#revel in your ability to have stupid opinions without anyone knowing

[rohirric-hunter]

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[canadian-riddler]

 ‘Burial’

 Characters: Edward Nygma, Jonathan Crane [Scriddler]

 Synopsis: He knew better than to go to his father’s funeral, but he did it anyway.

AO3 || fanfiction.net

It was sunny.

It shouldn’t have been, in Edward’s opinion.  It should have been pouring down rain, should have discouraged half these people from showing up and encouraged the other half to finish up and get inside as quickly as possible.  But it was sunny, and the sky was clear, and there were around thirty people here gathered to mourn the death of Edward’s father.

He had known about them, of course.  Had known about his father’s new wife and new sons.  One the age he had been when his mother had left, and the other the age he had been when his father had first hit him.  They were crying not because he had been terrible to them and they were thankful that he was gone, but because they missed him and wanted him to come back. All of these people, his family and his friends, felt that way.  They didn’t know because he had hidden it from them.

No one will ever mourn me like this.

It was sickening.  The priest was making a grand speech about what a great man and benefit to the community his father had been, and people were eating up the lie and shedding tears over it.  He’d been a bartender, for God’s sake.  Some of these people were just regulars.  Slinging booze was considered a ‘benefit to the community’ now?  To what community?  Alcoholics? Lonely men who had no better place to go?  Single women looking for free drinks?

It seemed to take the entire afternoon for them to get all the ceremony over with and put him in his hole in the ground.  When they finally did so, the feeling Edward had expected and been waiting for did not come. Instead he felt hollow, suddenly, as though something important had been taken from him.  It hadn’t been, of course.  He was glad that old man was finally dead.  It had taken long enough.

It was his aim to have disappeared before anyone spotted him, but it seemed he had lingered too long because his father’s widow caught sight of him as people filtered along their way. She looked as though she had seen a ghost, and Edward supposed that she had.  He turned and pushed his hands deeper into his pants pockets and did his best to pretend he was there for some other reason.  He was in the parking lot, shouting distance from his vehicular exit, when someone called a name he was not yet used to hearing: “Édouard!”

He stopped without meaning to.  The clack of high heels sounded across the asphalt but it was too late to pretend he hadn’t heard.  He was going to have to see what she wanted and extricate himself as soon as possible.

“You must be him,” the woman said in French, short of breath.  She had an accent he didn’t recognise.  “He said you might show up.  You look just like him, you know, like – “

“What do you want?” Edward snapped as he turned to face her, his enunciation still perfect Québécois.  She looked taken aback, as though she had not expected him to be so aggressive.  Or maybe seeing the near-exact facsimile of her late husband’s face on someone else was much more shocking up close. She looked down towards the purse hanging from her shoulder, digging in it with one hand.  She withdrew and held out to him an envelope which stole the breath from his lungs and replaced it with a nearly sickening tension.  All that was written upon the face was ‘Édouard’ in small black letters.  He stared at it.

“What did he tell you about me?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” she answered. “Just that… someone I wouldn’t know might show up, and I was to give this to him.”

He accepted it, turning it over as he did so.  It was sealed with no signs of tampering.  

“Who are you?” the woman asked.  Edward looked over the top of his glasses at her.

“Someone your late husband didn’t see fit to tell you about,” he answered, and resumed walking across the parking lot.  Once seated behind his steering wheel he put the envelope down on the passenger seat and pushed the key into the ignition.

He shouldn’t open it. He should just get rid of it.  It wasn’t going to say anything important. It wasn’t going to say anything he needed to read.

He couldn’t fit his finger beneath the corner of the flap with the glove on, so he took it off and laid it on the dashboard.  He slowly worked the envelope open with one finger.

He shouldn’t.  He wasn’t going to.  He leaned over and opened the glovebox and removed the lighter that was in there.  He lit it and held it to the bottom corner.  Not close enough.  He felt sick suddenly.  He wasn’t going to be able to do it.  He put the lighter down and leaned the envelope on the steering wheel and stared at his name.  His father had written it there.  His father had not tried to talk to him in such a long time.  He had to know.  He couldn’t not know.

Édouard

I suspect you will make an appearance at my funeral to make sure I am truly dead.  I trust you did not cause trouble for the invited attendees.  I think we can both agree that would be sinking rather low, even for you.

I am sure you will be relieved of the fact that you will no longer need to keep an eye on me and my doings.  We both know they were none of your business and yet you made them so anyway.  One would think you would divert your attention onto more suitable things with time, but age has not brought you any wisdom that I can tell.  From what I have seen of you on the news you seem content to revel in your strange sickness instead.  It is a shame to think upon all the things you could have been doing, but elected against in favour of… whatever that persona of yours is supposed to be.

I do not know why you did not kill me as so many of your ilk often do, but when I heard news of your disappearance I had hope you were moving away from the man you have become.  My actions may have had influence in your decisions, but they were always your decisions.  Perhaps my death will finally free you to realise that.

I do not have much confidence left in your ability to make the right choices, but at least the time remains for you to make them.  I hope that you do for your own sake.

Dad

Edward pressed his forehead to the steering wheel and cried.

He didn’t know why he was crying, or who he was crying for.  Perhaps for himself and the life that could have been.  Perhaps because, as awful as the man had been, he was still Edward’s father. Or perhaps it was the not knowing if, had he known what Edward was doing now, he would have found it in him to be proud despite everything.  When he was able he removed his handkerchief from his jacket pocket and cleaned his glasses with it, then his face.  The letter he tossed back onto the other seat, followed by the envelope.  He sat, leaned back in his chair, for a long time. When he realised what colour the sky was he blinked and turned the key.  He’d been here too long.  Even if he had only been here for as many minutes as it had taken him to park in the first place, that would have been here too long.  His father didn’t deserve this much of his time, not alive and especially not dead.

The letter seemed to have been imbued with his aura, and Edward knew that was stupid but he could feel it.  It was there. Just like that hollowness that shouldn’t be.  

He shouldn’t have opened it. He shouldn’t have gone.  He shouldn’t have.

 //

 When he got home some hours later and Jonathan asked how it had gone, Edward wordlessly put the letter into his hand and went upstairs.  He stood in the shower for a very long time. ��Waiting.  He didn’t know for what.  He just felt as though he should stay there until something happened.  Something that would tell him that the world hadn’t really changed that much even when he felt as though it had been upended completely.

Eventually he got out and went into the bedroom to get dressed, finding that Jonathan was in bed.  He had been in the shower longer than he had thought. His hair was soaking his back because he had forgotten to dry it with a towel.

“If Google Translate is to be believed,” Jonathan said, “this is quite the letter.”

Edward sat down, shirtless, and took it to be put away in his bedside drawer.  Jonathan looked at him but Edward did not have any words to give him.  He didn’t have anything except a profound empty feeling he did not think anything would ever fill.  He lay down, back to Jonathan, and pulled up the blanket.  He wondered if it would ever go away.  He wondered if it was a scar or a reminder.

“You have no way of knowing what it means,” Jonathan continued.  “It could simply be a – “

“Shut up, Jonathan,” Edward said.

“Edward, I only – “

“He was my father and I’ll mourn him the way I want to.”

“… mourn him?” Jonathan repeated, his words overflowing with all the incredulity he could summon, and Edward got up to sleep on the couch.

 //

 It was sunny again today, too, the headstone now half-hidden behind flowers and little stuffed animals and a photograph depicting a family that was and was not Edward’s both at the same time.  He had been on his knees there for a while.  He should not have come today, either, but he had the right to make some sort of farewell speech too, didn’t he?  Didn’t he have the most right to that out of anyone?  The people in that picture hadn’t known his father. How many times had he sat there on the couch with his arm behind her shoulders, reaching for the means to change the channel if ever Edward appeared on the TV?  Had his sons ever dragged their feet on the way home from school in the hopes of arriving after he had already left for work?  Had he been good to them always, or had he done one unexplainedly kind thing now and again which only served to be utterly confusing in the face of the constant cruelty?  Even if he had changed, had genuinely, honestly become a better man for them, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t fair.  He was chewing his lower lip and trying to shove the rage in his chest back down with deliberate, heavy breaths.  “I never killed you,” Edward murmured, “because it would have proven that might makes right.”

The smile his father wore in the photograph seemed to burn the corner of his vision that it occupied.

“If I had killed you, you would have won.  But I suppose you won anyway because I will never have what you had.  Unlike you, I can’t bury what I’ve done and have family and friends surround me in death, oblivious to the whole of the person I was. You have a lot of gall lecturing me about choices when you chose every day to pretend to your new family that I didn’t exist.  That I don’t exist.”  There was a handful of fresh grass in between his gloved fingers.  “Well, I’m not going to tell you what I’m doing now.  You don’t deserve to know.  I no longer need your pride.”  Saying it out loud made him feel as though he had the ability to make it true. “All those final fucking words to me and you couldn’t be bothered to use a single one of them to apologise.  All I hope comes of your death is that I wake up one morning soon with the feeling I should have had all this time: relief.”

He stood up and turned around to find that his father’s widow was standing behind him, her teary eyes wide.  He wanted to ruin it for her.  He wanted to tell her in explicit detail who he was and what his father’s contributions had been towards making him that way.  He wanted her tears to be of horror as he told her that the man she had loved and borne children for and built a life alongside had lied to her in order to con himself a second chance he had not deserved.  All the words were tumbling through his mind, ordering themselves into the perfect sentences that would shatter her illusions and put the truth and meaning of her entire life into question.  One inhale would fill his lungs with them and one exhale would breathe all of them out into a torrent that she would not believe at first, but that would form infinite niggling doubts in her mind.  Eating away at her.  Leading her to look into who Edward was.  Into uncovering a truth she would not be able to hide from her children as her husband so easily had.  One breath and he could do all of that.

So he took two.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.

 //

 Jonathan was at the kitchen table drinking coffee.  He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday and his hair had been half-combed with his fingers.  If by some wild circumstance Edward died first, Jonathan would not cry for him. He would not hold a funeral or spend too much time thinking about interpersonal regrets.  He would simply remember Edward for what he had been.  All of it.

He sat down at the table.

“That other phone has been ringing all day,” Jonathan said into his coffee, his other hand keeping his book spread open.  “I think she knows and wants a chance to head you off before you do something rash.”

Edward rubbed at a dried spot of coffee with his thumb.  It came off, but he would still have to wash the table.  “I’m not going to do anything rash.”

“What are you going to do?”

The emptiness remained, but no solution had presented itself.  “Nothing.”

When Jonathan put his empty cup down, Edward stood and brought it to the sink.  “I didn’t know when you’d be returning so supper is in the fridge,” Jonathan said.  He nodded but did not feel the slightest inclination to go looking for it.  He would go see what she wanted, and after a shower he was going to bed.  A thought gave him pause when he had one foot on the stairs.  “Jonathan.”

“Mm,” said Jonathan. Edward couldn’t tell how his attention was divided between himself and the book.

“If… I died tomorrow, would you cry for me?”

Jonathan’s browline indicated he didn’t understand the question.  “Of course I would.”

Edward’s fingers scrunched up and down the side of the bannister.  “Just a little.”

“Enough,” Jonathan said.

“Don’t do anything else.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

Edward nodded and continued upstairs.

The phone was still ringing. He sat down in his desk chair and pushed his earpiece in and answered it.  It had better be something that could wait because he was too tired to work right now.  He had not slept much last night.

“There you are,” said Barbara.

“What do you want,” Edward said.

“We heard what happened,” Barbara answered.  “We’ve rearranged some availability.  You’ve got two weeks off.”

He sat up straight.  “I don’t – “

“I knew you’d say that,” Barbara interrupted.  “Look. I know you didn’t like your dad. But you went to his funeral.  Even if you don’t want time to work that out, I’m giving it to you anyway.  I don’t care what you do with it.  Just take it.”

Edward stared at the wall until he remembered he had to respond to that.  “I’m not going to do anything.”

“If I thought you would,” Barbara said, “we wouldn’t be talking right now.  I’m just trying to be nice.  Okay?”

“Thanks, Barbara,” he murmured, and she told him goodbye and hung up.

When Jonathan came upstairs he was still in his office, having gotten distracted by a spate of messages he’d received since last he’d checked them.  The most distressing of them all he had left for last, and was still staring at it as Jonathan stood behind him.  “She sent you a friend request,” he said after a minute. Hearing it said out loud didn’t help his indecision.

“What should I do?”

Jonathan leaned on the chair and Edward heard the clink of him pushing up his glasses.  “She thinks she wants to know,” he answered finally. “But she doesn’t.”

Edward nodded and deleted the request.  “They cleared my schedule for the next two weeks,” he said, rotating the chair ninety degrees to the left.  “If there was anything you wanted to do.”

Jonathan frowned at the desk.  “We should go camping,” he said.  Edward was a little taken aback.

“Camping?”

“Yes,” Jonathan said, standing up straight again.

“I’ve never gone before.”

“Me neither,” said Jonathan, “but things are so easy nowadays an idiot could probably figure it out.”

Edward tapped one finger on the desk.  “I’ll have to figure out what we’ll need, but… sure.  Let’s go camping.”

“Are you coming to bed?”

He shook his head.  “I need to shower.”

“Hurry up,” Jonathan said. “You know how you get when it’s past your bedtime.”

He wished he had a response to that, but… he was right.

 //

 He was ready about an hour later, which was cutting it close, and at Jonathan’s behest Edward lay held to his right side with one thin arm.  The hollowness was still achingly present and he stared at the barely visible curtains shielding the windows.

“Don’t mourn him, Eddie,” Jonathan murmured.  He always somehow knew what Edward was thinking.  “Mourn the part of yourself he took from you.”

“I don’t want to,” said Edward.  Jonathan’s long fingers were in his hair.

“I understand,” Jonathan said.  “Your mind needs some time to accept that it’s finally over.”

That thought was… terrifying.  He had spent so many years harbouring so much anger and frustration and resentment and now the cause of it was gone.  Forever. The emptiness seemed to increase and the arm he had across Jonathan’s stomach tightened against it.

“When we go camping,” Jonathan continued as though he hadn’t noticed, “might I use the letter as kindling?”

“You know how to start a fire?”

“Oh yes,” Jonathan answered, scratching his nose with his free hand.  “I used to do it with a knife and a rock.  It’s extremely sexy, I assure you.”

“Can you still do it?” Edward asked, fascinated by this new development.  Jonathan shrugged.

“You should probably bring some matches just in case.  My hands aren’t as steady as they once were.”

Edward gave a pat to the place his palm currently rested, which was still Jonathan’s stomach.  “We wouldn’t want you cutting yourself open.”

Jonathan slid his fingers between Edward’s.  “That’s what the first aid kit you’ll be bringing is for.”

“Burn it,” Edward said after there had been silence between them for a minute.  The gentle squeeze Jonathan gave to his shoulder may have caused the emptiness to fade, just a little bit.

“If you choose to change your mind, you can.”

“No.  Don’t let me.”

There were a lot of things his father had had that Edward never would.  But he had never had Edward himself, and once enough time had passed he would be able to appreciate and understand that had always been to his own benefit. For now he would wait and try to think about other things.  More important things.  Like Jonathan’s endlessly cold feet pressed against his shins.  “Did you pull up my pantlegs with your toes again?” he demanded.

“I think they were already like that.”

“I don’t think so,” Edward said, attempting to yank them back down with his own toes, but Jonathan’s feet were simply too large for him to be successful.  He crossed his arms and sighed through his nose and Jonathan laughed.

“Go to sleep and you won’t even notice.”

“I’m supposed to fall asleep with your gigantic icy feet crammed up my pants?”

“You’ve actually proven yourself to be quite good at it,” Jonathan said with gentle amusement, and even though it wasn’t really a compliment it still took the edge off his annoyance.  He settled himself into Jonathan’s side again and Jonathan pressed his dry lips into Edward’s brow.  “Don’t go running off in the morning,” he murmured there.  “Having me worry about you three days in a row would be going too far.”

“It may turn out that you’ll wish I’d left.”

“Maybe,” Jonathan said. “Or maybe I don’t mind helping you as much as you think I do.”

He would ask Jonathan about the emptiness tomorrow.  He must know some way of dealing with it, or what it meant.  He found himself smiling a little.

“He wrote me the letter because he didn’t know I had you,” he said, and Jonathan laughed through his nose and slid his hand up and down Edward’s arm.

“Good,” was all he said, and without asking he knew that in Jonathan’s opinion Edward had won after all.  It was an opinion he fully intended to share one day.  

[nomazee]

Thinking Things Up And Not Thinking It Through

iwaizumi hajime x reader, oikawa tooru & reader friendship 

word count: 2300+

content: oblivious & ooc iwaizumi, pining reader, light swearing, (title is a reference to listerine by dayglow)

(i was thinking ab the first iwazumi/oikawa fic i posted (and the first fic i posted....EVER) and almost cried thinking about it cause its SO BAD and i felt like i needed to atone for my sins so here it is!! 

i wrote this in one day, pretty quickly, and it’s unedited & might not make sense in some parts. regardless, i hope it’s concise enough and that you all enjoy it !!

thank you for the continued support on my work. it really makes me happy to see that people enjoy the things i write. i hope i continue to make you guys happy with my stuff!!

also, as always, here’s a reminder that my requests are open!! feel free to send one in after reading my rules :)

happy reading!!)

☾.:°∗★.:☆:.★∗°:.☽

You and Oikawa were friends. Oikawa and Iwaizumi were friends. You and Iwaizumi, however, were not friends. 

It’s not like you two were sworn enemies. You got along quite well, actually. But you just… weren’t close enough to consider yourselves friends. 

It was really a shame. You were sure you were practically in love with the guy. 

Oikawa knew about this--him and his annoying, prying self figured it out after digging it out of you during a sleepover. He laughed hysterically when he found out and developed the habit of throwing teasing remarks your way whenever Iwaizumi was in both of your presences. 

“How do you manage to like someone who barely talks to you?!” He screeched into your ear that night through bouts of laughter. 

You huffed and slapped his shoulder with as much strength as you could gather in your embarrassed state. “Shut up! Half your fangirls have never had a proper conversation with you yet they’re still in love with you.” 

“Yeah, but that’s me. You’re talking about Iwaizu--”

“Can you shut up?!” 

It was just your luck that Iwaizumi seemed to shut down any advances you made towards him. Not really “shut down,” though--if he outright told you he wasn’t interested then you wouldn’t force that on him. It was more like he was completely oblivious to any moves you made to approach him. It was funny. And disappointing. And hysterical, to Oikawa. 

You knew how well Iwaizumi interacted with his teammates, and from your rare moments of sentiment with Oikawa you learned that Iwaizumi was no stranger to adjusting to the needs of his teammates and friends. 

Good to know that you were in neither of those categories. 

You put yourself out there for him more than you normally would, greeting him every morning, starting conversations, even going as far to invite him to outings in an attempt to just get to know the guy, for fuck’s sake. 

“There’s this really nice diner a few blocks down from my house. It’s family-owned and the food there’s really good. Do you maybe want to go there someday?” 

Iwaizumi blinked, looking up from his lunch tray. Oikawa had left one point to “go to the bathroom” (you’d told him of your plan to ask the ace out, and he was supportive enough to give you a window of time to do that without you friend’s presence making you nervous), leaving both of you alone as you grasped at loose threads to try and start a conversation. 

“With Oikawa?” 

“...with me.” 

“....and Oikawa?” 

Oh. Cool. So he just wasn’t comfortable with you in the slightest. Good to know. 

“Yeah. Sure.” 

You had to sit through the humiliation of explaining to Oikawa that it absolutely did not go as planned. He treated you to dango after laughing hysterically. 

You didn’t want to stoop as low as asking Oikawa to interrogate Iwaizumi about his opinion on before, but you were really starting to consider it. 

You figured maybe a gift would be easier than that. This revelation led to you sobbing in your kitchen while on facetime with Tooru as you tried to figure out why the dough for your melonpan had the consistency of thick oatmeal and glopped along your kitchen counter whenever you tried to pick it up. (Yet again, the brunette setter went out of his way to buy another small gift of condolence the next morning after being absolutely no help to you the night before.)

You eventually managed to turn out a few decent looking (and decent tasting) buns, packaging them neatly in paper bags to give to Iwaizumi the next morning. 

Iwaizumi blinked at you, then at the bag you forced into his hands without a word. “...what is this?” 

“Melonpan.” 

“...oh. Thank… you?” 

He didn’t even look into the bag. Didn’t say anything else after that. You stood in your place, expectant for some other response but knowing that, realistically, you wouldn’t be getting one. 

“I hope you like it.” And with that, you spun on your heel, stumbled, and walked away with an awkward awareness of how you were stepping. 

During lunch, Oikawa and you sat separate from his friend, making up some excuse that you two had to review something from class and sneaking away to discuss your next step. Tooru was enthusiastic about this whole thing. You were not. 

“He ate the melonpan, you know,” your friend remarked, taking a sip of canned juice before continuing. “I caught him before I went to class. He seemed to like it.” 

“Oh. Good to know it didn’t taste like shit.” 

“Hopefully it doesn’t give him food poisoning.” 

“Will you--!” Oikawa burst into peals of laughter, body bending at the waist in a show of just how amusing this was to him. You huffed. 

“This is, like, the dumbest thing ever. I’ve done so many things--”

“Like, two things--” 

“--to try and drop a hint, any hint, and he just acts like an oblivious dumbass and ignores everything I throw his way. It’s stupid! He doesn’t even talk to me! How does he put up with you all the time yet when it comes to me he can’t even look me in the eyes?!” 

Oikawa’s laughter quelled as he listened to you ramble momentarily. When you fell silent, he looked up at you and gasped at the sight of your eyes brimming with tears. 

“Hey, [Y/N]--” 

“No! It’s fine! I’m sorry, I’m just dumb and emotional and I’m not actually that upset,” that was doubtful, “but maybe I’m just… not a fun person? Not as fun as I thought I was. Not fun enough for a guy like Iwaizumi to be around.” 

Tooru was silent. He was no stranger to your comedy-induced mood swings but this seemed to be serious. This whole Iwaizumi thing was making you doubt your ability to make friends and it made the brunette’s heart hurt to see you in this state. 

“Hey,” he approached, tone uncharacteristically gentle, “you got me to be your friend. And that’s saying a lot. People like me, sure, but I don’t like a lot of people as much as I like you.” 

Your breaths slowed down. Oikawa snapped back into character. 

“As a friend, obviously. I don’t think I could handle the emotional experience of having to date you.” 

“Asshole!” 

“Love you!” 

You both laughed in the comfortable quiet before Oikawa spoke up again. 

“I don't think it’s that he doesn’t like you. Maybe he’s scared of you.” You furrowed your eyebrows incredulously. 

“How can I be scary to anyone?” 

“Well… scared in the sense that, he’s never really had girls approach him.” 

That was a shocker. Iwaizumi was a looker--a fact no one could deny. And while, yeah, maybe he’s tough-guy disposition made him a little unapproachable, you were still surprised that it wasn’t at least a little common for girls to approach him. 

“Has he ever, like… said anything about me?” 

Oikawa thought for a bit, chewing on a piece of milk bread he’d torn off. “No, not really. When I mention stuff about you, he listens but doesn’t really comment. He gets kind of quiet, really.” 

You hummed. Maybe Oikawa was right about that scared-of-girls thing. You were prepared to go through another set of trials to get this boy to warm up to you at least a little bit. 

A week later, Tooru got sick. You lectured him over the phone about how irresponsible he was with his health before simmering into a soft demeanor and promising to make him soup when you got home. (“Aww, so sweet of you, [Y/N]! It almost feels like I’m your boyfriend, not Iwaizumi.” You screamed at him for that one and threatened to take soup privileges away.) 

At the end of the day (which dragged on longer than usual due to your friend’s lack of presence), you stood under the awning, watching the downpour from beyond the protection the roof gave you. You never picked up the habit of checking the weather forecast, which proved to be your downfall many times. This being one of them. 

You sighed. You couldn’t wait out the rain. It looked like it would probably go on for a while, and you needed to get home to make food for Tooru and finish your homework. Sighing again, you prepared yourself (emotionally more than physically) to run through the rain like a madman. 

Footsteps sounded from behind you. Instinctively, you looked for the source, surprised to see Iwaizumi blinking owlishly at your lone form. 

You looked at his hand. He was holding an umbrella. 

You repressed a smile. Maybe today was actually your lucky day--you’d ask Iwaizumi to walk you home, letting you stay dry while also getting closer to the boy, for once. 

“Hey.” You greeted him. He gave a small smile and nodded back, walking up to be level with you. 

You both stood in silence for a bit, watching cars pass through wet asphalt and kick up puddles. 

You turned to him, mouth parting open to ask if he wanted to walk home together--

“Have a good day, [L/N].” With that, he walked out from under the awning and made his way home. 

Your mouth remained agape, looking at his retreating form with a mix of emotions--frustration, embarrassment, confusion. 

Minutes passed. With a sigh, you realized you didn’t have much of a choice. You took your blazer off, holding it above your head, and ran into the street. 

You got home. Made soup and suppressed shivers from the remaining cold of rain sticking to your skin. Walked to Tooru’s house (with an umbrella this time), relayed what happened to him, and tolerated his hoarse giggles once again. 

Tooru got better quite quickly, and you were lucky enough to not get sick despite sprinting through the rain and spending your evening in the presence of a sick person. 

You felt a sense of deja vu during lunch when Oikawa stood up and excused himself to the bathroom, sending a wink in your direction that made you flush in embarrassment and panic. You certainly hadn’t discussed any future plans with him. Why was he leaving you alone like this?!

Iwaizumi folded hands on top of the lunch table, playing with his fingers absentmindedly as a way to occupy himself. His lunch had been finished a while ago, leaving him with only his hands to fiddle with as he pointedly avoided your gaze and the prospect of interacting with you. You frowned a bit at the action. 

“So…” You were surprised to hear him speak first, but perked up immediately to listen to him. “You and Oikawa…?” 

He didn’t elaborate any further. You stayed quiet, brows knitting together in confusion. Iwaizumi sighed. 

“You guys are a thing.” You choked at how forward he was with his statement, coughing a few times to clear up the invisible ball in your throat. “It’s… that’s cool. You guys are cute. You go together well, and stuff.” 

Oh my God. Oh my…? What?! He could not be this oblivious. He could not be this blind-- You were speechless at the words that were coming out of his mouth. 

“What the fuck.” You hadn’t even noticed the words coming out of your mouth until you saw Iwaizumi’s eyes widen at you. “I-- Sorry-- Tooru and I… are not dating…?” 

It was Iwaizumi’s turn to be confused, apparently. “What? But you guys are so close, and… you’re always around each other, and stuff. And he talks about you sometimes. So I figured, y’know--” 

“Absolutely not.” Your words were choked out between dry laughs, eyes darting left and right as you tried to gain a sense of reality again. “I would never in my life date that boy. Never. No. And don’t you think if he had a girlfriend, he’d tell you? Right off the bat? He’s no stranger to inflating his ego by bragging. How the hell did you even draw that conclusion?!” 

“Well, it’s not my fault! You two are always hanging off each other, who wouldn’t assume there was something going on between you two?!” 

“Who would?!” 

“Me, apparently! Which was stupid, ‘cause for the last six months I’ve been trying to avoid you because I thought you were off-limits and I didn’t want to get my ass beat by Oikawa--” 

“Off-limits?” 

“Well, yeah! Like, for dating.” The both of you quieted down, the silence of your table a great contrast to the petty scuffle you’d just been having. Neither of you dared to look at each other. Neither of you dared to speak. 

Oikawa came back after a few minutes, noticing the tension in the air and becoming too nervous to say anything. When he asked you about it as you left the cafeteria, you muttered harshly under your breath, “Just so you know, I would never in my life date you. Ever.” 

He only laughed, concern still evident in his features but simmering down the slightest bit after realizing you were well enough to joke around. 

Before you could enter through the doorway of your classroom with Tooru, a hand grabbed your forearm harshly, shoving you off balance at the unexpected force. 

You turned around to view your captor, freezing at the sight of Iwaizumi Hajime, in all his glory, panting as if he’d just chased after you. (Which he probably did, let’s be honest.) 

“Um,” his seemingly confident demeanor collapsed in your presence and his eyes left yours to find interest in the floor. “Friday. Let’s go to that diner, the one near your house that you wanted to go to. At noon, if that’s okay with you.” 

You paused. He remembered the diner. A smile slowly found its way onto your face and you laughed a little bit. Iwaizumi’s eyes flicked back up at yours, trying to get a read on your reaction before you could properly give a response. 

“Yeah. That sounds good. And no Oikawa.” 

“God, no Oikawa.”

[whattaloser]

Why I’m a Leftist

I know I’m probably just some dude who reblogs cool stuff to most of my followers but I’ve got a nice long story/rant about my political beliefs here that I’ve been wanting to write for awhile

I am a leftist first and foremost because I value human life. Everyone matters. No person is inherently more important than another person. Everyone has inherent rights that should not be infringed. People who infringe on other’s rights are morally wrong to do so. In essence my leftism is based on doing what is right. Obviously everyone has their own opinion on what is right but what is vitally important is knowing why your moral code is right. This is why so many people become liberals or conservatives or otherwise rather than leftists. They simply do not know enough about how the world works. There are a lot of reasons they don’t know, not the least of which is intentional covering up history and preventing education. I don’t believe people who aren’t leftists are stupid, but I do believe leftists know more. It’s kinda fucked up but it’s the only way you can explain inconsistencies in other’s values.

My path to leftism was full of cringe. When i was 7 years old Al Gore was running against George Bush for president. I did not know enough to have a real opinion on it but I am happy to say that I wanted Al Gore to win. This thought was based on very little if any logical reason. I basically flipped a coin in my head I think. Or maybe there was some outside influence that I wasn’t aware of, like my older sister who I looked up to might have said she liked Al gore. Either way, from then on I was in favor of democrats and did not like George Bush. When 9/11 happened I remembered thinking how dumb it was that people lined up around the block to get gas. Even as a child I knew that some buildings going down wasn’t going to end the great nation of the United States. In general I thought the United States was a great country. I knew from movies and tv as well as elementary school history that the United States was the most powerful country in the world. 

I recall in Sixth grade my teacher mentioned she liked George Bush because he was against gay marriage. Somehow at the time my opinion was the opposite despite being raised Catholic. I believed in god until I graduated high school and suddenly my desire to be religious slipped away and so did my belief. I do not consider this a great loss. 

Sometime in middle school or early high school I had solidified my opinion that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was pointless and George Bush was a bad president. I was heavily influenced by movies and somewhat by video games that had imparted plenty of anti-war messages. Talks with my dad about nuclear missiles, watching History channel shows about world war 2, and playing Metal Gear Solid which had explicit nuclear disarmament messages, all informed me on the horrors of war. This was not enough to make me totally anti-military. In high school I wanted to join the military because I thought it was an easy way to get life experience and eventually pay for college. I was attracted to the Marines because of how cool movies like The Rock and video games like Call of Duty made it seem to be a Marine. I thought they were the best of the best. I was simultaneously against war, against veteran worship, and very pro-military. I was indoctrinated by years of government propaganda but also disillusioned by all forms of media including the book All Quiet on the Western Front which was about a soldier becoming disillusioned by witnessing horrors of war and the negative impact it had on everyone in his country. I spoke with a recruiter during my senior year and expressed my desire to be a Marine but I told him I wanted to wait a year after high school so I could get physically fit enough. The recruiter did not care that I was underweight and out of shape. He didn’t even care that I was very enthusiastic about joining, he was still putting on his best salesman demeanor which made me incredibly uneasy. The experience is supposed to pressure people into signing up on the spot, I think they even had forms for me to sign (i can’t really remember though) but I was not ready and was aware enough how I was being manipulated although not entirely cognizant. After that I no longer wanted to be in the military.

I also have to point out that I grew up in an unstable household. My parents were both loving but they were flawed and made mistakes and had problems. My dad was a typical Gen x man’s man. A little bit too emotionally repressed, but actually really good with kids when it came to play time and still is. He worked a lot because my mother couldn’t. My mother has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder as long as I can remember. Her medical bills related to her problems combined with other financially bad decisions by my parents caused my home life to be fraught. I lived in varying degrees of poverty until my parents separated and me and my siblings moved with my mother to her parents’ house away from my father. Prior to moving though, we endured great financial difficulty. We were unable to afford school lunches but could not apply for free or reduced lunches because technically my father made a lot of money, however it was all garnished for medical bills. My father always tells about how he bought a car that had hidden frame damage and when he attempted to sue the dealership for selling a bad car he lost and was garnished for that as well. Despite making over 25 dollars an hour in 1999, my father could not afford school lunches for three kids and couldn’t afford to pay the gas bill. Without going into too much more detail, life sucked and continued to suck until I graduated, at least financially. I still found plenty of joy and it wasn’t always that bad. We still found ways to have good things like video games and we could always rewatch old movies but there’s a lot of psychic weight that comes with being that poor as a child and I’m sure it affects me and my ability to empathize with others who in bad conditions. 

So i watched a lot of movies and documentaries, read a lot of books growing up, discovered internet forums at the age of 11, played video games, moved to a town that had a very large Hispanic population, and I even grew up poor. All of this life experience turned me into a very average liberal upon graduating high school. I was a very optimistic 18 year old. I thought science could save the world. If I was 18 today I would be an average redditor stereotype probably. The point here though is I still wasn’t a leftist. Only vaguely progressive and full of optimism. This is when I got sucked into the anti-feminist pipeline.

I can’t remember what exactly what I had going on in my life but I remember it was around the time of Gamergate. Everyone on the internet, celebrities, and pop culture were saying “if you believe in equality between genders you’re a feminist” an did not like that. And there was a ton of people online to tell me I was right in not liking that. They all said feminism was not necessary anymore because legally you couldn’t discriminate against women and I agreed. Gamergate made it worse for reasons too complicated to get into in this already long post but suffice it say I was “pro Gamergate.” This put me at odds with my closes friends who thought feminism was great and had no qualms with it, and were already embracing the idea of being a “social justice warrior.” Despite reading all kinds of anti-feminist think pieces and reveling in the discourse, I was still very progressive and liberal minded person. Still thought the military was bad, that black people were discriminated against etc. But so many aspects of anti-feminism were appealing to me as a white guy who tried their hardest to do what they’re told is right, had low self esteem, undiagnosed adhd and depression, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what feminism was. Two things got me out of anti-feminism though. The first and most important thing was having friends who were patient with me about it. I didn’t reveal how into anti-feminism I was because I was ashamed but they could sense it and pushed back when they could. The second thing that got me out of it was actually finding feminists online and reading what they had to say, staying away from poorly written clickbait articles that fueled misogynist tirades against feminism. After reading and learning from feminists it finally clicked. Our society is patriarchal and that affects how people interact with each other regardless of what is legal. Many of the complaints of anti-feminism talk about how men have it in society, so how can society be patriarchal. It’s because of patriarchy that men are put in bad positions. Some of the more self aware anti-feminists had retorts against these ideas but they were emotionally charged. There’s still some anti-feminists I have respect for because of how well prepared and logical they were when it came to disputing feminism. But when it came down to the fundamental tenants of feminsim all they could respond with was anger or outright denial of reality. (If you’re like I was and don’t understand how anyone can thing modern feminism is good please feel free to ask me more, I just can’t get into specifics in this long ass post) Anyways, once you understand patriarchy and how it affects an individuals actions then you can start seeing how other institutions and cultural norms can affect an individual. This is basically fundamentals of leftism. I’d say about 90% of my path to leftism was just naturally absorbing cultural and historical information through consumption of media. The most conservative people I know are people who haven’t read very many books or seen very many movies. I’m not saying watching Austin Powers at the age of 10 will make everyone a leftist but constantly recontextualizing the world by learning something new, even if you learned it from some dumb comedy movie, can give you better grounding in a shared reality.  Don’t know how to end this but I want to say when I was a teenager I thought “communism is good in theory but it doesn’t work in practice” and I had almost no historical basis for it other than the vague notion that USSR = bad despite having consumed a massive amount of media. None of it taught me what communism actually was, I didn’t know who Karl Marx was, and I had no clue why communism in the USSR failed. You can know a lot without knowing the truth so if you’re struggling with a loved one who is mind poisoned by conservative keep in mind that they know a lot but they’re missing something important to give clarity. 

This has been my Ted Talk

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Alex ze Pirate Mini Review 2: Underappreciated and how Sam should deal with an abuser.

Last time I gave a general overview of how Sam is treated by his “friends”. Now I want to give a more specific example, that will also show how Dobson’s storytelling abilities are not really all that good, particularly when it comes to pacing or building up any sort of conflict.

You see, for the most part Alex ze Pirate is just a collection of stupid artwork (not even concept art, just random artwork Dobson makes of his characters dressed as something random) and one page strips with a stupid punchline, with Sam most of the time being the receiving punching bag.

There have however been a few individual, short stories over time. And when I say short stories, I mean short. As in 15 pages for a very cheap set up, a few jokes and a punchline. Those include stories such as All that Glitters (where everyone except Alex breaks into a fortress to steal something), The Wish Fish (the only halfway okay story of them all because it is just meant to be comedic) and Best Laid Plans. However, near the end of the initial run of AzP, Dobson did a three part story (partly) focused on Sam in that format, which started off with the chapter I want to talk in this post: “Underappreciated”.

As you can see, the chapter starts off following some basic rules of storytelling in comics. Two establishing panels for the location at which the story takes place initially and showing what Sam’s duties are. Nothing really bad yet. The only thing that sticks out being just the fact that a) Sam does not have his own bedroom and has to sleep in a useless outlook and b) he sleeps in his regular clothes. But hey, nothing to get upset about initially, perhaps he just prefers it like this at the moment. But with the next two pages…

The problems start to show. Page three establishing that Atea herself is just a cunt who can’t even have the basic decency of wishing her “friend” a good morning or giving him a thank you for bringing a morning beverage as she has other selfish priorities on her mind. Like wanting to lick the shower water of Alex’s skin.

Also, go fuck yourself Uncle Peggy. As in, get both your arms ripped off, shoved up your butthole with those hooks and then get hanged on those stomps like a chandelier. I wouldn’t even mind the fact here that Peggy left a mess, if the face he makes in the last panel was not obvious of the fact he left the bathroom like this on purpose and that he is rather happy of making Sam’s day extra miserable by the fecal matter he left behind. Combined with any previous strip of the comic showing that Peggy for no reason likes to get the boy in trouble and even wants to see him die, this just shows once more of how much of an asshole he is. If the last panel just showed him with a groogy hangover look, obviously unaware of how much discomfort he brings unintentionally to Sam, that would be one thing. But intentionally making Sam’s day miserable despite the obvious fact the boy is the first one to do anything around here, while making one of the worst drawn “HAHA, I am such a rascal faces” I have ever seen (and I have seen shitty anime en mass) makes me hate the character more than Dobson intented.

And then there is page 5…

And it is in my opinion the saddest page in the entire comic arc, even compared to the “heartbreaking” stuff Dobson wants to pull up in the last third of it. Because though it is meant as a joke, the general execution is too cruel, crossing into “dude, not funny” territory and showing just how little the crew cares for Sam. Talus, Sam’s “best friend” not even aware he is around, everyone stealing Sam’s food with that stupid “Yoink” sound (seriously, I wish the characters would get punched in the vaginas each time they make this sound in any of Dobson’s strips) and then leaving Sam behind with smug faces, ready to do whatever they want to do, while he, likely stinking of feces and not even having showered properly, has also to clean up after those pigs, who can’t even eat in a proper manner ( hey Atea, use a fork instead of holding the bowl) and silently. I mean, they are pretty much pigs when the noises they make are loud enough, they make the font of the writing change randomly into whatever Dobson has on his computer with every sound. Not to forget the mess they leave behind. And they call Sam the Slob?

Anyway, on to the next page…

And who the heck left their Hello Kitty toy in the bathtub? Also, I hate the way Alex’s face is drawn in the lower left corner. Something about the eyes in relation to the shit eating grin just looks off. Less “smug” and gleefully awaiting whatever she plans next and looking more like Dobson when someone tells him his opinion and reasoning for it is bad, but he can’t yell back at them because they are part of a minority and so he has make a “good face” to a bad situation, while internally he is already imagining how to strawman them in some fake news worthy facebook post.

And then we get to page 7. Which features the WORST addition to the “Alex ze Pirate” canon Dobson has ever thought up. An embodiment of what is wrong with Dobson when it comes to inserting internet culture related stuff into his own work. Ladies and gentlemen… the lolcat pirates

Yeah, those Hello Kitty rejects who ironically look still more like a proper cat than Spot in Danny and Spot, are essentially one of the worst jokes Dobson has ever created. Because they are a joke without a punchline. See, all there is to them is that they are sentient cats, that speak in a manner associated with lolcat posting. And that is the “joke”. Their speech pattern being based on a dumb internet meme that was popular at the time Dobson drew this page. It is like if you portray an Asian by making them talk with a shitty racist accent and that supposedly counts already as comedy. It is not funny, because there is nothing really done with it in context of the story. Like no one addresses the weird way they talk. Also, with the font Dobson uses, it is just an eyesore to any reader and the text gets aggravating the more the captain of the cats talks. It shows why lolcat pictures only had very short sentences accompanying the pics, cause reading more than 8 words written in this manner tingles a part of your brain that makes you want to shout “English motherfucker, do you speak it”?

Don’t get me even started on how the joke would get lost to anyone unaware of lolcats and how dated the joke already was back when the page was posted, which is one of many reasons why comic artists should just in general avoid memes in their work, if they hope for it to pass the test of time. Instead let me just point out the fact that though Alex said “All hands prepared for casting off” on the previous page (which is also a very unnatural way to give the order “Everyone get ready! Take off in 10 minutes”) not all hands are on board, seeing how Uncle Peggy is missing on this page (and spoilers) many pages of this afterwards. Weird. I thought he would be onboard the moment Alex mentioned they are going to hijack a ship full of pussy. Lastly, this is Alex being a “badass”? Taking over a ship full of little furballs you can defeat with a laserpointer, a squeaky toy and catnip? Sam, this is not just “almost” embarrassingly easy, this is literally on a level similar to stealing candy from a baby. That is mentally handicapped. And without supervision. In a candy story.

At least it turns out there is genuinely something worth stealing on this ship. Otherwise all Alex would have accomplished on that very day would have been animal abuse for the sake of entertainment. Though now it also gets me thinking: A place called Katsville, the revelation that the captain is supposedly the child of a high ranking military feline within the sea force of an entire species of sentient cats… how exactly does the world of Alex ze Pirate function? Look, I do not want to get into too much detail about this point here yet, because it is a bigger issue with the worldbuilding (or rather lack thereof) of this series in general, but what is the “consistency” when it comes to races and species in this world? See, One Piece for example is overall a very “cartoonish” and fantastic world (more cartoonish than what Dobson creates on average) when you think of the fact there are fish men, giant seacows and seamonsters, sentient furry creatures, islands in the sky, sentient weather phenomenons etc next to humans. And while Oda does not really spend time elaborating in very high detail how his world works, the sheer abundance of those elements and how they were established pretty early on in the story and are revisited constanly, with the cartoonish flavor and humor of One Piece on top of it, makes those oddities feel organic and a part of the world.

Not so much in AzP. Here over 90% of the time any character not related to the crew is some generically drawn human, in a very generically human setting with jokes just not cartoonish enough. So the world of AzP feels more “realistic” and less oddish, making then things like Talus, the lolcat pirates and once a giant sea dragon that looked like Elliot’s rejected cousin

Stand out like a sour thumb that looks like this

But I digress. Lets see what makes Sam, who just seems bored and wants to end his miserable life/drink his sorrows away, throw the cat captain against the wall.

Okay. Sam’s overall reaction makes it clear, the locket is important. So “kudos” for establishing this and in doing so also create within a moment a bit of intrigue for the reader. After all, why does this locket get such a reaction out of Sam, who we know so far as more happy go lucky or deadpan in parts, instead of looking genuinely distraught. Heck, the fact he even tells Alex to shut up when she commands him around should highlight how out of character finding this locket truly makes Sam.

Then there is Alex’s reaction to being told to shut up, which she takes with as much dignity as someone telling Dobson to just stop fawning about underaged lesbians in a toddler show.

Jesus Christ, she faces being told she looks like a guy with more grace than that. I mean, isn’t she used to being told to shut her trap? Cause if I were her parents, I would have told this entitled redheaded whinner a few times over the course of her childhood to shut up.

Scum sucking cabin boy… said by a butt ugly whore who would genuinely suck scum off if it means she can finally get laid instead of being mistaken for a man. By the way, with that angry face she makes in the first panel, I can totally see why others would mistake her for a dude. She just looks unpleasant and not in a funny way like that red panda girl from Aggretsuko. See, when she gets angry, it looks hilarious and cute because of the contrast to how the character looks ordinarily. This is just Alex looking even more unpleasant as usual.

Now, before I continue with the next pages, I like to point out the face Sam makes in the upper panel and Sam’s overall body language in the last one.

It is obvious that Sam is meant to be in a state of mind where he knows for what he is getting yelled at and where he genuinely reacts in a hurt manner. His body shaking, his head tilted down, not saying even a word. You would expect that the next page of this comic would be a follow up. Seeing Sam, who is pent up, lashing out in some way. Either for example by justifying why he said it, getting sad, angry, perhaps even violent in that situation. After all, so far the way this story has been structured, a lot of emphasize was put on the fact that Sam is treated not well and that finding this locket actually has an uncommon effect on him. Heck, even the title of this chapter hints on the idea, that we should get some sort of huge reaction out of Sam now on the next page, as this is supposed to be Sam’s story.

Instead it is just Alex grumbling and grinding her teeth, unable to comprehend that someone finally told her something every reader with more than 20 braincells said when reading this comic series. And this in my opinion is from a structural point, one of the biggest missteps in this story. Obviously, this is supposed to be a comic about Sam, based on title and him being the one character in it with the most emotional aspects so far. And it is also obvious that this is not just meant to be a silly gag comic but supposedly one with emotional weight. So, where is that weight so far, aside from the panels showing Sam being miserable because he gets the short end of the stick by his friends? Sorry to hijack this thing here now with my own ideas, but if I had writen this story, page 12 and 13 would have actually been an immense turning point for me in the dynamic so far. Why I would have let Alex shout at Sam for insubordination, I would have made it more than one panel of Alex calling him scum and also end likely with Sam, who obviously reaches a limit the longer she goes on about it, end punching her in the face, perhaps even knock out. Show truly just how far Sam is pushed emotionally at this moment, keeping it however ambiguous if he hit her because of her words hurting or because of something else, in doing so focusing also the attention to the reader back on the locket.

As an aftermath of this, Alex would (if not knocked out) hit Sam back, much to Atea’s and Talus horror, later implying additionally that Sam left because of being hit by whom he thinks is not just his captain but a “friend” (oh yes spoiler, Sam is gone in the next chapter)   or the next page would be of Alex waking up back in her hideout from having been knocked out. Atea and Talus informing her what happened, her deciding to deal with Sam later on after recovering (who accompanied everyone back on the island temporarily) only for the last page showing Sam deciding that he is leaving the island, ending the chapter on Sam in a small boat slowly drifting away from the island. You know, something to give the chapter the feeling that the “shut up” moment is an emotional turning point in this story and that there might be something bigger going on that resulted in Sam deciding to leave, without having him however go full Meg Griffin as in the Family Guy episode “Seashell Seahorse Party”, chewing Alex and the others out for the way they treat him. Cause honestly, as much as I like for Alex, Atea and Talus to be chewed out and face consequences for their actions, doing so would likely just be (like in that Family guy episode)  a pointless fillerbuster in the bigger picture of things, as no real consequences would come out of it.

Well that and just like the writers of Family Guy, Dobson is just equally loathsome and thinks he can write whatever sick joke he wants and can on his characters, basic decency or consistency in writing be damned.

But back to the comic, where things just “end” as shown here instead of any real emotions boiling up and a cliffhanger that may genuinely beg the question what is going to happen next to anyone involved in this thing.

 Cause really, by the time it is night and Sam says it is time to go, you are not surprised he wants to go, even if he did not have a genuine emotional outburst within this chapter. After all, who wants to stay with “friends” like this, with Talus and Atea not even trying to cheer him up and instead ignoring his obvious need for comfort in this uncomfortable way, as if they are a bunch of racists trying to look away as someone beats a black person in front of them into a pulp. The only question you may ask yourself by the time the last page is hit, is who that generic looking girl is, whose picture has been photoshopped into the locket.

 Something we may not find out by the time the next chapter and part of this review hits, but will get to eventually. Until then guys, in order to end on something happier, funnier and just genuinely more pleasant than what this story presented to us so far, have something silly and Super Sentai related here for the sake of childish entertainment.

[ficsandcatsandficsandcats]

Can you do hearcannons of Jaskiers, Geralts and Valdo Marx Kinks? I don't mind detailed descriptions ;) (Sorry if you don't do hearcannons, ignore this then )

Jaskier

Our boy is a generous lover and that means he is very into going down on people. Whatever your genitals he will happily put his mouth in, on, and around them and delight in the sounds you make

He is also a very ambitious, driven individual so I see him being determined to score high on your list of lovers. He may not ask you who your best lover has been but he puts you through it till he feels confident in his abilities and knows that he did his level best

This poor bard is often treated as a bit of a punchline and isn’t always given the respect he’s due. A deep need to feel in control combining with a deep drive to please others is a beautiful combo for a dedicated Dom imho

He’s not as into degradation, preferring to praise and validate in the ways he wants to be praised and validated oh no I made it sad but he does not shy away from dirty talk. So he’s going to tell you how beautiful you are and how good you are but it’s going to sometimes be how beautiful you are gagging on his cock or how good you are at taking it like the dirty slut you are

This is not a unique headcanon but the man has stamina and though he’s a mere human so he may not have Ever Boners like some witchers do, he prioritizes his partner’s pleasure because it’s a big part of his own and because he is a Gentleman and whomever he’s with will come before him at least once (refractory periods for his penis-possessing lovers considered)

He will try most anything at least once though there are likely some hard-limits he has and if he’s tried something and it went poorly he’s hesitant to try it again (but will probs still try because fuck YOU wax play, you’re not the boss of me and sure I gave that nice gentleman’s balls a second degree burn and nearly fainted from the sight but I WILL master you damnit)

Doesn’t enjoy blindfolds as much because he wants to see the look in your eyes and make you watch what he does to you, especially if it makes edging hard (and it absolutely will)(the scamp)

He will finger you like a lute and you will sing as sweetly as any instrument he has ever graced with his nimble touch

Geralt           

Unpopular Opinion maybe but I don’t see Geralt as being super kinky. I mean, the dude fucks, but I think he likes to be efficient

Now, efficient doesn’t mean quick! Or boring! Not everyone is a Kink Machine and that is valid and you can still be an excellent lover without tricks and toys! I think Geralt also takes pride in his work and gets off on making his partner come really hard

On the spectrum of Dom to Sub I see Geralt sliding more Sub because if you spend every waking moment of your life having to be in complete control and aware of everything around you, can you imagine the relief of getting a break? I don’t think he gets to indulge in this often because that requires a fuckton of trust and that’s not something that comes easily to Geralt. He has 100% let Yen Dom him though

You better bet your ass this man’s ass gets fucked sometimes and tbh he dares you to say any shit about it so he can laugh in your face about your sad bigotry inspired apprehensions because while you were out there studying the blade he was in here getting his prostate bodied by a mage

Though he is a Consummate Professional he has been known to engage in some semi-voyeuristic sexual acts because sometimes you just don’t have the time to go to the inn and also sometimes there are Needs y’know?

Will NOT fuck in front of Roach, though. She is a LADY and he will NOT have her see that!!! Plus he doesn’t want her to give him shit later and he knows she will and he’ll deserve it

Worries about hurting people with his strength and may need a little coaxing to get a little rougher but he can be coaxed!!! It just isn’t his default, y’know? Usually a tender lover, especially at first when he’s still getting to know you/your body

Aces at going down on a vagina and thinks anyone who doesn’t do that is a chump I was gonna reference drinking his respect women juice but not everyone with a vagina is a woman and not every woman has a vagina ya know?

Valdo

Oh man. Valdo Marx. What to say, what to do.

If Dionysus were reincarnated into human form, that’s Valdo Marx. He has the arrogance of a god but also the skill to back it up (sexually and musically) and he revels in hedonism

I think he’s a classy hedonist usually tho? Like he will have a bacchanal but please take your shoes off because this marble was imported from Cintra and you don’t pay those export taxes just to walk all over it willy nilly and get scuff marks on it but also please do fuck on my stairs, part of the reason I paid extra for this marble is it feels wondrous on one’s backsides

He will try anything thrice, no matter how the first experience went. Sex is a buffet and he’s here to get his money’s worth

I think he is a genuine Switch being able to fulfill either Dom or Sub roles with aplomb. He enjoys the trust both positions require as well as the skill and loves to find new ways to perform in both roles to fit his partner’s interpretation of their own part

Valdo Marx is that dude who has a copy of the Kama Sutra and has Opinions about which positions are just stupid and which ones need to be introduced to common Fucking Canon

Appearances are very important to him so the only thing I see him balking at a smidge is voyeuristic stuff but that doesn’t mean it’s off the table, it just means that it’s not something that gets him as jazzed as when he knows he has the time and space to really go for it without worrying that some stuffy lord is going to see and cancel a performance

Chaotic Pansexual

Loves to be degraded. I’m talking spit on me, slap me, call me a filthy songbird, all of it. He knows he’s an asshole and he revels in it and likes it when you’re angry (sometimes to the detriment of his relationships)(only so much makeup sex can happen before it’s We’re Done sex and he is still learning that fine line, bless him)

[choulatte]

Happy Happy Valentine’s Day to my love buddy @djunnsworld <3 <3 I had lots of fun writing this and i hope it puts a smile on your face <3 This is a small Fic for the @ererievents V-Day event. Thank you so much for organizing this as well <3 And Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you!!

Read below or on Ao3

The past few weeks hadn't been too great for Levi. Not only was the weather depressing as fuck, rain pouring down as if the sky itself was weeping - no, his deadlines were creeping up on him as well. Having Erwin constantly breathing down his neck wasn't a feeling he particularly enjoyed, even if he sometimes brought it upon himself with his spiteful nature; handing his manuscript in late just to fuck with the blond.

This time was different though. He knew that he had to finish the damned thing by the end of the week.

With a weary sigh leaving his lips he grabbed his laptop, coat and the next-best umbrella, trudging his way through the piss-poor weather to reach the destination he had in mind. Carla's Tea House.

During the last few months the small teashop had become a much needed reprieve from his bleak apartment, his little sanctuary so to speak. Not only was the atmosphere peaceful and relaxing, but the tea the young, adorably cute barista named Eren brewed was even better than his own. And that was saying something.  

Eren was a like a fresh breath of air; a witty, head-strong young adult that didn’t shy away from his grumpy demeanor. The brunette enjoyed their teasing banter just as much as Levi did. Not that he would openly admit to it; nor the fact that it had been Eren that had helped him find his inspiration again after months of aimless writing.

If that in itself hadn’t been enough to make him a regular at the boy’s late mother’s tea shop, the younger also had this uncanny ability to sense his mood perfectly, surprising him with a delicately balanced cup of comforting jasmine and green tea when he returned irked from a call with Erwin; or brewing him his favorite blend of black tea when he required a surge of energy from staring at his laptop for hours at end.

So with high hopes of his day turning for the better, he sped up his steps, throwing an annoyed glance at all the couples lingering about. Was something going on today or was it just national swapping-spit-in-public-day?

The mop of chocolate hair was the first thing that greeted him today as well when he entered the small shop. A bright smile graced the tanned features of his current crush and reached all the way to the mesmerizing emerald eyes in which Levi just might lose himself one of these days.

Frowning slightly at the amount of sap that had infiltrated his mind, he let his eyes wander around the decorum of the teashop. His frown quickly morphed into a full-blown scowl when he noticed the tacky Valentine’s Day decorations that were hung around the entire area. Little hearts were dangling from the ceiling, red and pink the main color scheme, and even Eren had donned a heart-shaped apron. Not that Levi minded the last change; he just couldn't get on board with having the fake holiday shoved down his throat so much.

That at least explained the couples. Well fuck, maybe he should've just stayed home today.  

"Hi, Levi," Eren greeted him happily, smiling brightly and nervously fiddling with his ridiculously frilly apron that was tucked around his waist. And just as quickly as the thought of returning home had appeared it was gone again.

"Hello, Eren," he returned the greeting, eyeing the multiple kissing pairs occupying the tables to his left and right with well-hidden dismay. Valentine's Day really wasn't his thing, and contrary to shitty glasses’ firm belief, it had nothing to do with the fact that he was perpetually single.

Settling down onto his usual chair at the counter he started unpacking his laptop, not bothering to order. It had become their little routine for Eren to surprise him with something.

"How have you been?" Eren asked, a subtle, nervous tilt audible in his voice as he went about preparing a new blend Levi hadn't seen before.

"Just outright lovely," he answered sarcastically, "I've never been better. Deadlines are my new best friend."

"Ah, another one?"

"There's always another one," he muttered sullenly, opening the document that was his current enemy number one. Adulting was shit. Anyone begging to differ could gladly take it up with Erwin.  

Trying not to get too distracted by the sight of Eren in that silly apron, silver eyes languidly flicked over the last few paragraphs he had written. Not too bad. Maybe his last visit here hadn’t been as unproductive as he’d thought.

The sound of hot water being poured had him lifting his gaze upwards again, watching how delicate fingers handled the porcelain with a refined grace one could only possess after years of practice. Eren poured his whole heart into his craft and even an unknowing eye could tell at a single glance. The way the young man’s brows furrowed in concentration over a simple task such as measuring the amount of leaves needed for the perfect brew was truly inspiring.

A soft yet shy smile tugged at plush lips as Eren proudly put his favorite mug in front of him.

The lovely aroma of black tea quickly enveloped him in a small cloud of bliss, making any lingering irritation fade into oblivion as he inhaled the new blend.  A subtle sweet note was detectable, dried peach and papaya Levi mused with a hint of blackberry leaves, mixing smoothly with the savory quality of the black tea.

A content sigh escaped his lips as he warmed his hands on the steaming cup.

“New blend?” he asked, reveling in the soothing scent. “What’s it called?”

“Ah… uhm, well…” Eren stuttered and started fiddling with his apron again.

The nervous tick that would have usually made his eye twitch in annoyance was surprisingly cute when done by the now blushing brunette. But what exactly had gotten into Eren? Gunmetal orbs narrowed slightly as he pondered over where exactly this new shy side came from, when viridian eyes suddenly met his, new-found determination sparking within them.

“It’s called… WillyoubemyValentine?” Eren blurted out, so quick that it took Levi a moment to understand the meaning of the words.

He had to suppress a sarcastic eye-roll at the poor name the lovely blend had been bestowed with – a true shame in his opinion. Especially for something so exquisite.

“Won’t that get confusing as fuck?” he ended up settling on, trying not to be too negative in his response to something Eren was obviously nervous about.

“H-Huh?”

“When people order it. Won’t it get really confusing when someone walks up to you and asks for that blend? Not to mention that it’s a pity that you can only serve it on a shitty fake holiday like Valentine’s.”

Fuck. He hadn’t meant to say that.

“O-oh… yeah, I guess,” Eren replied, looking utterly crestfallen.

Well done Levi. Now you fucked up.

“I mean it’s really lovely. The blend. It would be a shame if you could only order it today,” he back-tracked, raking his brain for another compliment to wipe that saddened look off Eren’s face.

“You think so?” Eren asked quietly, still refusing to meet his gaze and staring dejectedly at the row of mugs to his right.

“Definitely,” he assured.

“You’re not a fan of Valentine’s Day then huh?” Eren mumbled under his breath, but Levi caught it.

“Not really, no. I’ve never been a fan of public display of affection, and an entire day being shoved in our faces where you’re supposed to act all romantic and shit like that is just plain ass stupid. If I want to be romantic, I’ll be romantic. That doesn’t require a damn calendar entry or an entire day dictating that you buy your loved one overpriced roses or chocolates,” he huffed.

“I see,” Eren muttered, and despite the small phrase indicating that the topic had been closed, his brows were still furrowed; the spark Levi had seen in those gem-like orbs when he had entered suddenly diminished.

It was in moments like these where Levi wished that he wasn’t a 32 year-old socially awkward grump, without a damn clue how to salvage the situation.

So instead he deemed it wise to just give the brunette some time, focusing on the beast of a document that was awaiting his edit. Yet he couldn’t help but notice how sigh after sigh left Eren’s lips, how his head hung low and how he didn’t even perk up when new customers arrived; something that usually always lifted his spirits.

After an hour more of the miserable moping and the brunette clearly avoiding any eye-contact with him, it was truly starting to bug Levi.

Was he that dejected that Levi had found the name ridiculous? Or was he disappointed that the blend hadn’t been ordered once this entire time? Then again it wasn’t like the new beverage was displayed anywhere. No signs were advertising the new Valentine’s Day special, nor did he see the name mentioned on any of the menus.

How could other customers order something if they didn’t know it existed? And why was Eren not advertising the delightful blend? Was there something special about this tea?

Eren had only offered it to him so far. Hadn’t mentioned or advertised it anywhere. But wh-

Wait.

No.

No way.

Had he- … seriously?

Levi wanted to fucking smack himself over the head for his stupidity.

Leave it to Eren to come up with something like that. No wonder the brunette was looking crestfallen and dejected. He thought that Levi had rejected him. Silly brat.

“Oi, Eren,” he called him over, wanting to see the look in those breathtaking eyes when he set him straight.

“Yeah, Levi?”

Making sure those huge teal eyes were trained on him he uttered a simple “Yes.”

“What?”

“Yes, Eren.”

“I… I still don’t get it. Yes, what?” Eren asked, bewildered.

“Seriously, you shitty brat? Don’t make me spout embarrassing nonsense, especially not today,” he grumbled. But one look at the adorably confused frown on the brunette’s face made it clear that he did indeed have to spell it out for him.

“Yes, Eren. I’ll be your shitty Valentine, that is, if you will be mine.”

“R-Really?” the brunette gasped.

“Really," he assured, loving the bright, brilliant smile that slowly spread over Eren's features as the realization settled in. "When does your shift end?"

“At 5… why?” Eren asked; cheerfully beaming at him as he leaned over the counter towards Levi, viridian eyes shimmering with delighted curiosity.

“You didn’t expect me to agree to be your Valentine and not take you out on a date afterwards, did you?” he drawled, watching with avid satisfaction as the gears started turning in the brunette’s head.

The smile on Eren’s face suddenly turned almost bashful - as if he hadn’t actually dared to think that far ahead.

“Well, you’ve got something to look forward to then, brat,” Levi smirked, gently stroking a stray strand of chocolate hair behind a slowly reddening ear; the touch feather-light as if in fore-shadowing for the things to come.

‘As do I.’

[donnerpartyofone]

movie review fan lady here. I know it’s not yet BLOGTOBER, but in advance of that, what are some of the worst tropes of recent horror films, in your opinion? Of course, use whatever definition of “recent” suits your answer best! seems like you’re busy with new projects these days, hope all is well and that you have plenty of time to watch however many horror movies you like this fall!

(first of all, sorry for my uneven typing but i’m using a new laptop that has a really intrusive but also totally inconsistent autocorrect thing and I’m just sick of fucking with it) thanks for saying hello! I have been pretty dormant lately, and it’s encouraging to hear from people who enjoy reading what I write. the mental illness got me bad this summer. this was made unnecessarily difficult by the fact that I had arranged a month-and-a-half-long personal leave from work, during which time I expected to be able to return to “myself” and replenish my inner strength by doing only things that I care about, and most importantly, see what kind of life I lead when I’m not being crushed under the heel of my extremely demanding and shameful job–a perspective few individuals will ever have the privilege of gaining. of course, a lot of what actually happened amounted to a painful reminder of how little I’m really capable of as a person. this has been especially hard to recover from with the restored stress of being at the office. I had my first full-blown panic attack on my first day back. although I suffer from anxiety, I have always been hesitant to describe my episodes of escalating, wracking panic as “attacks”. this is because once when I was young, I witnessed someone going into a panic attack after confessing to me her history of childhood trauma; she went into a total fugue state, dragged her limbs, spun in circles, and made faces until she collapsed, never to remember anything about the experience. I thought, “so that’s what a panic attack is. basically, if you are aware of your surroundings, have basic control of your face and limbs, and can recall the event, then you don’t really have any kind of real problem to complain of.” my “panic attack” was still not as bad as that, but it did involve an interesting lapse of motor control on top of everything else, so I guess I’m giving myself credit for it.

I never stopped watching movies, of course, but I almost totally abandoned letterboxd, save for a weird stint where I reviewed every single pre-Zombie HALLOWEEN movie; I actually suspect that for some reason, letterboxd only sent two of them into the activity feed, so no one even saw them all. so I stopped writing, and then I developed all this self-imposed guilt about failing to maintain my entirely voluntary pleasure-oriented routine, and my feelings of completely meaningless shame around this made it very difficult to start again. I think there’s also a sub-problem where, in actually recording my viewing habits, I started to get really stressed out about how much of my life I just waste on things I don’t even enjoy, just in order to kill time until I get to go to sleep again. for instance: yesterday I watched FATHER FIGURES, an ed helms-owen Wilson road movie that I was not even slightly intrigued by. in it, helms and Wilson are twins on the hunt for the dad they’ve never known, and they basically plod through a series of dopey vignettes: what if he was a MOVIE STAR? what if he was a FAMOUS FOOTBALL PLAYER? et al, ad nauseam. you can imagine what it’s like. *I* could have imagined what it was like. …but actually, there’s this weird sequence like an hour into the movie where (spoiler alert I guess), at the end of a string of dovetailing red herrings, the twins believe they’ve finally traced their real dad to a Boston suburb. they arrive at the guy’s house, expecting to meet a legendary supercop, only to find out that they’re at his wake. to make matters worse, the house is filled with young Irish American thugs who seem to be constantly on the verge of orgiastic violence, and who are already in a dangerously elevated emotional state. meanwhile, in this context, ed helms discovers that the woman with whom he had a one night stand two scenes ago is actually his sister. his and Wilson’s true identities, in addition to this sexual horror, come tumbling into the light of day at this worst of all possible moments, and the dead man’s own identical twin brother has to lay bare the sordid details of their family history to straighten everything out. I was embarrassed to find myself totally riveted to this sequence, which was something like THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW or THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE: ordinary people are absorbed into a secret, separatist subculture that is ruled by its own perverse systems of honor, incest and violence. I thought, “wait a minute, is this movie GOOD now??” of course the answer was, no, absolutely not! but it had me going for a second there. …but my point is, now I’ve seen that, and I still haven’t seen one single Eric Rohmer movie. part of the reason is, I’m afraid they’ll annoy me. don’t I have any kind of consistent thought? don’t I ever do a single thing with purpose?

god, remember when I used to use the anhed-nia blog to work out all kinds of really intense personal problems? I guess I stopped because I started feeling weird about what I was doing with the format, like I felt bad for people who followed during blogtober and weren’t expecting that kind of thing, which is so stupid, I mean it’s my blog and barely anyone follows it for me to worry about anyway. also the mental illness got me. I started feeling like, “why am I even writing this down, like what’s the point, I’m basically just masturbating and being pretentious and I’m not even having any revelations or whatever.” that feeling persists in my whole life, like a lot of people with depression. the constant why-ness of everything. it can be really extreme, like, “ok, I put my left shoe on, but is that REALLY a compelling reason to put my right shoe on? I mean I could just as easily be doing NOTHING instead!” anyway, watch out world, I might start putting personal problems on anhed-nia again.

but uhhh none of that answers your question. I don’t know if I have a proper answer! like, some things come to mind that are not necessarily “tropes” but I do consider them modern problems:

SETTLING UP WITH REALITY: we have this really sad situation now where, in order for a horror story to be compelling, every single movie has to suddenly slam on its brakes and examine what’s going on with everybody’s cell phone. did it get lost? is it broken? poor connection? as soon as this starts happening, all I can think is, “I’m watching a movie. this is the part where the writer has to take a number of laborious, repetitive steps, the conclusion of which I already know for sure, in order to explain to me that whatever is about to happen in the movie could definitely really happen in real life, for real, because the convenience of cell phones could not have prevented it. the writer knows that I have heard of cell phones, and so now we have to make a dry, methodical accounting of the status of all of the cell phones in the movie. once this has been finalized, the actual story may proceed.” I hate this so much. whatever inherent horror there may be in the failure of our phones in times of peril is completely negated by my awareness of the writer’s felt obligation to go around disabling each and every cell phone right in front of me before we can even begin to address the point of his story. let me put it a little bit differently: when we have a home invasion movie in which the villains cut the phone lines, that evokes a horror that is native to this genre. the protagonist feels personally violated, imprisoned, completely separated from their fellow humans, separated even from the form of reality they enjoyed before their victimhood began. the very definition of “home”, as a place that is private, safe, comforting, and under one’s one sovereign rule, is painfully inverted. that is the point of that specific story, in which the telephone has defined semiotic and psychological significance. on the other hand, the problem of cell phones is completely generic. now, in every horror movie of every subgenre, no matter where the characters are or what they’re doing or what we suspect will become of them, nothing can even happen without this dutiful address of the phones. this is only happening because of an absolutely ludicrous obligation people feel for their fantasies to resemble their reality as closely as possible, which flies in the face of the whole idea of having metaphors that help us explore our emotional and spiritual conditions. PS if you’re the kind of person who can’t watch even a really great movie without holding everyone in it to the standard of your own personal pragmatism and logic, then maybe you should ask yourself why the fuck you even watch movies in the first place.

BICKERING AS DRAMA: this may not be a specifically modern problem, although I *feel* like I encounter it most in horror movies from the last two decades. in any horror story with an ensemble cast, an important source of danger is the dissolution of personal relationships. under the strain of their predicament, people who desperately need to trust and protect each other become volatile, angry, cowardly, irrational. fearing for their lives, they lose their ability to cooperate, or even to agree on one most-hopeful solution to their shared problem. in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, the ongoing fight over whether to hide in the basement or the attic is agonizing, and helps to underline the preexisting, banal political tension between the main characters–in fact, the corrosive social forces of the 1960s are key to this film’s subtext–which now compounds the mortal threat posed by cannibalistic monsters. alternatively, you can have a movie like John carpenter’s THE THING that is mainly composed of protagonists in-fighting; in that case, the irresolvable conflicts strengthen the movie’s message, which is specifically about betrayal, alienation, and loneliness. what I see in a lot of movies now, instead of a focused, purposeful conflict like those, is a deteriorating situation of multiple characters incessantly bickering with each other over the details of their circumstances. no one is making a salient point, or contributing to our understanding of their conundrum, or revealing something particular about themselves. they’re just yelling and sniping and sulking and badgering each other about minutiae, or about the key problem in such broad strokes that their arguments cease to have any meaning. I actually think that this is a consequence of that same boneheaded obsession with realism of which I complained previously. I often feel like these protracted scenes of petty fighting about granular details are a way for the writer to paranoiacally defend themselves against persnickety viewers who complain about “stupid” characters who apparently fail to exercise heroic levels of sober judgment and practicality. these viewers, who are so happy to hurl accusations of “UGH HE SHOULDA JUST _____” at the screen, as if there is anything “just” simple and obvious about the story unfurling, are progressively ruining storytelling for everyone, necessitating these grueling character discussions about the potential consequences of every hair-splitting potentiality of every situation. 

EFFICIENCY AND ECONOMY, OR LACK THEREOF: …this is sort of a different kind of point that I want to make, so bear with me. as a (secret, amateur) writer myself, I am plagued by the neurotic urge to explain exactly the way things happen in as comprehensive a fashion as possible. like, I don’t know, if I were writing a story about how someone inherits an old house, I’d probably start stressing out ridiculously about the bureaucracy of how this property changed hands, what kinds of officials would have to be involved, how the new owner evaluates maintenance needs, and EXACTLY how long everything would take. i have an irrational fear of leaving things out, when I absolutely need to leave things out in order for the story to simply be about whatever it is about–which is NOT property transactions. it’s not even that I’m anxious about “realism” precisely–this could apply to a fantasy framework just as well–I just lose track of which details are actually important, and which details I should give the audience credit for intuiting (or not even needing to know). because of this, I try to really notice when a writer deliberately, elegantly leaves a big gap in the action, in order to stay faithful to the story’s spiritual identity. I wish I could think of a good example! but I at least have a good anti-example, which is: I rewatched TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION this year for TEXAS CHAIN SAW (sic) MASSACRE Day. that’s a really crazy fucking movie for a whole lot of different reasons, but one thing I noticed about it is, the DP shows EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS. this became absolutely hilarious to me pretty quickly. is somebody talking? point the camera at them! is somebody reacting facially to the person talking? point the camera at THEM! did someone just walk in the door? now point the camera RIGHT AT THEM, and make sure you get the door in the shot and show the whole thing until the door closes and something else happens! it’s so crazy and nervous. there’s a scene where leatherface has to put a character into a cooler where there’s already another character trapped, so he has to pick up the big hunk of machinery that he used to hold the door closed, and then find a place to put that thing down, and then put the character in the cooler, and then turn around and pick up the thing off the place where he put it down, and then turn around and put the thing back on the thing again, and they show ALL OF IT. it really cracks me up, it’s so unnecessary. I mean, the scene is already in chaos, you just have to show a bunch of motion with the piece of machinery coming in and out of frame, but instead you get this like anal retentive breakdown of exactly what happens to every object in the scene. anyway, I try to notice when I’m feeling compelled to do that kind of insane accounting of everything that happens, and I also try to notice when someone else is really good at NOT doing that!

anyway, thanks a lot for the question! it’s really good for me to get a prompt like that. blogtober is coming after all, and I need to Get Amped. this fall I have horticulture classes at the local botanic garden three nights a week, so it’s going to be tough! if you (y’all) have any movies I haven’t reviewed that you’d like me to talk about, I would be very open to hearing about it, I often get stuck. also feel free to follow me on letterboxd to help pressure me into continuing to use it. https://letterboxd.com/donnerpartyof1/

[careycuprisin]

Mudpocalypse, the Sequel: Bighorn 2018 race report

https://youtu.be/_z-igfDoaug

Running a 100-miler is an exercise in narcissism.

Everything is about you — your feelings, your problems, your grit, your triumph, or your defeat. It’s like being Donald Trump, but for a limited time. Most ultrarunners are crazy, but we’re otherwise contributing members of society who care about other people. We would get creeped out if the narcissism of the 100 didn’t end quickly after the race was over.

So as I get day-by-day further out from my Bighorn finish, and as my legs slowly recover and I regain the ability to get in and out of my car without groaning, it’s nice to feel the narcissism of the race slipping away. It’s time for me to do the dishes. It’s time for me to feed the cat. It’s time for me to go to work. Others make demands of me again, like in normal life. It’s a good feeling.

Only one more bit of narcissism is left: this race report.

The start,waving goodbye. I’ll see you at Dry Fork!

I knew from my past attempts at Bighorn that it would suck and that I wouldn’t enjoy it. So I needed as many things to motivate me as possible. Chief among them was that if I finished, I wouldn’t have to come back next year to do it again. But also, I held out the hope that I might be happy. I thought about the two years of Bighorn swag in my closet — t-shirts, socks, windbreakers — that as a DNFer I hadn’t allowed myself to wear, and thought I’d be happy putting that stuff on. I thought about the big belt buckle, a staple of 100-mile races, and how good it would feel to own one of those like most of the people I hang out with in my running club. I thought of all the people who encouraged me and how they’d be happy to see me get this done, and how that would make me happy also.

I started the race determined that nothing that happened in the first half would matter at all, vis-a-vis my happiness at any rate. I would just focus on steady progress, ignore my splits, stay as warm and dry as I could, and remember to eat and drink. No highs or lows. So when the rain started I said “Meh.” When it became obvious that the trail conditions would be exactly as shitty as last year, I said “Meh.” When it started hailing, my answer was “Meh.” There was a brief moment in the climb up to Jaws when I thought about how good my feet were feeling that I slipped a little and felt a little bit happy, but I caught myself quickly and went back to “Meh.”

Arriving at Jaws in the rain I was a bit wet and cold, but nowhere near as bad as last year. I was generating heat and was far from hypothermic. I had been running with a cheap ($4.50 at REI) poncho instead of a jacket as my rain protection, and it had been working beautifully. Although I took a good long time at Jaws to change clothes and to eat and drink, I never considered dropping. After all, once I left that aid station it would be the Second Half of the race, and as such I could allow myself to be Happy. I was lucky enough to be getting the chance for an almost exact do-over of the 2017 conditions at Jaws, and I was doing everything right this time. 

Next, I slayed the bad memories of 2016 where my race basically came apart below Spring Marsh on account of profound exhaustion. My trip from Jaws to Footbridge this year was slow because of mud, but I was feeling steady and moving well, passing a lot of people. I had a brief physical low point just before the aid station because of nausea, but I got into Footbridge suspecting that for the first time at Bighorn I was going to be able to run the rest of the course back to Dayton. I was happily surprised to see Joe C. from the Salomon Run Club crewing for Eric L. in Footbridge, and happy to see Eric run through in the lead of the 52-miler. Go Eric!

As I headed out, I briefly asked an aid-station worker what the cutoff time was at Footbridge, just to get an idea of how far in front of that I was. Here’s what I remember her saying: “Ten a.m. here, and 3 p.m. at Dry Fork, then three more hours to Dayton.”

I was nowhere near the cutoff time in Footbridge. An inconsequential bit of chatter, it seemed.

Several times during my weekend in Wyoming, the question came up of whether Bighorn is worse in the hot years or in the wet years. My own opinion is that both are very bad, without advantage to either one. The heat will kill you in a cardiovascular way, bleeding your energy, making you slow. The mud will kill you in a musculoskeletal way, beating you up, making you slow. There have been no easy years in my three trips to Bighorn, and I have enormous respect for anyone who’s done it in either kind of year. I’m very willing to argue about this with anyone, so hit me up if you disagree. I love to argue.

Back to the action. I managed to get up the Wall in good shape. It’s a brutal climb period, but especially brutal at mile 70 when it’s coated with mud. I got to Bear Camp and just continued rolling - a bit more hiking now than running, but that’s to be expected at that distance.

Another quick aside: I give the award for the Best Mud to the 50-yard section just to the Footbridge side from Bear Camp aid station where the mud was mid-calf deep. It was simply the most spectacular mud on the course. Texture, color, quantity and quality. Anyone has a problem with that, you can take it up with my manager. I don’t want to hear it.

So at this point, I’m moving well (enough), I’m Happy, I’m done with the Wall. What could go wrong? Well, sprained ankles, bear attacks, bees, diarrhea, lightning, chafing… OK, a lot could go wrong, but that’s not what did go wrong.

I kept looking at my watch and thinking about getting to Dry Fork before 3 p.m. As I got slower, it started to grow as an Issue. My sleep-deprived mind slowly became consumed with calculating how many minutes per mile I would have to run in order to get to Dry Fork before the cutoff. And remember how that aid-station person back in Footbridge said that I had three hours after the Dry Fork cutoff of 3 pm to finish? Or, at least, remember that that’s what I heard her say? (She may have said no such thing.) Well, it started to dawn on me that I’d need more than three hours to run from Dry Fork to the finish.

My mind was thinking like this: “It usually takes me just over three hours to run from the start of the race to Dry Fork going uphill, but that’s when I’m trying not to run fast because that’s stupid at the beginning of the race. So now I’ll be going overall downhill (faster), but it’s at mile 80-something (slower), but I’ve got more distance to run along that stupid flat road to Dayton (slower), and I’m no freak like Alberto who will be putting down 9-minute miles on that road after 95 miles (slower), so UNLESS I GET TO DRY FORK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, I’M SCREWED AND I WILL MISS THE CUTOFF AT THE FINISH.”

So here I was, having done so well through this whole race, at a time when I should have been feeling Happy about finally finishing Bighorn and never having to sign up for it again, at a time when I should have been feeling grateful for being able to do this (if not fast than at least respectably well), at a time when the clouds were thinning and the sun was peaking through and I could take off all the wool layers I’d put on at Jaws and revel in the crisp mountain air… Instead I was convinced that I was running too slow, that I had to run FASTER, or it WILL HAVE ALL BEEN FOR NOTHING. No buckle, no celebration, no congratulations, no hundred-mile burger at the Sun, no wearing the Bighorn socks, and the worst thing: having to decide whether to come back for another attempt next year.

Let me tell you that these thoughts made my very Not Happy as soon as they entered my mind. “This is a shitty situation and I would rather not be in it” was how I put it to myself. 

The weather at Dry Fork on the way out reflects my Not Happy feelings on the way in.

Now let me explain why all of this is somewhat funny, if also sad and pathetic. I knew that the overall cutoff time for Bighorn is 34 hours. The race started at 10 a.m. the previous day, so any adult human who could add and subtract would know that 24 hours from the start was 10 a.m. on the second day, and that 34 hours from the start was 10 hours past 10 a.m. on the second day which would be…. 8 pm. The number of hours from the 3 p.m. cutoff at Dry Fork to the cutoff at the end of the race is therefore 5 hours. Even if I scraped out of Dry Fork at the very last second I would have five hours to get to Dayton. Not three. Five whole hours. More than enough time. And I was going to get out of Dry Fork before 3 p.m. so I’d have even more buffer. Missing the cutoff time was never a real danger.

THIS is where a pacer would have been helpful. Someone to do this basic math for me and tell me to chill out and enjoy myself.

If I had not been afflicted with end-of-hundred-mile-brain, I would have noticed things around me and realized my mistake. No one at Dry Fork, when I got there, seemed desperate to get out, as I was. People on the trail were chatting with their pacers and weren’t weeping softly as I felt like doing. “Why are these people not worried about the cutoff?” is what I should have asked myself. Instead, I assumed the worst of them (a weakness of mine) and chalked it up to them not caring. I figured they all knew they would be cut off but because they were probably so earnest and uncompetitive, they didn’t mind. I told myself that they hadn’t chosen to drop because they were stupid and satisfied with merely ‘running it in’ to ‘challenge themselves’ even if everyone in Scott Park would have packed it in and left by the time they got there. “These back-of-the-packers just plod along for vacuous reasons and I despise them because they have no competitive fire and they live for participation trophies. They all suck.” What can I say, I’m a misanthrope and that comes out at the end of 100-mile races, who knew?

The ironic thing is that I was the stupid one; the only person who was wrong about the cutoffs. Also ironically, at the same time that I was showering contempt on my more-functional race-mates, I was the one throwing in the towel. Because I ‘knew’ I wouldn’t finish, I took time to sitting on the side of the trail, contemplating the beauty of the Bighorn Mountains but also feeling sorry for myself. I walked when I could have jogged and jogged when I could have run. 

Even when I got to the Tongue River Road and the last flat 5 miles of the race, I just plodded along, hoping that my wife and dog would have realized that I failed and would have driven out to pick me up in the car. Even when I saw Heidi and Pele, I didn’t notice that they were happy, I was just disappointed that they were there without the car. I kept walking, and walking, surrounded by other runners, feeling Not Happy. It’s hard to believe now, but I got to Dayton and took Pele at the corner of Scott Park and jogged along the fence with people cheering and complementing Pele (“Beautiful dog! Nice pacer!”) and ran around the corner and under the big FINISH banner, and still thought I hadn’t finished. Heidi said she’d go pick up my buckle and I said “Great, if they’ll give one to you.” She came back and handed me a buckle and a finisher’s hoodie, and ONLY THEN did I start to get a little suspicous. “The cutoff time is 8” she said. “Huh,” I said. “Well then, I guess I finished.”

Pup licks! Along the Tongue River Road at mile 98.

Finishing Bighorn with Pele. 

Now that it’s been a few days, the intellectual knowledge that I actually finished Bighorn has finally set in. But the emotional satisfaction hasn’t arrived yet, and I don’t know if it ever will. Emotions aren’t rational after all, and I wonder if spending those final hours of the race feeling that I failed are replaceable by feelings of Happiness and Satisfaction just because my intellectual brain knows I finished.

At any rate, I am happy that I don’t have to sign up for the Bighorn 100 again. I’m still kind of a cranky grump about 100s generally and I’m not excited to ever do another one. However, the Bighorn 18-mile sounds FABULOUS! I think it’d be fun to run from Dry Fork to Dayton down that beautiful huge hill feeling fresh and able to run fast. Or even the 52-miler, a good solid day in the mountains for sure, but nothing too crazy. Getting this 100-mile monkey off my back feels great; like I again have no obligations in mountain running and can pick and choose what I choose to do because it sounds fun. And if it doesn’t sound fun, I can say “Nah.”

These are the same pair of shoes from the starting-line picture above. Now destroyed!

The 100-mile buckle!

[thefantastickatinator]

Bitch and Fix: Hunk Edition

I just want to start out by saying that I am PISSED about the way that Voltron treated Hunk this season. And I am absolutely going to complain about that, but then I’m actually gonna offer a few solutions that fix some of the issues the show created by basically forgetting half of Hunk’s character. WARNING: I will be bashing the fuck out of season 2 and the voltron writers. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the season as a whole.

Problems Throughout the Whole Season

Bitch

WAS IT REALLY NECESSARY TO HAVE HUNK MAKE A FOOD RELATED COMMENT EVERY FUCKING EPISODE? WAS IT? NO! NO IT WAS NOT! Hunk likes food, sure, but not that much. He certainly didn’t make that many comments about it in season 1. Just- no. It’s not that funny, and it’s pretty insulting to imply that all he cares about is how hungry he is. Sidenote: I’m not going to mention the jokes on a episode by episode basis because there are so many of them that it would be a gigantic waste of my time.

Both scenes where Hunk gets stuck in a hole. Like the first one was bad enough, but the second one was too much. Just- that’s so tacky. It’s a terrible and insulting fat joke that nobody finds very funny.

All the sleeping jokes- thanks for making him look like a lazy slob. NOT

The fact that he was sidelined the whole time to make room for other people’s development. It you have to completely erase a character’s personality in order for your other characters to have development, you aren’t a very good writer.

NO CENTRIC EPISODE!!! WHAT THE HELL!!!! EVERY SINGLE PALADIN GOT ONE BUT NOT HUNK???? (Shiro and Keith got multiple ones)

Fix

Get rid of every single food joke. All of them. None of them add anything to the episodes. The only two food related things I would keep for the season would be the Hunk cooking scenes (both in the mall and when he made the lens cookies), because they’re both somewhat relevant to plot and they emphasize Hunk’s cooking ability rather than emphasizing how obsessed with food he is.

Either have some other reason why he gets stuck (his head, or his bayard ejects, or his foot gets caught on a seaweed piece or something) or don’t have him get stuck at all. I’ll talk more about Hunk getting stuck in “The Depths” when I start going episode by episode. I honestly see no real reason for him to get stuck in “The Belly of the Weblum” at all.

Just replace these sleeping scenes with Hunk focusing on some engineering thing, like super focused, and then snap out of it. Same effect, but makes him look smart, not lazy.

I will discuss this on an episode by episode basis.

The best episode to make a centric, in my opinion, is “The Belly of the Weblum”- I’ll discuss this more when I get to this episode.

“Across the Universe”

N/A. Hunk’s not even really in this episode.

“The Depths”

Bitch

It all really centers around the fact of the way Hunk was sidelined so Lance could be the savior. Which, fine. Lance needs his time to shine. But there was a way to do that without the fat jokes. HE GOT LEFT BEHIND BECAUSE HE WAS TOO FAT TO FIT THROUGH THE HOLE? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO FAT SHAME YOUR AUDIENCE? Honestly I have seen the “too fat to fit through a whole” as a trope in the past, but I have reached peak tolerance with this bullshit. Honestly the next time I see this stupid trope I’m gonna scream.

Fix

Ok, there are a lot of different ways to fix this so you still end up with Hunk left behind. He could get stuck for some other reason that has nothing to do with him being fat. Or, Lance could sleepwalk and stumble upon the rebels. Or, they see Lance first, but don’t have enough time to grab Hunk. Or, Hunk sleep punches them out, or literally a hundred different ways to do this without making a fat joke.

“Shiro’s Escape”

Bitch

Not enough Hunk. We always need more.

Fix

More Hunk. Offering suggestions, being his smart self.

“Greening the Cube”

There is no episode that pisses me off as much as this one does.

Bitch

The whole thing with the fixing of the shield. You’re telling me that HUNK, THE ACTUAL ENGINEER OF THE GARRISON TRIO, DOESN’T UNDERSTAND ENGINEERING TERMS FROM CORAN? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THAT CRAP? OHHH MANNN I A SOOOO PISSED.

HUNK, ENGINEER, HAS NO INTEREST IN THE PLANET OF ENGINEERS? NO INTEREST MY ASS!!!!! OHHHH MANNN IT’S LIKE THEY FORGOT ONE OF HIS CORE PERSONALITY TRAITS. He has like four main ones: food, anxiety, engineer, friend. Like, how hard is it to remember? Look, I get that Pidge needed her time to shine, but this is honestly insulting to Hunk’s character.

Hunk doesn’t understand the engineering tree thing. He should have been able to light one of those trees up as well as Pidge. He’s clearly brilliant, if the first season is anything to go by.

Fix

The easiest way to fix this is to have Hunk fixing some other part of the shield. He can’t be over there to deal with what the other paladins are dealing with, so Pidge fixes the problem. He tries to offer an explanation that’s just as unintelligible as Allura’s and Coran’s, and there you go, Hunk looks smart and we still have the same scene. Easy peasy.

Ok, the way to deal with this is to have him have a reaction similar to Pidge’s when she meets the robot (i.e. silently freaking in the background). Or, have him be equally involved as Pidge, with him offering a supporting role to her freakouts.

Just have him do the tree thing. Maybe in the background or something.

“Eye of the Storm”

Bitch

Hunk not giving two fucks about what weirdo chemicals he baked in is a little weird. 

Hunk is the engineer- why isn’t he the one helping Coran? Sigh

Fix

Have him be a little concerned over it. Possibly, have him and Pidge learn Altean together- good Hidge bonding moment!

More Pidge and him- have them figure out the thing with the cookies! Tech buddies! Bonding! Excellent stuff!!

“Ark of Taujeer”

Not much to complain about here! Hunk discovering a new lion power! Very good stuff! Him single-handedly holding up the ship to save it from certain death? There’s my boy. The only improvement- make this the Hunk-centric! More Hunk! (Repeating thing of Hunk helping out an alien people- like the Balmerans)

“Space Mall”

Bitch

Hunk getting in trouble for eating all those free samples- yet another fat joke- could have found a different way to get to this scenario.

Fix

A couple of different ways to get to this situation. Hunk could intervene in a conflict between the manager/owner and a customer. He could either a) Be roped into dishes along with the customer or take their place or b) Challenge the owner and have a possible cook off. Or, Hunk could try one food thing, find it disgusting, and insist on taking over the kitchen.

“The Blade of Marmora”

Bitch

Yet again, barely any Hunk. Man, they really sidelined the other characters for Shiro’s and Keith’s development.

No reunion post Galra!Keith revelation. Where were our reaction!faces

Fix

More Hunk. My response to nearly everything this season. Maybe more of him worrying over what’s going on down there?

Hunk reaction face- we know how he feels in “The Belly of the Weblum”, but I would have loved to see his first thought at finding out the news.

”The Belly of the Weblum”

Bitch

This really should have been a Hunk-centric episode. This episode had more time for Hunk than any episode other than “The Depths” which was established as Lance-centric. Keith should have been given less screen time with ‘mystery Galra’ give Hunk more screen time. He’s a little too goofy in this one (especially him getting stuck-again), but this is a better episode than most for Hunk.

Fix

The only other episode that could have been a centric was “Ark of Taujeer”, but that’s also got a lot of Allura and Keith stuff. In this episode the only people that Hunk has to fight for screen time are Keith and ‘mystery Galra’. Keith had his own centric and was featured heavily in several episodes, so it wouldn’t matter to much if he was sidelined for this episode. Have Hunk be responsible for the majority of the smart stuff regarding the Weblum, and just spend more time on him figuring it out. Also remove some of the “bumbling” crap. Hunk’s not an idiot.

“Escape from Beta Traz”

N/A. Hunk’s not in this episode and it doesn’t really make sense for him to be.

“Stayin’ Alive”

Sad about Hunk and Shay not getting to see each other again, but it doesn’t really fit within the context of the plot. Also, would love to have seen Hunk and Pidge helping Slav with the teludav.

”Best Laid Plans” and “Blackout”

Since these are basically one big finale, I’m gonna talk about them together.

Bitch

Like many times throughout this season, and like anyone who wasn’t Keith or Shiro this season, Hunk is sidelined once again. He doesn’t have much going on beyond fighting in his lion and as Voltron.

Fix

One big standout moment for Hunk- that really emphasizes his awesomeness as a paladin.

Final Thoughts

They better give him a fucking arc in Season 3 or I will blow a gasket. Hunk deserved better this season.

[likeadiamondfrost]

Jan. Challenge #1

At Face Value: Full Name: Emma Grace Frost My name means “whole” or “universe.” Nicknames: Em [ she only allows certain people this] Frosty, Frosty-Flakes, Snowflake,  Auntie Emma, Elsa [ she hates this] Birthdate: July 14, 1993 Birthplace: Boston, Massechuettes. Age: 23. Nationality: American Race: White Astrological Sign + Traits: Cancer: dominating, loyalty, suspicious, manipulative, cultured Hair color: Naturally light brunette, died religiously platinum blonde Eye color: Crystal clear Blue Prominent features:  cheekbones Skin tone: Fair Bleshish, Distinguishing Marks or Scars?: Birthmark on her right shoulder, the size of a pin head, she covers with makeup. Build/Body Type: Tall and athletic; modelesque Height: 5′ 10″ Weight: 128 lbs Speech Patterns: Elevated diction, clear enunciation. Received Pronunciation [RP] accent adopted from her father and mother. (hels is just too lazy to write accents) Tag words: Darlings, blood hell Strengths: quick thinking, strategist, great conversationalist, flirtatious, brutally honest when she needs to be. Weaknesses:  cold and distant, detaches from emotional problems, fear of falling/heights. Her need to help the little guy.

The questions What is your character’s name? Emma Grace Frost. Unlike her two sisters, Emma’s only nickname is Em, and it was bestowed on her by Christian and adopted by those who are closest to her. She won’t allow anyone she doesn’t trust and let in fully call her Em.  Hazel Frost chose the name for it’s classical link to literature, which just so happened to be her favorite novel growing up, and regal connotation it commanded.  Winston didn’t care what she was named, only that she not be named something stupid or famous for the era. Her name derives from the Germanic word: ermen meaning “whole” or universe. For the most part, Emma’s name plays no part in her story, but she’s contemplative whether the connotations with Emma have shaped her outlook on a thing.

How old is your character?  Emma is 23, born July 14, 1993.  She’s a third-year grad student at SHIELD having completed her undergraduate degree at E.S.U [Empire State University]. She looks a bit older than 23, but not by much. Being a telepath, Emma certainly knows more someone at her age should, in multiple areas. With multiple degrees under her belt and a little-transferred knowledge from Shaw, Winston, Edmund Buckman, and more she’s certainly got enough  to create a mental library to pick from.

 What does your character look like? Emma looks uncannily like Amber heard. She’s 5’ 10” and in heels—which let’s be real she wears every day she can—she’s over 6’. Emma has fair skin with pink undertones to it, upon her right shoulder she has a small almost unnoticeable birthmark. Her hair is to her shoulders now, dyed platinum blonde religiously as to avoid roots, usually with some wave or styled in some way that is in trend now. Her eyes are baby blue, though in some lights they take on a grey hint. Emma has been size 1-2 in pants since maturity and thanks to her diets and rigorous workouts that don't seem to be changing anytime soon

How does your character dress?  During her youth, Emma wore a uniform daily but was very much aware of the world of fashion thanks to her sister Adrienne. She often took her hand-me-downs that Adrienne discarded after her modeling gigs. Emma wasn’t as picky as her sister though and took to wearing anything she could after her uniform from her school. It was a learning experience to watch her sister dawn lavish gowns and fur coats, come home with the latest designer handbag or better yet a whole line of clothing. Though in early childhood Emma shied away from being too revealing, feeling more ugly duckling that graceful swan, the invaluable lesson to look good and feel good was ingrained inside her.  As she developed into a teenager, Emma took more time in her appearance taking after her eldest sister.

After her time in the Hellfire Club, Emma’s conservative nature was broken and replaced with higher confidence in herself and her body thus the more revealing clothing. On her days to class, Emma can be seen wearing the latest trends from jumpers to off the shoulder crop tops and jeans [some designer some bought off the rack at a 75% sale]. When she attends board meetings and such, Emma can be spotted in designer dresses or white slacks and some colored [or white] top and blazer. Never a pantsuit as those are far too 80s for her. When she's lazy, Emma is almost always in some shirt that falls off her shoulder and a pair of shorts or depending on the weather something comfortable. As of late, she can be seen sporting a pair of sweats swiped from her dare, or her cheer shorts. If Emma is attending any sort of event like a party, she almost always dresses in something tight and revealing, skin and high priced jewelry are keys. If she were to attend another wedding, she would opt for something more conservative, and not white, something that doesn’t reveal too much of her cleavage and falls to just above or below her knee. Emma’s sense of style come from the fact that she is always dressing to impression, always striving to be flawless and impeccable, but she never forgets her confidence. The way she dresses is an extension of her personality in a way—dominating and controlled—and when Emma Frosts leaves the house you can bet she doesn’t give a damn what you think. Her clothing then by definition make her feel good, empowered and as Emma’s learned is a tool to get what she wants when she wants it. While her closet is full of many colors, it’s about 75%, White.

What are some notable relationships your character has?  Emma’s life is riddled with significant relationships. From her favorite school teacher: Mister Ian Kendell to people at SHIELD it’s a broad range of things.

The first and foremost coming from her family.  Emma’s relationship with Hazel and Winston is estranged at best. Though she used to be the loving daughter, upon her mutant developing did it become clear to her who exactly her parents were, though her revelation with Hazel didn’t come until later. Emma has without a doubt Hazel had the same level of contempt for her children that she did Winston. It was a tolerable situation, one she was passive in rather that active. That doesn’t mean she didn’t love Emma or her siblings. Winston Frost’s opinion of his children deals solely with their usefulness, Emma proving to be the most attuned to his mindset over her sisters and brother she was his bright pupil. The one who was meant to inherit the title and business. For a while, Emma played along until it became more than obvious she was simply a pawn to Winston, he didn’t actually care about her. Her relations with her sister fell into the same disrepair as with Winston. Adrienne being the first but not the last person Emma learned to hate. Later on when she learned how manipulative Adrienne had become Emma’s distaste for her only grew. Cordelia, on the other hand, was a different story.  The two were at odds far less than Emma and Adrienne, but as they matured, it became that Cordelia’s behavior was shaped by being the rebellious daughter and the reason—without a doubt in Emma’s mind that Christian fell into drugs. It put a damper on their relationship, though Emma still talks to her sister on occasion sending a card of “well wishes” or something generic of the sort but hasn’t spoken to her since Adrienne’s funeral. Christian, was the expectation to everything. He was her closest friend growing up, someone she felt comfortable talking to about everything, except her mutation. It put a strain on their relationship immensely, and in her attempt to help him Emma lost the only person she was closest to in her family. And to this day can’t…forgive herself for letting Winston manipulator her and his admission into Snow Valley Mental Hosptial--which she would later in life attend as well. 

The next, and probably the most important relationships are the ones that shaped Emma, her ambitions, drives and more important her “tastes” are the multitudes of boyfriends. Beginning with Ian Kendell.  Ian was the first to show faith in Emma’s brains and ability to be more than she saw herself. While the other girls teased her mercilessly and her family care for nothing but perfection, Ian as she later called him, was helping her and encouraging her. During the delicate time in her life just at the peak of maturity when her telepathy was beginning Emma found Ian’s hopeful kindness the light at the end of the tunnel. As the two began to spend more and more time together, Emma’s school girl crush blossomed, and it was Ian who made the first move—mentally of course. Emma, being Emma and growing in confidence as her powers developed made the first move kissing Mister Kendell on her front porch after he’d graciously given her a ride home. To say she always had unresolved feelings for Ian would be an understatement. After he was forced to leave her school—at the words of Winston how was a huge donor to the school’s financial department—Emma moved on with her life. Reuniting when she graduated early and began attending ESU. Dating her college roommate Christie, Ian had found a job as a counselor to the students. And just like being struck by lightning, Emma’s old buried feelings resurfaced.  When Christie and Ian broke up, due to what Emma would later find out to be Astrid’s doing, Emma and Ian began to have a relationship. It became apparent to Emma that Ian loved her and she reciprocated the feelings foolheartedly. It was the first after Troy that made Emma lose her guards. When Ian’s job was put in jeopardy due to his pervious and current relationships, Emma used her telepathy to control Christie’s testimony and have the charges dropped. Unwilling to keep secrets between her and Ian, Emma told Ian she was a mutant. She expected understanding and love, the only thing Ian had ever shown her. Instead, she was met with hatred and heartbreak. The words: “You’re a monster” are one she’ll never forget. To this day, Emma has learned her lesson of opening up to people, to letting them see the real and very vulnerable Emma Frost. Ian is the primary reason Emma doesn’t do long term relationships anymore, and the main reason she believes everyone will ultimately leave her. Tory. After Emma had graduated high school, she set her sights on New York. After years of being Winston’s personal telepathy, Emma turned down his generous offer to be the next in line to take the company and all it’s worth, Emma packed her bags and left. Multimillion dollar inheritance was all but forgotten. Being in a strange city, and still grappling with her telepathy, Emma found that she could—if she concentrated enough—trick people into giving her what she wanted. After dining in a high-class restaurant, Emma was discovered on the video camera. Forced to pick between washing dishes and jail, Emma complied never having washed a single dish in her life, much to the amusement of the busboy Troy.  The two became fast friends and soon, Emma and he were living together in a small studio apartment a quick walk from their work. And for once, Emma thought things would end out okay.  She should have known better. After learning that Tory owed a drug dealer money, Emma offered to tag along at his casino excursion to help him win the money to pay back his debt. Unfortunately for them, time was not on their side. While Emma was convincing Troy she could really help, more so than being a good luck charm, collectors had come. Hearing their thoughts just in time, Emma was able to give Tory and her a head start, but fate had other plans. Catching up with them, Emma and Tory were beaten and held captive. After explaining he didn’t have the money, and he could Tory’s life dangled in peril. Scared and battling the onslaught of voices in her head, Emma was no use. After bargaining for his life at gunpoint, Tory told the dealer that Emma came from a wealthy family. Not in means of helping them both, but because he was trying to save his own skin. Finding no use for Tory, Emma while gagged and caged, witnessed his death. It’s a memory that still haunts her. It was the first, but not the last time Emma would see someone’s death.  

 Even though she might not have come into her own until later on in life, Emma grew up beside several others including Charles Xavier, Warren Worthington III, and Tony Stark. The two latter were a point of character building.  They were Emma’s solace during her time in the Frost Manor as the three banded together and alongside a few other wealthy family children created the #richkidclub. Beginning with her on again off again relationship with Warren Worthington, Emma found that she rather liked defying her father and Warren was the perfect excuse to do so. When they first began dating, Emma was mousy and quiet but soon came into her own. The two were inseparable. Showing up at all the parties hosted by people in both their schools, galas, charity balls for the families. It never failed that alongside Tony, the two could be seen getting into some trouble for stealing a bottle of champagne to drink on the roof to partying in one of their yachts. When it became apparent to Emma that Warren had the heart of a playboy, she and he called it quits only to start back up again when it was convenient for both of them. And while Emma might have loved Warren, the two were better off as fuckbuddies than actual partners, much to the happiness of Worthington II. With Warren, Emma experienced a lot and even learned that she was the type to stray given the right circumstances—meaning she’d been unable to think of a way of getting out of some Hellfire business. Though it was the first and last time, she ever did.  It was with Warren that Emma found a liking for adventure and sexuality. Warren was the first real relationship, outside of the Hellfire Club Emma had while she was a dancer there and the last before she moved to Iowa. Tony Stark, is a very different type of person. Emma’s on again off again relationship with Tony had a bit more substance than the flings she had with Warren.  She cares, still to this day, about Tony but knows her on again off again relationship with him and Warren was a spot of friction between the two. When she wasn’t draped on Warren’s arm or tangled in his bed, Emma was with Tony until she left New York. The two were inseparable for a while, and Emma often turned to Tony when her family became unbearable over the long breaks from ESU. For a while, Emma had even pictured being married Tony, but it became apparent that some things just weren’t for her. When they broke off, Emma and he stayed friends and even rekindled a bit of their romance during the first semester at SU. These two relationships are what defined Emma’s life after Troy, and helped define who she was as she discovered herself in the Hellfire Club and in New York. She finds them comforting and unlike her pervious relationships don’t end in heartbreak and horror.

Emma’s best friend, oddly enough, is Tiberius Stone. The two had a rocky start with her slapping him and calling bullshit on his anti-mutant hate when he didn’t know what was going on. The two are now thick as thieves. They enjoy their TLC nights and quietly—not so quiet really—judging people together. Emma would do anything to make sure Ty is in her life and to protect him. She would probably commit murder if needed.  She was willing to do it the moment his powers were discovered, and he was thrown into the very cells that she had been locked into. It was a turning point in their relationship and one she keeps in mind.  She's there for him for girl talk and her new favorite ritual TLC nights and knows if she finds herself in yet another bad ending relationship at least someone will let her be emotional without judgment.

Sebastian Shaw and Emma’s relationship is complex as is it intertwined. Beginning as her first friend at the Hellfire Club, Emma took a strong liking to Sebastian. Though the two frequently didn’t work close to each other, as Emma was busy on the stage and Sebastian with Buckman, the two found time to talk with each other on her breaks when she wasn’t off entertaining on of the clubs many wealthy members. Sebastian was Emma’s first real taste of the world of craft and elegant manipulation.  Shaw was the first person to see Emma for who she was now in the world and help her develop her view on mutant rights. As they got to know each other, Emma developed a crush on Sebastian, and after he initially turned her down, Emma was rather cool toward him. She’s not one to take rejection lightly. Though she softened up toward him again, working her way in his good graces once again. After overthrowing Buckman, the two grew quite close and though at time Sebastian became possessive of Emma—her being his white queen and right hand—the two shared a causal relationship. That didn’t mean Emma didn’t love Sebastian as they grew closer, finding a kinship and likeness in the darker side of the world. Upon her death and the misguiding of Selene, Emma’s faith in Sebastian faltered, but as she stands now, Emma follows him. She knows every queen is nothing without a king and vice versa. And Sebastian has yet to prove to her otherwise.

 Astrid Bloom is and will always be Emma’s first milestone marker. Astrid was many things to Emma and continues to be many things though the two haven’t talked or seen each other in years. Starting off as Emma’s friend and mentor, Astrid was the first telepath, besides Charles, Emma had met. While she and Charles always did thing the proper way, Astrid taught Emma control.  Emma felt a bond with Astrid she hadn’t felt before, and in a way Emma loved her like a sister. The two grew close and what Emma believed to be her best friend quickly turned into possession and manipulation. Astrid had been behind Emma’s back sabotaging all of Emma’s other relationships at ESU. From having a sweet boy named Max to lose his mind and strike Emma to manipulating the board and Kristy to get Ian to lose his job, Astrid was behind. When Emma found out and confronted Astrid in their dorm. What should have been the end, turned into Emma being trapped in the girl’s psyche while Ian’s trial was held. For the next part, Emma has nothing but praise for Astrid. Without her mind and her psyche, Emma would have never learned the things she did. And learn she did. Emma found a way out of Astrid’s mind, and in turn dragged the woman into her own mind where she locked the door and threw away the key. Leaving her comatose, Emma left Astrid to be found by campus EMTs and moved to right the wrong she’d done to Ian.

 Over her lifetime, Emma Frost has made enemies of many people. She knows that her personality and way of going about things that don't make her privy to gaining many friends. And she’s okay with that, protecting those she cares about with a fierceness.

What is in your character’s memory?  Being a telepath, Emma is able to vividly remember a lot of things, store it and recall it within in seconds. A trick she picked up muddling around Astrid’s psyche. The most vivid of course comes from the moments that happened to shape the woman she is today: her first dance, Winston’s betrayal, The Clinic, Troy’s death, Ian’s rejection, meeting Shaw, the first time she saw a dead body. She’s burned those into her memory as to never forget what she’s been through and what she’ll continue to go through all her life because she’s ‘different.'  

Though she remembers most things, Emma has blocked out the harder to swallow moments of her life. She hasn’t severed the memory, but she’s diluted it enough it feels foreign to her. These are only a handful of moments: What the orderlies did to her, the feel of their hands among other things on her at the Clinic, the miscarriage, and Tory’s death are all the top of the list.

Emma’s memories begin at the age of 6. She remembers playing school in her room while Winston had some meeting downstairs. She, Christian, Adrienne, and Cordelia had been running through the halls when they’d bumped into one of their mother’s priceless vases. It had shattered and disrupted Winston’s deal. Winston never hit his children more than needed, and Emma remembers each of them being too scared to say anything or cry out. It’s one of many unpleasant memories she has with her family. Though Emma has been conditioned enough to say to the press that Winston was a role model.

Her memories with her friends are much different. She can remember the first-time Tony, Warren and she snuck away during a winter gala, a few stolen bottles of champagne between them. She remembers the giggles the first time, prim and proper Emma had tasted champagne. The feel of it on both their lips as they played spin the bottle with a few other mischievous kids who’d found them sitting in one of the offices. She remembers the time they were on Warren’s yacht, and someone had pushed some kid overboard, but they were far too drunk to do anything but laugh, it had been Warren who’d rescued him.  Though many of these memories are happy, there are few not so happy in the mix. The most recent being her fight with Tony over her powers.

While Emma might have an excellent memory, she tends to make sure things are wrapped up, and there are no loose ends when she moves on to bigger things. While Emma might remember certain faces and names, they only remember what she wants them to remember, and thus never leaves any stones unturned. It’s a habit she developed with Shaw to ensure her powers and identity as a mutant were kept secret.

 Where does your character live?  Emma’s lives several places throughout her life. The first being Frost Manor, in Boston. Frost Manor was the epitome of what one expects from a wealthy family. Three stories, too many rooms to count at a young age. Grand kitchen, several dining rooms- one formal used for nightly family dinners, parlors, offices, library, long winding drive, grand entrance. Located in the high society part of town, Frost Manor was situated on acres of land the nearest building being a good 15 minutes from the grounds in the gated community. For the most part, the community was conservative 1% and almost always Winston’s business partners.

In New York, Emma had a loft in Manhattan. With one wall filled with floor to ceiling windows, she had a fantastic view over the city below her. Clean and modern in style, Emma made sure things were exactly as she see fit and it shows her. Its community was pretty diverse, and many didn’t know she was a sex worker on the side of being CEO, but that was neither here nor there. For the most part, Emma stayed to herself, a friendly hello or exchange in the halls but for the most part. She never entertained gentlemen or club members at her loft, it was strictly off limits. Keeping a part of it to herself and only herself. It became a rule for her. Unless she knew them like Warren, Tony or Sebastian Emma never allowed those two things to cross.

When she moved to Iowa and was forced to live in dorms. Emma took the opportunity to 1) make sure she didn’t have a roommate for the first year 2) makes sure that all the needed things are taken care of. At the expense of her wallet, Emma made sure she had the best of the best. And the included finding a way to block out the noise of the students. It’s not fool proof, but she’s still in search of something that keeps her from going insane in her head.  Now that she’s in the co-ed dorm, Emma is about keeping her door closed. Whereas before she never locked her bedroom dorm, she had it to herself after all. She doesn’t care she’s sharing with two males, she’s perfectly okay co-habituating with them, but she has a feeling it’s going to be trying in the future. And yes, she wishes she was back in New York. She doesn’t and sometimes can’t fall asleep with the quiet the campus offers and often spends those hours in her bed working on her powers or bouncing from head to head.

 What is your character’s room like? Contrary to popular belief, Emma’s bedroom is not all white. It’s impractical.  Though the walls a white, as is her frosted glass desk, but the bed, closet doors, and wood floors are dark wood. Her style is very modern as one can see through the platform style queen-size bed pushed up against the wall that is across from the window (with storage for out of season clothing and shoes underneath), wood and glass closet doors, complete with organizers that keep everything neat. Her attached bathroom is like the others: modern in style. With white fluffy towels and white rug and her bathrobe hung in precisely the right spot. Her time with Astrid as a roommate taught her to be organized and yet lived in. After a long hard day, a few items of clothing can be seen see across the floor, heels at the inside of the door instead of putting away.  

For the most part, Emma’s closet it always full of clothing, high priced and some sales rack discounts, neatly hunt and sorted by item of clothing rather than color. Her shoes hang in a shoe organizer or on the shoe rack at the base of the closet. Though it’s small because what dorm closet is big? Emma has taken the liberty of using the spare room in her shared dorm for clothing she doesn’t often wear—like summer outfits in the winter—regardless of what Alex or Tony think or care.

What is your character good at?  Emma would like to think she’s perfect at everything, but that’s not always the case. Being a telepath Emma is very well adept at reading people. It comes from quiet observations during his childhood as well as her psychotherapy training more so than being in their heads, though it certainly helps. Emma was never particularly overly smart, school wise, though the development of her telepathy helped that area immensely. She was, however, smart in another way. Emma was able to, like in chess, see the way piece and areas moved together. This was a talent that Winston first manipulated and was proud to see in his daughter. It’s the trait he wished all his children had, but Emma was the only one to act on it accordingly and wisely. Being able to do such things is also what draw Emma to Shaw. She at his side learned how to craft that ability into a skill and talent. Over the years, she’s learned to make it her own of course and its one of those skills she find she needs in every given situation. Emma was always excellent at commanding the attention of a room, this came about the older she got and the less time she spent being mousy at home and with her siblings. She likes to give the credit to Tony and Warren among others in their little group for bringing that out in her. While she was certain more bookworm than an athlete, Emma excelled in her fencing lessons and equestrian training, without the use of her telepathy. Always been more physically inclined than her sisters. She took an interest in the latter as it was one thing she and Christian did together. Them and no one else.  Foreign languages, due in part because of her telepathy, also come very easy to Emma and by now speaks over thirty languages fluently.  Her favorite, of course, being French and Italian.

What does your character want?  Emma wants a lot of things in life. Always have and perhaps always will. But Emma’s driving force is her want to do something meaningful with her life and help others. She doesn’t want to be the next Winston in the world where all she does is to benefit for her and her alone. It’s what drove her to choose education and psychology as majors at ESU, later obtaining her master in psychotherapy at a rapid pace and it’s what drives her to want to help mutant kind now.  While her methods of going about it haven’t always been morally correct, the end results have never altered. Emma Frost at her core wants to contribute to the world and make it better for mutants. Whether it be teaching, leading a team, protecting them when they don’t want her defending, brokering backroom deals Emma Frost has never, in her life, lost sight of that.  It’s become clearer to her, as she’s aged and even more so recently, that her passion for teaching, to be that force in someone's life is still very much a goal of hers. What good is having money, having power and control if all she does it waste it on furiously things. She’s always dreamed of opening her own school. One exclusive to mutants. A place where they can train, learn and grow as a community rather than ostracized in mixed company or selected as the next scapegoat.

It’s from this that Emma’s want for mutant rights comes from. To see to it that, though they’re superior and different from humans, they are no less human and worth the same. It comes as no surprise to her or others how far Emma is willing to take things to see her goal through. She has, after all, died for mutant rights and activism. Has died to make a difference in the world and would gladly do it again if it meant a change for her people. She has no qualms about using people, manipulating situations, brokering shady contracts and other such immoral things to see that what needs to be done is done. In short, Emma will stop at nothing to make it a dream, even if she knows that for every step forward they take humans will always fear them. And in that case, Emma would be more than willing to get even and prove just how big a mistake that is to anyone who stands in her way.

While her primary goal might be the help, Emma’s learned over the year this goal has been tainted by the want to be accepted and if not loved. She chalks this up to the lack of love she experienced as child and daddy issues, but it remains that unlike others Emma has never been able to fully say she is loved. That someone sticks around. It’s not something that she expresses or cares about (openly) because she finds it’s silly and stupid to base one’s desires and ambitions on something like love and acceptance, but she’s come to realize, more recently especially at SU, how profoundly influencing that can be when she’s making choices. Then again who doesn’t wish and hope to be loved in their life? Especially given her relationship with love and emotions it comes to no surprise to her that this is something that motivates her. She’s found that when she loves, she loves ferociously and falls fast—even if it’s only one-sided—and protects them with everything she can offer. While it might not be easy for her open, Emma tends to be more honest and more forthcoming with people she cares about. She feels guilt and questions herself more as well. She would willing put herself in harm’s way if it meant someone she cared about was save in the process. [ Examples: Halloween Dance 2015. Punching Logan in the face, Cure Plot 2016.]

What does your character do when they’re not at home? Mainly when Emma is out with her friends, she is usually in their dorm room or having coffee and at the campus bar. Nothing overtly fancy. When she’s out by herself, Emma tends to find ways to avoid people and thus the constant banging of thoughts against her head. This includes running, working out in the danger room/rec center, meditating, gardening, horseback riding and spending time curled up in bed with a book or Netflix.

She’s never been religious, always saying she’s an atheist because she’s learned that if there ever was a god he certainly didn’t care enough to notice what was going on in life, and thus doesn’t attend church. She doesn’t understand the process of those who do but allows them to believe what they wish as long as it doesn’t impact her life she could care less.

What does your character like to do?  Emma has always loved horseback riding. Even as a young girl it was her favorite activity.  She can’t explain the draw of spending time with horses or the calmness it causes in her. Perhaps it’s the reminder of when things in her life weren’t so messed up, or perhaps it’s the idea that such a beautiful creature can be deadly and a force to be reckoned with. Beyond this Emma has a deep love dance and art. While she can’t draw to save her life—though she’s downloaded the information from Ciaran and others she knows –shes more into admiring artist at work and the product than making it. While she’s taken many dancing classes through her life, Emma’s favorite has always been ballet. She often as a child dreamed of being a ballerina but that quickly disappeared with age.

How does your character love?  Emma’s always been more of an open relationship type of person, but somehow it always ends up being exclusive. Except for Warren, Emma typically dates one person and one along. She has always identified as female and straight, though she’s been known to experiment from time to time and has no qualms about others sexuality. This comes from the hellfire club and how she was known to entertain. Not all dignitaries and members were male.  Either way, Emma’s consideration that looks are just as important as personality is titled more toward looks. While she’s not one to complain if the person of her affections happens to be below average in appearance but has a better personality. She’s shallow and mostly gravitates toward someone of handsome features rather than not.

Emma is a hard person to know in general. She’s closed off and cold because she’s learned from her past not to let anyone in. They leave. They hurt her, intentionally or not. But when she falls in love with someone she falls in love with them. It’s not coated with unrealistic ideals or expectations. Emma only ever expects—and foolishly lets herself believe—they’re going to be different than the last.  For the first few moments that she realizes she’s in love, she knows it’s panic setting in instead of giddiness. Love means mistakes and getting sloppy. It means letting them in and seeing her at her most vulnerable and weak and accepting that she’s allowing them to see her as such. It means Emma Frost showing them the real, raw Emma without hiding something or pretending it’s a fluke. Most of the time, with few exceptions, Emma doesn’t act on her feelings. She doesn’t let it progress, like stomping out a flame.  But there are exceptions to this rule. People who get past the cold and hard exterior. Individuals who make her wish she wasn’t how she is. Make her want to be better, to feel more openly. And then they leave, and she’s left feeling empty in a way she can’t explain.  There’s only so many times a person can go through that before it begins to affect their outlook. And as of late, Emma has begun to realize that she will never be anyone’s first choice—nor has she ever been—and has come to accept that while she can have any many she desires for a night, she will never have someone beside her to last.

Because of this, Emma’s ideal partner doesn’t exist. She doesn’t spend nights daydreaming of her wedding, or who they’ll be. She doesn’t lie to herself like that.

While her romantic love life might not be so happy, Emma does loves platonically and just as fiercely. Unlike romantic love, Emma allows herself to express and feel this type of love. She showers those she loves, like Ty and Tony with gifts and things they might not need and spends most of her time with them to express it.

Regardless of how they feel about her, platonically or romantically, Emma is willing to do whatever she needs to or can to protect them and show them she cares. While it’s harder for her to open up, she has no problem proving she cares and making sure they are safe before going about her business. Emma is exceedingly vengeful as well. If someone or something hurts someone’s she loves there will, without failure, be fallout from her. And when it happens there is no spot in heaven, hell, or earth anyone can hide. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorn, has nothing on the wrath a Frost can rain down upon anyone who deserves it.

What will ultimately destroy your character? Emma Frost’s ego and personality are probably the worst things to happen to her. She is her own worst enemy. While, the tearing down when she’s left by yet another romantic interest, losing someone she cares about or being hurt, harm her, it’s her choice after these events that cause the most damage. She’s more likely to be reckless rather than rational and won’t let other’s influence her decisions or actions. Her ego, while she tends to keep it in check can and does get the better of her. Highly competitive, Emma strives to always be the best in the room—unless she knows she’s outmatched and then she settles for second best.  The best example of this coming from the Cure Plot 2016, There really is no way to prevent it from happening, as one can’t battle themselves but Emma knows now more than ever if anything can bring a queen to her knees it’s her whims, ego, and the king.

Emma was her own demise, and nothing in the world can change that. The only thing that comes close is Sebastian Shaw. He’s the closest thing to someone important in her life, someone who hasn’t left yet.  He is and might always be, the only man that Emma fears. Not because of brute strength but because he knows her too well. Knows just where the holes in her armor lie. Being open and honest with someone does that. While she trusts him, Emma can’t help but feel as of late that perhaps things will change and she’ll need to be ready for what’s to come. She doesn’t worry about this too much as they are on good terms but if the winds were to change, Emma would like to think that she can and would be able to bring him down. For she knows just as much about him as he does her. But physically isn’t a match for him. If this were to happen, Emma knows the end result would not stack in her favor. The results of losing Shaw as an ally would be disastrous in more than one way. There’s a good chance, though Emma would bounce back quickly, she’d sink into a slight depression—losing someone close can do that to even the mightiest of people. Shaw is the closest thing to family she has—nix Tony and her friends at SU—and is the only person who has seen Emma as Emma. Not as some force to be taken down, or as just a lover or the telepath with loose morals. It would be like losing a part of her. Her outlook on everything she’s ever done for and with Shaw would change, and the excuses that she doesn't see as excuses would cease. There would be a shift in everything she does, how she handles things, how she sees the world.

[ashnadir]

thisbrutalbelle:

        Body moving easily into his arms and into his fluffy towel she listened to him. She really did want him to be fine, wanted him to not have a desire to leave her or anyone else - mostly her. Yet finishing with the fact he was often surprised by not being fine didn’t help. What if the next time he was surprised he was alone? What if there wasn’t anyone there to bring him back and make sure that he wasn’t alone? His comments merely had her arms push around him, pulling his form to her so she knew, at least in that moment, there was no chance of him going anywhere.

        Looking at him still she heard his words about how it wasn’t really her fault, that things came into it. Bella knew that was true, but that was how her abilities worked. The infected and afflicted, targeting a person and then targeting what was inside of them. Even in Bellamy that was how it worked, her illness targeted the things she already did not like within herself and twisted them this way and that in it’s goal to grow and control. So no, she didn’t think she made him want to kill himself out of nowhere but she had intensified the idea of it’s appeal without intent. 

         Feeling him jostle her shoulders she nodded, thinking on Teddy’s words on her birthday. Bellamy couldn’t keep holding onto blame for things, at least not in a way that held herself back and others. If she decided to take on this, decided to take on what happened as though she had done it maliciously and with intent then it wouldn’t make either of them happy. She could feel badly, at least for the moment, but holding onto it as though she wanted him harm seemed childish, so Bellamy nodded. “We’ll be more prepared next time, I’ll stop when you agree to invite me back to your home,” she teased, smiling against him.

       It was then, after his words on her, she could focus on what actually mattered. Her feeling badly about her illnesses affect on him would get neither of them anywhere but what Iann was telling her now mattered, it had been affecting him for months. He had been feeling this desire since she had died. A feeling that seemed understandable in the first few months but if it remained said something. 

        “You know I love you, I tell you I love you like constantly. We’re family,” Bellamy told him as she pulled up from where she rested on his chest to give him a little smile. “You can tell me this stuff, I want you to tell me this stuff. Not because I like it, I don’t, but because it’s who you are and I’m not so broken now, I think I’m doing pretty well, I can handle you not being a perfectly smooth rock, you can have some cracks too.”

“I’ll tell you stuff.  I’m telling you stuff right now,”  Iann said, becasue he realized he was, he consciously realised he, Iann was telling her, Bellamy, actual stuff.  Amidst the annoyance and frustration, Iann suddenly felt pleased and proud as well.  “I don’t hold back on purpose, you know.  It just...sometimes it doesn’t occur to me to say anything at all.”

Which was ultimately truthful (there was hardly ever a reason for Iann to lie about things like this).  Iann was a talker, through and through.  He could make forward plans for things that he felt detached or disassociated from.  But when it came to himself and people’s relationships with him, it was always better for Iann to have his revelations happen spontaneously and immediately, through talking rather than ruminating.  He liked collecting people’s opinions, not minding if some were wrong, some were right . Some were useful some were not.  It didn’t matter - Iann was grateful to collect them all as valuable. Then thinking about them by himself, later. 

“You’re doing great,”  Iann said, satisfied and sinking down lower into the couch.  “I mean...the whole stupid drowning thing aside, this has been kind of a good day, hasn’t it? We got a lot done, we had fun, we had a good time.”  Iann still felt weak, his lungs and chest and throat and nose still burned, but strangely he felt very peaceful now.  “I feel like I’ve had this huge...tantrum.  And crying and punching things and now?  Now that the tantrum is over, everything inside me just feels really calm....”  

Iann nodded at Bellamy’s assurances, and then couldn’t help but grin slowly when she earnestly allowed him to have some cracks in his rocky surface.

“Well I got one big ol’ crack.  It’s right here,”  Iann said, leaning closer to her, onto one side.  Just enough for him to smack his own ass.

Bloody Movements || Bella&Iann

[hustlebonezzzz]

Lessons on Humanity as Taught by a Grocery Store

At 16, I picked up my first job bagging groceries at the local supermarket. I didn’t know it yet, but the people pleaser in me was about to learn a fast lesson about the very nature of people. Thus far, I’d spent the majority of my time around others my own age, and what I had gathered is that teenagers are damn crazy- which is true of course. We all know that. But subjecting myself to hundreds of people every shift would expose me to the town’s finest, savory and unsavory as they come. I’d soon learn that people in general are actually damn crazy, especially when you throw in the customer-employee dynamic. 

Truthfully, it was an easy job. However, 16 year old me was a big ol’ softy, and a raised voice was enough to get the tears welling up. Frankly, I needed this job to burst my big softy bubble. Before the popping of the bubble, I spent the night before my first day on the job worrying about all of the wrong things. 

What if I’m really bad at bagging? 

What if I smash someone's bread? 

What if I hit someone’s car bringing in carts?

What if my coworkers don’t like me?

Unbeknownst to me, a whole saga of wild interactions was coming my way. So let us begin at the root of it all: The customer.

Part One: Old People

It’s important to know that this grocery chain’s main clientele was that of the older folk. And the customer is ALWAYS right. Hell no they’re not. But you at least have to kiss the ground they walk on regardless. And that’s lesson number one: Swallow your pride. Customers, usually the old ones, have a funny way of making the easiest jobs seem hard at times simply because they know you have to swallow down that pride like a spoonful of sugar.

Not long after being hired, I dyed my hair a bright shade of pink, garnering more attention than I typically received from customers. And oh boy, old folks have a thing for colored hair. You could just see the burning temptation in their eyes to give their two cents on the matter, albeit typically not positive. But to my surprise, this bitterness I was met with only fueled me. I felt strong for maintaining my customer service poker face as they dished out the rude opinion no one asked for.

“Why pink? I don’t understand why kids these days do THAT to their hair. And the piercings too! Yuck!”

“Kill the maniac who did that to your hair!! Hur hur hur!”

“I just enjoy the color pink,” never seemed to suffice. But I would never break the smile. That’s key. 

On the outside, my favorite duty at work was bringing in carts because it offered relief from the constant chaos unfolding inside. Being outdoors, however, didn’t mean escaping the old folks and their infallible wisdom just yet. Old men would shout at me that pushing carts is “a man’s job” or ask “Where are the boys?? You don’t belong out here!” The plot only thickened as some of the older gentlemen would attempt to push in carts for me. Naturally, they failed miserably. Cart pushing is an art form to be mastered, and I will stand by that statement until I hit the grave.

Part Two: Creepy Men

It’s not only “boomers” who had a tendency of being a bit aggravating, or at the very least, entertaining. I would come to learn that some choice men reveled in taking advantage of a young female being outside alone, on the clock, getting carts. What was more inviting? The fact that I was alone, or the fact that I was obviously working and obligated to approach every person with a customer service oriented attitude? Interesting. 

With that said, I just want to put it out there that skrrting your car to block my path of carts, proceeding to ask for my number, and then getting upset when the momentum of ten carts slam into your car, is not an effective way to get my number. 

Don’t get me wrong, being back on the inside wasn’t enough to save the young women from creepy men. 

As a middle-aged man, if my manager tells you that I am “underage” when you ask, and you still come through my line to make the move anyway… yeah, I don’t think that needs further elaboration.

Part Three: The Karen

Ahh yes, the notorious “Karen.” We all know her, we all hate her. She’s the one who yells at you about the prices you have no control over. Or for your refusal to use the expired coupon that isn’t even for this specific grocery store. You look at your phone to quickly check the time, and she catches sight of it- instinctively abandoning her shopping duties to inform the management. She lets her kids destroy the candy you organized to perfection moments earlier. It goes on and on. 

Honestly, A Karen isn’t necessarily even a woman and doesn’t require a mom-bob and minivan. If you’re entitled, irritable, and expect service outside the realm of the employees pay grade, you’re a Karen. 

For instance, a man asks my dear friend, Taylor, to open his 12-packs of soda and bag the cans. No big deal. Taylor opens the boxes in the fashion most people would open a cardboard box, taking care to not disturb the carbonation within. The man is clearly annoyed with Taylor’s performance and asks “Are you on medications?” 

Swallow the pride Taylor, swallow the pride. 

Without missing a beat, the man then grabs a 12-pack of soda, cracks in half over his knee, and aggressively dumps the cans into the bag. 

Part Four: Division of Labor

One thing I was not prepared for, however, was the customers who didn’t understand anything about the division of labor in the workplace. Perhaps it’s the fact that we’re all wearing the same stupid red uniform, or that customers see all grocery store employees as mindless slave laborers, but they all think we know everything about the store. 

They also connect this with their fantastic concept of the back room, where apparently we have barrels of every product ready to be taken out to the aisles. The people who stock the aisles have their own shit going on with pallets and forklifts, so when a customer sends me back there looking for more gluten free marshmallows, it’s a guarantee that I’m just going to walk back there, do nothing for a minute or so, and walk back out saying I couldn’t find any. Because even if I did miraculously find it 40 feet above my head on a pallet, I’m not going on some Indiana Jones adventure to reclaim it for you.

Part Five: The Co-Workers 

One of the things that I caught on to when working at the grocery store is the need to fight for an identity in the workplace. Because at any job, people want to pigeonhole you into easily definable categories so they don’t have to think about co-workers as complex human beings. For example, my position was as grocery bagger, which is a position generally designed for high school kids for the most part, at least where I worked. So in the eyes of the various departments of the store, baggers remain at the bottom of the totem pole. 

Even as I grew older with the job, I found myself trying to prove the assumptions of my co-workers wrong. You had to confront people and advocate on your own behalf that you are more than what your shitty position implies. Especially when other departments think they can pawn off the work no one else wants to do to the lowly baggers, i.e. cleaning the shitplosion in the men’s restroom. Nope. Never ever. If I have to push carts during a Midwestern summer, I exempt myself from the atrocities that lie within the bathrooms. 

Part Six: Corporate

My favorite part of corporate was the various “store improvement” tactics that they would implement. The most memorable tactic remains the “Red Carpet Service '' movement, where they demanded that the baggers do the carry-out service for EVERY single customer. Let me tell you, there is nothing more demeaning than staring into the eyes of a couple the same age as you and beg them to please let you take their groceries out to the car because management is standing right behind everyone, ready to crack the whip. 

Another tactic was changing the uniform once a year, because that helps store performance, right? But seriously, I just want to know who gave the okay on changing black slacks to JEANS. Jeans may be cute for those working inside all day… but have you ever sweated in jeans? Have you ever sweated in skinny jeans? 

My favorite tactic of them all was the new way of encouraging holiday dinner donations. For Thanksgiving, it was Turkey Bucks. For Christmas, it was Ham Bucks. If a cashier successfully obtained a donation from the customer, the next step was to get on the intercom and say “Gobble, gobble!” Or “Oink, oink!” I cannot make this up. Picture it, every 30 seconds, the song playing throughout the store is interrupted with a soulless “Gobble, gobble.” If anything, this puzzled the customers on so many indescribable levels. 

Conclusion: Fever Dream?

No, the five years I spent at the grocery store was not a fever dream. But damn, as much as I hated my job, I loved it just as much. My strongest friendships came from that job, and there’s something oddly liberating about working with people from all walks of life, suffering together through a shift knowing that you’re all just doing what you have to do to get that coin and make it in the world. 

Truthfully, the absurdities of the job made it all worth it, because although in the moment it was stressful and annoying, the laughs that came after with my co-workers were pure magic. Learning to laugh and not taking everything so seriously is the greatest lesson I could take from it all. We learned to laugh amidst the flames and sheer boredom. 

It’s a guarantee that anyone who has worked a customer service job knows that faith in humanity can be destroyed and restored ten times over in one shift, but we can’t forget those that restore it. Not all people lack the ability to empathize and understand someone’s situation.

I am so incredibly thankful for all of the hours spent at the store and for the people who made the job difficult. I never in a million years thought I would miss it.

[yourgodmoments]

Raising Godly Children - part 2

All problems are rooted in self-induced episodes of spiritual deafness where our hearts are concerned. It likewise applies to our children. At these times, we can calmly sit down with them, and help them see where the right and wrong sides of their issue lie, as well as help illuminate the ‘rightness’ in pursuing the correct outcome.

When a child can wrap their head around the quest to grow as a person on the journey that God has laid out for them, he or she will find God’s favor everywhere. Life just works better. Moreover, your child will begin to internalize this correlation and act accordingly. For the parent to help facilitate this, it’s always about stopping whatever they are doing, and communicate with their child until they can recognize how they are being.

If they can clearly see that they themselves went astray from their path for having the highest and best life, they’ll take ownership of that, and make the necessary corrections.

Most assuredly, calling them ‘stupid’ won’t accomplish that. Again, who they are being will determine what they are doing; and every action has a consequence. In their hearts, all children would rather that it be a good one.

Another important foundation to teach our children, is about present-time consciousness. The past has passed and cannot be changed. With confession and repentance, that past is forgiven. So, other than remembering the lesson, the event is in past tense. The future is unknown and fretting over it changes nothing. All of life happens only in present time.

There may be times (will be times) when your children will point out your mistakes in life, to justify wanting something that is not good for them. Those are the times for frank honesty - pointing out how you were not listening to your heart. Give them the reason why and tell them of the undesirable effects that had on your life. It would also be a great time to share how you eventually overcame that situation, how you forgave yourself, and how you made amends for your transgressions.

In addition, it’s a wonderful time to point out that you just don’t know everything, and never will. So, you’re letting them know that the school of life is never ‘on hold; it always has to be dealt with and grown into.

This is also the time to suggest that there is great joy in learning, because all new wisdom promotes a better life.  

These discussions make you human and gives them the room to confess and repent for their own humanity.

Children too, bring guilt and shame upon themselves. They need to know that they can clean that up with God in a moment’s notice. It brings them back to a place where happiness and joy can thrive:

“I , even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance; let us contend together; state your case, that you may be acquitted.” Is. 43:26, 26. NKJV

Help your child understand that who they are in God’s eyes, is what’s paramount. If they’re doing their best to walk His walk, He has everything covered - they will be walking continually under His love lamp. This assurance armors them from anyone whose opinion of them is contrary to what God thinks; and He thinks immeasurably good things about His children.

The godly child is also the one who is engaged in life. In today’s world, they meet with continual challenges against that engagement. The media is telling them how to think, how to dress, to smell, what mores they should align with (many of which are far from godly) - passing all of this excrement to our kids through a vast array of electronic devices.

Ever seen families out to eat, where everyone at the table is staring into their phones; or teens at a table texting each other instead of having verbal conversations? It’s a wonder that their tongues are not atrophied from non-use. Eventually they’ll be able to lift barbells with their thumbs.

Because so many kids (and adults) stare down for hours at these toys of distraction, they are losing the proper curvatures of the spine in their neck - similar to a presentation of one who has had a rear-end auto collision. Not good…

It’s so important to try to encourage our children to read enriching material - first by reading to them when they’re young. And to impart the skill of critical thinking. They sure as heck aren’t going to get that in what passes for public education these days.

‘Definitions change as knowledge increases.’ Carlos Castaneda

The art and use of conversation is vital to one’s mental health. At the heart of mastering it, is the ability to listen and ask questions. They are also the key to learning. This is how your children grow and shift their focus from themselves and place it on others - by shedding self-obsession.

Our primary tool for communication is language. In fact, you can’t think of anything without putting a ‘word’ to it. All reality is based in language. Coming from the mouth of an awakened person, communication becomes a tool of limitless, loving creativity.

We teach our children to speak with kindness, love and compassion, by impressing upon them the need to give these same things to themselves first. As they fill themselves with these godly traits, it will naturally spill over onto others as they nurture their innate desire to share their love.

Tell your child about the solidity of words, how they can inspire and exhort, or downgrade and injure. Inform him or her that when they’ve said something unkind to another, that those words are etched onto the hearer’s spirit. Thus, they must admit their error and restore the love.

Teach them about the negativity that surrounds complaining and tell them to avoid the people that they complain to - those who enable them to play the victim. Moreover, help them become self-questioning sleuths so that they can find out why they are bringing the things to their lives that they complain about and what their payoff is for complaining. Perhaps it is to bring attention to themselves, to express an assumed helplessness, or to hide the fact that it may be their actions / inactions that are at the heart of their needs not being met.

Communication works the best when it is infused with love. In that context, we can teach our children that they don’t have to worry about always ‘being right’ in their opinion, and not having to defend their position. It is always best to stop blaming outwardly, and instead to look inside to see what is in our hearts.

Help your child see that if a communication problem presents itself, that they are far better served if they ask themselves, ‘How can I communicate more clearly?’ ‘Is there a hurt in myself or in my listener that I can help me / them get past?’

A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is! Pr. 15:23 NKJV

In addition, we can impart the need for integrity within our child’s speech. Life only works to the degree that the one living it, aligns with their word.

We all fall out of integrity and break agreements at times. Without self-judgment, we just need to acknowledge that we broke a commitment and make the necessary corrections. Then, we can recommit to our agreement and go on with life. Every time we keep a commitment, our ability to stay in integrity gathers strength, which also grows our self-confidence.

Obviously, to remain in integrity means that we must stop telling lies.

Finally, real communication begins when you realize that you don’t know what’s true for another person. That’s why you must first listen and seek clarification so that you can understand ‘what is so’ for them.  If a particular communication is not progressing well, look for what might be ‘missing’ in the conversation rather than what is ‘wrong,’ and be willing to change your approach.

When your child grasps these principles and masters them, then any conversation they have (with God, themselves, and others) with be steeped in joy, meaning, revelation, enrichment and growth.

More to come…

Goodnight and God bless.