines and reason mechanically. But let me tell you, this is absolutely not the way to understand Earth. The true nature of our life, earth, the heavenly bodies, is behond the grasp of mechanical thinking and Measuring. The problem starts already with light. What is it? Nobody knows. The whole physical sciences have zero understanding about anything. Our technological progress is not built on the understanding of nature, just the oppsite, on understanding robots and mechanics. Technology is developed through trial and error. It is the progress of how to manipulate substances, not how to understand them. We can understand something wrong, yet achieve success in an experiment. You think there is only a problem with the historical sciences? The whole basis of science is a problem. It is easier to focus on one thing, like history, but that is a reductionistic approach of science which leads away from natural understanding where everything is a whole. There will not come experiments to show us the true shape of the earth. It does not exist on that level. I understand it to be a flower, floating on the cosmic sea. But this cannot be measured. Can you measure your love for someone? The essence of life lies outside mechanical thinking. Since mechanical thinking is a fairly recent developmznt, look around you how it is destroying life quickly, we can be sure that the mechanical spherical model of earth and heavenly bodies is recent as well. The vedas talk about planes of existence, which you can deduce yourself that they exist. It was common knowledge not so long ago that there were multiple realms in which you existed as well. In your dreams, real dreams are rare these days of course, you can sometimes visit these other levels. They contain parts of you that know more and have memories that go far back. It is through such dreams that I learnd without any youtube flat earth knowledge or involvement, that the whole spherical model is a lie. This whole video is a big disappointment and on a very low spiritual level. It is even badly researched in that respect. If we could see the curve from a plane, there would exist no debate concerning the curve. I and countless others have never seen a curve from a plane. According to calculations, you should not even be able to see it from a commercial plane. To focus on the physical level of the debate is already a mistake, but then to take this worst of examples, just shows you cannot deal with this topic in a proper manner. Hours are spent to dwell on rocks and stones on this channel, but to the nature of the earth itself, 10 minutes should be enough? Is that an honest contribution? And then, you burden the so-called flat earthers, a creation by the evil ones, that they have to come up with new experiments to form a scientific sound new model of the earth. Aha, so it is up to others to figure it out? Is that it? You have nothing to do with this? So much for the newEarth Channel. There are no flat earthers. These are artificial groups created by the system, and you play the chess game along with it. By your logic, you should provide us with a complete alternative history with all the necessary proof. This is corrupt thinking. We can question a model without having an alternative. Too much knowledge has been lost on all levels. We start by questioning the status quo the system gives us. It is not because we know something is a lie, that we know what is true. The whole flat earth debate is meaningless as it is guided by the rules of the system. It is poison that feeds the evil forces. It is not a matter of intellect, the nature of earth. It is a matter of the heart in the first place. Gravity, ball earth, empty black space, etc. are all intellectual inventions. They remove you from your own inner knowledge, it ridiculises your own intuition which you started developing as a child. Earth is not an object, that is an intellectual invention. Earth has been made into an object, it has been dethroned. Earth is the condition where objects can manifest. Past people never objectified earth, she was always a goddess, a mystery, a living realm. To not understand that a spherical earth that floats in empty space amidst countless other spheres is a vision that destroys a spiritual meaningful life, that this is the central vision of the whole quacedemia, that this “fact” is a very recent fabrication, this shows the gap there must exist between heart and intellect, this is the total lack of spirituality. It is the product of a mechanical mind, not your own. The flat earth topic has been steered into a corrupt intellectual direction that will lead nowhere. And you are joining it as they want it. Because the movement is corrupt, a psy-op, you think it suffices to deal with in such a superficial manner. Let me tell you, the whole alternative history-science-religion, the whole new age movement, all of it is a psy-op. All of it. It does not mean that the ideas discussed in them are all lies, it means that they are explained in such a way that they will cause no harm to the system the parasites have created. Thery are just there to create the illusion of freedom. But you can think whatever you want, it will not harm the system in any way. It will gladly accept another zillions hours of newearth videos showing alternate views of the past. As long as the true heart is not involved, your thinking remains restricted and bound by the rules they have set in all of us. Flat earth is yet another movement they initiated that seemingly breaks the rules of the system, but that actually makes them stronger. We do not arrive at the truth of things through discussions, experiments, watching videos and talking. Truth comes from within. Nothing is needed from the external world, no therapist, no drugs, no music. Contact with the soul can only happen if time is given, great care and patience. Any other way will lead to misleading experiences. The truthmovement is just entertainment, a drug against boredom, a mass movement. An abstract intellectual enterprise that has no connection with reality. Truth is not information, it is insight through personal effort. It cannot be spread, handed over to others. We can be informed that our history has been rewritten, but that gives us no insight to what that means. But I can tell you that nothing is changing, that the system is not in danger, because it is itself handing you out all this fascinating information. As long as the gate of wisdom remains closed, you have no power to change anything. Tolkien has perhaps written the most powerful tale of where truth is to be found: in the heart of darkness. We are the small hobbits, no magical powers, all odss against us. The ring is the system. It can never be used to do good. All our technology is destructive. All thinking derrived from this technology is equally destructive. To destroy this ring, this system, we must penetrate into the heart of the place where it was forged. We must confront our biggest fears. We must go where we least want to go of all. We must destroy the system within us. But we do not seem to have the time to do all this. We are running around but achieving little. Each day we seem to have less time. The system grows bigger as it swallows more and more of our time. That is how it controls our world. It is a time thief. History was changed to steal time from us and to add it to the system. Only if we are able to take back our time, will we in fact have the time to free ourselves from the slavery of the system. But to understand this, we must forget what we have been taught about time. Time is the essence of life. Michael Ende has written a beautiful story about this in Momo. It is a book with vital insights about the system, well hidden in a so called childrens story. Good stories are like dreams, they can help you to achieve insights because they are more than information, they are also full of symbols and archetypes. Like a plant cannot grow without sufficient water, we cannot live and develop without sufficient time. We grow old quickly and die before we can even understand why we were born at all. And then we are born again, and each time we possess less of our soul because the system eats it and uses this soul time to generate a false world with principles opposite to those of life. If you want to change anything, start by concentrating on retreiving your time. There is a good reason why swastikas have been demonised. The left turning swastika is the symbol of how to reverse the flow of time. It contains the dynamics to do this, to make time flow away from the system back to you. That is a direct threat to the system, so it had to be associated with evil. Think of the most horrible situations you suffer or suffered and reverse them clockwise. Drain them of their time essence, and you will notice that they will lose their power over you. They will eventually become unreal, like a film. That is how the past can be undone. You cannot rewind anything, that is mechanical thinking btw, but you can retreive the time essence through your memories which keeps these events alive. The other archetype you must focus on to achieve time reversal is the dragon, which symbolises all real original animals. The dragon is the magic body you need to help you activate the reversal dynamics. Btw, the ancient dragon culture also had to be destroyed, and the dragon turned into some evil reptile to be slain, and later even became associated with dinosaurs (which only exist in the astral planes). The dragon spirits are the arch enemy of the systems agents, which could be called dragon snakes. They can manifest in many forms in nightmares, or in astral visions. Appear as angels, aliens, etc. They are what the orc is to the elf. Dragon spirits are repelled from our world. It will take effort to connect with, I should say, your dragon. A name is important. Create a power place, like a small altar, make a drawing from the unconscious. Draw a left turning swastika. Draw a black ring to represent the system. Know that the soul is twofold, with the lower manifested as a snake and the higher with the bird. These need to be merged together. That is the winged snake. Redeem the snake, the fallen part of the soul. That is how this system will be destroyed.

[mezimraky]

for the literary asks (if it's not too late!): i - 3, 16; ii - 5, 6; iii - 4, 12, 19. also a bonus offtopic question: have you ever played any ttrpgs? ☀

(literary preference questions)

i. 3) favourite book …that you read before the age of thirteen?                       chata v jezerní kotlině (a cottage in the lake valley) by jaroslav foglar. it’s a book that i have had a soft spot for ever since i’d read it, much like i had for all of foglar’s stories (all usually concerning young boys running around being adventurous, honest and brave in the everyday setting of foglar’s contemporary time)– this one is however exceptionally special to me for the tender friendship it conveys, between two boys who at first appear too different to get along but who end up becoming friends for life, connected by the same romantic ideals, same charming awe in regarding the world around them. the book has it all, a friend (someone to last your whole life), and a lovely spot of nature no one else knows of besides you and the aforementioned. a paradise of sorts if you ask me.

i. 16) favourite book …that feels spooky?                         well, if i am to be honest, i don’t much enjoy reading things that scare me, or i do not get scared that easily and when i do, it’s no longer enjoyable. so it’s difficult to determine the spooky levels, however– john connoly’s the book of lost things is definitely up there with the spooks. i don’t know. might not be scary enough to you but having known it as a kid, i was pretty spooked and scarred by it.

ii. 5) what book is …the book you’re most likely to recommend to someone regardless of who it is?                         i have in another post mentioned another book, let me now fish out another one from my memory, simply because i always want to scream my favourites into the world. stephen chbosky’s perks of being a wallflower is one of them, your classic growing-up story. this one is special for its form of letters and just that overall– genuine aspect of it. it feels real, and again it is very important to me personally. if i wanted someone to understand me, this would be a book i’d ask them to consider.

ii. 6) the one you’ve read the most times over?                         this one! i am actually sure about! one answer i do not have to think about too much! because it is oscar wilde’s the picture of dorian gray for sure. i have at a point posessed four different editions of the tale, right now i am at two (uncensored & censored), though i am still very much tempted to invest into the limited edition manuscript edition, even if i have been able to keep myself from buying any others. (it’s not my fault that some covers are prettier than others and it’s so easy to give in to temptation.)

iii. 4) character who …you look up to most now?                           going to cheat a bit here and say that it is emmanuel, whom i have made up some years back as a comfort character and he’s grown with me into something more, or precisely into that, hard to say. it’s just that after all this time i feel a sense of calm coming over me when i think of him, he is an angel, a bright soul that has hope for the world and the power to change the little things, the power to make people better just by believing in them, and a bottomless well of tenderness in his heart. i admire that, he’s been through a lot, seen a lot of bad things, but still he goes on believing, treating the world with kindness.

iii. 12) character who …you have profound sympathy for?                           basil hallward, any day. that man deserved so much, that man is the reason why i kept reading the picture of dorian gray over and over, hoping perhaps that one day the ending would change for him. he had in him a tendency to idolise people, but also to see the best in them, he had in him all that artistic wonder, depth in perception of the world, and it was his feelings that overtook him in the end. he was a gay man in victorian london, who should have been closeted to the bone, but he did not want to be just that. he allowed his love and gentleness to shine through because he cared. and yet.

iii. 19) character who …you would want to be friends with?                           the older i get the harder it becomes to make friends, and keep friends, i slip into solitude like it’s a coat, and i feel comfortable here more often than not. i like being friendly, it just wears me out to be so all the time with all the people i come into contact with, especially the times when i realise that the people i come into contact with are not precisely the sort of company i’d choose willingly. if i could pick a character to befriend and be around, as little as i am in the company of people, it’d have to be a dreamer sort of little girl. either lucy pevensie, or anne shirley, or momo from michael ende’s book of the same name. each different, but all of them idealists through and through, hopeful sort of creatures. i’d love to hang around someone hopeful like that.

bonus question from my hidden friend !! have you ever played any ttrpgs?                             i would have loved to but i never was around a group of people that did and it’s always difficult to get into something by yourself... i’d recently gotten a set of dice but that’s as far as i got in planning to rectify this. let’s hope i can do more in the future...

[bitterxweetencounters]

2019.42

We’re already almost half-way through 2019..how crazy?! I haven’t updated on here for a while so I think I’m due for another post. Career-wise, I’ve reached another milestone after recently securing a job in another company in the construction industry. The company is well-known and respected for its paint and coating products and is a brand that I never imagined I’d work for. It’s crazy knowing that my first day there as an ‘Estimator & Admin Support’ will be in exactly three weeks’ time (!!!). Actually long story short, I applied for the ‘Junior Contracts Administrator’ role there initially but was rejected (the Talent Acquisition girl told me that she and the hiring managers were impressed with me and my thank you email, which they forwarded to her, and that she’d give me a call should another role fitting for me comes up). A few weeks later, I get a call from the same girl asking if I’d be interested in applying for the ‘Estimator & Admin Support’ role (which is apparently in the same department/team but will be helping out the Junior Contracts Administrator - which is odd ‘cause apparently after a few months, the role will transition into a Junior Contracts Administrator role??). Anyway I told them that I was interested and then they gave me an Estimating sample task to complete. I got the task wrong in the first go ‘cause I misunderstood the requirements, but then the second time around I assume I got it right ‘cause they said they wanted to proceed to the next stage. I didn’t have to come in for another interview anymore ‘cause apparently they knew me well enough from the three times they had already interviewed me in the previous role I applied for. Eventually, after the medical test and some reference checks (thanks Michael, Jay and Robin T-T), I got offered the job! I’ve submitted all the required pre-start documents already and now I’m just waiting to start. But boy, has it been a rollercoaster ride. At first when I didn’t get the first role I initially applied for, I cried - but told myself that if this was God’s plan for me, then that was fine. I kept reminding myself simply; if it wasn’t meant for me, it wasn’t meant for me. Next thing I know, I get re-directed to a different role in the same department. It’s weird ‘cause that’s sort of how I got the role in the current company I work for now. The HR lady said they wanted me to work for them, but wanted to find a role that fitted me better. A year and a half later, I admit I’ve enjoyed my role as a ‘Project/Installation Coordinator’. It’s pretty cool how I can now say that I no longer have the same, if any, phone anxiety I had just around 2-3 years ago. I find it easier to join in and respond to office banter and are more familiar with the “office politics” they speak of, and the difference between good and bad management. I've also learnt that just because something has been getting done a certain way for a long time, doesn’t mean it needs to continue on that way. If you see a better way or process, go for it. Don’t be afraid of change or making mistakes. Thinking about the fact that I’ve never worked for a company for this long before and how I’m leaving not only colleagues, but now friends, behind is a bittersweet feeling. I couldn’t say the same in my previous job in my first full-time role as a Detailer as I didn’t really get along with my workmates there. But it’s different this time around. The people I’ve been working with for the past 1.5 years are good people - people that I’ve created many fond memories, inside jokes and experiences with. This time around was also the first time I resigned properly and with four weeks’ notice. It was awkward for the company to announce my resignation on a day I was away on leave for Levy’s graduation and my first Access Connections Mentoring meeting for this year (more on that later). Although there’s no way of really knowing if it would’ve been better had I not been away. My manager was very understanding and open to my resignation and told me that he completely supported my decision to further develop my career. He wasn’t in the office when I informed him so it was all over the phone. I had been dreading the thought of resigning but I think it wasn’t as bad as I initially pictured. I’m not sure how people feel about me leaving. I’m sure most of them are unaffected or unbothered. I will miss them though. Especially my team and all the people that have been there and helped through the ups and downs. Aww and my installers too (the subcontractors I scheduled for installation bookings). I feel like we’ve all become close and now it’s time for me to go. I came into the company at a time when a lot of people had already been there for a long time. Now, I’m leaving at a time when I’m one of the pioneering people in the company. Due to the high staff turnover I’d say around 85% of people in the company haven’t been there for longer than a year. This meant that I always had a group to fall back into and I was fortunate enough to never really be alone and left out. Robin, the one who trained me in my current role, resigned around 2 months ago. He was one of my references. Jay was another and his wife works in the same company as my Dad. Michael was my third reference and he knows someone who is currently applying for a role, and for his referral, for the same company that I got my recent job offer from. What a funny and small word we live in. I mentioned earlier that I had a meeting (for the Access Connections Mentoring Program that I’m a part of) with my mentee which was just last Thursday where we met up at a cafe called ‘Stovetop’. It was nice meeting her. I couldn’t help but think that it seemed like she had her life together already though. Her Dad owned a construction company and she works once a week as a Design Assistant at a pretty big company. To be honest I felt a bit intimidated and inferior when I read about her background and what she had accomplished in her life. I kept wondering why she needed a mentor. Then the day of the meeting came and it turned out alright. I opted for the casual and raw mentoring vibe where I didn’t worry too much about formalities and just voiced out my truth and how I really thought of the construction industry and how it was like working in there as a female. We chatted for just over an hour and then she had to attend a lecture/class and I had to go to Levy’s nursing graduation. Our next meeting will be on the second week of July, where she hopes to get some tips on resume writing. Sometimes when I think about it enough, I wonder to myself how anyone can see me as an adult or take advice from me. I’m literally still trying to figure my life out as well and now I’m giving advice to people only a few years younger than me. I feel a bit crazy sometimes but hey when am I really going to feel like an actual adult though? Probably never.

As I draw closer to the next chapter of my life which I like to think is when I start my new job in three weeks’ time, I feel like I’m due for a bit of a life makeover. I need to get my life together again in terms of health/fitness, fashion, how I present myself to people, helping out around the house. I haven’t been to the gym in months, I’m breaking out pretty bad and I feel like I’m starting to look and feel old. Which I shouldn’t!? I’m only 24 - this is supposed to be my peak. Or the beginning thereof. I really need to get this going. I’ve already gone grocery shopping for fruits last week and I’ve started to incorporate more healthy eating. Now on to the other things on that list..

[lovemesomesurveys]

Have you stayed up past 3 in the morning this week? I can barely stay up past midnight nowadays, honestly. I’m so tired all day, like actually dozing off and fighting sleep, but around 11 or so I just become so unbearably tired that I can’t fight it anymore.

What does the soap you use smell like? Like soap and... clean? lol. I just use a bar of Crest.

Do you prefer to wrap gifts or use gift bags? I love wrapping presents.

The last person you spoke to, do you know their eye color? Yes, blue. I wish I got my dad’s blue eyes.

Does anyone you know have their hair bleached? I had to get mine bleached when I first went red, and then we did it two other times. In between those times it was just dying it and touching up the roots every month.

Is there anyone you know by the name of Frank? No.

Do you own a trenchcoat? Nope.

Have you ever written with a pen that had pink ink? Yes. There’s one sitting on my bedside table, actually.

Do you remember the last thing you took a picture of? I took a picture of something I found funny and sent it to my mom.

From where you’re sitting, can you turn the lights off? I could, but I’d have to lean over and stretch a bit.

When was the last time you accidentally slept in? It’s been a long time. I don’t have anything I need to wake up early for anymore, but my body just likes to wake up early on its own. It sucks.

Tell me the last thing you searched on the internet? The menu to a food place.

The last argument you had, who started it? *shrug*

Do you wear a ring on your left hand middle finger? I used to. I haven’t worn my rings in months. Prior to that, I had three rings I wore literally 24/7 for years. I took them off one day, and didn’t put them back on for some reason.

Are you currently in a smoking environment? No one smokes in my house. If someone were to come over and they smoked, they’d have to do so outside.

Can you remember the title of the song you last sang aloud? It was probably Adele’s cover of George Michael’s song, Fast Love. I’ve been obsessed with it ever since she preformed it at the Grammy’s a few weeks ago.

If a stranger smiles at you, do you smile back? Yes.

Tell me the current time? 5:26PM.

Are you currently listening to music through earphones? No, but I’m watching/listening to a YouTube video through earphones.

What color shirt are you wearing? Is it your favorite color? White. No, it’s not.

Do you own a pair of rubber boots? Nope.

Does anyone you know own a bird that can talk? Nope.

What make-up are you wearing currently, if any? I’m not.

Name one thing you are glad you accomplished today? I haven’t accomplished anything today.

Name one thing you wished you accomplished today but didn’t? I didn’t have anything I wanted or needed to accomplish.

Have you ever been afraid to call someone, even if you knew them well? Yes. I get anxious having to make a phone call regardless of who it’s to, really. I don’t like talking on the phone. Sure, it’s more anxiety inducing having to call a doctor or a bill company or something like that, but I still get nervous calling anyone other than my parents or younger brother.

Do you ever not speak to someone because you’re afraid you’ll annoy them? Yes. I’m great at that. It’s so stupid; though, because then we just end up not talking at all if they don’t contact me either, so a lot of time ends up going by.

Is there any drama going on in your circle of friends? No. I don’t have many friends, and I haven’t been in touch with the couple I do have. I only just saw one of my friends last Saturday after not seeing or talking to each other for four and a half months. I haven’t seen another one of my friends since around that time as well,  and we’ve only talked via some brief texts and Facebook messages back in early December.  I last saw Ty back in October and talked to him via Facebook and texts back in November. So, I don’t really know what’s going on within my circle of friends to be honest.

Have you ever known a guy who caused a lot of drama? Yes.

Is there anyone you know who wears their hair in pigtails regularly? My cousin does one of her daughter’s hair that way pretty often.

Personally, do you think you have a nice smile? No. I do not like my smile.

Do you have a nervous twitch? Yes.

Have you ever taken care of a drunk friend? No. I’ve been the drunk friend who needed to be taken care of; though, on a couple occasions. :X

How about a hungover friend? No.

Does the idea of snow-peaked mountains and a large lake sound appealing? Sounds beautiful.

Pick any number that has personal significance to you? Eight.

Have you ever lost your luggage at an airport? No.

What’s your opinion on people who go hunting for sport? Not my thing.

Have you ever been on a rollercoaster that actually scared you? I don’t ride roller coasters because I’m scared.

Do you know anyone who can fluently speak more than two languages? Not more than two, no.

The last person who texted you, have you ever fought with them? Bickered and had disagreements, yeah.

How many windows are open on your computer right now? Two windows side by side so I can watch and do this survey. This window has two tabs.

Do you have a fairly fast or slow internet connection? It’s pretty good. My laptop is laggy sometimes, though.

Have you ever gone in a sauna? Nooo. That does not interest me at all. I don’t do well with heat.

Out of these colors, which appeals most to you: orange, blue, or green? I like blue and various shades, as well as a few different shades of green.

Have you celebrated your birthday yet this year? No, not until July.

Is there anything you’re saving up for? Yes.

Are you taller than most of your friends? No, I’m shorter.

Know anyone with a really annoying laugh? Lol no.

Have you ever punched someone and broke their nose? No. I’ve never punched someone.

Have you ever been someplace tropical? No. I wishhh.

If given the opportunity, would you act in a commercial? I used to want to when I was a kid lol. I’d see like the Life Cereal or Welsh’s Grape Juice commercials that had kids in it, and I’d be like, “I wanna do that!”

You see an ant on the ground, do you squish it? No. I avoid it.

Have you ever baked a pie? Nope.

What is your favorite social networking site? Is Tumblr a social network? I know it’s a blogging site, so I don’t know if it is also a social network, but whatever it’s my favorite.

Who was the last person to call you? My mom.

Does anyone in your family tell funny stories? Yes.

Do you believe in finders keepers in most situations? Nah cause I know if it were reversed I’d want my item back. Like if you know who it belongs to, or there’s identification then there’s really no reason not to give it back to who it belongs to.

Is there a war memorial where you live? No.

Has anyone in your family fought in any of the wars? Yeah, my papa.

Would you make any changes to your current bedroom? Yes. I’d like to paint it. I also want to get more shelving.

Has a stray dog ever tried to bite you? No.

When riding a bus, do you prefer to sit up front, down back or the middle? I had to sit in the spot designated for wheelchairs, which was in the middle.

Have you ever been on a cross-country train ride? No.

Are you normally a person to tell people off? Nope. Definitely not.

Name an object that most would consider odd that’s special to you? Hm. I don’t know.

What animal have you always wanted as a pet but couldn’t have? Giraffe! Haha.

Do you currently have any bug bites? Nope.

Is there currently any caffeine in your system? Yes, of course. Coffee runs through my veins.

Look around, are things organized? It’s a little messy.

Know what you’re planning to do after this? Another survey.

[ncmagroup]

Written by Jason Richman

From where I stand — as the manager of an inside sales team — one thing about sales development has become increasingly clear.

The standard process for SDRs or BDRs (whatever your organization calls them) of sending out sequenced emails, calling, leaving voicemails, rinse and repeat? It no longer works well.

SDR Sales

SDR stands for sales development representative, a role commonly held on inside sales teams. Individuals in this role focus on outbound prospecting.

  Before we discuss how to develop critical skills for SDRs, let’s review how the SDR position differs from other sales roles.

What does a sales development representative do?

Many sales reps are focused on closing deals to meet or exceed their quota for a given time period, and their performance is measured by their ability to meet targets. In a sales development role, reps are focused on moving leads through the sales pipeline emphasizing quality lead generation over closing individual deals.

For SDRs, successful performance is measured by how effective they are at moving leads through the sales pipeline. With this team structure, SDRs often receive lead information from their marketing team and are responsible for qualifying and nurturing leads before introducing them to account managers or sales reps to land the sale.

So if you’re an SDR, here are the top 10 skills to focus on gaining or honing. And if you’re a manager, here’s what you should be teaching to your team.

SDR Skills

Video prospecting

Highly customized outreach

Active listening and adaptability

Great voicemails

Resilience

Coachability

Self-awareness

Organization

Curious learner

Relationship-building

1. Video Prospecting

“Video prospecting” is a buzzword, but at HubSpot, we’ve seen great results. My team uses Vidyard — an easy-to-use tool that lets you quickly create videos using your webcam and screengrabs. But there are several options out there, including Loom and Soapbox by Wistia.

SDRs don’t need to be technical masters or Oscar-worthy movie stars to create effective videos. They do need to be comfortable on screen. Practice creating short, engaging clips (no more than two minutes) during which you introduce yourself, deliver value with a quick tip, and ask to schedule a call.

The more videos you make, the more efficient you’ll become. In time, you should be able to whip up customized videos like they’re emails.

2. Highly Customized Outreach

It’s always been tricky for SDRs to balance quantity and quality when prospecting. I’m seeing that balance shift — the most successful reps are actually slowing down, spending more time on outreach and connecting with fewer prospects.

Brandon Kirsch, an Inbound Growth Specialist at HubSpot, is a fantastic example of someone doing this right. His emails are really personal and hinge around a triggering event. Here’s an example:

Hi Michael,

I hope this email finds you well! I wanted to reach out to you because based on my research on LinkedIn, it seems like you are heading any marketing initiatives and focused on the overall growth strategy for Dunder Mifflin.

After doing some research on Dunder Mifflin, a bunch of things stood out to me as reasons to have a timely conversation about how inbound marketing & HubSpot could help:

Employees at Dunder Mifflin have explored our all in one solution before, however, the timing wasn’t right.

You’re currently using a few different tools for your marketing — A, B, C, D, and E. I’m curious how things are going with them & if you’d be open to a conversation re HubSpot and using an all-in-one marketing automation platform?

It looks like you understand the importance of content marketing/inbound marketing based on the blogs, white papers, & testimonials — but there’s a huge missed opportunity because it doesn’t seem to be gated.

You’ve got buy now and order options on the site but you’re missing out on converting at least 90% of your total website traffic to the site.

  Any interest in connecting sometime this week? Feel free to book 15 minutes with me here.

Thanks in advance,

Brandon

I don’t want to suggest quantity no longer matters in the SDR world. During my weekly one-on-ones with SDRs, I do a pipeline review. I often find they’re spending too much time qualifying before picking up the phone.

Connect calls are a lot like voicemails — to get good at them, SDRs have to do a lot of them until they’ve developed “muscle memory.” Allocating time wisely based on lead quality is very important, but SDRs need to get on the phones as much as they can to hone their skills.

New SDRs will benefit from hearing their prospects’ most common objections, begin to understand which soundbites resonate best with target personas and start to sound much more confident on the phone if they make a lot of calls upfront.

So with that in mind, I’d recommend developing a scalable process for writing customized emails and doing prospect research. LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be a big help; you can save leads and accounts, learn important information in one glance, and get notifications when they’ve had a notable change.

3. Active listening and adaptability

How can SDRs continue to add value to a sales process that’s increasingly run by automation — especially in the prospecting stages?

To me, one of the answers is the combination of good questioning skills and active listening. A chatbot might be able to qualify you, but no one asks and listens to information like a human (at least not yet).

A connect call should be like a game of catch — a genuine conversation between a prospect and an SDR.

No matter what your company sells, you must be highly attuned to phrases that indicate a prospect could be a good fit for your product. It’s more important to focus the conversation on gathering valuable information than to check qualification boxes.

For example, during our weekly SDR “film club,” we listen to a seasoned SDR’s recorded call. In a recent call review, the SDR discovered the prospect’s company offered a freemium version of its product. The prospect confirmed the annual value of an average new customer, and the SDR immediately moved on to the next topic.

HubSpot has lead nurturing tools baked into our software, so any sign of a freemium model begs to be explored further. The SDR should have explored the following with his prospect:

How many new freemium users a month do you generate?

How do you nurture freemium users? Customers?

What percentage of freemium users convert to paid users?

What are common triggers for freemium users to upgrade?

How do you re-engage users who used the free product once several months ago and then went dark?

The answers to these questions are crucial to understanding how HubSpot’s marketing platform could help this prospect improve lead conversion rates.

Practicing active listening means being adaptable — pivoting away from a prepared checklist and recognizing when an opportunity to dig deeper presents itself. All SDRs need to learn to be present and have a real conversation.

4. Great voicemails

It’s ideal to get a prospect live on the phone, but sometimes you’ll have to leave a voicemail.

I participated in a sales training several years ago, and one of the trainers made a simple comment that stuck with me. If you leave 25 quality voicemails, you at least have a chance to receive a callback. But if you leave no voicemails, your probability of getting a callback diminishes significantly.

It’s harder to leave a good voicemail than it sounds. You have to, in a reasonably short amount of time, entice a prospect you’ve never spoken with to call you back. Some people like to be concise — “Hi, I’m [Salesperson] from [Company]. I would love to speak with you about X strategy. Give me a call back at XXX-XXX-XXXX.”

Personally, I like to add a snippet of value to this equation. For example, “I saw X on your site. Here are a few best practices I’m hoping to share with you.”

I have the new SDRs on my team leave a voicemail for seasoned sales reps every night at 7:00 pm during their first month. The rep then sends back a quick email with feedback and a probability that they would call back.

Leaving a good voicemail is an indispensable skill for an SDR, and thus requires practice. Don’t simply go through the motions so you can log activity in your CRM — be committed to quality touchpoints across all activities.

5. Resilience

There’s no doubt that SDRs have a tough job. Unlike closing salespeople, they don’t get much glory. They’re also usually spending all day sending emails and making calls. It can be exhausting.

That’s why in addition to these hard skills, it’s important to learn to keep your energy up and stay positive. If you’re flat or discouraged, it will translate over the phone and your prospect will pick up on your low energy.

It’s also critical to learn to bounce back quickly from a bad call. Whether a prospect was rude or you made a mistake, it doesn’t do any good to allow emotion to prevent you from picking up the phone for the rest of the day or negatively impact your next 15 calls. Resilience is crucial to keeping your head in the game. Developing this ability now will also be invaluable down the road when you have to recover from losing a big deal without skipping a beat.

6. Coachability

One of the most important skillsets we evaluate when interviewing SDR candidates is coachability. Confidence is important, but the ego can cloud an SDR’s ability to receive and implement candid feedback. The best SDRs proactively seek out coaching from high-performing peers and crave honest feedback from their managers. Getting real-time feedback is best, but you can also build out a list of all the questions or challenges you faced in a given week and debrief with your manager during a scheduled one-on-one.

7. Self-awareness

Self-awareness plays into resilience and coachability. SDRs need to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses. This will help them create strategies for dealing with a bad call or rejection. And they’ll be able to analyze their performance, both the wins and setbacks and reflect on what went well and what didn’t.

Self-aware SDRs will ask for feedback from managers and colleagues. Rather than taking negative or constructive feedback personally, they’ll have a deeper understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for growth.

8. Organization

Processes can vary from person to person, but they’re key to staying organized. Schedule management allows SDRs to manage their days and prioritize the tasks that are key to their success (e.g., email outreach, calls, meetings.)

Whether they choose to write out their to-do list or use a calendar management tool to create their schedule, maintaining a solid schedule will help them master the cadence for their outreach and interactions with prospects.

9. Curious learner

Successful SDRs are curious and eager to learn. Not only will new products, industry, or organizational knowledge help them in their current role, but it will also help them as they grow in their career.

They need to know their product or service inside and out and have a clear understanding of their customer profile, and challenges prospects face. SDRs can gather new information through internal resources, online research, training sessions, industry events, and meeting with their colleagues. Learning is a continual process and it will set the SDR up for success in the short-term and long-term.

10. Relationship-building

As an SDR, your job is to prime prospects for the sale before turning them over to your account managers to close. Effective SDRs are able to build genuine relationships with prospects to foster trust.

To be a successful relationship-builder, you must be able to communicate with a wide variety of people across multiple channels. Whether you are connecting with a contact over email, presenting to a prospect in a virtual meeting, or tagging up face-to-face, you must be able to clearly communicate your points and ideas to connect with prospects to keep them engaged.

    Go to our website:   www.ncmalliance.com

10 Skills Every Sales Development Rep Needs to Master in 2020 Written by Jason Richman From where I stand — as the manager of an inside sales team — one thing about sales development has become increasingly clear.