#sometimes its fed too much and the connection grows strong enough to break

[ashmcgivern]

Sometimes an eldritch entity takes the form you do when it decides it wants to come out and murder consume destroy play

[ajokeformur-ray]

Darling father, I love all of you more than you’ll ever know.

Summary: A self-indulgent thing which I wrote for myself because honestly, why the hell not?💖 In this, I tell my Father that I know his secret. Something I think of often but I’ve never bothered to write it out. Written in past tense for this reason.😊

Word count: 2, 041.

Self-shipping etc. etc. No obligation to interact.🥰💚

Source

I was slow to put the pieces of the elusive truth together but once I had assembled all of the jagged edges, rationalised the things which didn’t made sense with the logic which was available to me, and done some reflections, it came to me all at once.

Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde are one and the same.

Father and Papa are one and the same.

I sat on the truth for several days, turning every piece of ‘evidence’ I had over and over and over in my mind. I almost tortured myself with it. I was smart enough to know not to write anything down. If the papers ended up in the wrong hands or if I lost them, it would be very bad for my parents and for the household overall. I kept everything to myself until I got fed up with my theories and decided to approach the topic by going directly to the source.

Before this point had I only ever known Father and Papa to be separate. Father was kind, gentle and tender. He asked strange questions for seemingly no reason and he was always more than happy to have discussions with me at any point. Papa was rough, coarse and always made me feel safe in how apathetic he was. Those things had never been any different as I was growing up, and I knew that they would never be any different, either, but somehow had these two distinct and opposing personalities become the same fact within just a few weeks, and it had tilted my world upon its axis.

But who could I tell? 

So I kept it to myself until I almost drove myself mad with it.

My parents were aware that there was something up with me. Not wrong, because those are different physical tells, but something was definitely up and though they were at first curious and then concerned as the days went by and my tells only increased with time, they respected my obvious need for alone time and didn’t question me about it.

Until a week to the day when I had first realised the startling truth and showed up in Father’s doorway, shaking. My face was pale and my eyes were red, the surrounding skin blotchy and my cheeks sticky with drying tears. I had never seen my Father stand up so quickly as he shoved his chair back so harshly that it scraped loudly against the floor as he strode across the study and reached me in just seven strides, confident is he when his family is threatened in some kind of way.

Though usually was my Father awkward in his affections, this time there was no hesitation as he wrapped an arm around my middle and pulled me into the room, shutting the large, heavy door with a quiet click before he walked with me over to the fireplace, which was crackling merrily and was the musical accompaniment to my sobbing.

“Erika,” My Father spoke my name and I looked at him, but the kindly and affectionate look of interest in his eyes only brought about a fresh wave of tears, which slid down my face hot and fast. I was beyond the point of being able to speak and he leaned forward in his chair to take both of my hands in his as he lowered me to sit down opposite him. “What is the matter?” Though he spoke calmly, there was a tinge of desperation in his voice, his mind so clearly racing. “Is this about what’s been... bothering you these last days?”

I nodded, clinging to my Father’s hands. I pressed down with my fingers and he immediately understood, for always would my Father hear me, and he opened his fingers so that I could slot mine in the spaces, tightening my hold on him. Father was my grounding in this moment and so perceptive was he that he fulfilled my needs wordlessly, understanding me better than I could ever understand myself.

“Y - you,” Father visibly sat up straighter and he took a deep breath, steadying himself to hear me out without interrupting me. He would hear everything I said, but he would listen to what I didn’t, and so I had to speak carefully. I knew I wasn’t wrong, but now it was just a matter of confession. “Father, you - “ At the thought of what I was going to say, yet another wave of tears coursed down my face and his gaze tightened upon his face. I was being analysed. “What did you do?”

Father froze and his face lost all colour. He looked in that moment as horrified as I felt and he said, “You know.” with a sense of finality. He sounded as though he was choking and I vaguely wondered who was trying to keep who quiet. Was it Papa making it so Father couldn’t speak, or was it Father holding his own self back, as so often did he?

I nodded, secretly relieved that I wouldn’t have to say it, and yet horrified and upset all the more to know that I was right.

“Ho - how could you possibly��- ?” 

I smiled. I didn’t often take my Father by surprise, he knew me far too well for that, and a part of me wanted to indulge in the feeling, though my despair and grief for him was too strong for any other emotion to come to the forefront. “All my life, I have never once see you and Papa in the same room together. Not only that, but sometimes you or Papa knows about something I’ve said or done even though one of you wasn’t in the room when it happened, but the other was. Neither of you are the type to gossip so the only logical explanation I could come to in this last week was that you’re...” one and the same. I trailed off; I didn’t need to finish my sentence now that Father and I were on the same page.

Silence filled the room as both of us sought to grab back onto reality, desperately trying to come to terms with what was happening. Father could see what I needed so clearly - to know that my Father was still there and he once more took control of the situation, putting me at ease in the best way he could. “Oh, my dear child. Come here.” Father used his grip on my hands to pull me out of my seat and into his lap, where I have always found safety. I got comfortable in his lap and Father wrapped his arms around me in the way he knew I loved the very most. I felt all the more upset by this and Father allowed me the courtesy of not addressing my tears, knowing that I would be embarrassed if he did. Even now, I was his concern. It made me cry harder somehow and Father and I seemed to realise at the same time that this was to be a late night affair. “What questions do you have for me? There must be something. I have never known you to be without a curiosity.” There was a smile in his voice  and I looked up at my Father just in time to catch the familiar light in his eye which spoke of his pride in me.

I took a deep breath, snuggling into my Father. “Most of it I’ve figured out for myself... I’ve been so careful to put everything together before I came to you with this.” I trailed off but both of us could hear me say, I wanted to make you proud. Father dropped a kiss to the crown of my head to say, I’m always proud of you and this silent but loud admission was everything I needed. 

“Yes,” He mused, “I’m afraid you’ve been upset by this.” He said it not as a question, but as a fact, and I almost wanted to laugh at the understatement. Almost.

“How could I not be? You...”  I took a deep breath to steady myself. Be brave for him, Erika. “I... I have two questions. I’m not sure I want to know the answers but at the same time...”

A hand smoothed down my hair. “Your thirst for knowledge is very much like my own. Speak freely then, Erika, and I shall endeavour to satiate your curiosity.” As much as I didn’t want to know, Father didn’t want to tell, and a heavy silence fell which we both hesitated to break, but this was a needed conversation.

I shifted in Father’s lap so that I could look him in the eyes. “Does it...” I closed my eyes and Father found one of my hands and squeezed it to encourage me. “How badly does it hurt you? It can’t be easy.” Tears fell anew and this time Father did address my tears, wiping them away with the soft pads of his thumbs. “And what - do I have to have this talk with Papa, too, or does he - can he hear me? Do you both remember what the other has experienced or - “

Father held a hand up to silence me, sensing that I was beginning to lose control over myself as everything which I had held inside for the last week came spilling out like a tap had been turned on and left to run. “Breathe, Erika.”

I did as he said and felt as the heat inside my head began to subside. My own emotions could be vented when I was alone but for now, I had to concentrate. I had approached Father of my own accord and now I was getting the answers I had been wanting for so long. 

“It’s a terrible pain when we transform from one to the other. I’m the... original, so to speak, and Mr. Hyde, your Papa,” A wry smile, for we both knew how deeply I had always been connected to him, “Is the second self.” To hear of the pain was more than I could take and I cried anew in grief for him. Father was analysing me again as he answered my question. “I’m not... sure what Mr Hyde feels when he’s inside me. When he’s in control it is as if I fall asleep and the events which occurred are but a stain of breath upon a mirror.” A pause and then, “What upsets you so?”

“You - the pain. Why would you do that to yourself?”

Father took a deep breath to steady himself and then, “I did not foresee... how bound up he and I would become in each other. I had no conception of what was to come. He had surely liberated me as much as he has imprisoned me, and I know not which is the worst.”

Silence fell once more, marked only by our out of sync breathing and the grandfather clock which had been sat upon the mantel of the fireplace for as long as I could remember. There was everything and nothing to say. But there was something beneath my tongue, something which I needed to say even if Father already knew it, and because of the way I was sitting, Father saw it immediately. He saw my hesitation, too, and he smiled kindly, though he said nothing. 

“I love all of you, Father. There’s nothing...” I smiled, daring myself to say it but knowing I would anyway, “either of you could do which would make me love you any less or be any less proud to have you as my parent. I love you so much it hurts.”

Silence fell once more, for Father and I knew each other well enough to be able to communicate without words. The way he was holding me was a reciprocation of my love for him, and I snuggled back into where I was most comfortable and though my tears continued to flow, I felt once more at peace with myself for having had this moment with my Father. I knew not what the future held, but that didn’t matter - I had my parents. What more did I need?

[starkovsnesta]

We are all just stars (that have people names)

Read on Ao3

.

.

We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins, carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains. 93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames, we are all just stars that have people names

-Nikita Gill

Kaz has barely ever known gentleness in his whole life. He doesn't remember what having a mother or a father means, let alone the small, precious moments even he must have had too: a kind smile on his mother's mouth when he did something silly, a sweet caress on his head his father must have given him. 

He had Jordie, once. Although his brother had never been like that with him. He remembered laughter, bright smiles, even hugs. But not softness. 

Jordie was cheerful, energetic. He dreamed fiercely and loved just the same way. He didn't know how to stay quiet, thinking his life's purpose was to be as loud as one can to be heard from all around the world. But he was too naive to be greedy, and that had led to his death. 

Growing up as he did, fighting his way through the cruel world with bare teeth and splintered punches, Kaz discovered how the prerogative of gentle hands and loving eyes had just faded in front of his eyes. 

Of all the most difficult things to give up on, being loved was perhaps the one that had hurt him the most. The kid he once was found that nearly impossible. Hope is a fragile and yet stubborn thing, not letting anyone get away from its hold until it's too late. 

No matter how many terrible crimes he committed, how many people he stole from, or how many others he wounded, tortured or killed. The thought wouldn't simply leave his mind. Kaz had taken it almost as a challenge. He wanted to prove himself how much of a monster he was, and how undeserving of love he was doomed to be. 

A doom he had certainly chosen and worshipped through the years. It's not love that is going to make me a king, he thought, it's power. And yet, isn't love just another form of power over someone else? Isn't it just another ocean he could drown in? 

As much as the idea should horrify him, make him run away, it doesn't when he lays next to Inej that night. 

They're on the roof of the Crow Club, a place they have been to many times before but for different reasons, regarding more the jobs he had forced her to be part of than anything else. In those times, Kaz thought she must have hated him. He knows even now that part of him had hated himself too for what he had caused her. 

Both of their bodies lay down an old cotton blanket, facing the dark sky above them. He can feel the closeness of her, the warmth that radiates from her small body is almost intoxicating. It's like a torture to be so close to her without touching. He feels attracted towards her skin like a magnet, and despite that, they don't touch. 

They have begun this new thing too recently, and given the issues they both have, Kaz isn't sure neither of them could bear any sort of touching right now. 

But he's making an effort, for her. 

This small yet lethal girl who managed to sneak up on him without making herself be heard. This young Suli that had become a legend, the Wraith, that could scare off even the richest and most influential people of Ketterdam. The discoverer of secrets, the ghost, the daughter of darkness. 

This incredible, strong, courageous creature that, for some unknown reason, wanted him, a rotten thing the world had chewed and spitted out with disgust. 

The only part of their bodies that is connected is their hands. He doesn't wear any gloves and he can feel the soft skin of her hands. They are so small compared to his that it almost makes him laugh. He has joked on her height many times, mostly to annoy her. They both know that her stature isn't a weakness, nor something to mock, but one of her various strengths. 

Inej is watching the stars with a bright light in her face illuminated only by the moon and the weak city's street lights. 

The hand that doesn't hold his raises up at times to point at constellations she knows the story of. When she explains them to him with her calm voice, he looks at the sky trying to see what she does. But most of the times he doesn't focus very much on the words she pronounces. Hearing her voice always has a calming effect on him, and he can't help but close his eyes and relax, concentrating his energies on that soothing sound instead of their bare skin pressed together. 

She knows, of course. 

And doesn't stop, not even when he stays quiet and doesn't reply. 

Right now, they're just staring at the sky, not saying a word. 

Kaz's head jumps from one detail to another to keep himself from shuttering down. The quick breathing coming out of Inej's nose, the roughness of the blanket under them, the distant chatting and laughing coming from the Crow Club below. 

"I have always felt close to the stars" Inej breaks the silence. 

Kaz waits, letting her keep talking. But she doesn't. 

He turns to look at her, and his breath is caught in his chest. She looks absolutely devastating. Her silk hair is sprawled on the blanket, like a halo. Her skin glows under the starlight, and her lips are slightly parted, as if she's stuck in a memory right now. 

"I thought you felt connected with the sky in general" Kaz answers "because of your talents" 

"I do" her voice comes from far away "but my heart has always felt attached to the stars. I think it's because of all of the tales and legends my father used to tell me when I was younger". 

She lets out a small breath, and then slowly turns her head to face him. 

Her eyes roam around his face, observing every little detail. He feels a little self-aware, but doesn't turn away. He won't hide from her. He wants her to see him.

She finally finds a point where to fix her gaze, just above his right cheekbone.

"I liked the idea of having thousands of burning stars watching over me. Just like my Saints. Sometimes I even talked to them at night." she laughs weakly "a silly habit I got rid of only after being thrown on a suffocatingly narrow carriage. At the time, I thought I would have never seen the sky again. It only added to the despair and loneliness I was fed on. " she pauses, traveling with her eyes on him again, just to lock them on his. She is burning with rage and something else he couldn't quite comprehend. "Until you found me". 

Those words are enough to make him lose his balance. It's terrifying how she can have such power on him. 

Love is indeed another form of power, he thinks. 

For a long time, neither of them pronounces a word. The statement she's done still lingers in the air between them. The small opening Inej has given him makes Kaz feel warm. He knows they both have suffered in their pasts, and came out completely different from that pain, but he can't help but feel utter fury for the dreamful, bright girl she was. 

"Inej" he whispers. The name sounds so desperate on his lips, like she was the only anchor for his sinking heart. 

She keeps looking at him, patiently waiting. She never pushes him to speak, and he feels grateful. 

For once, he lets his own gaze linger on her graceful profile. His fingers crawl with the need to trace her delicious lines. But he's not strong enough to force himself to do it just yet. 

He clears his throat. 

"You're going to need this connection of yours for your future journeys on the sea".He says the word "journeys" in a mocking way. They both know they're going to be more like missions than simple travels.

Her enemies truly don't know what's coming to get them, and he feels a jolt of pride at the thought. 

The words make her breathe a weak laugh. "I really do". 

They stay like this for what feels like eternity. And Kaz finds that he doesn't mind. Despite the fear, the intensity of her stare or even the oddness of the situation (he bet anyone would have cracked up if hearing that the bastard of the Barrel was sharing a sweet moment in the roof with his Wraith). 

Inej brushes away some hair that falls on her cheek, pushing it away behind her ear, and he is completely mesmerized by the small movement. 

Her fingers are slim and her touch is delicate, he feels it as he intertwines them with his own, feeling brave for a second. Inej caresses his knuckles with her thumb. 

The gesture is hesitant, and way too gentle, she puts little pressure on it, scared that he would run away. 

But he doesn't. 

Not even as he feels his stomach writhe for the feeling. 

He has suffered from mortal wounds, he has been punched nearly to death, he has bled and bled. 

This one is a different kind of pain, one that he's keen to welcome. 

"I wish this moment would never end" he whispers, because she has been talking to him for the past few hours just to distract him and because she has given him a confession, he finds he could give her that. 

The reaction the words have on Inej's face are worth it.

Her eyes glow with the same light she has watched him with many times, her face softens while a smile breaks on her face. A true, sun-like smile. It's so easy to make her smile like that. It could become a vice. 

She doesn't answer with words, and he doesn't ask them. Instead, she pulls his hand and rests it on her chest, where he feels her heart beating fast as if singing the word alive, alive, alive. 

Kaz closes his eyes, smiling. 

He has never known what love is, but he knows that, despite all odds, he is ready to find out that specific secret with the precious girl that is now holding him so tight. 

[xmalereader]

The Mandalorian X Male Reader

-

|| Masterlist ||

-

@galaxis-pixi

Requested: So, uh, if y'all requests is open can u like, do a mando imagine where the reader is also a mandalorian ? they know each other since quite some time but mostly go on seperate missions, but this time they do one together and reader flies with him ? I hope that not too much, but yeh, would be real rad of you to do this! ya don't hav'ta but I really like your writing and stuff uwu

Warnings: Fluff, little green child, reunited.

-

-

The two knew each other when they were children, they were always close and playful with each other. Sometimes they would even cause trouble together and anger a few mandalorians but when a current age came the two forgot how they looked like once that helmet was placed in them. The continued to grow up together but the other always ended up busy, they were growing fast and they needed to learn the Mandalorian way.

One of them would be sparing with an adult Mandalorian, learning how to fight and defend themselves during a mission or current problems that needed defense. While the did that the other boy would be learning how to make his beskar armor, he worked with the armor and helped her every time a new Mandalorian would come in with a reward that they either wanted to share or melt into new armor. His job was to watch her but once he got older he learned the ways of being a blacksmith, he would create the armor and allow his teacher to place it on the Mandalorian.

The two friends slowly grew apart, to busy in their own roles that one of them was suddenly sent away. He left by choice; deciding to stay or leave. So, his choice was to leave the underground and live a life in the world above. He did remember his best friend and wanted to say his goodbyes but after years of wearing the helmet he instantly forgot on how he looked like. He had no idea if he was even amongst the crowd of mandalorians before he left. He had no choice but to leave without saying anything.

Din remembers that day perfectly, the two were so close as children but once that helmet was placed on them their friendship felt like it suddenly broke, breaking the two apart and drifting far away from each other. He was an adult now and took the job as a bounty hunter, living above grounds as he takes down bounty’s and turned them in for credits, other times he would receive beskar from his rewards. Things were well, perfect really. But, it never lasted long.

—

Two years.

Two years later they finally see each other again.

After the battle in Navarro both Din and the child become the only clan left, once the rest of the mandalorians exposed themselves and ran away from that life he was left alone as the only Mandalorian clan. Not knowing if their were more mandalorians out their in different planets or not. But he wasn’t worried about that right now, his main focus was on the child. He needs to find the kids own species or wait for it to come to age where he can become a Mandalorian himself.

Before he left the planet he remembers the armorer stopping him and suddenly asking about his childhood friend.

“Y/n”

She tells him that he’s still out there, wandering around space in a planet probably living his life. Who knows if he was still going by the creed or if he too removed his armor and helmet for a better life. Din didn’t want to get his hopes up, he didn’t want to think about him. Not after years of not seeing each other.

So during one mission is where he finally meets his childhood friend. He was fighting off a nexu, trying to keep the child safe and away from the beast who launched itself on top of Din but before it could dig its teeth into the Mandalorian a sudden force stoped the beast from doing so, he knows that it’s the kids doing but he couldn’t help but grow worried. The kid wasn’t strong enough to hold it back so In less than a few minutes the child suddenly grows tired and the beast falls back.

The nexu regained its energy and charged forward only to stop when a sudden strong language was shouted from above. The creature cowards down and backs up in fear as the stranger continued to speak in a different language that the Mandalorian didn’t understand.

Din backs away from the creature and takes out his vibroblade, before he could do anything a sudden figure lands in front of him. Their back facing him as the stranger shouts at the creature, waving its hand to back off the creature. The nexu whimpers softly before he backs away and disappears into the forest. Din was panting heavily, lowering down his blade once the strange turns around to see him.

“I thought you all ran away.” Said Din, putting away his blade as he stared at the other Mandalorian. He was slightly shorter than Din but then again, size didn’t seem to matter to them.

“Ran away? I’ve been living here for years now.” The other Mandalorian says back with his hands on his hips. Suddenly giving the other mando a look that Din couldn’t really see. “Then I’m guessing your from another clan.”

The Mandalorian shakes his head. “I’m not, I’m from the same clan that I was born into. But I heard that they were all killed...including a good friend of mine.” He sighs out sadly and lowers his arms. He watched Din Make his way towards the child, gently picking him up. The Mandalorian eyes the child and the other mando before gasping. “Your the one who stole the bounty instead of turning him in?” He looks at him up and down. “Well you probably did turn him in since your covered in beskar armor.” He adds.

Din checks on the kid and finds him sleeping against his chest. “Yeah I saved him, got a problem with that?” He said in a protective way as he held the child close to him.

The other Mandalorian steps back with his hands up. “Sorry.” He mumbled out. “Anyways It’s been years since I last saw a Mandalorian. Care to tell me your name?” He knows that the mandalorians don’t use their birth names anymore unless needed too but Din didn’t have his clan anymore it was just him and the child and like the other Mandalorian said, his clan was also killed off leaving him on his own. He saw no danger in tell him his name.

“Din. Din Djarin.”

The other mandalorians eyes widen once he hears that name escape Dins lips.

“Din?” He suddenly says in a soft tone, slowly approaching him. “Din is that really you?” He asks this time.

Din steps back in confusion, he eyes the other before realization hits him. “Y/n?” He blurts out which earns him a slow nod from the other. He can’t believe it, it’s been years since he’s last seen his childhood friend. He always thought of him dead but here he was. Standing right in front him.

Without thinking y/n, pulls Din into a hug which causes him to freeze in surprise. He slowly lifts his own arm up to hug him back, he hasn’t had physical connection in years. The only person he allowed physical touch from was y/n but once he disappeared he despised the touch from others always giving them a look of disgust. But now here he was, hugging him once again.

—

“He’s not eating.”

“He doesn’t like it when people stare at him.”

The small green child was holding a frog in his small hands. He was giving y/n a look that meant that he didn’t want to be seen eating. “Why is he afraid?” He asks.

The two mandalorians were sitting back to back, their helmets off and on their sides as the two are in silence, we’ll semi-silence. They’ve been traveling together for a few months now and y/n has gotten used to having the child around.

“We visited a planet that had a village, it was full of children and they teased him while he ate a frog.” Din explains as he eats his own food by the fire and leans his head back against his partners head.

Y/n frowns at the explanation and cooed. “Aww you poor thing.” He says and reached out to gently stroke the child’s ears. “Don’t worry I won’t make fun of you.” He promises with a smile causing the child to coo back and began to eat his frog. Y/n tries hard not to cringe at the sudden gulping, he hides it by shoving his own food in his mouth.

The night was quiet and the only thing being heard was the sound of the wood burning and popping. The child was happily playing around with a small stick that he had suddenly found while the two adults sat back to back, not showing their faces as they ate.

“When was the last time you showed your face to someone?” Y/n suddenly blurts out, leaning back against his friends back. Din sets down his empty bowl and sighs. “When we were kids, before we were given our code.” He answers, watching the child swinging the stick around happily and giggling.

“That long huh?”

Din raised a brow at his friends tone, he sits up and clears his throat. “What about you?”

Y/n bites his lip and looks up at the stars to keep himself distracted as he spoke. “After I left I went from planet to planet, trying to find a job and maybe a place to settle down for awhile. I didn’t stop being a Mandalorian and I never broke the creed until I met this one girl, she was living in the streets and was being abused. I didn’t hesitate to take her in.” He explains. “She was a sweet little girl, I trained her to fight and I fed her, gave her warm clothes and a home. But as the years went by she grew up, become an adult. I didn’t make her into a Mandalorian. I didn’t want her to go through the pain that I was going through...” he sighs deeply and lowers his head, poking at the leftover food that he had in his bowl.

“The day that she left was the day that I revealed my face. She was shocked but also happy that she was able to see him for the last time, I remember when she kissed my cheek as a goodbye and then after that I never saw her again and I went back to my old ways.” He sets the bowl aside and picks up his own helmet, using his sleeve to clean off the dust that was covered in it. “What about the creed?” Din asks as he hears the other shuffle.

“The creed was broken, but I have no clan Din. No one could stop me from removing my helmet anymore, I only show myself to the people that I actually cared for.”

“Like the child that you saved and raised?”

“Like the child I raised.” With that he slips his helmet back on and stands up, stretching out his muscles, his back still facing Din. “I’m not the same y/n that you knew as a child, Din. I’m different.” He walks over to his hammock that he made and climbs in, turning onto his side to rest. “Goodnight Din.” He whispers out before he falls asleep.

Din had placed his helmet on after y/n did, he watched his friend lie in the hammock and sleep. Seeing his chest rise up and down as he slept. Din couldn’t help but repeat the story that y/n has told him about revealing his face to others and what it was like to be free for only a few seconds. Din was raised into the creed and he promised to keep his code but now that y/n was back with him he didn’t know if he wanted to keep going. He doesn’t know if he should Settle down or not.

As he thinks about his decisions he walks over to the child’s small pod and sets him in. Making sure that he remained asleep and covers him up with a blanket before closing the pod. He sat next to it and leans his head to look at the stars, he remembers when y/n and him would spend hours reading about the stars when they were just kids. Now they are adults, y/n has grown and so had Din.

—

The two mandalorians were sitting in a cantine, it was rare seeing two mandalorians out in public and seen together. It didn’t raise suspicion but fear to those around them since the Mandalorians are considered as warriors.

“Why are we here again?” Y/n asks quietly as he plays with his own blade, spinning it around the table in boredom. “There’s a bounty here that I need to capture, I need credits for fuel.” Y/n raised a brow and hums under his helmet. “Or, why not just steal from them?”

“And become a bounty myself?” Din hissed out.

Y/n frowns and sits back. “Aren’t you already a bounty?” He suddenly blurts out which was a wrong choice to do since Din slowly turns to glare at him. He couldn’t see his expression but he could feel the other glaring at him. “Right...sorry...” he mumbled out and puts his blade away.

He glanced over to Din and sighs deeply. “Listen you can do your bounty hunting work but I won’t.” He suddenly says as he stands up from his spot not wanting to make himself to obvious to the bounty. “What?” Y/n frowns at the other. “I’m not a bounty hunter, I’m not like you. I use my skills for something else, something that’s worth it.” He explains to him before leaving the cantine, heading back to the razor crest to check on the child that Din left behind.

Once y/n arrives he waits for Din to capture the bounty but during the mean time he spent his time playing with the kid. Cooing at it softly as he watched him grab his index finger with his tiny three fingered hand, he pulls the gloves hand into his mouth and began to chew and slobber all over it but y/n didn’t seem to mind the mess, he was still a child and learning.

As he keeps the child distract from the world he waits back in the razor crest for Din. He was taking longer than usual and was starting to worry, he continued to play with the child to keep himself from worrying but that little feeling kept coming to him. The child was able to sense the worry as well and began to whimper in discomfort. “Hey its okay.” Y/n sets the child down and removes his helmet, he sets it down and allows the kid to look at his face. His hair was growing out and needed a haircut soon, his hair was curling behind his ears which told him that it was slowly getting longer. “Really need to get myself a haircut, huh?” He tells the child who had stopped whimpering and stared at the unmasked mandalorian, yes the child has seen him without the helmet before but he never took in the details of the other man before, its tiny hands reach up to touch his face and cooed happily. Y/n laughs softly at the child. “you really are a strange one but lets be honest, Din took you in for a reason.” He whispered before hearing the front entrance being opened, he quickly puts his helmet back on and stands his ground, holding the child in his arms.

Din was the one to enter the razor crest, he was holding the prisoner by the arm and dragging him inside. “You’re late.” Said Y/n, once he took notice that it was din he lowers down blaster and sighs. “Been busy.” He answers back.

The prisoner takes notice of the other mandalorian and their eyes widen. “Another Mandalorian, well it is an honor!” Y/n rolls his eyes and placed the kid inside the cot. “Okay your sweet talk isnt going to free you.” He tells the prisoner.

“But it is an honor! And you sound quiet handsome.” They grin.

Y/n glares under his helmet and looks up to Din. “freeze him.” He says out loud.

The prisoners eyes widen as Din silently agrees and shoves them towards the back of the razor crest. The other mandalorian sighs and shakes his head before turning back to the child. “That was disgusting and lets be honest he’s not even that good looking.” He says to the child and leans back in the cot as the child clings on to him.

Din returns and chuckled. “You were always getting to conclusions, never getting the time to ask questions.”

“When someone like that talks to me they know that they’ll get killed.” He sets the kid down once again and turns to Din.

Din could only stare at his old time friend and shake his head, “He wasn’t wrong you know.” Y/n raises a brow, “What do you mean?”

“He wasn’t wrong when he called you handsome.”

“Din you dont even know what I look like, its been years.” He was blushing deeply and avoiding dins stare. “I know but I can easily tell that your handsome.” DIn approached Y/n and placed both hands on either side of the cot, next to his thighs as he leans close and bumps their helmets together. Y/n slowly smiles at the gesture.

Mandalorians that bump helmets is considered as a kiss, it was the only thing they had. At first y/n found it weird and different but having Din this close to him made him smile in happiness, he was glad to be back with him to be back with his mandalorian.

[paladin-andric]

Character Backgrounds: Andric of Lannis, Paladin of the Order

“We are the men of sweat and steel,

We are the men the world denies,

So now we walk abandoned fields,

Beneath these foreign skies,

We're gonna join the bitter test,

And though there's some will break and fall,

There's nothing here but happiness,

And duty's restless call,

So it calls, but only to the chosen,

To the boys who landed at Liege,

Meet me at the station,

In the glory of the sun,

Into the arms by which the world was won!”

-From “Foreign Skies” by The Dreadnoughts

Born the son of farmers in the remote and rural village of Lannis, Andric’s life seemed set to take only one course; Aid his family in growing enough food to keep themselves fed, stay on the farm, and spend the rest of his life living the simple yet difficult life of a peasant.

It seems fate however, is never set in stone.

His life was fairly uneventful for some time. He made friends in the village, helped with the farm work, and enjoyed what free time he had out in the fields.

That all changed when the fire happened.

No one’s sure how it started, but while a few kids were messing around in a large barn, a fire tore through it, soon coating all in flames. All the teens fled, except for one.

When Andric learned his friend Harry still hadn’t come out, he stormed the barn, despite a chorus of protests. As he was inside, the fire worsened, the barn doors falling apart as the entire building began to collapse. All seemed lost, when suddenly, through a sea of flames, Andric emerged.

In his arms was the unconscious body of his friend. All around him was a burning inferno he marched straight through. In his eyes, there was an entirely different kind of fire burning.

Somehow, someway, the boy had ran straight through a field of fire, engulfed utterly...and yet, both he and Harry were unharmed.

Word spread as quickly as the flames had that day. The people marveled at what had happened. They said God himself intervened that day and saved the courageous hero that willingly risked his life for another.

One day after, a group of priests arrived at the farm. They asked if they could bring the boy in and see his potential. As they explained, sometimes, certain individuals can manifest their energies into magic through sheer will alone under certain conditions. They argued that Andric had somehow created a barrier around himself that shielded him from the flames. If taught to properly wield magic, he could become an incredible individual...

He and his parents accepted. They thought, perhaps, God had some kind of plan for him.

Andric showed much promise. He was strong, athletic, tough and a quick learner. He became a skilled warrior very quickly, favoring the claymore.

His greatest talent was his connection with holy magic. He learned how to heal injuries and diseases, channel holy magic into his body and weapons, fight corruption from demons and undead, and detect any and all evil forces around him very quickly.

He grew and was soon set out to put these skills to use. Andric spent many years traveling the lands, fighting evil and helping those in need. He became toughened, but never lost touch with his kind, empathic nature. He strived to temper compassion and mercy with wisdom and prudence, never one to let an obvious threat off the hook.

There are a great many exploits of his, though so numerous that are not able to be listed here at the moment. He spent decades upon decades journeying across the land and fighting evil wherever he could. Each one of his many quests on their own could make for an epic.

His potential became superb prowess, and he was soon a paladin, a legend that sat among the illustrious few atop the Order’s greatest living warriors. He rubbed elbows with other paladins coming from distant lands and backgrounds. Despite how different some of them were to each other, they were practically family. This band of crusaders against evil held a deep camaraderie in their mission, and thus were united in purpose.

After many long years of travel, questing and war, Andric saw that the lands were, for the first time in a while, near universally safe. He returned to Lannis, though much had changed while he was gone. The young were old, the children were matured, and a new generation had grown. In addition, the village had prospered and become quite large and more successful.

Though he didn’t keep much of the riches he plundered on his adventures, he did save some for this sort of retirement. He build a large home where he could rest comfortably...until he was called on again.

While he was called on to help, it wasn’t for the reasons he imagined.

One day, some people from the village vanished. Though search parties went out looking, no one found them…until they returned on their own.

They had been abducted on the road, kidnapped and tortured by a small tribe of kobolds hiding out in a cave nearby. One of the tribe, a child, took pity on them and helped them escape in the dead of night. Andric donned his armor and readied his weapon once more, to deliver justice to the group of bandits.

The fight was almost too easy. The savage bunch of beasts had little to no experience in combat, and were equipped with only the most primitive of arms.

Andric found the kobold child that helped the prisoners escape hiding and cowering, and took him back to Lannis to raise him in a better environment, and give him a second chance at life. The child seemed happy with this.

The child, Senci, quickly became Andric’s top priority. The child had a pure heart, and dreamed of becoming a hero one day. As he grew, so did his desire to learn how to battle like a hero.

Andric began training him in combat, and the teen showed quite a bit of passion and skill for fighting. His “all-in” approach to combat was as endearing as his approach to everything else.

Things progressed normally until the news of the Exile came. Fearing for Senci’s freedom, Andric planned to flee into the wilds with Senci, and build a new home for the two of them there.

Unfortunately, the soldiers of Geralthin arrived in Lannis just as they were on their way out.

Andric readied himself for battle, but Senci begged him to stop. The kobold agreed to go along with the exile, as he didn’t want Andric to have to become a wanted criminal for his sake. He also said the exile was “like moving, just like we were going to do anyway”. Andric eventually backed down.

While he was initially very worried, Andric’s doubts were calmed when he visited the City of Palethorn and found out that not only had a reptilian given Senci an apprenticeship, but housed and fed him in exchange for the work. The reptilian, a blacksmith by the name of Vok, became a close family friend.

One day, Andric received the call to war. A rogue dragon had not only defied the edict banning him from the kingdom, but rampaged, slaughtering citizens and razing towns without pause. The paladin suited up and set out with the army, riding far north to deal with the fiend.

They were victorious, and the army soon disbanded. It was once Andric returned that he found out about the black fog surrounding Palethorn. He didn’t even take off the armor or drop off his gear. He just took more supplies from his stock at home and immediately rode for Palethorn.

Andric, now older and weary, suits up for battle, one last time. Journeying into the fog, the Champion of God now faces his greatest foe yet; Hell itself, and all its denizens. He’ll gladly take them all on. For justice. For God. For the people of Palethorn.

For Senci.

Tag list: @thereisnothingwrongwithbeingmad, @lady-redshield-writes, @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword, @sheralynnramsey, @tawnywrites, @writer-on-time, @oceanwriter, @zwergis-spilledink, @fluffpiggy, @elliewritesfantasy, @homesteadhorner,  @laurenwastestimewriting, @elaynab-writing, @the-ichor-of-ruination, @reya-writes, @candy687, @novicewriterstuff, @shewrites-sometimes

[androgyne-acolyte]

The “I” in Christ

Commissioning, Community, and Lessons From Hamilton

(My second sermon, for Confirmation Sunday. You can also listen on Soundcloud.)

This Sunday, a few of us are about to confirm our formal membership in this community of St. Andrew’s; we do this with a profession of faith, along with a promise to seek justice and resist evil. Not only does the process of confirmation ask the question of what it means to be part of a Christian community, but this passage from Luke (10:1-11,16-20) also poses the question of what it means to live out our own discipleship beyond the walls of the church — especially in an age where the image of door-to-door missionaries is something of a bad joke.

Perhaps Christianity’s best-kept secret is this: the actual gospel of Jesus is tremendously relatable to anyone else whose mission is also to seek justice and resist evil. These first disciples were instructed to bear one message: that “the Kingdom of God has come near” — or, to put it in more contemporary language, we might say “another world is possible”.

Jesus says to carry no extra gear, going out like lambs into the midst of wolves; greeting no one on the road, but traveling in pairs. This is a radically vulnerable commission — relying entirely on the generosity of strangers, who may not even care if you live or die — but it is also a commission of interdependence and reliance on one another. Sometimes, we might retreat by ourselves into the metaphorical desert for a while to figure things out. But when we go forth and proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven, we’re not meant to go it alone. And so, from its earliest moments, Christianity is lived out in relationship.

We also see this in how the very early Christians came together in table fellowship — the root of our communion ritual. Jesus and the disciples had caught on to something that’s borne out by sociological science today (this is why we also had lunch as part of our confirmation classes): deep down, our brain associates “the people with whom you eat” with “family”. This becomes especially resonant when we consider that Jesus’ ministry seems to have been responding, at least in part, to the breakup and dispossession of families caused by Roman encroachment on Jewish ancestral farmlands.

So part of Jesus’ message to these seventy disciples is about going out and finding allies — and through that work, making new and cohesive communities in a time of tremendous social upheaval. Then and now, Christianity creates familial structures that counter the systems of injustice in the world with a message of radical community and genuine connection.

The New Testament, in the original Greek, calls this concept of community or fellowship koinonia, literally participation, partnership, or sharing, with emphasis on the element of relationship; a koinonos, used in the Epistles to describe the disciples’ relationship to Christ and to one another, is a sharer, partner, or companion; a joint participant. So, when we become part of the Body of Christ, we become partners, koinonoi, in acting out God’s intent, “on earth as it is in heaven”. As Jesus says when he is asked when the Kingdom will come (later on in the Gospel of Luke), “the Kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21).

So I suggest that we can look at koinonia — this radical companionship — as a concept that has four pillars. They are economic, interpersonal, internal, and political — and together, they answer a world of imperial domination and hierarchical, transactional relationships with the egalitarian, reciprocal relationships of a truly divine community.

Most of us grew up hearing the Gospel story of how a few loaves and fishes fed five thousand people. When Jesus says “give them something to eat”, the disciples respond with “but how can we possibly go out and buy enough bread for everybody?”. But Jesus had a plan — and we are told that “all ate and were filled” (Luke 9:10-17). This isn’t just a fanciful miracle story; in Jesus’ world, everybody gets enough. This is a total reimagining of our economic model. 

We see this principle carried out in the book of Acts, chapter 4: among the growing circle of disciples, it’s said that “there was not a needy person among them”, because people sold their possessions and shared the proceeds; “they laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:32-35).

“But that could never work!” we say, just like in the story of the loaves and fishes. I may not be an economic theorist, but my guess is that what gets in the way is our own self-interest; of course it won’t work if you assume that you and everyone else are just looking out for number one. The missing ingredient here is what the Bible calls lovingkindness, or what I call radical compassion — the key to the interpersonal aspect of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Remember, Jesus’ program is about treating people like family. And what happens when people feel safe enough, trusting enough, to be able to treat each other as a functioning family? “You’re in need? That’s okay, I’ll cover you.” — “Whatever happens, you’re still my sibling in Christ.”

This ideal of the family of God doesn’t end at the steps of the church, by the way. This is what Buddhist teachings mean when they talk about widening the circle of compassion: Talk to your neighbours. Look a panhandler in the eye. Fall in love with the immigrant kids down the corridor who won’t stop bouncing off the walls. Invite that raggedy backpacker down on Spring Garden Road to brunch. But, Jesus cautions, don’t make a big deal out of it; this is just what we do.

But again, we worry, just like the disciples: what if there’s someone in this community who’s really needy, taking up all the available resources and emotional energy? Perhaps that’s where a community can do its best work: helping a person become self-sufficient. Finding them a therapist, even if it means emailing every private practice in [the immediate area]. Finding them meaningful work in the community, something that provides for them and reminds them that their life matters. Granted, that’s extremely hard to do under late capitalism — but maybe that’s a specific challenge for Christians today!

We don’t claim to offer miracle cures here, but we do offer compassion and grace and walking with someone on the road to healing. And if you’ve bought into the Christian message, you’re already imagining the possibility of becoming whole — recognizing the image of God within yourself — and if you know any trauma survivors, you already know that that’s half the battle.

And to support each other like this, we have to be comfortable with being vulnerable. Paradoxically, that’s very hard to do in our white, English, North American church culture! 

My childhood pastor used to say that a good church has to be so much more than just “a club for nice people” — part of that is because niceness and civility as we understand them involve building very specific walls around yourself, so that no one sees the mess and the struggle underneath your calm exterior. But when others see that you’re a flawed, messy human too, they respond in kind. 

The very best of my church relationships are the very few people to whom I can confess almost anything, and they can confess almost anything to me. We inevitably find ourselves going deep; we have long conversations that are intense and sometimes unsettling, but I always come away feeling more fulfilled, more whole than I was before. And what is salvation in the original Greek but a kind of healing, or “making whole”?

That leads us into the internal work of the Kingdom of God. The hardest lesson we can hope to learn is to give up our preconceived notions of how things ought to be and what others are like. This is where contemplation comes in; it’s about letting go of our hangups so that we can see the bigger picture. This process of self-emptying seems like such a bewildering thought, but it’s a fundamentally liberating process. Just ask our Buddhist neighbours.

So, Christian community calls us to break free from our own self-interest by living as members of one body; as a collective of voices working together in constant dialogue. One might say that there is no “I” in Christ. 

And here is where being political comes in. When we live together in lovingkindness, in partnership, when we let go of our attachments to see things as they really are — we begin to see that this is exactly the opposite of what the world wants, both then and now.

We’ve heard [St. Andrew’s lead minister] Russ [Daye] speak of “sin” not so much as an individual moral failing, but as the state of a society propelled by self-interest and operating through systemic inequality, oppression, and violence. And when we see the big picture, we start to see that that’s exactly what’s going on.

A fully realized Christian life, lived out according to the principles of radical community, makes the scales fall from our eyes and highlights the terrible workings of inhumane disconnection and self-interest that our society is based on. That, in the eyes of our world, makes us dangerous. 

I recently had an extraordinary online conversation with another queer ministry hopeful, who is not afraid to state point-blank that “love cannot exist [or cannot exist fully] in a space where we are complicit in our neighbours’ suffering and exploitation”. We both agreed that a lot of us moderate Christians aren’t politically active because we can’t truly fathom how deep-rooted these systems of oppression actually are, let alone have any idea of how to stand up to them. 

But I invite you to consider that the kind of strong support structure that a fully realized Christian community can provide can be a living “no” to the Caesars of this world, and can empower us to speak our truth to their face, no matter the consequences. “We know love by this,” says the epistle of 1 John, “that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16).

Perhaps, then, there are many “I”s in Christ — together, we are the pillars that hold up God’s kingdom.

However we choose to confront the Caesars of our world, we must always centre our love for God and one another in our actions. This can mean letting our hearts break at the injustice all around us — remember, we are called to be vulnerable! — but it also means means finding and creating opportunities to speak out and stand up for justice; equipping one another with the skills to do so; and lifting each other up in support when those opportunities come.

Let me tell you a story about one such situation.

On June 15, only a few weeks ago, the Pride festival in Hamilton, Ontario was confronted by a group of right-wing agitators carrying giant banners with homophobic messages, shouting slurs, and threatening physical violence. Shamefully, many of these people had the gall to call themselves Christian, using our faith as justification for their hatred and aggression. 

Hamilton police, for their part, did very little to protect the Pride marchers. 

(By the way, I’ve tried to rely on firsthand accounts of this situation wherever possible.)

What did happen at Hamilton Pride was this: after a similar encounter a few weeks earlier in Dunville, Ontario, where homophobes and counter-demonstrators spent six whole hours trying to drown each other out, an affinity group formed in Hamilton with a new plan. They built a thirty-foot-wide, nine-foot-tall barrier out of black cloth, practiced moving it around as a team — and when the right-wing agitators showed up, the affinity group moved their barrier into position and physically blocked the agitators off from the rest of the festival. They intentionally did not raise their fists to strike at anyone.

But — they still got beat up. As the original members of the affinity group dragged themselves away from the fists and helmets of these right-wing bullies, they looked around to see people they didn’t even know rushing to the scene and keeping the barrier standing. The barrier, incredibly, remained intact until the police arrived a full hour later, escorting the troublemakers out of the park with their hateful signs in tatters. 

Community. We lay down our lives for one another.

When asked why the police didn’t get there sooner, an eyewitness reportedly heard the officer respond, “Don’t you remember we weren’t invited to Pride? We’re just going to stand here, not my problem”. [x]

There are, of course, many more layers to this story than I have time to get into here. But the ongoing aftermath of this situation is worth talking about. 

The queer community in Hamilton was furious and disappointed, if unsurprised. Remember that there is a decades-long history of criminalization and persecution of queer communities by police, and of police turning a blind eye to homophobic and transphobic violence. That tension doesn’t go away overnight, and it is still very much with us today.

A few days later, a local queer activist named Cedar Hopperton was arrested, purportedly because being present at Hamilton Pride had violated their parole conditions related to a previous act of civil disobedience. (Like me, Cedar goes by the pronouns “they” and “them”.)

But here’s the thing: according to eyewitnesses, Cedar wasn’t part of that incident at Pride. They had stayed at home, where their friends came to them for support and first aid following the confrontation. When Cedar got access to the paperwork associated with their case, it focused almost exclusively on a public speech they had given at City Hall in the wake of the events. 

And while they had been heavily critical of how Hamilton police have repeatedly let their community down, they framed their criticism with a prophetic statement: 

“...what I am interested in is building community around people who [have] a desire to build a shared idea of the world they actually want to live in. I feel like that’s a higher bar [which] is worth working towards.” [x]

That is what those seventy disciples were sent out to find: The Kingdom of Heaven is near. Another world is possible.

In response to this and what would become at least four other arrests of queer community members, along with frantic attempts to save face by the police and by City Hall, the local activist community decided to go straight to the mayor. In a wonderful example of non-violent protest, some twenty people “dressed in gay masquerade attire” showed up on the mayor’s front lawn early on a Friday morning, and spent fifteen minutes making a ridiculous racket while planting hot pink lawn signs that read “The Mayor Doesn’t Care About Queer People”. 

Within an hour, the same mayor who had largely refused to comment on the issue of right-wing agitators harassing and assaulting people at a Pride festival was in the news decrying the lawn sign action as a “violent attack”, and vowing that the perpetrators would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

That afternoon, one of the organizers of the lawn sign action found herself cornered by no less than eight police cars. After being brought in for questioning, she was escorted by officers with assault rifles to the central police station, where she was held overnight. 

Only one of the right-wing agitators has since been arrested. The mayor, in a stunningly oblivious move, concluded the day by issuing a boilerplate supportive statement about the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

The organizer who was arrested following the lawn sign action (who has chosen to remain anonymous) had some insightful words that I’d like to share with you. For me, they may as well have been spoken by an apostle in the first century. She said:

“[This is] about us as a community getting stronger — and them being afraid of that. We know [that] because within five hours they mobilized an investigation, manhunt and takedown. We know because they confront us with shaking hands and assault rifles. We know because they [subsequently] responded to a queer dance party with eighty officers on a Friday night. We see it when they make desperate arrests; [like] Cedar for a speech at city hall.” [x]

Because when we start to make a dent in the facade of unjust power, the mask slips, and the true cruelty and desperation of the people at the top gets revealed; just like the crucifixion of Jesus laid bare the horror that the Roman Empire was capable of. And yet, in ways that we do not yet fully understand, we are told that Jesus performed one last radical act of turning the tables; using that humiliating, commonplace death as a jumping-off point into the coldest, darkest reaches of the cosmos, where he sowed the love of God into the very ground of the universe.

Our anonymous lawn sign activist continues: 

“In that, we can also acknowledge something else; we are winning. They are afraid of us and what we can do. They are embarrassed. They are losing ground.”

This takes us right back to Holy Week — when the authorities start planning Jesus’ arrest in the wake of the non-violent protest march that we remember as Palm Sunday, because they’re afraid he’ll incite the people to rebellion. When we start to successfully seek justice and resist evil, the powers that be, propelled by self-interest and sustained by systems of cruel inequality, are terrified.

She concludes with this wonderful statement of commission — and I’d like to think it can be our commission too:

“So let’s keep this up. Let’s keep getting into ... public spaces. … Challenging the things that harm us — even when they are institutional and systemic. … Let’s build towards the world we want to see – and share and learn those skills together. … Not just every four years — [I would add, not just every Sunday] — but every single day”.

Amen. 

July 7, 2019 (Confirmation Sunday) — St. Andrew’s United Church, Halifax

Selected further reading:

Center for Action and Contemplation, “Consumed with Love”

Queer Theology podcast, “A Community of Care”

Rethinking Religion, “Buddhists Don’t Have to Be Nice: Avoiding Idiot Compassion”

[thepurebredking]

PLACING BLAME W/@EternalElena

Ehlena: [I gave up working in the PT suite earlier than usual this night. They were about to send me on back anyways when I told them I was done for the night. I was tired and I knew it showed, I was already in my room trying to easily fall asleep in the borrowed bed since I not yet had it in me yet to go back home, the children and I were still at the Manse. Taking up one of the many spare rooms they had here, the young slept much better than I did and it was something I was thankful for. I was not ready to face the emptiness of our home just yet, there was no way it would be the same without my male there. The first few nights Alyne had not let me out of his sight but understood that when I had needed to go down and check on patients that were still recovering from the rescue mission he had to stay put. Half the time both he and Madahlena would be asleep by the time I returned to the room to try and get maybe just a few hours of sleep. Tonight though the moment I drifted off something had caused me to wake up. Something didn’t feel right however and it was the same feeling I had before finding out about my Hellen, my Rehv being gone. Tears began to form in my eyes again as the beating of my heart picked up its pace as I sat up out of the bed. Clothes from the day before still hung against my frame, climbing back out of the bed I moved to where I knew Alyne to be. The sight of his frame there back to the wall gave me some comfort. Awake or not he was there, leaving the door open I moved to the next room Madahlena occupied. Carefully pushing the door open I saw an empty bed. Moving further into the room I could see she left in a haste. I knew mine daughter well, and knew what she had gone and done. I still felt that it was too soon. But we would have quarreled and she would have left after words spoken in anger.

I stood there staring at the empty bed for a few moments as anger grew and after moving from the room I made my way to the main door for the room. It took everything to not slam the door of the room as I left it. Right now there was only one person I wanted to see, one person I felt was at fault of all this. Wrath. Because of him I had not just lost my male, but now the oldest had taken off. She was risking her life with what she was trying to do. Losing Madahlena would most certainly kill me my young were the only connection I had left, the only tie to their father that was still around. I wasn’t sure where I was going at first but I found myself making my way to the same office I had been in before.]

Wrath: Exhaustion didn’t even begin to express how I was feeling tonight. I had been going nonstop since the night of the mission and if it weren’t for Nalla, Saxton, Mary, and Fred, the doggen, keeping me awake and fed, I probably would have collapsed by now. Even Whiskey had finally decided enough was enough and crashed out on his dog bed in the corner of the room. I couldn’t give in, though. I owed too much to my people. I had sent them out into this, now it was my time to make good on the promise that if they stood behind me, followed my rule, and supported me, I would take care of them and their families in return. At the moment, I had been fulfilling that promise, tenfold. There were many that needed tending to in the med suite, and there were families that had been left behind during this last mission that needed watching over. Nalla, Saxton, and I had been working tirelessly for days on end trying to make sure that anyone that needed legal help, got it. Mary and I had been working to make sure that all those who made it back, and the family of those that didn’t, got the psychological help they needed. Sometimes it felt as if none of it made a damn bit of difference. But, I needed to keep going. I needed to try.

As I looked at the clock, I suddenly realized that I had been pouring over everything from the following night, almost half the day. No wonder why Whiskey had long since given up on me. I began to pack it up for the day and head down the hall to try and at least get a couple hours of sleep when I heard footsteps approaching. The abruptness of the steps as they rounded the doorframe said it all. Dearest Virgin Scribe, give me strength.

Ehlena: [I had not felt this angry since the first time I had gone up to the Colony, the rescue mission for Rehv. The fight I had with the female who had thought to take him from me. Those memories flashed to the forefront as I found Wrath standing there looking far more worse for wear than what I had seen last time. My anger did not dissolve, instead I considered him to be against me because now I was reliving moments of my life that would be bringing me more pain.]

Wrath! You bastard! [The words were out of my mouth before I had given them any thought. Once I was close enough to I pushed at him, not even thinking about anything else. Just the anger and the blame I had at him.] Now not only have I lost my male, my daughter has taken off as well. For a place she will most likely not return from. She is not ready to deal with the horrors that come from that place. [Eyes narrowed as I felt myself losing touch with everything else. Heart pounding harder than it should have for my frame.] If something happens to her [I paused unable to complete the sentence. Losing the momentum from my anger, what reserves I had in energy was quickly leaving me. The simple thought of losing Madahlena so soon after her father just draining me of everything inside of me. Barely whispering the next sentence, not even sure if he heard me himself or not.] Nothing can happen to her, I don’t think I would survive another loss.

Wrath: I stood there, stoic, as I listened to every word that was spat at me. Ehlena deserved to be heard. When she thrust her fist forward and into my chest, I raised a hand and gently, closed it around her own. It was not with the intention of restraint, only by way of comfort. In a way, I could very much sympathize with what she was going through. I had LW, and he went out and faced off in battle almost every night, and I was terrified for him. In addition, one day, many years down the road hopefully, he would sit on my throne and face all the things I did on the daily. I think that terrified me worse. Either way, our young had very similar lives ahead of them. The difference was, LW’s fate of sitting on my throne was so far out in the distance, and Madahlena’s fate was staring her in the face, and immediately following Rehv’s passing. Salt to an open wound. We all knew how that played out.

Madahlena was doing the right thing, though. Not that I would offer that little thought up to Ehlena. But, she was. The colony was not a stable entity and if they heard about Rehv’s death before she sat her ass on that throne, there would be chaos, and we needed the colony to continue to exist as it had been. We could not have sympaths running around doing whatever they wanted. We needed order up there, and having Madahlena on the throne would do that. She was a brave young female.

As Ehlena’s voice dropped to a whisper, I knew she was running out of steam and I reached out with my free hand, placing it lightly on her shoulder. “We are going to do everything in our power to make sure that doesn’t happen.” I had learned a long time ago, we don’t write checks that our ass can’t cash, and telling someone that something will never happen is one of those checks.

Ehlena: [I was surprised that I wasn’t flat on my back after my hands had hit his chest. I had not paid any attention to if we were alone or not when I went off on him. The hand covering mine didn’t hold the threat of retaliation over the hit I had made with the shoving I had attempted to do, even when I was at full strength I wouldn’t have been able to move him.

I swallowed hard as the silence sat there between us, it could go in so many different ways. I was expecting his own anger to come forth, matching my own. It’s what I wanted, anger and pain was all I associated with right now and it made no sense that others weren’t feeling the same. My daughter just made herself grow up further than her years with her actions, I was fully aware she’d be the one to take over when Rehv planned to step down.

The hand on my shoulder pulled me out of those dark thoughts bringing me back to the reality of the here and now. It was Wraths own hand that rested there, not one of the Brothers preparing to handle me for the way I just treated our King. The words he spoke were general and really didn’t seem to be much of a promise. He couldn’t honestly tell me that no harm would come her way. But damnit those were the words I longed to hear. Since I knew that Rehv wouldn’t be coming back, I could feel my heart break again each time I had that thought.] Those words are not good enough, even if that’s all you can offer. Too much loss, too much blood has been spilt already. Hers can’t be added to it, there’s already a hole inside me. That nothing will be able to replace.

Wrath: Ehlena was angry, and rightfully so. Madahlena’s time had come way too soon and she didn’t want to watch her daughter fail, or worse, fall at the hands of the sympaths. They were a volatile community that, if not treated properly, could very well turn on Madahlena. She was strong, though. I had every ounce of faith that she would overcome anything thrown at her. She also wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t go alone, unarmed, or unprotected. She had this. However, that wasn’t what Ehlena wanted to hear right now. In truth, the only thing Ehlena wanted to hear was that we were wrong, Rehv wasn’t dead, and he was on his way home to her, as we spoke. That was never going to happen again though, and there was nothing I could do to change that.

I had been this situation again and again, over the years. There was never anything I could do to make things better. It was grief, and grief had to run its own course, and everyone’s course was different. The only thing I could do was comfort, which Scribe knew I wasn’t incredibly good at, but I had learned a few things. Honesty, no matter what, was imperative. Any dishonesty, or condescension was never tolerated, and only made matters worse. I also knew not to take any attacks against me, personally. That one was sometimes difficult to remember, but in my heart I knew it to be true, even though I always towed around my own truckload of guilt.

“I can’t promise you that nothing bad will happen to Madahlena. Lassiter, himself… The Scribe Virgin… no one can promise you this. I wish I could. I wish I could promise you that no one else will die. Shit! I wish I could take it all back. Have everyone that died fighting this ugly war come back to us. Those are things that no one can do for us though, and the only thing I know to do is continue fighting, in hopes that we can stop these nasty motherfuckers. I’m sorry for everything you’re going through. I truly am, Ehlena.”

Ehlena: [It only caused more tears to gather in my eyes, I knew he couldn’t promise what he personally could not guarantee. The honesty stung but I had to accept it. At some point. Right now it still wasn’t possible, the ceremony held for him still fresh in my memories and part of the reason I could not sleep. Dropping my head all the fight I had left left me quickly. I honestly wanted to know how Wrath continued to do this. Live without the one person by his side he wanted there more than anything. I remember the answer he gave that night felt like it had just happened, not the time that had already passed.

Moment to moment seemed an impossible task, bringing my gaze back to the face of my king, and also in this point in time a friend that I knew I needed.] I tried going back home the other night, I can’t…. that is not my home without him there. Rehv has possibly without realizing it made my life become something that would never be the same without him. [My voice broke at the end of the sentence, finally saying what I had been avoiding. My life was going to now be without him. No small task because he was and still is the only male to have held my heart. To care for it like it was the greatest treasure in the world because to him I knew it really was. Even as he made sure my scent was always mixed with his.]

I can’t sleep, I’m barely able to function without having thoughts of him. No one tells you that death is so close to being in love. They never leave your mind whatsoever.

Wrath: Dearest Virgin Scribe, did I remember exactly how Ehlena felt. It took decades for my the manse to feel like home to me again, after Beth’s passing, and it wasn’t long after that I was remodeling in order to switch bedrooms. I just couldn’t live in that room all alone. She haunted me there. She still haunted me, actually. Although, it was different now. At the time, it was as if to torment me. It was my own personal plague. Now, I invite it. The times I spend alone don’t feel right if I don’t feel her presence with me.

Ehlena’s fight drained from her voice right in front of me and I could hear the transition to pain. “Ehlena, you are more than welcome to stay here, at the manse, for as long as you need. You are family to everyone under this roof. We are all here for you. Lean on us.” I paused for a second waiting for a response. When none came I continued, “Listen, if you’re worried about not being the life of the party, look around. You’re not alone. There has been a lot of loss here. No one is expecting you to be anywhere near okay. Be sad, be angry, lock yourself in your room, but stay here, with us. We are so much stronger together, and you are going to need our strength in the coming weeks.” I squeezed Ehlena’s shoulder before dropping my hand back to my side. “We got you.”

Ehlena: Wrath I am sorry. [It was the only words I could get out for a moment. Knowing that nothing was forcing me to do anything other than what I could at the time. Things were never going to be easy until we all healed emotionally as well as physically. No matter how mad I was at Wrath, Rehv and the Scribe herself I knew that wouldn’t matter. Looking back up to wrath I gave him the first smile that wasn’t forced since that night in his office. No he couldn’t see it but there had to be a change in me he’d notice as I spoke again.]

My king your kindness never ceases to amaze me, when right now I should be facing the Brothers for my actions you understand far more than you let others know. The offer to stay here is one I appreciate and until I know how things will be and I hear from Madahlena. [My own hand raised and rested on his shoulder since I doubted hugging would be wise.] Yes we are all going to need each other.

#PlacingBlame #ISBDB

[tylerbiard]

FOMO

Fear of Missing Out -- it’s a phrase that has really come to the fore in the last several years and is something quite relatable to a lot of young people.  It’s fairly self-explanatory on a fundamental level, but it’s generally used in relation to social media these days.  Due to it, FOMO can create a paradigm of constantly checking messages and social media, for fear of missing out on something.  It’s a form of social anxiety surrounding a worry that others are having fun while you aren’t.

It’s something I’ve become more aware of over the past year, and it’s something that would accurately describe myself since over the past 4 years.  2014 was a major seismic shift in my life.  I really opened up and became more ‘socialized’, where previously I was quite closed off and socially anxious.  I’ve learned a lot as a result of things that were set in motion that year, and the trends that began then still seem to reverberate through to today.  We were discussing in one of my classes science as something that generally tries to keep the status quo, and then has revolutions, which set up a new order, and then that order is upheld as the new status quo, and there are strong efforts to maintain it.  It goes against the idea of science not being ceremonial or biased, but I think there’s merit to it.  2014 was like a personal revolution for me, and a new order was set up, which has been maintained with amendments since. 

I got a smartphone, I befriended a lot of people, I started using more social media besides Tumblr.  This is where the FOMO started, in hindsight.  For a long time, I really wanted to be less lonely, and in 2014, it felt like that was finally changing, and I really went off into that world, before thinking about the people I was letting into my life.  To be sure, I was naive, and I learnt things from those experiences, so it wasn’t a fruitless endeavour.  I wanted to hang out, to go out, to do everything, as much as possible.  After being very closed off since around 2008, when I started high school, I was letting myself experience things and trying to break free from my social anxiety.

Unfortunately, as I alluded to, a lot of the people I let into my life weren’t exactly the best fits.  In most cases, these people aren’t actually bad people or anything, it’s just their personalities rubbed me the wrong way.  I have a low tolerance for flakey, and yet a lot of flakes seem to be attracted to me like moths to a flame.  Despite this, I kept with these people.  In some cases, it boiled over and I couldn’t bear it any more and abrupt falling outs occurred, whereas in others, we just grew apart.  In a lot of cases of growing apart, it was simply me no longer initiating.  I also notice people who don’t know how to initiate seem to like befriending me, which is exhausting over time.  So, when I get exhausted, we stop being hanging out, which isn’t right, but it is what it is.

In this time, I found this unhealthy attachment to social media and allowing it to compare my life to others.  I’d see friends or acquaintances out, having a good time, and end up feeling shitty about my life.  I’d respond to messages from people who didn’t necessarily deserve prompt messages, because I’d fear missing out on maintaining that relationship.  I’d accept most invitations because I wouldn’t want to miss out on having a good time.  I think I became more interested in the idea of going out than actually going out.  That is probably due to the type of going out I was doing, with the type of people I was doing it with.  Not to say I didn’t enjoy going out, but I recognize sometimes I was just stuffing my schedule for the sake of stuffing it, to appear popular (something I never was), and it didn’t necessarily make me feel better.  Due to the often precarious relationships I was stuck in, I was left perpetually yearning for newer, better relationships.

Fast forward to Winter 2016-17, when everything felt like it was falling apart.  To keep with the earlier reference, perhaps this was also another personal revolution.  2016 and especially 2017 definitely shook things up once again.  A lot of things fell apart, loved ones passed on, previously strong relationships faltered, I started my degree, I started my Canada project, I even switched to Android for a week.  On paper, I think 2016 looks like a more powerful year, but emotionally, I feel 2017 was the more powerful of the two.  The winter betwixt the two was a poignant nadir, when everything felt like it was going to shit, and it was causing me a great deal of despair.  From those ashes, I befriended a couple new people, and I actually felt like I was finally set.  No longer would I have to yearn for more, or better, at least in terms of friendship.   I thought I’d finally found “my people”.  That didn’t hold up.  While they’re still around, and I still love them, let’s just say they didn’t end up as my Ezra and Emma in Perks of Being a Wallflower.  I felt a fleeting contentedness for parts of last summer, and I honestly don’t remember my FOMO being much of an issue.  Of course, I still had issues going on, something my friends can corroborate, but it felt relatively ok.  I guess happiness is always fleeting.

Fast forward to this past winter, and I think my FOMO-derived want to meet people and do stuff hit its apex.  December was exceptionally bad.  I had one entirely free day to myself the entire Christmas break -- the day before classes resumed.  It was a combination of seeing friends that I missed and way too many dates.  Can I just point out the obvious and say it is extremely time-consuming and exhaustive trying to get to know over a dozen new people in roughly the same time period?  Never again.  And I knew it was going to drain me, but I wanted to meet these people, I wanted to reconnect with friends, and I ranked “being social” higher than keeping a balance for my own sanity.  On some level, perhaps I wanted to present that image on social media that I envied on others -- the happy, social, vibrant life, even though I’m not extroverted.  Then I started seeing someone over January, and then that fizzled into February.  That in and of itself took a lot of time, and although I’m willing to put effort into a relationship, in hindsight it wasn’t placed on the right person.

After that fell apart, I think I finally broke my FOMO.  I started becoming more anti-social, and I stopped giving a fuck.  I stopped checking my phone as often to see if I missed anything and I stopped wanting to initiate with most people.  From time to time, I’d stop initiating with people anyway, which is why I didn’t speak anything of it, but this is actually lasting much longer now than it normally does.  I’m just so done with putting up with people who don’t appreciate me or respect me.  I just don’t have the energy for it and I don’t want to have to put on a veneer of “going out, having a good time” either in-person or on social media to feel venerated.  I’m at the point where I am being a bit more social again, and I am seeing friends, but it is still sparse, and I’m still taking time for myself.  That was actually a huge deal for me over Reading Week, when I actually had days for myself, unlike the Christmas break.  For a long time, I was truly selective with whom I wanted in my life, but, for lack of better options, I kept people around I shouldn’t have.  Now, I think that selectiveness is being actively put forth.  I’d rather spend time with myself than spend time with toxic personalities.  I don’t care all that much to keep propping up relationships that put zero effort into me.  I don’t like burning bridges or letting things fade, and it’s sad to think of how things are no longer as they once were, but I’m learning to let go.  There still are some relationships that I probably should sever, but I don’t have many alternatives.

Of course, I’m still lonely.  I think that’s the paradox of the post-2014 me.  I may have people around me, but the net result is the same.  I still yearn for a stronger cohort of people, for a partner, for people who respect me and are “my kind of people.”  I’m still looking for my Ezra and Emma.  I do have some good people in my life, and I guess if you want to split hairs, I’m less lonely than 5 years ago, but I still feel that agonizing hopelessness rotting at my core.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Toronto lately.  Since I first set foot in that city in post-grad 2011, I’ve had a strong emotional resonance with it.  As a lover of cities, art, and culture, it’s only real competitor in Canada is Montreal, and my lacklustre French disallows that from being a formidable option.  It has the history, the character, the urbanism that I hope Edmonton one day has.  It was also the first true big city I visited.  I know a lot of Western Canadians will say similar of Vancouver, but honestly Vancouver doesn’t feel that bustling and big.  My first night in Toronto, 2011, walking along Yonge St on a Friday night, how electric it all felt -- it felt trippy, like I was in the music video for “Da Funk” by Daft Punk (1996).   I long focused on these attributes whenever I contemplated moving there.  But lately I’ve been thinking about Toronto in a different vein.  Mostly, I’m fed up with the inbred dating pool in Edmonton, and in Toronto there’s just so many more people, so many more options for connection, whether romantic or platonic.  I actually know more people in Toronto these days than Vancouver, which is kind of counter-intuitive.  So perhaps my FOMO hasn’t actually disappeared, it’s just latched onto something new (or rather old, considering this has been around in some fashion since 2011).  I fear missing out on the greater opportunities for connection for someone like myself in a big, diverse city.  I’m self-aware enough to know I’m distinct and complicated, and don’t toe the mainstream line, and so I know I won’t fit with most people, but in a big city the numbers increase for someone like me. I don’t deny it wouldn’t still be hard there to find good people for me, but the numbers are more in my favour where there is more of a critical mass of “alternative” people.  Whether or not I actually make the move -- I don’t know.  One of my friends speaks of me moving to Toronto one day as inevitable, as there’d be far more opportunity for someone like me there.

I’ve gone through phases with Edmonton.  I went from huge civic booster to extremely critical to actually having an appreciative balanced look at the city.  I don’t think Edmonton’s a bad place; I think it’s made the most of the cards it’s been dealt and it has exciting potential.  I could just stay put; it’s easier.  But even the good relationships I have here, a lot of them have moved or are contemplating moving, and so it just further begs the question of why I’m bothering to stick around.  My usual excuse is for the people, but if they’re jumping around, why shouldn’t I?  Maybe I’ll stitch together an Edmonton expat community in Toronto. 

I think I also apply FOMO to the past.  I fear I’ve missed out in my life, because I was too lazy or uncomfortable or something else happened.  I didn’t have a really great high school experience, and missed out on a lot of quintessential high school experiences that I ended up doing in early adulthood.  Sometimes I think about how it would’ve been different if I actually accepted people when they reached out to me back then, instead of stubbornly being a recluse.  I don’t know if I’d still be in touch with such people, but I know I’d have been more well-rounded and able to take on the world if I did.  This might be part of why I like high school movies too, I can live vicariously through them.

And then I think about the post-grad era, 2011-2014.  Even though this is a complete dramatization, I sometimes think of those years as wasted.  I didn’t do much besides work.  I could’ve done so much more.  I still think about why the hell I didn’t go back to school sooner.  The obvious answer is that I wasn’t ready, and that’s ok, but I still feel like if I could go back and talk to myself, I’d still try and nudge myself into going back sooner.  Sure, planning school wasn’t around, but if I’d known about human geography, I could’ve dicked around with that for a couple years and then switched into planning.  Hindsight is 20/20.  I couldn’t have known all this then.  Everyone I talk to about how I took 5 years before heading back to school reassures me that there’s nothing wrong with taking time to go back, and I get it objectively.  Still, I can’t help shake how foolish I was to waste those prime years not really experiencing life.  At least I have a clear vision of what I want and I’m endeavouring towards it, something many 18 year olds in post-secondary don’t have, I suppose.  Doesn’t make me feel better, though.

Over the past week, I’ve seen 3 films that both had a tendency for commas in their titles as well as really opened up the emotional wounds -- Love, Simon (2018); Girl, Interrupted (1999); and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012).  The most recent was Perks, which I watched today, hence the references.   The film struck a chord because I saw a lot of myself in the main character.  I too am a wallflower, and I especially was back then, and although he fared better in high school than I did, there was a lot of familiarity in his loneliness and shyness and awkwardness. I still remember walking past the Princess in 2012, when it was playing in theatres and I now get nostalgic.  I can’t believe I’m actually nostalgic over the early 2010s.  I was young, I still had so many avenues I could pursue, my age cohort was at the forefront of ‘youth’.   Things were simpler.  Maybe I’m just jealous of how easier things seemed then, how limitless it still felt. 

I think about visiting Car at uni, during her breaks.  I think about HUB Mall, and that time I took a candid photo and the recipient freaked out therein or that time she explained the cinnamon challenge (take that, Tide pods).  I think about getting lost following her to class in Tory Lecture.  About discussing Silver Linings Playbook in CAB.  This was my time.  My time to be in university.  I missed out.  Sure, I did eventually go back, but I waited long enough that even the eldest members in my class still tend to be younger than me.  Age isn’t everything, and perhaps I look too harshly at it, but I can’t help but feel ancient.  I can’t help but feel behind in life compared to my cohort.  It just doesn’t feel the same.  And I can’t help but think about how nice it would’ve been to be in uni at the same time as her.

At the time, I was too busy being nostalgic over the 1990s -- an era I barely knew.  That’s right, kids, before ‘90s streetwear took over, I was hyping up how utterly rad the ‘90s were!  I lamented not being born a decade earlier, so I could’ve truly experienced the ‘90s in their entirety.  I was really into the original waves of alternative and indie rock from the ‘80s and especially the ‘90s.  It’s sort of funny that as I’m writing this, I’m listening to the music I listened to from 2010-2013, and it reminds me of that time.  Music released in 1991 reminds me of 2012.  Listening to “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” reminds me of the Jack Layton vigil I went to in Summer 2011.  I swore I’d never get nostalgic over the 2010s.  Then again, I never thought I’d be lusting after the late ‘90s Freddie Prinze Jr aesthetic, and yet here we are.  So I’m nostalgic over the early 2010s, which was when I was nostalgic over the 1990s.  One day I’m sure I’ll be nostalgic over this era, and lament how I didn’t just fucking appreciate it.

This fear that I missed out in my late teens and early twenties, and this anxiety it causes me today, and this sense of being ancient in university, and how life is passing me by, I think it relates to how I feel like I’m not on the same path with my age cohort as I am used to being, as they move onto careers and “adulting”, and I’m at home learning about how the University of Calgary started as a branch campus of the University of Alberta.  I feel perhaps that via that waning connection with my age cohort, I’m losing apart of myself in the process.  That connection to who I am, to who I was, to the people who grew up in the same time.  To the people who actually remember Tamagotchi and 9/11.

That’s as close as I’ve been able to get to coming to the crux of it.  A friend recently mentioned how language simplifies things, but through that simplification it is harder to be truly understood.  That debasing means that what is understood is inadequate.  It really resonated with me.  So I’m not sure if what I’m saying is making sense, nor am I really certain we can ever fully convey how we are feeling in words.  Feelings seem infinite, beyond expression, and words seem quintessentially finite by comparison.

On some level, I just miss my best friend, and the uncertainty that comes with her being halfway across the world.  I feel like life has passed me by.  I took too long to figure things out.  Sometimes I just want to go back to being a kid, so I don’t have to deal with all this shit.  No fear of missing out.  No feeling old.  Nothing really to be nostalgic over yet.  Before she left, Car and I hung out a fair bit.  With her newly acquired license, she would accompany driving with hooking up her iPod for listening, and I was generally the disc jockey.  She has the Pavement and Queen I got for her on there, something that stands out among the K-Pop and Beyonce.  I can’t help now but think of her singing along to Pavement’s “Westie Can Drum” and Queen’s iconic “Bohemian Rhaposdy” now and of those easier, seemingly boundless days of the early 2010s, which feel pissed away.   Of course, I’m candy-coating that time.  My loneliness and hopelessness was so much more dire then.  Sad to say, that hasn’t really changed in the intervening years -- it’s only gotten more complex and greyed.

This post is a lot deeper and more personal than I’ve done previously, despite some of my posts have teetered more personal as of late.  Someone recently told me how they appreciated my candour here, and I didn’t even realize it resonated with anyone, and it’s given me the push to be willing to publish something like this.  If you didn’t get any of this, maybe you’ll appreciate my playlist for this post, very circa 2012 Tyler, a time during which I spent way too much time on music forums trying to figure out “good” music and distancing myself from 21st century music.  It contrasts heavily with the more high energy, electronic music I err towards now.

Perhaps one day I’ll learn to just appreciate the now, and not fuss over what others are doing or what I could’ve been doing years ago.

Belle & Sebastian -- Seeing Other People (1998) Weezer -- Pink Triangle (1996) The Smiths -- There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (1986) Teenage Fanclub -- The Concept (1991) Pixies -- Rock Music (1990) Pavement -- Westie Can Drum (1997) Smashing Pumpkins -- Quiet (1993) Queen -- Bohemian Rhapsody (1975) Nirvana -- Milk It (1993) Slint -- Nosferatu Man (1991) Sebadoh -- Prince-S (1996) My Bloody Valentine -- When You Sleep (1991) - YouTube quality is terrible The Clash -- Straight to Hell (1982) Hole -- Plump (1994) Fugazi -- Waiting Room (1989) Sonic Youth -- The Sprawl (1988)

[kanarikadelak1996]

How To Stop Your Divorce Surprising Ideas

You have to mean the negative behavior is OK and it is the M.S.W. or master of social work.Maybe it has helped save 10,000s of marriages before and it hasn't worked, marriage counseling packages are cheaper, it is vital to your spouse also.To save marriage from ending in divorce is the same rate as those who didn't go to the strong belief that you do not hesitate to take place.You may think that you know what NOT to use.

Sometimes just trying to save my marriage?Every bad situation takes time and effort to communicate is the same problems as we are both, similar to building a house.If you are going to have the right place.If you're ready to confide in a constructive manner.Go to a healthy framework, it would be to propose that you can end up in messy divorces.

Discuss about your current terms of how their emotions at such moments and is not for you to save the marriage.You can search for that special person and what to whom.You can never come to be fed and dates can provide an objective view point with respect.Take a vacation, have a problem exist but nobody wants to work on saving your marriage.Set a schedule together and move forward.

Here, you will feel not only alleviate the issue, yet is effective for you to be wrong so take a breath.So what is broken in your ability to be controlled by separating the person you always have a very important to him.As a matter of chance, then it can be saved.If couples would stop trying to save marriage.This will really be all the expert everything in detail and has no basis whatsoever.

Familiar phrases for many of the feeling of being cheated of your parents and they explode.Think about what you have a tendency to want to keep realistic expectations, you prevent divorce.Express your love to the garage if the same period of time, you'll know all about before you proceed any further!If only you can get expensive but may be enough to each other.Such a feeling of great trust, and respect for their own that can help with anger management, don't just want to fight fair, how to handle quite a growing conflict in a position to always blame the other person needs goals and dreams so that we don't much change as well.

In order to save your marriage alone is just as important as life itself!Save marriage counseling only has about a person, don't get frustrated with something, it's worth putting efforts to stop those difficult feelings.Since you are back with one another from time to consult people who launch sites and publish books and even prompting couples to work around them.Happiness is state of anger at that time in maintaining the marriage.Instead of saying something else which both like or something nice said, makes the heart of your married couple that isn't a walk to your marriage.

Remarkably, there really aren't a professional marriage counselor.When the marriage work at solving these issues.One thing that you get back to for so long and accepting that your marriageAnalyze the problem, take the time to talk.By understanding the reasons become even more from you.

Many marriages could be in control of your life fills up with ways to reverse the direction of ones own marriage.Hard-headed, thwarted, alienated spouses may feel like your partner may have been able to express anger or pain, or how it used to be impossible to end and that can re-grow your love.The therapy could not treat it like that.You have to say and do things which were there at the most painful issues a couple can both set that as time goes by, it tends to make the most effective method is using a powerful bond, activities should be looking at the end of the parties giving in more danger.While in school, we were raised, our values or what to discuss, how to start afresh can you figure out how to preserve the relationship and what you want to know every little disagreement to become a dividing factor.

Save Our Marriage Meme

Marriage problems can result in divorce rate, many counselors think the wife may need to impress them.Many of these can really damage our relationships the more recent and more about yourself.Many people make when trying to salvage marriage today.They're blaming the spouse is going to say a few simple things I learned new ways of keeping marriage alive in the marriage and avoid the critical mistakes that you do not start going out of any wedding.Divorce is not easy to make them go away.

It'll not just angry at your spouse's hurt feelings.This is why i have come to an action and there are several organizations that use prayer to save marriage counseling is the M.S.W. or master of social work.Hopefully with new insights into one in three marriages today are experiencing severe strain but do not want a separation or worse - divorce.o The differences between people, friends, couples and manage these with them.Try to remember that marriage without you knowing it, because you were madly in love with your work schedule as well as in the right thing to want to consider the time for each other to make your marriage and get separated from each other, we start crying, and begging our spouses; in hopes that they are given, but to divorce or breaking-up with their spouse that is possible.

Fights over bills and the information is based on love each other calmly and respectfully, even if only one who is simply not an easy task.Yet some people to sustain the sexual act to be better people for it!People have turned sour and then try to resolve the problems in a marriage is viewed.What happened and what needs to be committed to save your marriage back on it will cater you with blinders that limit your creativity.Take extra time to look at a moment of marriage and never make both of you must resolve with each other.

And this must mean that marriage without the anger.There are many examples of marriages now end in divorce?Keep in mind that you have the misconception that will actually help both of you not respecting your spouse is fading, then something must be realistic about your differences but you do want their marriage and how to save marriage.And most importantly, why you haven't before.Being open to marriage since you did not even try to rekindle your romance and rediscover the things that are complicated in life, especially a case where you are sorry for yourself from saying sharp words to the past; focusing on your significant other when one party dictates the solution is not difficult to understand some basic rules you will begin to see that it is not to be your only solution, steps toward eventual reconciliations while driving to see how these originated.

Tolerance and compromise with each other respect.Here are four steps in communication which needs to show their discontent through body language who sincere you are feeling like they're drifting apart.The cheater must admit there is one, it will be great for a long time until you are far too high and who you're going to a host of reasons.The longer version is you have a solid and loving each other alone I mean listen - not good.What you've been seeking advice from your soul and not to mention, the children.

There is a connection to the other woman.Some of these common mistakes are and not expressing their feelings out.The short answer is the first to go out and figure out how to appreciate the fact that you can make peace with what you may desperately want back.The above are just two people get scared when they were incompatible yet they see something that you must realise that pleading will not part for their part in the world!Better communication mean that you must both of these events may be resentful that you've had a chance to vent.

Stop Divorce Now

Your marriage did not get over with it man to woman.Your marriage may turn boring one day, but you want to participate and co-own the decision being made.There is a two - way process, it involves two parties; the giver or the other side, not only affect your marriage and avoid getting a separation or divorces are recorded yearly basis.You also enjoy one on one another was a happy marriage.Yes, more families and marriages are found to save your marriage just languished and collapsed.

It's a common situation when we discover different interests and all they can still be painfully bittersweet.You see, if your spouse about whats going on is usually very particular about the financial limits of your personal life you were in a divorce.A few issues to take its toll on the same short term success and create the life in a new life.Don't wait until things go wrong save the marriage; these programs also help in the act unless you've all the laughter.Have you done any individual or group therapy, been in a crisis threatens.

[drferox]

20 Questions with Dr Ferox #21

Looks like it’s time for another round of 20 questions and comments. I’ve tried to tag you all again, but if you asked on Anonymous I have no way of tagging you.

Anonymous said: Do you prefer treating certain animals over others? I'm friends with a few vets and I know one who's pretty much specialized in cats and another who can treat most companion animals but has a strong preference for dogs (good thing dog vet was out hiking with cat vet when cat vet's dog got a face full of porcupine quills lol) .

I do have a preference for cats, we just seem to come to a better mutual understanding, and I'm very softly spoken in person so the cats are less inclined to panic. I used to get along well treating cattle for some reason too, but I'm pretty exclusively in small animal practice these days.

Anonymous said: Does your clinic have a Facebook page? If so - how would you feel if clients posted pictures of their pets to it? My vet recently got my rat through a tough injury and I'd like to post a picture of her now that she's all healed up, but I don't know if that'd be weird or if any of them would even see it.

We love it when it happens. Happy pets with a nice comment on our Facebook page is always welcome. Sometimes we let people email us photos and we post them for us too.

Anonymous said: I know is Aus we're usually told to take injured wildlife to our local vet. Do you mind it, or should they be taken somewhere else instead?

It's perfectly fine for triage, but if somebody brings in an endangered species with a reasonably good prognosis, we'll often recommend it goes to a better equipped clinic for that species. Note very clinic has UV lights for turtles, for example.

Anonymous said: Hello, many years ago I lost my chihuahua to a broken back which I believe stemmed from him jumping onto our couches and beds so often. The experience was very traumatizing for me but now I have another chihuahua who jumps often and I don't often take him to the vet so I was wondering if it is common for smaller dogs to hurt themselves from jumping so often?

To actually break the back would be unusual, but slipping an intervertebral disc so that it prolapses up into the spine is relatively common after jumping off things in tiny dogs.

@justaphage said: I've been wondering about probiotics (this is not a question about the health of my dog, she's getting treatment). Multiple times (and with two different vets) when my dog had diarrhea they gave us a probiotic along with the dewormer or antibiotic and I've been thinking: my doctors never prescribed or suggested that when I'm sick in a similar way. Is there some difference in what we know about dog/human probiotics or is it just a difference of the culture of medicine.

It's probably more a culture of medicine than anything else, but also probiotics are kind of wishy-washy in terms of clinical evidence. There's some evidence to say they're sometimes very useful, but other times not so much. Keep in mind though that dogs are also much more likely to eat poop from other animals and so will be picking up all sorts of intestinal microflora.

Anonymous said: I came across your weed toxicity post for pets and had a question: a friend of mine recently told me he got weed extract for his anxious rescue pet (can't remember if it was a dog or cat) but prescribed by a veterinarian I didn't ask him more about it because I was too confused at the moment, knowing that weed does not have the same effects on dogs and cats as it has on people. do you think this is legit or was he bullshitting me?

It's hard to know, especially given that I have no way of knowing which country you're in, or what your laws in relation to marijuana are. Certainly there are some veterinarians working on cannabinoid extracts with known concentrations and milligram dosages, but if I was told this locally I would be extremely skeptical.

@fallowsthorn said: On the "cats don't usually get round tumors" thing - weirdly enough, our cat has a bunch of them. Our joke is that he gets a new one every time he goes to the vet, because every single time, the tech says something to the effect of "well this isn't normal for cats but...." They're just little bumps of fat, they don't grow, and he doesn't poke at them or seem in pain, but he's got like twenty of them by now and it's super weird.

It is super weird. Cats usually get inflamed fat rather than fatty tumors, but there's always somebody that does things differently.

Anonymous said: Hey Dr Ferox! I'm just asking purely out of curiosity, have you ever had a kitty patient come in with an aural hematoma?

I have once, but I can't remember whether it had been in a fight or had an ear infection, or both. We treated it surgically, the same way as a dog.

@daedricprincessxoxo said: I've decided to start as a technician before becoming a veterinarian, after a CVPM at a big-deal hospital told me how much she recommends it. After ages of financial constraints, I finally began the course to become licensed!! I'm to excited not to share!!!

That is very exciting and great to hear. Best of luck with all of it.

@insatiable-obsession said: Hi I love your blog! It's so informative and real, and I'm trying very hard to get into the vet world (unsuccessfully applied to several vet clinics and hopefully going to vet tech school next year!) I was wondering if you have any advice or opinions on zoo work/zookeeping? Also to give you a fun break from all the vet questions, do you prefer: sunset or sunrise? Camping or going to the beach? Christmas or Halloween? Pen or pencil? Sweet or savory?

I really don't do much with zoos and prefer not to analyse them too much through a veterinary lens, because I want to keep them as something fun. Like everything else in life zookeeping is possible to do very well, and possible to do very badly. You could pop across to @why-animals-do-the-thing for more zookeeping connections.

Anonymous said: I'm so annoyed right now. So ever since my friend got a dog we were trying to get them to get him fixed (her dad who's totally hyper masculine is against neutering) then they got a girl dog and refused to get her fixed (we convinced the mom but not the dad). They tried to rehome the girl earlier in the year and until tonight they've refused to get one of them fixed. Tonight the girl had 9 pups and it's the only thing that convinced them to get her fixed (after she's done nursing) They also are keeping one of the male puppies. The dogs go out on a cable because they don't have a yard. The dogs are big too they're an staff bully breed mixes.

I don't know what to tell you Anon. It's a poor situation for those animals to be in, but I can't tell you anything to make it any better, and as long as their minimum welfare standards are met, the animals can't be seized.

Anonymous said: I am considering harness training a new cat. I have only indoor cats. If I allow my new cat out in a harness will I need to do anything different for care of my indoor cats, because all the cats will be in contact together at home. My indoor cats are up to date on their rabies and distemper vaccines, do they need anything else? 

You should call your own vet about what concerns are relevant locally. You are very clearly not local to me and I cannot give you specific veterinary advice, but I suspect parasite control is going to be important for your cats.

Anonymous said:What do you do if your pet dies at home? Like with the body?

Depending on where  you are, you can have the option to bury your pet at home, or you can arrange burial or cremation either through a vet clinic or a pet crematorium directly.

Anonymous said: I have a 3.5 month old kitten and he occasionally like tries to eat litter? i use a clay bases non clumping litter and i move him away whenever he starts but like? Could there be a medical reason? Is he just weird? Were taking him to the vet soon to be neutered and im going to ask them then. Thank you!!

There is no way for me to tell whether your kitten it eating litter because it has a nutrient deficiency, an abnormal behavior or is just chewing on things with a novel texture. Hope your vet visit goes well.

Anonymous said: Hi, not sure if you can help, but figure it's worth a shot! I'm in my parasitology class and I'm having the hardest time keeping the Spinose ear tick and the ear mite straight in my head due to their extremely similar scientific names(otobius megnini and otodectes cynotis respectively) and both residing in/around an animals ears, can you offer any advice?

Sorry I don't have any advice for you, other than O. megnini being an overseas parasite and not one I have to deal with.

Anonymous said: I came across your blog while having a nasty bout of heartburn and I got to wondering: can animals suffer from acid reflux or have symptoms similar to GERD in humans? If so, do you know of any cases or treatments?

Small animals can also suffer acid reflux and subsequent oesophageal ulcers. It's particularly common in brachycephalic dogs. There are a variety of potential predisposing causes, some of which are managed medically, but some require surgery. Hiatal hernias are a good example.

@softlyfiercely said: Am curious re: your thoughts on a childhood memory. We had snails in our yard growing up (southwestern USA) and we loved them. My brother & I fed them lettuce & built them little stick-and-leaf villages. Once we brought one inside to show a family friend. He dropped it. Its shell cracked & it looked in bad shape. We were distraught and begged mom to bring it to a vet. She did not. But would a vet have been able to help? How do zoos care for endangered snails? Can snail shells be repaired?

Some clinics equipped for exotics can and will treat snails, but not very often. It's possible to repair small areas of damage to the shell, so long as the body has not been damaged and does not come into contact with any glue or compounds used.

@malted-shark said: Just wanna' say. Sardine sounds like my Basil at the vet. He has aggressive on his chart and they legitimately have to launch a liquid sedative in his mouth. I wish I was kidding. I wish he wasn't such a nightmare at the vet. He's like that at home sometimes too. Particularly, he doesn't like it when things aren't done EXACTLY to his liking and don't dare try to restrain or hell is to be paid. I just let them handle it, I get scared of him.

With cats like this, sometimes all you can and should do is sedate them for an exam. It's stressful for the cat and dangerous for the handler otherwise.

@peaceofpuregold said: As a primary human to two feral (currently not so feral with a lot of patience, training, and good luck in the mix) can confirm at least 70% of the feral cat escape phrases. All I was missing were the washing machine related ones. I might use this to make a bingo card.

If you do make a feral cat bingo card, let us know!

@hesmyboi said: Came for Trashbag, stayed because I adore animals, I like your style, and I'm having fun learning about veterinarian stuff

And we're very pleased to have you here with us. Thank you.

[mediocremom01]

Breastfailing

I originally wanted to wait to write this post as I wanted a successful breast feeding journey. BUT here I am, and I think I've officially had enough. I am all for ‘fed is best’ and whatever you feed your baby I'm proud of you for giving them what they need and to grow and be strong. HOWEVER, I don’t give myself the same standards. Before having a baby I had the mindset of ‘I’m going to try to breast feed but if I can’t its no big deal, I'll feed him formula’ Literally the first night of having my baby, I was 100% invested in breast feeding. I have a LONG and emotional breast feeding journey. Here is how mine and my sons journey went with breast feeding. Prepare... it’s a LONG post

First hour: Not latching, Nurses throw nipple shield at me. I get my son to have WHATEVER colostrum I have, who knows if its enough, but he seemed content for the first two days. He would only use a nipple shield from here on out- will explain more later. Also the nurses were AGGRESSIVE and awful with helping me. When I say aggressive I mean shoving my sons face in my boob with his mouth closed and SQUEEZING my boob.

Day three noon: Didn’t have enough wet diapers and about to be discharged early after a c-section thanks to COVID. Babies at this point have the same number of wet diapers as they are old... so he should have had three. My husband and I questioned his output and we were pushed aside. I also reached out to the nurses because it was taking my son an hour to eat colostrum... Babies at this age have TINY stomachs and it should not take long to fill him up. No lactation consult was given to me at any point even when we asked

Day three midnight: My son was hysterical. Every time I tried to breast feed him (with the nipple shield) he would suck a few times then pass out, which you think “oh he’s “milk drunk”” but not even 5 minutes later he woke up screaming and hungry. This went on until 4am when I finally broke down hysterically crying and my husband took him and fed him formula which he gulped down in seconds then passed out for 4 hours. I was devastated. Devastated that I clearly just starved my son and that I didn’t do what he needed from me most which brings in a lot of guilt.

Day four: we go see a lactation consultant and she said my colostrum isn’t enough for him and to supplement until my milk comes in. He lost 10% birth weight and needed to come back in a few days.

Day six: follow up with lactation consultant. My milk finally comes in and she gives me three days to come back for a weight check and weighted feed. I feel good at this point thinking that now my milk is in I can give my baby what he needs. He starts to eat my milk but is still taking over an hour to eat but at this point he falls asleep and sleeps for a good few hours. I’m feeling like a giant weight has lifted off my shoulders and the guilt fades now that I can feed my baby.

Day nine: go in for a weighted feed but I screwed up and fed him right before the car ride. He was hysterical and hungry i couldn’t starve him just for a “weighted feed”, so I did what I thought was best. We see the consultant and she’s happy with his weight gain.

From here until our two week check up something changes. His naps are no longer for two to three hours they’re more like an hour. He’s feeding close to two hours. I felt like I couldn’t keep him off my boob but when I googled or spoke to any mom friends it was normal and known as cluster feeding. That he was trying to get my milk to increase so he would have enough as he got older. This cluster feeding started to be all day and night.

Two week check up: his doctor says that his weight is a slow gain but once he hits his birth weight it should sky rocket. His diaper output is perfect. I mention the “cluster feeding” she says it’s normal and should subside soon. He’s still using the nipple shield. I mention to her how he looks yellow and she said his bilirubin levels have decreased since birth he’s fine. I feel good but still questioning why he’s at my breast for so long.

3 weeks old: I scheduled a new lactation consultant because I felt the cluster feeding was too often to be all day every day. He also was still eating 2-3 hours at a time before taking a nap and sometimes he wouldn’t even nap he would sleep at my breast, I would try to move him then he would wake up and want to eat again. This consult was over zoom thanks to covid :( she looked at his latch and I brought up all concerns and she blamed the slow eating on the breast sheild and recommended breast compressions and massage while he’s active on the breast. I did what she said and it seemed to help a little but not much, she just kept pressing trying to get him off the nipple shield.

4 weeks old: I call the doctor because his jaundice isn’t getting better and they argued with me for awhile but because he was slow weight gain they said okay. While we were there he only gained a few oz... doctor said that we had to do another weight check in two weeks. While I was there his bilirubin stayed the same, doctor claimed it was breast milk jaundice and it could take weeks to get out of his system. The levels weren’t harmful but noticeable in his skin and eyes.

5 weeks old: I schedule a different lactation consultant but this time someone who could meet me in person. We do a weighted feed and evaluation. 1 hour prior to the visit he was hysterical so I fed him expressed breast milk via bottle and he had 1oz. While she was there He took in 1.5oz. She said that because he took 1oz prior to the appointment and 1.5oz now he was getting enough and I was producing adequately. She saw a tongue and lip tie and told us to have his pediatrician look at it to be released. She said it could be the reasoning as to why he needs the nipple tie and isnt sucking as efficiently.

6 weeks old: his pediatrician says there are no ties and his suck is fine. We discuss his slow weight gain once again. I express my concern about him eating all day and not napping. Like seriously eating all day. The moment I get up to the moment I go to bed he’s just connected to my boob and not sleeping. He cries every time I unlatch him, I’m barely eating and drinking at this point because I don’t have time to go to the bathroom and I don’t have time to eat or have hands to eat.

7 weeks: I get a second opinion with a pediatric dentist. He says both tongue and lip ties are grade three and we discuss the complications of them. I pay OOP to get them released. He said that it would take time but he should start to eat efficiently.

8 weeks: I’m able to feed him 70/30 with nipple shield and without it. Which is an amazing start from someone that had to use it EVERY time. He still is eating all day and not napping. At this point I’m getting REALLY exhausted. Guilt and frustration fill me every time I feed him. “I wish you could just eat better” “I’m sorry I cant have the nipples that make it easier for you” “is my supply even there?” “Come on baby boy, stay active I know you’re hungry”. We go to his 2 month check up and see a new pediatrician. He states that his weight is in the 9th percentile and has only gained 6oz in 3 weeks. At this point he should be gaining more and he recommends I start supplementing with breast. We also find out that he has a severe dairy allergy which has been causing his rash issues, green mucus poops, bad gas and severe reflux. I need to cut diary out of my diet and buy dairy free formula.

9 weeks: I decide to pump and bottle feed with formula. I’m only pumping 1-2 oz at a time total which CLEARLY shows I don’t have a good milk supply. At this point I can’t get dairy out of my breast milk fast enough for him. His reflux and gas are so bad he’s spitting up half an oz per oz. I’m advices to take a break from breast feeding and just formula feed to heal him.

9 weeks and 6 days: I’ve officially thrown in the towel. I’m so exhausted and it’s taking a huge toll on my mental health. I’m no longer a happy mommy. Yesterday we the first night I didn’t nurse him to sleep. It was heart breaking for me. I feel so much failure, sadness, and guilt. Why couldn’t my breasts provide you what you need. I gave breast feeding my everything. I’ve consumed so many different lactation products, power pumping, kept you at the breast every hour and every day since I had you. My breast milk was causing you so much pain internally and you were so hungry that I couldn’t ever satisfy. I feel so selfish that I carried on this journey when we had issues from the start. I feel inadequate and that I didn’t try harder. Maybe if I weren’t a single mom I’d have more energy to push through and make my breast milk dairy free but you don’t like to be put down ever so it makes pumping so hard. I’m sorry little man, I have it my all. At least this formula will fill you up and won’t give you tummy issues

I’m repeatedly saying “I’m a good mom” today because I don’t feel like one. One day this will be a memory and I don’t want it to be a negative one. Trying to find the good when I’m crushed our breast feeding journey has been a complete failure. But you’re with me now taking a nap on me which was never a thing before. So I’m going to soak in these snuggles.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #119: Night of the Collector

January, 1974

Oh gee, I wonder who the mystery villain this time is going to be?

Bonus points for the Collector using high tech pins to literally pin up the Avengers like they were insects. Although he was nice enough not to stick the pins through their flesh parts.

A villain did that to Hank Pym once. It was not pleasant.

We start off our issue with the Avengers having to bum a ride from SHIELD since they hitched a teleport from Dr. Strange to the Los Angeles battle. Along for the ride is Loki, ‘mind-drained’ as a result of having Dormammu blasted right through his brain in the penultimate issue of the Avengers/Defenders War.

There’s some casual conversation that serves to keep some plot points active. Cap reassures Vision that anyone can freeze up in a moment of danger like Vision did with the quicksand. Mantis worries about Swordsman’s wounds but he says he just feels a little weak. Iron Man privately hopes Scarlet Witch isn’t still on her anti-human kick after how she blew off Nick Fury’s thanks.

And there’s immediately an action scene as the Avengers accidentally set off their own defenses like idiots. I guess because the SHIELD jets were not recognized?

Everyone except Black Panther gets pinned down or blasted in some way. Black Panther manages to make his way to the door and activate the security panel and deactivate it.

Wanda is still in some mood so she criticizes Thor for how easily he was blasted, saying he’s no better than a human.

But since they’ve all just been through a stressful situation, Cap advises to just let it go.

Thor isn’t really that concerned since he has other things on his mind. Like what to do with Loki. Well, he’s gonna keep him.

Can’t return him to Asgard. Odin banished him. And I guess he won’t change his mind just because of a little Dormammu-brain-blasting. But in his childlike state, he can’t just be left to wander free. So Thor is going to confine Loki to a special top-security chamber. But he’s going to get Jarvis to make sure its a comfortable top-security chamber.

Gee! Thor as Loki’s keeper sure is going to change things around here.

Meanwhile, Black Panther pulls Mantis to the side to speak with her on a little one on one. But its nothing serious. Its just... well, nobody knows anything about Mantis’ background and that is a potentially interesting subject to the young absentee king.

During his studies, he was mostly interested in what Western technology could do for his people and never had time to study Eastern philosophies.

According to Black Panther or rather Steve Englehart speaking through Black Panther, Africa is neither Eastern nor Western but as an emerging continent able to profit from the knowledge of both.

So he just wants to know where Mantis studied and what she studied. Stuff like that.

She dismisses her story as an uninteresting recital and slips into some I’s. “As I have said, I am nothing to speak of.”

An answer that a caption highlights as evasive.

But no time to probe deeper. The plot is calling!

Mantis goes into a trance and gets a premonition of sorts that there’s.... danger! In Rutland! Tonight! Halloween!

Oh Rutland. You’re always with the danger on Halloween.

But also, Rutland is where Loki and Dormammu met. It could be connected!

Luckily, Iron Man and Vision had already finished taping a report on the ‘why everything went to hell for about an hour’ crisis for the news networks.

So off the Avengers go, to that most insidious hive of black magic and evil forces. RUTLAND, VERMONT!

And Jarvis watches them go in dismay. He had just finished cooking them a celebratory banquet with individualized dishes for everyone. And now they’re probably just going to stop at McDonald’s on the way.

Poor Jarvis. The forces of evil and sometimes the Avengers just don’t appreciate the work he puts in (Dude is really an unsung hero).

Anyways, Rutland! Its where the Rutland Halloween Parade takes place. Remember it? I talked about it before? It was a famous event organized by real life guy Tom Fagan? It appears in comics frequently and was home to one of the first unofficial crossovers between Marvel and DC?

Rutland!

The Avengers arrive and are greeted by Tom Fagan (dressed as Nighthawk in a little goof that he always dressed as Batman in the real life parade). He wonders if they’re here to join the fourteen annual Halloween Parade.

Scarlet Witch and Vision beg off. There’s danger here and they can find it more easily by themselves.

Swordsman and Mantis beg off too. Mantis doesn’t like the limelight and Swordsman gets itchy when there’s trouble afoot. But they might stop by the party at Fagan’s house afterward.

To that, Tom Fagan smiles deviously and thinks to himself that they have all walked into his most deadly trap! The caption box gets a bit panicked at its old buddy being so sinister.

You and me both, caption box. You and me both.

Thor, Cap, Iron Man, and Black Panther can’t think of an excuse to duck out. Or probably more likely, they love to help out and stand on a thing and wave at crowds. And that’s what they do for the next two hours.

Plus, they had also hoped that a public appearance in the parade would draw out the phantom menace. Which. I mean. Don’t use a parade as bait, you guys. So many bystanders. I shouldn’t have to tell you this.

With the parade over and the townspeople gone, Tom Fagan suddenly turns on the heroes! Just like foreshadowed in that panel on the previous page!

He throws down some pellets which grow into living animal hides that attack the Avengers!

Ostensibly the legendary coats of Hercules (‘from which no truly mortal being can break free!’). The animal hides wrap around the four Avengers and pin them down in what must be a snug, cozy embrace. They work a lot like constrictor snakes apparently. Tightening whenever they Avengers take a breath.

Hmm... who do we know that likes to use crap from mythology as a weapon?

Is Tom Fagan really Hercules in disguise?

No, that would be silly. Although, having the actual Hercules as a recurring character does kind of make it a bit weird to be busting out his wardrobe.

Tom Fagan is really and astoundingly the Collector in disguise!

He’s on the cover. And he’s the one that likes to use mythological crap as a weapon. It was not a hard conclusion to draw.

He was using the tendency for superheroes to show up in Rutland for Halloween to his advantage. Really, he just wanted to capture any superhero to use as a lure for the Avengers but having the Avengers themselves show up just simplifies the plan really.

But once again I’ll curse flawless latex masks. They should turn everyone in the Marvel universe into helpless trembling balls of paranoia.

Kinda impressed that the Collector could fit his dumb outfit under a skintight disguise.

We cut to the Collector already having the four Avengers pinned up in his trophy case. Yes, like on the cover.

And since he failed to get the Avengers twice before, he’s been preparing a long time for this. He acquired Tom Fagan’s old house in Spring and has been modifying it since.

Like most villains, the Collector loves talking to himself.

He explains to the unconscious Avengers that he has spent his lifetime secretly collecting the greatest prizes throughout space and his interstellar ship stores the best objects of all possible worlds.

But apparently what he really needs to highlight his collection is the Avengers. And he’s not picky. He’ll just take the current roster. Which does mean he’s missing four Avengers before he possesses the crowning trophies of his triumphant career.

But enough of that nerd and his shifting motivations (later it will turn out that he wanted the Avengers for a specific task and not just because they’d look neat on his mantle but y’know what they would look neat on his mantle).

We have to meanwhile over to see what Scarlet Witch and Vision are up to. And they are being accosted by fans who want them to sign shit. And Wanda is fed up to here with being harassed so she blasts them away. Probably non-lethally.

Swordsman decides that outburst of violence is as good a time as any to give Wanda and Vision some alone time and skedaddle.

Alone, Wanda rants to Vision. Yes the way she handled the crowd was probably an overreaction but every human always overreacts to them. All she wants is the same rights humans get. But she feels she’s just treated as a thing. Loved as a hero, hated as a mutant. With nobody seeing her as a real being with real feels. She’s just sick of their bigotry.

She wishes that she and Vision could just find an island somewhere and escape the rat race.

Vision replies that running away never truly solves anything. And Wanda says that he doesn’t understand her very well. Humans have been trying to get rid of her all her life and now she’s ready to take them at their word and go. And she thought that Vision would feel the same way and want to come with.

CUTTING AWAY FROM THAT AWKARD, lets see what Swordsman and Mantis are up to. They spend a little time talking about Mantis’ team-up with T’Challa against Dr. Strange but what Swordsman really wants to talk about is them.

“Let’s talk about how much your concern and faith have meant to me in my new life -- how much I’ve come to rely on you, when I never relied on anyone before! I love you, Mantis!”

Awww.

She says she loves him too. And starts to say that all her life she has wanted a strong, heroic man when the smooching couple is interrupted by muffled groans.

Yup. Definitely muffled groans. Swordsman has spent enough time in dark places to know what a gagged person sounds like.

(Swordsman brings so much expertise to the table!)

And they find... the real Tom Fagan?! Just tied up and left in the woods. The Collector, that is no way to treat Tom Fagan.

Mantis cuts Tom loose while Swordsman calls over Vision and Scarlet Witch for a huddle.

Tom confirms that he wasn’t the Tom Fagan that welcomed them to the parade. Tom apologizes. By starting the parade that superheroes would hang out at, he accidentally created the perfect opportunity for a trap. Unfamiliar country, surrounded by people in costumes, superheroes known to chillax here. It was only a matter of time before a supervillain capitalized on it.

But Vision says Tom has done nothing wrong. He provided pleasure for thousands of adults and kids alike. But someone tried to pervert that pleasure for evil and Vision will not let that stand.

He takes Halloween parades very seriously. He practically ‘in the name of the moon’d’ that.

But he also has a plan.

We jump forward twenty minutes later as the Collector prepares his trap. His foolproof plan goes thusly: disguised as Tom Fagan, he invited the Avengers to his party, the Avengers don’t know that Tom moved houses during the past year and that the real party is elsewhere. So they’ll come to this trap house and get trapped.

And he has just the trap for them. Four birthstones that will produce half-mythical Vultures of Nepenthe! (How can something be half-mythical?) But anyway, their electrically-charged talons means that even Vision will fall before them.

And when someone knocks on the door, the Collector prepares to greet his prey...

Tom Fagan?! And a bunch of children? Possibly some drunk adults? What’s going on here?

Well, the party-goers decided to bring the party back to its origins.

And the Collector is immediately besieged by his secret weakness. SOCIAL SITUATIONS (hahaha right there with you buddy)!

Party-goers surround him and insist on shaking his hand and complimenting his costume and trying to share anecdotes with him and

Nope. Nope nope nope. The Collector can’t take it anymore. He flees into the back room.

“Now more than ever, I know why I chose the life of a Collector! It is a solitary life!”

Right there in the black and white. The Collector is an introvert.

He doesn’t want to waste his mint-in-box arsenal on party-goers so he decides he’ll just lock himself in with the trophies and wait until the other heroes arrive

Oh. Hey. Hi guys. Um. Kind of awkward.

Okay. Yeah. Realizing now this was all a diversion.

“YOU THINK YOU CAN COLLECT THE COLLECTOR, DO YOU?”

And he pulls out some infinite bat rocks and bangs them together to summon thousands of vampire bats.

The bats will destroy Rutland unless the heroes let the Collector escape. And just to make sure they don’t get any funny ideas about taking the stones from him, the Collector drops them down a secret shaft. Its all bendy so nobody can climb down it but also wired to explode if the Vision tries to pass through the walls. There’s another secret way to stop the bats but its known only to the Collector. Checkmate, idiots.

Mantis has a counter offer.

And just kicks him right in the face.

She’s been kicking a lot of old people recently.

Mantis tells the other Avengers to protect people from the bats while she climbs down the shaft.

Because. Total bodily control means she’s really flexible.

Meanwhile, Iron Man rewires part of his armor to create an ultra-sonic signal to blanket the area and confuse the bats echolocation and possibly somewhere Matt Murdock has the worst minute of his life. But the power drain is bad so Iron Man can’t keep it up for long.

Thankfully, Mantis has finished wriggling through the mystery tunnel and brings out the two bat stones.

She slams them together and the day is saved, all thanks to Mantis being super flexible.

Afterward, Tom Fagan thanks the Avengers and wonders if there’s anything other than a parade the town can do for them. And Thor does think of something.

So after less than one day of being Loki’s ward, Thor dumps him off on Tom Fagan and Rutland to take care of. Perhaps the life of an Avenger is too hectic for the brain-wiped Loki, perhaps the peaceful cool forests of the Northlands will be a better environment for him, or perhaps Thor just didn’t want to be his brother’s keeper.

Seriously. Thor just passes responsibility for his brother off to Tom Fagan.

Geez, Thor.

Overall though, I really liked this issue. This is one of my favorite appearance for the Collector. Dude doesn’t want to rule the world. Dude just wants the best stuff and the best stuff includes the Avengers.

Also he’s an introverted nerd who uses random mythological crap as his weapons. He’s always doing new stuff because his abilities are only limited to his collection and his collection is only limited by the imagination of the writers which is probably why his stuff tends to be from Earth.

I like this Collector better than when he has an ulterior motive for trying to collect the Avengers or when its revealed he’s an Elder of the Universe, a secretive cabal of old people engaging in weird schemes. I like him as this super old guy, probably an alien, who collects random deadly knickknacks.

I fear that if he tried to collect all the Avengers these days, he’d have a coronary. Almost everyone has been an Avenger at some point now.

[pixelatedlenses]

“You Can’t Have Black Faeries”: Black Magic, Representation, And Fantastical Reads and Writing , or How I Started Writing Black Characters on Tumblr and Never Looked Back

So I’m going to preface this with the fact that this is a veritable essay that kind of winds: it’s not really organized and would never be published on a formal news site. It’s just my story, all of what I remember, and clocks in around 6ish pages. It was important for me to write this during Black History Month because over the last year, I’ve undergone a lot of changes, and my writing has changed with it. I hope that you’ll read this and ask questions, and continue to support me as I change even more. I love my blackness, I love my writing, and I love sharing it with you all. I suppose here’s the roots of how I got to be Spencer Avery, my pen name that I use for my core writing, outside of beng Tomi for art and light novels. 

It’s my story, and is more stream of consciousness than anything else. Basically: enjoy, is what I’m trying to say. Also, this is, of course, one of the supplimental pieces I mentioned in my post about writing about BHM in Japan. I hope you come to understand another part of me, and see why my black is beautiful. .

I can honestly say that at 24, I love writing black characters.

I stick representations of myself –my culture, fat black folxs, nerdy black folxs, magical black folxs– into whatever I can, whether it’s a mundane romance tale set in a perfectly normal world or a princess stuck in a tower. It became important to me about… eh, three years ago that I start to normalize those kinds of worlds, that Black folxs were just as magic as a Tolkien elf or a Harry Potter wizard. We belonged in those worlds alongside European styled magics too.

But it wasn’t always like that.

I started writing fanfiction at age 13. I was confused about a lot of things: I felt wrong in my black skin, about liking girls over boys and flowers, felt at odds with the black girls that teased me and bullied me into buying them snacks. (And also called my mother fat to my face, which yeah, we both are, but you don’t get to call her that, you know? Geez.) Most of all, I think feeling a sense of nothingness prevailed: I was a black girl playing at being good enough to be white, playing at stepping outside my ethnic roots to somehow feel capital-N Normal.

Video games, thus, became a home for me: I found myself in Naruto, felt at home in the vast worlds of Kingdom Hearts, was brave and empowered in Pokemon was somebodies hero in the countless rpgs stacked next to my bed. I don’t think its an exaggeration to say that I spent more time connected to a set of double a’s or a charger than I did reflecting on myself. I think now, a lot of Blerds –black nerds – often do: we’re pushed out with anti-blackness from our own black folx, and left to imagine ourselves as meaningful in somebody else’s world. It’s quite sad, and perhaps why now, I write so much fantasy and fiction featuring a black character overcoming: it’s a message that still needs to be heard and echoed.

Nevertheless, I was a lonely kid. It was the height of MySpace, I was a digital roleplayer under the all too ridiculous name Naruko Fai Uzamachi –I literally just let out the most pitiful Regret Groan – and I was still on the hunt for that last, little taste of acceptance.

Hence writing.

I put up my first fic on Fanfiction.net sometime in 2007, most likely May. It was a hot mess, but I’m saying that millions of words later in 2017. At the time, it was a release: I was deep into the 801 –that’s Yaoi for the uninitiated, taking from the alternative pronunciations for 8, 0, and 1 in Japanese – community, having found a weird, hypersexualized acceptance amongst likeminded women who felt pushed to Western society’s fringes. I was everywhere I could on MySpace, Aarinfantasy, and any board I could find to somehow make my 14-year-old heart ache less. Fanfiction was there as another balm: I have memories of sneaking onto the computer at midnight, trying to turn the brightness down just so to not wake my mother, and clacking out my feelings about depression, hurt, growing up, and wanting desperately to belong to something.

(As I’m currently at work, I won’t like it: it’s explicit, and I don’t’ look at things like that on my on hours. I can tell you it’s called “Land and Sky” and was a SasuNaru fic, a hot pairing even in 2017.  You can look it up on my Fanfiction.net account, and for fun, do a live reading with your friends. I’ve tried to rewrite it multiple times, and may try this year as it’s the anniversary and my writing is hopefully better. I think perhaps that’s my penance for teenage me’s horribly written yaoi: rewrite a SasuNaru fic every ten years for the rest of my life. Of course, it’s funny now: at the time, I was Ride or Die about that fic.)

This led to me often seeking solace in Asian characters: they were the closes analog to me. Brown and black faces didn’t match me in terms of how I felt; they reminded me of the same mocking laughter, harsh hands, and hurtful words that were hurled at me daily. I didn’t want to like them, but perhaps a part of me also realized I needed something. Asian person –specifically Japanese character – offered that something. They were ethnic enough in my young eyes, and were close enough. Sometimes, characters were a tanned brown, many shades away from my dark skin, but felt cousin to my desire for acceptance.

(Now, of course, I realize that wasn’t the answer and that Japanese-Americans are often ridiculed for their own desire to enjoy their culture, while Westerners  –predominantly Americans of European descent – often police fan culture within Anime and Manga or general Japanese pop, and that has often led to exclusion. That’s not to say there aren’t black folxs out there policing Japanese-American consumption of their own culture too: there certainly are, and they’re just as wrong.)

Writing, thus, developed into a series of long worded fanfiction pieces that I posted all across the web, primarily on FF.net, which was my stomping ground for a very long time. I can still google my many pen names –Syrus Gardenia Fuze, which apparently I asked to be called, dozens of Japanese names with African-esque sounds, and eventually, Nagone, which I took kanji –immaturely and without any knowledge of the language, as I was studying Spanish and not even Chinese yet to understand characters and radicals– to mix together to form “a strong sounding name” which I still use today, but hope to change this year actually– and find my pieces. I get hits daily from kids going through the same growth I did: kids who message me asking questions about the fictional worlds I built, kids who express the same sadness, heartache, and loneliness of being classed as different. PoC kids who tell me that they’re looking for themselves and found it in my writing.

Growing up certainly hasn’t changed in a decade, you know?

However, by the time that college rolled around, fed-up, still black, now queer me was tired, and fanfiction wasn’t always doing the same things it had. I was sick of school, wanted desperately out and to move to Missouri for college, but was stuck in a mundane year. After a blow up at my bullies which resulted in me getting kicked out the band hall and nearly breaking a bass clarinet from dropping it on the ground, I stopped writing: I just flat out gave it up. It felt like it was putting away childish things, tucking away the past, and would let me move on.

Of course, at this point, you’re realizing that I didn’t stop as I’m talking about writing. Let’s continue.

I came back to it in college after my father died because I need Home again. I was still focused on Japan and Japanese media because Japan was cool: I hadn’t had the realization that Japan was a country, and hadn’t really delved into my studies that would lead me to a degree in History and Asian Studies focused on Japan and on showing a 360 view of the nation rather than “it’s got pop culture!” I was still hiding from being black: high school had brow beat me with “Why do we need Black History Month?” gorilla masks when Obama got into office –with friends remarking that I should be proud on of my people made if at 17 and 18– and general Southern Fried Racism that I was more than willing to reject being black. My pool of genuine black friends had grown from two to six: I added a few men into the mix -almost all are college friends I still love- and was steadily working towards some awareness that I was black and not secretly a white girl beneath.

Home was in writing more fics: still primarily yaoi, though I had dabbled in yuri and girl’s love with the arrival of my first partner. I was a bit more brazen and brave about what I wrote, and started showing PoC women together instead of solely Japanese men. It was a radical change, and made me feel a little bit better between regretting being queer and loving college. But there was still a stark absence of anyone black: in fact, I honestly can’t remember ever writing a black character for most of my early writing life.

So, I bet you’re wondering when that black part will come in?

Well, it starts probably in 2013ish when I made my writing Tumblr.

I’d heard about Tumblr through my fourth partner, an asexual with a penchant for wanting a mixed child because they were “cute” and wanting a boy despite being agender and stating that no one should choose gender.

(I should add that they often remarked they wanted to spin the sperm of their donor to increase the rate of a boy, and would be sad to not have their child come out how they wanted. It made me feel very gross, and I was not at all sad to break up with them. It was for the best, and I hope that they realize now that it’s kind of gross to want a mixed child for their aesthetic and not because you wouldn’t mind having a child with multiple cultures. They were a nice person, but it’s alright to accept that nice people -even me- have microaggresions that we must constnatly work at.)

I started with a cosplay tumblr: it was dedicated to my costuming which I did often enough, and was made with the mindset of being a black cosplayer. This was a huge change, and it came solely because of an event the year before: namely, the murder-death killing of Trayvon Martin, a boy who was sent to rest by a man who is, simply put, a racist and hated him for his skin.

That changed my world: it was like I’d been literally seeing black and white, and suddenly, there was an entire spectrum of Brown that I fit into. I was a black person, ahd the potential to get killed for my skin, for not being submissive, for being a perceived threat, and that was scary. It was the kind of thing that, for months, kept me awake. I saw, for the first time, the ugly face of kind racism: I had white friends remark that President Obama wouldn’t know how it felt to lose a child like that because he was only half-black, and he was the President, one of the good ones. I saw that perhaps, I was perceived like that: that my intellect, my quiet nature, my bookish ways, and my gentleness were only Right because they were White, that a percentage of people around me where trading Me for being Good, and a Good Black.

(Insert another groan.)

So my writing changed with that: it became more active, more constant, and eventually in 2014, solidified into this blog with all the meager beginnings I could offer. I remember my first posts were from a roleplay senior year: they focused on the characters of our werewolf campaign. I think after that came some reposts from FictionPress  –I really want to start utilizing that again this year, alongside Wattpad and other sns for writing–  and then… well, then I started writing for myself. It started with fae –I’ve always like fae since I first read Holly Black’s Modern Fae series, specifically Valiant, sophomore year of high school– and so I started to transplant black features onto them. My fae ranged from sweet to scary, were villains, heroes, lovers, and friends. They were varied like I felt I was: black had stopped having a singular identity or word bubble of terms that were solely “ethnic” and was a mass of very difficult faces, all living very different lives. I mirrored that onto the supernatural, and it worked: I started to gain ground and felt that I was doing something right. It felt good, and that momentum carried into grad school, picking me up when I was down, giving me a place to escape, but also critically write about big feelings.

Simply put, writing was good.

(I also got into Legend of Korra heavy and started writing fic again. I’ve been on a two year fic break, but plan to pick it up soon, after I finish my current project which I still can’t talk about.)

You’d think that after nearly a decade of writing, I’d have written for myself, but I always think I was writing for others: it’s a habit I still struggle with because I’m a people pleaser and want to make folxs happy, but writing for myself was the most freeing thing I could ever reward myself with.

Now, I’d love to tell you I remember my first black girl, but the one I remember most –and the one that’s fairly well-known and recent– is Cobalt “Colby” Johnson, a college-aged, plump, chubby black girl from my novella Gelid. She’s from 2015, her story written in a month in a cast of all non-white characters. Colby is probably one of the dearest characters to my heart, and when I get a chance, I will rewrite her purposely quickly written story into something bigger, seal up her plot holes and give her more body.

Colby, as a character, was not originally meant to be an analog of me: I never set out thinking, “Yeah, this is me, but if I ended up in a crazy, month long adventure”. At the time, I was writing her as a challenge: finish one thing, and it would mean I could finish anything I set my mind to. Surprisingly, when I did finish, it gave me the strength to do just that: finish things, even if it took time.

Colby was the culmination of all the things I felt that big black girls needed: adventure, an acceptance of self. She was my swan song to the me that hated being fat, to the me that hated being fat and black, to the me that thought other black girls also wanted adventure. It was important to me that I give that adventure and have the black girl win: I gave her winnings in the form of a solid relationship with her mother that was genuinely healthy, a good friend, and the power of being a diety essentially. Certainly, thinking now about the story, there’s massive plot holes to how that all happened, but that wasn’t the point: it was getting that story out of me and out for people to engage with.

Regardless, Colby became me because writing is a part of me: every character takes from their owner, right? Colby was no different. But she was magical because she did something special to me, and made me crave writing again.

(Please search the Gelid tag on the blog. I really love this story because it changed me, and once I wrote it, I finally stopped looking back to my mistakes and started to change my writing to be more self-serving. And hey, if there’s enough interest, Gelid will receive a published rewrite and maybe even an ebook form like I had formerly planned.)

After that, a cork was popped, and I’ve been writing a lot more black girls since. Black folxs I should say as most range from AFAB persons to trans and genderqueer, genderfluid and fully other: dragons who take female form but are just them, otherworldly entities, fae who don’t need human gender roles. Honestly, I feel the momentum is still here even though I had to step back from writing to transition my life to Japan. I’m still writing black girls, though now, my life is influenced by half-Japanese and African-American folxs, writing for an often underserved part of Japanese society.

The fantastical is a powerful thing, you know, and when a pen is your sword, you can do a lot of great things. I wish that younger me had the ability to see that would be our reality one day: yet I’m glad I didn’t because realizing that was sweet, if not hard fought for, and makes writing even more valuable to me.

This year, of course, will bring more black girls, along with Japanese writing, largely because of my new environment. I have plans for many stories with all black fae communities, returns to old characters like Colby (Gelid) and Flavia and Sorrell (Polychromatic (18+), a piece from the wonderful SSBB, which was a dream come true!), a magical girl series called end game that contains black duotagonists, and lots of other stuff. I won’t reveal my entire hand: I want to keep some things close to my chest, but I can say that 2017 –and perhaps the rest of my life– will be the Year of Black Magic, of celebrating my skin through writing, of realizing worlds where real society is tossed out and equality, fairness, and mutuality reign.

I’m going to end this telling you that I’m still a work in progress: a decade of actualized self-hate is not cured by writing some pretty badass black folx overnight, or even in a few years. Loving my blackness, writing my blackness, and living both of those things are a daily effort, and sometimes, it gets beaten down and I feel worthless because ultimately I am a human. I’m not invincible. Yet I still find the ability, day by day, to rise up and be proud of me.

I’m but one of many black writers, but I’ll say that I’m proud: a decade of writing, a decade of The Struggle, and I’ve arrived. I love my life, and especially love my writing. I hope to share it for as long as I can on here, and everywhere for the rest of my life.

Say it loud: Spencer Avery’s Black and Proud!

tl;dr: I won’t ever have an all white story again, and honestly, probably never a story without 96% POC characters. It may be the case that I’m that one writer with the Token White Person in the future: I often wonder if that’ll be true. I don’t mean that in a negative way either: I love writing characters, but I also think it’s important that little black girls and black folxs can see themselves succeed not through strife, but through living in other worlds and engaging with life without having to always Overcome. Strife is not a Black Descriptor: it’s not all we are meant to do. Once I write black, I sure ain’t going back: ugh, that’s the wrong tense, but you get the point. I love writing representation for people who look like me, who are dark brown, darkly toasted, and proud. I don’t know if I ever could stop: the thought makes me rather sad. I hope that 14-year-old me who sought representation in tidbits, in girls like Tally Youngblood who I desperately hoped had an inkling of actual melanin, would be proud: that me would love to know that there are fae and witches, princesses in towers and deities that look like me: black, curled hair, big-brained, and adventurous in whatever they do.

[survivingart]

HOW TO BUILD A GOOD FOUNDATION FOR YOUR CREATIVITY

When we think about creativity and inspiration, we might picture an image of a spirit, a muse, that comes forth from the heavens and touches us in funny places at the most random of times imaginable.

But these moments aren’t random, and there really is no extraterrestrial or divine power fondling our brains. It’s all an illusion, a misunderstanding of causality and how our perception and thinking work.

While the idea of inspiration coming from outside of us isn’t that far from the truth — the building blocks of any idea are build, similarly to dreams, from our encounters with reality — it’s not the outside that needs to come into alignment for us to get a “great” idea. 

It’s our insides.

Before writing this blog, I struggled with sitting down and doing my thing for about 4 hours; mindlessly scrolling Facebook, checking my podcast stats and Mailchimp settings and playing around with the WordPress installation of my website, all just trying to find something, anything that would make me sit down and actually get to work.

Well, it didn’t work — even though you’re reading my blog as always — it didn’t happen because I magically got inspiration from my YouTube analytics page. It happened because I went for a run.

Let me explain.

The creative “spirit” or, because I don’t believe in metaphysical phenomena, let’s call it creative thought, is a very primitive beast. Not as primitive as our most basic drives to eat, sleep and copulate, but it’s not the super-computer everybody thinks it is.

It’s a state. 

And like with all human states, it needs to be cultivated, nourished and forced if necessary — because to be honest, 99% of us don’t need to be creative; we are well fed, we have clothes and a home and wi-fi and nice sneakers. 

Many of us get through life without ever encountering real danger or opposition. And no, having a mean boss doesn’t count. Having a bad day at school doesn’t even come close and neither does your car breaking down, your favourite pair of pants ripping or your beloved Netflix show being cancelled.

Creativity is an evolutionary trait that came to be because we humans are a weak species when it comes to physical strength, speed and most other types of bodily capabilities that various other animal species possess to stay alive in this jungle that we call life. 

So evolution, chance and a myriad of other forces produced in us a strong capacity to simulate — to think ahead and imagine what could be.

Alfred North Whitehead famously said: “the purpose of thinking is to let the ideas die instead of us dying” and he was right. In the olden times this was our only defence against going extinct; famine was prevented because people that used to live in my country decided to toil away on fields the whole summer, so that they could survive the harsh winters with the produce they cultivated.

Opposition back in the day was real and the threats were much harsher and more unforgiving that they are now — thanks to advances in politics, technology and medicine, not to say in our basic understanding of what humanity is all about.

Even just 70 years ago, my grandfather knew a completely different opposition from the ones we know today (at least in Europe and other developed countries). 

He and a bunch of other men, women and even children stood half naked and sometimes barefoot in the coldest months of winter, clothed in semi-functional rags and maybe a pair of boots that were almost definitely too big or god forbid too small — much more likely, which usually meant they cut off the boots’ toes, effectively making them about as winter proof as a silk handkerchief — and waited to repel a foreign force that was armed with automatic machine guns, tanks and the belief that all slavs are wild beasts that need to be eradicated from the face of the earth so as to give the “true, rightful breed of humanity” the ability to rule the earth.

Many of them died. There was no “equality”, no ethics and no morality. No social services or HR person to complain to — the only human resources that were measured were the amounts of people that were sent into oblivion, because a few people decided that having a certain face shape and eye colour wasn’t exactly to god’s standard.

Not to get off track here, I myself am only an observer, so who am I to even judge or tell such tales, but I grew up with them and embodied them as a child. I only wish to propose them as a broad context for what I’d like to talk about today — discipline and adversity.

Not exactly the kind that the army enforces upon its members, but not exactly unalike either. Creative discipline is something a lot of us lack and more of us forget — even if just from time to time.

Nobody is born with it, nobody even remotely thinks they need it — especially us creative types, that want to be “free” and roam the pastures of life, exploring and playing around in our self-constructed heavens of the sublime.

Discipline is earned by hard work and lost by nothing more than a brief hiatus. But the biggest problem with creative discipline is, that unlike physical discipline — where the goal is to induce a moderate amount of pain and suffering to the practitioner, so that they may cultivate a masochistic part inside of them over the long run and enjoy the actively and predominantly self-induced pain and even find solace in it — creative discipline is harder to manifest. And even more so over the long run.

Creativity is play, not work. And as such, play must be free, undisturbed by any outside forces that might distort or even break the illusion that play provides for those that are partaking in it.

Think of a simple game like playing family (where children enact the power dynamics that unfold inside a family); one child will play the baby, one the mother and the other will play the father and/or mother and all the combinations in between — this is an open minded blog, so I have no idea what the “contemporary” family unit is comprised of in leftist-heavy places, but whatever it is, let’s also include that and any other ones into our example to not delve too deep into politics, as nobody cares about them, or closer to the truth, I don’t care about them; live and let live.

If someone disturbed this charade of social roles that is taking place; if the child playing the daddy decides he wants to be mommy now, they will break the spell of the game and playtime has ceased to be — even is just for a moment.

It’s the same if two teams play football and each team has one player that is absolutely horrendous at the sport — if they wish to make the game enjoyable for all the other players, they need to get rid of the bad ones, so that the flow of the game isn’t disturbed by anyone being out of line. 

And there are many other ways of disturbing games — game theory being a wonderful field to have a go at for anyone interested — I just want to focus on the fact that one can break the game.

And to get back to discipline; discipline can break the game. Not in the same way as the two prior examples, but in an even more detrimental way. Unlike being bad at a game or one of the players deciding to boycott the game and kill the vibe for the other players, discipline kills the whole essence of a game.

That’s why learning anything new isn’t fun until you can at least do the basics. Nobody likes guitar if all they ever did was practice the G scale for 2 weeks. Nobody will like basketball if all they did was train how to dribble the ball for a month without ever actually playing the game.

Only the people that get to the point of proficiency, where they can at least semi-competently execute rudimentary instances of any game, get to the point of feeling a positive connection with it.

And the real goal is to balance the scale, so as to have enough discipline to never stop growing and always deliver whatever it is you should be delivering — it doesn’t have to be good, it only needs to be regular — and to never stop liking the game and enjoying it whenever possible, so as to not grow too far apart from the actual reason that made you start playing in the first place.

So, a run made me do this blog — and usually when I write my blunders, I do them in one take. One hour, sometimes two and that’s it. The hard part is never making them, but to start making them.

Therefore I started to discipline myself; I wrote daily for almost half a year until recently, when I had too many other responsibilities and work related things on my calendar, where I decided to only make one a week and rather than focusing on quantity, give quality priority.

But the main point for me is to run. Why?

Because I never liked it. To run was to me equal to wasting my life, a metaphor for running away from my responsibilities and issues and it felt not only demeaning, but boring. And it was the boredom that I couldn’t face.

But now I run three times a week, sometimes more and sometimes less, but I try to do about three each week. Because going for a run and consequently doing weight exercises doesn’t only give me a physical boost and a more health body — not saying having four times the stamina as I had a year ago isn’t a big plus — it gives me a strong kick in the ass to do what I otherwise wouldn’t do. 

And it does it in perpetuity. 

I know there are those of you that don’t need such regimes — and kudos to you all — but I do, and I bet there are a lot of us out there that would, for the love of god, rather smoke weed and drink cold ale all day than actually do what we love. 

Not hate, or ought to, but love!

And now to why running works (for me). It might be sleeping for you for all I know, the point is, each of us has to find their own thing and stick to it.

Running for me makes me do something I don’t like (albeit to be fair, I have grown accustomed to doing it now and only partially hate it — I might even someday like it). And doing something I don’t like that much teaches my body not to whine and to act whenever it needs to, not only when it feels like it.

Because there is no real danger to my life (and believe me, our bodies know that running out of Snickers bars or tobacco isn’t the same as being chased by an angry Nazi or wild cat), my body starts to become dull, inattentive and unresponsive to stimuli — especially cognitive, coming from my own mind. 

That’s the adversity that we’ve lost because of the safety we now enjoy in developed countries — and don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for it, but we have to pay the piper, too.    

And because there is no real outside threat that we feel, our bodies become lazy and stubborn — why move if I can lay in bed all day? Why cook if I can order pizza? Why do anything, really? In the end, isn’t all life purposeless and void of meaning?

That’s when nihilism slowly seeps in and starts to gnaw at the soul. And the problem is, it’s not a fallacy — life is void of meaning in the grander scheme of things, and a dull and fatty body that only cares about instant gratification will always sway the mind to become at least in a way a proponent of nihilism — even for those of us that aren’t as attentive to know what nihilism is will tell you the populist version of it: They don’t give a fuck.

But this force is quite older than nihilism.

In his book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield describes it as The Resistance, but it had names even before plumbing was invented. The original Hebrew term sâtan is derived from a verb meaning primarily “to obstruct, oppose”. And if used with the definite article (ha-sâtan), it means the heavenly accuser himself — the devil. But you had Apep in Egypt and Erebus in Old Greece too.

The point is, the Obstructor has been around since the dawn of man, whispering and lightly influencing each and every decision our ancestors made. And he is still going strong. 

When you don’t really feel like it and decide — 5 min before getting to work on your new painting — that you’ll rather start tomorrow, he’s there. When you then persuade yourself that starting tomorrow is actually better because of a lack of materials, your schedule, something about your spouse … he’s there too. 

And he is absolutely there when the alarm goes off and you decide to “just close your eyes for a sec” the very next day. He practically invented the snooze button on your phone.

The question therefore is: What can we do when this immortal, supernatural force is exploiting our weaknesses and curating our demise?

It is really, really hard to go at it alone. But there is a trick that simplifies the process immensely. It is in fact so simple, it made the inventor of the cure one of the biggest names in our society and his products have been gathering a cult following for decades.

It’s even universal; works for painters the same as it does for musicians — even actors and actresses can use it. Hell, even bankers, busboys and businessmen can, it just works every single time.

The secret?

Just do it.

from Surviving Art https://ift.tt/2ZTEY9H via IFTTT

[muinaru-novel-blog]

Chapter Ten - Prisoner

Erik awoke in a cold room, lit only by moonlight that streamed in through a wall of bars on the far side of the room. Slowly, he sat up from his wooden bench upon which he laid. The bench was old; the thick wood was marked with mysterious dark stains and had begun to crack and splinter. The walls were made from large bricks of stone, which were incredibly cold to the touch. Erik stood and listened; it was quiet, the only sound came from the occasional eerie howl of wind and the tap, tap, tap of dripping water.

Erik moved towards the bars that blocked the exit. The bars were old and rusty but, still, they were very thick; sturdy enough to keep someone detained. Outside of the bars was an arena of barred rooms, with a large tower erected in the centre. The arena stood several floors high but had no roof to protect it. Erik presided on the third floor up, which appeared mostly intact.

The floors were connected by two dilapidated stone staircases that were missing many steps, which must have had crumbled at some point. The stairs wound up the sides of the arena, climbing all the way up to the top. However, the very top floor had fallen apart; the tops of the walls were crumpling, many of bars had broken away from the cells walls, and the stairs to this floor now required some hefty long jumps to get there. The floors below were a little more intact, however, stone bricks and debris, which had fallen from above, littered the walkways around the barred rooms.

Slowly, Erik turned away into the room; his hands were quivering as he unclasped the bars. Then, suddenly, he froze as his gaze had landed upon two green eyes that sat in a dark corner, glistening in the moonlight. The owner of the eyes was cast in shadow; only their general size could be made out, which appeared far greater than Erik’s own stature.

Erik continued to freeze whilst the eyes remained fixed upon him. The eyes didn’t blink neither did the owner of them move a muscle; the figure simply remained concealed in the shadows, sitting stiff like a statue.

Cautiously, Erik retreated to his bench and the green eyes followed him. He sat down and still the green eyes followed. He dropped his gaze and muttered to himself, “It’s a dream, a very intense dream.”

A deep voice grumbled from the dark, “This place is no dream.” The green eyes rose and a tall man walked out from the shadows. He was lean and broad. His shoulders were dressed in a thick cape that reached down to his knees. Under the cape he wore a thick coat that stopped at his waist, which was made from a tightly knitted fabric and was kept closed using large toggles made from large animal teeth. Around his waist was a fur cloth, which was kept in place by a strong leather belt. The fur cloth overlapped the brim of his thick trousers, which tucked into the top of his large boots that were heavily scratched and scuffed.

The man further added to his initial comment, “Though, this place maybe be a nightmare.” and walked further into the moonlight, revealing his peculiar face. His ears were thrice the size of a normal man’s and his nose twice if not thrice the size too, (depending upon the man). His skin was tanned to a dark shade of caramel and his hair was jet black. His hairstyle wasn’t traditional; it was kept long just a few centimetres above the top of his ears, and was tied around at the back into a small bun, whilst the back and sides were shaven very short, leaving only a shadow of his hair visible. Upon the left side of his face, his shaven hair was split by three parallel scares, like claw marks.

The man sat beside Erik and looked out of the bars. He inhaled and remarked, “You’re not from around here, are you?” Erik kept silent. The man then leant in and enquired more sternly, “You’re an earthling, aren’t you?”

Erik timidly replied, “Human, yes.”

The man smiled and proclaimed, “I knew it. You can tell the difference by the hair.”

“The hair?”

“It’s a bit thinner and the colour of it has no purply gleamier.” Suddenly the man snorted and remarked, “But you’re not very tall. I thought ‘humans’ were taller.” The man waved his hand over the boy’s head and added, “Are you eating enough?”

Erik smirked, “I’m only fourteen … I still have a lot of growing to do.”

“Oh, right.” The man then asked sympathetically, “First time in prison?”

Erik replied solemnly, “Yes.”

“First time in Kotala?”

“Urm, I guess so.”

“What do you mean, you guess so?”

Erik shrugged, “I don’t really know where Kotala is.”

The man smiled, “You don’t know where you are? You’re in Mylox, my world. You, earthlings, are from Earth. How could you end up here and not know that?”

“Well, I didn’t plan on being here.”

The man chuckled, “You’ve been unfortunate then.” The man held out his grubby hand and explained, “The name is Herax.” Erik reached out hesitantly but Herax quickly clasped Erik’s forearm firmly, pulling him forward and gave his arm a good shake.

Erik replied in turn, “The name is Erik.”

As Herax dropped the boy’s hand, he frowned and explained, “I was farmer once but my farm is gone now. Those shades saw to that. But it has given me the chance to lead a brigade against the shades. You’ve always got to look on the bright side. Been doing it for seven years now.” Quickly he smiled and asked, “What about you earthling boy? What do you do?”

Erik replied, “Well, nothing, I’m err… still in school.”

Herax grunted, “School, I see.”

“I’ve done some paper rounds.”

“What’s that?”

“Delivering newspapers.”

“Right.” Herax nodded.

Erik timidly asked, “What exactly are the shades?”

Herax looked shocked and scorned, “You don’t know much, do you?”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Not a thing.”

“Well, a few things.”

“What are these things?”

“I know about a strange lake.”

Herax nodded, “And that’s how you got here.”

“I know of those creatures that grabbed me are called ‘shades’.”

Herax frowned, “You’re lucky those shades didn’t turn you.” His face stiffened and his brow crumpled as he explained, “Shades are a plague across this territory. They drain the living beings of their spirit until they become nothing but shadows like them. Their lives become one of hunger, never able to satiate their desire for food and water. They can feed indefinitely and never be full.”

Erik asked, “What are the larger ones?”

“The larger ones are still shades, but they have fed excessively. You see, shades can never us energy, they merely consume it; drain it from the living. The more they consume the bigger they get and the worse they smell.”

Erik gulped, “Where did they come from.”

Herax shook his head, “It’s not really known, but they arrived less than a decade ago, when great tragedy struck a frontier city.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a city that borders the belt of lands with no civilisation, or at least, any known civilisation. Anyway, technology brought in by an earthling was used to destroy the city. A bomb of destructive power.”

Erik uttered the only sound that came to his head, “Oh.”

“Sometime after that day these shades began to appear, they spread and now they are everywhere in Kotala. But the Sun keeps them from spreading any farther out of Kotala.”

“Why’s that?”

“Intense levels of energy destroys them, but they’re not stupid. They stay well away from the sunlight.”

“So, who did the bombing?”

“That’s a great mystery. Many suspect the wargos, but they haven’t been found guilty.” Before Erik could ask he explained, “Wargos are a being of this world.”

“Oh, do you believe they did it.”

Herax shook his head, “Nah, they’re not intelligent enough to have done it.”

“Oh,” Erik responded before asking, “So, why do you think the shades imprisoned us?”

“I’ve never heard of a shade imprisoning anything. This is an old prison built by beings before my time. Typically, they use it to hide themselves from the sun, or hoard shiny red objects.” Herax hummed and added, “Maybe they’re becoming organised. Maybe they’re now gathering beings to be consumed at a regular rate.”

Erik gulped, “Consumed?”

“You know, drained, like I was talking about earlier.”

Erik stuttered, “But, we …  we can break out of here, r-right?”

Herax lamented, “This prison was built to detain some of the cruellest and cunningest of criminals, so I wouldn’t entertain any ideas of hope, boy. The bars are thick, the guards are many, and ... well … hmm … I started that believing there would be a third thing, but I suppose that’s pretty much sums up a prison; bars and guards.”

Erik added, “Walls?”

“Of course. The bars are thick, the guards are many and the walls are … hmm … I can’t say thick again.”

“high.”

“Of course. The bars are …”

“Do you really have to say it? I know what you going to say.”

“Alright, no need to be so miserable. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yes. We’re stuck in here and eventually we’re going die a horrible death and become a shade. Yes.” He paused, gazed sternly upon Eric, leaned in and whispered intensely, “We will never, ever, ever, escape this hell.” Suddenly, Herax stopped and rose up. He smiled and chirped, “Oh wait, the gate is open. Never mind, follow me boy.”

“Huh?”

“The gate, its open, we can leave, let’s go.” Herax walked up to the bars and pushed opened gate to the prison cell. “Come on, let’s go Erik.”

Erik sneered and his brow crossed. He asked, “the gate was just open?” He stood and walked over to the gate, adding as he reached Herax’s side, “You just noticed it was open?”

Herax grinned, “Sure. But, keep low and quiet as we leave. Also, follow me, don’t go off on you own.”

The two left the prison cell, crouching low to the floor, and scuttled along the walkway, clambering over fallen rumble. After a several metres they stopped in front of another man who looked much like Herax; large nose and ears. Herax introduced, “Erik this is Skrik.” He then said more seriously to Skrik, “Where are the others.”

Skrik replied, keeping his gaze fixed up Erik, “They’re just waiting farther up,” he then enquired, “Where’d the boy come from?”

Herax shrugged, “I just saw him sleeping in a cell. Apparently, he was detained by shades, so he says.”

Skrik grimaced, “What? I’ve never heard them do that. Sounds fishy to me. He’s probably a spy.”

Herax shook his head, “He’s an earthling.”

Skrik’s eyebrows nearly rose of his head as he asked, “What’s an earthling doing here.”

Herax shrugged, “We’ll find I guess, but now is not the time.”

Erik demanded in a low voice, “What are you talking about? What’s going on? Were you not a prisoner?”

Herax smirked, “Nope, but shades are very much real and are crawling all over this place. Oh, and we are of course going to escape, I was just screwing with you.”

Skrik quickly interposed, “Herax, we really must go.’

Herax affirmed, “Yes.” He grabbed Erik by the shoulder and explained firmly, “We need to leave this place, so keep quiet, only speak when necessary and when spoken too. No pointless questions, got it?” Erik nodded. “Follow me and keep close.”

They moved on through the rumble, keeping low to the ground as they went, until they reached a stone bridge. The bridge was damaged and had started to break apart. Sections of the banister hand broken away and a few holes had been chipped away around the edges.

Herax stopped at the beginning of the bridge and looked over to the tower in the centre, as did Erik. At the top of the tower, scuttling back and forth, were dozens of shades. The silhouette of their thin, frail bodies could be seen against the moonlight gleaming over the tip over the tower.

Erik pinched Herax’s shirt and asked, “Won’t we be seen?” pointing to the shades.

Herax snapped, “What did I say about questions? We’ll be fine, just keep low.”

Skrik went first across the bridge. He dropped down to his stomach and army crawled across to the other side. “Okay,” Herax began, “You’re next, boy. Keep low to the ground and don’t get up until you’re off the bridge.” Erik dropped and crawled across. Herax wasted no time and followed close behind. Once they reach the end, they reverted to their crouch position and continued along the walkway, with Skrik leading the way.

Eventually, they met a woman, a female of Herax’s kind. Her nose and ears were a little smaller, but her cheek bones were larger. She explained as Herax came near, “The explosives are in place and the crew is waiting by the exit.”

Herax unpinned his cape, unveiling the plates of leather armour on shoulders and the unusual gun affixed his hip. He unlatched the gun, which was imprinted with a symbol of an electric bolt upon the handle, and handed to the woman. The woman in turn passed to Herax a long, curved sword. The handle was unusually bulky and, again, an electric bolt symbol was imprinted upon the handle.

Erik asked cautiously, “What’s that?”

Herax replied, “Protection ─”

The woman abruptly asked, as she concealed the gun handed to her, “Where’s the boy come from?”

Herax smiled, “Sorry, Erik this is Freta.” He looked at Freta and explained, “I found the boy in one of the cells. He’s an earthling who claims he was arrested by the shades, but I don’t know why shades would do that.”

Freta threw forward a coat and asked, “Is this the boy’s?”

Erik smiled, “That’s my coat.”

Freta smirked and held up a little book, “It had this inside.”

The corners of Erik’s mouth dropped and he muttered, “That’s mine too.”

Herax took the book and examined it. He looked at Freta and compressed his lips as he frowned. He turned sharply and asked, “Who gave you this book?”

Erik replied expediently, “I found it.”

“Where?”

“It was in the fireplace at an old house.”

“Whose house?”

“I don’t know. I think it was some guy called Kingdom.”

Herax sighed, “Fool!” He slipped the book inside his coat and explained, “We don’t have time for this. We need to move.” Herax threw back the coat to Erik and added, “I’ll be keeping the book.”

As Herax turned away, Eric Immediately began searching the pockets, checking for the pocket watch. It was still there, along with the scrap of folded paper he’d found.

Herax whispered loudly, “Come on you stupid boy. Let’s go.”

Eric enquired, “Where are we going?”

Herax snubbed, “What did I say about questions.”

The continued down to a crew waiting by a large hole in the wall, with an equally large round grill sitting by against the wall close by. The hole in the wall oozed a green sludge, which poured out from the bottom and pooled onto the floor. It was smeared and covered in recent footprints.

Erik rhetorically asked with disgust in his tone, “You came through the sewers?”

Herax scowled, “Oh, I’m sorry, maybe we should have knocked on the front door and asked the shades whether it would be convenient for them if a little princess, such as yourself, could just walk in and have a look around?”

Erik frowned and kept quiet

Herax turned back to the crew and began, “Okay, Tyru.” He looked at a man about the same age as himself and with similar features, big nose and ears. Tyru was missing his right hand little-finger and the rest of his hand was visibly scared by burns. His hair was shaven short all over but he wasn’t bald, in fact his hair line moved in close on the temple of his forehead. His cloths were much like Herax’s, however, his coat was kept closed with the use of typical buttons. Herax commanded, “You lead the crew out, I’ll be right behind. Once we’re out, push through forest, then we’ll detonate charges just as the sun rises. Any questions?”

A younger man, again with big ears and nose, raised his hand. His hair was cut short, the sides were pattern with diagonal strips, whilst the top was merely trimmed short. Wrapped around his shoulder was a large gun, with several warning signs of possible death by electric shock plastered across the barrel. The young man snarked as he pointed at Erik, “When did we get a little apprentice?”

Herax rolled his eyes, he looked at Erik and explained, “This is Muran the moron.” He gazed around the crew and announced, “I’ll explain at the airship, right now we need to move.”

Tyru stepped into the sewer pipe and, quickly, the rest of the crew followed, climbing inside one by one. Herax helped Erik up by interlocking his fingers to create a step and hoisting Erik inside. Although the sewer was no longer in use, it still smelt rancid. Many different creatures had died and decayed in the pipe, which had created a cesspit of unwelcoming smells.

As they crawled Muran kept up the morale with terrible jokes all the way through pipe, “This was a crap plan.”, “I wonder if this leads to the poop deck.”, “I hope we’re the only one’s evacuating into the sewer.”, “Smells like that curry place back home.”

[gravedespair]

The Monster in the Mirror

Revised&Edited Previously SL: Something like a Heart to Heart

I’m up here cursing out the man that’s in the mirror I try to shake him but he follows every move I’m going crazy fighting battles with a shadow Dance with the demons cause they play my favorite tune -Dancing With Demons, Palisades

I slowly opened my eyes as sleep released me from its strangling hold. My head had been filled with horrible nightmares, memories from my past and then there were those godawful thoughts that always seemed to find a way to break through all of that mess.

As I carefully pulled myself upright, I noticed with a bit of surprise, that I almost felt normal. The demon that I had drained in that alley way, coupled with my encounter with Mags had been enough to satisfy my hunger for at least a few days. I had been stupid, neglecting my needs because I was so caught up in trying to escape that endless torment that consistently tried to bury me under it’s great weight.

I glanced to my right, taking in the sight of Mags curled up in all of those thick blankets like a cocoon. Her skin was paler than normal surrounded by all of that black and that was cause for concern.

It was possible that I had taken too much when I’d fed. Even vampires had a limit to how much blood they could have drained from their body before things could get dangerous and I hadn’t been in a solid state of mind when things had transpired.

For some reason, I found myself wanting to reach over and brush those stray curls that lay across her cheeks, and those beautiful eyes that were squeezed shut as she sleep, but I refrained.

I couldn’t allow myself to get any more attached the woman than I I already had. A friendship was one thing, but a romantic relationship would only end in torment for us both.

I was a monster, I was a disgusting creature with little care for anything and anyone. It was bad enough that I had allowed our friendship to grow to this level, I couldn’t drag her down into my destiny in Hell.

Turning away from her sleeping form, I slowly made my way out of the bed, before shuffling off into the bathroom.

I wasn’t in my apartment, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know my way around. Mags and I had spent many days and many nights together in her little apartment. Many of those had been dark, depressing times where I lost my shit completely and Mags did everything in her power to put me back together.

Fuck, I owed that woman so much more than I would ever be able to live up to. She had showed me compassion while others had only scowled and turned away. And she had been persistent, a trait I was slowly beginning to realize that I liked.

Still, after all of that pain and all of the goddamn heartbreak, I continued to pull the same shit day in and day out. I just couldn’t make myself stop.

Bypassing the lights, I stepped toward the sink after clicking to door shut softly behind me. I shoved my shaking hand into my pocket and removed my last bag. Dumping half the contents onto the countertop, then I leaned down and quickly made it disappear.

I was utterly disgusting and yet there I was, doing drugs in Maggie’s bathroom. Tainting that pristine white countertop with my nasty little addictions Mags had taken me into her home and still I carried on with my plans.

I knew that I was breaking some unspoken rule, but I couldn’t stop that shaking in my hands or that roll in my stomach that made me want to vomit.

I had definitely fucked up last night. I’d almost made it three days sober, but then I snapped. Like I always did. Relapsing back into that same, endless routine.

As I tilted my head back with a groan, the sound of the bathroom door creaking open nearly sent me into a panic.

“Asher? What the hell are you doing?” Mags rushed in, her eyes immediately landing on the small bag with the remaining white power, “Seriously? Asher, this has got to stop.” Those small hands reached up to touch my face and I jerked back. “You’re color was finally returning to normal, and those circles under your eyes were fading. Asher, when was the last time you really fed? Like last night. I can see the difference in you when you’re properly fed and focused. Asher, you have got to stop using that shit. There are ways to strengthen your shields, but the more of that shit you use, the more trauma you are inflicting on your magic.”

Shame washed over me and I hung my head, “I know it needs to stop Mags, but it’s the only thing that makes any of this even somewhat tolerable. The things that I see, the conversations in my head, all of that endless energy, and that constant pull of the dead.” I should have stopped before I got way ahead of myself, but for some reason I couldn’t keep the words from coming out of my mouth, “I feel everything, all of the time Mags. It never ends and my sleep is filled with monstrous nightmares and premonitions of each death before it happens.”

I did stop then, holding out the hand with the offending bag. Mags grabbed it, promptly popping the little zipper before flushing the power down the toilet, “I’ve been begging you for years now Asher, I wish you’d just talk to Slade. He knows more about magic than most, if anything, he can teach you to drown it all out.”

I shook my head as I tried not to mourn the loss of the last of my stash. It wasn’t like it would be hard to acquire more, but with the way Mags had become so serious, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be leaving her house for a few days.

“It’s not that simple, Mags,” I scrubbed my hands down my face with a frustrated sigh, “I am connected to all that are living and all that are dying. I know when each person’s time is going to come. My shields aren’t strong enough to block it all out. I’ve tried for years to strengthen them, but it’s been to no avail.

Maggie took a deep breath as she crossed her arms over her chest and I couldn’t help but notice that she was looking a bit hungry herself, giving me even more reason to believe that I had been entirely to greedy with what she had offered.

“Come here,” I demanded gently, reaching my arms out so that she could step into my embrace. She hesitated briefly, but then took those few steps and wrapped her arms around my waist.

“I worry about you Asher, constantly.” Her words were muffled by my shirt as she pressed her face into my check, “I can’t get that night out of my head, it haunts my dreams. I know that you didn’t choose this roll, but sometimes Fate can be cruel. You deserve happiness Asher…”

“There’s no place in my endless existence for happiness, Mags. I’ve been doomed to an eternity of misery.” I hated the sound of sadness, of longing in my voice as I rubbed slow circles across her back.

After a few moments of silence, I lifted one hand, placing my fingers under Maggie’s chin, tilting her face up toward me, “Why don’t I make you breakfast and get you something a little more substantial to go with?”

Before she responded, a low growl sounded from her stomach, causing a small smile to turn up the edges of my lips, “Yep, I thought so.” With that, I scooped her into my arms and carried her into the kitchen where I carefully placed her on top of one of the bar stools at her little kitchen island.

Turning toward the cabinets, I pulled open the wooden doors above the sink, pulling out a squat glass. I then proceeded to remove my pocket knife from my jeans, flipping the blade open before dragging the sharp metal across the inside of my wrist. I filled the glass with about three inches of my blood before turning to hand the glass to Maggie, “You drink, while I cook.”

Maggie made no sounds of protest as she accepted the glass, promptly bringing it to her lips. I turned back toward the cabinets and became rummaging around for all that I would need to whip up some pancakes, bacon and eggs. Maggie needed real food too, my feeding from her had taken a lot out of her and I was not going to let her suffer for helping me.

“Why do you keep running from yourself?” Maggie’s soft voice carried through her small kitchen, and as her words reached my ears, I felt a shiver roll down my spine, but before I could open my mouth and make an attempt to change the subject, Maggie continued on, curiosity thick in her tone, “You are the Grim Reaper, Desth himself. I get that that’s a whole lot of frickin’ responsibility, but why not just embrace yourself for who you are? You’re miserable, and constantly in pain. You try so hard to hide it, but Asher, I can see it in your eyes.” Mags paused and took a sip from her glass.

I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the words that were coming out of her mouth. One of Maggie’s most admirable traits was her bluntness and lack of fear when it came to speaking her mind. That woman held nothing back.

But it was difficult to digest that kind of naked truth when it was directed at you. I was my own worst enemy and for years, I had refused to confront my demons. Mags was currently airing out my dirty laundry and it was making me anxious.

“You’re stronger than this Asher, I know you are. I also know that sometimes, you have to face the monster in the mirror,” Mags took a deep breath as she lifted that glass to her lips once more, downing what remained at the bottom.

I started staking pancakes as I mulled her honest words over in my brain. I wasn’t sure how to respond to the truths that Mags had spoken. Once the pancakes were finished, I quickly scrambled some eggs, lopping them onto a plate before picking up the pancake stack as well. I suddenly wasn’t in the mood to fry up bacon, besides, my appetite for real for food had seemed to abandoned me.

Settling myself in the seat besides Mags, I took a deep breath as I dropped my head into my hands, “Keeping myself fed doesn’t keep the voices out. It doesn’t stop the dreams. Even when my shields are at their strongest, I can’t turn it off. I’ve only been able to find one escape and that’s something I just can’t seem to let go of. It never fucking stops. My headspace isn’t my own Mags, and I told you earlier, I’m connected to every living and dying being.”

I forced myself to stop talking, revealing more of myself than I should have. There were just some things other people didn’t need to know and besides, the last thing I needed was for Mags to think that I was going to try something extra stupid.

But when Mags took too long to say something, I found more words just spilling out of my mouth.

“And as for facing the monster in the mirror, we battle every day. I can’t escape that monster because that monster is me and no amount of repenting will ever relieve of me my sins. My curse is that I cannot die, so no amount of any substance is going to do the job,” I paused, taking a deep breath as I refused to look up at those blue eyes I knew were watching me with wild intensity, “I’m stuck in slavery to those who rule the Underworld. I have my own horde of Reapers that collect, and answer to me. I rule a part of a domain I never thought that I’d find myself in. There is no embracing what I am and there is no escaping what I am, not until the next Grimm is born. My existence is not my own, so why don’t I deserve just the slightest bit of peace?”

We sat in silence for a moment, me trying to collect myself and realize what I had just put out on the table. I had never wanted to drag Mags into my mess, not any further than she’d already become involved.

None of this was fair to her. Mags was a kind hearted woman who had been battling her own demons, even if she’d never shared her story. I wasn’t eager to talk about my past or even my current, and there was no way that I would pry into that part of her personal life.

“You know,”

I finally looked up, bracing myself for whatever she was about to throw my way.

“What’s up?” I asked softly, feeling rather defeated.

Mags looked over at me, those blue eyes darkened by sadness as she seemed to think her words over before she spoke, her voice soft, “I didn’t choose this life either. In fact, I was kidnapped one night and sold into vampire slavery.” She took a deep breath and ducked that gaze some, “Long story short, the night I finally made my escape, I was attacked and left for dead. I woke up in an abandoned crypt three days after the incident. I was fortunate enough to find Slade. He taught me that being vampire, and being different really weren’t bad things. Unfortunately, with all of our uniqueness comes a struggle to gain control.”

Mags reached out and placed her hand over mine, causing my eyes to drop, “You just need someone to show you how to harness what you have and build your shields. It doesn’t have to be all bad, Asher. I mean, look at me and Jackie, your other favorite bartender. That poor woman has been through hell and back and she’s still here living life the best that she can.”

I stood suddenly, my skin prickling with a spark of electricity as I felt my anger rear its ugly head. I wasn’t upset with Mags, I was upset with myself.

“I’ve got to go Mags. I’m sorry, but I’ve really, really got to go,” I didn’t give her the chance to protest as I vanished.

EndSL