#she was so good for his mental health during his years of solitude. giving him company and cuddles during long lonely nights.

[orcelito]

Honestly I find it hilarious that I've accidentally made it a thing of Vash being a horse girl (gender neutral) bc I'm writing his tomas as a weird horse

Chica the tomas was an accident. She was unplanned. I just tossed her in on a whim, realized I loved her, realized VASH loves her, & now a bunch of readers love her too

I've also gotten a few comments like "man I hope nothing bad happens to her!" And I'm over here just Sweating bc like

Objectively? That Bird Cannot Stay In The Story. If Vash keeps her, she will die. There is no WAY a normal mount would survive the utter chaos of his life in the coming months. Either he gets rid of her, or she dies. There's really no middle ground.

Which makes me sad :( I love Chica the tomas and itnl Vash loves her too

[fruitoftheweek]

Little Cherry Book:

Chapter 4:Showered in Sin

Chapter 1 Here / Chapter 2 Here / Chapter 3 Here

Hey guys! I'm sorry that it has taken so long for me to update this. I had an idea of what I was going to write but I had a super hectic week so I wasn't able to write this till now. In order to make up for it, I have given you a treat. A 6,502 word chapter. It kinda beat my ass but I had so much fun writing it. It's sweet, it's spicy, it's all the goodness you guys deserve. I was listening to Duvet by Boa while writing this and I think you should too for two reasons. One, it helps set the mood, but also oh my fucking god it's such a good song. Also, Boa is just a fucking great band. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and message me if you would like to be added to the tag list! Love you guys

Pairing: Spencer Reid X reader

Chapter Plot: After a game of drunk never have I ever after a long case, Morgan locks Spencer out of their shared room. Shenanigans ensue and you and Spencer share a couple of firsts.

Series TW: 18+, smut, degradation, piercing, choking, knife play, mommy/daddy kinks, spanking, exhibitionism, Will update as time goes on

Chapter TW: smut, slight mommy kink, having body piercings, choking, slight blood kink (not really, it's just hard to explain), Shared masturbation (male and female receiving), pleading, multiple orgasms, cumming in pants, shower sexiness, aftercare

Word Count: 6,502

Your deep cherry lipstick painted the white seal of the wine bottle you held in your hand as you laughed at something Elle said. Spencer couldn't help but let a small smile pass his lips as he took in your form, hot from the day's work, small strands of your hair sticking to your forehead, a dewy glow illuminating your rosy cheeks.

After a long week, they had found Carl Arnold before he had been able to kill the Dunken family and even coerced a confession out of him. With spirits running high, Elle had suggested some much-needed relaxation before taking off the next day. Since you were rooming alone, you volunteered to host in your room. Morgan had arrived at your hotel room with two bottles of some sort of liquor, one clear and one amber, JJ trailing in toe with your bottle of red wine you had asked for. You pulled out your little corkscrew with the face of an old man on it, knowing she hated his weird little face. You brought it with you on trips, just in case the occasion arose.

And it did arise as Elle suggested a drinking game. Hotch had retired early after calling Hailey to get an update on his very pregnant wife, while Gideon preferred the solitude of a good book late at night. The rest of you sat on the floor surrounded by drinks and snacks. With the supervision gone, it almost felt like a high school party with no parents. You all had all settled on a classic, never have I ever. "We haven't played this in a long time because we already know so much about each other, but it's fun when we have a newbie around," Morgan said giving you a cheeky smile and bumping your shoulder. Already pliable after the couple of drinks you had while Elle explained the game, you nodded before tipping your lips to the cusp of Spencer's ear. "I'll try not to make it too hard for you, pretty boy," you said. The small puffs of air that left your mouth made Spencer's hair stand on end and his feet curl.

He knew you were teasing him that night and he loved it. He decided to keep his knees tucked to his chest for the rest of the night as to not expose the predicament in his pants. He watched the way you lightly sucked on the wine bottle as you tipped it back, a thin river of cabernet leaking from the corner of your lips and trailing down your neck. Spencer wanted nothing more than to lean over and lap it off of you just to see how you would react, but he knew it was the drinks talking. Despite your earlier comment, it was quite obvious that you were targeting him as his head started to spin gently.

"Never have I ever had sex with someone much older than me," Garcia said through her video feed with a cheeky smirk. Derek had insisted on including her even though she wasn't physically present. She sat bundled up in a comfy blanket in her office with a mug of some sort of alcoholic beverage. "HEY! No targeting! Plus, I told you that in confidence at ladies night. How much is much older?" You said, swaying your bottle towards the computer set up on the floor."You know how much older I mean sweetheart." Garcia said with a giggle as you groaned and took a sip."How much older is much older?" Morgan said with a cocked eyebrow, somewhere between impressed and surprised." I was a college student, experimenting with my professor. Not like an old man, but he was 20 years older than me. Definitely not my style anymore though." You said with a grimace remembering him.

Spencer had learned a lot about your sex life during that game, but some part inside of him smirked, knowing that the rest of the team would never know you as he knew you, not unless they too had read your journal. It was the only thing keeping his head clear of the idea of you with anyone else. Not that you were with him in any capacity, but the idea still made him feel something in his stomach. Not the sweet butterflies that came with your smile, but something more like idiotic hornets dangerously bumping against the walls of his stomach.

Spencer hadn't even noticed the uproar of everyone else around the circle at your comment and the second revelation that Morgan had drunk too. He was too busy watching how you had shyly tucked your hair behind your ear, finally letting it down out of your clips for once. You were wearing your pajamas, just a tank top, slouchy sweater, and flannel pajama pants, but somehow you looked more radiant than ever. He had come back down to earth after hearing someone call his name."Y-Yes?" He sputtered out, realizing you had been trying to get his attention."It's Morgan's turn, pay attention." You said, gently smacking your hand down on his thigh.

If he was riled up before, he was unbelievably undone at the slight sting from where your palm had just been. Light enough that it wasn't noticeable, but hard enough that it erupted a Shockwave through his body, centered on the location of the contact. He bit back the whimper threatening to escape his lips as he turned towards Morgan, trying desperately to not watch you from the corner of his eye.

"Never have I been a virgin at 24," Morgan said, beaming in his direction. Spencer took a big gulp from his glass of whiskey."You always do that one, I don't know why you think it's so funny, you're just trying to get me to drink" he said abashedly. He looked over at you, nervous for your reaction, but you seemed unfazed. "Hey, that's a wonderful gift to have, there's something so special about virgins. Maybe it's the idea that everything is new, but I like it. I love virgins." You said, taking a sip from your bottle, gently swaying. You had given up on never have I ever and just decided to drink whenever you felt like it. Maybe it was because you were tipsy, maybe it was the warm flush that decorated Spencer's cheeks, maybe it was the way he was looking at you with sultry, half-lidded eyes. You couldn't tell, but something made you want to find an excuse for you two to be alone.

"Geese, we seemed to have caught a succubus tonight." Morgan quipped."A suck-you-what now?" You said, cocking an eyebrow at him. " A succubus, it's a demon or supernatural entity in folklore, in female form, that appears in dreams to seduce men, usually through sexual activity. According to religious traditions, repeated sexual activity with a succubus can cause poor physical or mental health, even death. In modern representations, a succubus is often depicted as a beautiful seductress or enchantress, rather than as demonic or frightening." Spencer shot out. "Wow, even when you're drunk, your big brain keeps chuggin' along," you said, sloppily ruffling his hair "A beautiful seductress or enchantress, huh?" That time it came out low, inaudible to the others, but it pierced Spencer like a knife."Do you think that's accurate bout me?" you asked, staring up into his eyes, closer than you have been before. Spencer let a cartoonish gulping noise escape his lips as he held back his urge to lean into your touch.

"Ah, it's my turn," you said, leaning back into your spot in the circle and sadly, away from Spencer." Never have I ever done something naughty at our work," you said, looking straight at Spencer "I'll know if you're lying, I can sniff out a liar from a mile away," your cocky smirk leaking out of your mouth. Everyone except you and JJ took a shot."Wow, really you guys? Even you Spence? " JJ said in disbelief, looking around the circle."Never have I ever, my ass" Spencer mumbled under his breath, just loud enough for you to hear, looking over at you, thinking about your pantieless escapades.

"Look at that, Doctor Reid, you need another drink, let me go fix you one," You said as you grabbed his glass in one hand, leaning and gripping hard into his shoulder with the other. It wasn't seen by the others, but between that and the fiery look in your eyes, it sent an obvious message,' keep your mouth shut or I'll shut it for you.' You used him as leverage to get up, nearly pushing him over as you gracefully stumbled to the hotel fridge. He knew what you meant, but he didn't care, your grip on him went straight into his imagination as he envisioned what that grip would feel like in other places. He kind of wanted to push his luck, just so he could see what he had in store.

And push it he did as you handed him the glass, reminding him that it was indeed his turn to play never have I ever. "Never have I ever slept with my professor," He said, obviously targeting you with a glint of mischief in his eyes."Oh yeah, well never have I ever been a virgin at 24." You said, swaying as you sat down."Morgan already said that, dummy. Never have I ever worn stupid dark red lipstick" He retorted, equally as drunk as you. At this point everyone else had zoned you two out and were focused on other things, refreshing their drinks, counting the ceiling tiles, humming a sloppy rendition of My My Miss American Pie, or in Penelope's case, all three."Yeah, well never have I ever been a complete and utter mommas boy!" You continued, the statement turning Spencer beet red. You watched him clench and unclench his hands, you had obviously struck a nerve. Just as you were about to apologize, he cut you off. "Never have I ever had nipple piercings!" He shouted, pointing at your chest, now drawing attention to the obvious balls framing your nipples that you had once been covered by your long-forgotten sweater.

As he said it, it felt like the world went in slow motion. You could see the instant regret on his face as you dropped your bottle in surprise. It had landed on Spencers discarded whiskey glass and both shattered, wine and whiskey mixing with glass to create a slurry on the ground between them. "Fuck! You Guys!" Morgan said, "You got it all over my clothes." "Me too," Echoed Elle as they both stood up in their soaked clothes. "I think that calls it a night." JJ said, closing the laptop on the image of an already sleeping Garcia." Bye you guys, sleep well," you called after them as you and Spencer rushed around looking for towels to clean up the alcohol with.

"Ow! Son of a bitch!" Spencer cried as you dropped the last of the glass in the garbage can. As you rounded the corner, you saw Spencer pulling a rather large shard of glass that you must have missed out of his thumb, blood pooling at the tip. Without thinking, you crouched down and sucked his thumb into your mouth." A-ah! What... What are you doing!?" Spencer asked breathlessly, looking down at you with a deep hunger in his eyes. You pop off his thumb and squeeze it at the base, slowing the blood flow."Shut up," You said," This helps slow the bleeding. The sucking applies pressure. My mom used to do this for me... And no, do not psychoanalyze that." You said, wrapping your mouth around his finger, sucking to provide some pressure to slow the blood flow. You could taste the iron in your mouth, but you didn't mind, knowing you were helping your friend.

You were helping alright, helping in more ways than you would ever understand. "Yeah, like I'm the only one here with mommy issues," he said distractedly, too busy surveying your lips wrapped around him. You slapped your hand down on his thigh once more, eliciting a small whimper from him. He couldn't help it, you were a sight of beauty, you always were, but looking down on you right then, Spencer wanted to bottle that moment forever. The tops of your breasts peeking out from the top of your tank top, your eyes filled with a hazy glow, looking up at him to make sure he was ok, and your cheeks hollowing out around his thumb as you delicately sucked on his wound. It was as close as Spencer had ever gotten to anything sexual. He could feel your tongue swirling around the cut, lapping up the last couple drops of blood. He couldn't help but imagine what it would be like if it was another appendage and not his thumb. You sucked on his thumb one last time, harder than you had previously, and before he even knew what he was doing, his hips bucked up, rubbing his hard cock against his pajama pants, finally relieving his mounting orgasm.

You let go of his finger with a pop as your tongue trailed off of the underside of his thumb. Spencer looked anywhere but you, as a wet patch formed through his thin underwear and pajama pants. He hurried to cover it with his sweater, shooting up from his seated position."Um, Um, I'm g-gonna go shower and go to bed." He said, hurriedly scurrying over to where he had left his room key." Sorry partner, I saw Morgan accidentally grab both of your keys on the way out. He's probably asleep by now." You said languidly, leaning back to take in the sight of the soft boy in front of you. Totally flushed with heat, small beads of sweat peppering his forehead, his hands twiddling suspiciously into his sweater in an attempt to conceal crotch, trying and failing miserably to hide his rapidly cooling cum.

He whined a little, lighting a fire in you. He looked so thoroughly fucked out, and all you had done was suck his finger. You knew that you just had to play with him some more. "You know, you can use my shower, doctor." You said, and he let out a small sigh of relief, heading towards the bathroom. "There is one condition, though," You smirked coyly as he halted his motions, his body facing away from you. It was almost as if he was ready to run away at any moment. You walked over to him, slowly, taking your time to tease him. The silence hung heavy in the air as you looked up into his eyes questioningly, waiting for him to ask. "Wh-what is the condition." He said, unable to return your gaze, hands fisted in the hem of his sweater, pulling it down even further. You smirked, dipping your hands up and under his sweater, nearly brushing his spent cock before gently placing them on his bare stomach, just above his waistband. He sucked in a tight breath as you gently swirled your fingers in the short hair that lead from his belly button down to happier places." Before I ask, do you know about the color scale?" you said, fingers smoothing out over his little stomach." Um, k-kinda?" He said, heat flushing his cheeks."Green means good keep going, yellow means slow down, and red means stop right now, ok?" You said, looking up at him as he nods."Come on pretty boy, I need verbal confirmation. I need to know that you understand, got it." You said with a little pinch to his tummy. "Y-Yes, I understand!" He blurted out, standing stiff as a board." Good boy. Now, for my condition. You can shower if you show me what you're hiding." You said, leaning close enough that if Spencer breathed, your chests would meet each other. "What color, Spencer?" you said, languidly drawing lines up and down his torso with your nails."G-Green, Very green." He sputtered out, finally meeting your eyes."That's what I like to hear, sweet boy." You said before your fingers danced below his waistline, now somewhat crusty from his cum."W-wait!" He says, just as you were about to take him in your hand. You instantly stopped and looked up at him gently."We can stop here baby, it's not a problem." You said, beginning to remove your hand from his pants. He grabbed your hand through his pants, stopping your movement."It-It's not that. I don't want to stop, I just want... well..." He said and looked down shyly. "What do you want baby, anything," You smiled up at him. "Um, I haven't had my first kiss yet and I kinda... Well... I kinda..." He said, shuffling his feet, face beet red. Your eyebrows shot up quickly in surprise before letting out a gentle smile."Do you want a kiss, pretty boy?" You said, gently brushing the hair out of his face. He nodded, and you grabbed his chin, bringing him close. "Use your words, pretty boy. What do you want?" You whispered, breath gently ghosting Spencer's lips as he took you in up close. He could see every little pore and dimple of your skin and every color hidden in the depth of your eyes and he knew he needed to have you.

He shakily leaned forward, lips gently meeting yours, so light that if you hadn't seen his actions, you wouldn't have even known if you had touched. You moved your hand down to his throat, giving a light squeeze."Come on genius, use your words," you said as he whimpered. "Please, can I kiss you, please, please?" He begged, leaning into your touch, pleading for you to squeeze again. His efforts shoot straight to your heart. You indulged him in a kiss, not as spicy as the situation would permit, more of a sweet heat. He came in too hot and heavy at first, but you kissed him languidly, gently stroking his cheek to get him in the rhythm. His arms were straight out at his sides, hands clenched as if he was willing every muscle in his body to not touch you.

You let out a small laugh as you melted into his kiss, soft, puffy lips dancing across yours. "You know you can touch me," You said, pulling back, smiling at the smear of your lipstick, now staining his lips, and the endearing puppy dog eyes he was giving you. "Where can I touch you?" He whispered out as if he were telling a secret. "Wherever you want, baby. Wherever your heart desires." You replied, bringing your arms up to wrap loosely around his neck, pulling your bodies closer. He was as stiff as a board as his hands flitted around trying to find a good place to land. He finally settled on weaving his arms around your waist and up to cradle your neck, gently carding his fingers through the hair that fell at the nape of your neck. There was something so sweet in the way he cradled your body with feather-light touches as if you would disappear like smoke if he lingered too long. You reveled in the feeling of you two pressed together, slightly uncomfortable at the stiff material of his pajama pants on your stomach.

"Hey sweetheart," You said, pulling away as he chased after your lips, "I'm feeling kinda sweaty from the day, would you like to join me in the shower? What color?" "G-green, yes please." He said, tentatively pressing a kiss to your collarbone, exposed as the strap of your tank top had fallen down. You unwound from him, taking his hand delicately in your own, instantly missing the warmth his body provided.

You lead him into the bathroom, carefully stepping over the wine-soaked towels discarded on the floor before shutting the door and turning to face him. "I don't want to take this too fast for you because I know it's all very new so always tell me how you are feeling and if everything is ok. I want this to be good for you baby, ok?" You said, squeezing his hand that was still intertwined with yours. "Ok, th-thank you," He said shyly.

"Now, what do you want to do first? You're probably pretty uncomfortable in those pants, do you want me to take them off you?" You said, hooking one of your fingers into his waistband, pulling on in slightly creating a much-needed separation between his sticky cock and his uncomfortable pants."Y-Yes please" He said as you turned on the shower, allowing it to warm up in preparation for cleaning him off before turning back to him. You gently grabbed the hem of his sweater and pulled it over his head, leaving him shirtless in front of you.

Lean muscles were hidden under a layer of peachy soft skin highlighting the gentle trail of dark curly hair leading from his belly button down past his pants. His arms curled around himself as he watched your eyes carefully, ready for some sort of judgment. "I know I'm not really that s-strong or anything but I can work on it-" You cut him off with a gentle kiss right above his belly button, startling him. You looked up sweetly into his eyes and gave him a soft smile, saying "You are so beautiful, Spencer. Morgan calls you pretty boy, but he truly has no idea. I would have you no other way than you are right now."

You gently peppered his chest with feather-light kisses, making him blush. He finally understood why people liked hickeys because as you trailed down his chest, the little wine red lipstick you had left on your lips left marks trailing down his chest. Some part of him wished they were permanent, showing off to all that could see, and they would know exactly who he belonged to. You dipped your hand into his waistband, asking, "What color?" "Green, very green," he choked out as your breath ghosted across his abdomen. You looked so beautiful, kneeled on the floor in front of him, taking care of him so gently and treating him so sweetly that he could feel his cock begin to harden again.

You looked up into his eyes as you pulled his pants down. He let out a soft sigh of relief as he was uncaged from his unfortunate trouser situation. His cock flipped down out of his pants, nearly smacking you in the forehead as you looked up at it in awe. Even though it was only semi-hard, it was bigger than any you had ever seen before. Spencer looked down at you shyly "it's not that much, I-I know but I've been researching techniques to make up for it in order to give sufficient pleasure for you- I mean for whatever partners I may have, not that I am saying that I won't please you, I dream of pleasuring you! ... I'm digging myself a hole aren't I."He rambled, rubbing the back of his neck worriedly. "Spencer, you are huge. Way more than I have ever had before. See?" You said, standing up, gently lifting his cock in your hand, measuring it against your stomach.

Maybe Spencer hadn't noticed because it was proportionate to his body and his big hands, but being held in your petite hands and measured against your stomach, he finally did see how much he would fill you up. The tip of his dick just barely reached past the gems that decorated your belly button piercing. "W-Woah." He said growing harder at the thought of pushing so deep into you. He looked up to your face, which was preoccupied with looking down at how far he would reach up in you.

Tearing your eyes away from him and up to his own, you flushed, knowing that he had caught you staring. "What would you like me to do next?" You spoke softly. Despite being the only two in the room, you two both talked in hushed tones, worrying that anything more than that would burst the delicate bubble you two had created. "Can we match?" He said, and you instantly understood him, despite the odd vernacular. You began to slip off your shirt, but he stopped you with an arm on your shoulder. "C-Can I do it?" He said shyly. "Of course, pretty baby," you barely get out before he drifted his hands under your tank.

He slowly lifted your top over your head as he took in the soft smooth feeling of your skin against his, goosebumps pricking up wherever his fingers trailed. You stood in front of him, shirtless as he took in your form. He had imagined what your breasts would look like. Nipples always hard due to your piercings, what your jewelry would look like, but nothing could prepare him for the glimmering moonstone gems that adorned your nipples and navel. Everything matched exactly, including the delicate necklace you wore around your neck.

The only thing he liked more than the perfection of your body was the features that made you, you. Some might call them imperfections, but to Spencer, all he could see in you was beauty. The gentle bruises on your skin from tangles with unsubs, the soft stretch marks that adorned your hips like little valleys and winding rivers, the slight blemishes, and hairs. He loved it because you were the embodiment of the confidence he wished for in himself. While he was always nervous about his body and how others perceived him, you loved yourself for exactly who you were, and you loved him for exactly who he was.

He pulled down your pants, gently following the twist and turn of the stretch marks as they winded down your hips, making sure to kneel down to pull them all the way off of you as you delicately stepped out, gently grabbing onto his hair to keep your balance as you swayed. He moaned softly at the gentle tug of your fingers while he stared up at you in awe. You took his hand in yours, coaxing him to stand.

You both stood there, taking in each other's forms for a moment, hands still connected as if by a thread at the pinky before you spoke. "We shouldn't waste water. Let me clean you off, sweetheart." He nodded before following after you into the gentle spray of the shower, steam now filling the room. He marveled at the way that the water droplets cascaded down your body, gently running down your curves. "Come here," you said, pulling him into a gentle embrace under the hot water.

Your two bodies pressed gently together, and Spencer couldn't help but think that you were molded for each other. Not in the way that a sculptor may stick two unmatched pieces of clay together with slip, more like one rock that had been split by the earth finally returning together. Something about your touch felt like home as you gently cradled him under the water.

He was so enthralled in your being that he didn't notice you gently scrubbing him with a washcloth until the scent of your body wash permeated the air. You gently scrubbed his back, washing off the sweat of the day and replacing it with you. He melted into you as your hands reached up, lathering his hair with shampoo. He wasn't sure if it was because he realized you should probably be getting washed too or because he desperately wanted to ride his hands along the planes of your body, but he decided to lather up his hands and wash you as well. "You are such a good boy. Thank you for cleaning me up" You said, resting your head gently on his chest, softly swirling the soap around his back, now finished scrubbing all you could from that angle, waiting to turn him around.

He moved carefully, avoiding your butt, still too nervous to touch. "Make sure you get everything, sweet boy. I like to be clean when I go to bed." You said, gently grabbing his hand and pulling it down to cup your butt. He inhales a sharp breath as he indulged in a gentle squeeze, continuing to wash you. He washed your back but his hands would occasionally drift down to your ass, growing more confident as he unknowingly rocked into you slightly with every squeeze, letting out soft keening noises.

You peeled yourself off of him as he rutted into the air, whining at the loss of friction. "Slow down, naughty boy. Bad boys don't get to touch. Are you a bad boy?" you asked as you placed a finger on the tip of his cock, swirling it in the precum pooling there despite the water's efforts to wash it off. "No, no! I'm a good boy! You're just so pretty, and you feel so good, and you smell so nice, and I wanna touch you, and I want you to touch me, please." He blurted out, looking at you with hungry eyes, begging for more friction. "Where do you want to touch me baby?" you asked as his eyes raked over your body, taking in all of his options. "I want to touch your boobies and your- your-" "My what? You can say it, naughty boy." You cut him off in his stammering. "Your pussy, I want to touch your pussy." He said, the hot water spreading the blush from his cheeks down his chest, tingeing his cock with a pretty pink hue. "What naughty words from such a pretty boy. You can touch-" he cut you off, lunging towards your body before you grabbed him by the throat, squeezing experimentally. Not too hard, not too soft. He moaned, and you felt the vibrations traveling up your hands."Let me finish what I was saying. Naughty boys don't get to touch. They get spanked." You said as he mewled." What I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted was that you can touch, AFTER I wash you and after you finish washing me. Only after, you got it?" you said, squeezing a little tighter. "Y-yes." he croaked out. "Good boy," you replied.

You washed out the shampoo in his hair, replacing it with conditioner as he did the same for you. You squirted more soap onto your washcloth, preparing to test him. You took the washcloth in your hand, slowly working over his legs, arms, and chest, teasingly brushing over his overspent cock before returning to cleaning him. He washed you thoroughly, taking care to wash your legs before making sure your stomach and belly button piercing were thoroughly cleaned. Finally, he reached up to wash the leftover makeup off of your face. He touched you like a porcelain doll, worried that you would crack under even the slightest pressure, making you giggle. He flinched, thinking he hurt you, but you grabbed his face in your hands, delivering him a kiss that covered his face in soap.

You both stood there, laughing for a second, relishing the moment before you let out a shy smile. "You can touch my chest now, but make sure you clean my piercings carefully." He looked down at your chest, and now that he'd been given permission, he didn't really know what to do. You could see the puzzled look on his face so you grabbed one of his soapy hands in yours and brought it to your breast. He squeezed experimentally, and you let out a gentle moan. You had been keeping in your arousal to draw out his teasing, but you couldn't hold yourself back as you felt his large hands grasp around your chest and roll your nipple in his fingers.

There was a sweet dichotomy in the harshness of his grasp on your boob, coupled with the gentle twist of your nipple. It was as if he was worried to hurt your piercings, so he made up for it in his grasp. You brought the washcloth down to his cock, hard against his stomach, and began to work him. He whined at the harsh material. "I need to clean you up, baby. You still have a cummy cock. If you beg hard enough when I'm done, I will touch you." You said into his ear as he rested his head on your shoulder.

He was overstimulated, and you could tell, so you decided you wouldn't take as long as you wanted to tease him. But you would still draw it out for your own pleasure. He was bucking and mewling into you as you roughly got him off. It shot you straight to your core, the heat from the shower mixed with his grasp on you, physically and visually, had you closer than you wanted, and deep down you just wanted him to touch you.

When you deemed him clean enough you let the rag drop to the floor. "Beg" you moaned out. "Please, please touch me, I want your hand on me, that's all I want." He whined, bucking into the air. You took pity on him, grasping him with your soap-covered hand. He hissed as your soft touch replaced the rough rag and you could tell he was close. "Touch me, Spencer." You said and his hand shot to your core. His tentative moves giving way to a natural confidence. As he slipped a hand between your folds he could feel you dripping with desire. "O-Oh my god," was all he could stammer out before sinking two of his fingers into your depths, thumb circling your clit. You knew his fingers were long, and you had even fantasized about this exact moment, but nothing could prepare you for his actual length. He had said he did research but that was proven by how quickly he found your g spot and clit. You doubled over in pleasure as his fingers thoroughly fucked you out.

"Spencer, I'm so close, baby. Be a good boy and make me cum." You said, slumping against his shoulder, rubbing yourself against his hand. "Mommy, I'm cumming." He said, looking into your eyes as his body shuttered. His words ricochetted around in your brain, sending you over the edge as you cum all down his hand. You bit into his shoulder to muffle your scream, just as he matched you, cumming down your hand.

You came down from your high as Spencer nearly collapsed onto you. You took extra care in making sure he was all clean before helping him out of the shower and into a towel. He leaned against you the whole time as you got him ready for bed. You forced him to brush his teeth before dragging him to bed.

He sat at the edge, eyes bleary with sleep, taking in the events of the day. You sat behind him, gently toweling off his hair before brushing it and putting lotion on his body. He leaned into your touch, appreciating being cared for, feeling as if everything had been a dream. "C-Can I sleep here? I mean Morgan locked me out and I don't have pants and-" You cut him off with a gentle kiss."Of course, sweetheart, do you want to cuddle? It's ok if you don't or if you want this to be a one-time thing, it's all up to you, baby." You said, gently sweeping his hair out of his face as he looked up with eyes the size of dinner plates. "We can do this more than once? You'll let me? For real?" He asked. "Only if you want to sweetheart. This is all about you." You said, giving him a small smile tinged with a slight sadness. "That's not very fair, I want it to be about you too. What do you want?"

The question knocked you off guard. You're not used to people asking what you want. Usually, people just take and give none in return. The fact that Spencer Reid, your adorable virgin coworker was asking you what you wanted with such a sincere look, caused tears to prick into your eyes. "No one has asked me that in a long time," you smiled, "I would love to do this, and more again with you Spencer. Whenever you want." He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you down so you were lying next to each other on the bed. "Whenever we want" He corrected, cuddling into you.

You surveyed the bite make you left on his shoulder, running your hand over it. "Sorry for marking you up, I didn't mean to hurt you." You said softly as he blushed. "I-I was actually wondering... well... could you maybe give me a hickey? I like that you marked me." He said. You obliged him, giving him long kisses and sucks, gradually working up your force until a large purple bruise had formed on his collar bone. He was gently moaning the whole time, but you didn't want to work him up again as he had already cum twice that night and you didn't think he could handle more. He looked down at it as you pulled away, and you could see a question lingering on his mind.

"What's up?" you asked, smoothing his hair with your hand. "You said you hadn't been asked what you want in a long time, and I was wondering, well... who gave you your piercings?" he asked tentatively and you laughed." You have been reading my book too much, how many chapters have you read?" You said and he looked up at you surprised."You knew? and... well... only 3 chapters. I didn't want to pry into your private life." He said. "You just pried enough to know I want to get pierced by someone?" You asked raising an eyebrow. Before he could get an excuse out, you cut him off. "Well for a genius, you obviously didn't read it that carefully. I said I WOULD like to be pierced during sex, meaning I have not before. These are just standard piercings from a piercing shop, not a big deal, I just like the way they look." You said and he let out a sigh of relief. "Why? d'you get jealous?" you questioned him. He looked down and nodded shyly.

"I can be a lot of firsts for you but if you play your cards right, you can be a lot of firsts for me too. You already gave me a first tonight. You called me mommy. No one's done that before but it was really hot. I liked it a lot." You said matter of factly. "But that is a conversation for another day. It is 2 am and we need to be on a flight at 7:30, so let's get some sleep." You said, turning off the lights and cuddling up close to him. In a matter of seconds, you both were asleep, tangled into each other's arms, both of you feeling, for once, safe and sound.

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

Chapter 1 Here / Chapter 2 Here / Chapter 3 Here

Well wasn't that a doozy. I had so much fun writing that and I think it paid off for sure. Shoot me a message if you want to be added to my beloved tag list, speaking of which.

@spencer-reids-slut @ya-triedit @reidstoychest @flipperpenguins @thatsonezesty13 @jbbarnes-loki @big-galaxy-chaos

[trivia-bangtan]

after (jjk) - 005

pairing: patient!oc x patient!jungkook

genre: friends to lovers au, kinda a hazel and gus trope, | lots of angst, fluff and suggestive themes

warning: this chapter gets extremely dark 😭 (nothing new lol)

authors note: omfg im so sorry it’s taken me so long to post 😩 the schedule might change from now on bc my schedule changed 😅 but hope u guys enjoy it 😩😩

there's a phobia called agoraphobia. it’s basically the fear of places and situations that can cause panic, helplessness and/or embarrassment. usually, i can deal with it. but things like cringe worthy scenes and overly cheesy romance is unavoidable.

especially being friends with jeon jungkook.

i knew better than to hand out my phone number to just anyone, but i thought maybe jungkook would be so busy with his own life, he would leave me alone.

for his parents' sake, i hope he had unlimited talk and text for his plan. the boy texted me first thing in the morning and every hour or so. he would call me at night, sometimes even facetime me, just before he went to bed. and even when we would hang up, he would still text me goodnight.

the only other person i would talk to everyday, other than my parents, is hoseok. hoseok was my older cousin, but one of my closest friends as well. but even hoseok gave a break during the day to allow some “me time” for the both of us.

jungkook was relentless. he would always text me “good morning sunshine” and then text me “good night my moon”. what the hell even was that?

as much as it was annoying, it was endearing in a sense. i guess it was nice to have someone other than family constantly checking up on me. but some part of me couldn’t help but wonder if it was because of what namjoon had said and if he felt obligated to have to talk to me.

i knew jungkook wasn’t like that. but a small part of me couldn’t help but convince myself that it could be true.

“so the guy texts you all the time? it’s not a big deal,” hoseok said, sitting across the island in his kitchen. i stuck my fork into my bowl of fruit, impaling a small blueberry in the process.

“i mean, it’s not but it’s weird. hobi, i’ve never had someone crave to talk to me so often. and i swear it has to be because of what our counselor said,” i mumble.

the thing about hoseok is he has an aura that gets you to spill all emotions. much like jungkook. but the difference between the two of them in my life is that i’ve known hoseok a lot longer and can confirm he can keep his mouth shut.

“well contrary to your belief, you’re a decent person to have around,” he shrugs, giving a strawberry in his mouth. i snort at his comment and roll my eyes.

“wow, what a compliment. it’s a wonder you’re single,” i chuckle, shoveling the fork full of blueberries into my mouth.

“i’m single by choice. what about you?” hoseok smirks, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

“what’s that supposed to mean?” i asked, laughing at his expression.

“what?”

“the whole thing?” i respond, laying my fork down onto the counter, leaning onto it with my elbows, forearms flat as i folded my hands.

“i’m single because i choose to be. i prefer comforting solitude than forced company,” he shrugs, continuing to shovel fruit into his mouth.

“forced company?” i ask.

“yeah. like, just because we’re together, they feel obligated to HAVE to hang out with me or invite me everywhere when, in reality, i don’t give a damn. i mean, you know me. we both value our solitude and respect that. but it’s hard to find someone that understands that. and then i’m the bad guy for wanting alone time when really, it’s a mental health break,” hoseok explains, his eyes locked onto the bowl in front of him.

his statement surprised me. he was always such a people oriented person. as kids, he was the first to make friends between us and always such an extrovert. it kind of hurt to know eventually his whole personality switched. but maybe being so wrapped up in my world and in my own issues, i failed to acknowledge the people around me.

the atmosphere changed after that. almost as if there was a sad reminisce in the air.

“do you think you’re forced to keep me company?” i blurted. i couldn’t deny, the thought crossed my mind multiple times before. was everyone around me just babysitting to make sure i didn’t hurt myself?

i couldn’t tell. i knew asking would be dumb. hoseok would never tell me the truth. he’s usually a pretty blunt and up front guy, but he would never outright hurt my feelings. which saddened me even more. would he willingly lie to comfort me? knowing what i knew?

“do you think i am?”

“yeah,” i honestly admitted. we both sat in silence, taking in my answer.

it wasn’t a lie. like i said, the thought had crossed my mind. every time he placed his phone down on the table to force himself to give me his attention. the way he seemingly dropped everything immediately if i asked him to hang out with me or pick me up some place. how i never heard of him being with friends.

the more i sat there, the more i threw myself into overdrive, thinking until my head started to pound from overthinking.

“well, you’re wrong,” he sighed. my eyes flitted up to gaze at his face. he looked sullen, almost like my answer had upset him. i released a silent huff through my nose, smirking in the process.

“you don’t have to protect me,” i murmured quietly.

“my mom called me. she begged me to come home one day. i didn’t understand it at first, but she's my mom. i did as i was told. when i got home, she didn’t say anything, just told me to get in the car. i remember thinking to myself ‘what’s got her feeling this way? why is she being ominous with her actions?’ the whole drive, she said nothing,” hoseok said, a distant look in his eyes.

“she ended up pulling over at some park. it was late, so i didn’t recognize it at first. but then i realized what park it was. it was the park we went to as kids. and, again, i kept wondering to myself why she was being enigmatic with her actions. and then she spoke. she said six words and then didn’t speak the rest of the week,” he said, his voice shaken with sadness.

“what did she say?” i asked softly, my voice a mere whisper. hoseok looked up at me, his eyes glazed red.

“your cousin tried to kill herself.”

i felt like the air had come out of my lungs.

it’s funny, people like to talk about your attempts, but nobody ever tells you where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. nobody tells you the pain they feel or the hurt. the anger or the betrayal. they pretend like what they felt didn’t happen to convince themselves it wasn’t real and they could move on. because it didn’t work and you’re alive.

but hearing hoseok tell me about his experience, it stirred something in my heart and i hadn’t felt in a long time.

regret.

“she didn’t even mention if you survived or if you were okay. that’s all she said. and because she was crying, i assumed the worst. i had assumed you died. and it felt like everything in me… stopped working. like, i forgot what it was like to not have you by my side. every… every memory, every laugh. every inside joke. it was like a corny ass film playing at 2x speed in front of me. my mind kept telling itself this can’t be real. she wouldn’t do that to me’. but the longer we sat there and the harder she cried, i couldn’t take it. i jumped out of the car and just started running. i didn’t know where i was going but i just had to run because the car was so suffocating, i thought i was gonna pass out. and i kept asking myself ‘why her? why couldn’t she just talk to me? why didn’t she tell me she was hurting? does she know how much i love her and that i would do anything to keep her here?�� and then i was pissed because i thought you had abandoned me. that you didn’t care about me or your parents or my mom. but then… once i stopped running… i felt bad for you. because i could never imagine the amount of loneliness you must’ve felt thinking the only way to solve this was to end it all,” he said through his compendious recount of that night. i could feel the hurt and regret make its rounds in my heart, forcing my body to follow. it physically ached to hear hobi recall every moment of that night. “i’m sorry,” i cried out, crying into my hands.

“that’s why i hang out with you. that’s why i talk to you. because i don’t want you to feel that kind of loneliness ever again,” he admitted, sniffling. the hurt and regret only further festered and made me cry over hard to the point where i felt like i couldn’t breathe. hoseok stood from his spot, making his way around the island. he stood in front of me, pulling me into his chest, my arms wrapping around his waist. i hadn’t hugged anyone in years, and the amount of care and love hoseok had emitted through his hug made me cry even more.

“and that’s why i’m so glad you have jungkook. because when i can’t be there, at least he is,” he explained, rubbing small circles in my back.

though my doubt was still heavy, and i felt as if he had an ulterior motive, hoseok’s words comforted me in a way.

jungkook had been nothing but kind, never intrusive or inquisitive about my history or my feelings. he spoke to me because he wanted me to know that he cared.

and for the first time in forever, i felt something else too.

hope.

[piratewithvigor]

a couple of the questions in the ask meme you reblogged really resonated with me, would you do 23, 24, 45?

Took me a bit to find the right list and I'm just guessing, but I hope this is the right one. I ended up answering these for two hours, so sorry about the novel

23. Were you happier four months ago than you are now?

Four months ago was March 13, by my calculations. And it's a really tough one to answer. A lot of dirty laundry happened that week, and I'm not sure just how much I want to share. What I do know is that one week before March 13, I was having a really great night. Went out on a mini road trip with a group of friends. We were gonna go have dinner in this little restaurant/convenience store in the middle of nowhere, but we only arrived 10 minutes after they'd closed down the kitchen. We bought snacks and this big tub of peanut butter ice cream. Drove around and ended up getting some KFC, then eating the ice cream in the high school parking lot before burying it in the snow to try and hide it until Monday. We sang Sk8tr Boy until we were hoarse. That kind of jubilant joy is gonna be hard to recreate.

A few days after that was my birthday. I've never really made a fuss about my birthday and it isn't super important to me, so acknowledgement from the people closest to me is pretty much all I look forward to. Making memories of some kind.

I had a boyfriend at the time I really loved. He'd gone on the mini road trip a few days before (also being a part of that friend group) and had mentioned offhand when my birthday was, so I knew he knew. We were never really chatty over text because he's much more vocal, but we always made it a point to wish each other good morning as soon as possible after we woke up. I already knew something was off when he took until 9 or so to wish me good morning (he had classes that started at 8, so I knew he wasn't sleeping in). It was the beginning of a day that was likely one of the worst birthdays I've had. After spending the day listening to those who did remember tell me to leave him, that this was unacceptable, I requested a call with him around 8pm. We hardly ever called, so I think he knew something was up. I told him he'd forgotten my birthday (and called him a dumbass in my rage, which wasn't called for)

I said a lot of things that night to people in my anger. I wish I could take a lot of it back, or explain what I had meant at the time, but none of it can be taken back and I accept that. We didn't break up that night.

The next few weeks were a little uneasy. He was jumpy and had gone into an anxiety/depression spiral over the fear of getting dumped (no matter how often I assured him that I loved him and had no intention of doing so), but as a result, we weren't leaning on each other with the right balance anymore.

A few days before Easter, I had an emotional breakdown that lasted several hours. He wasn't returning my messages and later said he was with two of our mutual friends at a beach about an hour away. I wasn't angry at him, but really disappointed. A lot of my turmoil had come from the solitude of being the only university student in a gang of high schoolers, so there were days I'd see them all having fun together without me, and I snapped a little.

The next day, one of those friends requested an evening hangout and I was obviously elated. I spent the day waiting and passing the time as quickly as possible. When she pulled up to my house at exactly the minute she said she got off work, I was a little suspicious, but suspected I had misread the message. The car was fully parked (also weird), my boyfriend was sitting shotgun (I didn't know he was coming) and the other friend was sitting in the backseat (I didn't know she was coming either). The vibe was all off and my boyfriend turned around in his seat and said that we needed to break up. He explained our relationship was taking a toll on his mental health.

In front of two other people, I didn't have the chance to get my emotions out properly. Nor did I have the chance to really talk things over with him. I learned later that this was because he wanted backup in case I got violent (one of the misunderstandings from the evening of my birthday).

I haven't seen him since then. I've only heard his voice twice during calls with other mutual friends who've remained neutral in the breakup. Overnight, my friend group went from a healthy regular 6 that could be expanded to 10 to only 2 who talk to me (in person friends, I should specify).

In the weeks since, I haven't left the property beyond picking up the mail or my brother from school. I've gotten a new interest that I adore (but my family hates). I've had days that feel magical and days where I feel like I'd be better off dead if I could give my all in a relationship and still be disrespected like that.

I don't know if I'm happier than I was 4 months ago. I have up days and down days just as frequently. They're just about different things. But maybe I am happier; some days, I notice my 'ups' are higher than they used to be.

24. Is there someone you wish you could fix things with?

Yes. In the aforementioned friend group, there were 6 of us who were the core: myself, my boyfriend, two other girls his age, one guy and one girl 4 years younger than me. I was never particularly close with the guy, but I always liked hanging out with him. The two other girls were the most regular hangouts because they were in town a lot, so if they went to hang out with my boyfriend, I was generally there too. They were the two in the car the night of the breakup.

The younger girl, I was probably the closest with. There would be evenings when she wanted help with homework or just someone to talk about nonsense while she listens. There were a good number of occasions where she would want to do homework late into the night and I'd lie in bed and tell her about movies I've watched recently. I considered her a really good friend, but because of our age difference, her parents were a little wary of her hanging out with the group outside of school (completely understandably so. I think the only reason she got to hang out with me was because her mom had been basically the youth pastor at our church since I was 8).

She took my boyfriend's side in the breakup. I know they were significantly closer than she was with me, but I just wish I didn't have to lose that friendship too. I sent her word through her brother to let her know I have no beef with her at all, but I don't think it did any good. It's very likely I won't be able to talk with her anymore, and I've mostly made my peace with it, but the lack of closure I got there is probably gonna mess with me for a while.

45. Do you believe exes can be friends?

I do. I have proof, but I don't know just how allowable it would be in this case. I consider myself to have had 6 relationships. They ranged from 1 month to 2 1/2 years.

My first one was third grade. The entire year, and about as PG as two 8-year-olds get. We broke up when fourth grade started, but were still pretty close friends. We got back together for a few months in seventh grade, but it wasn't working, so we went back to friends. He's now one of the only people I know in person who still talks to me. Definitely still a friend.

My second was 8th grade. A little bit toxic and we were probably better off ending when we did, but he gave me a lot of experience that I banked on for years. Have not spoken to him in close to 4 years.

My third was 9th grade. Definitely toxic. We don't talk about it. Stayed in contact and even friendly for about 2 1/2 years afterwards until I cut him off. It was really for the best in the end.

My fourth was later in 9th grade. My longest. Long-distance and one of my healthier ones. He left me after 2 1/2 years and gave me a whole lotta issues as a result. Our contact wavers on occasion, but we've never gone more than a month without talking.

My fifth was probably a week after my fourth. He was inheriting a basket case of a bitch. Also long distance and have not spoken since the breakup.

My sixth was the one who's breakup you read about above. We were together for almost exactly 18 months. My second-healthiest relationship after my first. He said we could still be friends, but the more time that passes, the less I believe it's a possibility.

[bahytarek]

Ben Tennyson - Ben 10,000 - Ben 10K

Hero of Heroes - Wielder of the Omnitrix

Ben has been through a lot growing up. It all might seem glamorous, and sometimes it looks like fun but the truth is that this life isn't all perfect.

He's had many victories throughout his life. He defeated Vilgax, destroyed Zs'Skayr, made peace with the Highbreed, saved Galvan Mark II from a psychotic vengeful Galvanic Mechamorph, prevented the Incursean Empire from taking over the Earth, made other realities and dimensions a safer place, and created the entire Universe twice.

This man never stops doing what he does best, being a true hero. He spends most of his time saving the universe or stopping some crook. However big or small the problem, Ben risks his life and jumps ahead to save the day. We saw that sometimes, Ben does get hurt, even if he got hurt as an alien. Ben risks his physical health without even considering how bad things could get because he believes that if he doesn't step in, things could get worse, and can you blame him? People depend on Ben on a daily basis, and the job just gets harder and harder on him the older he gets, never really getting a chance to relax. Notice how I said job.

Ben started this life since he was 10, and took it as a game up until Vilgax threatened his family and showed him the risks of being a hero. Ben has spent most of his childhood as an outcast and as a target for bullying, the Omnitrix made him feel like he was worth something, like he was a hero. After defeating Vilgax for the first time, Ben still goofed off but knew deep down that there will come a time where he'll have to get serious.

Zs'Skayr is a complete psycho, instead of beating the snot out of Ben like Vilgax, he hit him where it really hurt, mentally. Zs'Skayr possessed Gwen and threatened Ben by making her stand on the ledge of a building, willing to commit suicide by jumping off. The next time Zs'Skayr attacked Ben's family, Ben was over protective of Gwen and Grandpa Max, he was scarred by his last encounter with Zs'Skayr. Gwen took it as him being cocky and selfish but the opposite is true, and for a 10 year old, Ben was completely brave.

In Secrets of the Omnitrix, Ben believed that Gwen was killed and completely blames himself, wishing it was him instead, a feeling that no 10 year old should feel.

Ben eventually unlocks Feedback, an alien he feels strongly attached to. During this time, he became enemies with a corrupted Galvanic Mechamorph named Malware. Malware eventually destroyed the Conductoid's DNA within the Omnitrix, making Feedback unaccessible. Ben loses for the first time, and in his rage he straight up murders Malware. I assume it was after that incident Ben removed the Omnitrix for 4 years.

Enter Alien Force. Ben wears the Omnitrix again because he fears for his Grandfather's life. This choice wasn't easy because it shows that he enjoyed being normal, but as soon as someone needed his help, he didn't hesitate to slam it on his wrist. He eventually becomes close friends with former enemy Kevin E.Levin.

Ben matured a lot during the first two season of Alien Force when he had to deal with the fact that his beloved Grandfather "died" and that he was in the middle of a Galactic War. After it ended and Max was revealed to be ok Ben managed to be happy again in season 3. Yet once again, Gwen mistakes this as him being cocky and wreckless, and even though he was a little cocky, Ben was just truly happy for once, and felt like a true hero again. At the end of Alien Force, Ben blew up the Omnitrix to stop Vilgax, proving that it's not the watch that makes him a hero. Ben doesn't feel this way though, and proceeds to take the Ultimatrix from Albedo.

In Ultimate Alien, Ben is now famous, not only across the stars, but on Earth as well. He has to deal with fame and criticism at the age of 16 while still trying to pass in his classes and save the Universe everyday. To a kid, this is a lot of pressure. In the beginning Ben seemed fine with it, but at some point it just seemed exhausting. Above all of this, his relationship with Julie, his girlfriend at the time, was rocky. She wished that he was there more but how could he? He's constantly trying to keep the Universe safe, he hardly even gets a good night's rest, and she expects him to be available? Again, the other characters make it look like it's all Ben's fault but the truth is, Ben can't do anything about it, despite the fact that he could turn into aliens, he's only human!

Ben eventually fails to save the 5 aliens that trusted him and then has to deal with the fact that his once best friend Kevin, is once again evil. It's up to Ben to stop him, it has to be him wheither he likes it or not, and this obviously hurt him, but he has no choice but to stop him, even if it meant to go to the extreme if the situation required. Because deep down, it's his fault, or so he thinks. He believes that maybe if he defeated Aggregor himself, if he was strong enough, Kevin would be ok. In the end it all worked out, but at what cost? Ben considered killing his friend, this will forever haunt him. He even willingly "sacrificed himself" to free all the Ultimate Aliens that blamed him for their imprisonment inside of the Ultimatrix, not because he had too, but because he wanted to. Freeing these creatures to him were far more important than his own life. At the end of Ultimate Alien, Ben gets the Ascalon and can now recreate the universe in anyway he wishes, destroy all evil, but he doesn't, he just fixes everything. Ben isn't arrogant or misuses his powers. Even though Ben can now control Alien X (or eventually) he wouldn't do anything extreme because he has limits, he knows right from wrong.

In Omniverse, Ben has gone through a lot. Gwen and Kevin left him behind, his only two real friends that could ever understand him in a way. He eventually gets close to his new plumber partner Rook Blonko. At some point, Ben recreated the Universe after it was destroyed and is the only one that remembers it's destruction. Even though he did something so heroic, he was forced to stand trial in front of the entire Universe for it. Not only that, but because of this one moment, another villain, Servantis, makes a hit squad to kill Ben just because he believes that Ben is too powerful to be trusted. Servantis also reveals Kevin as a sleeper agent. Ben again would blame himself for Kevin's turn but was more optimistic about saving him this time. Instead of trying to kill him, he just wanted to leave, regroup, and come up with a plan (he didn't know of course that Kevin was secretly good).

Ben was also forced to leave his friends and family behind on Earth thanks to the Incursean invasion. He was forced to deal with Malware, the alien that killed Feedback and mentally scarred Ben for years. He learns that in most realities he becomes evil. He temporarily died right before giving his Omnitrix to another Ben, but instead of being saddened by the fact that he's dying at such a young age, he gives advise to the other Ben to become a hero, to protect this Universe from monsters like Vilgax. Ben as a person has gone through so much growing up, and we got to watch him become a true hero, a hero of heroes. He mentored a younger alternate version of himself, he taught Rook how to be a hero instead of just being a plumber, he taught Kevin the importance of friendship, he inspired Gwen to become Lucky Girl and pursue magic, he motivated Grandpa Max to become a plumber once more. Literally everyone that gets close to Ben will have some kind of heroic trait because Ben shows them what it means to fight for others, to be selfless, to truly become a hero.

Ben knows about the man he'll become in the future, he's well aware that things will get harder and that he'll be a hero for ever. The pressure of knowing that he'll have to fill those shoes eventually must put some pressure on him sometimes.

We now know that at the age of 20, Ben becomes more serious and more of a loner. The reasons why are unknown, and the possibilities are endless. Maybe he blames himself for the loss of his Grandfather's arm or maybe he couldn't handle the fact that he was forced to throw Kevin into the Null Void again. Whatever the reason, Ben decides that it's for the best to do what he does on his own. Due to his history of almost losing his loved ones, it's easy to understand that at some point something happened that made him quit having a team. He'd rather die than see the ones close to him get hurt, but with this solitude and loneliness, he eventually became angrier and less sociable. We also learn that with the help of his master control, Ben used XLR8 to patrol the entire planet on a daily basis to stop any kind of crime from happening.

Ben no longer sees this as a game, it's his mission, it's the one thing he believes he's good for, being a hero. It's all anyone ever needed from him, it's all he thinks he needs to do. What's troubling how ever, is his loss of self. Ben got so comfortable with the idea of going hero all day 24/7, he no longer becomes Ben, because to him, Ben is just a weak human transformation. He no longer needs Ben, he's just the wielder of the Omnitrix, all that matters to him is being who people need him to be when he's needed, but not by being himself.

After the episode "Ben 10,000", Ben lightens up and begins to become the man he once was, one by one. In "Ken 10" he's happy, up untill he sees Kevin again, realising that he can't escape the mistakes of his past. This is when Ben reverts to his serious, more stubborn self, and pushes Ken, his son, aside to take Kevin down. Later when he sees Ken hurt, he loses his temper and demolishes Kevin as Waybig.

Four years later, we see that Kevin is better, angry, but better. Ben is still happily married with Kai (unlike Julie, Kai is also a hero, thus understanding the responsibilities and the pressure that Ben is under), Ken grew to be more of a hero, making his father proud, and Ben's life seems to be fine in a way.

Ben's life wasn't easy nor fun, but in the end, he has a group of loving family members and friends to support him when needed, and as long as they are by his side, he can learn to enjoy life and still be the hero the world needs him to be.

[rabbit-antlers]

BRYNVALD KOLSTRIK TIMELINE

(Updated 08/2020)

4E 149 - Born the only child to two older Nords in Solitude, Skyrim under the sign of The Mage.

4E 154 - (Age 5) A curious, energetic handful. Begins exhibiting a natural talent with magic.

4E 155 - (Age 6) Traditionally schooled while tutored by a hired mage at home.

4E 162 - (Age 13) Encouraged to take work around the city to burn energy and put his own coin in his pocket. Befriends others around the same age, including Ana.

4E 163 - (Age 14) Craves more intellectual stimulation. Starts avoiding jobs, instead finding new and interesting ways to get into trouble.  Exhausted parents finally agree to send him to the College of Winterhold, where he puts most of his focus in the school of Destruction. Here, he excels.

4E 166 - (Age 17) Starts hanging around old friends again during extended stays back home in Solitude. After having shown considerable promise and enthusiasm, he is guaranteed a position on staff at the College if he continues at the same rate.

4E 167 - (Age 18) Starts falling for Ana quickly during another trip home. They write letters back and forth. She tutors him in alchemy when they aren’t kissing in the stock room of her family’s business.

4E 170 - (Age 21) Marries Ana and settles back into Solitude. Happily married.

4E 172 - (Age 23) Madeline is born. The couple decides they will make their way to Falkreath so they can raise their daughter in a less crowded place and start their own businesses.

4E 173 - (Age 24) Enters a period of denial and mourning when Ana is killed on the roads to Falkreath by bandits. Spends almost all of his waking hours near Ana’s resting place. Madeline develops a serious ear infection from neglect, and is removed from his care.

4E 174 - (Age 25) Lashes out and shows no sign of improving. Defaces a shrine to Arkay and is removed from the city with a bounty. Leads himself to believe necromancy is the answer, and so dedicates himself completely to the craft in secrecy.

4E 176 - (Age 26) Years of moral decline begin. Neglects health, but finds that he is perhaps better at necromancy than even destruction. Becomes addicted to the feeling of power over death.

4E 180 - (Age 31) Sneaks back in to Solitude to resurrect Ana, but finds he can’t carry through with it. The benders begin.

4E 181 - (Age 32) Begs for a place back at the College of Winterhold, and (mostly out of pity) is allowed the occasional room and board in exchange for running errands etc. Receives word that his parents have passed within a few months of each other. Continues to study necromancy and extending his lifespan, with stolen bodies or bandits used as primary test subjects.

4E 191 - (Age 42) Learns about a valuable resource in the form of an undiscovered book penned by an acolyte in the Order of the Black Worm that defected to begin his own cult.

4E 197 - (Age 48)  Finally locates the book in a tomb after several years of careful searching. Curses/burns his hands in the process.

4E 201 - (Age 52 - The events of TESV: Skyrim begin) Formally expelled from the College of Winterhold for stealing. Attempts a blood ritual from the book he acquired to extend his lifespan with a captured bandit, but is nearly killed in the process. Sheogorath saves him in exchange for his soul, whisking him off to the Shivering Isles.

4E 202 - (Age 53) Returned to Nirn. Carries on with necromancy with renewed vigor.

4E 202 - (Age 55) Kidnaps Oljort (age 4), his grandson, with intention to raise the boy as his own and use him in place of a stranger in the life-extension ritual, as well as make him into something of an assistant. Leaves for the Imperial City and renames the boy Barnan.

4E 207 - (Age 60) Begins researching organ transplants, vampirism, heart stones etc. as a means of extending life. Makes some shady underground connections, but all while putting up a front as a successful mage and doting father.

4E 216 - (Age 69) Perfects the ritual, giving it a test that slows aging down considerably, but Barnan discovers the truth and leaves to be reunited with his actual parents. Mental breakdown and existential crisis follows. 

4E 217 - (Age 70) Runs into Guillaume Syltieve, who employs him at The Minervae, a brand new magical school that is starting on the border of Cyrodiil and Skyrim. He is offered a chance to turn his life around, and so confesses to his crimes, relinquishes the book, and agrees to stop necromancy to pursue the career he originally intended.

--

Year tbd - (90′s) Confesses his love for Guillaume after nearly twenty years spent working as an instructor of offensive/defensive magic at The Minerave. At one point, they discuss plans to marry.

Year tbd - (late 90′s) Sheogorath re-appears, informing him that his time there is up, and that if he does not leave and avoid any and all future contact with Guillaume, the staff and students will suffer with the belief that Brynvald poisoned them. He steals one of Guillaume’s rings (coincidentally, the Ring of Hircine), and leaves. Separated not once, but twice from the love of his life and all semblance of normalcy, he spirals.

Specific dates and events get a bit murky from here, especially with little insight into 5E. Necromancy once again becomes a staple, various false identities are assumed, and it becomes clearer and clearer to Bryn that the events of his life have been orchestrated in such a way that it continually pushes him to the brink. This is not just for Sheogorath’s personal entertainment (I mean, that’s a good chunk of it), but because of a bet the Prince of Madness had made with Meridia.

Eventually, through Barnan, a distant descendant of Bryn’s is raised within a Meridian cult: Silas Cartier, whose sole purpose in life is killing his shitty necromancer grandpa after time hopping to different eras. This ultimately fails, but the damage done forces Bryn into lichdom to stay “alive”.

Eventually, the White Lich retires to a hidden cave in Skyrim and remains dormant. All around him, an army of skeletons spend most of their time carving elaborate, but surreal depictions from his memory and subconscious into the walls as he sits covered in cobwebs. Sheogorath then allows him to return to the Isles for eternity in the same state he originally arrived in, but with no memory of his life on Nirn or what he had done.

[kristablogs]

These ultramarathoners say life is easier after running 40 miles on frozen backwoods trails

‘I could do this all night,’ O’Neill thought. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

It is 10°F outside of the wood-beamed shelter at St. Croix State Park, a 34,000-acre pine-and-oak expanse in eastern Minnesota. Hell, it’s cold inside, despite two fireplaces blazing, their smoke pulled into flared metal chimneys that resemble the business ends of rockets. The 54 athletes standing around keep their hats on, for the most part. Each has spent good money to embark on exactly the kind of endeavor most people would pay to avoid: running or skiing—whichever suits their fancy—for 40 miles. At night. In Minnesota. In January. While pulling a sled packed with 30-plus pounds of supplies.

This torturefest is called the St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra, and its participants find pleasure in the hardship. At 4:30 p.m. they jiggle their legs and apply insulating tape to their cheeks and noses while the organizers give a prerace pep talk.

Of sorts.

“No one died last year,” says Jamison Swift, deadpanning. “Let’s keep it going.”

He soon passes the stage to Lisa Kapsner-Swift, his co-organizer and wife, who talks about what the racers can do if they feel like they’re coming down with the winter-ultra baddies: trench foot, frostbite, hypothermia.

The advice washes over Meredith O’Neill, who wears glasses and bright blue snow pants; two Heidi braids hang down her shoulders. She’s prepared for months, training to be alone, cold, and tired for what might feel like forever as she runs across an Upper Midwest oak savanna, passes through stands of pines, and treks across acres of trees felled by a storm. She’ll go and go and go until she returns, finally, hopefully, to this same building sometime tomorrow.

It’s fun. Not the normal, easy kind that comes with games of horseshoes or beach volleyball. Wilderness-seeking enthusiasts often call that “Type I Fun.” Instead, this is the more complicated variety, “Type II Fun,” which basically encompasses an activity—like backpacking up a steep mountain or scaling a sheer rock face—that suuuuuucks when you’re doing it but seems cool in retrospect. (Their categorization system also includes “Type III” activity, which is never actual fun and puts your life in danger.)

Type II recreation appeals to a variety of nature-loving folks, including a growing community of runners called ultramarathoners—those who think the traditional 26.2-mile course isn’t a big-enough test of physical endurance and mental fortitude. Their events mostly take place on remote trails, rather than on big-city streets with live bands and aid stations stocked like curbside Trader Joe’s. There were just over 100,000 finishes in ultraraces around the world in 2018, compared to 1.1 million for marathons. The extreme feats have to cover at least 31 miles (50 kilometers) and sometimes include extra challenges, like St. Croix’s sleds and snow. For tonight’s contest, participants must bring along, among other things, insulated water containers, gear for sleeping in the elements, a stove kit, and enough food to finish the course with 3,000 calories to spare.

The St. Croix winter ultramarathon covers 40 miles—from dusk till done—and draws athletes considering longer events. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

Sports psychologists have investigated the why of races like this one, looking closely at people who think that “more than a marathon” sounds like a terrific Saturday. What they’ve found is that ultrarunners get a kick out of tackling self-imposed challenges, forming community while also pursuing solitude, exploring the wilderness as well as their own limits, and then applying the idea that they can nudge their own boundaries to their tamer everyday lives.

If you ask athletes like O’Neill why they push themselves to and through mile 37 toward the finish line, their anecdata matches scientists’ findings pretty well. “In road marathons, there’s a lot of people, and I’m more introverted,” she says. “I wanted something a little quieter, more nature-filled.”

After her first ultra, a 31-miler outside of Minneapolis, O’Neill knew this was the sport for her. It wasn’t about fast finish times or jostling with other competitors. Participants like her go slower, mostly alone, through pretty places. She liked that. “I could do this for eight hours,” she thought. “I could do this for 12 hours; I could do this all night.”

O’Neill realized she could continue beyond where her biology told her to stop. That it was thrilling to go past her usual boundaries. “Your brain is holding you back a little bit to protect you,” she says. “But that’s sort of a wiggly, wobbly line that you can push further.”

It’s an idea exercise scientist Tim Noakes first suggested in the 1990s and dubbed the “central governor” theory: Your brain sends a signal to the rest of your body, informing the muscles that they’re too tired to possibly go on, and that if they do, they might damage themselves. But that signal comes long before it needs to, when the body still has tons of energy left.

Finding out how much literal and figurative fuel she has propels O’Neill into the now-single-digit Minnesota night—that, and seeking the kind of peace physical exertion provides. “It’s one of the few times I don’t really think about anything other than how far I’ve gone and how far I have to go and whether I feel okay,” she says. “I’m very present. I like it. I like having that calm.”

At 5:55 p.m., when it’s just below 10°F, O’Neill stands in full moonlight next to her sled, which is about the size of a Flexible Flyer a kid would ride downhill. Some entrants have wrapped their gear in fancy REI stowage; others merely tote big, blue IKEA bags with the handles knotted together. O’Neill’s kit hides in a black duffel. Her camp stove, like everyone else’s, rests atop the snow, ready to be lit in order to show that she can boil water in the cold—required before she can start moving her legs. Unlike road races and traditional ultras, this event requires all runners to demonstrate not just that they’re able to last a long time, but also that they have survival skills to fall back on. When the official says, “GO!” to signal the start, O’Neill’s cooker engulfs itself in a ball of flame, then settles down. A hundred feet away, two rows of primary-colored triangle flags wave from the start of the course.

Across the snowy ground, a participant named Bill Hansel has decked out his sled with Christmas lights, their blinks reflecting aggressively off the white flakes. Nearby, a spectator in an inflatable T. rex costume dances, a Cretaceous cheerleader. Hansel is a veteran ultrarunner who also organizes his own events, the Storm Trail Race Series, as a fundraiser for youth mental-health initiatives. Like O’Neill, Hansel loves what distance challenges do to his brain. “You’re alone with your thoughts a lot,” he says. “It’s my meditation.” But he also enjoys the community. “Trail runners are a very welcoming group. Everybody wants to help everybody,” he continues. Even if you’re mindfully alone for 25 miles, “you can pick up a random person” in the middle of nowhere and chitchat through ragged breaths.

Runner ­Meredith O’Neill likes being surrounded by nature. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

Hansel starts working to get his cold fuel to light.

Standing still like that, the elements start to intrude. At first it doesn’t feel so bad. Crisp! But then you breathe in sharply, and the insides of your nose flash-freeze together for a second. Frigid! Your lungs contract. Ouch! Then all of a sudden you realize that the iciness has slithered into your veins. It’s part of you now. And just as you can’t really remember exactly what it felt like to be a teenager, you can’t recall what it felt like to be warm. Maybe, you think, you never were. Maybe you’ll never be again. But the seemingly never-ending chill is temporary.

This, too, shall pass. Hansel talks in phrases like this sometimes—aphorisms interspersed with regular sentences, snippets of wisdom that are about running but really could be about anything: “There’s ups and downs, and it will get better if you keep going.” “Even if you run the same race, it’s not the same course.” “Don’t look at the big picture.”

That last one will buoy him throughout this challenge, as it has during every other ultra. He always, for instance, sets the timer on his watch for 10 minutes. When it’s up, he’ll take a drink of water. He’ll reset his watch. He’ll shift his attention to the next interval. “I have run 200 miles, 95 hours, 10 minutes at a time,” he says. He’s persisted so long that he’s hallucinated recreational vehicles (multiple times)—tales he swaps like drinking stories with other Type II enthusiasts.

This, though, is his first winter ultra, and he’s going into it with the same three big aims he always has: to finish, to have fun, to not die. He likes to play around with what he calls his superpower, which is the ability to go very slowly for a very long time. To take pleasure in how the moonlight hits the snow, to really notice his body at work, to hear only his footsteps and internal monologue, and to feel from afar the support of friends and family.

Soon, the water in his stove bubbles, and he begins moving toward his trifecta of goals. As the yellow moon rises over the trees, Hansel jogs between the flags, which lead down a snowmobile trail. He and O’Neill and the others will follow the path for the first 24 miles of the race, watching for yellow signs with blue reflective arrows to appear out of the darkness, showing the way to the only checkpoint.

More than one-quarter of the 54 people who set out on this evening will quit there.

O’Neill prepped for months to run the St. Croix trail ­ultra in frigid temperatures (Ackerman + Gruber/)

So, yeah, the St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra does claim some victims. But it’s actually one of the easier cold-weather endurance events out there. The Swifts founded it specifically for people who weren’t ready yet for the truly masochistic affairs: the Iditarod Trail Invitational 1,000, the Alaskan original and still the mother of all these races; the Tuscobia Winter Ultra, whose 160-mile route is a step toward qualifying for the Iditarod; and the Arrowhead 135, a challenge that begins at International Falls in northern Minnesota and that more than half of all starters don’t finish. (The numbers in the names refer, of course, to distance in miles.)

The Swifts want to give anyone interested in trying a winter ultra a safe place to practice something “short”—especially considering that even out here, in a straightforward test, it’s not very hard to die simply by standing still for too long. That’s why the runners have to show off their survival skills: so that someday, if they do have to set up a subzero camp, they’ll be ready.

Kapsner-Swift gets that. She does similar races herself. Last year she completed her first 24-hour run. “It was terrible,” she says, “and I loved it so much.” Her statement echoes the dichotomy articulated by another St. Croix participant, Adam Warden: “You want something that’s going to suck,” he says. “And be beautiful.”

For Kapsner-Swift and Warden, and for most ultrarunners, getting through the gut-wrenching parts is a game, like a tough chess match. “Not to get all existential,” Kapsner-Swift says, “but we have this incredible privilege of having, generally speaking, very comfortable lives.” That’s great—most of the time. But challenge is good for human beings. It’s how we grow. “Sometimes a little fear and self-doubt go a long way,” another participant, Kari Gibbons, explains. “I don’t feel that anywhere else in my life. That means I’m not pushing myself. I’m not taking a risk. If I do feel that, I know I’m doing something important.”

If life doesn’t give you lemons, in other words, you should probably pluck a few and bite down. Then, when you actually do get lemons, you’ll know what to do with them. That shift—from athletic challenge to regular existence—may be easy for ultrarunners, according to a 2014 dissertation from organizational psychologist Anthony Holly, now a director of strategy and analytics at PRO Unlimited, a workforce management company. He wanted to understand how these athletes’ mental toughness plays out in the workplace. By interviewing runners, he projected that the discipline, patience, and tenacity they use to complete races are skills they could transfer to job environments. It sounds a little Hallmarkian to say, “Because I could plod more miles, I knew I could handle the frustrations of office politics and rough deadlines.” But it seems to work. The St. Croix athletes have found that the extremes help them cope with personal and professional troubles.

St. Croix athletes pull sleds with emergency supplies. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

To understand why people initially decide to go to such lengths, Rhonna Krouse-Adams, an associate professor of health science at the College of Western Idaho, studied endurance athletes. After she failed to find any data on women ultrarunners, she decided to focus her research on them. She herself was one, and had become fascinated by the community and camaraderie among these women, who technically are competitors and mostly fly solo. “They’re noncompetitive people who form almost a family unit through this process,” she thought.

Surveying 344 participants, Krouse-Adams found they cared about health and used running to give themselves a sense of well-being. They focused on self-centric goals, like just finishing the race, rather than outward-facing ones, like besting a competitor. “The sense of freedom and accomplishment” topped the “why” list. “A sense of belonging was really high,” she says. It’s a whole identity—not just a hobby. According to a 2018 study, finishers are more motivated by their group affiliation and a feeling of happiness and fulfillment than those who complete shorter distances.

This is a self-selecting bunch, though, Krouse-Adams points out. “You can’t commit to something for 25 hours a week and have a lot of other commitments,” she says. “This was not a sport chosen by families. Not by moms.” Perhaps not surprisingly, other researchers have found that ultrarunners in the United States are around 85 percent male, 90 percent white, and more educated and richer than average. It’s a pursuit often taken up by those with lots of leisure time and money to spend on the $100-plus entry fees.

Life circumstances aside, not everyone is mentally suited to endurance events. Gavin Breslin, a sports and exercise psychologist at Ulster University, sees a focus on self-challenge. “The marathon is achievable,” says Breslin, who also coaches a team of Olympic hopefuls. Ultrarunners ask, “‘What can you do above that?' There’s risk-taking involved.” The uncertainty is that you might not be able to do what you set out to do. The fist-pumping triumph is when you do it anyway. As O’Neill puts it, “That was liberating, to know that when I thought things were over and done, I had a little more.”

Breslin and his associates have also looked at how distance athletes score on a personality test of five major traits, sometimes called the Big Five, which in concert can define character: extroversion, agreeableness, openness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. Ultrarunners tend to score significantly higher than average for that last trait, thanks to some mysterious mix of genetics and upbringing. You can cultivate this quality, he says. “You can develop goal setting. Somewhere within us all, there’s a level of ultraendurance.”

At the 24-mile checkpoint, some of the St. Croix participants might be questioning Breslin’s assessment. The ones who decide to bow out join volunteers inside a billowing warming tent that looks like it was fashioned from the inflatable T. rex at the starting point. Other crew members stand slump-shouldered around a fire, waiting for each bedraggled, frigid racer to emerge from the darkness.

The first athlete arrives around 10 p.m., but the last runner doesn’t get there until around 2:30 a.m. If they plan to take on the last 16 miles, they have to again prove they have the skills to stay alive in an emergency. They must stop, set up their bivy sack (basically a body-shaped tent that envelops their sleeping bag), climb into the makeshift bed, wait around 30 seconds, then pack it all up before leaving. That sounds like a pain, sure. But no big deal compared to running 40 miles, right?

Counterclockwise from top: foam pad, sleeping bag and bivy sack, water bottle sleeves, camp pot and stove, fuel (red canister), snacks, trekking poles, microspikes. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

Wrong: When the temp nears zero, and you’re sweaty, you get cold quick—the kind of chill that seems to attach itself to your DNA. Some who feel too frosty after their survival demo, or just beaten, call it quits and either walk a mile (as the crow flies) on a road back to the finish line or catch a ride in a volunteer’s car.

Around 3 a.m., back at the starting point, the race crew begins making breakfast in the shelter for the people who’ve returned, either humbled from the checkpoint or triumphant from the trail. There are flaky eggs, bacon, Krusteaz pancakes, bags of Colby Jack cheese, and Activia probiotic yogurt. Also a big orange cooler with a piece of paper taped to its side: “TANG!” On the registration table, not-yet-cooked bacon languishes—which is fine, because it’s still too cold inside for bacteria to propagate.

Hansel comes in around 4 a.m., shaken. Shaky, actually. His lips are blue like Frost Glacier Freeze Gatorade, and his fork wobbles as he brings eggs up to them, or tries to cut into the pancakes.

“I had dark times starting after about five miles,” Hansel says. He didn’t really see anyone else—at all—till the checkpoint. “I’m used to dark times,” he continues, “but not that early.”

To keep going, he says he thought of his family and all of the people who support him. Would he do it again? No. “Was it fun?” Hansel asks aloud. “Yes,” he answers himself. Perhaps that’s Type 2.5 Fun. (Within a couple months, though, he would be training for next year’s St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra.)

When O’Neill comes in around two hours later, after more than 12 hours on the trail, she looks jubilant. She caught that heightened state of being she’s always chasing through the woods—what psychologists call “flow,” or total absorption in a task. You lose track of time, you feel totally in control, like you are in charge of yourself and the world. “I’m not thinking of anything but what I’m doing, my footsteps, what’s around me,” she says.

She removes her coat, revealing a pale blue argyle sweater, the kind you might wear to the office, and a down running skirt over her bright blue snow pants. The race appears to have barely fazed her. She says, in fact, that it was “90 percent Type I fun.” Her only trouble was that all her food froze—except for a stash of Twinkies. But no big deal: She just ate Twinkies, fully present to sense their spongy outsides, their gooey centers, their sugar flowing into her veins. Crisis averted. Achievement unlocked. Game won, and over.

This story appeared in the Summer 2020, Play issue of Popular Science.

[scootoaster]

These ultramarathoners say life is easier after running 40 miles on frozen backwoods trails

‘I could do this all night,’ O’Neill thought. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

It is 10°F outside of the wood-beamed shelter at St. Croix State Park, a 34,000-acre pine-and-oak expanse in eastern Minnesota. Hell, it’s cold inside, despite two fireplaces blazing, their smoke pulled into flared metal chimneys that resemble the business ends of rockets. The 54 athletes standing around keep their hats on, for the most part. Each has spent good money to embark on exactly the kind of endeavor most people would pay to avoid: running or skiing—whichever suits their fancy—for 40 miles. At night. In Minnesota. In January. While pulling a sled packed with 30-plus pounds of supplies.

This torturefest is called the St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra, and its participants find pleasure in the hardship. At 4:30 p.m. they jiggle their legs and apply insulating tape to their cheeks and noses while the organizers give a prerace pep talk.

Of sorts.

“No one died last year,” says Jamison Swift, deadpanning. “Let’s keep it going.”

He soon passes the stage to Lisa Kapsner-Swift, his co-organizer and wife, who talks about what the racers can do if they feel like they’re coming down with the winter-ultra baddies: trench foot, frostbite, hypothermia.

The advice washes over Meredith O’Neill, who wears glasses and bright blue snow pants; two Heidi braids hang down her shoulders. She’s prepared for months, training to be alone, cold, and tired for what might feel like forever as she runs across an Upper Midwest oak savanna, passes through stands of pines, and treks across acres of trees felled by a storm. She’ll go and go and go until she returns, finally, hopefully, to this same building sometime tomorrow.

It’s fun. Not the normal, easy kind that comes with games of horseshoes or beach volleyball. Wilderness-seeking enthusiasts often call that “Type I Fun.” Instead, this is the more complicated variety, “Type II Fun,” which basically encompasses an activity—like backpacking up a steep mountain or scaling a sheer rock face—that suuuuuucks when you’re doing it but seems cool in retrospect. (Their categorization system also includes “Type III” activity, which is never actual fun and puts your life in danger.)

Type II recreation appeals to a variety of nature-loving folks, including a growing community of runners called ultramarathoners—those who think the traditional 26.2-mile course isn’t a big-enough test of physical endurance and mental fortitude. Their events mostly take place on remote trails, rather than on big-city streets with live bands and aid stations stocked like curbside Trader Joe’s. There were just over 100,000 finishes in ultraraces around the world in 2018, compared to 1.1 million for marathons. The extreme feats have to cover at least 31 miles (50 kilometers) and sometimes include extra challenges, like St. Croix’s sleds and snow. For tonight’s contest, participants must bring along, among other things, insulated water containers, gear for sleeping in the elements, a stove kit, and enough food to finish the course with 3,000 calories to spare.

The St. Croix winter ultramarathon covers 40 miles—from dusk till done—and draws athletes considering longer events. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

Sports psychologists have investigated the why of races like this one, looking closely at people who think that “more than a marathon” sounds like a terrific Saturday. What they’ve found is that ultrarunners get a kick out of tackling self-imposed challenges, forming community while also pursuing solitude, exploring the wilderness as well as their own limits, and then applying the idea that they can nudge their own boundaries to their tamer everyday lives.

If you ask athletes like O’Neill why they push themselves to and through mile 37 toward the finish line, their anecdata matches scientists’ findings pretty well. “In road marathons, there’s a lot of people, and I’m more introverted,” she says. “I wanted something a little quieter, more nature-filled.”

After her first ultra, a 31-miler outside of Minneapolis, O’Neill knew this was the sport for her. It wasn’t about fast finish times or jostling with other competitors. Participants like her go slower, mostly alone, through pretty places. She liked that. “I could do this for eight hours,” she thought. “I could do this for 12 hours; I could do this all night.”

O’Neill realized she could continue beyond where her biology told her to stop. That it was thrilling to go past her usual boundaries. “Your brain is holding you back a little bit to protect you,” she says. “But that’s sort of a wiggly, wobbly line that you can push further.”

It’s an idea exercise scientist Tim Noakes first suggested in the 1990s and dubbed the “central governor” theory: Your brain sends a signal to the rest of your body, informing the muscles that they’re too tired to possibly go on, and that if they do, they might damage themselves. But that signal comes long before it needs to, when the body still has tons of energy left.

Finding out how much literal and figurative fuel she has propels O’Neill into the now-single-digit Minnesota night—that, and seeking the kind of peace physical exertion provides. “It’s one of the few times I don’t really think about anything other than how far I’ve gone and how far I have to go and whether I feel okay,” she says. “I’m very present. I like it. I like having that calm.”

At 5:55 p.m., when it’s just below 10°F, O’Neill stands in full moonlight next to her sled, which is about the size of a Flexible Flyer a kid would ride downhill. Some entrants have wrapped their gear in fancy REI stowage; others merely tote big, blue IKEA bags with the handles knotted together. O’Neill’s kit hides in a black duffel. Her camp stove, like everyone else’s, rests atop the snow, ready to be lit in order to show that she can boil water in the cold—required before she can start moving her legs. Unlike road races and traditional ultras, this event requires all runners to demonstrate not just that they’re able to last a long time, but also that they have survival skills to fall back on. When the official says, “GO!” to signal the start, O’Neill’s cooker engulfs itself in a ball of flame, then settles down. A hundred feet away, two rows of primary-colored triangle flags wave from the start of the course.

Across the snowy ground, a participant named Bill Hansel has decked out his sled with Christmas lights, their blinks reflecting aggressively off the white flakes. Nearby, a spectator in an inflatable T. rex costume dances, a Cretaceous cheerleader. Hansel is a veteran ultrarunner who also organizes his own events, the Storm Trail Race Series, as a fundraiser for youth mental-health initiatives. Like O’Neill, Hansel loves what distance challenges do to his brain. “You’re alone with your thoughts a lot,” he says. “It’s my meditation.” But he also enjoys the community. “Trail runners are a very welcoming group. Everybody wants to help everybody,” he continues. Even if you’re mindfully alone for 25 miles, “you can pick up a random person” in the middle of nowhere and chitchat through ragged breaths.

Runner ­Meredith O’Neill likes being surrounded by nature. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

Hansel starts working to get his cold fuel to light.

Standing still like that, the elements start to intrude. At first it doesn’t feel so bad. Crisp! But then you breathe in sharply, and the insides of your nose flash-freeze together for a second. Frigid! Your lungs contract. Ouch! Then all of a sudden you realize that the iciness has slithered into your veins. It’s part of you now. And just as you can’t really remember exactly what it felt like to be a teenager, you can’t recall what it felt like to be warm. Maybe, you think, you never were. Maybe you’ll never be again. But the seemingly never-ending chill is temporary.

This, too, shall pass. Hansel talks in phrases like this sometimes—aphorisms interspersed with regular sentences, snippets of wisdom that are about running but really could be about anything: “There’s ups and downs, and it will get better if you keep going.” “Even if you run the same race, it’s not the same course.” “Don’t look at the big picture.”

That last one will buoy him throughout this challenge, as it has during every other ultra. He always, for instance, sets the timer on his watch for 10 minutes. When it’s up, he’ll take a drink of water. He’ll reset his watch. He’ll shift his attention to the next interval. “I have run 200 miles, 95 hours, 10 minutes at a time,” he says. He’s persisted so long that he’s hallucinated recreational vehicles (multiple times)—tales he swaps like drinking stories with other Type II enthusiasts.

This, though, is his first winter ultra, and he’s going into it with the same three big aims he always has: to finish, to have fun, to not die. He likes to play around with what he calls his superpower, which is the ability to go very slowly for a very long time. To take pleasure in how the moonlight hits the snow, to really notice his body at work, to hear only his footsteps and internal monologue, and to feel from afar the support of friends and family.

Soon, the water in his stove bubbles, and he begins moving toward his trifecta of goals. As the yellow moon rises over the trees, Hansel jogs between the flags, which lead down a snowmobile trail. He and O’Neill and the others will follow the path for the first 24 miles of the race, watching for yellow signs with blue reflective arrows to appear out of the darkness, showing the way to the only checkpoint.

More than one-quarter of the 54 people who set out on this evening will quit there.

O’Neill prepped for months to run the St. Croix trail ­ultra in frigid temperatures (Ackerman + Gruber/)

So, yeah, the St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra does claim some victims. But it’s actually one of the easier cold-weather endurance events out there. The Swifts founded it specifically for people who weren’t ready yet for the truly masochistic affairs: the Iditarod Trail Invitational 1,000, the Alaskan original and still the mother of all these races; the Tuscobia Winter Ultra, whose 160-mile route is a step toward qualifying for the Iditarod; and the Arrowhead 135, a challenge that begins at International Falls in northern Minnesota and that more than half of all starters don’t finish. (The numbers in the names refer, of course, to distance in miles.)

The Swifts want to give anyone interested in trying a winter ultra a safe place to practice something “short”—especially considering that even out here, in a straightforward test, it’s not very hard to die simply by standing still for too long. That’s why the runners have to show off their survival skills: so that someday, if they do have to set up a subzero camp, they’ll be ready.

Kapsner-Swift gets that. She does similar races herself. Last year she completed her first 24-hour run. “It was terrible,” she says, “and I loved it so much.” Her statement echoes the dichotomy articulated by another St. Croix participant, Adam Warden: “You want something that’s going to suck,” he says. “And be beautiful.”

For Kapsner-Swift and Warden, and for most ultrarunners, getting through the gut-wrenching parts is a game, like a tough chess match. “Not to get all existential,” Kapsner-Swift says, “but we have this incredible privilege of having, generally speaking, very comfortable lives.” That’s great—most of the time. But challenge is good for human beings. It’s how we grow. “Sometimes a little fear and self-doubt go a long way,” another participant, Kari Gibbons, explains. “I don’t feel that anywhere else in my life. That means I’m not pushing myself. I’m not taking a risk. If I do feel that, I know I’m doing something important.”

If life doesn’t give you lemons, in other words, you should probably pluck a few and bite down. Then, when you actually do get lemons, you’ll know what to do with them. That shift—from athletic challenge to regular existence—may be easy for ultrarunners, according to a 2014 dissertation from organizational psychologist Anthony Holly, now a director of strategy and analytics at PRO Unlimited, a workforce management company. He wanted to understand how these athletes’ mental toughness plays out in the workplace. By interviewing runners, he projected that the discipline, patience, and tenacity they use to complete races are skills they could transfer to job environments. It sounds a little Hallmarkian to say, “Because I could plod more miles, I knew I could handle the frustrations of office politics and rough deadlines.” But it seems to work. The St. Croix athletes have found that the extremes help them cope with personal and professional troubles.

St. Croix athletes pull sleds with emergency supplies. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

To understand why people initially decide to go to such lengths, Rhonna Krouse-Adams, an associate professor of health science at the College of Western Idaho, studied endurance athletes. After she failed to find any data on women ultrarunners, she decided to focus her research on them. She herself was one, and had become fascinated by the community and camaraderie among these women, who technically are competitors and mostly fly solo. “They’re noncompetitive people who form almost a family unit through this process,” she thought.

Surveying 344 participants, Krouse-Adams found they cared about health and used running to give themselves a sense of well-being. They focused on self-centric goals, like just finishing the race, rather than outward-facing ones, like besting a competitor. “The sense of freedom and accomplishment” topped the “why” list. “A sense of belonging was really high,” she says. It’s a whole identity—not just a hobby. According to a 2018 study, finishers are more motivated by their group affiliation and a feeling of happiness and fulfillment than those who complete shorter distances.

This is a self-selecting bunch, though, Krouse-Adams points out. “You can’t commit to something for 25 hours a week and have a lot of other commitments,” she says. “This was not a sport chosen by families. Not by moms.” Perhaps not surprisingly, other researchers have found that ultrarunners in the United States are around 85 percent male, 90 percent white, and more educated and richer than average. It’s a pursuit often taken up by those with lots of leisure time and money to spend on the $100-plus entry fees.

Life circumstances aside, not everyone is mentally suited to endurance events. Gavin Breslin, a sports and exercise psychologist at Ulster University, sees a focus on self-challenge. “The marathon is achievable,” says Breslin, who also coaches a team of Olympic hopefuls. Ultrarunners ask, “‘What can you do above that?' There’s risk-taking involved.” The uncertainty is that you might not be able to do what you set out to do. The fist-pumping triumph is when you do it anyway. As O’Neill puts it, “That was liberating, to know that when I thought things were over and done, I had a little more.”

Breslin and his associates have also looked at how distance athletes score on a personality test of five major traits, sometimes called the Big Five, which in concert can define character: extroversion, agreeableness, openness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. Ultrarunners tend to score significantly higher than average for that last trait, thanks to some mysterious mix of genetics and upbringing. You can cultivate this quality, he says. “You can develop goal setting. Somewhere within us all, there’s a level of ultraendurance.”

At the 24-mile checkpoint, some of the St. Croix participants might be questioning Breslin’s assessment. The ones who decide to bow out join volunteers inside a billowing warming tent that looks like it was fashioned from the inflatable T. rex at the starting point. Other crew members stand slump-shouldered around a fire, waiting for each bedraggled, frigid racer to emerge from the darkness.

The first athlete arrives around 10 p.m., but the last runner doesn’t get there until around 2:30 a.m. If they plan to take on the last 16 miles, they have to again prove they have the skills to stay alive in an emergency. They must stop, set up their bivy sack (basically a body-shaped tent that envelops their sleeping bag), climb into the makeshift bed, wait around 30 seconds, then pack it all up before leaving. That sounds like a pain, sure. But no big deal compared to running 40 miles, right?

Counterclockwise from top: foam pad, sleeping bag and bivy sack, water bottle sleeves, camp pot and stove, fuel (red canister), snacks, trekking poles, microspikes. (Ackerman + Gruber/)

Wrong: When the temp nears zero, and you’re sweaty, you get cold quick—the kind of chill that seems to attach itself to your DNA. Some who feel too frosty after their survival demo, or just beaten, call it quits and either walk a mile (as the crow flies) on a road back to the finish line or catch a ride in a volunteer’s car.

Around 3 a.m., back at the starting point, the race crew begins making breakfast in the shelter for the people who’ve returned, either humbled from the checkpoint or triumphant from the trail. There are flaky eggs, bacon, Krusteaz pancakes, bags of Colby Jack cheese, and Activia probiotic yogurt. Also a big orange cooler with a piece of paper taped to its side: “TANG!” On the registration table, not-yet-cooked bacon languishes—which is fine, because it’s still too cold inside for bacteria to propagate.

Hansel comes in around 4 a.m., shaken. Shaky, actually. His lips are blue like Frost Glacier Freeze Gatorade, and his fork wobbles as he brings eggs up to them, or tries to cut into the pancakes.

“I had dark times starting after about five miles,” Hansel says. He didn’t really see anyone else—at all—till the checkpoint. “I’m used to dark times,” he continues, “but not that early.”

To keep going, he says he thought of his family and all of the people who support him. Would he do it again? No. “Was it fun?” Hansel asks aloud. “Yes,” he answers himself. Perhaps that’s Type 2.5 Fun. (Within a couple months, though, he would be training for next year’s St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra.)

When O’Neill comes in around two hours later, after more than 12 hours on the trail, she looks jubilant. She caught that heightened state of being she’s always chasing through the woods—what psychologists call “flow,” or total absorption in a task. You lose track of time, you feel totally in control, like you are in charge of yourself and the world. “I’m not thinking of anything but what I’m doing, my footsteps, what’s around me,” she says.

She removes her coat, revealing a pale blue argyle sweater, the kind you might wear to the office, and a down running skirt over her bright blue snow pants. The race appears to have barely fazed her. She says, in fact, that it was “90 percent Type I fun.” Her only trouble was that all her food froze—except for a stash of Twinkies. But no big deal: She just ate Twinkies, fully present to sense their spongy outsides, their gooey centers, their sugar flowing into her veins. Crisis averted. Achievement unlocked. Game won, and over.

This story appeared in the Summer 2020, Play issue of Popular Science.

[maddblackgemini]

Transparent

Today I want to be transparent. 

I don’t have it all together.  Although to many it may seem like I have it all together, and I’m this strong survivalist, who can overcome problems at will, I am neither strong or surviving.  I am drowning. I am overwhelmed.  I am empty. I am dead inside. 

Before I had my daughter, my husband and I were having issues. For me, he wasn’t meeting my expectations of a husband in all ways.  He was shut off emotionally, he didn’t communicate well, and we didn’t connect all the way around. I had uttered the words that I didn’t think we would make it.  Our relationship would not survive. Our relationship was too broken to repair, as it was already founded on shaky and broken ground. As I told him these things, he implored that he wanted things to work out. I don’t know if it was because he was scared of being alone or failing... but he didn’t want to give up. I did though. However, after he dramatically implored that we should continue to fight for our relationship, I agreed with his conditions of trying and stepping up in the areas that were subpar. A part of me did not want to have another broken and failed marriage. I vowed to myself never to put myself into that position... and here I was, struggling to breathe in this relationship of ours. On top of this weight, I was already experiencing repeat miscarriages. The strain of the failed pregnancies pretty much broke me down. I wanted to give up... and I did. I told him I wanted to stop trying to conceive. I was finished. The stress of all of this was just too much. 

After we “mentally stopped” trying to conceive, we found out that we in fact had conceived in June 2018. However, the start of the pregnancy was scary, and I ended up in the ER early into the pregnancy.  My doctor didn’t think it was viable, and on top of all that, me and him just weren’t 100%. However, I didn’t want to lose another baby, so I prayed for this child to sustain life. The pregnancy itself was stressful. I didn’t think I could fully enjoy being pregnant because there was just so much going wrong with the baby. I couldn’t be joyful. I was always worried. I didn’t celebrate life. I just celebrated every day that she was there and alive. Thriving. Although she continued to thrive and defeat all odds against her, yet I still was worried about the entire journey. I didn’t chronicle her life like I did with my oldest because somehow I didn’t want to be disappointed if the worse happened. However, she made it, and is here, thriving everyday and living life. 

During the pregnancy, my husband was “there.” Before we got pregnant, he vowed to be there for every appointment. He showed up 3-4 times out of 9 months. I wanted him to be more interested and involved in my well-being rather than the baby’s. I wanted to be held, and coddled, and treated like the mother I was, but sadly, I was not. I wanted him to take more initiative in caring for me and my needs, but he did not. I wanted him to be more attentive, but he was not. I wanted him to be more emotionally available for me, yet he was not. Although he was physically “there,” I felt like he wasn’t really “there” for my needs. 

Currently I feel disconnected from him. Permanently cut off. I don’t know if those feelings can be resurrected.  For his sake, I hope they do, but sadly, I just don’t see it happening.  Our relationship has not been good for a long time. Too long actually. To the point where I’m starting to think maybe this was a mistake. Maybe I rushed into this... even though it took us 3 years to get to the altar, it still may have been rushed. I didn’t know the complete truth about him and what was going on in his life the entire time we dated long distance.  When I moved here is when I actually saw the truth for myself. Three years of lies... to be confronted with the truth, after risking everything to just be here with him. I got my oldest daughter taken away from me because I moved here. Then to find out he was lying about things the whole time... it just gutted me. Although I feel like I’ve been able to forgive him, I still can’t forget how that made me feel. How it makes me feel now. How it has shaped our emotions towards one another. How it has shaped my emotions towards him and the health of our relationship. 

To be honest, I don’t think I’ve been able to really trust him since learning the whole truth. I felt deceived. Betrayed. Taken advantage of and manipulated. I’ve tried to put it past me all these years, but they continue to dreg up “what ifs” in my mind. I had recently asked him what made him want to get married, and he said “I didn’t want to keep doing the single thing.” Maybe I’m being petty, but for me, that’s not a reason to get married.  That’s a reason to be in a serious monogamous relationship, but not necessarily get married. To be married I feel you should be in love with that person, you shouldn’t see yourself with anyone else, and that this person is the heartbeat of your life. You would be willing to do whatever it took to keep them forever, and to do any and everything to maintain your happiness with them. You should encourage them to reach for the stars, to challenge them mentally, to be their support, to help them through bad times, and to be their cheerleader when they need it.  You should also be there to amp them up and be their hype man when they doubt themselves. You should want to be the best communicator, love maker, and role model for your potential offspring. You should want to be their hero. The one who stands up for them when no one else does. Their better half. The one they can always call on. The one they go to for everything. Not just because you are their default... but because you have proven to them you can be their everything. 

I feel like I’m the default. I don’t feel special. I don’t “feel” loved, although I know he loves me... but the actions that should support this aren’t there. As the man in the relationship, especially a Christian relationship, he’s supposed to be in charge. The one who controls the tempo of the relationship. The one who sets the standard for all things. Where is that with him? He looks to me for all of that... and I have nothing to give, as it’s not my responsibility.  God comes to the man to ask an account for how he has governed his family. How he has loved his wife like the church (sacrificed his life for hers). How he has raised his children.  The woman/wife is not going to be held accountable for these things, he is... yet, he feels like I have some responsibility in this. That I’m supposed to do the same as he... when I shouldn’t. I am a help mate. He is in charge. Yet, I feel like I’m out in front... and I’m badly damaged and unable to uphold all of the corners. I’m burnt out. I’m touched out. I’m tired. I’m empty. I have given everything I have in me to keep it together, and I am no longer able to. I’m fraying at the sides. I’m losing my sanity. I do not want to keep this up. I can’t. It’s not for me to keep up... but yet, I’m here playing these roles I’m not meant to play. I am not sure how long I can keep holding on. 

For me, getting married was something I took seriously. I was okay with just being single. I didn’t feel the need to not be single. I actually loved being alone and being by myself. Not having a male love interest was never a fear for me. I thrived in solitude. However, whenever I felt the need to want to share my life, I always had someone. People gravitated towards me like a magnet. I was never without. Getting married, for me, was not to escape singleness. It was to build something with someone else. To share my life with someone else who had similar goals. Who loved me as hard as I loved them. Who wanted the same things out of life. Who pushed me to be better. Who made me become a better person. Who shared their whole life with me as much as I shared mine. Who loved me with everything they had, so that I could love them just as hard. The bible says, the man is required to love his wife. The wife is not required to love her husband... only to respect him. So the back and forth I have with my husband about being loved is a command that God instructs HIM to do, not me. Yet, he wants me to do those things as well, which are not my God-given intentions. So when I get burnt out and emotionally drained, it’s because I’m doing things I’m really not supposed to be doing anyways. When I tell you I’m tired of fighting to be loved the right way, I tell you... I’m TIRED.  

So tired, in fact, I would rather coparent than be married. That’s just being transparent. 

[cloudfather]

Marijuana Conspiracy

SHOULD anyone still believe that the use of marijuana is spreading because of the Mafia conspiracy or a Communist plot to sap the will of our youth, let me tell of a 40‐year‐old who tried it for the first time this summer. He is a major figure in the advertising world; but despite that fact, he seldom drinks liquor and never smokes cigarettes.

What led him to pot? His 14‐year‐old daughter gave him three miserably rolled joints for a Father’s Day present. He smoked only one of them in my presence and had to be taught by the others in his room how to inhale. The thing burned like a small bonfire (no one had told him to lick the cigarette before lighting it), making little explosions (un cleaned marijuana contains seeds that sometimes go “pop” when fire hits them) as the gentleman struggled to “swallow” the smoke. He nearly choked. I doubt that he’ll ever go near it again.

But he has now become part of the most rapidly growing estimated statistic officially issued by the United States Government. Last October, a Na tional Institute of Mental Health pamphlet made the “conservative estimate” that about 5 million juveniles and adults had used marijuana at least once. Five months later, in March, another N.I.M.H. pamphlet said that “more than 8 million people have used the drug.” Then, a month later, the N.I.M.H. reported to Congress that the number “conservatively was between 8 million and 12 mil lion.” In June, Dr. Stanley F. Yolles, then director of N.LM.H., used the figure 20 million. A standard projection curve suggests that by now one could easily find someone at N.I.M.H. willing to go for 25 or even 30.

OBVIOUSLY, the N.I.M.H. figures rely on some wild guesswork, but no one at all awake through out the last decade can doubt the direction in which they point. We Americans are using a lot more marijuana than we used to, and we will be using a lot more than that. It is now the very rare college student who has never tried the drug.

In New York and the outlying areas where day time New Yorkers go to sleep, high‐school students complain that they must either smoke or learn to enjoy solitude. A ninth‐grader in Scarsdale High School estimates that 50 per cent of her friends have tried marijuana and says that not infre quently it is smoked in the school (“like during fire drill, when we’re jammed into the vestibule between the cafeteria and the outside door”). She knows of seventh‐graders in Scarsdale who are smoking; children in New York private schools are aware of its use in sixth grade. Juvenile‐delin quency cases involving possession of marijuana get into the papers under datelines from Los Angeles to Hyannis Port.

This progression of marijuana down the age scale is extremely disturbing, and properly so, to adults. Marijuana, psychiatrists inform us, is a euphoriant and can be used as a rigid defense against the problems of growing up. It is unques tionable that a certain number of children have seriously damaged their personal development by habitually turning off their problems through drugs and never learning to solve them. Thirteen‐year‐olds who turn on at recess probably do them selves no more harm than 13‐year‐olds who get drunk at recess, but psychiatrists tend to find the prospects for both quite dismal.

In conjunction with that worrisome use of mari juana by younger and younger children, however, is its use by older and older adults. Marijuana long ago bridged the generation gap and has since been streaming across like the First Army at Remagen.

Undoubtedly, the most important reason for the sudden outbreak of marijuana use in the adult working world is that young people have grown older. The pot‐smoking art student of 1965 is the pot‐smoking art director of 1970. The pot‐smoking coed of last year is today’s pot‐smoking “assistant buyer of better dresses.” And Seventh Avenue is adjusting to her.

As she explains, “You go into a showroom, and there’s a straight set of salesmen for the old ladies, and they offer the old ladies a drink, but there are also hip salesmen, guys with real long hair and groovy clothes; and they just take you in the back and turn you on. In some of the houses the design ers, the models, everybody is spaced out of his mind. And sometimes they lay dope on you. They’re very cool about it. They come over while you’ve got your book out and you’re writing orders, and they say, ‘What do you do for kicks? Do you get high? I’ve got some very interesting stuff here,’ and they give you an ounce.”

A lot more marijuana‐smoking among adults can be explained as experimental in nature. As the father of three teen‐age girls recently told me, “I’ve now tried pot twice, just to see what the girls are up to. I wanted reassurance that it wouldn’t kill them.”

ONE would have to be a man of very little curiosity not to wonder what the mari juana experience is like. Enough authorities have now indicated that the drug does no apparent harm that the risk in trying it seems to many to be solely a legal one, and people do seem willing to risk the law’s wrath on this issue. A Nobel laureate re cently asked psychiatrist Lester Grinspoon, an advo cate of legalized marijuana sales, whether he could pro vide him with a few joints. Needless to say, Dr. Grin spoon couldn’t and didn’t; but the intellectual level of his petitioner was no surprise to him. He lists among the more enthusiastic older smokers in the Boston area “social scien tists and academic people, astronomers and physicists.”

But no single explanation such as “curiosity” covers the thousands of adults who five or six years ago feared and shunned marijuana but use it today. I’ve recently met en gineers, Wall Street brokers (one of whom, three years ago, threw his best friends out of his home for offering his wife a marijuana cigarette —the break between the two families has never been re paired) and film editors, all of whom were in their 30’s before trying the drug, but who now would rate them selves as regular users. One film editor uses it in place of all other possible drugs. It is his first cigarette of the morning, his coffee break, his martini, his sleeping pill. He nevertheless manages to function.

Statistics don’t exist on this matter, but it is this observ er’s impression that in New York marijuana is being used most widely by adults in the arts and the commercial arts, in the teaching profes sion (where it is argued that one could not conceivably understand the students if one did not grasp their highs), and in the “helping” profes sions. Four members of the New York Psychoanalytic So ciety recently agreed on the estimate that 95 per cent of their colleagues in their own age group (between 35 and 45) had experimented with marijuana and that many continued to use it from time to time. Moreover, to the best of their knowledge, all the psychiatrists under the age of 35 whom they personally knew, and certainly all of their own psychiatric resi dents, smoked pot regular ly, many of them daily Knowl edgeable Bostonians suggest that their psychoanalytic com munity is equally turned on.

The smoking of marijuana, in other words, can no longer be interpreted as a sign of alienation. Great numbers of pot smokers are very nicely adjusted to our society. They make love; they make money; and for that matter, reports from Vietnam indicate, they make war. (A study in Febru ary showed that one out of five front‐line soldiers smoked marijuana every day.)

THIS wide use of marijuana is plainly a new phenomenon, at least in the middle‐class East Coast culture. (On this sort of fad—if that is what it is—we generally tend to be two or three years behind California, two or three years ahead of Kansas.) It is caus ing people to ask themselves rather serious questions about their own morality and values. It is changing the nature of many social gatherings and, more important, it is affecting many social relationships, in cluding those of parent and child, husband and wife.

I have recently been talking with middle‐class adults about their own attitudes toward marijuana. I wanted to know why they were using it or not using it, and what it was do ing to their lives.

Marijuana is not new to all members of the middle class. Its use by some of them in the past, however, had something to do with slum ming. Throughout most of its long history, marijuana has been a cheap pleasure of the most downtrodden poor of the poorer nations. (“In Moroc co,” said a man raised there 50 years ago, “we’d see the servants smoking hashish [a stronger form of marijuana]—they were forbidden to smoke in The house—but no one who had servants would smoke.”)

When marijuana began to enter this country from Mex ico in the nineteen‐twenties, however, young people in the Southwest found it not only cheap and abundant, but good for laughs at parties. It is not at all hard to find people with pleasant memories of using “the weed” 45 years ago in Albuquerque. It is even easier to find others reminiscing happily about smoking “tea” in Greenwich Village in the thirties outside of Bohemia, marijuana tended to be found mostly in the black slums, where a number of white middle‐class boys ran into it because of their love for jazz.

For almost everyone who smoked, decades past, it was simply a means to a good time. “We didn’t make a mys tique or a religion of it,” said a woman editor who smoked in the nineteen‐thirties. “We were left‐wing artists and writers not at all mystically oriented.”

“It was a form of naughti ness,” explains a female phy sician of her high‐school days in the Village in the early nineteen‐fifties. “I went out with a black guitar player who brought it down from Harlem. He thought it made him Segovia; I just thought it was fun to do something il legal. But you know, I was too young to drink, too, and it was just as big a thrill to go into a bar and get served Scotch.”

“Also, adults then didn’t seem to get as clutched by the idea of their kids smoking pot as they do now. When I told my father, all he said was, ‘Just stay out of auto mobiles. The driver’s timing might be off.’ That was the extent of it.”

Many marijuana smokers of 20 or more years ago gave up the drug when they “no long er had friends in the jazz world,” or “went off to col lege,” or found that they had to put any effort at all into getting it. Many marijuana smokers appear to take pride in the fact that they have never bought it. Now that marijuana has become so easily available, many smok ers of years ago have returned to it.

It certainly can’t yet be said that marijuana has been accepted by the New York middle‐aged middle class. As was the case some years ago with the young, it is general ly thought to be the more politically progressive and possibly more intellectual of their elders who are currently smoking. Recently this writer met with a group of 30 Long Island parents (by ac cident almost all liberals) to discuss the pot situation on the North Shore and found them in agreement that in their part of the world there are absolutely no right‐of center adults who use it.

Psychoanalytic evidence might back up this concept. The four analysts with whom I’ve discussed the matter de scribe those among their pa tients who are most against marijuana as “rigid‐moralis tic,” “struggling to control their own impulses,” “meno pausal churchgoing,” “the peo ple who oppose sex education in the schools,” “the same people who never talk about sex.” But being in analysis at all suggests a certain adven turousness; and one analyst said, “Almost all those I’ve seen in their 20’s and 30's—even the conservative, rigid ones—have tried both sex and pot, though they might feel a bit guilty about both. It seems to me that my adult patients use pot very much the way I do: occasion ally at a party or just for the fun of it. They don’t use it the way the kids take it, which is every day or to solve prob lems or to deal with tension.”

IT does not really make sense, however, to view the marijuana issue as simply age related, or political, or a sign of good or poor mental health. Many people who oppose mar ijuana are frightened of it for intelligent reasons. Marijuana does have powerful effects on human beings. No one knows precisely how marijuana cre ates its effects and there is no certainty that its action is harmless. There have been sci entific reports from Arab coun tries describing a form of psy chosis traced directly to the use of hashish.

Most American researchers at the moment doubt the ex istence of a syndrome specific to the use of cannabis, and it is hard to find a New York psychiatrist who believes in it. This can be frustrating to any one who is convinced he is suffering from it. A young writer, who is awaiting the publication of his first novel, recently described his symp toms to me as “feeling as if I’ve been stoned for a long time, and now I’m almost down but not quite, and I’m tired, and I have a kind of trippy feeling and a slight dizziness; and nausea keeps coming and going. This has been going on for six weeks.” He blames it on three years of daily pot‐smoking, claims to have friends who have simi larly suffered from long‐time heavy marijuana use (and they have all given up the drug as a consequence) but who have not yet been able to come up with a physician who would blame their symptoms on anything more than “an xiety.” Said the writer, “The last fellow I saw told me that once my book was out and well‐reviewed I’d be my old self again.”

ALTHOUGH doctors, for the moment might tend to feel the cannabis psychosis is mythical, they do seem to agree that the use of mari juana could very well trigger a psychotic reaction in a person whose ego is already shaky. It might, however, be the case that this problem, too, is self‐limiting. A study that Dr. Grinspoon made of 41 acute schizophrenic college age patients admitted to his research ward bore out an im pression that he’d had before “that schizophrenic and pre schizophrenic people tend to stay away from the drug. Only six of them,” says Dr. Grinspoon, “had ever used marijuana, which is remark ably few for that age group. In four of them, it was clear that the onset of the psycho sis was so removed in time from the use of the drug that (the two) wouldn’t have been related; in the last two I was unable to say one way or the other. I couldn’t implicate or exonerate the drug. It stands to reason that a drug like this might precipitate psychosis. But putting it into perspective with other things, if you get someone who is psychosis prone or is prepsychotic, any number of things might do it, such as, let’s say, an alcoholic debauch, a severe automobile accident, the loss of an im portant loved one….”

Dr. Grinspoon himself might be part of one of the more im portant influences leading adults to try marijuana for

It turns some people off. It turns some marriages off the first time. A highly au thoritative article of his in last December’s Scientific Ameri can, which surveyed world scientific literature on the sub ject of marijuana and essen tially found it less harmful than either liquor or tobacco, has been mentioned to me by at least two people as a fac tor that encouraged them to dare try the drug.

Marijuana, in other words, has been getting a much‐im proved press these last few years. Although, many people ask quite sensibly, “Why, with all the problems we have with alcohol, do we need another socially acceptable method for turning off our problems, act ing inanely, and killing our selves in automobiles?”, vir tually everyone, smoker or nonsmoker, under the age of 40 and reasonably educated with whom I’ve talked, is aware that marijuana is not a narcotic, is not addictive, does not produce hangovers and is furthermore considered, in some circles, chic.

IT became evident in talking with middle‐class adults that the main problem they see in the use of marijuana is that it is illegal. About half of the group of 30 I talked with in Long Island had tried mari juana. Some of them had chil dren too young to be interest ed, but none of them had told their children that they had used the drug.

Some felt that they would make that confession when a proper occasion arose. Many of these parents had very carefully worked‐out speeches to explain why “as adults we can smoke but you as a child cannot.” In general, they go: “There are things that physi cally and emotionally are harmful to children. When you’re mature enough, you can drink, you can drive an automobile, you can make love and you can use mari juana, but all of that can cause trouble for a 13‐year‐old.” Most people rehearsing such speeches feel that the legalization of marijuana with prohibition of its sale to minors would make their case more convincing.

Most smokers found the very concept of letting their children know that they had broken this law disturbing. In New York City, I did meet marijuana ‐smoking parents who have told their children they smoke, in hopes, one ex plained, “of making it seem less exotic,” but at the same time, I’ve met very few par ents who have actually smoked in front of young children. A comment I’ve now heard many times is, “We wouldn’t make love in front of them.” The connection between the two concepts remains elusive to me. But clearly this is a worri some question in many homes.

Although few adult smokers choose to smoke in front of their teen‐aged children, teen agers have a tendency to find out about such parental hab its anyway; and the use of marijuana by the older gener ation is not totally loved by the younger ones. A Westport commuter told me of a pro gressively reared 16‐year‐old who became infuriated on walking into her house and finding her parents and three other couples turning on. She accused them of being hypo crites, a favorite accusation by the young, and had to be reminded that her parents had never complained so loudly when she came in that way. Nevertheless the next day she announced that she was off marijuana for good. She explained, “If you and the rest of those sellouts are do ing it, there must be some thing wrong with it.” She did indeed quit; her thing is now macrobiotics.

But like it or not, the young will simply have to get used to the fact that there is no youthful monopoly on hedon ism. Like high‐school students who fear being left out, par ents, too, enjoy good parties, and in New York, these days, they frequently involve mari juana. Recently, for example, a New York editor found that he was excluded from a grass smoking dinner party because he had let slip that he’d never learned to inhale. To make up for the slight, his hostess‐to be invited him to a second dinner party with a bunch of drinkers, but he still felt that he’d missed the real fun.

He was, probably, just as well off, for as anyone who has ever attended one knows there is nothing more dismal than a pot party when you’re straight. There is no one type of pot party. Marijuana is easily titrated. As a study re ported to New York’s Mayor La Guardia in 1944, most ex perienced smokers know just how high they like to get, and when they reach that point they stop. For most adult smokers, that point is well within their own ability to snap out of the high, behave rationally and carry on a fair ly normal conversation. One can find people smoking at cocktail parties behaving like everyone else in the room.

But one characteristic of marijuana is that it turns peo ple thoughtful and frequently when it is smoked in small groups, people tend to grow quiet, listen to the music (a common adult reaction is, “I never understood rock music until I turned on”) and inves tigate their own fantasies. Such quiet gatherings can drive the nonsmoker to new extremes of boredom.

On the other hand, mari juana can make such state ments as “Please pass the mustard” seem fraught with hidden meanings of oracular import, and the struggle to decode them can break up everyone in the room. Abso lute uncontrolled hilarity is one of the great and mysteri ous pleasures of group mari juana use. At times it is al most clear what is knocking everyone out. (An event that apparently brought down the house at one party was a young lady’s forgetting that she had already eaten dinner and announcing that she was starved; at another party it was a young man’s holding up a roast chicken and remark ing that it looked like Bran cusi’s Bird in Space—every one agreed with him, then cracked up.)

In general, what it is that amuses everyone is a total mystery. No one knows what anyone else is laughing about and the attempt to explain only makes it seem funnier—if you happen to be high. The fellow who is not finds the entire situation at the emo tional level of a nursery school, and stomach‐turning. He often starts smoking out of self‐defense.

But gatherings solely for the purpose of smoking seem not to be part of the adult, regular smoker’s world. He is far more likely to use mari juana precisely the way he previously used alcohol, and there are now middle‐aged circles in which the drinking of liquor has almost disap peared. As a 40‐year‐old fin ancier told me over a glass of sparkling Perrier water, “I once had a great fondness for icy martinis. They had many good qualities. Of most im portance, they were lubrica tors of social interaction and the alimentary canal.

“Well, I can hardly remem ber the last time I saw a drink at a dinner party. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had a drink.

“You know, the homes to which I get invited aren’t that remarkable. I’d say they’re upper ‐middle ‐class, typical East Side Manhattan, South Shore folks who fear drug abuse, would shun cocaine and run from LSD, but it is a rarity in their homes that I’m not offered pot in beautifully rolled joints. I ’d say that there’s a cut‐off date in this: I don’t see pot in the home or anyone older than his early 40’s unless he’s a photogra pher or an extraordinarily wealthy unreconstructed Bo hemian.

“But it seems to me that there will be an ever‐greater tendency for hostesses of all ages to provide pot as an al ternative to cocktails as the word spreads that if people turn on before dinner, there are no bad meals.

“Last weekend my wife prepared leg of lamb, casse role of rice and mushrooms, salad and cheese. We had two other couples to dinner. The leg of lamb was huge. We ex pected it to last us through Sunday. Every bit of it went. Everything went. The brie was snapped up as if there were imminent danger of war with France. When dieting, I can not smoke before I dine.

“I think,” the marijuana smoking venture capitalist went on, “that it’s ridiculous to fear that pot leads to other things, at least not for grown ups. Most pot‐smokers, I find, are serious‐minded family peo ple, politically oriented, and they smoke pot because it is a deliciously communal thing to do and it tends to sharpen everything from movies to sex; but the idea that if this is terrific, wouldn’t cocaine be better, never occurred to them.‘’

SINCE marijuana smoking is so new to the middle class, there is still a certain amount of confusion as to how one should serve it, use it, and be have under its influence. But certain rules seem to be evolv ing.

In general, in relaxed cir cumstances, it’s traditional to pass around a single mari juana cigarette The stuff is still somewhat scarce. By pass ing it around, more smoke goes into people and less into the air. But there is something about passing around a single joint at a dinner party that resembles passing around a single glass of Scotch. Host esses are now spending after noons with their rolling ma chines making enough joints to turn on three times the number of guests expected, if they smoked economically.

The question of marijuana high conversations is an in teresting one. On first turning on, almost everyone is in need of guidance. The experience is subtle, and the novice smoker needs someone to ex plain to him what it is that he is feeling and how to ride with it rather than fight it. Paranoid reactions are com mon on first smoking. Be cause of that, old‐time smok ers tend to talk new ones through the experience. That, however, is a training process; it is not done in public, for to most adult smokers it is a bore.

In fact, in adult smoking circles it is now considered bad form to discuss (as is common among new smokers) the quality of the pot, the town in Mexico from which it came, or precisely what it is doing to one’s head. One does not ask others if they are feeling it. One does not say, “Oh, wow,” or “Dynamite!” If it leads one to a feeling of unity with the universe, one keeps it between oneself and God.

The people who today seem most excited about marijuana are those who have gone for years detesting alcohol yet envying people who seemed to enjoy it. “I’d go to parties, and hold one drink all night,” a housewife in her mid‐30’s told me. “I hated the taste of alcohol. And it made me diz zy, and it left me with a hangover. Marijuana was a godsend. It’s much milder than liquor and much pleas anter, so I carry my own. When everyone else drinks, I open my cigarette case, pull out a joint; and everyone is very impressed: ‘Barbara the swinger!’ But I just smoke enough to get a slight high. I don’t really like the super‐boo that takes the top of your head off. I just want to feel more relaxed, more in the mood for a party. I love it.”

This use of marijuana, as if it were Scotch, to get through parties, however, does not ap peal to everyone. For ex ample, says one typical long time, weekend marijuana smoker, “I can’t stand using it except with my husband and sometimes close friends. I think it’s an intimate experi ence. You see, alcohol takes you out of yourself. It makes you cloddish and indiscrimi nate. Everybody’s your bud dy. But grass gets you into yourself. It heightens what ever it is you really feel, and if you’re with someone you don’t like, or with someone who is acting phony, the grass makes you really hate them.

“Grass sharpens things. The ugly gets uglier—you can’t stand to listen to bad music or a raucous voice—but the beautiful develops subtleties. I personally never see colors at all; I couldn’t tell you the color of your eyes; but on grass all colors are amazingly vivid for me.

“And I really have touch ing, personal, mysterious ex periences on it. An example?

“Well, I was walking around the block very high with a close friend one night, and suddenly he knelt down and put his arm around a fireplug. Well, you see, I found that touching, terribly significant. I still do, but I can’t say why.”

There are people who find that marijuana causes prob lems in their marriages. As one psychologist says, “Mari juana leads you to pick up a lot of non‐verbal signals that you normally don’t notice and that’s not always good for a marriage. One of my patients has been getting along for years with a very minimal sexual life. She began to smoke pot, found that it turned her on sexually, and did nothing at all to her hus band. It became completely clear to her that he didn’t want her, she didn’t want him.”

Many pot smokers insist that the drug clearly affects their sex lives. A study made of 200 marijuana users by sociologist Eric Goode showed that 68 per cent found that marijuana increased their sex ual enjoyment and 44 per cent claimed that it increased their sexual desire. A good number of pot smokers with whom I talked insisted that it im proved their marital relations, but others claimed that it cut out sex entirely by putting them to sleep.

MARIJUANA, it may be said, is now firmly rooted in our society. It helps to produce good times for influential peo ple. Unless it should be proved that it seriously harmed ev eryone who smoked it, it is unlikely that the growth of its popularity could be halted. Even then, it is not certain that the American public would not accept it as it has accepted tobacco and alco hol.

Past attempts to stop the flow of marijuana into this country either came to very little or have proved actually harmful. Last year’s “Opera tion Intercept,” along with causing the most massive traf fic jam Mexico has ever ex perienced, did create a na tionwide marijuana “famine,” but it also led gentlemen farm ers throughout the nation to lay in crops of their own. Most American marijuana is of poor quality, but says one can nabis horticulturist, “We’ve only begun to research the matter. Consider how long it took to produce a drinkable New York State champagne.” Last summer’s marijuana fam ine had more serious conse quences as well: with the rela tively mild marijuana denied them, many young people pushed on to much stronger and more dangerous stuff.

Ours is indeed a drug culture, and marijuana is generally the second or third drug (after cigarettes and alcohol) tried in a progression that can lead to disastrous addictions and ruined lives. The middle class is for the first time becoming aware of the drug menace that has so long plagued the black ghettos, now that heroin is beginning to appear in its own colleges and high schools. Pressure must surely soon build up to redraw lines between what is acceptable and what is for bidden in our drug‐taking society. But this time, let us have the sense not to misrepresent what we are doing. As Dr. Grinspoon points out. “Kids who feel lied to about marijuana’s dangers tend to assume that they are also being lied to about LSD, and cocaine, and heroin.

https://cloudfather.tumblr.com

CloudFather

[ourwhimsicalfriendship]

Should’ve made this the first post

(The draft title was: Diagnosed)

Not a very alluring title for a first blog entry, isn’t it? Perhaps you’re wondering if I was just diagnosed with a terminal illness or something like that. But I am not. This is not that kind of story.

More often than not, a story has a clear start and finish line, with a number of ups and downs in between that made it…a story. Mine is not like that. Even if I have the freedom to choose my starting line, I don’t know which one is that. Is it the moment when I was born? Or perhaps the first moment in my life I can remember? Or maybe I should go further back to the moment when my parents met? The same lack of clarity goes for the finish line. Is it finish when I am dead? Or when I succeed in something?

I don’t know.

You know when I read a book, particularly a biography, I noticed that everyone has a certain fragment of their life that defines their life story. For instance, let’s say, Newton, with that short moment of him getting struck by an apple that gave him the brilliant insight of gravity, or Archimedes when he shouted Eureka. Well, I don’t think Archimedes had even the slightest idea when he dunks himself into the bathtub that it would be written down on history. I can give you less of science-related example but those two popped out in my head almost instantly- I always have a thing for math, something about it I found strangely soothing- but I had been hating on physics up until recently. Everything about me and physics was strictly business. There was no wonder, no curiosity, I just did it because I had to. I actually had the chance to leave physics in high school but misery has its own charm; I jumped right into a physics land and started my life as an engineering student. Anyway recently, I got the edification of realizing that physics is not mere science. It is philosophy. As if I am bewitched by the spirit of them physicist, I began to read a lot of physics lately. Hence, naming two giants in physics as an example. My point is that everyone has that kind of moment. Some, like Newton and Archimedes, might have the privilege of having mankind remembering their life story in awe and gratefulness (although I can safely say that there are students out there cursing them, at times) but other might not. The split few seconds of Mark Chapman’s life when he pulled the trigger of his gun in front of the Dakota, for example, define him as John Lennon’s murderer. Other’s fragment might be longer than just a moment, some other’s life story might not cause a ripple in history, but everyone has it.

Mine? Perhaps the fragment is already started or even happened, who knows. But I’d like to think that it hasn’t. No, I desperately wish it hasn’t.

I won’t introduce myself to you. I will devour all the benefit of anonymity. Truth to be told, I don’t even care if no one ever read this.

Roughly at the beginning of this year, I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and depression which kind of explain the choice of anonymity. It’s not that I am embarrassed about that (at least I’d like to think I am not) but rather, the thought of not having an anonymity mask would shoot my self-consciousness through the roof.

I gotta admit that I’ve never had the quality of bright, outgoing person. Even as a child, rather than running around under the sun with friends, I found comfort in reading and doing homework. School work used to be so fun for me, perhaps because I was good at studying, maybe that was when it started, I had a lot of pride in my intelligence, and it became who I was back then. I was (self-) convinced that everything good about me was my brain. Looking back, I had a huge complex about my appearance, I have this grim expression that made 9/10 people had a really bad first impression of me. That, plus being smiley is not my expertise. I remember how my classmates said,  “I never really like you, you seems snob.” and “You’re very selective about whom you choose to befriend.” which I couldn’t really understand, yet affected me so much that I subconsciously nurturing the idea that I am not a likable person- which I still believe. I never meant to be selective about whom I would befriend, it’s just that I couldn’t- cannot- approach people, moreover, I am really bad at maintaining relationships. Those, who became my long time companions, are the ones who reach for me. Like me just enough to miss me, contact me regularly. I love them, I do. But honestly, even with the closest ones, I never really able to completely confide in them. There’s this mighty wall of- I don’t know- pride, self-conscious, trust issues or whatever it is that keep me from doing so. But in terms of my love for them, I have loads and more to give. It’s just that I don’t believe they can actually understand.

I told you before that at some point, my grades became who I was back then, hence I suffered a great deal of identity crisis during my high school time. I was admitted to this ‘special class’, where it felt like I was stripped naked. I had been thinking that I was smart for the first fourteen years of my life but in that class, I was just another student. At that point, I realized that I have nothing good about me. That sudden realization changed my social behavior completely. During college, I drew the attitude of either a giver or a victim. It felt like no one would stay otherwise. I matched my liking to those around me, one day I became a heavy metal fan, another day I became a photographer wannabe, and occasionally a watercolor painter. The benefit is that I am good at a lot of things, I know a little something about everything- and the downside is that I’m not exceptionally good at anything. The thing is, being chameleon was everything but easy. I was grown tired.

What I hate about myself is the constant need to show that I am loved, accepted. Hence the show offs on the social media that left me in a grave regret everytime I walked on the memory lane of my cyber life.

I noticed that I am gradually taking a step away from practically everything. I am studying abroad since 2015, I stopped feeling the need of making friends ever since. My social life here is such a wreck and I don’t care. I don’t feel lonely despite the fact that I am alone most of the time. Solitude is charming in it’s on way, I have to tell you. In the middle of 2016, I started feeling anxious when I had to go out, it didn’t really bother me because you know, I thought I was just at the crossroad of hating and afraid of people, in general. But then the panic attacks and trouble sleeping started showing up. At first, I didn’t even know that it was a panic attack. I couldn’t breathe and my heart beats like crazy, I decided to meet my house doctor and she send me to the emergency room to get an EKG. I was kept in the hospital, received so many kinds of tests, being asked so many questions from various kind of doctor, had my blood drawn, had an IV administered, but they couldn’t find any physical cause and suggest me to meet psychiatrist instead.

Back in my home country, I don’t think that mental health is being addressed adequately. When I tried to be outspoken about how I feel or think, I’ve always labeled as an overthinker who feel everything too much (which convinced me more of the fact that people won’t understand me). Unless the symptoms are clearly visible and destructive, you don’t have any problem, or so they say. So upon knowing that I had to go see a psychiatrist, I was- to simply put-baffled and scared.

Now you see why I desperately wish that my defining fragment of life hasn’t happened already. I gave you the hints that this is going to be a kind of boring and depressing story. My life in the tunnel without visible exit. Whether there is going to be a bright light at the end of this tunnel: I don’t know. I don’t even know whether this is a tunnel at all, this can also possibly be a huge ballroom with a malfunctioning lighting system, perhaps it’s just a momentary solar eclipse. I don’t have the answer to that.

But hey, later I will introduce you to the sunlight that occasionally peeping through, leaving a trace of reassurance here and there. Instead of giving a disappointment to those who are hoping for a love story in the future, I choose to tell you now that there will be no love story developing from here on.

That was one hell of an introduction, wasn’t it? Now, I will leave you to decide whether you will stay and continue or cursing me over writing a long introduction without any moral lesson or satisfying conclusion. Either way, thank you for stopping by.

If you decide to stay, don’t curse me later because I gave you a precaution already; this is going to be one hell of a boring story.

Ladybug