#no wonder teenage me was so deeply depressed like i have nothing to look forward to

[kenzie-ann27]

what's the worst generation to have as parents and why is it gen x

[disco-lizard]

i think i'd be looking more forward to this bowling league if my brother was gonna be there joining us :((( bowling is kinda our thing bc we do that every time he's in town. i'm not really looking forward to spending time with family who continue to fuck me over or pretend i don't exist unless it's convenient for them.. maybe part of my "shutdown mode" lately is just realizing that i've wasted so much time and energy on these people.

it's frustrating too bc anyone that knows our family or has known us for a long time says things like "wow you guys are so close!!" and they'd look at me funny if i told them it all feels like a facade. i was never physically abused so there's never been any concrete thing i can show someone to prove how mistreated i've been. but i feel so neglected and sad when i look at my relationships with most of them.

it's all emotional abuse, sometimes verbal, but it's the type of abuse that's so quiet and subtle and you feel insane for being upset about it because everyone around you thinks your family is perfect and the sweetest group of people in the world but it builds and builds over time and it's like.. i don't want to resent them but when they continue to pretend i don't exist and take every opportunity to question me and my life choices.. it's exhausting. i'm nothing but a joke to them. even when i tell them i'm having a really hard time they just look away and pretend they don't hear. if i died by my own hand i'm convinced they'd mostly think "why would she do that to us?" even though their actions/words don't reflect that they care at all.

i see more and more of myself in my very depressed uncle (dad's brother) every single day, and i wish i had the balls to reach out to him and tell him that i miss him, that i care a lot and i see and understand how we feels. but i haven't seen him in years, he doesn't get invited to things and i wonder if that's because he's always looked down on as being "negative" and "sad all the time". i know that's me too. i'm becoming just like him, i'm this generation's horrifically depressed single 30something that shows up to family events just to sit in one spot and not talk to anyone. but maybe i would if they'd take a genuine interest in me/my life. idk i didn't mean for this to get so long, i'm just deeply disappointed in my family lately and it's hard to feel that way when most of your teenage/young adult life was centered around taking care of them

[the-iceni-bitch]

Haven

Paralian: 2/9(or maybe more?)

Pairing: Winter Soldier x fem!reader

Words: ~2.5k

Summary: You and the Winter Soldier find comfort in each other at your seaside home. But the Soviet threat still looms.

Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (unprotected vaginal sex), minor medical procedure, fluff, angst with the threat of even more angst to come (I’m so sorry), SMUT!!!! 18+ ONLY!!!!

A/N: Well, here is fucking is, part two of Paralian. This series is going to break my damn heart, so I hope y’all are happy. I’ve got a whole, depressing arc planned so strap in.

Check out my masterlist and join my taglist if you want!

Divider by @firefly-graphics

It had been surprisingly easy for the two of you to fall into a comfortable rhythm.

You couldn’t exactly keep things a secret from him, not when one of the first things you had to do was search him for a tracking device. His gaze on you was exceptionally soft as you ran your hands over his body, starting at his flesh forearm as you searched for any abnormalities.

“They typically embed them pretty shallow, I’m hoping I won’t have to dig into the fascia at all if I find anything.” You explained, pressing your fingers into his bicep with a look of concentration. “Nothings coming back to you?”

“No, I’m sorry.” He swallowed thickly while he watched you, mesmerized by the movements of your hands over his skin. “I still can’t remember.”

“Honey, you don’t need to apologize.” Your hands moved to his shoulder. “I’m gonna need to call you something, though. You got any names floating around in there?”

He just smiled sadly and shook his head at you, taking a deep breath when you leaned closer to him. There was nothing weird in his shoulder so you moved to his neck, freezing suddenly when you felt a small divot in his scalenes.

“Fuck.” You hissed, pinching the abnormality between your fingers and considering your options. “Good news is it��s not in the muscle, but there’s some pretty important blood vessels here I really don’t want to nick.”

“I can hold still.” He said, gazing at you through his lashes while you chewed on your lip.

“I’d be slicing into your neck, I don’t think you can hold that still.” You stood up and leaned back on your heel, your breath catching when he grabbed your hand to keep you close.

“I trust you.” He said in a low voice, winding his fingers through yours before bringing your palm to his face and pressing it to his lips.

You took a deep breath and nodded at him, moving to grab some supplies and ordering him to remove his shirt. He did as you asked, releasing you reluctantly and never taking his eyes off you. It didn’t make any sense that he felt so safe with you in such a short time, but every time you were near him he could feel himself relax.

“Bite down on this.” You handed him a belt and draped a towel over his shoulder before running a flame over the knife you had brought with you. “Hopefully I won’t have to stitch you up. Ready?”

He gave you a brief nod when you soaked the area with betadine, finding the small divot again and gripping it tightly. You pressed the tip of your knife to his skin and made a quick cut, ignoring his pained breath and grabbing the forceps. Fortunately, you didn’t have to search long, finding the small metal chip almost immediately and pulling it out of him with a satisfied grunt.

“Keep biting.” You told him, dropping the chip on the table and pressing the towel to the cut. “I’m gonna stitch it for my own peace of mind.”

You picked out the sutures from your kit and held them out for him to open for you before you grabbed the needle drivers and set to work. Since the cut was so short you only needed to place three stitches, giving a small smile when you were finished.

“All done.” You told him, plucking the belt out of his mouth. “You are a great patient, sweetie.”

He gave you another one of those heartbreaking smiles, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you towards him. You pressed your lips to his hair gently, letting him nuzzle into your stomach as you eyed the chip. 

“What’re you gonna do with it?” He asked, breathing in your scent until he felt the tension seep from his body.

“Wedge it in some debris and push it into the ocean.” You murmured, running your fingers through his hair in a soothing manner. “Come give me a hand?”

He stood up to follow you, pulling his shirt back over his head. The two of you moved out of your small house to the beach, picking your way through the debris as you moved closer to the water. You frowned as you looked at the wreckage, wondering how you were supposed to get the tracker to stay attached to one of these pieces of metal. He must have read your mind, grabbing the chip from you and folding a corner of debris around it with his metal fist.

“Huh, that thing is handy.” You huffed, reaching out to stop him when he started to heft the piece of debris. “No, don’t throw it! Just push it into the water so the tide can take it.”

“Why?” He asked, dragging the giant piece of debris after him as he edged towards the water. 

“So it looks like your body got washed back out to sea after the wreck.” You said, wrapping your arms around yourself when a sudden biting breeze blew in from the gulf.

“I’m dead in this scenario, then?” He shoved the metal into the water and started to walk back towards you.

“Yeah, that’s safest.” You said, kicking a loose pebble with your toe as you looked over the beach. “We should clean the rest of this shit up. I feel like it’ll go a lot faster with you here.”

It definitely did, that titanium arm of his making cleanup take just a few hours, rather than the several days it would have taken if you were by yourself. He wouldn’t let you touch any of the bigger pieces, not even breaking a sweat as he developed a very impressive pile of wreckage.

You moved back to the cabin when you were finished, heading to your radio to reach out to your contact in Helsinki to arrange for them to pick up the wreckage and bring you some more supplies. Your new housemate was going to need something aside from your leggings to wear with how cold some of the nights could get.

“You’re sure it’s safe?” He asked, following after you like a lost puppy while you moved to the kitchen. 

“They’re smugglers, as long as you stay out of sight it should be fine.” You set the kettle on the stove and sighed when he wrapped himself around you from behind. “Shit.”

“Please.” He buried his face in your hair and whined, the scent of you filling his lungs until he was panting with need. “God, I need you.”

You dropped your head against his shoulder as his hands moved to your breasts under your sweater, his mouth tracing over the curve of your neck as he murmured soft pleas in your ear. This could not keep happening, you were a professional, not a horny teenager. Yeah you were touch starved but that didn’t mean you were going to just let this man fuck you indiscriminately. 

But then you turned around and saw those damn puppy eyes and all your reservations flew right out of your head. What had they done to him to make him look so broken and lost?

He cupped your jaw with his titanium hand and tilted your head back to press his lips to yours and that was it. You could feel him relax when your breath mingled, his low groan vibrating against your chest as his flesh hand curled over your hip and drove you into him.

“Fuck, honey.” You purred, sighing when he started trailing his lips down your throat and pressed himself even further into you. “Take what you need. It’s going to be ok.”

His breath left him in a deep sigh as he took a beat to gaze at you, his eyes soft when he moved his face back to yours and breathed deeply. Your own hands skimmed up his sides until you could frame his face, skimming your fingertips through his hair and smiling softly as you curled your legs around him. 

Air cooled the wetness between your thighs when he tore your leggings open, his flesh hand dipping between your legs and cupping your throbbing core as he covered your lips with his own. The tip of his cock teased against your clit and he swallowed your sharp gasp, smiling softly and letting out a low whine when he slowly shoved his hips forward until he was fully sheathed in your warmth.

You could tell he was holding back when he started grinding against you at an agonizing pace, relishing the feel of your soft walls clenching around him as he nipped gently at your lips. He screwed his eyes closed when you gripped his hair by the roots and started moving your hips against his, trying to keep himself from going completely feral.

“Baby, hey, look at me.” You cooed, peppering soft kisses all over his face until he dragged his eyelids open and met your gaze. “It’s ok. I want this. You can move.”

“Promise me.” He pleaded, and you could’ve sworn you could see tears brimming in his eyes. 

“Oh, honey.” You probably shouldn’t make any guarantees, but the way he was looking at you made you ache. “I promise.”

He covered your lips with his and let out a low growl, dragging out of you almost fully before slamming forward and making you cry into his mouth when his swollen tip kissed your cervix. The pace he was setting was making it hard for you to stay focused, his pelvis grinding against your clit with each violent shove until your eyes were rolling back in your skull. 

Pleasure started gathering in the pit of your stomach when you collapsed back against your counter, mugs and dishes sliding to the floor and breaking as he fucked into you like it was the last thing he was ever going to do. A low moan left your lips when he ripped your sweater open and curled his body over yours, his mouth immediately finding your nipple and latching on while your back arched you further into him.

He completely lost himself in you. The way your body was responding to him was everything he didn’t know he needed. Every soft whimper and desperate mewl that fell from your lips flooded his veins with warmth until you were the only thing that existed, the soft curves of your body welcoming him like home.

The coil in your stomach finally snapped and you wailed, your body trying to curl back on itself as your vision completely whited out with pleasure. You felt him groan against your chest as you fluttered wildly around him, your body trying to draw him even deeper while you came violently. Then you were flooded with warmth when he filled you with his seed, spilling it deep within your soft walls and collapsing on top of you with a contented sigh as your hands ran through his hair.

He tilted his head up and rested his chin between your breasts, gazing at you lovingly through his lashes as the two of you came down. That look was going to be the death of you, you just knew it. 

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” He sighed, straightening up and pulling your face up to meet his in a soft kiss.

“And you’re dangerous.” You took the edge off your words with a warm smile, opening yourself up to him and letting him stroke your tongue with his until you were whining for him. 

God, you were a stupid woman, but how could you care when he was looking at you like that?

It had been three months of pure bliss. The two of you lost yourselves in each other completely, barely leaving your tiny cabin except for when you would let him hold you as you watched the sun set over the sea. 

You had managed to settle on the name Jamie for him after trying to delve into the recesses of his mind and coming up with nothing. But he liked when you mentioned the name James, and for some reason hearing you call him Jamie always made him smile.

The radio had been extremely quiet ever since the storm. You still had to do your regular check-ins with the SHIELD base in Helsinki, but it was surprisingly easy to keep them off your backs. You’d been doing it for the past three years after all.

And there was nothing from the Soviets. Maybe you should have been a little more concerned, you were playing house with their most valuable asset. But how could you think about that when Jamie was spending most of his time buried between your thighs and taking you apart like it was his job?

Right now he was laying with his head in your lap after you two had spent the whole stormy afternoon tangled together, smiling up at you and letting his eyes drift closed as you read The Hobbit to him. It was his favorite, and you were pretty sure this was that tenth time the two of you had read through it.

You were narrating Bilbo and the dwarves’ adventures in the Mirkwood when you heard your radio crackle to life. You ignored it, that happened sometimes and it was usually just a shipping freighter that had bled into one of your channels.

“Тоска.”

That was a little weird, but you still ignored it, running your fingers through his hair as you continued reading.

“Ржавый.”

Jamie went still for a beat and you barely registered it, continuing your narration as you tucked your legs under you.

“Семнадцать.”

Pain radiated through your arm when he grabbed your wrist suddenly, the bones grinding together and making you hiss when you looked down to see blind panic taking over his face.

“Turn it off.” He gasped, his eyes pleading with you desperately.

“What?”

“Рассвет.”

“The radio, turn it off!” His body jolted off the couch like he had been shot, and you dove towards the radio with a muttered curse as he cried out like he was in pain.

“Печь.”

You scrambled across the cabin, tripping over your feet but managing to reach it and shut it off before any more words could come through. He was panting on the floor when you turned back to him, and you rushed back to curl your body around his. It was everything you could do to keep from crying when he buried his face in your neck and started sobbing, his arms pulling you to him desperately as he tried to calm down.

“Jamie, honey, talk to me.” You ran your hands over his spine in an attempt to soothe him. “What was that?”

“I don’t know.” He was panicking, the only anchor he had right now was you and he was holding onto you like he would never let you go. “I felt like I was losing myself.”

“Shit.” That sounded like a fucking trigger phrase. 

“They know I’m alive.” He tilted his face up to yours and gazed desperately into your eyes. “They’ll come for me.”

A/N: It’s gonna get so bad you guys, but you all asked for this so don’t come for me!

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[animeloversworldsblog]

Mahiru excuses

How is it that Mahiru is guilt-free of all the garbage that she has done based on always the same, "possessed by demons" and that is the excuse for every sinister act she has done, the worst they excuse her actions as a child as if she would have actually been an innocent, sweet and loving girl .. In another excuse .. "Their meeting was planned by saito" .. (Sometimes I wonder if it is me or there are people who ignore the details) .. another excuse is "Shikamadouji is the great master and he's been possessing the hiragi family and manipulating them in everything they have done" excusing not only mahiru but the hiragi family. Another of the excuses and the worst to justify the abuse and genocide is "it's all in the name of love, protection and salvation of the world" which gives her the right bcs her only dream was to be a normal girl, who wanted to get married and have childs.

First: even if their meeting was planned by Saito, she knew very well who was ichinose's family and she cared little and nothing about damaging them bcs her intention was that her father would be furious for going to see guren .. If no one can't see that Mahiru already showed signs of being controlling, narcissistic, irritating, manipulative, and that she began to forge Guren's mind based on turning him into something that he wasn't and Guren was fine being the way he was, he felt good, normal. Do you really think that constantly pushing, harassing, and forcing a person to love you is being sweet, innocent, and a cute little girl? Even more shifting the blame on Guren, when her family came to question ichinose's family. This is loving someone?

"Also, even if I am being found, will Guren become strong and protect me right?"

“Because talking with the child of trash Ichinose House, must be the thing father despise most.

So there is something wrong here, that is not love, much less using the word "love" based on pure manipulation. Mahiru's "love" never existed. It's obvious that since then, Guren began to feel weak, physically and mentally, an ichinose rat. If Mahiru really loved Guren and vice versa, look at Resurrection as Guren makes it clear and realizes that "she has been manipulating him since the moment they met, that is, from 5 years old to 16 and still does. Stop calling emotional abuse as love. even more so when he doubts his feelings all the time. And even though their meeting was planned by saito, in resurrection guren asks himself .. "why we fall so fast". Bcs guren was never in love. If your feelings are clear, you don't doubt that you simply love that person. It was never love from either parts. Love without boundaries is not love at all; it is obsession where the end of getting one’s unhealthy needs met justifies the means of destroying another person.

Second: "the excuse of demonic possession" Mahiru could have been born with a demon, but she made it clear that she was experimenting with herself and could control it and in the novel more than once she showed that she could control them, in fact she controls them and makes guren feel miserable constantly using guilty tactics and here it is the same with tenri hiragi, it is true that he was possessed by shikama, but even so he was aware of it and it was fine about it bcs he love being powerful, the same is for mahiru, she did this the same to herself bcs she wanted it that way, she made it very clear several times, the worst thing is to say that even when she transformed into a vampire the demons continued to influence her. Didn't mahiru make it clear that the demonic power she had was not enough and wanted it more? So she became a vampire, mahiru, her decisions, her actions were decisions made by mahiru hiragi herself, her demons, transforming into a vampire were her additions to obtain more power, she always showed that she was aware of what she was doing and doesn't cared about hurting others in the process and worse still she didn't feel or feel any remorse, bcs of course it is all "in the name of love towards Shinoa and Guren". Killing Guren's friends was out of jealousy and envy, beyond making Guren pull the trigger, which was perfect, two birds with one shot. And here again it's the same shifting the blame on guren.

Thirst: "everything mahiru has done is shikamadouji's fault .. Beyond that shikamadoji is the great master.. They cannot blame him for the decisions that each person makes, and each one made. It is clear in resurrection that saito makes it clear to guren about the big master. Shikamadoji has no interest in the human heart. What you think, how you live who you love or hate. Everything is meaningless for him. In other words, the decisions that each one makes are their own, mahiru made her decisions, it is unbelievable that one can think that bcs there is a master behind hiragi's family, they were not able to live as they decided. If he had wanted to kill ichinose's family he would have done it a long time ago, if he had wanted to kill sayuri, shigure also especially goshi and mito that belonged to hiragi's house, and they forged a friendship with guren and killing them would be a good reason, at least for the hiragis, not to mention shinya who could have been killed long ago. Mahiru from the beginning wanted to get rid of them. They were just a nuisance to her, just like she treats every nuisance on her way, kills them.

Mahiru made it very clear and this is the world for her. She doesn't care about a single human life.

"Guren's friends have nothing to do with her, they are pathetic guren' s attachment . " If we work together, I'm sure the two of us will be able to perfect this power. No one will be able to stand against us. No one will ever get in our way again. For now, all you have to worry about is killing them. Take the next step forward, Guren. Claim your power.

"I'm trying to be with you, Guren. To live with you, even if it's in the next world. Even if it’s in a world where mankind can no longer survive. But for that to happen, we're going to have to be demons."

I will never understand how we talk about mahiru's love for guren and guren for her when this is what she's done to guren since always.. Emotional abuse include verbal aggression, intimidation, manipulation, and humiliation, which most often unfolds as a pattern of behavior over time that aims to diminish another person's sense of identity, dignity and self worth, and which often results in anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts or behaviors, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). And that's what love is? Guren not only suffers from all this but also from emotional trauma. That was the "love" that Guren felt towards Mahiru.

Mahiru is a narcissistic psychopath. If we believe that their relationship would have been eternal and full of love, we should see more deeply. Mahiru was already toxic since child. Guren's life would have been the same as it was in catastrophe, and as it's now. Do you think guren would have had a normal life with mahiru when she didn't mind hurting guren's family as a child and even as teenager? It would have been the same, only in this case we used the excuse of her possession. Mahiru is her true self even with the demons.

Love is something that is safe, supportive, trusting and respectful. Abuse is not any of these things; it's about power and control.

Last but not less important .. shinoa .. I see that the physical abuse is justified on the basis of .. "she may be twisted but in her way she cared about shinoa" .. The brutal abuse towards shinoa is justified again on "the demons" If you love your sister, look for other ways, because there are thousands of ways, that is not even a way to protect much less with the excuse of "possession" and in case no one didn't notice it, Shinoa was already emotionless bcs they were experiment with her like if was normal .. This is not care, or love, it is brutal. And here I cannot blame shinoa bcs for her, abuse is fine in the name of love, shinoa already being abused in experiments is normal, and it is not like she could understand it bcs to her it was " i'm not good enough" and just had only 4 years old, there is a big difference between shinoa and mahiru at that age. Mahiru 5 years aware of what she was doing and wanting, shinoa innocent girl, who already showed signs of depression, low self esteem, stress and hadn't self worth. Shinoa justifies the abuse as love bcs she feels that the only person who loves her is mahiru, even having 16 years after being abused by mahiru she sees it as an act of love and it is wrong, bcs shinoa's brain is completely damaged seeing abuse as love, it's the same case of guren. They both suffered and continue to suffer abuse, so where is the justification towards mahiru for brutally beating shinoa for love when shinoa was already showing serious signs emotional problems before the brutal beat. There is no justification.

Mahiru is nothing more than a physical and emotional abuser who has done nothing but cause severe emotional trauma to people and commit atrocious acts with the same excuse and justification as always "love".

I can't understand why are so many excuses toward her, like if nothing she has done were her will. Mahiru is evil, stop justify her and excuses her actions in the name of "love".

(@dulciasouls1 hope you like it bcs i know this thing is bother you, and i understand that so well)

[grither55]

The Princess and the Peasant - (An Azula Epic) - Chapter 40 - Ghosts of the Past

“So, I am. Elle…would you be a dear and get me a sheet of paper and pen from your little bag?” The princess queried in a sanguine voice while she peered down at her still swooning handmaid in her muscular arms.

As soon as Mai and Ty Lee heard those words, they couldn’t help but turn to Azula with suspicion in their eyes.

While it may sound like a harmless request, this was Azula they were talking about!

Things were never simple with Azula!

“R-right away! I-if my princess asks for pen and paper! I get her pen and paper!” Elle cheered before springing forward out of Azula’s arms upon command much to the older female’s smug amusement.

The young handmaid bent over to rifle through her back while Azula surveyed her with a pleased palm beneath her chin.

“What…are you planning Azula?” The markswoman asked in a wary voice while she eyed her sadistic friend with narrowed tawny eyes.

“Oh, nothing Mai. I am just going to…draft a few…new laws.” Azula answered in a devilish voice while she turned to peer down at Elle’s back while her childhood friends shuddered in uncertainty.

“Laws…Azula?” The brown-haired woman inquired in a nervous voice only for her leader to ignore her question.

While the teenager was fumbling through her ridiculously oversized bag the princess sat behind her watching her every move with a possessive stare.

The girl was digging through her bag in such a comical rush that she didn’t seem to be paying much mind when several items fell free from a random pouch.

It was in that moment that Azula’s golden eyes caught sight of a particularly small item dropping free from the pouch.

Another pill bottle…

That was all it took for the amused look in her eyes to give way to a dangerously narrowed glare.

She watched like a predatory eagle hawk when her handmaid seemed to move to put the item away before she could notice.

How foolish of her.

She would have thought that the girl would have learned by now that nothing escaped her!

Like living lightning Azula took the other two women by surprise when she grasped ahold of Elle’s hand before it put the pill bottle away.

“What…is that?” The princess demanded in a much stricter voice than before while the younger girl’s blonde hair hung in her eyes once more.

“Azula! You can’t hold her wrist like that!” Ty Lee shouted in a furious voice while Mai narrowed her eyes in agreement.

“Be silent Ty Lee! I am not bruising her! Now I will not ask again. What. Is. That?” Azula hissed with a puff of fire escaping her nostrils while Elle shrunk under her imposing glare.

“P-pills.” The blonde-haired girl answered weakly while her big sisters stared on in confusion only for her caretaker to purse her lips into a cold scowl.

“I can clearly see that! What are they for!” The princess snapped in a controlling voice that her subordinates did not like while the much smaller girl gazed away.

“Anti-depressants!” Elle cried out with her eyes gazing away from Azula’s angered yet grudgingly concerned face.

“Anti-depressants Elle?” Mai repeated with her tawny eyes displaying returning worry for the girl’s well being.

“You…take these pills because you are unhappy?” Azula pondered with something akin to a shred of hurt in her voice while Elle’s shoulders slumped.

The mere prospect of her handmaid not truly being as overjoyed to be in her service as she had thought was a surprisingly hurtful one.

Afterall that is what she has come to adore most about this one.

Her never wavering smile and the way she serves her with such enthusiasm. Like no servant she’s ever had before.

“I-I’m happy with you Azula-sama…I really am. This is my home now. I…love it here. But…some things…will never go away. Even when they are an entire world away. I…. took them to cope when I was with…Felix. And I take them now to cope…when the memory creeps up on me.” The blonde-haired girl mumbled in a sullen voice while the monarch stared down at her back with her golden eyes flashing in murderous hatred for her brother.

Once more the entirety of Team Azula was just floored by how prominent this man was.

Even when he wasn’t here.

“So…it’s not…me?” The princess requested in a momentary break from her stern voice while she gazed down at her fragile girlfriend with her stern golden eyes softening ever so slightly.

“No! What sort of question is that! I love you!” Elle exclaimed with heavy emotion in her innocent eyes after turning around to smile sadly up at Azula’s strangely relieved face.

Neither Mai nor Ty Lee so much as even breathed a word after witnessing Azula display a truly uncharacteristic hint of self doubt.

This was the first time in all of their time knowing Azula that they had ever seen their friend express doubt in herself!

It was a brief but meaningful glimpse beneath the princess’s flawless exterior.

Ty Lee stared at Azula with sisterly concern in her eyes while she silently urged the unusually uncertain Azula to make a move.

The powerful princess caught the acrobat’s imploring gaze before scooting forward until she sat down beside the smaller girl.

She reached out to place a surprisingly comforting arm over the younger girl’s shoulder before greedily pulling the saddened girl in.

And once more the two found themselves staring on in amazement to see their friend being gentle once more.

“You are happy…serving me under me…is that right?” Azula questioned with a frown still on her regal lips while she held Elle’s small body against her chest once more.

“I…am. I am so very happy whenever I am with you Azula-sama. B-because I know that you will…protect me.” The blonde-haired girl admitted with her face underneath her girlfriend’s toned arm while she was held against the monarch’s plated bosom.

For reasons Azula couldn’t explain. She found those words pleasing to her ears.

Her handmaid was giving no indication that she was lying.

She couldn’t help but feel at ease knowing that this was what Elle wanted.

Yet even still she found herself unable to suppress that sense of murderous rage that boiled in her veins every time she heard about her girlfriend’s brother.

“Then…why? Why….do you need them? Is there…something that I am not doing enough for you?” The princess asked with her brows furrowing in frustration while she stared down at the smaller girl clutching at her bicep in the manner that she has come to adore.

“No. It’s just that…you’ve always been strong. I…am not. No matter how strong you are…even if you are the strongest person on the entire planet. Even though you can bend blue fire and lightning to your will. You…will never be able to take away my fear of Felix. It’s…. just how it is.” Elle muttered with her downcast eyes peering at her feet while Azula digested the words her lips curling into a furious glower.

The statement hit all of Team Azula in the chest.

All three of them were wondering what all that the girl’s brother did to her.

Thus far Elle has always been vague when she spoke about her brother.

Only giving small glimpses and hints of the torture that she endured at his hands.

“Do…you want me to kill him for you?” Azula announced in a guarded voice with her eyes peering down at Elle leaning into her breasts.

The noblewomen could only marvel once more over just how close the two had become.

It just goes to show just how deeply Elle wormed her way into Azula’s cold heart.

It was also rather frightening that at this point the girl could ask Azula to kill anyone she wanted and the princess would almost certainly oblige.

There were many people that would gladly take advantage of having the Princess of the Fire Nation as such a close love interest.

Yet Elle…did not.

That right there showed the difference between Elle and most people.

“If…you wish. But…but I will still fear him even if you kill him. Unless…you can wipe him from my mind. I…will always fear the memory.” The blonde-haired girl confessed with a bitter smile while the princess gazed down at her with uncomfortably taken aback golden eyes.

The poignant words caused all three of the older girls to stare on in unnerved silence.

“Why? The Princess of the Fire Nation stands beside you! Mai and Ty Lee stand beside you! All of my legions and Zoe stand beside you! So why!” The princess hissed with her teeth ground together while the smaller girl averted her eyes once more.

“Because only a fool would not be afraid of Felix. I-if you ever meet him then you’ll understand…that if you so much as take your eyes off him for a moment…he is d-deranged. His behavior is…highly unpredictable. He’s…insane. Even government officials won’t be caught dead around him without a host of guards to protect them.” Elle explained in a quiet voice while Azula listened with an increasingly displeased scowl on her red lips.

“When I set his entire body on fire then we’ll see just how terrifying he really is.” Azula insisted with her lips curling into a wrathful thin line.

Suffice to say that Ty Lee and Mai couldn’t help but shudder at the unsettling description of their young friend’s brother.

“W-what makes him so frightening is…that he doesn’t have a reason for what he does. He…hurt me for so many years…for no reason. I…asked him why so many times. And he…would just say that he…didn’t have a reason. H-he…did it because he enjoyed it.” The blonde-haired girl lamented with her face retreating into her knees once more while her three friends listened in growing rage.

‘I realize that I am not one to judge…I know well enough that I am no beacon of kindness. But…there is something about this one. I am going to kill him! Slowly!” The princess thought with her fists balling up in her fury while she leaned over her saddened handmaid.

“H-he’s a debauched creature. I…may know nothing of sexual pastimes but I know that his tastes are depraved. He doesn’t hurt people because he seeks financial gain…or a position of power. It’s…because it gives him a twisted sense of pleasure. The more suffering, he causes…the happier he is. He…used to invite girls over…girls his age. And they would run down the stairs in terror…w-with knife wounds.” Elle spoke in a near silent voice while even Azula sat in surprise over the shear depravity in her words.

“Isn’t…there some sort of city guard…or other law enforcement that can take him into custody so he doesn’t keep hurting people?” Mai queried in an unusually enraged voice while she clenched her fist in disgust.

It was no small wonder why Elle clung to Azula like a frightened mouse!

“No. Because he became involved in criminal underworld activity a few years back. They cover up his crimes. In exchange…for favors. He…he uses the organized criminals as an outlet to cause more suffering. And they don’t care. Because all they care about…is money.” The blonde-haired girl replied just when the princess slid an arm over her shoulder.

And then the younger girl’s cheeks turned a shake of pink despite her fear when she was pulled back into the royal woman’s battle worn chest plate.

Even though her princess was covered in sweat from her prolonged battle.

She savored her embrace all the same.

But even her girlfriend couldn’t wipe away her fears with her strength alone.

“Then I will just have to kill them…as well. Now calm yourself…my little lady.” Azula declared in a beyond powerful voice with her breathing brushing against Elle’s shivering neck.

The two noblewomen stared on with anger in their eyes while the princess demonstrated a stunningly affectionate side by holding the girl’s head into her bosom.

“B-but the worst thing…is that the criminals have a hired killer at their disposal. A professional...a f-former soldier. They…just call him Strados. I-I met him a long-time a-ago.” Elle revealed in a voice of rapidly rising emotion while Azula stared down at her with her golden eyes shimmering in her wrath.

All the while she memorized every detail that her young admirer told her while she began to stroke her fingers against her love interest’s trembling cheek.

“You…don’t have to say anymore. Not if you don’t want to.” The princess assured in a cold voice while she breathed against her cowering pet’s ear.

Only to find herself gazing down in surprise when the young girl began to shake in sorrow like she has only seen from her before on that night she came to her chamber on the warship.

“H-he killed my mother!” The blonde-haired girl announced without warning while her three friends stared at her in shock like never before.

They couldn’t believe that for even as sick as Elle’s brother was.

That he was associating with a group of people that worked with his own mother’s killer!

“E-Elle.” Ty Lee stammered with tears in her eyes while she balled up her fists in her anger.

It made her furious that such a sweet girl has been tortured so cruelly!

So horribly that even Azula felt pity for her!

“H-he was there on that day. H-he and his men were with the soldiers that attacked the village. T-they… even almost killed Felix! I-I’ll never forget his face or what he said to me! T-the way his hair blew in his emotionless blue eyes!” Elle cried with tears in her eyes while Azula’s strong arms crushed her into her armored breasts with the scent of heat and sweat upon her battle armor.

But she didn’t care.

Because Azula-sama was her savior.

An intense heat began to emanate from the princess’s body while she glared down with her golden eyes agape in unadulterated rage.

All the while her bending began to hear up while beads of sweat dripped down her enraged face while she smashed the tiny girl’s crying face into her chest.

Mai and Ty Lee sat in a helpless silence while they watched the poor girl bawl her eyes out for the second time in under an hour.

Only now were they all able to see the extent of the gentle hearted girl’s torture!

“There…. there my peasant. Don’t cry. I once told you that if there was anything wrong…anything at all. That I would mend it…and so I will.” Azula hissed with her chin pressing into the top of her traumatized admirer’s head while the blonde continued to cry her heart out.

The two noblewomen were just as stunned by their leader’s growing compassion for Elle as they were in the girl’s hidden torments.

And even though they knew the princess would never say it aloud.

They could tell that Azula regretted ever asking Elle about her pills.

“H-he said is t-this your mother. A-and then he shot my mother. I-I tried so hard to help her walk b-but I was too weak to carry an adult. And then he…tried to attack me but she protected me. And then…and then she pushed me away. S-she told me to go get to safety and then I ran for some time…for how long I am not sure. A-all I remember is that I heard the sound of gun shots firing off all throughout the city and then I heard one final gun shot. I-I will never forget the sound of that for as long as I live!” The blonde-haired girl blurted out in a broken voice while she shook like a leak against her girlfriend’s armored bosom.

The three listened in a horrified silence.

Azula had already known. Not every detail but she had known.

But it was still jarring even to a woman as cold as her that her betrothed watched her own mother die in such a gruesome manner.

Mai stared on with her tawny eyes as wide as can be while her bruised face contorted into a furious glower.

What a monster!

Ty Lee still sat with tears streaming down her cheeks while her entire body trembled in her rage.

“I will kill him for you.” The princess assured in a protectively dominant voice with her fingers sweeping across her little girlfriend’s crying cheeks.

“A-and soon after that…t-they killed my father too.” Elle murmured in a forlorn voice while Azula peered over her shoulder with wrathful golden eyes.

‘Who would have ever thought that I would one day feel this way about a peasant?’ Azula thought with her lips pursing into a glacial scowl while Elle’s head sunk into her chest.

Team Azula sat in a muted quiet while they processed their innocent young friend’s heartbreaking confession.

It was truly, truly horrifying.

Judging by Elle’s persistent smile they would have never thought that she endured such a brutal trauma at only five years old.

“And t-then they caught up to me a-and I was knocked out cold.” The blonde-haired girl admitted while the princess gazing down with alarm in her golden eyes while her mouth hung open ajar in a newfound sense of dread.

The three highborn women sat there in a grim silence with their eyes as wide as can be all the while wondering if the man had…

Touched her.

“Did…he…touch you?” The princess pondered with fire already spewing from her lips while she continued holding her saddened pet in a peculiar compulsion to comfort her admirer.

“No…t-they took me and two other girls’…Naoki and Katsu to the river. And then…and then they…” Elle revealed in a shaken voice while Azula listened with unusual shock in her enraged eyes while the smaller girl continued to shake in fear.

Those names…the girl mentioned those names before as the two that approached her before she came from…wherever it is that she came from.

The two noblewomen stared at the crying girl in an apprehensive silence while the princess still sat with the teenager’s face in her arms.

“Enough. Shush now. You have said all that I need to hear.” Azula ordered with her arms holding Elle’s sobbing face into her breasts.

“A-Azula-sama.” The blonde-haired girl stammered in a sorrowful voice while the powerful woman growled against her wet cheek.

“Must I punish you?” The princess questioned in a terribly intimidating voice while her fingers caressed her sensitive pet’s damp cheek.

“A-and that’s why Felix is so dangerous. He…he doesn’t even care that he killed our parents. He…says that he won’t let the past…hinder his…b-business.” Elle sniffled with her face burrowing into Azula while domineering golden eyes narrowed down at the back of her head.

If you asked Azula it didn’t make any sense for the girl to fear her sexual sadist of a brother more than the hired killer.

And it was obvious to her that the assassin was the more dangerous of the two.

But either way…she didn’t approve of the girl fearing either one.

Mai and Ty Lee sat with shock in their eyes while they digested their young friend’s confession.

It was truly jarring.

Not only did this ‘Strados’ sound like a psychopath that enjoyed killing parents and tormenting the children afterward.

They had a newfound understanding in regards to just how cruel her brother was to not even care about killing the man that murdered his parents.

The fact that he would rather torture his own sister said all that they needed to know about this Felix!

“Hm. Punishment it is then.” Azula drawled in a captivating voice with her chin pressing down on the back of Elle’s head while she frowned down at her handmaid’s pain-stricken face.

“Y-yes Azula-sama. As…you say.” The blonde-haired girl mumbled in a weak voice with her eyes closing against older female’s body while the princess brushed her finger against her cheek.

“What am I ever going to do with you peasant?  I told you no more tears and not even an hour later…and you are crying again.” The princess sighed with a shake of her head while she continued to pet the smaller girl’s tear stained cheek.

With her every breath her chest rose and fell while the dainty girl hid in her breasts while her friends sat in silence while she tenderly stroked her fingers against her little admirer’s cheek.

Only to gaze down at her handmaid with her brows furrowing in a questioning manner when she heard a muffled snore from her breast.

“Are you…sleeping? What do I look like? Your bed?” Azula snorted with her cold eyes peering down at Elle’s now dozing face while the small girl curled up against her chest.

“J-just let her sleep for a few minutes Azula. She’s…been through a lot.” Ty Lee spoke in a saddened voice with her fingers wiping at her eyes.

“I…didn’t know that she went through all of that.” Mai commented in a saddened voice at long last while Azula leaned back on her bottom with Elle in her arms.

“I swear this peasant is lucky that I like her this much…” The princess trailed off with another sigh while she massaged the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

“Yeah…Azula she is.” The brown-haired woman agreed with a sad smile while she gazed at her adopted sister adorably snoring against her leader’s chest.

“Listen here peasant. If you are going to use me as a pillow then I will just have to relocate you to a location of my choosing.” Azula remarked with a haughty roll of her eyes before she gently grasped ahold of her sleeping handmaid’s shoulder.

And then the other two women watched in an astonished silence when she tenderly lowered Elle’s head onto her right thigh.

The exhausted blonde never so much as even moved a muscle while she continued sleeping with tears staining her fair cheeks.

The princess lowered a hand into the snoring handmaid’s hair once more just as she began to pet the drowsing girl once more.

Indeed, what is she going to do with this one?

Such a troublesome girl…

But still perfect all the same.

[shadowsof-thenight]

Hopeless (A Bucky Barnes one-shot)

Summary:

Takes place right after civil war, slightly altering the events at the end. Written in first person (which I never do, but here we are)

My hopeful nature has always been an asset, and as Steve brings Bucky to our newest hide-out, I thought it would help him. I thought I could help him.

Words: 2633

Ship: Bucky Barnes x Reader, though platonic. 

Warning: Sadness, depression, mental health issues/

A/N:This was literally written in such a short amount of time, but I wanted to post it anyway. I might dislike it in a little while, but I've hardly written anything since I finished the long way home...I just wanted to write. And though this'd not work out at all how I had imagined after thinking up those first few lines, I think this suited me better at this moment. I guess I'm not in the right state of mind for lighthearted. Anyway, let me know what you think of this one.

***

It’s a nice feeling, the first time your heart skips. That initial moment that you realise someone has that effect on you. As a teenager it used to make me incredibly nervous, effectively rendering me speechless. I would simply stare at the guy in question and hope he would notice me, eventually speak to me. Always too scared to be the first to speak myself. 

I can’t tell you how often that worked against me.

These days it still makes me nervous, but doesn’t leave me speechless. Instead I can manage a sentence, a conversation even. Making getting to know someone a little easier. 

What it does not help with though, knowing if the person in question returns the feelings. Those budding ‘ oh that person is cute’ feelings. When you want to know if flirting is the right call. 

So when Bucky was first brought into the building by Steve, and my heart skipped a beat, I decided to slow it down. He had been though so much and didn’t need to know that I thought he was gorgeous. In the past I had jumped into these things. However, in those instances the receiver of my budding affection had not been through hell. I could not be sure how he would react to someone complimenting him, flirting with him. I could be sure that it was not what he needed. What he needed was normalcy, time to ground himself. Time to catch his breath. The space to rediscover himself. Perhaps he could even use a friend.

So I squashed my crush. Ignored it. It wasn’t too hard, since I knew nothing about him and it was all very superficial. Instead I was patient, kind and welcoming. Offered him friendship, distraction from his wandering mind and a place he could call home. The entire team worked on that. Our love and respect for Steve was enough to want to act as a warm blanket for his oldest friend. 

That first day, as he sat stoic in a chair at the table, anxiously looking around at the faces in the room, everyone tumbled over themselves to tell him he was welcome. Looking back on that now, I realised we might have overwhelmed the poor man. 

Bucky was distant, keeping everyone at bay. Wary of any form of attention. Often he stayed in his room throughout the day, not even coming out for food or drink. Steve tried so hard. Tried to help him, give him space, be his friend, but it soon became clear that he was unsure of how to proceed. Bucky was so withdrawn and it was difficult for him to figure out a way to get through to him. Steve had confessed that even when his friend allowed him into his room, there was little conversation. Bucky seemed to have forgotten how to connect. To anything and anyone. 

Eventually Steve simply began to leave things in front of his door. Hoping to show instead of telling that he would be by his side. He left food, beverages, mementos of their shared past. It always made its way into the room, though nobody saw Bucky open the door. 

It wasn’t until one night after a particular long mission, where I had tried and hopefully succeeded to put the government on a wrong trail, I found myself unable to sleep, and wandered through the farm we called home at the moment. Careful not to make a sound, I walked around on sock covered feet. Midnight snack in hand, music in my ear, I made my way to the balcony that overlooked the surrounding fields. The balcony was on the second floor, right of the attic that we now used as an office. Usually the doors to the balcony remained closed, but you risked the exposure as you unlocked them. 

It was a warm night, clear skies offering a beautiful view of the trees, sunflowers and grass illuminated by moonlight. It was my favourite place of all the hide-outs we’ve had so far, especially in the silence of the night. Stepping onto the cold weathered wood, I shivered before sighing deeply, taking in the scene before me and letting the fresh air wash over my aching body. My racing mind instantly seemed to clear up. 

Lazily I leaned forward on the railing, staring up at the full moon, when movement below the balcony caught my attention. For a moment I was on high alert, fearing for a hostile break in. Then I recognised the long dark locks of the silent figure, as he sat down on the overgrown lawn. I watched as his fingers absentmindedly moved through the grassy greens, while he stared straight ahead. It took me a moment to realise what he was doing, not until his flesh hand angrily wiped at his face. He was crying. Dumbstruck I stood rooted to the ground, unable to move an inch, simply staring at the lone crying figure. 

A few moments passed before I was able to remove myself from the scene. Turning around I silently walked back through the double doors and walked straight to my room. He didn’t need an audience. 

After this I began to notice his movements more. As soon as people had gone to bed, he would leave his room. Sometimes to run, crossing the surrounding fields, running until he had exhausted himself so he could hardly move another muscle. Other times he would sit outside on the grass, staring straight ahead. I wondered what went through his head in those times, for he seemed so lost in those moments. Stuck in a state of constant torture. It was clear that he had trouble adjusting to this new life he had been given. 

With my room next to his it was easy to hear what went on in his. More than once had I heard him cry, rage and scream. His pain was eating at him, keeping him awake at night and isolating him. 

He was struggling and needed help, but I wasn’t sure how to offer any. If he wasn’t accepting it from Steve, why would he accept any help from me?

Still the next sleepless night, I waited for him to leave his room, before following him outside. Hesitation halted my steps as I watched him sit down in his usual spot. Finally I took a deep breath and opened the door to follow him, making sure to made a sound so he wouldn’t spook. At least if he heard me coming, he would be able to take himself out of the situation. 

His head perked up, but he remained seated as I moved closer. 

“Hi” I said softly, lowering myself down on the grass next to him. His eyes shifted over to me, but he didn’t say a word. His shoulders were tense and I knew I had to say something to make him relax. 

“Sorry to invade your space. I just…” for a moment I wasn’t sure what to say next, “I want to help you” 

“Help me?” His voice surprised you. It was soft, gruff and uncertain as he looked at me. Emotions seemed to wage a war behind those beautiful blue orbs and it took me by surprise. I’d never seen such devastation in a person before. Finally I could see just how broken he really was. It only made me want to help him more. 

“I’ve seen you come here. I’ve seen you struggle. I’m not trying to pry or make you do anything you don’t want too, but I’m told I’m a good listener.” Stopping a moment to look him in the eye before I spoke the next words, “I just want you to know that you don’t have to do this alone.” 

He didn’t say a word, but his shoulders slumped and his eyes moved straight ahead again, where he seemed to take in the dark shadows of the sunflower fields that surrounded the farm on three sides. 

After what seemed like an eternity he moved again, looking at me, and he opened his mouth. Nothing came out and he closed it again, looking down at his hands. Sensing he wanted to talk, I stayed silent as I watched him struggle to get words out. It took him a while, but finally he seemed  to figure out what he wanted to say. 

“He gave up everything for me. All of you did” he began, “I just don’t think I’m worth all that”. He sniffed and a single tear rolled down his cheek, effectively breaking my heart. Without thinking, I grabbed his hand in both of mine, holding it close to me. Surprised his looked down at our touching hands and I followed his gaze. I’d grabbed his metal arm. He seemed shocked by that fact. Not letting it go, I looked him in the eye. Hoping he could see my determination, my drive to truly be of help. 

“You’ve been through hell and back, you deserve better.” 

“I did horrible things” his voice cracked and it took all my willpower, not to hug him. He’d not been around kindness, touch must be difficult. Grabbing his hand had already been a bold move, huddling him could easily push him further away. I didn’t want that to happen at all. 

“You weren’t given a choice.” He shrugged at my words, as if that didn’t matter and I realised that in his mind it probably didn’t. He still had to live with the things he had done even if it had not truly been him. 

“Bucky listen to me” using one hand to turn his face in my direction, “I know you must feel responsible for all of it, but you are not. Your hands were forced, your mind was erased more times than any of us can even imagine. For years you had no control. You were tortured and forced to live a certain way. That is not on you.” 

“Then who?” He asked.

“It doesn’t matter who. Hydra was discovered and they will be dealt with. You need to focus on you now. Realise that you are a good person. Worthy of help. And you are only responsible for the moments where you had a choice.” 

He didn’t speak and I allowed the silence to sit between the two of us for a moment. His breath came out ragged and I began to draw circles on his back with the hand that had turned his face in my direction, while my other hand still held his cold metal hand close. 

“You’ll have to figure out who you truly are, without the strings hydra has been pulling for so long. I don’t think you can if you pull away from everyone. Let us help you” 

Releasing his hand, I impulsively pressed a kiss to his temple and got up off the ground. Without looking back, I walked back inside and went to bed, hoping that my words would have effect. 

The next morning as we sat in the attic, discussing our next move, the creaking of a floorboard caught our attention. Silence took the room immediately and Wanda quietly moved towards the stairway, hoping to get a feel of however was moving in our general direction. Soon a soft smile played on her lips as she moved to open the door that as blocking our view of the culprit. 

“Come in” her kind smile beaming at the intruder. As soon as she had begun smiling, everyone had instantly relaxed, she was the best judge of character anyone could ask for. And when Bucky hesitantly stepped into the room, a collective sigh passed. Steve moved quickly, enveloping him in a hug. Over Steve’s shoulder, Bucky caught my eye and I smiled at him, grateful that he took a chance. 

Over the course of the following two weeks, Bucky made an effort to be around the group an hour or two a day. He still wasn’t comfortable, but he was trying. Steve had been rejuvenated by the progress, walking with a spring in his step. Eager to figure a way out of their dire situation. Steve knew that they could not run forever. Yet there wasn’t a clear path to take. They were still wanted criminals, all of them. But they were human beings who had walked away from all the family they had known. Wanda was missing Vision more and more each day. Sam was going stir crazy, as was Natasha, especially with Clint gone. And the constant moving wasn’t easy on anyone.  We were all becoming increasingly tired. 

Those first two weeks, I had been convinced that I was helping Bucky. That being amongst the group would help him. I thought he was getting better. That he would start feeling better. Not until I caught him sitting outside of our current hideout in a small European town in the middle of nowhere, tears streaming down his face, that I suddenly realised he wasn’t mending. He was breaking. Seemingly conflicted as he sat there, his emotions clear on his face. 

Confronting him he had confirmed as much. He didn’t dare trust himself. He was afraid of his own mind. It was still so easily manipulated, since so little was known about what hydra had done to him. The trigger words that Zumo had used, they were still in there. If anyone else found out about them, he could easily be turned against anyone. He didn’t feel safe. He felt a danger to everyone that was trying to help him. He was afraid of himself and everything, since nothing in the world seemed familiar anymore. He was anxious all the time. 

Though I had wished to give him hope, wanted to help him, there was nothing I could say to ease those fears. Those were some well founded fears. And as hard as I tried, this was not something I would ever truly understand. I never had to be afraid of my own mind. It had never betrayed me like his had. Control had never been taken from me in such a massive way. 

All I could do was hold him, promising I would try and find a way to help him release those fears. 

And there was only one person in the world that I knew could help. 

The next morning I suggested we’d move south, to Wakanda. There we could recuperate for a moment. Allow ourselves to finally relax after weeks upon weeks of running. T’Challa had promised us a safe haven and we needed it now more than ever. Though I did not tell them just why. 

If I had known the choice Bucky would make over the following days, I’m not sure I would have made the same choices. Seeing Steve’s heart break over his friend, so shortly after thinking things were getting better, was hard. His fallen face and slumped shoulders were fixed in my memory. And as I said my goodbye to Bucky, right before he went back into cryo, my hopeful nature took a huge hit. I thought it had been my greatest asset, but it had been so wrong this time. Seeing the good in Bucky had not been enough. Trying to get him to see the good had not been enough. 

And now he was lost to them once more and the fight they had picked over him had suddenly seemed useless. 

It was hard telling myself that the fight had not been solely about Bucky, even though rationally I knew the truth of it. Right now it just seemed too difficult. 

And as I tried to comfort a crushed Steve, I wondered if I would feel that flutter in my heart again…the one Bucky had caused when I first laid eyes on him. 

[mattmurdocks-leftbuttcheek]

True Family (P.P. x Reader)

I honestly don’t know what this is so enjoy, I guess. I HAVEN’T EDITED THIS, OOPS. I still have some prompts and stuff but I’ve been really busy bc there was a death in my family and I have been home alone and couldn’t sleep. This is kinda how I reacted when I found out my dad died so it’s like based on that month of my life. PLEASE GIVE ME FEEDBACK. IM A LONELY BITCH WHO WANTS ATTENTION. :))))

Warnings: death, suicide, readers mom being a bitch??

Word count: what feels really small is 2.1k

Everyone grieves differently. Some cry, some scream, and others… they just sit there, no reaction. That’s how Y/n reacted to her father’s death. She sat there while her siblings cried, tears falling down her mother’s face. After sitting on the couch for a few minutes listening to her siblings and mother cry together, she got up silently and walked to her room.

Y/n felt empty. She felt like laying there and crying but nothing happened. She sat on her bed, looking at her phone, wondering if Peter was busy. She sat there for what felt like eternity until a knock at her door made her jump. After a few moments, her door opened just enough to show her mother’s wet and red face. She sniffled and sat on Y/n’s bed beside her, as if she was waiting for Y/n to suddenly break down in tears. “Are you okay?”

Y/n sat there, silent. Her mouth felt glued shut. Then something snapped in her. Y/n got up abruptly, startling her mother as she grabbed her jacket and her bag, heading to the front door of their apartment. Her sister that was younger than her by two years stepped up from the couch, sniffling as she hugged herself. “Where are you going?”

Y/n just looked at her with empty eyes. Her sister knew where she was going.

Peter’s.

The air outside was just cool enough to leave you with chill bumps. Y/n had her jacket but she didn’t have the energy to slip it on. She walked the familiar streets and turns until she was in front of Peter’s apartment. She just stood there, her hand poised in a fist, just an inch away from the wood. Instead, she took out her phone and texted Peter.

Can you open the door?

He saw the notification. And just seconds later he opened the door. “Y/n? What’s wrong.”

Y/n’s throat felt as if she had swallowed sandpaper. She opened her mouth to say something but was stopped by Peter’s aggressive hug that made her feel as if the news she had gotten was known to Peter too. He lead her to sit on the couch and asked her questions. What happened? Why aren’t you talking? Did someone hurt you?

It got to the point that Peter had gotten May from her bedroom. Telling her that Y/n wouldn’t talk but he knew something was up. May sat beside Y/n and looked at her. She looked like she wanted to punch a wall and take a very long nap at the same time. Y/n noticed May’s presence and looked up. She opened her mouth, but this time she could barely get the words out. ���My… Dad…”

May’s face knew what she was saying and took her into her arms and sat there.

Peter looked confused. Then realization hit him. Y/n’s parents had been separated, her father was an alcoholic with diabetes that had to go to dialysis. After hearing the pain in Y/n’s voice, he went to the kitchen and got her a glass of water. She took it greedily, like she hadn’t eaten anything all day.

Peter just sat on the other side of Y/n, knowing the feeling that was. After losing his own parents, he didn’t want to talk either, but he did cry. Y/n sat up straight and looked at Peter with empty eyes and fell sideways on him, knocking him down onto the couch, she wrapped her arms around his waist and just held him. Hoping that the warmth of him would thaw the aching ice forming in her chest. He held her, stroking her hair as she just laid there, hugging him with her head on his chest.

They fell asleep, waking up to Y/n’s phone buzzing. Her mother was calling her. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and answered the phone. “What?”

“Where are you?” Her mother’s frantic voice was loud over the phone.

Y/n’s throat was dry. “I’m at Peter’s. I’m staying the night.”

Her mother was saying something along the lines of ‘you need to be home and grieve with us. You’re making us look like we aren’t a family’.

Y/n spoke up abruptly. “We haven’t been a family since you made Dad move out. Since you made the decision that you could take care of three teenagers by yourself while you’re in school. I said I’m staying at Peter’s for the night. Now it may be a week.” She hung up the phone and stood up. “She makes me so mad.”

Peter stood beside her, taking her hand. “You know May will let you stay for as long as you need, right?”

Y/n nodded, looking down at his hand, his fingers intertwined with hers. As if reading her mind, Peter led Y/n to his room. Rummaging through his dresser for some clothes she could sleep in. He handed her a worn shirt and sweatpants to wear. She took them gratefully, a smile gracing her lips. “Thanks, Peter.”

They both had school the next day. Y/n hoped it would go smoothly, meaning that flash wouldn’t be a jerk to her and that no one would mention what had happened today. As Y/n changed in Peter’s bathroom, she looked herself over. She looked pale, as if she hadn’t seen the sun in a week, her eyes were dark, empty. Her hair was a birds nest on the top of her head, not as neat as it should be. She felt as she looked. Cold and empty.

Peter knocked on the door and Y/n opened it. “Do I really look this bad?”

Peter looked at her like she grew an extra head. “Look like what?”

“Like I’ve been held prisoner. I look like I haven’t seen the sun in days. My hair is a complete mess.”

Peter shushed her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Y/n you look like you always do.” He said, looking into her eyes. “You look beautiful despite the fact that your dad died today and you feel like shit.”

Y/n smiled. She felt like laughing was a bad thing to do at the moment. So she just smiled and leaned forward and kissed Peter on the cheek. “Thank’s Peter.”

She crawled under the covers on his bed and waited for him. But her smile faded as she looked at her phone. The screen lit up, showing a notification from FaceBook (like anyone really uses it). Her mom had tagged her in a post.

‘I’m sorry to share the news that my ex-husband has passed away. My girls and I are devastated. The funeral will be arranged soon. Please pray for my family’

Y/n scoffed. “Peter, have you read this?”

Peter looked up and took the phone out of her hand. “Y/n, I know she is getting annoying, but you need to ignore it. She is grieving in her own way. Just let her.”

Y/n pushed her head into the pillow and groaned. “She may be grieving but still, you don’t just post something like that publicly.”

Peter just sighed. “Just try to go to sleep, Y/n. Everything will be fine.” He hugged her under the covers, rubbing her arms to help her go to sleep. “We can go to your apartment tomorrow and get clothes for you to stay if you need to.”

Y/n nodded, sleep taking over her, her eyes getting heavy.

It felt like everyone was staring at her. She walked the halls of school with Peter beside her, his hand on her lower back, hovering as if he was worried she was going to collapse. She heard Flash talking and prepared herself for the worst. Peter rubbed her back, sensing her tension.

“Hey, Y/n,” Flash said loudly,”I’m sorry about your dad.”

Y/n just stared at him, waiting for him to say something else. And he did. He said the worst thing possible that would send her into another spiralling depression.

“I heard that he committed suicide. Did he get that from you?” Everyone made an ‘ooh’-ing noise. Anger welled up in Y/n, acting as its own person, not her. She grabbed Flash by the front of his shirt and pulled him towards her. She felt Peter try to grab her by her bag but he was a second too late. He was currently watching his best friend threaten on of the most popular kids in school.

Y/n balled up Flash’s shirt in her fist and held him up to her face. “If you ever, ever say anything along those lines again, you won’t be able to have kids or even try. What I did did not happen to my father. You will have bad things happen to you, Eugene.” Y/n dropped Flash, making him stumble. “I’ll be sure of it.” She made her way to the doors that led outside.

After he stared at her wide-eyed for a moment, Peter followed her, not sure what exactly happened. He looked around outside, finding Y/n sitting around the corner of the building.

“Hey,” he said softly, sitting down beside her.”What was he talking about?”

Y/n wiped her eyes, breathing in deeply. “Do you remember three years ago when I went to  Norway? To meet my aunt?”

Peter nodded, remembering that was the longest month of his life.

“Peter,” Y/n turned to him, her eyes red from crying.”I didn’t really go to Norway.” She took Peter’s hand and started tracing the lines of his palm, trying to concentrate on something to keep her here and not in the past. “I-I couldn’t take the pressure at school and from my mom,” she started, “I took over a hundred pills and laid there in my bed. I wanted to end the pain and end the expectations. I couldn’t handle my life anymore. I wrote notes and hid them in case I changed my mind. I didn’t want them to find the notes until after it happened, when the police would go through my belongings to find why. When I started throwing up, I called my dad and told him what happened. He rushed me to the hospital and I was stabilized. I spent that month in a psychiatric hospital in Boston.”

“Y/n,”

“I’m not done. My mom only told one person. Flash’s dad. Then she fabricated that I went to Norway to visit my aunt to learn more about a different country. I spent an entire month in a nuthouse with crazy people. I’m not crazy, and I wasn’t at the time. I just wanted to go home, but they wouldn’t let me leave until they saw that I was doing better. The food there was making everyone gain weight and I was scared that I would gain too. I didn’t eat but once every two days. I drank water and soda to keep my calorie intake alive.”

Peter looked at her, remembering when she came back. She looked thin and scared. Her clothes more baggy than ever, her skin sickly pale, her collarbones poking out from under her sweaters. He remembered being scared for her health.

“That’s why Flash said what he said.” Y/n wiped her tears away, “I will castrate him myself if he says anything like that again.”

Peter laughed, taking Y/n’s hand in his. “Y/n, just promise me one thing.”

Y/n smiled. “Anything for you.”

Peter looked into Y/n’s eyes. His brown ones staring into her e/c ones. “If you ever feel that way again, please talk to me. No matter how small the problem is, you can talk to me. I need you to stay alive.”

Y/n nodded, keeping eye-contact.

They both stood up, dusting themselves off as they walked back into the school. Peter stopped Y/n before they reached the doors. “And one more thing.”

Y/n nodded, waiting for his last request.

“Be my girlfriend.”

Y/n smiled, "Of course I will, now you can be my true family."

Peter hugged her tightly. "I will always be your true family."

[wiseabsol]

A Selection of Abby’s Favorite Fanfics

Artemis Fowl: The Aztec Incident by AgiVega  

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2055830/1/Artemis-Fowl-The-Aztec-Incident

Fandom: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer

Summary: 26-year-old Artemis Fowl gets the greatest surprise of his life when Commander Holly Short pays him a visit, pleading for his help. They need to team up to save their son, whose existence Artemis has been unaware of….

+

Artemis Fowl: The Sword of God by AgiVega  

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2593669/1/Artemis-Fowl-The-Sword-of-God

Fandom: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer

Summary: Sequel to the Aztec Incident. Despite having Holly at his side, Artemis is depressed, he cannot overcome the loss of his genius. Only time can heal him… in both senses of the word.

My thoughts on this duology: One of my favorites as a teenager, which I printed a hard-copy of. It has great comedic timing and, all in all, is a fun adventure romp.

A City of Fortune and Failure by justadram  

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9287426/1/A-City-of-Fortune-and-Failure

Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin

Summary: Amidst maneuvers and intrigue, heartbreak and betrayal, bankruptcy and political scandal, the players jockey for power, money, and prestige in a game of business, politics, and love in New York City. Modern AU. Multi-ship. Central ships: Ned/Cat, Cersei/Jaime, Dany/Jorah, Jon/Sansa.

My thoughts: A masterful modern AU of the ASOIAF universe, with a happier ending than one would think, given the source material.  

Disengagement by turtle_paced

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142807/chapters/2312623

Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin

Summary: The killing of Mad King Aerys Targaryen by person or persons unknown worked out well for virtually everyone, including Jaime Lannister. Disgraced for failing his king (if only they knew) and tasked with protecting no-longer-a-Princess Rhaenys Targaryen until she can be wed to Robert’s eldest legitimate son (whenever Robert gets around to producing one), Jaime must go north with the Starks (a prickly, judgmental lot) to look after her. Cold, bored, and guarding a five-year-old, Jaime might yet learn to be a truly honourable knight – but even far from King’s Landing and Cersei, his dangerous secrets might catch up with him. Worse, his aren’t the only dangerous secrets in the North….

My thoughts: One of my go-to AU stories when I need something that is kinder to Rhaenys and when I want a solid political story to sink my teeth into. turtle_paced’s take on the ASOIAF world is spot-on, so if you want something that feels like Martin’s work, this is it.  

The Princess and the Septa by Julia_Martell

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4141185/chapters/9340335

Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin

Summary: Septa Eglantine’s duty was to accompany Myrcella to Dorne. Princess Arianne’s duty was to graciously receive her. But neither woman was quite prepared for the other.

My thoughts: This poignant story will break your heart and fill you with father-daughter feels. It also acts as a lead-in to the Dornish theatre in the books.  

A Wedding in Sunspear by Julia_Martell

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4903933/chapters/11247469

Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin

Summary: The Seven Kingdoms have been at peace for ten years as the great and powerful gather in Sunspear for the marriage of Princess Loreza Nymeros Martell. But old tensions are just below the surface. Love and duty, hate and pride, anger and ambition. There’s nothing like a wedding to make emotions run high.

My thoughts: If you’re looking for a lovingly detailed exploration of Dornish culture and how it grates against Westerosi patriarchal norms, this is a great story to dig into. Alysanne’s chapters in particular leave me gutted every time.  

The Not So Dead Ladies Club by La Reine Noire

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/801072

Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin

Summary: Two women survive Robert's Rebellion and everything changes. An Elia Martell/Lyanna Stark story.

My thoughts: This story satisfies the part of me that desperately wanted Elia Martell and Lyanna Stark to have more agency in ASOIAF, and for them and their children to have a hopeful future. Also, who needs Rhaegar?  

dream of the lotus in bloom by Pulpo Fiction  

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8442158/1/dream-of-the-lotus-in-bloom

Fandom: Avatar The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra

Summary: Fourteen years ago, a masked man intercepts a letter to the White Lotus, breaks into the home of a young Water Tribe couple, and leaves with their only daughter. Now, she is seventeen. An Equalist!Korra AU.

My thoughts: This story take the potential of season one of LOK and ramps it up, giving more weight to the Equalist movement and making Amon’s and Korra’s relationship much more complicated and painful.  

Of Finding Innocence by FanficwriterGHC

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7176396/1/Of-Finding-Innocence

Fandom: Castle

Summary: When Kate Beckett went to get her book signed by Richard Castle, she never imagined that she'd end up meeting his daughter, much less offering to babysit for the afternoon. AU.

My thoughts: Pure, fluffy goodness. This is what I re-read when I need something tooth-achingly sweet. The romance between Beckett and Castle also builds slowly, after months of friendship, which makes my demi heart happy.

Forward by Peptuck  

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4099993/1/Forward

Fandom: Firefly

Summary: Following the Miranda broadwave, there’s only one direction for Malcolm Reynolds and his crew to go. Post-BDM, Series.

My thoughts: An AU continuation of Firefly and Serenity, in which Book and Wash survive and continue going on adventures with the crew. Book’s backstory here is much more interesting than the version in the comics; the sci fi plots--namely surrounding psychic experimentation--are more fleshed out and chilling; and the sexism in the show surrounding Kaylee, Inara, and River has mercifully been ripped out.    

Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past by S'TarKan

Link: http://www.viridiandreams.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5545

Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Summary: The War is over and Voldemort is finally dead. Too bad there's no one left to celebrate. Harry risks everything, even returning Voldemort to life, for a chance to go back and do it right this time.

My thoughts: This is an emotional time-travel fic that gives secondary characters like Ginny, Luna, and Neville more chances to shine. In general, it’s a fun action/adventure ride, albeit one that is more violent than the original series.

Time, Interrupted by Madm05  

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2948865/1/Time-Interrupted

Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Summary: After she is murdered, Hermione’s soul is sent back in time in order to prevent Harry from becoming the next Dark Lord, but quickly learns her task is not as easy as she thought it would be. A second chance story, with a twist. Eventual HHr.

My thoughts: This is one of my favorite Harmony fics, because it is super sweet (with the exception of a few dark moments) and Remus and Sirius become prominent figures in Hermione and Harry’s childhoods, thanks to some time-meddling.  

Vox Corporis by MissAnnThropic

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13323228/1/REPOST-Vox-Corporis-Original-Author-MissAnnThropic-NOT-MY-STORY

Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Summary: Following the events of the Goblet of Fire, Harry spends the summer with the Grangers, his relationship with Hermione deepens, and he and Hermione become animagi.

My thoughts: My favorite Harmony fic. It’s a slow-burn romance, building on the friendship between Harry and Hermione over the summer following GOF and through their next year of school. It also deals with the trauma that Harry has gone through, both from the Dursleys’ abuse and from Cedrick’s death, and Hermione’s insecurities from being bullied before Hogwarts.

Psychic AU by Laughsalot3412

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/431476

Fandom: Leverage

Summary: He had a sniper rifle scoping the girl’s bright eyes and the guy’s smile. An Eliot/Parker/Hardison AU.

My thoughts: The OT3 is wonderfully written, the exploration of Eliot’s trauma from Moreau is respectfully handled, and the importance of consent during psychic mind-melding is underscored.

Team 8 by S'TarKan  

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/1/Team-8

Fandom: Naruto

Summary: What if Naruto had been selected for a different team? What if he’d had a different mentor? Who would guess the consequences would be so large?

My thoughts: This is everything that I wanted Naruto to be--an action/adventure story with a strong character focus, heartwarming friendships that support mutual growth, and some ruthless villains and conspiracy plots to keep things interesting. I’m also deeply in love with S’TarKan’s version of Kurenai, who is the inspiration for at least two of my OCs. She alone makes this fic worth reading, but the rest of the story is also stronger and more streamlined than the original story.

the fatal plunge by maleficently

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/29748

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Summary: Emma has hidden her face behind a curtain of unruly hair for now, but manages to tip it back on command--and Regina looks down at Emma’s chest and the heart she knows is beating there; wonders absently if any of her problems would be solved if she just plucked it out and kept it in her jewelry box upstairs--and looks at her with the kind of anguish that really and truly doesn’t befit a storybook savior. “The curse. It didn't break right, so how do I fix it?” Part 1 of a 3-part post-curse AU that mostly ignores Season 2 developments.

My thoughts: This series was what made me start shipping Emma Swan and Regina Mills in earnest. The story doesn’t shy away from Emma’s flaws or Regina’s ruthlessness, and in general feels like a more emotionally true take on what should have unfolded after season one.

somewhere, someone must know the ending by maleficently

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521505/chapters/921864

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Summary: “I’m here because...I think my kid is having some kind of delusional breakdown because he can’t cope with the fact that...Mayor Mills and I split up.” Dr. Hopper pushes his glasses up his nose in a measured movement. “What makes you think that?” “Well, among other things, he thinks his mother is about to cut Mary Margaret Blanchard’s heart out of her chest, before pulverizing it and sending her into a coma that only her true love can rescue her from.” AU. Here, “fairy tale land” is merely a product of Henry's imagination during a difficult time.

My thoughts: I am a sucker for AU fics, especially ones that re-envision canon in interesting ways. This one chronicles the aftermath of Emma Swan and Regina Mills sabotaging their relationship, but then working together to make it more open and healthy.

The Patchouli Series by Renn Ireigh  

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/22751

Fandom: Pokemon

Summary: Is the indulgence of interactions with human society worth the cost? Giovanni and Sabrina debate. Manga/game canon compliant more or less. Winner of the “Best Romance” category in the 2005 Serebii Forums Winter Awards.

My thoughts: This quiet series focuses on Sabrina as she struggles to grow out of the restrictions that her abusive mother--and then Sabrina herself--placed on her to control her psychic powers. It features her siblings as well, who are also trying to overcome the abuse they went through, and Giovanni, whose relationship with Sabrina could evolve with her, if she gives it a chance.    

Sailor Moon 4200 by Angus MacSpon  

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2590354/1/Sailor-Moon-4200

Fandom: Sailor Moon

Summary: Centuries after the Fall…a new band of senshi must come together. Some of them are new faces. Others are old friends, reborn yet again. But all of them are in trouble—because the enemy that destroyed Crystal Tokyo is out there, waiting for them…

My thoughts: This is an old classic, but an emotional and engaging story about the reincarnated senshi team. Glimpses are given into the fall of Crystal Tokyo, and there are a few old faces still around from that age to guide us through. I remember this best for how tense the new world is and for Artemis’ and Luna’s granddaughter.  

Heretic Pride by Fialleril

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13455561/chapters/30844053

Fandom: Star Wars

Summary: Like most Republic citizens, the Naberries have never spent much time thinking about the Jedi. But that changes with the birth of their daughter Ilaré. Or, the AU where the third Naberrie daughter is a Jedi, Padmé offers Naboo as a sanctuary for runaway slaves, Shmi is a conductor on the Tatooine freedom trail, and Anakin jump starts a reformation. Or maybe a heresy. It all depends on your point of view.

My thoughts: Or how the prequel trilogy would have gone, if it hadn’t been a tragedy. Anakin refusing to cut off his ties to home and being more well-adjusted for it, Shmi being a conductor of the Tatooine freedom trail, and the scenes set in Little Tatooine on Naboo are all wonderful and welcome changes to the story. Also, Anakin and Padme’s romance feels genuinely sweet and earned, and Anakin has a very cute mentor-student relationship with her little sister. 

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2019

#102 - All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders

Mount TBR (66/100)

The Reading Frenzy’s “Bookish Treasure Hunt” Challenge -- A bird in the title or on the cover

Rating: 1/5 stars

All book reviews come with personal bias attached--as much as many reviewers (myself often included) like to think we are working from some hypothetically universal standard of "good" writing, we can't always agree on what those standards are and how to apply them fairly across all books. I say this now, because I'm about to write a negative review for this book, but for once, I recognize that my intense dislike is coming from a deeply personal place, and that my experience with it isn't necessarily a good sign post for whether or not this book is worth reading. I often write bad reviews for books because of things that I don't think other people want to be reading--unchallenged racism, sexism, homophobia, or pedophilia being the big ones, and I stand by those. I will continue to do my part warning people away from books that promote harmful ideologies, whenever I can. That isn't the case here. I can't stand this book because it reminds me too much of how I wrote when I was a teenager, and of all of the people who read my work then and told me how terrible it was. Yeah, it's personal. So, I didn't finish. I read the first hundred pages, and I gave up. I couldn't stand the constant misery, and I mean that quite seriously. Laurence and Patricia don't have much more personality than "I'm so weird and nonconformist that everyone bullies me." Laurence is science-flavored on top of that, Patricia witch-flavored. But they're such thin characters, and they simply can't support a story solely about the two of them without more development. To pile on extra misery, all of the members of both families are also horrible people who also mistreat them in some way. In that sort of environment I'd expect the two of them to become close friends, to be the only spot of good in each other's awful lives--but despite the overall narrative the blurb is trying to sell me, I'm not at all convinced these two are friends at all--they tolerate each other at best, and at worst they spend weeks not speaking to each other--and this setup does not have me confident that they're going to eventually fall in love. I'd be laughing at the reviews that call this book "romantic" if I weren't so disappointed, because I adore real romance, and I don't feel like I'm going to get that here. Let's go back to that science vs. witchcraft characterization. Because at a hundred pages in, I had only just gotten what looked like a plot, rather than chapter upon chapter of "look at how miserable and bullied these two kids are, don't you feel for them?" Theodolphus Rose, master assassin posing as a school counselor, tells Patricia that Laurence is an enemy of nature and must be killed. That's the conflict, and in other circumstances I might be interested--pitting kids against each other isn't new at all, but done well, it can certainly be compelling. Pitting potential romantic partners against each other can be awesome, whatever age group. So I'm not opposed to this basic plot. I am opposed to it taking almost one hundred pages to show up, and I'm opposed to the flimsy world-building that has done nothing to define the relative power of science and witchcraft. At first (in the very first chapter when I still thought I might like this book, it looked like my kind of weird,) I was enchanted by Patricia's magic and her talking to birds and going to the forest to see the Parliament. But there's no rules to anything related to magic, and without any sort of standards or explanations, there's really no upper limit on what magic can do in a story, whereas the real world has definite limits on science. Without the author setting up a system deliberately to make science and magic balanced, I find myself assuming magic can be more powerful (if Patricia ever gets access to it again, if not, this will be a dull story I didn't finish) so magic will obviously win. And that's just not interesting, if there's an obvious winner before the battle is even fought. Now, there are ways to subvert that expectation, and there are ways to move forward from the point where I stopped reading that might result in a better book than I expect it to be. But that low bar I have set in my mind is a result of that slapdash, flimsy world-building that amounts to "this is basically contemporary fiction but I want to put whatever I want into it and call it sci-fi and magical realism at the same time." I don't have a problem with genre-mixing. I'd be a giant hypocrite if I did. But a work doesn't get a free pass on mixing genres sloppily because it's quirky. It's the "quirky" thing that really gets me. I love absurdist humor, and there are elements of it here. Theodolphus' introduction at the mall almost had me laughing, it was so over the top and ridiculous, in just the way I like. I can't take it seriously in context, because it's so off-tone from everything else I read surrounding it, but in isolation it was hilarious and I loved it. For a brief moment, I felt like the author was channeling Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams, and I was on board. But if the whole book is meant to be absurdist, it doesn't go far enough, and absurdity for its own sake is exactly what my teenage writing (yeah, we're back to the personal part) was mocked by my peers for. And occasionally my teachers as well. I was a weird kid. I have no problem admitting that, though I was never bullied anything like Laurence and Patricia are shown to be. I had friends--it's not impossible to be weird and also have friends. I was also often an unhappy kid--teenagerhood was not particularly a good time for me--and writing was a thing I did to cope. I wrote escapist fantasy. I wrote about magic. I wrote about absurdity. I wrote about depression and misery. I wrote things in high school that were very like this story, both in tone and overall quality. The nearly universal response to these stories, when I was brave enough to let my friends read them or turn them in for writing assignments, was basically derision and ridicule. "It's too weird." "I don't get it." "What's the point?" "I don't like how strange it is." "It doesn't make sense." No matter how many times I tried to defend some of the most "weird" pieces by explaining that the absurdity of it was the whole point, the overall reaction was "stop being so childish and write things that make sense." I do, now. I've found ways to channel my love of the absurd in more palatable directions. I've studied my craft and "grown up," so to speak. I take great pains to make my worlds, no matter how "strange" they are, internally consistent and understandable. So here's the incredibly, undeniably personal part that you absolutely shouldn't apply to yourself and whether or not you want to read this book: I am (mildly) professionally envious and angry that this book is so praised when it reads exactly like the stuff I churning out by the notebook-full at fifteen that everyone hated. It stings. I cringed constantly with second-hand embarrassment while I was reading this, as if all of my flaws had come back to haunt me. Thin world-building because I wanted it the way I wanted it and I didn't do the work making it cohesive. Awkward and stilted dialogue. An "me against them" mentality in my main characters. No plot to speak of for ages because I was more interested in making my world weird than having a story take place in it. Objectively speaking--as objectively as possible for me, at this point--I don't think this is a good book, but obviously its weirdness resonates with a lot of people, and you might enjoy it. If you think it sounds good, then maybe for you, it will be. Speaking with extreme and noted bias, this book is bad, and I can't stand it, and I will never finish it and wish I hadn't spent the few hours I already did attempting to read it. I want that time back. **After I spent a solid hour writing, rewriting, and editing this review, I wondered if I should even post it in full. After all, it is highly biased and not particularly applicable to other people in many places. I thought about it a lot. I considered where I could cut the stuff that shouldn't matter to anyone else, the stuff that revealed too much of me, the things that might do more harm than good. But I've always written honest reactions to books, because I think reviews are only useful and helpful when they're honest. So I'm posting the whole thing, because I worked hard putting my thoughts and feelings in order and being up front about my biases. Whether or not this is a helpful, useful review is only part of the point. It was cathartic to write, and if another writer sees this and feels understood, then it's worth it.        

[doomedandstoned]

Closer To The End (part II)

~By Billy Goate~

Art by Ruso Tsig

Everyone has bouts of sadness, loneliness, heartache. For better or worse, it's a part of the human condition. There was some discussion after my last article about whether depression is something we can choose to walk into or away from -- like a bad attitude -- or whether in some people it may be more deeply ingrained in the psychological makeup, whether by nature or nurture. I thought it would be helpful to give you a window into my own background so you can understand when depression first made itself manifest and the different strategies taken to deal with it over the years.

Banished from this world, and from its toil I can only watch, grieve and pity Stare at stupid likes, wonder at people's smiles

I get more and more stress Nothing anyone can offer, more or less Done grieving, closer to the end

DON'T KNOW WHY

I vaguely recall spells of melancholy in childhood. The return from summer camp to a boring home with mom vacuuming and dad at work had me feeling quite empty and blue. It was a strange, bewildering state of mind to be in. Mom told me to snap out of it or else. There were a few moments that shattered my reality as a child. Realizing, for instance, that mom and dad were having marital problems. Hearing my pastor of a father say a swear word. Often, I would be startled awake in the dead of night to my mom shrieking at my dad, throwing dishes, insisting that he was against her. My dad was a patient man and knew that all was not right in her world. These things jolted me into new layers of reality, each accompanied by periods of moodiness and anxiety.

By the time I was in the 4th grade, I started having trouble in school. I was placed in one of those "talented and gifted" programs, though I never really understood why. I knew I couldn't see what my teachers were writing on the chalkboard. Panicked, I would ask students nearby what the hell the teacher was writing, only to be scolded for distracting the class. One particular teacher was downright mean to me, until she found out that I was having vision problems and needed glasses. Once she realized I was also the son of a preacher man, she tripped all over herself to be kind. Maybe she felt guilty?

Something else odd happened around this time. I came home with division homework one day and just decided not to do it. I don't remember if it was because my parents were too busy to help or I was just too stubborn to ask. There was no rational reason for it. The next day, I was shamed in front of the entire class by an Admiral Ackbar looking mother fucker named Mr. Davis. "Billy Joe, why didn't you do your homework?" he demanded. "Why?" His hand lifted my chin, forcing me to stare up into his beady little eyes peering menacingly behind his spectacles. Mr. Davis' rosy complexion turned beat red when I answered: "I...don't know."

I don't know anything I don't know anything I don't know anything I don't know who I am

I don't know anything I don't know anything I don't know anything I don't know who to be

SATANIC PANIC

My parents were tethered to a particularly pernicious strain of fundamentalist Christianity that got caught up in the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s. That meant no D&D for me! Urban legends were shared in Sunday school and from the pulpit about young people who had necked because their character "died" in this forbidden game. It was the most sinister proxy for evil that I could envision at that time.

The Satanic Panic put everything else under the microscope: toys, comic books, and popular music were all suspect. A copy of Phil Phillip's 1986 "expose" Turmoil In The Toybox lay on the coffee table, pages well-worn and highlighted. He-Man, G.I. Joe, even Star Wars were viewed as tools of the Devil to recruit a desensitized generation of youth into his heathen horde. I'd wake up from one day to learn about something else I couldn't have, play, watch, or do. Video games would not be far behind.

One day, my mother caught me rocking out to the Scorpions in my room and immediately confiscated my radio, outlawing metal from the house (and basically anything with a rock 'n' roll beat). MTV lasted only long enough for me to be exposed to Metallica's visceral "One" and Guns 'n' Roses' "Welcome To The Jungle." While the classic days of rock's infancy were viewed as a time of innocence (I don't think my folks really got what "Blueberry Hill" by Fats Domino was about), anything stemming from the late '60s counterculture forward was viewed as dangerously corrupting.

Various factions within the church began playing games of connect-the-dots with the songs of Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath, tying them into a subservice plot by Luciferian cults and the shadowy elite (at that time Communists -- a favorite boogeyman of the era) who were trying to undermine undermining of God, family, and country by subverting its youth. All of popular culture was roped in with the conspiracy, too. Though the house was cleansed of its ungodly influence, the worst was still ahead.

Soon, my mother started cutting me off from neighborhood friends and finally pulled me out of public school altogether around middle of 5th grade. She had learned about this radical new response to America's failing education system through friends from another church who had just taken their own children out of school. Emboldened, she began homeschooling us in West Texas in the mid '80s, during a time when it wasn't a clearly legal practice. Every time the doorbell rang my siblings and I would run and hide, thinking the truant officer had come to take us away to foster care. I didn't understand at the time what I do now: my mother was mentally ill. Furthermore, she was in over her head. This became apparent when she tried to take on the role of teacher.

While I am extraordinarily grateful for the year or two of solid education she gave me (particularly in the writing and public speaking departments, two areas she and my father were naturally gifted in and which have been the buttress of my career), it wasn't long until she became frustrated with the Abeka and Bob Jones University curriculum we were using. One day, when I was struggling with algebra, she declared that we wouldn't have to learn it. "After all, who actually uses algebra in daily life?" she wondered. We were now self-directed learners, a radical new idea that was controversial even in the homeschooling movement ("un-schooling," they called it). Of course, I wasn't allowed to just sit around and watch TV. Consequently, I shifted my focus to the things that were more interesting to me: music, art, history. Math and science? Not so much.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

For years, I remained blithely unaware of what was happening in the world around me in the world of music. I lived in Arlington during the rise of Pantera, Topeka during one of Guns ‘n’ Roses most controversial shows, and Oregon during the height of the grunge era and the sunsetting of the Grateful Dead -- all of it veiled from notice. My life was devoted to church and, if anything, I tried to convince fellow Christians to separate themselves from the tainted allure of the fool’s gold of popular music, television, and video games. For a while, I was a true believer. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, if you like. Infractions of the moral code -- and the slightest temperament of rebellion -- were met with a freshly cut switch, which would leave stinging welts up and down my calves, tights, arms, and back. Thus my conscience was conditioned.

I remember happening upon the pornographic scene in George Orwell’s 1984 and afterwards feeling that the only right and proper thing to assuage my guilt was to burn the everlasting shit out of this smut. Even then I loved the novel, but I couldn't reconcile my faith with this section of it, so I purged it in the flame of backyard trash barrels. At my most fervent, I also lit the match to a stack of MAD Magazines and comic books. As harmless as they might have seemed to the average Joe blinded to the wiles of the Devil, these were gateways into realms of the flesh. “Walk in the spirit, not the flesh,” I recited to myself as fire brandished the yellowed pages of print, slowly turning them black until they were embers caught up by the wind and scattered into the sky. True story: I once threw away a perfectly good copy of Downward Spiral after one hearing the demonic screams of "Becoming" (not to mention the brash blasphemy of "Heretic").

The me that you know doesn't come around much That part of me isn't here anymore

The me that you know is now made up of wires And even when I'm right with you I'm so far away

This kind of extreme separation from the world really fucked me up socially. For years, I couldn't hold on a conversation with another person my age. What would we talk about? I was clueless about anything happening in the world of sports, music, television, or the culture at large. Even though conversation is no longer a problem for me, I still feel odd about friendships. I have an irrational fear that they're going to be taken away from me at any moment, so I keep everyone at a comfortable arm's length. At times, intimacy feels painfully awkward.

Maybe this is why I'm so notorious for leaving shows immediately following the last song. I’ll give my smiles, shake hands, and say goodbye, but avoid sticking around long enough to really get to know people. I’ve been invited to crash on couches to avoid the long drive home, but I always politely decline. Certainly, I don’t want to come across as rude, I just feel like an outsider to the world -- someone who just doesn’t fit in, doesn't belong. Not now, not ever.

TEENAGE ANGST HAS PAID OFF WELL

As I reached my adolescent years, I began going through prolonged spells of melancholy. The prospect of sharing this with others was extraordinarily embarrassing, so I kept it all bottled up inside. Mostly, I tried walking it out on long excursions through the open field next to our house. I worked through a lot of issues during that time and credit those walks with helping me to keep my sanity. As a matter of fact, I recommend daily constitutionals to everyone as a general principle of good mental health. It would be a mistake not to mention that my belief in an omnipresent God at this time played a medicinal role in helping me to cope with my depression, though my views on religion would one day reverse course.

By 18, symptoms of major depression surfaced like a noxious weed and even God could not get me through it. I prayed, too. God, how I prayed, sometimes hours on end. That year, I fell into a downcast mood that refused to dissipate and remained there for months -- four of them straight. I sought refuge in the music of Tchaikovsky, working my way from the fateful Symphony No. 4 to his Symphony No. 6, the Pathétique. The sounds I was hearing tapped into a new emotional alphabet, impossible to transcribe into any tongue. It was remarkable: somehow the music knew precisely what I was feeling. I finally had a soundtrack to my depression.

One day, a buddy and I joined the military on a whim, though he'd later get disqualified for asthma. I felt the Army would provide a much needed "Be All You Can Be" boost to my confidence and a crash course in normie life. I shipped down range to my duty station, Fort Benning, Georgia, for infantry training. My new home would be with Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 58th Infantry Regiment -- the infamous "House of Pain." In the space of 14 weeks, I was exposed to every aspect of humanity imaginable. From the "shark attack" welcome of the drill sergeants on Sand Hill to the rude middle of the night awakenings for physical training, I was in shock most of the time. Slowly, though, I eased into this strange new world and got my bearings.

Almost a full month into this prison world, we were allowed to visit one of the on-base shopping exchanges. I immediately looked for a CD player and began checking out the music section, trying to see if there were names I recognized. "Guns 'n' Roses? Sure they're cool," shrugged my buddy Bradley, a floppy-eared Gomer Pyle looking dude. "But you really need to check out some Soundgarden, dude." I did, picking up their latest, Down On The Upside, and it was like salve to my soul. The music spoke of being trapped ("...and I don't like what you've got me hanging from") and being eternally at odds with the world ("Born without a friend and bound to die alone"). There was even a song about "Boot Camp," the short album closer. The nihilistic despair was strangely comforting.

I must obey the rules I must be tame and cool No staring at the clouds I must stay on the ground In clusters of the mice The smoke is in our eyes Like babies on display Like Angels in a cage I must be pure and true I must contain my views There must be something else There must be something good far away Far away from here And I'll be there for good For good

The song did not resolve happily, and I feared my life wouldn't either. After a serious injury left me permanently wounded, I began to feel my life wasn't being guided by the Hand of God of all, but the random throes of Fate. Maybe they were the same thing. I resigned myself to the misery of a long recovery, during which time I had to learn to walk again. It's a three beer kind of story, maybe I'll share it sometime. Probably not. Returning to civilian life proved to be even more of an adjustment than the military had been, and my shadows of depression lingered with me even as I tried to remain one step ahead of them.

MELANCHOLIA

I have long held a theory that human beings are not built for the world that we have constructed for ourselves. Whether we're talking Seattle traffic or the constant buzz of social media, the frantic pace of our rapidly evolving technocracy has left us a worried, frazzled mess. The studies are conclusive: almost one in five have experienced depression and one in four struggle with anxiety, with PTSD being a household acronym.

A counselor once asked if I enjoyed being depressed. I found it a bit of a repulsive question. I can tell you that there is nothing glamorous about depression. There's no reason to idolize the angst of those sad Kurt Cobain eyes. Everyone has experienced feelings of being bummed out, and for most folks it is a transitory feeling. It comes when one of life's storms arises and leaves when the situation resolves itself. There's a whole section of us, however, for whom the dark clouds never leaves. It just hovers around our heads, like the oppressive, low-hanging specter of an Oregon winter.

Depression isn't always about feeling sad, either. Often it manifests in a general malaise -- you can't bring yourself to care about the things you used to. Other times, it works in tandem with anxiety, seizing your heart at the thought of all the day holds in store, then punishing you with the feeling of dread. We may feel sad, anxious, or fearful and not be able to give a rational explanation for it. In those moments, I cannot imagine a more miserable place to be. With that said, I hasten to add that my description of depression may not align with your own, as it is an intensely personal experience.

Release your head from the world Keep yourself underground No one understands your mind

Humans programmed like robots Making sure you don't belong No one understands your mind

I suspected I had depression in the clinical sense, when I realized that though I wanted to feel better, all I could do was subsist in the misery. Those of you who've been able to talk yourself out of such states will scoff. My mother, who suffers from a host of afflictions that have never been properly diagnosed, was notorious for telling us kids to "snap out of it." I do understand that kind of no-nonsense perspective. Her father and mother were staunchly independent homesteaders of the WWII generation who braved the untamed wilderness of Alaska and the exotic dangers of Australia. The '60s and '70s generation grew up fearful of losing such independence to mental institutions that locked up people, merely because they acted in ways society didn’t understand. The stigma of psychiatric care was every bit as real as the stigma of mental illness. Thus, her approach was quite practical: take Saint John's Wort, get on a good diet of vegetables and fruits, drink plenty of water, get fresh air and exercise. If that doesn’t work, there’s always Jesus.

Despite plenty of prayer and a multitude of home remedies, depression continued plaguing my mind. People frustrated by what they viewed as an easy fix would imply that depressed folk like me just wanted to be depressed, maybe because it got them attention or they were just spoiled rotten. Soon I stopped sharing altogether. As one friend of mine, a real no-nonsense type, told me: “No one cares. You have to get on with your life.” “How do you manage that?” I asked. “What's your secret?” “You just have to shrug it off,” she concluded. I envied the cold, pragmatic stoicism and wished that I could just shrug my shoulders and let everything slide off. At one point, my depression was so acute, I looked into electroconvulsive therapy, memory loss be damned. During my consultation with a specialist, I learned the procedure had advanced since Jack Nicholson’s unfortunate end as a mental patient in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Ultimately, I decided against it.

SEARCH FOR ANSWERS

As with most human situations, our problems stem from a complex mixture of nature and nurture. I posed a question to my psychology professor one day: "Does depression cause us to think depressing thoughts or do depressing thoughts cause us to be in a state of depression?" His answer surprised and relieved me. "Both," he said.

In Psychology 202, we were in the midst of a chapter on depression and other mental disorders. Having recently experienced the loss of my grandmother, I was feeling especially hopeless and decided to ask my prof another burning question at the end of class. "If a person were to see a therapist, does it go on his record?" In my mind, counseling was for the weak and hideously broken. "Not at all," he responded with a smile. "Even psychologists seek help from other psychologists for their depression and anxiety." Then he really blew my mind: "I have a therapist myself. See her once a month. Sort through a lot of life decisions that way." He also assured me that there was no master file of such visits. While a therapist might keep her own notes, it's certainly not something shared with employers and as a rule is kept strictly confidential, as are all medical records.

My first visit to a counselor was nothing like I'd imagined. I wasn't given pills, invited to lay on a couch and look at ink blots, or even asked questions about my parents. Instead, the counselor initiated an open-ended conversation that encouraged me to articulate the tangled mess of thoughts and feelings I'd been bottling up inside. It was the first time I'd ever talked about my experiences in the military or about the emotional upheaval of my childhood. I felt liberated after just a few weeks of these sessions. For a time, I felt very much on top of my problems. Maybe this counseling thing wasn't so bad after all. I even began to recommend it to my friends and stood up for psychologists when mom would bash the profession in one of her trademark rants.

Promises abound You rarely find it to begin Maybe I'm afraid To let you all the way in

I excuse myself I'm used to my little cell I amuse myself In my very own private hell

I noticed a pattern to my depression: it seemed to be triggered by situations in which I felt helplessly incapable of controlling my environment, decisions, and destiny. You know, other people taking advantage of me, a nightmare roommate, an overbearing boss, unrequited love -- that sort of thing. It was like a switch flipped and all of the sudden the feelings flooded in and surrounded me for days, even weeks.

Feelings of loneliness and disquiet were often compounded by negative thinking about the situation. "What's wrong with me that I can't find someone to be with? Am I that unattractive or uninteresting?" The negative self-talk wasn't helping my situation. In some ways, it even turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'd walk around with a scowl on my face, prompting friends and family to constantly ask, "What's wrong? Is everything ok?" That's why I realized it may take more muscles to frown than to smile, but that undersmile sure is a lot more comfortable. No wonder people kept themselves at bay.

I actually started practicing my smile in the rearview mirror on the way to school every day, just so I remembered what that felt like. Fake it 'til you make it, the saying goes. Even if I was feeling like a miserable wretch inside, I certainly didn't want to betray those feelings to the world outside. So I got good at being a fake. When people asked, "How's it going?" I'd say, "Fine, just fine, thanks. And you?" (One of my counselors would later call me on that every session: "How are things really?").

When I got married, depression reached peak levels, only now that oppressive, low-hanging cold front wouldn't burn off with the sunshine. The mood never lifted. It was with me 24-7. It wasn't unusual for me to be severely depressed during the normally halcyon days of summer. I knew something had to be done, so I confronted another long-time stigma of mine: medication.

To be continued...

This whole house of cards crumbling slow If I disappear would you even know? The trap is time and no one gets off of this ride alive

So far under Too much pain to tell And now I'm ripped asunder So far under

[shoujosoulsearching]

Mars, AKA The Shoujo Manga with Too Much Emotional Baggage for One Woman to Carry

SPOILER WARNING!!!

The Roman god of war, Mars, was said to love violence and conflict--he was known as the embodiment of bloodthirst. Unlike his Greek counterpart Ares, however, who was considered to be more destructive in nature, Mars was seen as more of a protector, a bringer of peace.

With a title like Mars, one has to wonder what side of the Roman god is going to be showcased in the story: the bloodthirsty divine or the righteous guardian? For a shoujo manga, you’d expect it to go the latter, but upon reading Fuyumi Souryo’s fifteen-volume teenage melodrama, the answer to that question turns out to be much more complicated than you think.

The actual story itself has nothing to do with the literal god named Mars--he’s only explicitly shown in the first volume as a statue, which our playboy prince charming, Rei Kashino, approaches and kisses on the mouth. Kira Aso, our introverted and artistic leading lady, is infatuated with this sight and asks Rei to become a model for her to sketch during her free time. From that moment onwards, their relationship blossoms, and they both bring out things in each other that would have never been brought to the surface if they had never met.

While it has its fair amount of stereotypes what sets Mars apart from its contenders is the way the main couple is portrayed. Rei and Kira are individually appealing characters, and their qualities are only enhanced as they grow closer throughout the story.

Our leading man Rei is the first character that truly jumps off the page from the get-go. A motorcycle-riding playboy who couldn’t care less about school, Rei’s a boy with deep-rooted issues and a devil-may care attitude. He has an unmeasurable sense of justice, and while he has a sense of morality, he won’t always uphold it when the situation tests him. If he gets a bad feeling from someone, he will immediately turn to hostility--but only when the event pertains to something he wants, or something he cares about. He understands what the “right” thing to do is, but he doesn’t care. As long as he isn’t stopped by Kira or someone else’s plea, he will fix the problem in a way that satisfies him.

This type of violent behavior would usually be associated with a sociopath, but upon further inspection that turns out to not be the case. Most of Rei’s questionable actions come from a post-conventional reasoning, and it’s apparent that whenever he acts out it’s because he’s either been deeply hurt by something in the past or he’s afraid to lose what he cherishes in the present. I’m not at all justifying his actions, but the point is that Rei has never been a true monster, and whatever monstrous aspects he had to him were eventually blurred away by Kira (who was the first person to ever love him that wasn’t incredibly toxic.)

The main difference between a sociopath like Masao Kirishima and someone like Rei, is that Rei is just a teenager who’s been hurt one too many times and only knows how to self medicate using violence. He had never been policed for his actions in a proper way. As we learn in the last volume, his memories were altered during his time in the psychiatric ward to lessen his trauma. Once you look beyond his blunt and aggressive exterior, Rei is the most genuine character in the entire series. He’s just a teenage boy that’s been through too much hardship that he never deserved, and was never emotionally mature enough to handle all of it. He’s rightfully angry at the world--until he meets Kira.

It took time for our heroine to shine like her male counterpart did, but a few volumes in, Kira becomes a show-stopping character. Originally an immovable introvert only interested in painting and nothing else, Kira grows into her own loving, hopeful person. One of the things I appreciated the most about Mars was it’s portrayal of mental illness--nothing is never outwardly said, but it’s obvious that Kira had been going through not only anxiety but a deep, dark depression she can’t bring herself back from. The way Kira thought about death, the way she always put others needs before her own, etc, made her real and relatable to me on a personal level. I’ve had those same issues my entire life, and seeing Kira slowly and surely come into her own throughout each volume wasn’t just satisfying, was inspiring.

The most tantalizing reveal about Kira and why she acts the way she does is when we learn that she was raped by her stepfather in middle school. Not only did she start isolating herself after the incident, she began to live in her head, where a more sinister, damaged and unhinged Kira would imagine killing herself and those around her. This is an extremely serious subject to dive into--and Mars doesn’t cover up the darkness behind it. It’s not romanticized, it’s ugly and depressing, and the worst part is that we never get the feeling that Kira will ever fully recover from it. Yes, she learns to become intimate with Rei because she trusts him--but it’s implied that in the deepest, darkest parts of her soul, that horrible memory will continue to live on.

The first thing that struck me, and my favorite aspect of the entire series, was how genuine the relationship between Rei and Kira felt--several times in the story there’d be a break where they would just talk, and not talk as in they’d tell each other things that would move the plot forward, or with a clear purpose in mind--they have actual conversations. They talk about each other’s hobbies, about their existential crises, things that actual teenagers talk to each other about. With every heart-to-heart comes another glimpse into who these two are as people, and it becomes apparent that they cherish and remember every word they say to each other. It’s clear that these two characters grow because of each other, and turn one another into the best versions of themselves. They’re honest and authentic with each other in ways only adolescents can be. As two teenagers who’ve never had anyone to be their shoulder to cry on, their relationship just feels right, and their marriage at the end of the series is one of the most wholesome and satisfying things I’ve read in a shoujo manga.

Up until now I’ve sung praises to Mars for the two main characters and their dynamic, but unfortunately, besides a few exceptions, the rest of the characters in the series are either uninteresting, unlikable or just straight up garbage human beings. To keep it short, just seeing Shiori, Kurosawa or Harumi on every panel would get me peeved. Masao Kirishima was the last straw for me, however; once I got deep enough into his arc I ended up putting down the series for a few days, because I couldn’t stand his presence (not to mention the ONLY canonically LGBT character just HAD to be an evil psychopath who wanted to kill people for pleasure…..REALLY……) but I’ll throw in a head-canon saying that these characters only exist for me to appreciate the main couple more (which it did) so I could look over it.

By far Mars’ biggest problem is it’s tone. Soap operas can be fun, don’t get me wrong, and there are plenty of times where Mars gets it right--but also plenty of times where it becomes overbearing. The series was probably best to read week by week when it was being released in Bessatsu Friend magazine; it’s not hard to imagine Souryo stuffing in enough melodrama in each chapter before it’s release in order to keep reader’s interest. Marathon-reading it is very much a different experience. And it doesn’t help that It’s clear that this is a product of its time. A lot of popular shoujo manga in the 90s tended to stretch the drama, i.e. the insane level of bullying, the evil side characters insisting on keeping the main couple apart, etc.

Using an example from Mars, Rei reveals he used to have a brother, who is actually dead, and when Kira asks how he died, before Rei can answer, a man jumps off a building and the police are called. Rei has a panic attack after seeing this, and it’s implied that his brother died from suicide. Then, we go back to the high school where it’s revealed that a character named Kurosawa also attempted suicide, and is currently getting treatment. Then Rei and Kira go out on a date. ALL IN ONE CHAPTER. If you got exhausted reading that, try reading that page-to-page in one sitting. It was entertaining, sure, but it took me out of the immersion every now and again.

I can shit on these aspects as much as I want, but without them, Mars wouldn’t be Mars. It’s apart of its charm, in an odd way, and it only enhances everything the series does right. At times, it’s as if Mars is drowning you in it’s depressing conflict and weighing you down with it’s emotional baggage, enjoying every second of your agony--but in the end it always comes back around, making wrongs rights and surprising you with its tenderness. That’s why I think this manga has the perfect title. I doubt Fuyumi Souryo intended for this, but in its own roundabout way, I believe Mars is an allegory for the Roman god, and a good one that you definitely shouldn’t miss out on. 

And I’m giving this one a STAR rating.

(Check out my other manga analyses here, and my standards here.)

(Follow me on twitter @/choerrychrist)

[dazaran]

title: even a saint may sin ship: dazai osamu/shibusawa tatsuhiko rating: G AO3 link: here!

day six of rarepair week  - prompt 1 of 2: so close yet so far

i wanted my feelings to die alongside the photo of your corpse.

There’s a saying that comes to Dazai’s mind every so often, a saying that echoes in the baritone voice of a man born from the warmth of a sunset, with a presence alone that drips of comfort and understanding; it resurfaces in Dazai’s mind when he watches tragedy unfold on the news, or another terrible situation befalls the agency as they always have and will continue to do.

The world is not beautiful, therefore it is.

For all the confusingly profound things Oda has ever told him before the flame in his eyes was snuffed out by the barrel of a gun, this is one thing that is the most simplistic and makes the most sense because Dazai agrees. Dazai agrees, because that same motto can be applied to his foolish reasons for joining the mafia, for leaving the mafia, and for foolishly and hopefully aiding a man who he knows is more than capable of destroying the city he holds dear and took and oath to protect.

So why does he?

He asks himself that when he studies Shibusawa’s frame from a few feet behind him, fingers tracing along the edge of the round table to his right and tapping dull nails against the polished surface. He’s made a game out of predicting what sort of expression Shibusawa is making, if it’s disappointment, excitement, or if it will be the same depressing boredom from 6 years ago.

Such a man could not disappear from his thoughts. Since the end of the Dragon’s Head Rush incident, Dazai knocked into him a few times. The third he remembers vividly, having to fix that pathetic man’s braid that had come undone in his admirable lack of self care. (Dazai remembers his dramatic lamenting, a throw of a hand over his forehead and crying out ‘to think, someone values their existence even less than I do!’ which shockingly made the older man chuckle, sending Dazai’s heart rattling into something uncomfortable and unfamiliar , but welcomed.)

It’s the curious, troublesome case of a teenager’s puppy dog love; it’s a case of Dazai finding something interesting, something that eludes being completely understood at a glance, so he told himself it would go away the moment Shibusawa disappeared from his sight to some other country when the eyes on his back were too much and he went searching.

Back then, Dazai didn’t care to ask what he was searching for. For all he saw Shibusawa as, it never occurred to him that perhaps what Shibusawa could have needed was someone - anyone.

He knows that he never realized this because, back then, Dazai needed someone too... and when he had them, he lost them.

Whatever he comes to love will be lost, he knows this.

Yet still, he loves - because he is painfully, wretchedly, pathetically human; because the beating organ in his chest and the temporal lobe in his brain are in perfect condition, as he recalls despairingly .

Well aware it’s a foolish mistake, for this person and the sake of what Dazai knows will be his salvation, he lets himself be consumed by the strange feelings his teenage self could never understand, lets himself love someone who is a true mirror of his former self.

Is this ego? Is this arrogance? Is this some pathetic attempt at self-love, self-respect, accepting your faults?

Dazai wonders all of those possibilities all at once, but none of them seem completely accurate. He admits that it must have something to do with emotions he’s never been good at expressing, emotions he feels he cannot say because Shibusawa is out of his reach.

(I’ve caught up to you in stature, but the rest if you is still so far away from me. That I would have to play the role of a saint and deliver unto you salvation - what more expresses the incomprehensible thing called love?)

“Shibusawa-kun, is there something that’s caught your interest?” Dazai says, finally breaking himself free of his thoughts as he steps away from the table, moving to stand alongside Shibusawa as his fingers lace behind his back.

Shibusawa glances at him and watches as Dazai raises a brow invitingly. “No... There is nothing but the very same endless sea of boring white.”

“Boring, you say...” the brunet chuckles, gesturing to himself. “And yet, the color you declare you find so boring is what you chose to adorn us in? You’re quite nonsensical.”

“Perhaps,” Shibusawa agrees, turning away from the window to focus his attention on Dazai. His eyes are empty - they’re tired, still so very tired, as if his body has never truly rested. “Is that not why you’re here?”

No... that’s not why he’s there - not really. His reasons go beyond something as simple as nonsensical, and it certainly isn’t boredom either. It’s a word he can’t say aloud, a word he knows will eat away at his insides. Shibusawa is a man who prides himself in anticipating everything from other people, but Dazai supposes that such a genuine thing would slip by such a radar.

Dazai’s arms cross over his chest, eyelids falling half-lidded. Some fabricated snarky remark sits on his tongue, but it never comes out.

“... Oh.”

A blink. “What is it?”

Shibusawa takes a step closer, looking up at Dazai’s hair. “I’ve realized - you’re taller than me now.”

It’s as if Dazai is that foolish teenager again. His heart still stutters, he’s taken aback, but has now learned how to hide it well under a scoff and a smile. “I was a foolish teenager the last time you saw me. Quite frankly, I didn’t expect to see you back here in one piece.”

I wanted my feelings to die alongside the photo of your corpse.

“This is true. Since the last time we spoke... you’ve changed quite a bit, Dazai-kun.”

“Regretfully, you’re the same as always.” the younger reaches out, running his fingers through silky white hair, ensuring that his fingers catch the braid before he pulls the hair forward to let it fall through his fingers. “However, I find it rather endearing to know after all this time you decided to keep up with the braids I had done for your hair once upon a time. Are you that sentimental a man?”

Shibusawa smiles, a glimmer of something that could almost be fond before his eyes close. “Your voice has always haunted me, to say the least. That I may hear it now as the man you are now fills me with something I could not hope to identify."

A small ‘ha’ . “Likewise.”

We’re too similar to be so far apart.

Shibusawa stands less than two feet away from him, but Dazai feels as if reaching out to him would be nothing but offering a hand to the abyss; he will feel nothing but the cold emptiness of the distance between them, because Shibusawa has not found what can be called his salvation.

Dazai knows he isn’t a saint, he doesn’t believe in God or bothers with a bible as Fyodor has -

(His hand is snaking around Shibusawa’s waist, the other around a dainty wrist, pulling a man so dangerous yet beautiful so close that he knows it’s a risk. They’ve spoken of betrayal at the table directly behind him already, but he thinks nothing of it compared to noticing that Shibusawa is cold to the touch, a dead man walking held so fondly by a human failure . Death watches in the corner of their eyes, amused, mocking, waiting for the moment where it will all fall apart.)

But even so, he can act on the wretched feelings because he knows, originally, he would be a coward and swallow down what lingers on his tongue as if it’s the whiskey of a nostalgic bar that always seems to coat his throat.

The way he kisses Shibusawa is all to soft, all too gentle, absolutely nothing like that of the ‘demon prodigy’ Shibusawa remembers him to be - it’s as if he’s caressing porcelain, fingers pressing hard enough to feel the skin underneath Shibusawa’s dress shirt as if to remind Dazai that yes, this man is here and Dazai can truly make some attempt to save him.

This is no fairy tale, and Dazai is no Prince Charming. He knows that a simple kiss is not enough to wake Shibusawa from the nightmare this collector knows as boredom , but the hesitation made present when he pulls away and the tilt of Shibusawa’s head is enough to sate him for just the moment.

(He only needs it to be sated for the moment, because he is selfish, and needs a perfect alibi to do it again lest he wants to have his pride shattered.)

“... Quite a brazen way to utilize our new height difference.”

Dazai smiles - crookedly, wickedly, in a way that contrasts so deeply to the gentleness that Shibusawa finds himself studying every line and curve of that expression before it fades away, for Dazai tries to hard to perfect his mask. (It is a mask Shibusawa sees on himself, and why he can be so predictable in his cunning ways. This, he’ll admit, he never expected.)

“Men such as us will use the very last useful thing there exists if it means getting the upper hand, Shibusawa-kun.”

To find use in his love he knows will only lead one or both of them to a ruined end is truly as far from boring as he could possibly get.

[scribeofthenewworld]

Lapse

TRIGGER WARNING: cutting; serious mental illness

Starboard Psychiatric Center, the letters on the building read. Will’s mother pulled into the nearest space and turned off the car, then looked at Will and gave him a thin, strained smile. Will could tell she was trying to collect herself. 

“Ready, kid?” she asked him, clearly trying to appear braver than she actually felt. Will had always respected that his mom put on a brave face for him, even when she was as frightened as he was. He smiled back at her, trying to look reassuring. 

“Sure.” Will glanced into the backseat at Alastor, who had been silent for most of the car ride. Will wasn’t certain if he was sulking or simply lost in thought; Alastor hadn’t wanted to come here, he knew. Not that he could blame him; who wanted to be interrogated by a shrink? 

“Well, this is your fault, anyway,” he had retorted when Alastor threw a fit after learning that Will’s mother had made the appointment. “If you hadn’t told me to do it, we wouldn’t have to go, now would we?”

Nearly a week prior, Will’s mother had walked in on him cutting the last of several deep, even incisions into each wrist; she had screamed so loudly the upstairs neighbors telephoned to ask if everything was alright. After calming down a bit, she had tried talking it out with him. 

“Sweetheart, why would you do that? Is everything okay?” she had asked him. Will had not been able to give much of a reason; “Alastor told me to,” was all he offered in response. His mother had made the appointment the same day. 

As the trio approached the front doors, Will’s mother inhaled deeply and took his hand; it was meant to be comforting, but it was really more for her sake than his. He lightly squeezed her hand. “It’s gonna be okay, Mom.” She turned and gave him another strained smile. She looked close to tears. 

They entered the squat brick building, and as Will’s mother went to the desk to check him in, Will and Alastor went to find a seat in the waiting room. “Sit on the floor with me,” Alastor invited. Will sat with him next to a large potted plant. Will had always liked plants; he found them relatable in a way he couldn’t quite explain, at the same time that he envied their stress-free existences. Plants didn’t have to go to school, and by extension didn’t have to deal with bullies; that alone had to make life easier.

Will’s mother walked over, looking puzzled as she caught sight of the two boys. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”

“Alastor wanted to sit on the floor,” he replied. “Also, I like this plant.”

His mother looked concerned, shooting a glance at Alastor. “Will, have you ever thought that… after what happened… maybe you shouldn’t necessarily always listen to the things Alastor tells you to do? We’ve... I mean, you know he’s the bad influence of the two of you...” 

He looked at her very seriously as Alastor shot her a look somewhere between reproach and resentment. “I have to do what Alastor tells me to. Or else something bad will happen.”

She looked uncertainly at him. “But… how do you know? Have you ever tried… not?”

Will said nothing. He had, in fact, tried resisting Alastor’s commands before, but it had filled him with an uncontrollable panic that built until it left him sobbing and gasping for air, digging his fingernails into his palms so hard that they left marks. The worst part about that episode, however, had not been the panic attack, but what came after: he had wandered around his empty house for hours, touching everything, then touching it again, just to make sure it was real. He remembered looking at his hands and feeling that they were not his own; he had tried moving each finger individually, but had just ended up fixating on the motion of the tendons under his skin, rippling as his fingers moved. He remembered wondering what it would be like to cut away the skin from his hand, to view the muscles and the tendons and the veins underneath as they really were… Alastor had been sympathetic. “You see,” he had said to Will, “I tell you to do things for your own good, so that this doesn’t happen.” 

Will realised that, as he had been lost in thought, he had begun mimicking the hand gestures of a woman directly across the room from him. She and her companion had noticed, and were looking at him strangely. He dropped his hands and his gaze, imagining the floor opening to swallow both of them. Or him.  Alastor snickered, and Will shot him a reproachful glance.

He could almost feel his mother’s concerned glance, but he didn’t meet her eye. He knew she worried about him, but their relationship had always been somewhat distant. They were both naturally closed-off people as it was, and his mother worked constantly — she hardly had time to try and bridge the gap with her reclusive teenage son. 

A bored-looking young man emerged from the back hallway. “William Fuehler?” Will stood and glanced at his mother, who smiled encouragingly at him. He followed the man into the back and down the hall, where he ushered Will into a small, square office, then shut the door behind him. A middle-aged woman sat behind a desk, and she looked up and smiled at him as he entered. 

“William?” she read his name off her computer screen and gestured that he should take a seat. “My name is Dr. Mavis. How are you today?” 

“Fine, thanks,” Will responded almost automatically. He had learned early on that there were certain behaviours and responses that people expected from him, and he delivered, regardless of how he felt about it. It had reached a point where interacting with people felt automatic, as though the whole act was a recording being played over and over again. Keep your head down, don’t draw attention to yourself, smile and say “fine, thanks” when people ask how you are, don’t speak unless spoken to… those were the rules. He often felt as though he were too young to be so painstakingly aware of the fact, but public middle school was a cruel place.

“Do you prefer to go by William, or Will?” Dr. Mavis asked the boy. He didn’t respond; he gazed at his hands, lost in thought.

“William?” Dr. Mavis prompted. Will snapped out of his reverie, realising she had asked him a question. 

“Sorry, what?” 

Distracted, Dr. Mavis jotted in a notebook. Will flinched slightly. 

“Do you prefer William, or Will?” she repeated.

“Will,” he answered. 

“But some people just call him ‘weirdo’,” Alastor commented from his position behind Will’s chair. Will shot a look over his shoulder; he hadn’t noticed Alastor follow him in. He wondered if Alastor was even allowed to be there, but Dr. Mavis had said nothing, so it must be alright. 

“Alright, Will,” Dr. Mavis said. “Do you know why you’re here today?” 

“Because I cut myself?” Will said uncertainly.

Dr. Mavis regarded him curiously, wondering why he sounded so unsure. “Could you please tell me a little bit about why you cut yourself?” 

“Lie,” Alastor instructed him. “Say you’re depressed.” 

“Because I’m depressed,” Will said a little too quickly. Dr. Mavis immediately recognised this as a half-truth. Self-harm — cutting she wrote in the notebook. Will flinched again as Dr. Mavis fixed him with a penetrating stare that made him uncomfortable. 

“Is that the only reason why?” she probed. She hated trying to coax the truth out of distrustful youths; it only made her job more difficult and agitated both parties. 

Will could feel his anxiety rising; Dr. Mavis noticed the nervous tick he began drumming on his thighs, and she made a note of it.

Alastor leaned in close behind Will. “I don’t trust her,” he hissed into his ear, “and you shouldn’t either; she’s got it out for you.”

Will tensed, and Dr. Mavis noticed. “Is everything alright?” she inquired. 

“Fine.” Will tried to force himself to relax and smiled in a manner he hoped looked reassuring. 

It looked more like a grimace, and Dr. Mavis was more unconvinced than ever. Distrustful; dishonest tendencies? she noted. She leaned forward slightly, still regarding Will intensely. 

“Will,” she said, her tone serious, “I’m here to help you, but for me to do that I need you to be honest with me. Can you do that?”

Will nodded silently. 

“Good.” Dr. Mavis broke her intense stare, and a wave of relief washed over the boy. 

“Now, is that the only reason for your self-harm?” She looked at him once more. 

Will stared at his hands — the sensation that they were not his own was starting to return. Numbly, he shook his head.

“No?” Dr. Mavis leaned slightly forward again. “Could you tell me your other reasons, please?” Dr. Mavis could tell she was losing Will: his eyes were beginning to gloss over, his hands twitching rhythmically. Possible dissociation issues, she transcribed.

Alastor put one hand on the side of Will’s face; surprised, he jerked his head to the side. 

“Don’t tell her it was me,” Alastor muttered to him. “I don’t want to get in trouble.” 

Dr. Mavis was still looking expectantly at her patient and still writing in her notebook: Twitchy, nervous. Will stared intently at the notebook, his anxiety building with each scratch of her pen. The psychologist noticed his agitation.

“Does my notetaking make you uncomfortable?” she questioned him. He hesitated, then nodded, seeing no point in lying. 

“You may see what I write whenever you like; I’m not here to make you feel like you’re under a microscope, Will.” Wordlessly, he held his hand out for the notebook. Dr. Mavis noticed his hand shaking slightly.

“Would you like to see?” she asked. He nodded, and she passed him the notebook. He read what she had written, then handed it back. Seeing her notes had done little to assuage his anxiety; if anything, it had made it worse. 

“Did reading my notes make you feel better?” Dr. Mavis asked, although the boy still appeared anxious. 

Will nodded, then, remembering what she had said about him being honest, shook his head. Dr. Mavis regarded him for a moment. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” She paused; Will had entangled his fingers in his sweater sleeves and now clenched them so tightly that she could see the knitted material strain. She was beginning to suspect that Will’s issues ran deeper than ordinary anxiety or depression.

She asked, “Are you alright, Will? Are you feeling anxious?” Will blinked and noticed his vice-grip on his forearms. He glanced at Alastor, trying to communicate: help me. But Alastor only receded away from his chair, still appearing sulky. Will forced himself to loosen his grip and nodded, the detached feeling intensifying.

Dr. Mavis studied Will’s posture for a moment; he appeared to be in the thralls of an anxiety attack, but his glazed-over expression made her second-guess that assessment. 

“Can you try and identify the source of your anxiety?” she prompted him. 

Will shifted his gaze to her. “I think,” he said slowly, “it’s that… I have this feeling, like… like nothing is real… like I’m just moving through the world, but I’m not part of it…” 

“Stop telling her about it,” Alastor snapped, and Will shut his mouth abruptly. 

“I see,” said Dr. Mavis. “Will, do you know what dissociation is?” He shook his head.

“It’s a feeling of detachment from one’s surroundings and body — someone who’s dissociating may feel as though they’re moving through life automatically, like a wind-up toy or a recording. Some people describe it as an out-of-body experience, as though they are viewing the events of their own lives from outside their bodies, not really participating. The feelings you described are common with dissociation, as are feelings that one’s body is not their own, or deep existential dread.” Dr. Mavis paused. “Does that sound like what you’re experiencing?” 

Will nodded.

“Do you experience this feeling often?” she inquired. 

Another nod.

“I see.” Dr. Mavis wrote frequent dissociative episodes in her notebook. “And you dissociate because you feel anxious? Or do you feel anxious because you dissociate?”

“The second,” he whispered after a moment, and Dr. Mavis made a note of it. 

“And was that the reason you felt the need to physically harm yourself?” she asked.

“Kind of,” he admitted reluctantly. “It’s… well, someone told me to.” 

The psychologist paused. “Was this someone at school?”

“No… it’s… it was…” Will looked around uncertainly for Alastor; he seemed to have left the room, though Will hadn’t heard him exit. He remained wary though; Alastor somehow always knew when he said something he wasn’t supposed to. However, Will couldn’t shake the feeling that it was very important that Dr. Mavis knew he was not responsible for the cutting. He pressed his palms to his eyes then ran his fingers through his hair, distressed. 

“Will,” Dr. Mavis said in her best commanding-yet-gentle voice, “I need you to tell me who told you to hurt yourself.”

“It… um…” Will glanced around nervously, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I have this… this friend… he’s usually with me, but he only talks a lot when we’re alone…”

Will felt every distrustful instinct screaming at him to stop talking. He fought them off, telling himself that it was this person’s job to help him, that it was okay… He thought of Alastor telling him not to trust her, and he almost shut his mouth again. But then another image rose to the forefront of his mind: the image of his mother kneeling on the floor in front of him, crying, holding his sliced wrists in her hands, sobbing that he was sick, that he needed help… 

With an enormous force of will, Will continued, “His name is Alastor. At least that’s what I call him. He’s my best friend. He tells me things that I have to do, to stop… bad things from happening. He also warns me about bad people, but between you and me I don’t know if he’s right all the time…”

Dr. Mavis wrote down everything he said now, selecting her next words very carefully. She suddenly had an overwhelming hunch about what was wrong with Will.

“Will,” she said, “is Alastor in this room with us right now?” 

Will glanced around, but Alastor was still nowhere to be seen. “He was,” Will said, “I don’t know where he went though; I guess he got bored and left.”

Dr. Mavis paused her note-taking and looked Will in the eye, her expression deadly serious, her suspicion confirmed.

“Will, there was never anyone else in the room with us. We’ve been the only two people in here since your session started.”

[dailyaudiobible]

09/06/2019 DAB Transcript

Song 1:1-4:16, 2 Corinthians 8:16-24, Psalms 50:1-23, Proverbs 22:22-23

Today is the 6th day of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure and a joy to be here with you today as we take the next step forward, stepping forward into the back of this week for sure but stepping forward in the Scriptures and we’ve reached another special point in our year where we’re encountering some territory in the Old Testament that we haven’t encountered before. So, today and tomorrow we’ll be reading a book known as the song of Solomon or the song of songs, which is indeed a radical departure from the territory that we've been spending in Job and Ecclesiastes, which definitely took us deep into the idea of endurance and the reality of suffering as well as meaninglessness and chasing the wind. So, we’ve been in some unique territory that has allowed us to actually open up and think some things through that we normally avoid. However, moving into the song of Solomon is like putting on a completely different hat, like we’re going into completely different territory.

Introduction to the Song of Solomon:

This little work, this poem is short but it’s potent and its potently beautiful, and its part of the wisdom literature in the Bible. So, in this Song of Songs we’ll discover that human sexuality is indeed a celebrated part of the biblical narrative but this poem as many other layers. So, like from a literal perspective it's the story of the passionate consummation of love between a man and woman who are completely lost in each other. And just…if we just left that alone, if that's what this book means then it is a witness to marital love and the bliss of passionate physical relationship. So, it stands alone that way, but the ancient Jewish tradition looks at the poem allegorically. It's poetry, right? So, you can look at it poetically. So, from this perspective, the story that’s being told in the Song of Solomon reveals God's passionate love for his children, who are the Hebrew people and this view is totally, totally supportable in other areas of Scripture in both the old and the New Testaments. In the Christian tradition, the Song of Solomon's is an allegorical look at Christ's passionate love for His church and a foreshadowing of His desire for His bride. So, in this case, all of those can be true and we can just allow the Holy Spirit to lead us as we approach the Song of Songs because there's a number of lenses that we can we can look through. So, invite God as this is being read. But no matter how we approach the Solomon it's a very meaningful portion of Scripture that speaks to us on different levels. And since it is love poetry, it's become a tradition around here for my wife Jill to join me in the reading. There are male voices and female voices that occur in this poem. And, so, let’s drink deep of the beautiful poetry that we find in the Song of Solomon.

Prayer:

Thank You, Father. Thank You, Father for Your word. Thank You for the way that it just continues to touch different things in us, and it comes to us as a live thing as a friend who speaks the truth to us no matter what's going on in our lives. And, so, so many times we may come to the same passage and find it speaking something so much more poignant to where we are on any given day, and we thank You, we thank You for this guidance. And as we spend this time moving through the song of Solomon, come Holy Spirit, reignite our love, our love for our spouse, our love for You as our Father, our love for Jesus as our Savior knowing that as passionate as we can imagine being, our passion pales in comparison to Yours for us. And, so, we walk into Your embrace and it feels safe and it feels like home and we invite Your Holy Spirit to continue to lead us into all truth as You promised. We pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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And this week we released a couple of things, the steeped windfarm coffee, portable solution finally, finally, where we were able to get…well…you steep the coffee. So, it's like a teabag and that sounds weird but when you think about it it makes perfect sense. Like, if you drip coffee, it’s in a coffee filter. So, what if you used a coffee filter and wrapped up a single serving portion of coffee and you were able to steep it and what if you were able to nitro seal the oxygen on it so it would keep, so it would be fresh. Boom. So, we’ve got that. Those are in the Shop right now in the Coffee section as well as our brand-new Daily Audio Bible Journal 2.0 an improved version of the 1.0 version. So, you can find that in the lifestyle section at the Daily Audio Bible shop. So, check those things out. They are…well…they’re created for the journey and they are available as resources in the shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, then thank you. Thank you profoundly and deeply for that. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you are using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request a comment you can press the Hotline button in the app the little red circle at the top and share what's going on or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello, I called last week just to let you guys know that I was nine days sober. I forgot to say my name, I’, Olia from Minnesota. Yeah, today is day 17. I have no idea how I’ve made it this long, it’s just God is the only thing I can think of. Yeah, I just want to thank Asia and I think her name was Polly from Alaska that said her daughter is nine years sober, I can’t even imagine that right now. Just such a blessing that I’ve been just sober this long. I don’t reorder the last time I’ve been this sober, especially over a holiday weekend. I also wanted to just say a prayer for little Sherry and your back pain. I completely understand that. I have a fully fused Spohn and that happened when I was a teenager and ai still del with chronic back pain. And, so, I’m sending prayer to you. Thank you. Bye.

Hey DAB family this is Stephanie and Oklahoma. I’m missing work today. I’m an RN at a local hospital and I’ve had return of panic attacks which I haven’t had to deal with in a number of years but six weeks ago my mom died, I just found out that my oldest son has lymphoma, medication that I’ve been on for decades stopped working and I got just really death oriented in my thinking, knew that that wasn’t good and sought help. And, so, in between all the circumstances I also…I’m going to medication changes. I’m just frustrated to still be dealing with this after decades of counseling, seeking God, that’s been the biggest thing. I just…I’ve begged Him to take this away from me, this anxiety disorder, always being on the lookout, always fight or flight. I had to quit working trauma ICU ER because I burned out with the same thing three years ago and I’ve been doing a relatively easy job and a recovery room. So, I just need prayer because that’s the only thing it’s ever gotten me through before and I know it’s the only thing that’s going to get me through now. I pray that you would ask for wisdom from the physicians that are treating me and that I would…it’s when it happens, my mind is pretty settled it’s just my body completely freaking out – vertigo, sweating, nausea. So, I just I need help guys. I’m not in a good place and I need to be in a better place. I’m supposed to go on a missions trip to Honduras in February. Thanks all.

Hi, this is Christine from Washington state and I just heard a woman call in that lost one of her dogs and she’s depressed and her other little dog is sad and she’s had a cancer scare and I just want to know I was busy doing something so I didn’t get your name but I am praying for you and you are loved and I’m praying for your marriage too. So, hang in there. Sometimes God brings us through bad things just to get closer to Him. So, your loved and being prayed for.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible community this is Diane Olive Brown calling from Newburgh Indiana. Shalom, shalom. Nothing is missing nothing is broken. Well, today is September 4th 2019 at 7:43 in the morning and I just finished reading September 1st 2019. I’m catching up but I’m getting closer and we just finished Job and oh my goodness, what a wonderful experience that’s been. What can I say? What can I say? Oh Father, forgive me, forgive me. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t know what I was doing. Forgive me. Well I just want to say I love this community so much. I appreciate how your helping me to grow up in Jesus to become a mature bride of Christ, to become His best friend. When you start out with these desires of your heart, you don’t even know what you’re asking for, to be God’s best friend? Thank you, Daily Audio Bible. Thank you. I just want to finish with [singing] thank You Jesus for the grace that You have given us when we could never repay…

Yes, this is Tammy and I have asked for prayer for my daughter Megan before on Daily Audio Bible and we need prayer yet again. She’s fought __ from breast cancer an aggressive form and then she had a bone marrow transplant because her breast cancer treatment caused her to have leukemia. And it was going well and last week they found new leukemia cells and she goes back into treatment. Lord, please, I ask that You would heal my daughter and Lord especially her heart that is hardened against You right now because she doesn’t believe that You have her good in mind and I ask the Daily Audio Bible community to pray with me for her heart to be bound for home in God’s heart and know the love that You have for her. And I’m asking for a miracle, that her body would be healed in Jesus’ name, completely every cell made whole, her heart and mind made whole. Would you please agree with me Daily Audio Bible community? I’m a pastor and Muncie Indiana and I pray that all who would see Megan’s healing would be the glory of the Lord and that many would be drawn to Him. So, please I ask that you would come with me in these prayers for my daughter and also for her boyfriend Aiden who’s walking with her but also is __ God. So, Lord I ask that You would make possible what seems impossible right now in Jesus’ name. Thank You.

[whatthehellisastilesimagine]

Alone Together: A Stiles Stilinski Imagine

Request from Anon: Hi I love all your Stiles Imagines they’re super cute! I was wondering, could ask for a Stiles Imagine based on “Alone together” by Fall Out Boy? Like Stiles is depressed about his break up with Malia and all the Donovan thing and the reader gets so angry about how is he treating himself and ends up confessing her feelings and his like “well shit It took you long” and they kiss, lots of fluff, etc ILY!! ♡♡

I’m sorry this has taken awhile, but I hope you like it x

Want to hear the song? Find a link to it just below:

Alone Together

I don't know where you're going, But do you got room for one more troubled soul

You wanted to reach out to Stiles. More than anything, you wanted to be there for him. 

But he was pushing you away. 

After his break-up with Malia and the incident with Donovan, he was different. You noticed how his hazel eyes didn’t light up with the prospect of a new mystery to solve, how he moped around school like a stereotypical teenager, how his door was always shut. 

How he cut you out. 

“Stiles,” you knocked on his bedroom door, pleading for him to speak to you, “Stiles, come on. Talk to me.”

“Go away, Y/N. Go home.”

I don't know where I'm going, But I don't think I'm coming home

Those two words made your heart sink. 

Stiles was all you had. Of course, you had the pack, but Stiles was the one person with whom you felt you shared a real connection with.

For one, you were both human. 

Secondly, you had both experienced heartbreak. 

And finally?

You were in love with him. Truly, deeply, irrevocably, unconditionally. 

Without Stiles by your side, you felt lost. You didn’t want to go home, not until you knew he was okay. 

”Stiles, I’m not leaving. Not until I know you’re okay.”

His door swung open. 

And I said, I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead This is the road to ruin and we're starting at the end

The sight broke you. 

Stiles’ hazel eyes, ones that were once full of life, were dark and murky. The puffy red rings around them told you he’d been crying. 

You wanted to pull him into your arms right there and then, but his expression told you not to.

Stiles’ face was like thunder. He wasn’t just upset, he was angry. Infuriated. At you. 

“I said go home Y/N,” he spoke quietly, which somehow made his anger all the more frightening. 

“No.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said no, Stiles. I’m not leaving you. Not like this.”

You found yourself standing your ground as Stiles inched towards you, his dark eyes meeting yours. 

You were pretty sure the whole of Beacon Hills were able to hear the fight that ensued. Shouts were heard, and insults were thrown. 

“Just go, Y/N.”

“Not until you start treating yourself like you deserve to.”

“Why the hell do you care?”

“Because I love you.”

It was silent after that. Stiles looked at you, cocking his head to the side, as you mentally cursed yourself for saying it out loud. For the first time. 

“What did you just say?”

You might as well just go with it now.

“You heard me. I’m not leaving you Stiles because I love you. I have for the past two years, and you wanna know why? Because you are the most amazing person in the world, the best friend anyone could have, and you shouldn’t been beating yourself up. So if you wanna be alone, that’s fine. But you’ll have to be alone with me. Because I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever. I love you, Stiles Stilinski.”

You let out a sigh of relief as Stiles’ eyes brightened, and returned to their usual hazel. He smiled, his dimples showing. 

“It took you long enough.”

And then he took one final step forward, and pressed his lips against yours.

Say, yeah Let's be alone together

At first, you were in shock. 

Stiles was kissing you. Actually kissing you. His hands were pressed against your cheeks, and his body was pressed against yours. 

It was everything you had ever wanted. 

Soon, the shock dissolved into pure elation, as you realised what was happening. 

You began to kiss back, reveling in the way his lips fit yours. A perfect match. 

But there was still one question you had. 

Pulling away, you looked Stiles in the eyes. 

”I’m guessing this means you feel the same way?”

”Well, obviously,” sarcasm dripped from Stiles’ words. You smiled. Stiles was back. 

”I love you Y/N Y/L/N.”

We could stay young forever Scream it from the top of your lungs

It was at school the next day when it really sunk in. 

When it hit you that Stiles loved you.

You were sitting in the library, and you felt the blush rise to your cheeks, unable to stop yourself from smiling. 

Lydia looked up at you. 

“Somebody looks happy.”

“You could say that.”

Before she had the chance to ask what had happened to bring on such a fantastic mood, she caught you looking over her shoulder. 

Turning to look in the same direction, she saw Stiles. He was smiling at you, his cheeks a similar shade of pink to yours. 

It didn’t take her long to realise. 

But she didn’t say anything. 

She didn’t say anything as he walked over. She didn’t say anything as he took a seat next to her best friend. She didn’t say anything as he placed a hand on your cheek, and kissed you lightly, before you rested your head on his shoulder. 

Instead, she acted as if nothing had changed. 

She didn’t need to be a banshee, a psychic, anything like that, to know that the feelings between you and Stiles were mutual. That they always had been. 

When you and Stiles had gone to get lunch, holding hands as if you were never going to let go of each other, she whispered one single word.

“Finally.”

Finally, her best friends were happy.

Masterlist

[lostonyou38]

Darren Hayes: ‘Come out. In your own time.’ - Attitude

“For every generation it becomes easier to come out, but nothing can really take away from the fact that it’s a deeply personal journey and one that doesn’t exists in a linear format. In some ways, coming out is the easy part. It’s the day after and through the rest of your life that you realise there’s still an ongoing process – even if it’s just navigating around other people’s reactions.

My coming out was a torturous affair. I was married to a woman when I was 23 and I’m proud to say to this day she is still one of my best friends. I was madly in love with her at the time but I was deeply confused. People would assume that I was gay and I would reply with genuine offence pointing to my wedding ring, stating that I was indeed not! Truthfully I had no idea. My own self-hatred was so deeply ingrained in me that I managed to shelve my sexuality so expertly that it was a shameful secret even to me. It wasn’t until I became a musician and started travelling the world that I met other gay men who reminded me there was a place for me in this world. That’s when I had to go home to my wife and admit that something was up.

It was a very sad time for me. I had always been deeply monogamous but I couldn’t deny that in my twenties I had married too young, I hadn’t finished growing up and ultimately I was potentially going to ruin both of our lives if I didn’t own up to my true self and make some choices.

All of this coincided with the apex of my fame in Savage Garden and solo career.

There I was, a millionaire, with number one singles and the spotlight of fame, and in my private life I was still struggling to come to terms with who I was.

I left my wife, I ‘came out’ to my family and friends but I was not happy about it nor had I truly accepted it. But then I was in the public eye, where journalists were asking me to comment on my sexuality!

I guess there was an assumption I was hiding something when the truth was, I was still struggling. Many times during those ‘wilderness years’ I asked my wife to take me back and I contemplated having relationships with women because it seemed easier. Being an adult, wanting to have children and finding myself essentially a teenager trying to go on a first date was not very enticing. Not many rainbows or glitter cannons of joy for me back then.

My experience of being gay, newly single and in the public eye quickly turned to depression – a dark cruel prison space I occupied for much of the mid ’90s. I would venture out to gay bars or try to date, but I was a babe in the woods. I was like some overly romantic character from a Jane Austin novel trying to make my way through the gay scene. I know it’s controversial but can I just admit this now? I really don’t like going to clubs! I’ve never loved dance music. I realise this is only one fragment of the gay community but for me back then it was all I saw and the only way to meet someone.

I was not traditionally handsome and I did not have a great body so you can imagine how most of the time I felt like an outcast trying to fit into the one part of gay subculture I was exposed to but didn’t belong to. I’d come home from a night out with a bruised heart, then rock up to a press junket or a magazine interview and the journalist would ask: “So is there anybody special in your life?” Ha!

Thank goodness I had the enclave of foggy San Francisco with its wonderful queer culture and bizarre inclusiveness to understand there are billions of different types of gay men. I was the kind who liked Star Wars, nerdy things and TV dinners.

I’m proud that I never lied about who I was – but I resented very much the expectation that I should not only know who I was, but that I should also make a public declaration about it. The truth is I was so depressed about it I often felt suicidal.

I’m lucky that, through a strong network of friends, family and professional help, I was able to work through my feelings and emotions and come out on my own terms the day I announced I married my husband Richard.

But it could have been a very different scenario.

I think it’s public knowledge I was very nearly outed by comedian Simon Amstell during an interview for now defunct TV show Popworld and I have to say I’m so grateful that I wasn’t forced to come out that way.

That awkward portion of the interview was left on the cutting room floor and looking back I’m so glad because truthfully I don’t think I would have survived the aftermath at the time. In retrospect I don’t blame the host – he didn’t know the back-story to my life or the headspace I was in. But it was upsetting to say the least.

It’s terrifying when the decision to come out is taken from you. Imagine how a young person, going through the depression, anxiety and fear as I was back then, feels when they’re dragged out into the open to declare something about themselves they’re not even comfortable with yet. I don’t think I do want to imagine. I’m just glad I was given the grace period I needed.

Coming out is like any other journey in life – it’s a process.

I held back some pretty deeply-seeded thoughts of shame about my sexuality. It had nothing to do with fame, or my career – it took real love, and a stable relationship for me to heal those parts of myself that I was ashamed of. When I met my husband Richard, I felt strong enough to face up to any bully. I was so proud of our love I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. So I did. The fact that I was able to proudly come out, on my own terms and in my own time is why I feel so content and devoid of shame today. I was allowed to process all of it and stand up to the world and embrace who I was with dignity and a real understanding of my soul.

Just realising you like boys is one thing. Understanding the greater social context and preparing yourself for the journey beyond that revelation is, in my experience, the real coming out and it’s one we need to be sensitive about.

If you take my job out of the equation – what difference is there in my situation and, say, my friend who works in banking? For whatever reason, we must allow each other the time, grace and space to come to terms with who we are in our own time.

Yes we should support coming out. It’s wonderful, inspiring and aspirational. But it’s not always easy. Just Google my It Gets Better video to see how much I’ve changed since the days when I was spat on as a child or beaten up because I was gay. So much has changed and all of it within me.

I’m glad it’s 2014. There are ever-evolving steps in the right direction of equality and I’m glad we are more elastic in our understanding of human sexuality. No matter how many countries allow equal marriage, or how many television shows represent gay characters – independent of how our society moves forward in its view of human sexuality there is no shortcut for the individual on the road to acceptance.

Be proud. Be Out. But be patient. Everyone is on their own journey.” 

( this is just a fragment, please read the whole thing )