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scripttorture · 4 years ago

Note

One of the central characters in a fantasy story I'm writing has torture as part of her backstory. She was captured by an evil race, and one individual in particular put her through a "training" regime designed to turn her into a useful/trustworthy slave. Specifically the goals of the training were:

- destroy her sense of self / agency

- overwrite her ingrained response of healing herself when injured (she has magical healing powers)

- an affectionate or worshipful disposition towards her captors

- immediate obedience to any command

I feel like both physical and psychological torture / mental conditioning are probably appropriate, though I'm leaning away from including sexual abuse. I honestly don't know much about torture at all and the only things that come to mind as producing a result similar to what I'm looking for are the Game of Thrones torture sequence and the use of obdience collars in the Codex Alera book series. The latter is very interesting to me because it is a magical device that inflicts pain in reaction to disobedience but also inflicts pleasure to reward obedience.

I guess I'm just wondering if you have any advice for what kinds of methods would be good to include in a process designed to produce obedience, rather than torture for its own sake or to extract information, as well as if there are any common pitfalls I should try to avoid in writing about such a thing.

The training itself won't be in the book, but I need to be familiar with it for backstory purposes because later in the story this character encounters her torturer again, and is subjected to some further abuse before she finally overcomes her fear and kills him.

Alright well I’m going to be straight up with you: the scenario you’ve presented is a very common torture apologist trope. It’s incredibly unrealistic. And it’s unrealistic in ways that support torture by claiming it can be ‘useful’.

Which probably means that you’re new to the blog and haven’t heard me give this talk before. That’s OK, we all learn sometime and it’s not my intention to shame you for the fact you’re not as obsessed with this stuff as I am or couldn’t afford to shell out for the books.

Torture does not produce obedience. The best evidence we have right now suggests it encourages active resistance.

If you got a lot of your inspiration from Game of Thrones then frankly I’m not surprised you came up with apologia. The torture in that series is incredibly badly handled. And a big part of the point of running this blog is that most people are getting their information on torture from shows like that. Which happens because the research is inaccessible and hasn’t been popularised the way fictional tropes (sometimes fictional tropes literally started by torturers) have been popularised.

The important thing is what you choose to do now.

I’m going to break down the problems here and make some suggestions for what you could do instead.

Firstly: there is no torture or abuse that will guarantee obedience. Pain does not make people meek or compliant or willing to follow commands.

Torture survivors are not broken.

They are not ‘controlled’ by their torturers and the suggestion that they are is used in the real world to bar real survivors from treatment. It is also used to bar them from entering safe countries and to argue that they shouldn’t be allowed visas or passports.

The best statistics we have for any sort of compliance under torture come from analysis of historical French data where torture was used to try and force confessions (something we know torture can sometimes do).

The ‘success’ rate averaged at 10%. Under torture 90% of people will not comply long enough to sign their name.

Secondly: torture does not and can not ‘make’ a victim feel ‘worshipful’ towards their torturer. The suggestion is kind of like asking if someone can tap dance immediately after removing the bones from their legs.

Torturers have no control over a victim’s emotions. They have no control over their symptoms. They have no control over their beliefs.

And there is no such thing as a torture that can change someone’s mind in a way torturers can control.

Once again, this fictional trope is used by politicians and the media to justify marginalising real torture survivors.

I have read hundreds, possibly thousands, of accounts from torture survivors. I’ve read historic and modern accounts. I’ve read accounts from all sort of people from all over the globe. I have never seen a survivor say anything positive about their torturers. I have never seen anything close to toleration.

A lot of survivors are blisteringly angry at their torturers. A lot of them feel overwhelming levels of spite and some report literally putting themselves at risk of death in order to spite their torturers. And yes, a lot of them are afraid too. None of these emotions are mutually exclusive.

Affection is impossible. We are not wired that way.

Thirdly: I understand that ‘evil races’ are a long standing fantasy trope but it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention the racism inherent in that idea. That some people are ‘born bad’.

I’d strongly suggest you look up the Black, Indian and First Nations people that I know are on this site critiquing these kinds of fantasy tropes. Because they will be able to explain it better then I can.

Fourthly: the term ‘psychological torture’ is a pretty common dog whistle for torture apologia.

Most of the time tortures that people dub ‘psychological’ are things with real, physical effects that lead to lasting injury and death. They just don’t tend to leave obvious external scars. I use Rejali’s term ‘clean torture’ for these techniques. Researchers distinguish them from scarring tortures because they are harder to detect and prove in court.

The majority of survivors today will have experienced clean torture. They will have no obvious physical scars. But they will still be disabled. They’re ‘just’ less likely to see any form of justice for it.

Fifthly: torture is a terrible training method because it decreases a person’s ability to learn.

Torture causes memory problems. It also often causes lasting physical injuries that make performing basic tasks more difficult. And it causes a lot of serious psychological problems which make performing basic tasks more difficult.

A trained person who was never tortured will always out perform someone whose training involved torture.

I probably sound quite angry here.

I write fantasy and I also write about torture a lot. But I can’t imagine that it’s just flavour for a fantasy world or some artefact of the past. Torture is a real, present threat in the country that I grew up in. If I was to return now I could, literally, be tortured and executed.

If you want to include torture in your world, in your story then you are committing to telling someone else’s story. You are representing an incredibly marginalised group of people and you are presenting that representation to a third group, one that has never had contact with real torture survivors.

Are you comfortable with the idea of telling your peers that survivors are still controlled by ‘the enemy’? That they’re passive? That they don’t have the capacity to make their own decisions?

Are you comfortable knowing that the popularity of this message keeps millions of genocide survivors in refugee camps, blocked from citizenship, aid and safety?

I understand feeling attached to a story and a character. And I understand that this information is hard to find. Hell I’m probably going to end up with the only English copy of one of the pivotal textbooks because I’m shelling out to get it translated.

You say you want to write a torture survivor. With respect I don’t think you know what a torture survivor looks like.

I think the most helpful, and kindest, thing I can do here is describe what torture does to people. Because I can’t tell you whether that’s something you want to write. I could try and rebuild this scenario for you (and if you decide you’re interested in that after reading all of this and all the links then I suggest looking through the blog tags for ICURE, torture as training, Black Widow and Overwatch.) But I think you need to decide whether you actually want to write a torture survivor first.

Here’s a post on the most common torture apologia tropes.

Here’s the post on the types of memory problems torture commonly causes. I strongly recommend picking at least one.

Remember that this would never go away. Improvement and recovery in torture survivors means learning to live with symptoms. The symptoms themselves are permanent.

It’s a hundred different alarms set up on their phone to try and make up for the forgetfulness that makes them miss appointments. It’s the little bottle of perfume in their pocket to bring themselves back to reality when they get intrusive memories at work.

Here’s a post on the other common symptoms.

You want something in the range of 3-5 of those, though more are likely if your character is held for years. Each of them should be severe. Every single symptom should have a large, negative, impact on the character’s daily life.

Do you know anyone with chronic pain? It warps their world. Work can become impossible. Basic household tasks like getting dressed, cooking, cleaning the dishes are done through gritted teeth or not at all. Hobbies and ��fun’ activities dwindle as they struggle to find a way to do them that doesn’t hurt. Interaction with other people, even loved ones, can easily become barbed.

Because the pain makes everything more difficult. It means everything takes more energy, more effort. Which means that things fall by the wayside, whether that’s by a pile of mouldering dishes in the sink or snapping at a child. It means tears and the social judgement that follows them. It means the world narrowing as it gets harder to go out.

Do you see what I mean? Every part of life.

That’s an example for one symptom. You need to work out at least four. Then figure out how they interact. Then figure out what the character can do to make her life better.

With chronic pain that can mean painkillers but it’s always more then that. It’s re-learning how to do things; how to put on trousers without aggravating the bad knee, how to sew with one hand. It means learning to cut down on what they do and it means learning a new sort of flexibility; accepting that there are days when the pain is too much.

It can mean having the same conversation about disability over and over again. With family, with friends, with colleagues. ‘I can’t do that.’ ‘I can do that sometimes but not always.’ ‘That will hurt me.’ ‘I can’t use that chair.’ ‘I can’t get my arms that high above my shoulders.’ ‘I need help with this.’

And that sometimes means learning a kind of patience that is really barely held back rage. Or perhaps I’m projecting a little with this last one.

If you’ve never met a torture survivor, if you’ve never looked at a survivor’s work, then all this is difficult. You’re trying to imagine something from first principals with nothing to fall back on.

So let’s bring some survivors into the discussion here. Some reality.

Who’s listened to Fela? How about Bobi Wine?

Fela Kuti was the father of modern Afro beats music. He was tortured multiple times and during one attack, which destroyed his home, his mother was murdered by the military. When he got out of jail Fela marched her funeral procession past the biggest barracks in Nigeria’s biggest city. He wrote two songs about this attack and he doubled down on his opposition to the military government.

Fela’s music started causing riots.

You can read what I have to say about him here. You can listen to his music on youtube.

Here’s an interview with Bobi Wine, which was conducted shortly after he was tortured in Uganda. He talked about how he was determined to go back and continue fighting. Which he did. He even ran against the president.

I’ve also got a short piece on Searle who was a cartoonist captured by the Japanese during World War 2. His drawings of what happened in To the Kwai and Back are worth seeing. Especially if you want to write atrocities on this scale. They will show you the scale and how to focus on the small, human elements despite that overwhelming scale.

Alleg’s The Question is pretty much a must, it’s one of the most thorough accounts from the Franco-Algerian war.

Monroe’s A Darkling Plain is also a must, it’s a series of interviews with survivors of various different conflicts and atrocities. Some are torture survivors. Some are not. It is essential reading because it shows the variety in survivors as well as giving a sense of their lives beyond the symptoms.

Finally Amnesty International has literally hundreds of interviews and studies available for free online.

The most important decision for any story with regards to torture is whether it should be there at all.

So much of this topic is intimidating and so much of it is difficult to write. Not just in the ‘oh this is horribly effecting’ sense but in the ‘I have twelve things to juggle in this simple scene’ sense.

Ask yourself what torture adds to this character and this story. What does this backstory actually give this character?

Because if the point is to have her vulnerable and then ultimately triumphing violently over her attackers I don’t think you want a torture scenario. You could get the same thing from a bad guy trying to drug her and having the kidnapping fail when she fights him off, clumsy but effective nonetheless.

And she could still come out of something like that traumatised.

Right now I really don’t see this adding anything but torture apologia to your story.

Handling torture well in a story means accepting that it can’t be the same story without it. It means watching the characters and narrative warp under the weight of it. It means lasting effects, for all the characters and for the world itself.

I believe you are capable of writing that if you want to, pet. But this ain’t it.

Edit: I’m having trouble seeing the beginning of the answer here. Can anyone let me know if there are formatting issues again please? The first word in the htmal is ‘Alright’ but what I’m seeing on tumblr starts 8 paragraphs in.

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tuanhood · 4 years ago

Text

35,000 ft

pairing: mark tuan x reader

genre: smut, angst, some fluff?, exes to lovers

warnings: 18+, language, dirty talk, cheating, oral sex (female receiving), unprotected sex, public sex (mile high club ALERT)

word count: 9,800+

summary: two years have passed since you last saw your ex-boyfriend. when you’ve thought about running into him again, it certainly wasn’t at 35,000 ft and it certainly wasn’t like this.

a/n: wow my longest one shot yet... UMMM it’s a little messy and all over the place but don’t hesitate to let me know what you think or if anyone wants to cry over the photos of Mark at home playing in the pool sMH. also i do not CONDONE cheating fyI

part 2: 125 ft

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“Yes, yes, yes I’ll call you when I land…” You mumbled through the phone, half paying attention and half trying to decide which sandwich would best suit your needs.

“Okay but seriously… call me. I hate it when you’re over there enough so not getting a call freaks me out even more.”

You wanted to roll your eyes and gag, but you stopped yourself knowing that it wasn’t what a typical girlfriend would do when on the phone with her boyfriend. You two were supposed to still be in the honeymoon phase, not the “he gives me the ick” phase already.

Then again, you had never even been in the “he gives me the ick” phase before. Yay for new experiences you guessed.

“Brian, it’s so fine. It’s one of the safest cities in the world, I’ve been so many times I don’t even need a map to tell me where I’m going.”

“I hope you still do though… Use a map. I don’t want you to get lost and I know that’s easy to do in those modern, technologically advanced smart cities.”

Being with Brian sometimes felt like there wasn’t even a fourth wave of feminism.

You weren’t sure why you were sticking around. Part of you felt pressured because you hadn’t had any actual relationships in… well awhile and your mom was constantly asking when you were finally going to get a ring on your finger and give her a grandchild.

Judging by all the outside influences that were currently controlling your life, it felt like maybe there isn’t a fourth wave of feminism. You were setting everyone back just based on your own sad life. Maybe it was best to just dump Brian and go back to your hook up days, the year and a half before him that was just endless amounts of sex with random guys trying to fix a piece of you that would never be put back together.

“Y/n? Are you still there?”

“Yup, still here Brian.”

Even after being together for almost 6 months you couldn’t bring it in you to call him something besides his name. It was always Brian this, Brian that. Calling him a pet name made you cringe.

Yeah… Maybe it was definitely time to break up with him.

“Listen… I should go. I want to get something to eat before they start boarding since it’s a long one and all.”

But you’ll just do it later.

“Okay… sounds good. Get a small sandwich or something so you’ll feel full enough before they actually feed you on the plane.”

Suddenly you didn’t want a sandwich.

“Got it… Bye.”

“Love you, bye.”

You hear a noise letting you know the call has been disconnected and drop your hand, gripping the device at your side.

That was another thing. Brian had told you only 3 months of dating that he loved you – to which you had responded with “oh wow… that’s- that’s… so nice of you.” Being the nice guy, he was completely fine with you not saying it back, because he felt so sure that one day you would. He understood that you had issues with a past relationship that you weren’t quite ready to let go of yet, therefore your heart wasn’t completely available. He felt with time you would give in and love him too.

As of now you weren’t too sure… Especially if you did end up breaking up with him. At a later date and time of course. Maybe when you came back?

Your mind went blank as you looked at the shelves of the poorly made airport food in front of you. The sandwiches that had once looked good and enticing suddenly lost their luster and the last thing you wanted to do was waste money on one. Sighing, you glanced back down at the phone in your hand. The object felt more like a heavy weight and a burden rather than just a phone. It wasn’t due to work or family; it was just all because of Brian.

You’re startled when your phone comes to life once again under your gaze, buzzing softly.

Brian. Remember don’t forget to text me when you board!

It was like he had a sixth sense for whenever you were thinking of him. And to be honest it wasn’t that often.

A couple of weeks ago you were out to lunch with a few friends from college and when updating those who you hadn’t seen in a while on the goings-on of your life, you had at first redacted the fact that you had a boyfriend completely.

“Anyone romantic in your life?” Your friend Alice had asked you.

Without thinking you had begun telling her how he was in game design and was from LA just like you, but soon cut yourself off before you could talk about how cute his dog was. That’s when you realized you weren’t talking about Brian. Brian was in fucking accounting, not game design and was 100% allergic to any kind of animal. When your friend asked about your love life, you had him in mind and not Brian even though so much time had gone by.

You were starting to believe that you weren’t ready for a relationship at all.

Sighing, you figured that maybe chips would be a better and less smelly option for the plane ride. Knowing yourself you would probably dig into them within the first thirty minutes of the thirteen-hour trip.

You whip around to find wherever your newly desired snack choice could be when you catch a glimpse of someone out of the corner of your eye. The goosebumps that make their way to the surface of your skin and the hair on the back of your neck standing up so eagerly causes your entire body to freeze with fear. There was only one person who made you feel this way, one person who made your blood run cold. The person you had just indirectly been thinking of.

No, no it couldn’t be.

You’re afraid to turn around, because more than anything you don’t want to be right. If you felt stressed thinking about Brian, you were going to have a panic attack from seeing him. Pivoting yourself to the left, you bite your lip anxiously unsure of how you’re supposed to react if you are right. Taking in the sight behind you, you’re met with a father and daughter selecting candy from the shelves of the store. The individual causing your anxiety nowhere in sight. Your entire body relaxes.

The last thing you wanted was a fiasco in the international terminal at LAX. It certainly wouldn’t do you, your family and your company any good to make headlines. It especially wouldn’t have made Brian happy; he probably would have called you a hundred times in worry.

“I can’t fucking believe it.”

And just like that you’re snapped out of your daze, your false security vanished, goosebumps emerging once again. This time there were no questions. That voice. It was him.

Turning back around you find yourself under the gaze of your ex-boyfriend. Your ex-boyfriend who you haven’t seen in over two years.

You wish you could say that time hadn’t been good to Mark, but that would be a bold-faced lie. He had somehow become even more attractive in the last two years and the only real thing that seemed different about him was his hair color. The last time you had seen him he had been blonde, but now he had opted for a dark brown color. As much as you hated thinking it, it definitely suited him.

The last two years felt like a long blur of trying to forget him and everything or everyone associated with him. Those were of course difficult things to do, many of the people in your shared three-year life with Mark becoming some of your closest allies and the fact that Mark wasn’t an easy person to erase. Since the two of you met – even when you were just friends – you had a magnetic like pull to one another that couldn’t just be forgotten and dismissed. You were even feeling it right now after everything.

He’s wearing a tight smile, almost as if he too can’t believe you’re standing here in front of him. It was as though you were the one inconveniencing him, when he had been the one to even say something to you. If you had seen him first, you would have turned around and ran the other way pretending like it never happened. For some reason he was willing to acknowledge you.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here,” his tight smile soon fades away and his voice is smooth as ice, a nonchalance to it that makes you question whether he even cares about this run in.

“Me either. Good to see you… Now if you’ll excuse me…” You replied pushing past him to continue your previous task of looking for chips. Much to your dislike, he follows you as you embark on one of the aisles, your eyes scanning the items placed out oh so carefully.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I’ve been? What I’ve been up to?”

The last you had heard of Mark was that he had moved to Beijing after being given a position at a video game development company. At first you had been surprised at Mark taking a job overseas, he had always expressed to you how even over his own dead body he would never leave LA, but ultimately him in China relieved you. No longer did you have to avoid your favorite spots in the city for boba or the park bench where you got most of you best thinking done. You didn’t even have to be worried about getting invited to a party or dinner with a friend, wondering if Mark was going to show up. With Mark gone you could freely have your life back and not walk around with the fear of running into him. But you guessed that it could only have lasted so long before fate – as cruel as she was – brought you two together again.

“No that’s okay. I’m good,” you go down another aisle, he still follows suit.

Where were those damn chips?

“If you’re looking for the chips, they’re over there,” he said pointing behind you to the back wall in a location that you should have noticed sooner, “and if you want your favorite brand of salt & vinegar chips, they’re on the bottom shelf.”

Your stomach churned, he thought after all this time he would be able to still just know you like the back of his hand? What snack you’re looking for? What chips you like? No way.

Wordlessly you march to the back and stare at the shelves in front of you. You felt your hand dangerously moving forward to the bottom to grab the salt & vinegar chips Mark mentioned, but you control yourself and pull back not wanting to give him the satisfaction. Instead you opt for plainly salted kettle chips.

“Thanks… you’ve been a big help. See you never,” you scoffed turning around to face him and pushing past him to pay for your item, leaving Mark in the dust behind you.

“What you’re not going to even pretend that it’s nice to see me?”

“What the fuck do you want me to say?” you practically spat at him, the father and daughter from earlier staring at the two you, the father particularly appalled for your colorful choice of language.

Mark’s silent and you turn back to the self-checkout to scan your chips, hopeful to not think about your ex-boyfriend for the next thirteen hours. He watches you carefully as you take out your wallet to pay and tap your card against the reader. It isn’t difficult for him to sense the tension in your body, he can see it just from you performing the simple and mundane task of paying. The worst part is that he knows he’s the cause.

Grabbing your snack, you exit the small store and Mark follows you, grabbing your wrist, he tries again, “you could say something nice? Like you care? It’s been two years y/n… Can’t we just be normal people with each other?”

At this you feel something in you snap, “I don’t care how much time has fucking passed Mark… I’m never going to get over you just completely throwing our relationship out the window. I can’t believe I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with you… I was so fucking dumb to think you cared about me for even one minute. So, to answer your question… no we can’t just be normal people with each other. We were never normal people with each other to begin with.”

The two of you had started off as friends, just friends. It was something new for Mark, being just friends with a girl and not having sex attached. Many people in your life warned you not to get close to him, that he was just a fuckboy who didn’t care about the emotional – it was only the physical with him. Ultimately you ignored him, becoming his friend and finding that you two just worked together. First you worked together as friends and soon you fell under his Mark Tuan spell, working together as lovers.

Throughout your entire relationship you did your best to trust Mark, which you accomplished for the most part, but in the back of your head you would constantly hear the voices of everyone around you. You would hear the stories of the girls he had before you and how terribly he treated them, but you ignored it all. After a while you started to think of it all a little less, people even congratulating you on lasting so long with Mark – something that tended to annoy you. You knew that they didn’t see the Mark that you knew, the Mark that wanted to be something else for you, the best for you. Then after three years together, almost a month after your anniversary, you found out he had been with someone else.

The old Mark had perhaps never truly vanished, but was just immensely good at hiding.

Now here you were in front of him and you couldn’t tell who this Mark was.

Mark scoffed, “you haven’t changed at all…” Now he was mad at you? “It’s probably better we just say goodbye here.”

You rolled your eyes, “That’s what I’ve been trying to do this whole time.”

He wanted to say more, but looking at how annoyed you were at merely being close to him, he let it go. It was hard for him to understand how he was feeling. He longed for you, but he also felt a lot of anger towards you that he wasn’t sure how to control.

Both of you stare at one another, neither of you wanting to be the first one to walk off. Without a word, you both collect yourselves and assumedly prepare to embark on your respective gates. Mark gives you a final glance with his fists now clenched in frustration and turns to walk toward his flight.

You realize he’s going the same direction as you and you follow awkwardly behind. After a moment – as if he can sense you’re still there – he turns around and scowls at you.

“Why are you following me?”

You snorted, the actual audacity of Mark Tuan. This is an airport for fuckssake, you can’t control where your flight is, “as if I would ever follow you! I’m going to my gate! I think the better question is why are you following me?”

“I’m going to my gate!”

“Okay!” You yell a little too loud, “Okay!” he repeated, matching your volume. You can sense that people are starting to stare at the two of you for your truly unprompted yelling.

Mark looks back at you once again, rolling his eyes. The two of you may have gates in the same area, but you can’t stand to look at him any longer – much less his back which you couldn’t help but notice has become much broader. Not that you would admit it to him… or anyone.

You pick up your pace, passing Mark and causing him to trail behind. You expect him to say some snarky remark or rude comment when you go in front of him, but instead all you hear is an annoyed groan. It’s when you finally reach your gate and sit down in the waiting area that you feel Mark is no longer right behind you, but instead frozen in the main concourse, in front of the space you’re seated in. He feels his mouth go dry and he wants to scream. All he wants is to just be rid of you, to not be forced to think of you when you’re right in front of him. He wanted to wipe his brain clean.

It suddenly dawns you on the reason why Mark is frozen as if he can’t comprehend what he’s seeing. You stand up abruptly, “this can’t be happening.”

He snaps out of his trance with your words and comes closer to the gate, approaching where you’re seated. You’re just about to wave your hands, warning him not to come any closer when he huffs and sits down on a chair only few away from your own.

“You’re going to Seoul?” He says it as if you being allowed in the Korean peninsula is a disgusting idea.

“I’ve been traveling between LA and Seoul every 2 months for the last year and a half, so yes I am. Aren’t you supposed to be going to Beijing or something?”

He smirked, “I thought you didn’t care about what I was up to?”

“I only care if it assures that you’re as far away from me as humanely possible.”

Your ex looks at his watch and at the screen of the gate alerting passengers that boarding would begin in a few minutes, “well since you’re so curious. I didn’t like Beijing, so I found a job in Seoul that I like much better.

“Didn’t want to come back to LA?”

He looks back to you and you almost wish he hadn’t, “there’s not really a lot left in LA for me anymore.”

Both of you stare at one another for a moment, and you feel your stomach flip. Does he mean what I think he means? Your eyes drift down to your lap and you feel yourself pulling out your phone, not needing any more Mark.

You manage to pass 10 minutes this way, aimlessly refreshing your emails and ignoring Brian’s latest text asking if you’ve boarded yet. Being so engrossed in your phone, you didn’t even notice Mark’s constant glances up at you, wondering what you were looking at or who you were talking to.

There it is again, he thought to himself, Do I care? Do I not care? What the fuck, make up your mind dude.

When the call for First-Class boarding comes to your dismay, both you and Mark stand up. You try to just tell yourself that it’s not important, you would probably both be seated aisles apart, not having to spend any more unwarranted time together.

Even when you’re finally on the plane and find yourself behind him once again in the aisle, you tell yourself that this will be the last moment you have to see Mark Tuan.

“Here’s your seat sir, can I get you any drinks or snacks before take-off?” the flight attendant asked Mark when she shows him his seat. He gives this shit eating grin that makes you want to slap it off his face, you couldn’t believe he was doing this in front of you. What? Did he think he was going to get to fuck the flight attendant as an extra First-Class amenity?

“Ah no thank you, I’m fine for now, but I’ll let you know if anything changes,” you feel awkward standing in the aisle watching this unfold, especially since you can see the attendant is giving in, blush creeping up on her face from Mark’s smooth gaze. You clear your throat, reminding her that you too are there and she quickly turns to you, an apologetic look on her face.

“And here's your seat Miss,” she graciously steps back to let you slide into your seat and you don’t move.

This had to be a joke.

You looked from your seat, to Mark’s and then to the flight attendant.

“I can’t sit here... I’m sorry but there has to be another seat available.”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but there are no other openings in First Class. We only have seats available back in economy.”

This couldn’t be happening. You had been saving all of your miles for a First-Class upgrade for forever, there was no way you were going to give it up, “Mark move to coach.”

“Huh? Are you joking? My company paid for this; I’m not moving back there! You move!”

How were you supposed to sit in front of Mark Tuan for the next thirteen hours? The man who had loved you so deeply, but also caused you the most pain.

Just as people had stared at the two of you in the terminal, the other passengers in your surrounding area were also beginning to look. Maybe if the two of you got into one of your notorious screaming matches, someone would feel bad enough and offer to trade. You couldn’t do that to someone, you wouldn’t wish being stuck next to Mark Tuan on a long-haul flight on your worst enemy. Well… Mark was your worst enemy.

Smiling, you turn back to the flight attendant, “It’s fine… I’ll just stay here. Thank you though.” She gives you a smile, but you can sense some annoyance behind her eyes. You can’t blame her.

Mark looks at you wide eyed, previously caught up in organizing his space, but snapping out his activities when he hears your dismissal about moving seats, “uh… what are you doing? Are you seriously going to sit here?”

“Yes Mark. Unlike you, I paid for my seat so I’m not moving anywhere.”

He scoffed, “Fine.”

“Fine!”

hour one

“Ma’am could you tell the gentleman in 3A to stop chewing so loudly?” You asked the flight attendant, putting on the sweetest voice possible. Mark was driving you up the wall and you were only an hour into the flight.

It was almost as though you could hear every single cough, every shifting in his seat and it was all driving you up the wall. Just knowing he was there irked you.

The flight attendant looks clueless and as she opens her mouth slowly, unsure of how to respond. You hear Mark’s low voice grumble from behind you, also addressing the attendant, “uh ma’am can you tell the lady in 2A to mind her own business, pop a xanny and just go to sleep?”

She clearly wasn’t expecting to deal with any difficult passengers this early on in a thirteen-hour flight. For her sake you wish you could deal with Mark and be more civil, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

hour three

“Y/n…”

Be strong, you tell yourself, don’t look back, you can get through this.

“Y/n?”

It’s probably not important… He just wants to annoy you.

“Y/n!”

Screw being strong.

“What the fuck do you want?” Being in semi-pods in First-Class it was difficult to just whip around and face Mark, to show him your annoyance under the lights beginning to dim.

“Do you have any extra AirPods?”

“Why the fuck would I just carry around extra Airpods around with me? Are you an idiot?” You sneered.

“Jesus Christ I was just asking. You don’t have to be so vicious. Maybe someone should fuck the tension out of you,” he said, mumbling the last part. He says it so quietly and so half assed that you almost think that you misheard him.

“Choke on a dick Mark,” you replied quietly, not wanting the other passengers to hear or disturb the few who had already drifted asleep.

He scoffed, “maybe you should be.”

You were wrong, the Mark that you had reunited with was just the same old fuckboy Mark who didn’t give a fuck about anyone.

Placing your AirPods in your ears, you close your eyes and ignore the rest of Mark’s efforts to speak to you, just wanting nothing more than to fall asleep and wake up in your hotel room in Seoul.

hour seven

You pop your headphones out of your ears in frustration, feeling as though you hadn’t managed to get any real sleep during the hours that had passed. You look behind you to Mark’s seat, and feel relieved to see his eyes closed and a slow, shallow breath coming from his mouth.

It felt weird to gaze at Mark and know you were no longer apart of his life. Sure, it had been two years, but you hadn’t seen him or had to deal with the reality that there was now a separate you and a separate Mark. Two entities that had nothing to do with one another anymore. Although sometimes it felt like you were still anchored to him.

Suddenly he shifted over onto his side, mumbling incoherent words in his sleep. The only thing you could make out was your own name. It made you feel uncomfortable, not because he was clearly dreaming about you, but you felt as though you were invading his private space, infiltrating an intimate moment.

“y/n… please…” he mumbled.

You felt like you’d heard enough. The flight was making you restless and you weren’t sure what you would do if you kept listening to Mark’s breathless calls for you. Standing up, you decide it’s probably best now to stretch and go to the bathroom, before you embark on your further slumber.

When you finish up in the bathroom, you almost have a heart attack pulling back the door to be met with Mark’s tall figure.

“Oh my god you scared me,” you said placing your hand on your chest. You shake your head, stepping out of the bathroom with the door closing firmly behind you. Attempting to go back to your seat, you position yourself to move past him, but he moves along with you to keep you from leaving.

“What are you doing?”

Mark doesn’t know what’s taken over him, he had woken up in a frenzy, his dreams not doing anything to help his mental state. He hadn’t dreamt about you in months, but of course as soon as you’re back in his life he has to have fantasies of you wrapped around him once again. It was torturous, especially with you only a few feet away from him. He dreamed about having you every way and any way, feeling like he was going crazy. When he saw you missing from your seat, he immediately got up almost as if in a sleep induced haze unable to control his actions.

"When are you going to stop pretending that you don’t want to be under me again?” he purred.

Your blood goes cold. Was he drunk? His words make you nervous, scared that someone could hear, but looking around the dark cabin it seemed as though everyone in First-Class was fast asleep.

“Mark…” you begin, your tone clearly frustrated, but also weakening a bit, clearly evident that his words are affecting you. It had been so long since someone talked to you like this, and you felt that the hours you had spent on the plane already altering your sanity.

“You were always such a good girl for me, what changed? When did you become so stubborn? What happened to my girl who was always so willing and sweet?”

“I was screwed over by an asshole, that’s what happened,” you mumbled trying to avert his gaze and prayed that maybe if you weren’t to look at him you could pretend that there wasn’t a part of you hanging on his every word.

“That was in the past. I’ve changed now… But I’m still your boy. Even after two fucking years, I’m still yours.”

You want to fight with him, say that if he was always your boy and still is then he would have never cheated on you. He would have never spent a night with someone else.

“Let me fuck the anger out of you.”

“What?” Okay he had to be drunk.

“You and I have too much sexual tension, and we’re both angry so let’s just fuck to relieve the tension.”

“You’ve said some pretty fucking dumb things before, but this is… this is…” you drift unsure of what exactly you think it is.

“A good idea?”

“Mark I’m not having sex with you in an airplane bathroom.”

“What? Like that’s bothered you before?”

When you were with Mark, the two of you would have sex in the riskiest places, so you weren’t a stranger to the kind of sex where you could be caught at any moment, but you had never joined the mile-high club before.

“We’re not together. I hate you and you hate me… for some reason.” You never understood why exactly Mark had been mad at you all of these years and acted as though you were the devil himself when he had been the one that ruined the two of you. Maybe it was because you hadn’t given him a second chance? Maybe it was from the influence of you hating him? Or maybe it was because you had never been enough for him, otherwise what would have caused him to spend the night with another woman?

Mark clicked his tongue and it causes you to bring your attention to his mouth. It almost makes you lose focus completely. “So what if we’re not together anymore? Does that matter?”

Does that matter?

His words make you remember something. Something very important.

Brian.

“Yes, it matters. I-I have a boyfriend,” for some reason the word “boyfriend” seems to be hard to get out. It was always weird to associate Brian as your boyfriend or your “partner,” but saying it to Mark felt like the weight of a ton of bricks.

In the dark lighting of the cabin you can just make out the frown that spreads across Mark’s face. Just as quickly as it appears, it’s gone and the cocky façade is back.

“And that’s a problem?” your ex asked.

As you’re about to protest and tell him that commitment in relationships is important to you, Mark reaches his hand out to rest on your bare shoulder, running it softly up and down your arms in a soothing pattern. It was a common gesture between the two of you, something Mark would constantly do whenever you were telling a story or the times you would fall asleep at night. It puts you at ease and you feel yourself close your eyes at his touch.

Mark would be lying if he said the word “boyfriend” coming out of your mouth didn’t disappoint him. In fact, he felt a similar pain to the one he felt two years ago when you had broken up with him. Mark wasn’t daft, he knew what you thought of him – a player, a fuckboy and someone who never cared about you in the first place. It hurt him to know that you were just like everyone else around him who had a preconceived notion of who he was or what he did. At one point in time he thought you were different.

But now looking at you and having you back in his life – even for only a thirteen-hour plane ride, he just wanted you back in his arms, back under his touch. He knew he should have felt guilty for not giving one fuck about this “boyfriend” you had acquired at some point during your two years apart, but he didn’t care. If he was going to have to be that cocky fuckboy who paid no mind to any consequences to get you, then so be it.

“Come on… it’s been two years… let me feel that pussy that I’ve missed so so much,” he whispered seductively against the shell of your ear, “let me fuck into it so good, because I know no one’s filled it up so well since me. Especially not that boyfriend.”

His words cause you to moan involuntarily and the noise awakens both you and him. You immediately shoot your hand up to cover your mouth, unsure of what’s getting into you. You were supposed to hate Mark, you had spent the last two years training yourself to hate him just in case a moment like this were ever to arise. But maybe that was an easier thing to imagine when you hadn’t seen him, because now with his hands gently caressing you and his request to be inside of you once again, you feel anything but hate. You feel want.

“Fuck Mark…”

“Just say the word baby, and you have me,” he whispered, delicately placing an open mouth kiss on your wrist, slowly continuing up your arm.

What were the pros and cons of this? If you were in any other difficult situation you would take a pause and list all of the good and bad things that could come from this. The big con was Brian… Even if you had been feeling strange about where your relationship with him was going and found him to be suffocating, you couldn’t do to him what Mark had done to you. Another negative factor emerged in your mind… you didn’t want to be put under Mark’s spell again, you couldn’t. Even being this close to him made you feel things that you had been trying to forget for two years, sleeping with him after all this time would only make it worse. That worried you. But judging on the primal way your body was reacting to Mark – your wet core being a clear sign – you knew this wasn’t going to be a logical decision where the cons outweigh the pros.

“I-” you’re about to do it, you’re about to gain enough strength to tell him you don’t want him anymore, but when he pushes your hair away from where it lays on your shoulder and attaches his lips to the side of your neck, any willpower you had vanishing. His gentle sucking on the sweet spot of your neck that he knows oh too well causes you to let out a whimper and he smiles against your skin, knowing he has you.

“Do it,” you mumbled, eyes still closed.

Mark brings his lips back to your ear, “do what baby?” His cocky tone makes you want to roll you eyes. He had always done this – torture you until you were begging to feel his touch.

You open your eyes and give yourself a moment to readjust to the dark lighting of the plane and focus on Mark’s face in the small space in front of the bathroom. You want to see his gaze when you make your non-logical decision.

“Fuck me.”

The corner of his mouth turns upwards as he brings his arm forward and behind you to pull open the bathroom door, pushing you backwards into the cramped space.

It’s when he’s pressed up against you and locks the door behind him that the reality of what you’re doing sets in. Just as you feel yourself get used to the harsh lighting, you freeze at Mark’s intense stare.

“What are you looking at?” You asked.

He smiled and glanced down at the floor shyly, then back up at you, “You.”

For the first time since seeing him again at the airport store you feel those feelings in your stomach. No hate, no indifference and no bitterness towards Mark - not even just lust. Instead you felt a warmth for him that reminded you of the good days, not the bad ones. The swell in your heart worried you and you didn’t want to feel or dwell on it so you lean forward and kiss him.

Mark’s lips on yours doesn’t do anything to eliminate the softness you felt for him moments before, if anything it only intensifies it. It feels as though no time has passed for the two of you and the missing piece of the puzzle that you had been searching for has finally found its way back to you.

A low growl comes from Mark’s throat and it sends your hands to find shelter in his hair. When you were together you had always had a weird thing for Mark’s hair. You loved running your fingers through it, gently massaging his scalp and tugging at the roots. Mark would always joke that you would probably break up with him if he ever shaved his head, which you didn’t exactly argue with. And now it just felt so good to have your hands where they belong. It’s almost as though Mark’s read your mind and he smiles against you lips when he feels your hands, “pull as hard as you want.”

You feel his tongue at the seam of your lips, urging itself through to deepen the kiss and you tell yourself that it’s not too late, this can be the moment that you opt out for what a mistake this would be. With his hands drifting down from your hips to your ass, you feel yourself part your mouth voluntarily, realizing that you don’t want to stop this. You want to make this mistake; you want nothing more than to let him feel you and taste you even more.

“I want to taste you so bad,” Mark whispered against your lips, “see if you taste as good as I remember.”

You want that more than anything. Mark had always been so good with his tongue and just thinking about the hours he had spent between your thighs in the past made you even wetter than when you were having sex with Brian. Judging however, on the space you were both in, you didn’t know if it was physically possible. He can sense your hesitancy by the way your lips begin to still against his.

He breaks apart from you and gently rubs his thumb along your jawline and lips, “don’t think too much.” In an instant Mark’s crouched down in the very small space in the bathroom and you immediately find yourself worried about his comfort level, “are you sure you’re okay?”

He looked up at you, a dark look in his eyes and waved you off, “don’t worry about me babe, I’m about to have the best meal of my life.” At the end of his sentence he reaches up to the hem of your leggings and pulls them, along with your panties down in one sweep, pushing them aside. You’re almost surprised at his loftiness, but you remind yourself that it’s Mark. He moves a hand around to the back of your knee, hoisting one of your legs up onto the closed toilet seat, pushing the rest of your body up against the small sink counter. Although the space was already limited as it was, the position brought your core closer to his face and as you looked down to see the way his tongue stroked across his lips, you felt yourself already get lightheaded.

He began with leaving open mouth kisses along the inside of your lifted thigh and another on the top of your pubic mound. It was enough to make you feel shaky, as though the one leg that was supporting your weight would give out at any moment. You found yourself unfazed, you knew Mark would be there to catch you if you fell.

Mark leaned in further, his tongue delving between you folds to gather up as much of your wetness as he could, giving you a noisy taste that had him groaning, head pulling back and licking his lips after his first taste in two years.

“You taste even better than I remember, how the fuck could you get sweeter? I don’t even want to go back to my seat after tasting you, I could sit in this bathroom with my mouth on you till the end of the flight.”

You found yourself wanting nothing more than to be stuck in this crammed bathroom with Mark for as long as you both could get away with. The person who was contemplating whether or not this was a bad idea didn’t even exist to you anymore. One lap of his tongue on you and you were reminded of all the ways he could make you fall apart.

He tongued your clit slowly at first, every stroke almost teasing – as if he was making up for the years you two spent a part. His tongue would slip lower, working its way along your gushing entrance to remind you how much he relished your flavor before returning to your clit, the wet sounds of Mark’s sucking not even embarrassing to you. It was when Mark began to groan against you and swirl his tongue and suck that you felt your hands go back to his hair, roughly pulling him closer.

“Mark, I-I can’t… I’m gonna – fuck,” you moaned out unable to form a functional and coherent thought. As you feel your orgasm on the horizon and just around the corner, you tug at Mark’s roots further, which encourages him to pick up the pace of his tongue, wanting you to cum on his face just like you had many times before. He wanted to drive you to the brink of pleasure, but he also wanted to prove to himself that he could still bring you to the edge with just his tongue.

Any delicacy he had been exhibiting before is completely gone, the way he laps at your clit and swirls his tongue around your sensitive bundle of nerves causes your chest to heave and sweat on your brow. You’re so caught up in Mark that you barely notice your foot beginning to slip from its security on the toilet. Mark swiftly acknowledges your pending loss of balance and tugs the leg up onto his shoulder, not removing himself from you for even a moment.

You could feel yourself twitch and the arching of your hips towards his face, “come on baby I know how close you are, I need you to cum for me. Cum for me like all the times before, all over my face. I want it so bad.”

Mark’s muffled words against you and the final groans he emits from how much he loves your taste is the last straw as you finally let go and the waves of release crash over you. He doesn’t give way as you buck yourself further into him one final time, his back practically hitting the wall of the bathroom. Your body comes down from your climax and you look to see Mark gratefully clean up the release he caused. When he takes his mouth away, you feel your core wavering against the emptiness and loss of warmth it had felt, almost as though it wanted Mark to be a permanent attachment to you. You’re breathless, head falling back to the mirror behind you as Mark stands up, wiping the back of his mouth and jawline which had become messy and shiny with your juices.

“I knew you were still my little slut,” he pushes the hair that had fallen in front of your face behind you, “letting me have you in a fucking bathroom at 35,000 feet. How else will you let me have you?” He asked attaching his lips back to that spot on your neck.

It dawns on you that there’s no winning. You once again are completely under the spell and at the mercy of Mark Tuan, willing to let him do whatever he wants to you. “M-Mark whatever you want.” At your response he simply smirked, quickly pulling his joggers and boxers down, his painfully hard cock slapping against his lower stomach.

“Fuck I’ve been waiting so long to have you around me again. I never thought I would, and I’m going to make every second count.”

He positions himself in between your legs, gripping your hips and pauses for a moment, clearly contemplating something. Mark hadn’t planned on having sex on the plane, nor did he plan on even seeing you again.

“Mark if it’s about the condom, it’s fine… I don’t care, I’m still on the pill and I-I trust you.”

At your trust in him, something he had so deeply been wanting all these years, he doesn’t hesitant another moment at placing himself at your entrance. His teasingly slow rubbing against your slit causes you to let out almost a growl at how much you needed him to be inside of you.

“How much do you want it y/n?”

“So bad.”

He pushes into you suddenly, “you’re still my cockslut, huh?” The feeling is too good and too great to answer him, but he’s not satisfied with your nonresponse.

“Answer me.” He sunk himself inside of you further and you do your best to let out the smallest and most inaudible “yes” you’ve ever heard, which thankfully seems to be enough for him.

“God,” he groaned, “you’re still so tight.” He looks down at the space where your bodies meet, fixating his gaze at the visual of his cock slipping inside your sensitive and swollen folds. Mark waited for a moment for your pussy to get used to having him inside you again, to get reintroduced to his length and girth which it had been so accustomed to in the past. Despite the time that had passed, you felt no discomfort except for the mental discomfort in your head that just wanted him to fuck into you quickly and harshly.

“Taking me so well, squeezing every inch of me. This pussy knows who it belongs to, who it deserves to be fucked by.”

“M-Mark,” a final moan of his name is all it takes for him to begin his first real thrust into you, pulling himself out almost entirely. You feel so sensitive and overworked from your earlier orgasm that you aren’t sure how long you can last with the way your walls are clenching around Mark.

His pace soon became brutal and you’re thankful the loud sound of the engine could cover up the whimpers coming from your mouth and the sounds of skin slapping against skin. Mark’s fingers press into your hips so firmly that you know there will be bruises that you’ll have to explain later, but for now the only thing you can focus on is how full Mark is making you feel. He removes his hand from your side and brings it down between the two of you, fixating on your clit, rubbing until it ached. It caused your body to clench on him further, the continual touch and his fucking into you making you roll your eyes into the back of your head.

Mark groaned at how snug you felt and how deep you were taking him, his head falling into the crook of your neck and against the bathroom mirror, “whose are you?”

You know what he wants you to say, but you don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, even in the heat of the moment. It could lead to misunderstandings and a more complex outcome than just that of having sex with him in a fucking airplane bathroom.

“Whose are you?” He repeated, this time a little bit softer and removing his head from your shoulder to look at you with worrisome eyes. Mark knows that if you say you’re his it’d most likely be untrue, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to hear it one more time, even if it’s a complete and utter lie. He wants to know he has you, even if it’s for this one moment.

“Yours, I’m all yours,” you breathe out. It comes out on its own, without any time for you to process or comprehend what you’re saying. It surprises you so much that you aren’t even sure if it’s a lie or not.

That’s all he needed and he thrusts into you even harder, hitting the spot inside of you that makes you want to completely fall apart and combust. You’re too caught up in the pleasure of him ramming into you that you don’t even feel the pain that comes with your backside being continually pushed into small counter of the sink.

“Cum for me baby, I’m close and I need us to do this together. It’s all I want,” Mark said. His tone perplexes you. It’s forceful and authoritative something that you were no stranger to when it came to sex with Mark, but there was a clear tenderness to it that had you second guessing everything. Maybe this wasn’t just sex.

It’s one more strum of his cock against your g-spot and the pinching of your clit with his thumb and index finger that has you climaxing around him. The almost violent pulse from your pussy around him due to your orgasm has Mark following close behind, spilling himself deep inside of you. The ecstasy coursing through you causes your entire body to shake and twitch, wanting to collapse completely onto the bathroom floor. You fall against Mark’s body and in his own exhausted state he holds you close, protectively wrapping his arms around you making you feel secure.

You should want to get out of the situation immediately as a one-time thing, but somehow you can’t bring it in you to remove yourself from his grasp. You felt at home with Mark’s arms around you and him still inside of you. It was a comfort a sense of normalcy you hadn’t felt with anyone since Mark. He softly strokes your hair, placing gentle kisses on the top of your head remembering how much you liked it after a tiring session of sex.

It feels as though no time has passed, but soon you find yourself out of Mark’s hold. He removes his now soft cock from you and you can feel yours and his cum leaking from your core, down to your thighs. It’s almost as though this movement has finally woken you up. You delicately collapse onto the toilet, making sure to take extra care with your now jelly-like legs. With your head in your hands in disbelief at the actions you had just willingly followed through on, Mark stares at you.

“Fuck… I’m so mad at myself.”

With the small amount of space, he has, Mark shifts his weight from one foot to the other, “why? That was so fucking great.”

You looked up at him in a scolding manner, he still had no perception of reality, but apparently now you were one and the same. “Because now I did the same thing to Brian that you did to me.”

There’s a pause and Mark avoids all eye contact with you. He had imagined this talk so many times – the talk the two of you never got to have and he really didn’t want it to be here, like this. But by some strike of luck, fate had brought you back to him, even for a short period of time and he may never get the opportunity to come clean again.

Choosing to continue to avert your gaze, Mark sighs deeply and busies himself with pulling up his joggers.

“I didn’t cheat on you.”

You feel like ice and your whole body goes numb, “W-what?”

He sighs again, looking down, “I never cheated on you.”

You think there’s no way you could have heard him correctly. Your entire break up, the reason you ended your passionate love story with the one person you saw a future with came from his cheating. It couldn’t be a lie… Could it?

One thing was for certain, you knew Mark so well and judging by the fidgeting and fiddling with his fingers you can tell you still do. And he was telling the truth. Your stomach flipped.

“Then why did you let me believe that you did?”

“You were the only person in my life who didn’t believe all those stupid rumors about me, the only person who didn’t believe I was a fuckboy like everyone thought… but then the moment someone tells you they think they saw me with someone, you pack your bags. I figured you wouldn’t believe me, just like everyone else.”

It’s ridiculous. The words coming out of his mouth are ridiculous, but part of you understands what he’s saying. Maybe you had been too quick to judge, too quick to believe everyone else’s preconceived notions regarding your own boyfriend, but what were you supposed to do when he didn’t even defend himself?

“You know… even after all this time, I still don’t know why I hated you. I really don’t know if it was because I thought you cheated or because you never went after me when I left.”

Mark’s silent, and the weight of the situation continues to hit the two of you like a bus. Part of you feels betrayed by him. More betrayal then when you first heard the rumors. The two of you could have been together this whole time, saved each other from years of pain, sorrow and longing, but instead it’s almost as though he forced it upon you both.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. Jesus fuck Mark we’re not Marianne and Connell from Normal People, we can talk to each other.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, “Who?”

“I’ve been watching a lot of TV since we broke up.”

There’s another silence between the two of you and in the small space it feels deafening and suffocating. You want nothing more than to go back to your seat and forget this even happened. Weirdly enough, the sex part you were fine with. It was this conversation that left you feeling like you couldn’t get a proper breath of air into your lungs, almost as if you were drowning.

You take a piece of toilet paper from the roll beside you and use it to attempt to clean up the mess that had already begun drying on your legs. Mark watches you mindlessly, unsure of what to say himself. He knows he made a mistake from not telling you and effectively keeping the two of you apart, but every time he would reach for the phone to dial your number he would be reminded of the pain he felt and all the things you had called him that day.

Everyone was right! Why didn’t I just fucking listen to them? Does a three year relationship mean nothing to you? I thought you changed… were different… but now I just feel like I wasted my time.

“I-I really don’t know what to say if I’m honest,” you finally stuttered out, grabbing your discarded leggings and pulling them on, “did you want me to leave you?”

Mark shakes his head vigorously, completely taken aback at you even thinking that, “no... Not at all... I just- it was complicated.”

“Right and you don’t do complicated. Got it.” You stand up and move to unlock the door, but Mark moves in front of you as he did earlier.

“Y/n... Can we just talk about this? When we land can we just go to a cafe and talk about everything? I still- I mean... even after all this time I-” He begins, but you’re too scared to hear him finish the sentence.

“Mark we’ve had a lot of time to talk. Just please let me go back to my seat.”

This time he makes no effort to stop you from leaving and you quickly slip out of the bathroom, fearful someone might see you. Luckily, everyone is still fast asleep and you walk back down the aisle to your seat wanting to forget about what Mark had said.

You couldn’t deal with the what ifs, you couldn’t get lost in a fantasy of imagining that maybe you and Mark could be married already if he would have just said something. You couldn’t be that cruel to yourself.

After a few moments, you notice the bathroom occupied sign go away, signaling Mark’s arrival back to his seat.

He knows he could just sit down and go back to sleep, falling back in to the way things were. But he had already not tried to go after you once before and he had been regretting it ever since. He had to say fuck that to all of the fears he had of being judged and put trust back into someone again. He wanted you.

Your eyes which had drifted closed soon shot open as you felt a movement at the side of your chair, turning to see Mark crouched down next you

“What are you doing?” You asked.

“I already let go of you once, I’m not doing it again. If I have to spend the next,” he brings his watch up to look at the time, “six hours convincing you, then so be it. I’m not letting walk away from me this time.” At his final word he moves his hand to brush a strand of hair behind your ear and goes to sit down. His eyes piercing into the back of your seat.

You felt Mark’s words, you felt them deeply in every part of you and it made you think that the Mark you love was still in there.

Love.

You still loved him.

The beating of your heart made it difficult to fall asleep, but when you finally did you had a decision made and a smile on your face.

#got7 fanfic #got7 smut #mark tuan #mark tuan fanfic #got7 fanfiction

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zdbztumble · 5 years ago

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“Kingdom Hearts II” revisited, Part V

Having only ever played XIII out of the Final Fantasy series, I only know characters like Cloud, Leon, Yuffie, and Aerith through their roles in Kingdom Hearts. In that capacity, I like them quite a bit, and I was upset along with all the FF fans that they were left out of KH III, for spurious reasons. “We didn’t need them because we have original characters to fill those roles” basically amounted to handing off the job of exposition dumps to Ienzo, as if it were simply a matter of trading out corporate spokesmen. From KH I to II, Leon, Yuffie, Sid, Merlin, and Aerith establish themselves as a group, each with a distinct personality, notable interplay among themselves, and each with a unique relationship to Sora and friends. Cloud, on his own, did the same. To toss them aside in favor of a character with no personality, and no connection to Sora, makes the exposition dumps in KH III far more tedious to get through, not helped by the fact that the exposition itself is so much more ridiculous by then. The character dynamics lost are hardly worth the promotion of one unremarkable figure just on account of his being “original.”

But KH II has the opposite problem with its FF guest stars: at a pivotal moment in the story, an excessive number of cameos make unavoidable appearances, creating a painful drag on the pace of the game and distracting from the main story just when major events get underway.

This is unfortunately evident as soon as Sora arrives back in Hollow Bastion after his first pass at the Disney worlds and runs into Cloud. I have absolutely no objection to Cloud being included in this game, and I love that he’s in Hollow Bastion with the others. But Cloud’s history with Sephiroth - and with Aerith, and with Tifa - have nothing to do with the main KH II story, and when the game is building toward King Mickey’s reintroduction, the twist with Ansem, and a shift in power among the villains, being forced to take time out for cutscenes teasing conflicts and relationships from a different series is most unwelcome. The scenes of Tifa rifling through the castle are, if anything, even more of a distraction - one could at least argue that Cloud’s conversation with Aerith has some thematic connection to Sora and Kairi, and that his relationship to Sephiroth has some thematic relevance to Riku and “Ansem.”

A far better reintroduction for Cloud, and a first introduction for Tifa, would have been to have them with the others when Sora first comes to Hollow Bastion. Cloud could be aloof, if that was desired, and Sora could have been surprised to see him there. Tifa could have been introduced as another member of the Restoration Committee, with a line from Aerith or Yuffie or somebody about how “it’s not just us, y’know.” Their first appearances would thus have come at an appropriate moment in the game, and they would have already been established as part of the Hollow Bastion world before Sora returns after completing the first pass at the Disney worlds. If Sephiroth, Tifa’s desire for Cloud, and Aerith’s relationship with him were all things the staff dearly wanted in the game, that all could have come in the form of completely optional material unlocked after the big Heartless battle, just the way that Sephiroth was an optional fight in KH I. There was no reason to make this material mandatory.

Worst of all are the appearances by the Gullwings. My understanding is that Final Fantasy X-2 is a controversial title in the series, and all I know of it comes from this game and a comedic “review,” but I can still wholly understand if any fan of that game had a problem with their cameo here. Besides the pixie makeover, they are, more than any other FF characters, completely irrelevant to what’s going on. A gift of a Keyblade after the fact does not a justification make, and I really can’t believe that they were included, just for the sake of Nomura’s notion of doing “not human yet human” versions of the characters.

(I hate to say this, but Stitch’s introduction is pretty appalling too. He’s just there, no rhyme or reason, and there’s no relationship established between him and any other character before he jumps down. At the very least, Merlin could’ve introduced him a “a stray I picked up along my travels” or something.)

But, I’ve gotten ahead of myself - and while this issue is a substantial one, it’s my only major gripe with this middle portion of the game. There’s a medium-sized one as well...but we’ll get to that.

Since I tend to play “in character” as Sora, I can sometimes find myself reacting to certain things in unusual ways. In the case of the first return to Twilight Town, I started to get excited at the thought of seeing Kairi again even as I knew how the story plays out, which makes me very grateful that I was alone at home while playing the game. Kairi’s brief interaction with the Twilight Town trio is nice, though having been introduced to the KH II manga, it’s hard to watch her being taken by Axel and not wish she showed the sort of fight she puts up in that adaptation.

Twilight Town is also the first time in quite a while that signs of Roxas appear, as he asserts himself from within Sora with the blue stone. At first, I found this moment a little jarring - Sora has just been learned that Kairi was kidnapped, after all - but given that it’s a moment for Roxas to briefly take control, I made peace with it.

Out of all the Disney titles used for Kingdom Hearts worlds, Tron is the one I have the least amount of experience with; I’ve only seen it once, I didn’t care for it very much, and I never bothered with the sequel. Here in KH II, the level is fun and colorful, it isn’t too stiff a recap of the movie from what I remember, and it represents a clever way to tie Disney material in with the original elements of the KH universe. Though I do wonder if Tron was only selected as a world because it offered Nomura and company a platform to indulge in nonsensical techno-speak dialogue.

Tron is also the catalyst for that medium-sized complaint I mentioned before: I see no good reason why Sora’s talk with King Mickey about Ansem had to wait until after Sora goes back into Space Paranoids. There’s no clear ticking clock demanding that he go back right away, and all this does is undercut the reunion with King Mickey and the sense of revelation in the air over the true identity of “Ansem.” When we do finally arrive at that moment, however...it’s not bad. It has to be admitted that there is no real set-up for this twist. You can’t even go back to KH I and find lines equivalent to “there’s too much of his father in him” in Star Wars to retroactively make into foreshadowing. Nothing from KH I, or CoM, is negated by the revelation that “Ansem,” Seeker of Darkness was really Xehanort the apprentice, however. For a twist that exists just for the sake of having one, it’s innocuous, and well-placed within the narrative to give an appropriate jolt to the proceedings. Certainly it’s better-handled, and more benign conceptually, than later “twists” in the series.

This leads us into the long battle with the Heartless, and there’s a lot to recommend this whole sequence. As clumsy as Cloud’s reintroduction was in this game, the moment of him and Leon fighting back-to-back was fantastic; I imagine that scene is an even bigger thrill fro FF fans. What’s more, it’s appropriately placed to be both cool and relevant. The run down the hill that sees Sora fighting alongside one FF character after another is just as delightful. I’d completely forgotten about this part of the game, so it was a pleasant surprise...and a painful reminder at the lack of effort put into giving the other Keyblade wielders some time with Sora in KH III. I will note, however, that Aerith’s absence from the line-up in this run is a problem, and that by rights Merlin should be there too.

The villain material in this section isn’t bad, though it would have been more powerful if their respective plots hadn’t been in such a long lull in the back half of the Disney worlds. Maleficent battling the Nobodies, and ultimately confronting Saix to buy Sora time, is a wonderful idea, and helps to illustrate her story as one of a long and ultimately fruitless climb back towards the top of the villain totem pole, but a larger presence for her in some of those Disney worlds would’ve helped build to that more. Some appearances by the Organization would’ve done the same for the battle with Demyx. It’s not a bad fight, for the first serious boss battle with a member. The shorter time trials got pretty aggravating, though.

There are also some character beats in this section that are on the whole nice additions, if imperfect in execution. Sora being conflicted over whether to help Leon like he promised or to go search for Kairi and Riku is fine - it’s a conflict Sora’s faced, in various guises and degrees, since the beginning of the series, and he’s well-established at this point in the story as someone who goes where the greatest need is over his own desires. But the scene is just a little overdone. I’d say the same about Goofy’s fake-out death, which is cleared up just a little too soon. On the other hand, it’s in the midst of all that that the 1000 Heartless fight takes place, and that’s just as much fun as I remember.

(While I’m on this section of the game, I want to air a nitpick with the gameplay that pops up before, during, and after this section. What is the point of these “runs” where you take about two seconds’ worth of steps after one cutscene just to trigger another? Just go straight to the next scene!)

This section also reveals that Kairi managed to get away from Axel. As an idea, that’s fine. But why isn’t it a scene? Give me one reason why that wasn’t a serious enough story beat to warrant a cutscene. Of course I’m advocating for more material for Kairi, but - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - such a cutscene might have even given Axel some development. I’ll be talking more about the additions to Final Mix in a later post, but the fact that a long-ass walk down hallways was a priority over expanding on this plot point tells you something about the warped priorities the creative team developed in the years after KH II’s release.

We leave this section of the story with Sora, Donald, and Goofy on the retreat, guided out of darkness by Riku and guided by the Keyblade to some unknown destination. But when that lane opens, Sora declares “not yet! I have to look for Kairi!” thus setting up the second pass at the Disney worlds. How often in this series does Sora voice an urge to follow his own desires over the call of duty? I thought it was an impressive moment for his character.

EDIT: corrections made (thank you @khtrinityftw.)

#z's crits #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 2 #critique #commentary

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gascon-en-exil · 5 years ago

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FE16 Blue Lions Liveblogging

Chapters 3-4. It takes some time to get used to this game’s pacing, but admittedly a lot of the content is filler that can technically be skipped if you’re not interested or just want to get to the action faster.

Everyone’s in beginner classes. The plan of keeping units in a class until they master it looks like it might not be feasible at higher tiers. I have several already at 10+ where they could promote to immediate classes but nowhere near mastery, and I have to keep in mind that this is not a game with an infinite grind endgame/postgame (at least pre-DLC). Everyone’s about equally useful at what I’ve got them doing, but Ashe is a bit iffy and I’m ignoring Annette’s scattered interests to make her a full mage. Byleth was actually falling behind for a bit, but he just picked up his Prf sword so that ought to make him more useful.

Battalions have their uses, but mostly they’re just minor stats boosts and another button to press in combat. At least they’re low maintenance.

I take back what I said last time about supports growing slowly, because I’ve picked up a ton of them in these two months. Byleth’s first support took me off guard because it happened without my even realizing that I’d initiated it. Sometimes the students just come up and talk at to them during the week.

Also did tea time. Not too hard, pretty dull, and only marginally less weird than face touching. I still maintain that this feature would have better with alcohol, but apparently the Japanese are as prudish as Anglos about that. It also doesn’t feel mechanically very rewarding compared to some of your other uses for activity points.

I’ve got a handful of broken weapons and a bunch of smithing stones, but the forge still hasn’t opened up. I appreciate that you gain access to more monastery features a little each month and not all at once, but this is the only one that I’ve found myself really waiting on.

Speaking of timespans, I believe the school phase lasts twelve in-game months? In which case I’m already a third of the way through it, even with my frequent exploring and need to talk to everyone each month.

Finding lost items and giving gifts is occasionally cute, but doesn’t seem very rewarding. It’s great for the Lions characters since they get more motivation for their studies, but as far as I can tell the other characters only get a small support boost with Byleth that I don’t care about and would probably take forever to get anywhere on that alone besides.

The Death Knight does his best Black Knight impression during Chapter 4, but thankfully he doesn’t move. And I thought beating the fake Desaix in the last battle of FE15 Act 1 was daunting...he does drop a Dark Seal so hypothetically he should be able to be defeated, but I have no idea how without an absurd amount of grinding.

Story/Character observations

The factional conflicts within the church appear to be wholly political in nature, but I’m left wondering if Rhea’s crusade against the Western church is all that we’re going to see of that.

So much character exploration for the Lions pivots around Duscur. As much as I enjoy the central players getting to glimpse other aspects of Faerghus through stuff like Lonato’s rebellion is refreshing.

That said, Dimitri/Dedue just does not let up. Dimitri pulls the “like a brother” bit in his C with Byleth but also admits that Dedue was all he had for companionship after the events of Duscur left him without a father and alienated from his childhood friends. Combine that with Dedue’s perpetual wariness about affecting the reputations of anyone who isn’t Dimitri and Ingrid’s hostility toward Dedue’s presence in their house and the subtext just writes itself. It helps that the two of them are together in basically every cutscene and so far have always appeared in the same area when exploring the monastery but for the most recent month, when Dedue’s offer to help with security was rejected by the church on account of his heritage and yet (and this point might be coincidental? I don’t know if they spawn randomly) his earring can be found in the room where he was with Dimitri the preceding month.

Other support shenanigans: Felix upbraids Sylvain for unknowingly hurting others with his behavior, which is enough to quirk an eyebrow. Ingrid also takes him to task, recounting instances during their youth when Sylvain hit on her elderly grandmother and a scarecrow (NB: from what I’ve seen this is one instance of the text being substantially changed from Japanese, in which he hits on a crossdressing man instead). I get that the intention was to avoid a lazy, transphobic joke, but oddly the English comes off even gayer since I’ve never heard of a female-presenting scarecrow...if you will. Ingrid and Ashe bond over tales of knighthood including one about the King of Lions’s very close friend who gets referenced in the Dimitri/Felix ending and serves as an effective model for how Fódlan history is going to immortalize all this homoeroticism. It’s not mentioned in their C at least, but I got the impression that this is meant to be significant because, as a woman and a commoner respectively, Ingrid and Ashe are outsiders to the usual ranks of knighthood who nonetheless idealize the lifestyle. Mercedes shares her mildly disturbing family history with Byleth, while Annette keeps dropping hints about her missing father and claims Byleth is like her big brother...three conversations before she decides to sleep with him. See, sometimes claiming a sibling-like bond does lead to sex. Awkward considering who I’m planning to have Byleth S rank on this playthrough, however....

Regarding non-student characters, I’ve not yet been given the opportunity to recruit any. This is rather basic information that doesn’t seem to be documented anywhere online yet, so I’m curious to know who becomes available and when.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Spoilers

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techmaestro · 7 years ago

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Comics and the MCU

In the years I’ve been playing MCU Tony, I’ve noticed things about how the characters are different than their Comic counterparts. I don’t read the comics, mind, but by this point, I’ve had enough exposure and played with enough people who are from those verses, that I’ve reached some conclusions.

Interesting conclusions.

The short of it is this: MCU Howard is basically Comic Tony if he’d been born in a different era.

Now I’ll throw out the long-range version of this. See, this thought started several months ago when talking to someone who plays MCU Howard and Ults Tony. I play with both, and they do a wonderful job with their characters, so I agree they know what they’re talking about. Many of the things I love about how they play their Howard are things that are rather universal to MCU Howards I’ve dealt with over the years, so it’s hardly just theirs.

You see, we were talking about Tony vs Tony and just how the different types of Tony usually are entirely dependent on where a Tony comes from, and how bewildering it is to see Comic things thrown overtop an MCU Tony. Because MCU Tony is a different creature. Yes, they all have the armor in common, that’s a Tony Stark thing, but there are many many things that are different between them.

So, I’ll start at the beginning and let you draw your own conclusions, shall I?

The very first, most pivotal thing that pops into my head is Steve.

MCU Tony views Steve as an aggravating friend slash brother figure that he had to live up to as a kid that his dad adored. He trusts him right up until he can’t, and he expects it to be reciprocal when it clearly isn’t. Yes, there is mutual respect, but they’re not actually close, and while Steve would trust Tony to defend the Earth, he never once considers he might come down on his side when it comes to defending a friend.

Comic Tony, from what I understand, is a whole other animal in Steve’s general direction. They’re close, they have an unwavering bond, they count on one another even when they’re at odds, and Tony actively loves and is somewhat of a Cap fanboy, a sentiment which is returned to a degree. In essence, from the word go, Tony was on Steve’s side and did everything he could for him, because of course. On top of all this, he looked for Steve for a long time before finding him, because that was just what he needed to do.

Now I’m going to point out MCU Howard’s view on Steve. Howard was instant friends with Steve when they met up properly, and there was a touch of proprietary affection there because Howard helped make him into the person he was. He was his friend, they joked with one another, trusted one another unshakably, and when Howard lost Steve it affected him for the rest of his life. He searched for him in every spare moment, something which affected his relationship with his son. He loved him and practically says as much during the Agent Carter series, which is a point that can’t be stressed enough.

So, moving on from that point to point two.

The Company.

Now, I’m a little hazier on Comic Tony’s position on a lot of things to do with this one, and I can’t for the life of me remember if he shut down weapons like MCU Tony did. Was that a thing? If he did, it was certainly far later up the timestream, and definitely not when he came back because he kept Iron Man’s identity a secret. I do know that he built world ending horrors of weapons because he felt it was the best way to deal with certain problems. We also know that he was a very very astute businessman who enjoyed that part of the company, and never actually let go of it while he had a choice about it, because why would he?

We all know MCU Tony got out of the weapon business pretty much at his first real reason to, and never hid being Iron Man. He stopped building horrors on purpose (yes, I admit that Ultron was fumbled badly but he had help with that one), and basically turned to defense rather than offense as his primary weapon. Of course, then there’s the whole ‘here Pepper have my company’ thing which we can all agree that Comic Tony would probably never have done. Not while he was still alive or capable anyway.

And then we have Howard in the MCU. Howard who builds weapons he calls ‘bad babies’ and hides away because of their sheer destructive possibility, who built his company from nothing because it was something he wanted. Howard who ran the company for more than forty years without even seeming to give a hint he’d hand it over to Tony before someone pried it out of his cold dead hands. Howard who was comfortable with the idea of being in a war and staying on that track even after though his first love was planes, once upon a time.

Speaking of love, that brings me to point three of this mess.

Relationships.

Everyone knows that Comic Tony is a relationship disaster. He’s a serial dater, with many long and short relationships in his past that usually ended badly for one reason or another. He has a rather vigorous sex life, he takes bets and is comfortable wandering down the street naked because of them, and in general he never really stops, though he’s devoted as can be when he’s with someone.

MCU Tony, while having been with a lot of people, never really dated. Sure, he’d have one night stands, and the fact that he calls Maya an ‘ex-girlfriend’ because of one says a lot about how ill-equipped he is when he gets serious with Pepper. He’s never done this before, and he has no idea what he’s supposed to do. He’s loyal, devoted, and generally content to run with it once he’s there, but it’s still his first real relationship, and that matters.

Now, back to MCU Howard. In Agent Carter, we learn very quickly that he has a wild sex life, he dates people all the time at varying amounts of intensity, and eventually he ends up with Maria, his wife, and has his son, who never sees his dad’s wild party side, so we can only presume that Maria might very well be why he stopped. After all, Howard used to regularly throw parties and invite in a bunch of half-naked women to run around at the drop of a hat. While not orgies, one should account for the times.

And then the last point. Superhero nonsense and SHIELD.

Comic Tony ends up in charge of an organization like SHIELD briefly, SWORD which I hear was British, as well as SHIELD itself at some point. He’s political, he’s meticulous, and he goes out of his way to make sure that the superhero community is sorted out. He’s one of two people who really got the superhero ball rolling. In essence, he’s a very important person in the super spy and superhero arenas. He likes being in charge of all that, and he has an aptitude for it that he uses.

MCU Tony, bless his heart, is not a politician. He wants nothing to do with running a spy anything, barely wants to be involved with the team at first at all, and most certainly is not a politician. If he was a politician, there was no way he would have been so far behind the curve with the accords. The poor man had no idea what was going on until far too late to do anything about it. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t trying, but he was late to the game, and out of his depth. He’s a businessman, not a politician, and it shows.

MCU Howard, well, let’s just start with him having been accused of treason and still coming out the other side with enough clout to build SHIELD in the first place, shall we? Who does that? He’s a consummate liar, self-admitted, who does anything and everything he must to get where he feels he needs to be. This doesn’t make him a bad man, no, but it does make him ruthless, a trait that his son simply isn’t as good at and Comic Tony is.

Conclusion, when looking at all this?

MCU Howard is a reflection of Comic Tony. We don’t know what his childhood was like, how good or bad it was, and yes, he wasn’t a very expressive parent to Tony, but he didn’t hurt him either, and we don’t see anything that indicates that he was a drunk the way Comic Howard was. No, he was more likely a severely awkward product of his times that learned to not be as open as he’d been when he was young, which is, interestingly, something that MCU Tony learns as the MCU goes on as well. We can see that in progress.

MCU Howard takes many of Comic Tony’s best traits, and sometimes his worst ones as well, and uses them. They were just set in another era, one with different values than even Comic Tony would have had to deal with, and shaped the man who ended up with them differently.

All of these Starks are still Starks, they’re still all ridiculous, liable to be kidnapped geniuses, but when people throw down a bunch of Comic Tony headcanons all over MCU Tony it doesn’t make sense, because they’re rather different people. Now, if you look at it from the perspective of MCU Howard being the reflection of Comic Tony, and MCU Tony being the product of that legacy, it’s a different, far more fascinating story.

Sure, the name Tony Stark is still irrevocably linked to the title of Iron Man, but the hows and whys and approach differ wildly, as well as how it’s handled. The core things of who the characters themselves are is a little more important than just what they do, I think, and I thank you all for reading this fascinating parallel that’s become obvious to me over time.

And that my friends, is all I’ll say about that. For the moment anyway.

P.S. Edwin Jarvis. Enough said.

#headcanons

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violetsystems · 4 years ago

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#personal

Things have been quiet and restful lately aside from appliances breaking. They brought in a mini fridge while they wait on a part which was a good excuse to make some space. I put up a layer of gradient pink sheer curtains for the kitchen windows I ordered online. It’s harder to see into the kitchen during the day because of the sun. There’s these little tweaks I do every week to my life in everything. They can be aggravating but end up being better off in the long run. I’ve found getting mad at things just makes me more frustrated. I stand in my kitchen a lot and listen to the news. I have my opinions about things and then I make actions. Mostly with allocating the liquidity I have in various ways. Boring ways mind you. Explaining my financial strategies are about as yawn inducing as how I choose unorthodox methods in collectible card games. The idea that the debt I paid off early Fall has been offset recently by returns on cash investments is a bit backwards for me. That coupled with the fact that it feels like my resumes go directly to the trash. There’s a lot I don’t know about what the future thinks it holds for me. And then there’s a lot I do know mostly about the goals I’ve set for myself. I’ve run huge races alone. I ran a 5k in Englewood years ago for the victims of gun violence. I started the race with somebody I knew back from the rave days. They used to throw the biggest jungle parties in Chicago. They worked for a brewer in the area. We started the race together but my pace was too slow. I ended the race alone and took the elevated train home. Back in July, I ended another race of sorts. There were many elements serendipitously aligned in my favor. There was a legal continuation of my health insurance however expensive it was. There was a lump sum payout and a severance package. There was government legislation that protected me through the end of the tax year. And then there’s the state I live in which doesn’t tax retirement income. Which all makes it sound like I retired already. In truth, what that all means doesn’t really matter when nobody talks to you. So there’s a time of great confusion. And then there’s the world around us that keeps grinding relentlessly through absolute trauma. I wake up sometimes in the morning and check my dash. Roll over and smile to myself through all the ambiguity. Innocently enough those moments matter most to me for esoteric reasons. Things I don’t really feel the need to explain about my life. Answers and inspiration I’ve found for myself that keeps me pushing through day after day. I have love for things. I have deep love, care and attention for people. And these are the things I focus on that help me focus on what to do in my own life. They’re not evident or even remotely easy to read. But I know myself by now enough to know how to stand still and wait patiently. It’s been a lot of deep breaths and even more thinking ahead. No more than three days or so lest the fridge breaks again.

I don’t really write these to give people advice anymore. I write journals to share my thoughts with people who care about me enough to read them. I’ve found a lot of times that nobody actually listens to me or acknowledges I exist. There’s a refreshing silence and clarity to this. I do talk to myself a lot in the kitchen. I practice public speaking often. I used to be an emcee. But mostly, I measure my own tone and emotions on things that I think about. I get mad. I get sad and depressed. I feel defeated. I let myself feel these feelings often. But I also try to do something about it. I act on those feelings to do something concretely positive to change it. Sometimes it’s hard to see. Nothing changes overnight. I have far more time to work out these days. I walk two or three miles a few times a week around the neighborhood. I catch a lot of cool graffiti and watch brands and economies in motion. I’ve kept a spreadsheet the last few months to track my spending and stick to a budget. I have time to shop for deals and sometimes I don’t shop at all. I watch and interact with a lot of news media. I apply for jobs and get discouraged until I see my net income rise faster than my spending. It’s a perverse place to be in when there’s little or no validation other than magic money. But for the record, this is the worst it could get for somebody. Whatever it is I’ve been through. I’ve stopped trying to process blame or revisit the past. I’ve done so much over the years that goes unnoticed and yet there’s things people cannot forget about me. There’s what society projects it thinks I should be and then there’s the voting shares in my portfolio. The real mindfuck of being yourself is that there really isn’t a roadmap. You take the path ahead of you and you clear your mind. The hardest part is clearing your mind mostly of what other people think about you. There’s any number of things that weigh it down. These days for me, those are few and far between. Sure this entire era is the most fuckery I’ve seen in my entire life. But I’m sitting on the right tools to cut the drama down to size right where it stands. This is to say that I have money where many people don’t. Do I rub it in people’s faces? Do I gloat and say I told you so. No, although I do dab in my kitchen on Fridays when the markets close. There were never really any answers for me since July from that old version of my life. There are things that never went away. Relationships with people that only grew through the noise. And now that things are peaceful and serene to a point, those whispers are the softest to me. You can feel it when you grumpily clutch the second pillow in your bed and imagine it’s someone else. It’s still a pillow mind you. It’s no comparison to the person it represents. But it’s the feeling that carries you through the bullshit. That there are people out there so much more worthy of thoughts you waste feeling mad at the world and alone. That the light is out there at the end of the tunnel. It just so happens I’m at the end of that tunnel just chilling. I’d rather not move too far ahead and risk leaving people I care about behind.

So lately has been a lot of positioning and calibrating of my life. I know how much I spend on a monthly basis. I didn’t really know I was capable of sounding like an investment commercial. I’m the one who acts on those monologues with myself in the kitchen. They seem to pay off pretty well. It is very scary to think about how nothing is possible without money. I paid off a lot of debt even before this had happened. Everyone’s answer these days is more debt. I heard one of the people I used to work with that stayed just bought a new car. People that worked for me had just gotten loans for houses. Debt in America is an extremely bizarre thing to watch from the other side. I live alone. I’ve never been married or had children. I don’t have many obligations other than to my parents, my cat and the person I care about most in this world. So I’ve always thought being pliant and agile financially was a goal I wanted to stick with. I do believe saving money is something we all could get better at. There’s a lot of peer pressure that comes with ecosystems, economies and investments. The “we’re all in this together” mentality is great when it’s with “your people.” The ultra rich, tax avoiding oligarchies aren’t really my people per say. I have travelled the world on my own to see beyond that. I hope to travel the world again and use my skills to pivot into a new career. And then again, I don’t really know anything other than what I hold down day after day. I live in the promise of a sanctuary city with a roof over my head and a clean refrigerator. People know who I am and feel I’m accountable. They may not like me but I stay out of trouble when I see it coming. I answer to confrontation and I adjust my life accordingly. I don’t get stressed out about these problems. I engineer ways to avoid them entirely. Have I made a better life for myself? I seem to think so. Do I still feel invisible? Completely aside from the Class A shares in my brokerage. I could go on all day about how that’s the only real visibility in a capitalist republic. And then I could also just rewatch Battlestar Galactica. I do feel lonely at times but never alone. And I don’t really have any fear of missing out on anything other than my shot at having coffee and a pastry one day with you. So mostly if you have the vision, you should be able to see a clear path forward. And in some ways we’re already here. Every Saturday morning when I write to you and other people read it. Some people skim over it. Some people pretend it doesn’t exist. Other people paint it all out to think I’m crazy. Other people just think it’s the most wonderful turn of events. I think that all I ever do is think about how to stay true. To myself. To you. To everyone that counts of people like us. I don’t really have any answers or advice other than to walk with love and know yourself. I know one thing. Clowns scare the fucking shit out of me. Not as much as debt and interest. Neither are in my life at the moment. All I have to torment my dreams is you. For now the pillow will have to get used to it. <3 Tim

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sarcasticfina · 7 years ago

Note

"Please, you can't die now." Bucky to Darcy - go for the real emotional crap. ;)

“You gotta go,” he choked out, an arm banded around his front,blood squelching through the fabric of his tac suit.

“Forget that.” Darcy looked from the splintered door of theirsad excuse for a hideout back to him, tucked in a corner, metal hand gripping agun both for comfort and safety. “You jump, I jump, remember?”

He cracked a smile. “Last time I said that, you said youweren��t jumpin’ anywhere without a parachute.”

“Yeah, well, Stark won’t make me that parachute jacket I keepputting requisitions in for, so I guess I’ll just have to cross my fingers andhope for the best.”

Bucky stared at her profile. Blood trickled from an open woundthat started at her temple and disappeared into her hair. She was leaning tothe left, even in her crouch, trying to take the pressure off her twisted ankleand her ribs, where she’d been grazed by a bullet. ‘Nothing but a flesh wound,’she’d joked, even as she grimaced, dragging his much heavier body along withhers. She was shit at shooting, but she had one of his back up guns in hand andshe was as prepared as she could be to take out whoever came down thehall.

“You remember what I taught you?” he wondered, pulling in atacky, rattling breath.

She paused and looked back at him, pasting on a devilishsmile. “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”

He stared at her a beat– the blue of her eyes, framed in longlashes, and the pink of her lips, a bloody red from where she’d chewed them up.It wasn’t so long ago that she was just another unfamiliar face he had to keepan eye out for.

( A woman was standing in the kitchen, a poptart in one handand an absurdly large mug of coffee in the other. Her hair was piled on top ofher head, leaning precariously to one side, and her eyes were narrowed intoslits, dark bags underneath them. Rather than greet them, she grunted, and thenwalked off, slippers shuffling across the floor.

Bucky stared after her. “Who was that?”

“Darcy,” Steve answered. “She used to be Doctor Foster’sassistant. She works for Pepper now.”

Sam chuckled. “She got into a Twitter war with Stark, caughtPepper’s eye, and she ended up hiring her. Now she’s the social media coordinator.Darcy’s the reason Stark’s accounts go dark every once in a while. She puts himon time outs when he hasn’t had enough sleep.”

Bucky hummed. “She lives here, too?”

He didn’t miss how Steve and Sam glanced at each other, but choseto ignore it.

“Yeah, Buck. She’s a couple floors down. She’s got an office on 8,too. If she’s not there, she’s usually in Foster’s lab.”

He crossed the kitchen to pick up the box she’d left behind. “Whatwas that thing she was eating?”

“A poptart.” A grinning Sam followed after him. “You wanna tryone?”

Bucky stared at him suspiciously, but nodded.

“You’re in luck then…” Sam plucked the box out of his hand andturned it around for Bucky to see. Sam in his full Falcon suit was printed onthe front. “You like it extra toasty?” )

After that, he’d see Darcy around but wasn’t sure how to talk toher. She was loud and confident and always seemed to know what she was doing.She was warm and friendly and would talk to anyone. It didn’t matter theenvironment or the group of people, she made herself fit. Whereas he alwaysfelt off and disjointed, like a puzzle piece that was put in the wrong box.

In the end, it was Natasha that suggested he teach Darcy how toshoot. At the very least to defend herself against any possible attack.

( “It’s Bucky, right? Or do you prefer James?”

He didn’t jump. He’d heard her footsteps coming for a while. Thecommon room saw a lot of visitors; sometimes he sat there just to get used tobeing around people again. He just wasn’t expecting her to talk to him.“Yeah.”

She blinked at him. “Yeah you’re okay with Bucky or yeah youprefer James?”

He pursed his lips. “Bucky’s fine.”

Her lips twitched. “No argument here.”

“Huh?”

Waving a dismissive hand, she moved to take a seat beside him atthe kitchen counter. “Natasha sent me your way. She said you needed totalk to me about something? I hope it’s not about opening an Instagram account,because listen, I’m all for you sharing all of that–” She motioned to hisface, “–with the greater public. But we need to work on your publicpersona a bit. Good looks can only get you so far before people startmaking ‘reasons your fave is problematic’ posts.”

He stared at her. “I didn’t get half of that,” headmitted.

“Natasha said you wanted to see me. Let’s start there.”

He frowned. “Uh, she said you needed training.”

Darcy stiffened. “I what now?” She pulled back. “Ithought I made it clear in my work contract that I wouldn’t be playing Spy vs.Spy.” She stood. “No. Nope. Not gonna happen. I can’t even jog withoutdoubling up on sports bras. So whatever workout you have in mind, it’s gonnahurt. A lot. Count me out.”

Before she could reach the door, he called out, “Shooting.”

She paused. “Huh?”

“I can show you how to shoot. A few defensive moves, too. If youwant.”

She pivoted back to him, curious. “And that’s it? No fivemile runs or wheatgrass shakes?”

“The hell is wheatgrass?”

She grinned. “I like the way you think, Buckster.”

Confused, and uncomfortable with the fact, he sat up a littlestraighter. “When’re you off work?”

“What, today? Five, usually.”

He nodded. “Meet me at the range.”

With a salute, she winked. “You got it.”

As she walked away, Bucky shook his head. What the hell was hegetting himself into?)

Darcy didn’t take to guns like she did her taser, but he had afeeling that had more to do with wanting to avoid taking human life. She wasthe type of person that stayed behind in a dangerous situation to savevulnerable animals than her own ass. There was a part of him– a very largepart– that admired that about her. He’d seen too much death. His hands werepainted red with it. Nothing he did now could wash that away. It was the samefor a lot of the people on the team. They’d seen and done things they couldn’tget rid of. Couldn’t scrub clean from their memory. So, it was nice to bearound someone who was a little less jaded.

Getting together with Darcy was never in the plan. Gettingtogether with anyone seemed too far out of reach. Some days, he didn’t feellike a whole person. Fractions and fragments of who he’d been and who he turnedinto, just floating around in a misshapen package. Nobody deserved to put upwith that. But there Darcy was, happy to take on the challenge.

( “Never took you for a coward, Barnes.”

He paused at the sound of her voice, flipped the safety on his gunand dropped it on the counter in front of him. Turning to face her, he raisedan eyebrow as she crossed the otherwise empty gun range to meet him. Orchallenge him, more like. “What made you change your mind?”

She snorted. “Generally, when a woman asks you out for dinnerand you say you’ll be there, you show.”

Technically, she’d told him she was making spaghetti and if hewanted a bowl, she had an extra chair at her table. He was gonna go. He plannedto. Showered and picked out one of his better shirts to wear. Next thing heknew, he was at the gun range, spaghetti-less.

He looked past her shoulder, focusing on a distant mark on the farwall. “You think I stood you up?”

Darcy crossed her arms and shrugged. “I think you’re avoiding theinevitable.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“If I have to tell you, then it’s going to take a lot more than mygrandma’s famous spaghetti recipe to knock some sense into you.”

His gaze darted toward her. “Maybe I lost track oftime.”

“Or maybe you thought the guns were getting lonely down here.” Sheshrugged. “Look, I’m not going to chase you. If you’re not ready for this, it’scool. But I don’t want to play any ‘will they, won’t they’ games. So, I likeyou. And I think you like me.” She paused. “Do you?”

His tongue dragged across his lower lip before headmitted, “Yeah.”

“Okay. Well…” She smiled. “You should do something aboutthat.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m not good at… I don’t remember howto…”

She nodded and took a step toward him, and thenanother. “It’s okay.” She reached for his hand and folded their fingerstogether. “We can take it slow, figure it out together. Step one…” Shegave his hand a tug. “Spaghetti.”

He looked down at their hands, and then to her, smiling encouragingly.And he took a step forward. “I can do that.” )

Darcy had to go looking for him at the gun range more than a fewtimes. He was comfortable there. It was familiar. Didn’t matter what gun hepicked up, he always hit what he wanted to hit and where he wanted to hit it.Shooting paper was simple. At various points in his life, shooting people hadbecome too simple. It kept him up some nights. Mostnights, if he was honest.

He wished he could say that he was all healed up. That a fewyears of therapy and having Steve in his life made up for all that time in cryoor under the thumb of HYDRA. But he was walking scar tissue. Some days werebetter than most. Some days he even believed he could have it all. Othershe just couldn’t.

( “You can talk to me, you know that, right?”

Bucky looked up to find Steve hovering nearby, that hang-dog lookon his face that reminded Bucky that things were different, that they’d neverbe quite right. That too much time had passed. They’d each done too many thingsto be the people they once were. But, here they were anyway. And even if hesometimes felt like the living embodiment of Steve’s attempt at salvation, itwas better to be here than where he was.

“I know,” he said.

“Do you?”

He looked up, meeting Steve’s heavy gaze.

“I know it’s different. That I didn’t go through what you did. Andmaybe I can’t understand it, not completely. But I want to try, Buck.” He shookhis head. “I’m here. I’m always gonna be right here.”

Bucky ground his teeth. “Easy to say, not so easy to followthrough with.”

Steve’s brow furrowed.

“We both know there’s no guarantees out there, not living thislife. The things we do, nothing says for sure we walk away from that fight intact.” His arm whirred, cogs and wheels moving together and apart. “Youwanna be here, I get that. But there are some things you can’t make better. Andneither can I.”

Steve let out a long, heavy sigh. He crossed his arms in thatdefiant way of his. “I think you’re wrong.”

“Yeah, well, we won’t know until it’s too late, right?”

Swallowing tightly, Steve gave a quick jerk of his head. “Theoffer stands. You ever wanna talk about what’s going on in your head…”

“It’s not always about that. About the past. Sometimes it’s aboutnow. About who I am and what I’m doing… I don’t always think it’s real. ThatI’m probably back there, stuck in cryo, dreaming of better things orsomething.”

“I’d tell you you’re not, but it doesn’t make much difference,does it?”

“No.” Bucky stared up at him. “’Cause if it was a dream, you’d saythe same thing.”

He nodded slowly, knowingly. “What about Darcy?”

Bucky’s mouth kicked up. “Well, she’s even more proof, isn’t she?What’s a girl like that doing with someone like me?” He shook his head. “She’sexactly what my head would dream up.”

Steve could do nothing but sigh. )

All things considered, Bucky felt lucky. He could’ve gone a fewmore years, for sure. He had more he wanted to do and see. More he wanted toshow Darcy. More he wanted her to show him. But it could’ve been worse. Hecould’ve died under HYDRA’s control. Could’ve gone the rest of his life neverrealizing what he’d lost or ever getting some semblance of peace.

( “I can feel you staring,” she mumbled.

“Can’t sleep.”

Darcy cracked one eye open to look at him. “And you thoughtmy face might knock you out?”

He half-smiled. “Didn’t want to wake you up getting out ofbed.”

Humming, she turned over onto her side and reached for him,hooking an arm around his waist, her fingers drawing circles on his back. “Kindof you. But the intense staring overshadows any good boyfriend marks youmight’ve got for that.”

“Guess I’ll have to earn ‘em back another way.”

Stretching, she let out a laugh. “Was that the plan the wholetime? Wake me up for some nookie?”

He brushed her hair back from her face, fingers tracing down herneck. “Unexpected benefit.”

She covered his hand with her own and drew it down, pressing akiss to his palm. “You wanna tell me why you can’t sleep?”

He shook his head faintly. “Not tonight.” He shuffled closerand squeezed her hand. “Rain check.”

“Rain check,” she agreed. “As long as nookie is still on thetable.”

He chuckled under his breath. “Always.” )

Bucky shook his memory off and refocused on the present. Darcywith a gun and any number of attackers coming their way. He’d taken out whoeverhe could, but they could’ve called for reinforcements since.

Much as he complained that her accuracy with a gun wasn’t whatit could be, even a crude wound could give them a little time. For what, hewasn’t sure. The cavalry, maybe. For Steve or Sam or the rest of the mismatchedsuperhero gang to show up and save their sorry asses.

“You squeeze, don’t–”

“Don’t pull. I know.” She cast a frown down at the gun and thenpivoted to look at him. “I preferred your other lessons, just FYI.”

He let out a huff of a snort. “Pretty sure you wereteachin’ me a few things, doll.”

She grinned slowly. “You kept up.”

He tipped his head back against a concrete wall and stared ather. Hair in disarray, clothes torn and dirty, spattered with blood (his orhers or someone else’s?). “Never wanted you to end up here…”

“What, in an abandoned building, fighting off some HYDRAreject?” She shrugged. “The way of life, I guess.”

He stared, unconvinced.

“Okay, so, not for everyone… But our immediate circle?Definitely.” Darcy shifted, moving across the floor to sit next tohim. “You know this isn’t your fault, right?”

He grimaced. “Pretty sure they’re not chasing you down oversomething you Twittered.”

“Tweeted. And yeah, probably not. But it doesn’t matter who they’reafter. Anything they do is on them, not you.” She met his gaze. “I knewwhat I was getting into. And I don’t regret it.”

He didn’t either. He wished he could tell her just how much, butthe words buckled in his throat and snagged in his teeth. “You deservedbetter.”

Darcy smiled. “Who said I didn’t find the best?”

He shook his head, a quick jerk, and looked away. He could feelblood puddling underneath him, warm and wet. He could taste it on his tonguetoo, bubbling up his throat only to be swallowed back down. “You can do alot better than the mess I’ve got in my head.”

Darcy reached for him, gently brushing his hair back from hisface. “You’re not perfect, Buck. I’m a far cry from it myself. But youmake me happy.”

He blinked as his eyes burned. “You make me happy, too,” hechoked out hoarsely.

Darcy frowned. “You’re starting to freak me out. I know thesituation sucks, but the team’s on their way. Sure, things look a littlesticky, but we’ve been in worse, right? Jane’s almost opened three black holesthis year. That felt a lot closer to death than this.” She smiled, but he couldsee her lips trembling. “And don’t even get me started on how many times Stark’sattempts at ‘fixing’ something ended up blowing up in our faces. I’mpretty sure I still have toaster shrapnel in my back.”

Bucky dropped his gun in his lap to reach for her, metal fingerssmoothing over her cheek. “There’s gotta be a fire exit. If you can get toit, climb to the roof, hop to the next building over. It’ll be tight, but youcan make it. Get as far away as you can, call Steve, he’ll–”

“Hey, hey, hey…” Darcy shook her head and covered hishand. “We’re getting out of here together.”

He swallowed tightly. “No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?” She glared. “You think some tactically trained Naziassholes are how we go? Absolutely not. I’m making it to 93 and dying on abeach, drinking a Mai Tai and reminiscing about all the fun, crazy shit I did.And you, probably looking way hotter than any 98-year-old should, are going tobe right there with me, you got it?”

“We gotta be smart. You got a chance here. You can make it ifyou just–”

“If I what? Huh? If I just leave you behind?”

He stared up at her, searching her stubborn, scared, angry face. “Listen,doll…”

“No.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m not leaving you here. Ifthose assholes want you, they’ll get me too. And a face full of lead. BecauseI’m shooting anybody that comes looking.”

He smiled faintly, mouth curved up on one side. “You aimfor their face, you’ll end up hitting their toes.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Shut up. Besides, I usually aim forthe chest and hit their crotch. It has a lasting effect.”

He snorted.

Shuffling closer, Darcy pressed her shoulder to his and droppedher gaze to his arm, still pressed tight across his chest. “You wanna tellme how bad it is?” Before he could reply, she added, “No rain checks thistime.”

Drawing a deep breath, he admitted, “Not good.”

Her hand tightened around his, enough that the pressure sensorsalerted him. “Had a good run though.”

She laughed, thick and cracked. “Did you?”

“The beginning was pretty good. End wasn’t too bad either.”

“Sure, just the 70 years in between. A drop in the bucket,really.”

He half-smiled. “Could’a been worse.”

Darcy turned to him, her brow furrowed. “Seriously? How?”

“Could’a been 80.” He stared at her. “Could been a dream.”

She blinked as her eyes filled. “It’s not fair… You gotout. You got another chance. And now… It’s over?” She shook her head. “Youdeserved better.”

“I don’t know. I had it pretty good.” He licked his drylips. “I had you, right?”

Her mouth trembled. “It’s not enough.”

The pain was gone. It was a relief, even though he knew what itmeant. “It was plenty. Lot more than I ever thought I’d get.” More thanhe’d thought he deserved for a long while.

“Bucky…” She turned over and pushed onto her knees. “Youcan’t go, okay? Steve needs you. I need you.” She put her gun aside and cupped his face, her thumbsstroking across the high arch of his cheeks. “I know I pretend nothing bothersme, but it does. Everything scares me. Growing up, natural disasters, heights,spiders, love. Being with you put a lot of that to test. It made me into abetter person. A stronger person. And I like to think it did the same for you.I think it still could. But you need to be here for that, okay?”

He wanted to. God, he wanted to, so damn much. But his visionwas darkening around the edges and his body was growing number by the second.He coughed then, his chest jerking forward and blood dribbling down his chin. “Darce…”

She let out a strangled noise. “No, please, you can’t dienow…” She leaned in, pressing her forehead to his. “It’s just the beginning.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed down the burning lumpbuilding in his throat. “Rain check, all right?”

With a strangled sob, Darcy nodded. “Rain check.”

He could hear thumping footsteps and muffled voices calling toeach other in the hallway then. He pulled in a deep breath, his heartstuttering, and he pushed his gun into her hand, staring up at her meaningfully.

Darcy stared back for a beat. Stubborn and wild and wearing hertears like war paint. She pressed a kiss to his forehead and his cheek and hislips, and then she stood, raising both guns as she went.

What was left of the door flew open and bullets startedflying.

Darcy’s war cry echoed in his ears, the last thing he heard before it all went dark.

#darcy lewis #darcy fic #janeyfoster #ask reply #fanfic #prompt fill

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cherokeesunrise · 4 years ago

Text

Social Conditioning/Praise for Parents

A Quick Analysis on Social Conditioning and Parenting

This is such an expansive topic and I could go on for hours (or pages) about this but I’ll just focus on one aspect right now: Parenting

Ahh the ever-changing Parenting trap, uh curse, death sentence, uh…blessing?

After my post didn’t save yesterday (thanks Tumblr:-') I took that as a way of pivoting a very vocal rant to something that gives a bit more perspective. Truthfully, I think that everything I write includes some sort of insight on something but I’ve vented all day on paper so now I’m ready to pick apart the issues and accept what is.

Social conditioning when it comes to parenting? It looks like this:

Buy your baby an ipad and stick him/her in front of it for hours on end.

That’s when we’re outside of the house.

Inside the house, stick the kid in front of the t.v. for hours on end.

Hey, put a tv in their room why you’re at it. Add a gaming system or 3.

Everyone’s doing it!

Is your child in school for 12 years, from the age of 5 (or younger) to 18? Do they still have homework while they’re in school? Yes? Then give them constant reminders to do their homework for the full 12 years. After all, you wouldn’t want them to have any sort of responsibility or obligation in life. No one’s doing that anymore. Kids are here to play, focus on their own personal needs, relax, have fun! Yaaaah!!!!! Poor grades in school? Just buy more violent games or give them their own personal Netflix account. That should take care of that problem. Poor communication skills? No coping skills? Well stick them back in front of the television. That should fix that. Poor self esteem? Then let them watch music videos. I’m sure the latest and greatest of self-affirming behaviors will be exemplified there. This is great! By the time your kid(s) reaches 18 they will be able to hold a job? No. Prepare their own meal? No. Do their own laundry? No. Take public transportation so they can be empowered to move around freely? No.

Ummmm..will they be able to at least do their homework, you know with the all the reminders and all? No, but that’s only because if they don’t do their homework there will be endless extensions.

Oh ok, that’s good then.

Oooor maybe we should TALK about all the things we buy for kids that distract them from what’s important so we can reaffirm amongst each other that everyone is doing it so it must be ok.

Wonderful! So by the time the child is 18, you have socially conditioned an 18-year-old BABY.

Who is going to college…this should be fun ☺

What’s the fear? Actually, something as simple as being different.

When you’re different your whole life you may take this for granted, but social conditioning specifically affects those who are not and do not want to be perceived as any different from anyone else. This means the majority rules. No matter how bad it is. No matter what it is.

Praise for Parents

Ok. Between all night yesterday and all day today, it is safe to say I have nothing nice to say about toxic social conditioning and how it invades positive parenting and pollutes the minds of children, turning them into giant-sized babies who cannot fend for themselves. So I will pivot and instead give encouragement to every parent who goes the extra mile to instill actual values that will enhance their child’s life. This being done at the expense of being un-cool, because you know that life skills are more beneficial than looking cool.

So for every parent who teaches their child to read, because you can read, you are doing a positive thing.

For every parent who requires their children do chores, yes you are doing a positive thing for your child.

For every parent who limits television and online games in favor of imagination and physical movement, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

For every parent who has difficult conversations about sex because Knowledge is Power, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

For every parent who teaches their child fiscal responsibility so they can know how to support themselves, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

For every parent who teaches their child life skills that enable to them to take care of themselves when you are no longeraround, because you will not always be around, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

For every parent that has to advocate for their child’s needs, whether special needs, unbiased treatment, the right to a fair education, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

For every parent that requires Intelligent Knowledge goes into their brains – despite the music, despite the videos, despite the “recommendations” of educators and their “just-right” levels, despite what “everyone else” is doing, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

For every parent that sacrificed their time and energy to wheel the kid around from activity to activity so they can have the opportunity to explore, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

For every parent that requires a child clean up after themselves, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

For every parent that encourages discipline, goals and accountability, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

Even if – the teacher can’t stand you.

Even if – the child can’t stand you.

Even if – everyone ISN’T doing it.

The Proof Is Always In The Pudding. Sometimes when you feel you are fighting a losing battle, because the world is against you, just remember how much your child knows, how much you showed them, how much you educated them. You are doing a positive thing for your child by raising someone who can take care of themselves. That is our obligation as parents, isn’t it? Survival? Or at least it used to be. I don’t know what it is anymore - 18 years of kindergarten?

The positive thing is reflected in the outcome. How equipped is the child who is about to start college? Equipped? Or Not? What you put in is what you get out and it is never a waste of time. You have to plant the seeds that you want to sprout. The planting is the hard part. Parenting is like gardening. You have to prepare the soil, you have to plant the seed, you have to keep it covered, you have to provide tending with water and proper light. That is the responsibility of the parent.

The harvest is what the child will reap when it reaches maturity. If there is a harvest to reap.

It is difficult in today’s society to raise a child who can fend for themselves because it goes against a social norm. The social norm is to baby these people I guess for the duration of their lives? At what point is responsibility and accountability ever a part of the picture? Seemingly never, which is why text messages and email reminders abound to “remind your child to do their homework”. Uhhh in high school? In middle school? News Flash - where there is school, there is homework. How about more accountability and less coddling? I’m not raising an 18-year-old BABY no matter how much everyone else is doing it. I’ve asked numerous times, which of my child’s teachers will be following her to college so she can continue receiving these sweet reminders to do homework? For some reason I have yet to receive a response.

If you don’t follow the status quo, society will condition your child to believe they are somehow missing out on all the fun. Which places you in a bad light.

I’m not going to do the things I don’t believe in and I don’t care what anyone thinks.

If you are a parent who follows this mantra, you are doing a positive thing for your child.

Take heart. Even if you don’t receive a thank you.

I will say ‘thank you’ to you. Thank you for putting positive energy into the world. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your diligence. Thank you for your insight.

I appreciate you. And I appreciate me. Even if no one else does.

If You Give A Man A Fish You Feed Him For A Day.

If You Teach Him How To Fish, You Feed Him For A Lifetime.

#giveamanafishandyoufeedhimforadayteachamantofishaboattruckshirt #parenting

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maxwellyjordan · 6 years ago

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Tribute: Justice Kennedy’s genius

Michael C. Dorf is Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Kennedy during the October 1991 term.

During the course of over three decades on the Supreme Court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy appeared to be the most important jurist in the country and, at least with respect to hot-button domestic policy questions, maybe even the most important government official in the country. He either wrote the key opinion or cast the decisive vote to strike down laws on abortion, affirmative action, corporate-funded political speech, the death penalty, gay rights (including marriage), gun control, school prayer, states’ rights and more. Justice Kennedy has been so central to the contemporary understanding of the Constitution that it was big news when, in the 2012 decision mostly upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Chief Justice John Roberts rather than Justice Kennedy cast the deciding vote. The case was the exception that proved the rule, and the rule has been the rule of Justice Kennedy.

Or at least so it might appear. The reality is somewhat complicated.

Justice Kennedy (Art Lien)

Professional basketball player Shaquille O’Neal was a notoriously poor free-throw shooter, but, he used to say in his own defense, “I make them when they count.” What he meant was that late in the fourth quarter, with the game on the line, he was a reliable free-throw shooter. That wasn’t really true, which is why the NBA changed its rules regarding intentional fouls in response to the “Hack-a-Shaq” strategy that opposing coaches had deployed to exploit the big man’s weakness. Still, even if Shaq were right and he had been a generally mediocre free-throw shooter who rose to the occasion in the clutch, his argument would have been flawed, because they all count. The final score of a basketball game reflects the points each team puts on the scoreboard over the course of the entire game.

So too with the Supreme Court. A majority comprises five justices. They all count. When observers would say that Justice Kennedy cast the deciding fifth vote in this or that case, they were taking the other four votes for granted. But those other four votes counted too. In any given case in which Justice Kennedy has been in the majority, he was no more responsible for the outcome than the other justices with whom he joined.

To be sure, we understand why court-watchers focus on Justice Kennedy. From his appointment through Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement in 2005, he was one of two “median justices,” and since 2005 he was the only median justice. With the rest of the Supreme Court split evenly among generally reliable conservative and generally reliable liberal justices, it made sense to treat the justice(s) in the middle as pivotal.

Yet even that account oversimplifies. On many issues, Justice Kennedy had quite firm views, so much so that observers should have taken his vote for granted. For example, on free speech questions, he may well have been the most libertarian justice in the Supreme Court’s history. Meanwhile, it cannot have been a coincidence that Justice Kennedy authored the majority opinion in each of the four landmark decisions protecting liberty and equality for gay and lesbian Americans. Those assignments, and the way in which Justice Kennedy fulfilled them, speak to his firm convictions on these matters.

That is not to deny that there were questions Justice Kennedy found difficult or that some of his firm convictions happened to be roughly midway between the equally firm convictions of his colleagues to his right and to his left. It is simply to say that anyone who thinks that Justice Kennedy was generally a kind of jurisprudential wild card cannot have carefully studied his record.

Nor would anybody who knows Justice Kennedy the man describe him as mercurial. I got to know Justice Kennedy when I served as one of his four law clerks in the October 1991 term. He did not relish, but neither did he recoil from, the power he and his colleagues exercised over the nation.

Justice Kennedy was also comfortable exercising power in chambers. He was a gentle boss, who never raised his voice or made unreasonable demands — which is not to say that he did not demand top-quality work of himself and his staff. He respected tradition, but also valued a certain kind of informality. One of his work habits illustrates the point.

As a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, I had grown accustomed to writing bench memoranda on the cases for which I was tasked to assist. As the Supreme Court term began, Justice Kennedy told us law clerks that he didn’t want bench memos, because he would read the briefs himself. We were to compile loose-leaf notebooks containing the most relevant Supreme Court precedents for each case. Justice Kennedy also instructed us to make audio recordings of our thoughts so he could listen to them on his drive into work each morning. That should have been easy for me. After all, I had been an extemporaneous debater in college. Yet I was flummoxed by this assignment. For some reason, sitting at my desk alone, I could not just talk into a microphone. I solved the problem, I thought, by writing a short bench memo and then recording myself reading it. That was not what Justice Kennedy wanted, but he was too kind to tell me as much, so he asked me if instead of making recordings I could just talk to him about the cases. I readily agreed, although it meant that he would gleefully pepper me with tough questions as I talked. To this day, I model my Socratic teaching on the kinds of questions he asked.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who was counsel for the Mayo Clinic before becoming a judge, almost became a doctor rather than a lawyer. I have sometimes wondered what career path Justice Kennedy would have followed had he not been a successful lawyer, then judge, then justice. Politics would have been a possibility. He can work a room, he can give a heck of an after-dinner speech, and he was a successful lobbyist in California. His moderately conservative libertarianism would have made him a formidable candidate for governor of his home state and then perhaps even the presidency.

In yet another parallel universe, Justice Kennedy would have been a high-school history or civics teacher. Seeing him as a teacher does not require any great act of imagination. Both before and after becoming a justice, he taught constitutional law at the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and at the school’s summer program in Salzburg, Austria. Justice Kennedy especially enjoys talking to still-younger audiences. He can boil an issue down to its core without dumbing it down.

In a sense, Justice Kennedy was a teacher even in his role as a justice. His critics sometimes point to those of his opinions that do not strictly conform to hornbook categories as evidence of a kind of sloppiness or even lawlessness. In Romer v. Evans, Justice Kennedy wrote for the Supreme Court that a Colorado ballot initiative stripping localities of the power to protect gays and lesbians against sexual orientation discrimination “defies” the conventional threshold equal protection inquiry into whether a law triggers heightened scrutiny. The provision’s “sheer breadth,” he wrote, “is so discontinuous with the reasons offered for it that the amendment seems inexplicable by anything but animus toward the class that it affects.” Critics, including the dissenters, pointed out that under conventional rational basis scrutiny, courts do not inquire into the actual motives of lawmakers. They asked what was wrong with animus anyway, so long as it was not based on an invidious classification.

Was Justice Kennedy incapable of applying the doctrinal framework? Hardly. He is a master of legal classification. During my clerkship, as Passover approached, I asked Justice Kennedy whether he would be willing to “purchase” my bread products (“chametz”) in keeping with a Jewish tradition. He had never encountered this practice before and, after happily agreeing, began a discussion of the fine distinction between legal formalities and legal fictions. I do not remember all of the details, but I am sure they involved the sale of Blackacre for a peppercorn.

What Justice Kennedy’s critics miss about those of his opinions that operate outside of the doctrinal pigeonholes is his understanding of the Supreme Court’s role as expositor of the nation’s fundamental values. Sometimes it is important for the court to draw fine distinctions for lower courts to apply. At other times, however, the People are the primary audience for the court’s rulings. Justice Kennedy’s most important opinions spoke directly to the People.

The message he conveyed was simple but potent. Professor Ronald Dworkin famously argued that, contrary to a commonly held view, liberty and equality, each properly conceived, do not conflict. Justice Kennedy did not go quite that far. He recognized that life and law sometimes present tragic choices. Still, his work on the Supreme Court gestured in Dworkin’s direction in reconciling liberty and equality, indeed, in recognizing, as he put it in Obergefell v. Hodges, a “synergy” between the two.

“The Framers split the atom of sovereignty,” Justice Kennedy famously wrote in a 1995 concurrence praising the “genius” of federalism as a means for serving and protecting the People. His own genius is the mirror image. In his opinions reconciling liberty, equality, and other core values, Justice Kennedy fused the nuclei of disparate constitutional elements into a coherent whole.

The post Tribute: Justice Kennedy’s genius appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

from Law http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/tribute-justice-kennedys-genius/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#law #justice

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lisarprahl · 7 years ago

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Teaching the Uber Generation (and Beyond)

Meet the Uber Generation – they “sign in” when they want to work, “sign out” when they’d like a break, and they hop around different jobs trying to find their path. They pivot often, but this generation is led by thinkers and innovators—individuals who listen, interact and interpret much differently than generations past.

My 26-year-old daughter made that connection recently, and it’s stuck with me since.

We’re entering an interesting time where we’ve continually had to morph the way we teach, learn and conduct our everyday business to appeal to these trends how other generations had to do the same for their predecessors. The introduction of technology gave us access to the world in the palm of our hands, so it’s no wonder attention spans are limited—there’s so much to explore.

In order to keep the Uber Generation kids engaged and become an effective and enjoyable teacher for them, there are a couple steps you can take to create a dynamic learning environment.

Step 1: Prepare

Know your subject matter forwards and backwards so you can pivot just as much as they do.

I remember I would spend about 40 hours studying, learning and resolving all CPA Exam questions while preparing to teach a four-hour lecture. Everything was written on large, yellow sheets and then transferred onto abbreviated 3x5 note cards so that I had my notes during the lecture if need be. But realistically, by the time I taught the class, I had already memorized my lectures from all the prep work. The full course of lectures is over 120 hours and I’ve never had to do a second take (I’m discounting the one time my mic was dead and we had to start over, though).

Although it seems like a lot of legwork, two great things came out of this: 1) It took me less time to study up when I went to teach the lecture again in five months and 2) I could pivot just as much as my students did during class. Knowing the ins-and-outs of my subject matter allowed me to comfortably stay nimble so I could tweak my lectures on the fly—depending on what my students were responsive to and curious about.

Step 2: Practice

Hey, remember those 3x5 note cards? Use them for practice.

You can rehearse in front of the mirror, or better yet, get comfortable with your venue and run through the lecture in the actual classroom. That way, you know the layout and you can pinpoint where on the white board each example should go to keep things smooth and consistent.

Another tip? Try recording or filming yourself. I’ll admit, this is tough to do (and you probably won’t enjoy seeing or hearing yourself, because nobody does), but it helps to play it back and listen to the “ums,” the “ahs” and the long pauses so that you know where to tighten and inject a little bit more of your personality. While you are teaching, you’re also engaging with the students so that you can become effective (after all, what was all the prep for if not for being a better teacher?).

Step 3: Teach

This one seems obvious, right? Well, this one’s a little bit of an art.

Successful teaching is a two-way street. You provide information down one end of the street that the student receives from the other. But what if the student is on a completely different road and can’t receive the information? That’s where feedback comes in.

To speak on more relatable terms to the Uber Generation, feedback is your Google Maps. It allows you to keep the lecture focused on the key points and drive the message across to your students. Listen to the students and the questions being asked, and incorporate them into your future lectures. It also helps to keep track of how they’re feeling during the lecture. Got sleepy students in the back? Change your tone, ask questions that keep them engaged or try different types of teaching mediums (video, PowerPoint, whiteboard, guest speakers, etc.).

In the meantime, keep your energy up— don’t forget that you have more energy than anyone else in the room. That means keeping downtime to a minimum while talking (so that kids don’t have time to mentally drift) and moving around the lecture hall to stay dynamic. Eye contact with students also helps—that way, you’re speaking to them as opposed to speaking at them. Oh, and don’t be afraid to sprinkle in some humor—it helps students relate to you better, and it keeps things fun (everyone loves a good laugh).

Additional Helpful Teaching Tips: Engage in Active Learning

Ask Questions: Do this from the get-go to engage and elicit a response. I like to walk around the room and ask students a recap question—this shows me 1) who’s listening based on who’s answering and 2) who I need to engage more with. Doing this on the first day of class sets an expectation that you want them to participate.

Overlap Topics: Find where topics can overlap with real world examples. Students better understand when they can see a direct application of a concept they’re learning—it helps them think about it in a new perspective.

Repeat & Recap: It never hurts to repeat things twice—plus, a recap helps students put a neat bow around what they’ve just learned so they understand how it all comes together.

Go Old School—Use the Board: Technology is great and can be a useful tool in the classroom, but whiteboards and chalkboards do just fine sometimes. It’s the difference between flashing a formula onto a projector or writing it down alongside your students.

Mnemonics & Memory Aids: This helps make learning topics more engaging, and easier to remember.

As times change, so does your teaching style—but that’s just part of the fun. Sticking to those simple steps can help lead you to a successful, fulfilling role as a teacher, and keep you on top of your game—for the Uber Generation and beyond.

-- Roger Philipp, CEO, CPA, CGMA

Now & Then: Classroom & CPA Exam Evolution