#than all the strengthening exercises i know ill be told to do

[possibly-art]

having a bit of a moment

[karmas-chameleon]

Alright headcanon story time

In which Manfred gets his first cane

(content warning: ableism)

Manfred von Karma was seven years old when he got sick. It was a simple illness, only a sore throat and a mild fever, hardly an excuse to keep him from his studies. Even when his muscles were sore and stiff, nothing would prevent him from learning. Perfection made no time for little trifles like that.

It was only when Manfred couldn't pull himself out of bed in the morning that he saw cause for worry. And it was only when his father saw him on the floor, his legs floppy and useless, that the stern man finally brought him to a physician - or dragged, perhaps, as father berated him for his laziness the whole way, insisting he could stand up anytime he wanted.

At seven years old, Manfred sat in the doctor's office, listening to words he didn't understand. Not law words, those he knew better than anyone save his father. These were medical words: virus, epidemic, prognosis, orthotic. Manfred didn't know much about medicine, of course; he was a von Karma, and his perfect family had no need for such things. But he knew that what the doctor spoke of was frightening, and that the dark figure lurking in the corner, a dreadful iron tomb, was to be his fate if his illness didn't improve. So he would get better, and that was that. A von Karma could do anything if they put their mind to it.

The physician gave him a pair of crutches to use, and told him to practice with them, to get daily exercise and try to strengthen his legs again. Even as Manfred felt his father's disapproving eyes on him, those were the doctor's orders, and even he wouldn't disobey them - not in the doctor's office, at least. 

So Manfred was dismissed with additional duties; not only was he to continue his studies (at an increased pace to make up for any bed rest), but he also had to get his legs working again. He wasn't going to back down from either of those challenges, of course. Still slightly feverish, he'd attempt to walk back and forth across the estate with his crutches, and when he was too exhausted to continue, he'd return to his books. This would go on and on, until his fever had long faded and any sign of his illness had vanished save for his feeble legs.

He kept trying to walk, but it wasn't nearly as easy as studying. His trips across the estate were less walks, and more swinging his limp legs around with the aid of his crutches, managing to move himself while not using his weak muscles at all. And trips outside the estate had all but disappeared. His father wouldn't have the world see anything but a perfect family, and showing them a ‘cripple’ as he put it simply wouldn't do. Manfred had to work hard for his name, for his future, and to see the outside world again.

Manfred von Karma turned eight, then nine, then ten. And on his tenth birthday, though he still couldn't quite walk without his crutches, he was given a gift.

His father handed him a long, slim box, and he opened it, pulling out an ornate cane embellished with gold. It had to have been custom made; the height was perfect for him, the weight just right in his hands. His father looked down at him, not quite happy or approving (he was never so), but at least resigned to Manfred's condition.

“Son,” he said, “you won't be able to hide your weakness in this house forever. Some day you'll need to leave. And when you do, it's best that you don't look quite so…defective, as you would with those old crutches. Use this, if you must, and perhaps the common folk will see the glimmer of gold before they notice your legs.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“I shouldn't have to remind you, of course, but such a distraction won't work in the courthouse. Among your peers, you'll have put up a tough front as well, or they'll eat you alive. Understand?”

“Yes.” Manfred spoke with as commanding and forceful a voice as a ten year old could muster. “I will show them nothing short of perfection.”

“Good. And if that fails…” His father reached down to the cane and pressed a button on the handle, pulling it back to reveal a blade. “Show them the true meaning of Karma. No mercy.”

Manfred nodded, and gripped the handle tight. A perfect child overcame all that stood before him on the road to becoming a perfect adult. He was fine with using that cane as long as he could, and finding a new one when he was bigger. If any fool dared underestimate him for it, let them - he'd cut them apart while their guard was down. For a von Karma was perfect, always.

[getyourblisson]

A Look At April 2024

April continues to encourage us to find ways to work together as a team.  This is not a time where we will fully want to work on our own.  In codes, team means to observe and to know what is yours to handle and what is other people’s work to handle.  It is about creating victories and learning how to trust ourselves and others by working through true wisdom and caring about one another.  In true teams, there is no hierarchy.  No one is better or worse than another.

A true team focus on more than just creating a particular outcome.  Consider how life shows us over and over again, that our greatest victories are in the experiences we have and the personal breakthroughs that we get; and it is not in some reward or recognition.  The latter is only an add on to the true victory.  As I have worked hard to heal my body over recent years and to regain movement that I was told would probably never get restored, I had to create a team of people to help me do that.  Even if I was the one doing all of the action, I couldn’t have done it without the knowledge of those that showed me the exercises that would be most beneficial to me (which I am constantly learning new options and movement), or the people that helped me out on the rough days that I couldn’t barely move, or the people that provided emotional and moral support when I was frustrated and having to face that I might not be able to restore movement.

You see each person has skills, a role, a purpose.  They each have brought about the victories that I have gotten.  No one person was going to bring about full victories.  Each one was equally important in the process.  It is because of each person, that I am walking and doing the things that I am doing.  Also, I shared the wisdom with each person I worked with; which strengthened their own skills and helped them to make additional connections that would then help others even more.

A real team will show us the things that we need to see.  They get us to really look at things and observe them.  There is no competing with each other or worrying about anyone stealing another person’s ideas.  This is because each person has a valuable contribution to make that is different from other people’s contribution.

No matter how self-sufficient we are in life, teams are very valuable; and they help us to create beyond our own personal scope of things.  I have become very self-sufficient; but it is the people working as a team with me, that allows me to tour and to allow this work to get into the hands of people.  Some provide a space, some provide lodging, some promotion, some encouragement, some a meal, and so on.  No one is trying to infringe on others.  They each have their role; and likewise, I am able to offer up my wisdom and present and give them something as well.  We each are learning from each other what the other needs; and that allows us to become stronger with each time we work on something.

This month continues to call us to honor our health and well-being.  Just as we have a strong need to work with others at this time, it is important that we give ourselves balance and honor some time alone.  Our bodies continue to be vulnerable and more susceptible to things.  We may see viruses or diseases become more evident.  It doesn’t help that it falls right in the shift of seasons when allergies are naturally triggered by pollens and the changing temps.

It is important to honor plenty of rest since our bodies need that time to restore.  Consider all the key nutrients; A, C, E, D3, EFA’s, complete proteins, antioxidants, prebiotics and probiotics.  However, we also want to consider things like Elderberry; especially if we haven’t built up our allergy support prior to now.  In addition, we want to focus on those foods that support and nourish the liver and kidneys so that we can support the body in detoxifying things easily and clearing things that could lead to illness if allowed to reside in the body.

Sometimes, people forget the importance of just taking time to step away from electronics, get into nature, or even to be still and simply process thoughts and feelings that we often ignore or push aside.  EMF’s which come from our electronics, being in crowded areas, stores, and businesses can really breakdown the body’s ability to stay healthy, the mind’s ability to think clearly, and increase emotions connected to pain, suffering, and a lack of fulfillment.  Nature naturally clears these things.  Fresh air increases our oxygen.  Society constantly pushes us to minimize our self-care; and often times even makes us feel guilty for what little we do for ourselves.  A wise person knows that this self-care is one of the best things we can do in life.  It is a primary responsibility and obligation that we have and a foundation to doing anything else in life.  At this time, our health must be made an even bigger priority than normal.

I welcome you to understand what a gift it is to be part of a true team.  What if some of our greatest victories in life come from being part of a team?

I welcome you to consider what a powerful learning experience a team can be for you.  What if your teams in life can get you to see what you need to see; and help you to really look at things and observe them?

I welcome you to understand how teams help you to create beyond your own personal scope of things; no matter how self-sufficient you are.  What if teams allow you to bring forth your own work and skills so that they can be used?

I welcome you to take time to balance time with others, with personal time to care for yourself.  What if your body needs proper attention to stay healthy and support you in what you are doing?

I welcome you to consider how nature naturally clears many illnesses.  What if nature literally can repair much of the damage our bodies endure on a daily basis?

I welcome you to consider how society constantly pushes people to minimize self-care, and makes you feel guilty for it.  What if this puts you in spirals of illness, reduces mental capacity, and breaks the Spirit?  What if the only ones that benefit from this are big pharma and those that want to control you and rule over your life?

From April 1st through April 19th, we are called to consider and know what our true responsibilities and obligations are.  Right now, we realize that is to our own self and well-being.  This reinforces to us to take care of what needs to get done and to also place ourselves as a priority.  Since tasks can be accomplished with greater ease, it is worth taking some big things off of our plate; but then balancing that with personal care.  We want to listen to what our body is telling us and honor where it is at.  However, don’t use it as an excuse to get out of things and dump things on others.

It is likely that people will be feeling some rebellion energy, and we will want to be careful of this.  Most likely, they will be triggered by things that are not just or fair.  It is important that we stand up for what is right; however, we want to do this from a position of strength, and when we are in a reaction we are not standing in our strength.  We want to step away from things, so that we can diffuse the reaction and allow ourselves to come into clear thinking.  From there, we will unfold what actions that we can take and see what paths will help us to show the facts and present them in a way that they can be accepted and have a positive impact while dispelling the lies and agendas.

Health issues are magnified during this time. We are likely to see many people ill.  It is not the time to take chances with our health.  A day off of work can cost much less than being sick for a long period of time.  People may try to push themselves, believing that they cannot afford to take time off due to money being so tight.  This can actually be a good time to consider how detrimental our lifestyle is.  Too often people hang onto something unfavorable for them, even when it is not providing much for them.  This can be a good time to consider how to shift into things that are in greater alignment with the Soul’s Path.  Some may be thrust into doing this, as a result of being cast out of current situations.

There are victories to be had during this time.  Health issues or caring more for our health can be the catalyst to overcoming addictions and addictive patterns.  This is a time where our choices impact every existence that we are connected to.  The wiser our choices, the more ways that we can benefit; and the more positive energy that we will ripple into other existences.  It will be wise for us to separate wants from needs and to consider how we can simplify our life in order to bring more joy, happiness, and experiences into it.  This is all about balancing the work/life continuum and stepping out of those situations that suffocate our freedom and keep us from connecting to things of true value.  It is about realizing that we do not need to be entertained when we are taking the time to see the magnificence of the world that we live in.

I welcome you to balance accomplishments with personal care.  What if this is about honoring where your body is at; without using it as an excuse not to do things?

I welcome you to take time to diffuse reactions and to come into clear thinking.  What if we cannot be in our strength or make a positive impact when we are in reaction?

I welcome you to honor what your body needs, even if you think that you can’t afford it.  What if ignoring your body’s needs, create bigger and more costly issues to deal with?

I welcome you to break out of addictive patterns; especially if they are connected to materialism.  What if your choices have a much bigger impact than giving in to a temptation; and those choices will impact all existences that you are a part of?

From April 20th through the end of the month, we see that rebellion energy continues on at this time.  Others are likely to even double up on trying to trigger us and attack us for wanting the truth to be known.  The answer is not to back down, or to do battle.  The answer is taking action to find the appropriate ways to bring forth the truth and to keep it alive.  Reactions put us in a weak space; while action allows us to make forward progression.

We are called to find ways to create balance and harmony.  In some ways, we may find ourselves with people that are very different from ourselves.  Use this as an opportunity to diffuse extremes that may be present.  When we can have open and honest discourse with those that are different from ourselves, we will often unfold solutions of great value.  It is in doing this, that we can make some strong accomplishments.  It is a time where we can make progress with our own ideas and plans.

Power battles are likely to be strong during this time, especially between those that have a lot of influence and power in the world.  Dictators and Authoritarians will try to remove rights and freedom from people, as they try to seek total control over others.  However, their extreme actions may lead their internal circle to turn on them and people to find ways to do without them.  This is a great time to be in observation and to realize that neither side may be choosing wisely; because they are too busy worrying about what the other side is doing.  Stay out of other people’s battles.  The less you interfere or get involved, the sooner things will be resolved.  We do best to simply stay in command of our own life, and to not turn our power over to others.

This is a time, where we may be undergoing major shifts and transformations.  Our hardships, illnesses, exhaustion, financial challenges, and being cast out by others can be a catalyst for Spiritual Awakenings.  Remember, our hardships are always trying to get us to see things and to make changes.  This time particularly calls for us to shift from things rooted in materialism and corruption and that are unhealthy for us; into things that are aligned with the Soul’s Path, integrity, and that support our health and well-being.  It is a call for us to really reflect on our life and to use our hardships as an opportunity to make powerful changes.

I welcome you to understand how reactions put you at a disadvantage.  What if using them to motivate you into action allows you to make forward progression?

I welcome you to find ways to create balance and harmony.  What if differences can help you to find solutions of great value and to make some strong accomplishments?

I welcome you to create greater self-sufficiency from people and situations that remove your rights and freedom.  What if this allows you to stand strong in situations where neither side is right; and helps to keep you out of battles with others?

I welcome you to embrace opportunities for Spiritual Awakenings to arise out of hardships and challenges.  What if your hardships are trying to help you see things and encouraging you to make changes?

In Summary, work with others as a team.  Embrace the learning experiences that teams provide.  Balance time with others with personal care and taking care of your own health.  Indulge in nature’s healing energy.  Never feel guilty for taking care of yourself.  Know what your true responsibilities and obligations are.  Respond but don’t react to those situations that trigger you.

Don’t push yourself too hard.  Take a careful look at the choices you are making, and choose things of true value.  Find appropriate ways to bring forth the truth.  Find ways to create balance and harmony.  Stay in observation and realize that neither side may be choosing wisely.  Allow your hardships to be an opportunity to make powerful changes.

What To Focus Our Actions On

This month shows that we are likely to get some hard lessons.  Power battles get nastier than normal as inferiority/superiority rises.  Those in control are likely to misuse their power if they are wanting to control others.  They become more abusive and seek out ways to victimize people.  One of these ways is to breakup friendships and pit them against each other.  Many will betray those that they actually care about; simply because they don’t have the strength to stand up to the corruption.  They don’t see another way.  On the positive side, all actions that are not in Divine Alignment, will become stagnant and cannot progress.  We will have to choose if we will remain in abusive situations and thus support them, or if we will leave them and move into work that allows us to be in Divine Service.

Competition energy is strong; especially where there are strong insecurities.  We will find out just how strong our relationships are, since there are likely to be those that want to compete for the love and attention of those that are already committed to someone else.  Those that truly love and care about us will always have our back; and will hold us strong in being compassionate with others.  They encourage us to take command over our own life; and support us in being self-sufficient, so that we can be free of the abuses from those that are not working in integrity.

I welcome you to realize that it is not just the abuser that is the issue; but also, the people and companies or situations that allow or even support them in that behavior.  What if situations that are bigger than a single individual, are situations that we need to step away from?

I welcome you to appreciate any strong relationships that you have.  What if these are the people that support you in self-sufficiency and help you to be free of the abuses of others?

From April 1st and April 27th through the end of the month, we are likely to find drama and upheaval.  Right now, a lot of that will come as the result of miscommunication.  It is through this, that people may be persuaded to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise.  They misunderstand what others are saying, and then find themselves in dangerous situations that they don’t want to be a part of.  It is important that we make certain that things both feel right and are practical to do.  We want to clarify things with others to avoid creating bigger issues for ourselves.  We are best to avoid contracts and major decisions.  We need to listen to and draw on the intuitive and creative minds before taking action on things.

People are likely to have an adventurous spirit, or be feeling completely lazy.  This can be a great time for trying new things, or taking a Serendipity Trip.  We can just let ourselves be guided to see where we end up.  However, we want to make certain that we have prepared for a variety of conditions, don’t take chances with weather, stay near safety, and have plenty of fuel in the car.  It may take some effort to stay focused on what we are doing, and to not let the mind drift off when we need to pay attention to what we are doing.  On the other hand, there will be those that will be perfectly content basking in the sun and letting their mind drift into pleasant daydreams.  They may prefer to simply enjoy the company of good friends and exploring the magnificence of just being in the moment and seeing the depth of simple things.

From April 2nd through April 26th, we are encouraged to release any material world addictions that we have.  This is a time that supports us finding more success on our own, and letting go of things that we don’t really need.  It is a time that calls us to simplify things, and to consider how we can change things in our life to create more freedom and to allow us to have more experiences in life.  We are being called to choose things of true value and worth which will support Divine Alignment and the Soul Self.  If we choose this, we are likely to see some beautiful victories and unfold true happiness for ourselves.

Lies, deception, and manipulation are strong.  Those that want to suffocate our freedom are rooted in material things.  They do not understand true abundance in the world.  They seek material things and extravagance, which keeps them from acting in responsible ways.  There is a tendency for those in this space to be lazy and to dump their workload on others.    It is important that we use this energy towards handling the things that need to get done.  We are called to realize that no matter how much we have in life, that real abundance has nothing to do with possessions and resources.  It is a call for us to stand in truth and integrity, even if we are standing alone.  If we do this, we will be blessed with things of real value and have successes that others will not know.

I welcome you to simplify and let go of things that you don’t really need or use.  What if this creates more freedom for you, and supports you in experiencing life more?

I welcome you to realize that real abundance has nothing to do with possessions and resources.  What if the richest people have very little; and those that have a lot rarely have things of any real value?

Connecting To Our Soul Self

From April 1st through April 5th, we are favored for focusing on those things that support peace and unconditional love.  It is a time, where people have a stronger connection with the heart’s energy.  Love is more practical at this time.  It may not be shown through grand gestures; but instead, is shown through taking care of things that need to be done.  Love is not just about being in a relationship with someone, but about doing things that touch their heart and bring peace to their life.  It is about washing the dishes, cleaning the house, or fixing a meal.  It is maintaining the car so it is safe, mowing the lawn, and making necessary repairs around the house.  There are so many ways to show our love; and it is important that we take the time to really see how people in our life are showing us love through everyday things.

Aspects of the past may surface and trigger us.  It is important that we consider anything that does trigger us, as something that is unresolved; and thus, may be holding us back from moving forward.  Most likely, this is connected to an injustice that we have experienced earlier in life.  Consider the value and importance of pouring unconditional love into these triggers.  It is time to let these wounds heal.  Some things that surface, may be things that we thought were resolved; and yet deeper layers may be surfacing on them.  Learn from this pain; because the more you do, the more you will be able to take favorable action which leads you down favorable paths for your future.

I welcome you to consider the many ways that you can show unconditional love.  What if people are showing you a lot more love than you realize; even if they are not making grand gestures?

I welcome you to consider that unresolved things in your life will always be a trigger and open wound until you decide to heal it.  What if pouring unconditional love into these triggers and wounds allow things to heal and be resolved?

From April 6th through April 29th, we are called to understand what created imbalances in our life and have led us to take extreme views or shut down who we really are.  This is a time, that calls us to bring greater balance forward.  It is a time for us to realize, that at times we need to present ourselves in certain ways to meet the needs of the situation.  However, it is important that we also find options for personal expression as well.  Even when we need to make adjustments for the setting or what we need to do; we still want to hold authenticity and our own personal style.  We are beautiful and unique individuals; and the more that we can embrace that moving forward, the more that we will love and appreciate the life that we are living.

This is a great time for working with others; as long as we and them are keeping things in integrity.  Others may be able to show us how to break away from tyranny and corruption in our lives and the world.  We may see the fall or stepping down of leaders; due to people exposing them for who they really are.  The best leaders do not rule over us, nor do they need to.  Instead, they show us how to take command of our own life and give us the skills and opportunities to take care of ourselves.  They do not seek to control our lives; but help us to make our dreams come true.

I welcome you to realize that even when situations require us to be a certain way; that personal expression is still needed.  What if you can do what you need to do, while remaining true to your own style and authenticity?

I welcome you to realize that strong leaders do not rule over you, nor do they need to.  What if they will teach you how to take command over your own life and give you the skills and opportunities to take care of yourself?

On April 30th, the codes call us to bring a close to those things that no longer serve us.  It is a time of endings, transformation and death; both literally and figuratively.  Beautiful futures are waiting for us to step into them.  However, we cannot receive them until we bring closure to what belongs in the past and learn from what they taught us.  In some cases, something that we thought was lost may resurface today; and this can be a thing, person, or opportunity.  Whatever this is, it may be the inspiration or hope that is needed to help us choose wisely and to see what will be important not only now but in the future.

This is a powerful time of learning.  Right now, most of that learning is connected to cycles and the way that life is always full of endings and beginnings.  It calls us to consider what we will re-birth into and to learn how to make our own ideas and plans successful.  It encourages us to call on mentors where we feel like giving up; in order to take in the strength that we need to breakthrough.  We are asked to help others through their shifts as well.  At this time, we want to give love to what is ending and appreciate what it has given us; and then to embrace new opportunities and see the possibilities that they are offering us.  Each closure in our life is like the ending of a chapter.  It has a powerful impact from the journey we have taken with it; and will leave us with a curiosity to embrace our next journey and the potential that it too has to transform our life.

I welcome you to bring a close to those things that no longer serve you.  What if there is a beautiful future waiting for you?

I welcome you to learn from the cycles in your life.  What if this gives you the strength to breakthrough into your next journey; which has the potential to transform your life in amazing ways?

The Code Journey ~ 2024 Edition

[joachimnapoleon]

Meet the Bonapartes--Louis (2/4)

(Part 1 can be found here) (And here are links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 on Pauline)

***

Napoleon's plan to marry Louis to Hortense was met with a marked lack of enthusiasm by both parties. Aside from having acquired a jaded view of women (possibly as a result of the affliction he suffered in Italy), Louis also happened to be in love with someone else. Prior to the wedding, he would write a twenty-page letter to Hortense containing what was essentially his life story, and in which he confessed his love for a woman named Sophie, describing her, and his feelings for her, in great detail. Hortense, meanwhile, had acquired a negative view of Louis, because of his behavior in an earlier failed love affair between him and one of her cousins. However, Hortense claims, she was willing to give Louis the benefit of the doubt, and dismiss "his conduct toward my cousin" as "merely thoughtlessness on his part." Her former mentor, Madame Campan, visited Hortense to speak in Louis's favor. Hortense was not entirely convinced. "Louis seems to me to be kindhearted and good," she conceded to Mme Campan, "but I do not like the disdain with which he pretends to look upon women and which often appears in his conversation."

[Hortense de Beauharnais]

But Napoleon was adamant about the match, seeing in it a strengthening not only of the ties between the Bonaparte and Beauharnais families, but also as a safeguard for a potential Bonaparte dynasty. "We may never have children," Napoleon told Josephine (according to Hortense's memoirs). "I brought Louis up myself; I look on him as a son. Your daughter is what you cherish most on earth. Their children shall be our children. We will adopt them, and this adoption will console us for not having any of our own." But Josephine, who had initially favored the idea, grew increasingly ill at ease over the marriage as the wedding approached. Hortense also claims that Louis's older brother Lucien poisoned Louis's mind against her, after his own request to marry her was shot down by Napoleon. "I do not know what he said," Hortense writes, "but Louis became uneasy." It was then that Louis wrote his twenty-page letter to her and "begged me in return to describe my past life to him in full. It would have been difficult for me to give him any striking facts on the subject and, when I returned his letter, in accordance with his request, I merely replied that for a long time my life had been known to him."

"If your popularity and society have not spoiled you," Louis replied, "you must be an angel. There can be no middle ground. You must be all good or all bad." Hortense took this as a compliment. "I could not suppose that, admitting the existence of the two alternatives, his opinion could be otherwise than favorable."

The marriage contract was signed on 3 January 1802 at the Tuilleries. Napoleon provided Hortense with a dowry of 250,000 francs, to which Josephine added another 100,000. The civil service took place the next day, and the nuptial blessings were held afterwards. After Cardinal Caprara had blessed the newlyweds, Joachim and Caroline Murat came forward, and requested to receive a nuptial blessing as well, as their marriage had taken place before the religious ceremony was reinstated. "This double ceremony left a disagreeable impression on me," writes Hortense. "The other couple were so happy. They were so much in love with one another.... I felt as though all the happiness lay on one side, all the unhappiness on the other."

The "honeymoon" period was almost nonexistent. Napoleon had flown into a rage at Louis over complaints Louis had made about the marriage not being announced publicly. The personalities of Louis and Hortense never quite managed to synchronize on any level. Louis found fault with Hortense over the most trivial things, and Hortense could barely disguise her increasing dislike for her husband--or the fear his unstable, unpredictable behavior had begun to instill in her. 

My nerves gave way. Only tears brought relief. My husband, touched and affected by the sight of my grief, sought to console me, but the harm had been done. My only sentiment towards Louis became one of fear. I dared no longer smile or speak in his presence. It always seemed to me he was on the point of losing his temper.

Nevertheless, the couple's first child--Napoleon Charles Bonaparte--was born the 2nd of October, 1802. Another son, Napoleon-Louis Bonaparte, followed two Octobers later. The Pope himself officiated the ostentatious baptismal ceremony at Saint Cloud.

[Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, first child of Louis & Hortense]

Napoleon continued to show favor to Louis; but Louis occasionally had a different view of these "favors" than his older brother. He saw Napoleon's appointment of him as governor of the "Department beyond the Alps," which would have required his relocation to Turin, as a form of exile, and refused to leave for this new station until after Napoleon's coronation as King of Italy. When the time came, he pleaded ill health and did not accompany Napoleon to Milan for the ceremony. Suffering from acute rheumatism, he had temporarily lost the use of his right hand. By this point he was something of a hypochondriac, and often imagined his illnesses to be far worse than they actually were. His doctors recommended mud baths in St. Amand. Napoleon, still clinging to the idea of making a soldier of Louis, gave his brother command of a reserve corps in the Army of England which would enable him to set up his headquarters close to St. Amand to take the suggested cure. He departed with Hortense and their two children. The mud baths seemed to improve his health.

During the 1805 campaign, Louis remained in Paris as Grand Constable. To everyone's surprise, after his initial reluctance to take over the role of military governor, he displayed remarkable energy. He was not yet aware that Napoleon was in the early stages of preparing him a throne. But rumors soon spread that the Prussians were planning to invade France via the Netherlands. Napoleon ordered Louis to form the Army of the North, to defend the northern departments, as well as Antwerp and the Batavian territories. Louis arrived in Antwerp the day before the battle of Austerlitz; in spite of the war coming to a rapid end, he received orders from Napoleon, via Marshal Berthier, to stay put in Holland. He was also instructed to make sure the Dutch covered "all the pay and supplies of the Army of the North; it must also buy and supply you with all the artillery and transport horses you may need... the Army of the North is not to cost the Emperor anything."

Despite Napoleon's orders, Louis handed over command of his new army and headed back to France upon learning of the peace of Pressburg. Napoleon was not pleased by the unexpected meeting with his brother in Strasbourg. The Emperor finally confided to Louis his intentions of forming a kingdom in Holland, but did not yet go so far as to say that he intended Louis to rule it.

But Napoleon could see only two viable options for Holland: it must either be annexed to the Empire directly, or preserve its independence by accepting an imperial prince--Louis--as its king. The Dutch government were reluctant to forfeit their republic, but recognized that resistance to Napoleon was futile. They assented to the rule of Louis, with the understanding that no French officials would be appointed except in the king's personal household (Louis would break this promise soon enough), that freedom of worship would be maintained, and the current system of Dutch law left in place. Once these points were arranged, Louis was informed by Napoleon that he was to be King of Holland. Louis himself had little choice in the matter.

Louis was initially reluctant to take the throne, but soon warmed to the perceived advantages of being out of his domineering brother's direct grasp. Hortense, meanwhile, dreaded the idea, as well as the visible change in Louis's demeanor.

I admit that my husband's calm manner surprised me. I did not believe he was ambitious, yet I recognized that he was well pleased with what had occurred. Until then every change had been a source of annoyance to him. But now he enjoyed the idea of becoming his own master and, what was more, becoming my master at the same time. No longer would any social decorum, any sense of obligation restrain him from exercising his rights over me. Freed from the proximity of his brother he had no longer any cause to fear him.... For a moment I had the idea of flinging myself at the Emperor's feet, revealing all the torments I suffered with my husband, and begging permission not to be obliged to follow him into a foreign country where nothing would restrain those traits in his character, which I knew so well and dreaded so intensely.

The official Dutch "offer" of the throne was presented as representing nine-tenths of the populace. The formal proclamation of Louis as King of Holland took place at the Tuileries on 5 June 1806. He was solemnly reminded by Napoleon that he was still a French prince. In his response, Louis spoke of his pride in having worked to defend the Dutch people from invasion the year before, the honor he felt in being called to rule over them. He assured Napoleon that his people--he was now referring to the Dutch--would feel love and gratitude towards the Emperor and France.

[Louis Bonaparte]

Louis and Hortense left Paris a week later. The Dutch gave them a joyous reception as they made their way through the country, every small town vying to outdo the other. Hortense held a dismal view of it all. "The martial escorts, the honors, receptions and speeches only wearied me." At one point, she remarked darkly to Louis that the receptions were similar to those the French had held to celebrate the arrival of Marie Antoinette.

Though he had been thrust into the role against his will and accepted it with some reluctance, Louis was determined to be a good king to his subjects, and take care of their interests--which would inevitably put him at odds with Napoleon, just as it would for Murat in Naples years later. "From the moment I set foot on Dutch soil," the newly-crowned Louis declared to his legislature, "I became Dutch." "Which explained in a sentence," writes biographer Andrew Roberts, "the problem Napoleon was to have with him over the next four years."

***

Sources:

Atteridge, A. Hillard. Napoleon’s Brothers, 1909.

Broers, Michael. Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny. 2014.

Broers, Michael. Napoleon: Spirit of the Age. 2018.

De Beauharnais, Hortense. Memoirs of Queen Hortense, Vol I.

Masson, Frédéric. Napoleon et sa Famille, Vol I (1796-1802), 1907.

Roberts, Andrews. Napoleon: A Life. 2014.

[doomedandstoned]

Gangrened Conjure Dizzying Atmosphere in ‘Deadly Algorithm’

~Review by Billy Goate~

Before us lies an enigma called 'Deadly Algorithm' (2021) by Finnish band GANGRENED, whom we've introduced you to before, when they dropped that wonderfully dreary doomer 'We Are Nothing' (2014). Let me share with you the diary of my thoughts as I immersed myself in their recently released full-length.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

Deadly Algorithm starts with gentle, quiet picking that echoes faintly, but already surrounds us with a strange, if inviting, airspace. A melodic line develops as "Harrbåda" gains volume, building it seems towards a crescendo -- then suddenly stopping as a drumroll interrupts. The atmosphere returns to quirks and quarks, increasingly distorted notes, spikes of reverberating rhythm. All the while, the same short impermanent melodic motif makes its statement, until it flitters away into the void.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

"Triptaani" makes a strong entrance, this time with galled vocal attack and a slow, but strong, guitar lead girded by the fuzz-sparked gears of bass and drum languidly moving this machine along. A hail of shredding follows, with cymbals crashing to a throbbing beat, leading to one ardent chord laid upon another. Eventually the pace slows to a crawl, with dissonant harmonies, and a wild solo from Jon Imbernon that's almost overcome by the industrial crunch of Lassi Männikkö's dumming, Joakim Udd's vile spew of noise, Mikko Mannistö's declamatory singing.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

"Hologrammi" features more familiar doom pacing with a searing riffage, a slow burn flow of bass and drums, and clean (but pissed off) crooning. It's surrounded by a mesmerizing jumble of pedal effects, noise, downtuned instrumental buzz, and crackling amps -- of which make its climactic moment of vocal delivery emphatic and powerful.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

Intricate guitar trilling action introduces “Kuningatar” and it sounds almost like temelos dancing upon its appointed harmonic scale in those opening moments. By the time the rest of the crew sounds off, it turns into a frightening ensemble, indeed. I imagine this would be quite chilling to experience in a live setting. While the vocals feel swallowed up in the great reverberating wall of sound, it seems to add to the mystique of the whole dim sound environment. Psychedelic noodling returns six minutes and if you listen carefully you can hear a seething malediction pronounced sternly beneath the fray of scattered noise, synth, and pedal effects. Great doom returns to ground us to reality and the band improvises a swirl of activity that makes me think of the wandering spirits released from the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

”Triangeli” grabs hold of us with a rumbling bass line that establishes the song’s basic theme, soon to be reinforced by guitar. Meanwhile, words are spoken with accented cymbals and hypnotic drumming. The song ends with whispered lyrics uttered over a soundgarden of riffage, soft cymbals, omnipotent bass rumble, and the cycling sounds of amp feedback. I don't know the words, and the singer refuses to share them, so that means what he's singing is left up to your fertile imagination. Or you can just enjoy the vocal aesthetic and what it contributes to this dense, dark atmosphere.

A cathartic journey, indeed, which I ventured on while I was in an especially discouraged and pissed off mood. Even though I understood not its words, I felt its sentiment and it was in some way cleansing. Available digitally, on vinyl and compact disc as an independent release (order here).

Interviewing Gangrened Guitarist Jon Imbernon

By Billy Goate

You've been a band for quite a while. I understand you are one of the founding members, too. How did Gangrened form to begin with?

Well, we were a bunch of guys living in the same area around ostrobotnia, between kokkola and new karleby, here in the center west coast of finland. so few of us had the idea to do the band so we asked the others, but none of those guys except me are still in the band. high level of mobility because studies in this area of small towns, to bigger cities of Finland.

It sounds like there are challenges keeping a band together in Ostrobotnia? I imagine it makes it ver5y challenging to get new band members to replace the old. Is there much of a music scene to speak of?

Yeah, actually I'm not from here myself. I'm Basque/Spanish and in the specific area I live, like around 110 kilometers or so, there's no real bands or scene, but if you go forward you reach Oulu in the north or Seinajoki, bigger cities with more bands and such. And yes, from the exact spot I live now, I have needed to look more than 100 kms to find new members. I'm moving in a near future to Tampere, so that should help in strengthening the line-up.

So how long has the most recent crew of Gangrened been together?

Since May of 2015, just after some dates we played with Bongzilla in Finland, the entire line-up shifted.

Gangrened basically means "gangrene" right?

It's like "corrupted," you know? Yes, the name comes from the illness.

My grandfather's big toe got infected from a cut because he didn't treat it properly. When he finally went to a doctor, they told him he would have to amputate his foot to live. He refused, stating he wanted to die with both of his feet on. So he officially died of gangrene!

Ouch! Okay...

Did you pick Gangrened for any special reason, like the corruption of society or something like that?

Yeah, that kind of reason. I wanted some grimmy name, but actually now it's getting a bit inappropriate, as we are not so typically doom sludge anymore.

How would you describe/characterize your sound now?

Well, I would say it is deep and varied. Actually, I think this record is like transitional, just because, for example, one song "Hologrammi" is an old song we included. But newer stuff goes beyond what has been previously recorded, take songs like "Triangeli" or "Kuningatar."

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

We reviewed 'We Are Nothing' back in 2014, and at the time we described your sound in terms of: "Slow, behemoth sized riffs. Excessive feedback. Fuzz worship." What would you say has changed or is different now, as your sound, style, and general musical approach has evolved?

Well, at some point, just as an exercise of abstraction to what we were doing, how it was turning out with songs like "Triangeli" or "Kuningatar" I decided to look into my whole musical background, and keep on adding elements from it. Also I got bored of the regular sludge-doom thing. So I considered it more interesting, and more comfortable to me, to keep an essence of slow and heavy music, and atmospheric at times, but not so defined inside the regular sludge-doom thing. The atmosphere feels very trippy, even psychedelic at times.

Let's talk about the new album. Why is it called 'Deadly Algorithm'? I think about 10 years ago, I never used the word "algorithm," but now it's a common word that most people at least understand in concept.

Well, I'm studying now in the university again, engineering in information technology, and at same time i'm a person a lot with strong progressive values, so through my studies and also digging on related topics like online privacy or the evolution and development of the new technologies I found alarming how the new technologies are going and its implications.

There are several key things that many people do not think about: smart phones have like six sensors on average to spot your location, plus no company gives services for free. If so, it's because the product is the user of the service. There's no other reason for that. So beginning with these facts, there are a lot of things going on that everyone should be aware of, and the album theme is all about that. Nowadays, data algorithms are making more and more decisions in our lives that no more take into account true needs as humans.

It seems like we have created our own virtual prison, without even realizing it.

Yes, but the thing is who runs the prison? not ourselves at all.

Getting into the songs themselves, are they all sung in Finnish?

Yes. At first some were in english but then the singer decided to sing all songs in Finnish.

Starting with the first song, can you tell us what each title means and what themes you explore?

The first song ("Harrbåda") is simply the name of a coastal area around here. The second ("Triptaani") is a medicine for headaches. The third song ("Hologrammi") is named obviously after a hologram. The fourth ("Kuningatar") means "Queen" and the last ("Triangeli") is "triangle."

Is there any conceptual, thematic, or spiritual relationship between these tracks?

It's quite a personal thing to the singer, he wrote the lyrics and I can't exactly tell you their meaning because Mikko Mannistö is a bit secretive about it. But personal things, yes. Personal matters to him.

Tell us a little bit about the recording process. Where did you record, with whom, and are there any memories that stand out from that time?

Well, we started recording the record in june 2018, with a friend of the singer, at some big rooms in a youth center house. We did most of the recordings with him until February of 2019. At that time, we asked a few people to mix, master, and finish the process. but nothing worked and there was some time wasted waiting for answers.

I decided moving forward we would go with someone who is recording records all the time and known by us, so we asked Tom Brooke, an English guy who lives close to Jyväskylä, runs a studio, and is the live sound technician for Oranssi Pazuzu. So we finished the record, a few more guitar tracks, mixing, and mastering with him.

I remember there was a long time between sessions, so new ideas were constantly coming to us to add to the songs for the next session. That’s why some guitar tracks were added for mixing just the day before starting to mix.

I'm sure you were relieved once all the recording, mixing, and mastering was finally done!

Yeah ! like this is the record and now its totally defined and wrapped up. As a guitarist, what can you tell us about the guitar writing on the new album? Anything that you are especially proud of or that you think the listener should pay special attention to?

The intro is all played by me, and then the weirdest stuff, noisy guitar here and there, and the first half of riffs of triptaani , i'm quite proud of the first two or three riffs, and I used to be proud about some riffs in the middle of "hologrammi." The noisiest and more psyched out guitars of kuningatar.

Tell us about what you, as a guitarist, used in the studio while recording 'Deadly Algorithm'

Well, so I used three guitars to record the album: one Gibson SG Standard from the late '90s, another SG Standard from 1980, and a Gibson Les Paul Classic from around 1991. The SG from the late '90s was ultra-modded -- I changed the finish, pickups, electronics, tuners, but in the end sold it and now it's owned by David from Slomatics. The 1980 I just bought for the recording, so it was all stock. Later, I changed the pickups. The Gibson Les Paul also had all replaced tuners, circuit pickups, and so. It's my main guitar and I used it in most of the songs. The SGs I just used for "Triangeli," the last song.

About effects, I use a Big Muff Fuzz mainly, but also a custom Dunwich Amps FuzzThrone for the ultra heavy parts, like at the end of "Kuningatar." Other effects I used were the Dunlop Echoplex pedal and the Strymon Capistan. I love tape echo sounds and these pedals emulate it. Also, another effect I really like and couldn't live without is the Earthquaker Devices Transmisser. I used it in three of the songs.

Amps used included an '80s Laney AOR Pro Tube and Orange OR120 from 1975 and a late '70s Matamp GT120. Every rhythm guitar track was recorded with two of them at same time, mainly the Matamp and the Laney. That probably is the main sound of the album, but I think "Hologrami" I recorded with the Orange and the Matamp. About cabs, I used two Orange cabs -- one with Eminence speakers the other with WGS speakers.

Have you had a chance to play live at all since the pandemic?

Nope, we haven't been rehearsing either.

If you had your choice to tour with any five bands and play in any five places, what would they be and why?

We are keeping it for when there's no risk of cancellations, we have some date plans and so on, but it sucks to cancel things so we are just waiting. I would play with Unsane in New York for example then some bands I have liked recently, even if some are inactive at this moment. Belzebong, Nightslug, Domkraft, Follakzoid, and the body also.

That would be a sick line-up!

What parts of the world would you like to travel to?

Well, I've never been to America or Asia. I have been to Europe, the UK, and Russia only.

Okay, yeah it would be cool to have you come over here and play for us sometime.

Yeah, would be nice

Lastly, did you all wear your heart on the opposite sides of your head for this photo to give the illusion that your heads are on backwards? Or was it digitally manipulated to make it look like your heads were on the wrong way? I love the concept!

I made that pic myself. I took two photographs, one of us in front and another in the backs. So then I took the heads of the back picture and put on our front bodies pic, with Photoshop. David lynch-ish vibes!

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[theultimatefanficwriter]

True Friends-Monodam x Reader

Completely platonic relationship Requested by Paigeloime on Wattpad

Trigger warning: Suicidal reader, angst

You were still in shock.

You still couldn't believe you were stuck in a...a 'killing game'. How could you accept such a fact? It was such a far fetched idea!

But regardless, here you were. And every day you were scared it would be your last. You stayed away from everyone, even the seemingly friendly Kaede, Kaito and Gonta. You couldn't be sure it wasn't just a cover to get close to you so they could kill you.

You couldn't trust anyone here, no matter how badly you wanted to.

Not to mention there were those annoying 'Monocubs' around that popped up randomly. They just made the situation even worse.

Well, the green one, Monodam, you think his name was, wasn't too bad. He was quieter than the others, and seemed to want peace, unlike his siblings who only wanted the killing game to continue.

Again, though, you couldn't be sure it wasn't a ruse. He was one of Monokuma's children, after all, and Monokuma wanted anything but peace.

Eventually you started to believe you were just being paranoid thanks to Kaede's constant optimistic attitude and her bringing everyone together under the shared goal of escaping.

Then she was found guilty for Rantaro's murder.

It seemed so unlikely. Kaede? Murder? You would think that the only way you could use those two words in the same sentence is if the words 'would never' between them. But here you were. Sure, she was trying to kill the mastermind to end the killing game, but still. That just strengthened your belief not to trust anyone.

From then on after that trial, you only left your room for food, and nothing else. You also tried to make sure only to go to the cafeteria when no one else was there, but you weren't always successful.

Kaito would attempt to talk to you, try to cheer you up and make you his 'sidekick', but you'd just cower away. Tenko would offer to protect you from the 'degenerate males', but you'd decline her offer and leave as quickly as possible. Kirumi would offer to make you something to eat, but you'd just grab something yourself and head back to your room.

Shuichi and Kaito still tried to include you in things. They'd knock on your door almost daily to ask you to join them in activities. Most of the time you'd stay quiet until they left. Eventually, even they stopped.

It's been a few days since then, and you were currently laying on your bed, staring at posters on the wall opposite side of your bed. They were of some movie you, as the Ultimate Actress, were in. You looked at yourself in those posters and thought back on the memories. You were happy then. You had no worries.

You let out a sigh as you picked at your skin anxiously. You hated being all alone. You preferred being around others. But you just couldn't risk it. You were too afraid that somebody would kill you.

"Rise and shine, Ursine!"

You jumped in surprise at the sound of the Monocubs' introduction words. Your head shot to the middle of the room, and there stood Monodam. You blinked, staring at him for a moment. "Um...h-hello?" You greeted him quietly.

"Why hello, bear." Monodam said to you. "I have noticed that you have not been interacting with your friends. Is there a problem?"

You continued to look at the small robotic bear as you slowly threw your feet over the side of the bed. "I...I don't have any friends here." You muttered.

"That is not true!" Monodam argued. "Everybody here is your friend!"

You shook your head. "I can't risk that belief." You told the Monocub quietly. "A potential friend is also a potential killer." You shook your head vigorously. "I'm way too scared to risk that."

Monodam let out a robotic hum, which you assumed was supposed to be equivalent to a 'hmm' sound. "What if I were to be your friend?" The green bear asked.

Your eyes widened. "I-I'm sorry?" You stammered. "You? My friend?"

The bear nodded. "Correct. That way you would not be frightened. I will make sure you are not harmed as we 'hang out'."

You stared at the bear for a long time, unsure how to process this information. Sure, the green Monocub was the one you would say you "trusted" the most, but that was a very loose "trust". You weren't sure if you trusted anyone. Although, Monodam did always seem to want everyone to get along, so...maybe this could be a good way to get out of your room for once?

You sighed and shrugged, standing on your feet. "Alright, fine." You agreed. "Are you sure you won't get in trouble with your dad or siblings for protecting me, though?"

Monodam shook his head. "If it is only for one day, everything should be fine." He hobbled towards the door, which you found kinda cute, causing you to cover your mouth to stifle a giggle. You walked over and opened the door for the small robot. He walked out, and you followed, closing the door behind you.

"So, where are we going?" You asked, looking down at your new 'friend'.

"That is up to you." Monodam answered. "We could head to the recreational room. Or the swimming pool opened up, as well as your research lab."

You stopped walking for a moment. "Wait, my research lab opened up?" You asked.

The robotic bear nodded. "Correct."

You nodded. "Then we're headed there." You told him. "Lead the way."

Monodam led you to a bright red door with a drawing of two stage lights crossing over one another. You placed your hand on the doorknob and turned it. As you opened it, your eyes widened as you took in your surroundings. At the back of the room was a stage, one that reminded you so much of your happiest memories. There were props and backdrops and cameras. It made you feel so...safe.

You walked slowly up to the stage, the soft metallic thumps behind you letting you know that Monodam was following you. You went to the side and walked up on the stage, turning and taking in your surroundings. You felt a smile start to form on your lips, for the first time in days.

"You seem much happier." Monodam pointed out in his usual robotic tone. You turned to look at him. The robotic bear was standing in front of a row of chairs that were placed in front of the stage.  

You gave the small robot a genuine smile and nodded. "I am." You confirmed. "This is the first time I've felt this happy since getting here." As you continued to look around, a thought hit you, and you gasped, turning to look Monodam in the eyes. "Oh! Let me re-enact a scene from my favorite movie I've been in!" You offered. "It'll be a bit difficult without anyone reacting to my line but-"

"Oh, we have a solution for that!" Monodam interrupted. He hopped onto the stage and went into the wings. He soon pulled out a rack of grey mannequins. With a bit of struggling, the small robo-bear managed to pull one off, getting it to stand on it's feet. "You just need to enter it's settings, and it will be your acting partner!"

You felt your smile grow even wider. "This...this is amazing." You told the green bear. "Thank you so much." You flashed him a grin. "So with this I can re-enact the scene perfectly! Go wait in the seats! I'll be ready soon!" You rushed off behind stage, grabbing the rack and pulling them with you.

About half an hour later you were ready, and preformed your favorite scene from your favorite movie you had been in. The acting bots were almost exactly like your costars in the actual movie. You had such a fun time re-doing the scene that when you were finished with it, you were smiling like an idiot. You heard a slow, rhythmic clang, and you saw that Monodam was clapping. You giggled and bowed, the acting bots following suit before walking back to their rack and deactivating.

"So, how was it?" You asked the green Monocub. "And be honest."

"It was spectacular!" Monodam praised in his monotone voice. Despite that, you could still detect the excitement in it, which made you smile. "I would expect nothing less from the Ultimate Actress!"

You felt yourself blush from the praise. "That's really sweet, Monodam." You said, smiling. "And...thank you. For taking me here. I really needed this." You hopped down from the stage and walked over to him, leaning down and giving the small robo-bear and hug. Monodam didn't react for a moment, seemingly confused. Eventually he placed his arms around you. You pulled apart from him, still smiling. "I think I might try hanging around the others again." You informed him.

The green bear's head shot up. "You mean you are going to make friends?!" He exclaimed.

You covered your mouth and giggled. "We'll see, Monodam." You said, making your way to the exit. "I had a lot of fun. Maybe we can hang out again if your dad and siblings will let you." You smiled and waved goodbye to him as you made your way to the cafeteria.

It was around dinner time, so your appearance in the cafeteria surprised everyone. They all stared at you, which made you feel a bit uncomfortable, but you simple swallowed back the feeling and sat down at the table. You were nestled between Kaito and Shuichi, and were in front of Keebo and Kokichi. Eventually everyone looked away from you, and Kirumi made you a plate to eat. The four around you, however, began to bombard you with questions.

"Where have you been all this time, Y/N?" Keebo asked. "Have you been feeling ill?"

"Have you been plotting a muuuurder?!" Kokichi accused in a playful tone. At least you think it was playful. You never knew with him.

"How come you never answered Shuichi and me?" Kaito questioned, placing a hand on your shoulder. "We've been tryin' to ask you to be apart of our nightly training sessions! It's a great bonding exercise!"

"It...actually is." Shuichi agreed quietly.

You looked between the four of, giggling. "Well, in order." You began. "In my room being scared for my life, so no, not ill." You answered, pointing at Keebo. You turned to Kokichi and pointed to him. "No." You turned and pointed at Kaito "I was scared to trust anybody after the whole thing with Kaede. I needed space." Lastly you pointed to Shuichi. "I'd love to give it a shot now." You looked between the astronaut trainee and the detective. "If you'll still have me?"

Kaito beamed at threw his arm around your shoulders, pulling you into your side. You let out a startled yelp as you fell out of your seat. You laughed along with the others, and for the first time in a while, you felt happy. You felt like you had real friends.

For a while, you were really happy. You became pretty close friends with Kaito and Shuichi, and you and Monodam actually hung out quite often. The two of you of you visited your research lab many times, and you performed scenes and sometimes entire television episodes you were apart of. You actually considered the Monocub a good friend. Sure, he was one of the ones who brought you here, but you felt like he was different.

The green robo-bear seemed to actually care about you. You've been able to read between the lines whenever he spoke, so now you could mostly make out which emotions the bear was expressing. Because of this, you could tell that whenever he spoke to you, he seemed to actually care about you, and actually consider you a friend.

At the moment, you had just finished re-enacting an episode of a soap opera you had been in. You smiled and bowed as the acting bots returned to the rack as normal. Monodam clapped as normal. You hopped off the stage and sat beside him. "You know, I never thought I'd become friends with a Monocub." You admitted. "But you're really nice, Monodam."

"All I want is for everyone to be friends." The robot responded, looking up at you. "You are the first one to take me seriously."

"Well, I can understand why." You sighed. "You are one of the ones who brought us here, so trusting you might be a bit hard." You smiled softly at him and pat his head. "But I'm really grateful you came to me the other day. I'm not scared anymore. I mean, I'm still a bit paranoid that someone will kill again, but I've spent so much time with everyone, I'm starting to think that won't happen."

"That makes me happy to hear." Monodam gave you what you had come to understand to be a smile. "I hope that is the case. I just want everyone can be friends."

"That would be nice." You agreed, leaning back in the chair. "I really hope it can happen."

Of course, that was just wishful thinking.

The next day, Ryoma was found dead during Himiko's magic act, which you had only now heard about. You stared at the bones that were once the Ultimate Tennis Pro as the blood stained water pooled around everyone's feet.

And you passed out.

The rest of the students noticed as you fell to the ground. Kaito and Shuichi got to you first, Kaito frantically checking for a pulse. When he found one, he let out a relieved sigh. "She's alright. Just shocked, probably." He informed everyone. He turned his gaze to Gonta. "Hey, Gonta. Mind taking her to her room?"

The bug lover nodded, gently picking you up bridal style. "Of course! Gonta gentleman! Gonta make sure Y/N gets to her room safe!" He headed out of the gym and made his way to the dorms, where he entered your room, placed you on your bed, and quickly left, like a true gentleman.

You blinked open your eyes, finally coming too. As you opened them fully, you noticed a certain green robo-bear sitting at the foot of your bed. "M-Monodam?" You asked, rubbing your eyes.

The Monocub turned his head to look at you. "Rise and shine, Ursine." He greeted you, though his usual tone was more solemn than usual, even through his robotic voice. "I am happy to see you are alright. When you fainted I got concerned."

You frowned as you finally recalled what you had witnessed.

Ryoma Hoshi was dead.

You grabbed your arms and shivered. "Yeah, I...I'm fine." You muttered. "Just...I was starting to trust everyone, and suddenly someone gets killed again." You felt tears threaten to spill from your eyes. You sat up in your bed and hugged your knees. "Monodam...why did you bring us here?" You asked the Monocub quietly.

You didn't get an answer for a long time. "I...cannot tell you that, Y/N." Was his eventual reply.

You sighed in annoyance. "I figured you'd say that." You mumbled. "But...I thought since we'd gotten close..."

"We have become very close friends, indeed." Monodam let out a robotic sigh. "But I am forbidden from revealing that information. I am truly sorry."

You gripped your knees tighter as the tears began to fall slowly but surely. "I...I'd like to be alone, Monodam." You said quietly.

"Are you sure, Y/N?" The Monocub asked you, walking over to you and tilting his robotic head. "You seem to still be in shock. Perhaps having a friend would-"

"I said leave me alone!" You screamed, pushing Monodam away from you before burying your face in your knees.

Monodam stumbled back. When he caught his footing, he watched you for a few minutes as you sobbed softly. Eventually he let out a robotic sigh. "So long, bear well." He said sadly before disappearing.

When you heard the telltale sound of the Monocub's leaving, you glanced over to where Monodam had been. Seeing that he was gone, you grabbed your pillow and clutched it to your chest, sobbing louder, tears flowing freely now.

You had no one left. Sure, Monodam still seemed to be on your side...for the most part. But even he is putting this killing game before you. So maybe your friendship with you isn't as important as he had made it out to be.

And now another one of your 'friends' had killed someone. You really couldn't trust anyone. Could you?

You stayed in your room the whole time everyone else was investigating. The others occasionally came to check up on you, but you waved them off quickly, until you eventually told them all to just leave you alone.

You didn't want to go to another trial. You didn't want to watch another execution. You couldn't take it.

You slowly stood from your bed and made your way to your door. Slowly opening and peeking out it, you didn't see anybody, so you quickly left your room and began to make your way to you research lab. You managed to get there without being spotted. You closed the door behind you and quickly made your way to the backstage. Grabbing some rope you found in the prop section, you tied the rope into a noose and made your way to the catwalk and tied the end of the rope around the railing. You made your way back down and grabbed a step ladder, placing it under the noose.

You swallowed as you climbed up the ladder and placed the rope slowly around your neck. With shaking legs, you kicked the step ladder out from under you, and gasped as you felt the rope begin to suffocate you.

Your vision was starting to go black when your lab doors were suddenly kicked open. You heard running footsteps and shouting footsteps, but you couldn't make any of them out from the ringing in your ears. You noticed shapes run up to you, but they were only shadows. Then suddenly, you fell to the ground with a thud, and you sucked in a large gulp of air.

"...hell....here?!"

"Did someone...her?!"

"She's...alive, so if it was...murder they must still be here."

The voices were slowly becoming audible, and the shapes were coming together. You saw Kaito crouching above you, worried eyes looking at you as he kept turning to Kirumi to ask what to do. You coughed, which earned everybody's attention. Suddenly you saw not only Kaito and Kirumi in front of you, but also Shuichi, Maki, and Kokichi.

"Y/N!" Kaito said, relief in his voice. "What the hell happened to ya? Are you alright?!"

"Y/N, who did this to you?" Shuichi asked, the detective on the verge of panic.

"Did anyone do this to you?" Kokichi questioned, placing a finger to his chin. "Or was this your doing?"

"Why would she have tried to kill herself?" Maki snapped at Kokichi. "She has no reason."

The Ultimate Supreme Leader shrugged and continued to look at you. "It's just a thought."

You propped yourself up on your elbows and looked between them all, anger building up in you. "Why..." You muttered.

"'Why'?" Shuichi repeated. "'Why' what, Y/N?"

You clenched your fists. "Why...Why did you cut me down!?" You screamed, taking them all aback. "I want out of this place! I want out! Why do you keep me here?!"

Everyone looked surprised, except for Kokichi, who looked at the others smugly. "I told you."

Maki shot him a warning glare. "Do you wanna die?" She snapped. "This isn't the time for that."

"Why do you want to kill yourself, Y/N?" Shuichi asked softly, reaching a hand out to place on your shoulder.

You jerked away from him, and jumped to your feet as fast as you could. You backed away from the circle of people. "Don't touch me!" You hissed. "None of you actually care about me! One of you killed Ryoma, so why would I think you wouldn't kill me?!" You backed up as Kaito stood up from his crouching position, his face contorted in confusion. Shuichi continued to approach you slowly, his arm still outstretched to you.

"Y/N, calm down." He tried to soothe you. "No one here is going to hurt you."

You shook your head vigorously and continued to back up, making your way to your lab doors. "I can't believe that. I just...can't trust anyone." You muttered. You looked between Kaito, Kirumi, Maki, Kokichi and Shuichi before turning around and sprinting out of your research lab. You heard them shout your name, but you ignored them in favor of running back to your room.

When you got back in there you slammed the door and quickly locked it. You pressed your back against the door as you felt tears began to fall down your face, a familiar feeling to you by now. You slowly slid down to the floor, your knees pressed closely to your chest as you buried your face. You stayed that way for a long time, sobbing into your knees.

After a while, you felt something touching your leg. You slowly looked over, and saw Monodam. You glared at him and drew your leg in away from him. "Leave me alone." You muttered. "I don't want to talk."

"Why did you try to do that?" The Monocub asked you.

You sighed in annoyance. "I want to be free." You said quietly. "And that's the only way to do it."

Monodam tilted his head. "This is not the way to be free." He insisted.

You turned your head away from him. "Whatever. Like you'd understand anyway. " You murmured. "How did they even know what I was doing? I was so careful. It should have worked."

There was a long silence.

"I informed them of your situation."

Your head shot over to the green robo-bear. You stared at him before your eyes narrowed. You pulled yourself to your feet and walked closer to him. You glared down at him, your fists balled up tight. "...why?" You growled. "How could you?"

Monodam looked up at you. It was hard to make out emotion on his robotic features, but you swore you could see...sadness? But at the moment you were too angry to care. "You are my friend." The bear answered you, his monotone voice quiet. "Even though father and my siblings were angry at me for interfering, I could not let you die like this."

"You should have." You snapped. "I don't want to be here. And I'm not your friend." You walked around Monodam and sat on your bed, still glaring at the Monocub. "You bring me here against my will, then when I try to escape this hell you force me to stay? How could we be friends?"

The robot looked confused. "But I thought we had become good friends?" He said to you, his head tilted. "Is saving your life not what a good friend would do?"

You sighed in annoyance. He had a point, that is what a friend would do. But it isn't what you wanted him to do. "I just can't go through another class trial, Monodam." You muttered. "That's too much stress."

"You are strong, Y/N." The Monocub assured you. "You just need to believe in yourself and your friends." Monodam hopped up onto your bed beside you and placed his small robotic paw onto your leg. "And despite what you say, I am your friend."

You felt a smile form on your face despite yourself. You looked down to the green robo-bear and pet his head. "Yeah, fine." You relented. "...Thanks for saving me, Monodam."

The green bear nodded and turned to look up at you, the widest smile you've seen him produce yet on his face. "Anything for my best friend."

[newstfionline]

Monday, January 11, 2021

The workers hit hardest during Covid-19’s first wave are getting pummeled again (Yahoo Finance) Since the beginning of the pandemic, one group of workers has been hurt far more than others: those working in the service industries, specifically in leisure and hospitality jobs. And in December after some progress, that industry lost jobs once again. “The most recent surge in coronavirus cases is once again battering the US labor market,” Indeed’s economic research director Nick Bunker wrote in a note. “The economic fallout from this wave of cases is hitting the industries and workers pummeled hardest by the initial damage before they fully bounced back from that first hit.” The latest hit isn’t as bad as the spring, as vaccines are rolling out and certain measures are in place, but restaurants, bars, and other jobs that depend on people interacting still cannot do business in a pandemic environment.

Squelched by Twitter, Trump seeks new online megaphone (AP) One Twitter wag joked about lights flickering on and off at the White House being Donald Trump signaling to his followers in Morse code after Twitter and Facebook squelched the president for inciting rebellion. Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. The far right-friendly Parler may be the leading candidate, though Google and Apple have both removed it from their app stores and Amazon decided to boot it off its web hosting service. Trump may launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and free speech experts anticipate growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb incendiary speech as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol. Facebook and Instagram have suspended Trump at least until Inauguration Day. Twitch and Snapchat also have disabled Trump’s accounts, while Shopify took down online stores affiliated with the president and Reddit removed a Trump subgroup. Twitter also banned Trump loyalists including former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a sweeping purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and the Capitol insurrection. Some had hundreds of thousands of followers.

Navy’s Priciest Carrier Ever Struggles to Get Jets On, Off Deck (Bloomberg) Aircraft takeoff and landing systems on the USS Gerald R. Ford remain unreliable and break down too often more than three years after the $13.2 billion carrier was delivered, according to the Pentagon’s top tester. The latest assessment of the costliest warship ever built “remains consistent” with previous years, director of testing Robert Behler said in his new summary of the program obtained by Bloomberg News before its release in an annual report. The Ford’s new systems—which propel planes off the deck and into the sky and then snag them on landing—are crucial to justifying the expense of what’s now a four-vessel, $57 billion program intended to replace the current Nimitz class of aircraft carriers. The continuing reliability woes with the carrier systems built by General Atomics of San Diego are separate from another continuing challenge: the installation and certification of elevators needed to lift munitions from below deck. As of November, six of 11 “advanced weapons elevators” that should have been installed when the ship was delivered in May 2017 are now operational.

In Central America, tensions rise as soldiers aim to stop migrants (Reuters) Guatemalan and Honduran soldiers will be deployed to prevent new U.S.-bound migrant caravans from advancing, military officials said, amid growing desperation among those seeking to cross and signs that some groups will depart later this month. Two devastating hurricanes late last year along with severe economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic have pushed millions of people in the already-poor region closer to hunger, leading to a steady rise in U.S.-bound migration through Mexico. In online forums, many Honduras have indicated they plan to leave next weekend in a new caravan, which has caught the attention of U.S. officials who have called on the region’s governments to stop them. Many migrants in recent years have chosen to travel by caravan because being part of a large group offers protection from criminals who might prey on them, even though traveling alone is often faster.

Johnson under fire as UK again faces onslaught of COVID-19 (AP) The crisis facing Britain this winter is depressingly familiar: Stay-at-home orders and empty streets. Hospitals overflowing. A daily toll of many hundreds of coronavirus deaths. The U.K. is the epicenter of Europe’s COVID-19 outbreak once more, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government is facing questions, and anger, as people demand to know how the country has ended up here—again. Many countries are enduring new waves of the virus, but Britain’s is among the worst, and it comes after a horrendous 2020. More than 3 million people in the U.K. have tested positive for the coronavirus and 81,000 have died—30,000 in just the last 30 days. The economy has shrunk by 8%, more than 800,000 jobs have been lost and hundreds of thousands more furloughed workers are in limbo. Even with the new lockdown, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said Friday that the situation in the capital was “critical,” with one in every 30 people infected. “The stark reality is that we will run out of beds for patients in the next couple of weeks unless the spread of the virus slows down drastically,” he said.

In the Cold and Rain, India’s Farmers Press Their Stand Against Modi (NYT) Under a rain-slick tarpaulin, half a dozen elderly women bake roti on a wood-fired griddle—flattening dough, flipping browned bread from dawn until the sun retreats into Delhi’s evening smoke. Anyone who walks in gets served rice and cooked vegetables and, to wash it down, a cumin-flavored yogurt drink. Across the road, Jagjeet Singh, a burly man with a large fanny pack and a light purple turban, churns a hefty pot of milk coffee from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. The scenes stretching for miles around the Indian capital don’t come from a fair. They make up one of the largest sustained protests the country has seen in decades, persisting through steady rains and dozens of deaths that farmers and the Indian media have attributed to the weather, illness or suicide. For six weeks now, tens of thousands of farmers have choked the city’s four main entry points. They are challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has crushed all other opposition and stands as the country’s dominant political force, over his effort to reshape how farming in India has been done for decades. “They sold everything else. Only the farmers are left,” said 18-year old Ajay Veer Singh, who has been at the protest with his 67-year-old grandfather since it began in November. “Now they want to sell the farmers to their corporate friends too.”

China sees growing outbreak south of Beijing (AP) More than 360 people have tested positive in a growing coronavirus outbreak south of Beijing in neighboring Hebei province. The outbreak has raised particular concern because of Hebei’s proximity to the nation’s capital. Travel between the two has been restricted, with workers from Hebei having to show proof of employment in Beijing to enter the city. Almost all of the cases are in Shijuazhuang, the provincial capital, which is about 260 kilometers (160 miles) southwest of Beijing. A handful have also been found in Xingtai city, 110 kilometers (68 miles) farther south. Both cities have conducted mass testing of millions of residents, suspended public transportation and restricted residents to their communities or villages for one week.

Pompeo voids restrictions on diplomatic contacts with Taiwan (AP) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Saturday that the State Department is voiding longstanding restrictions on how U.S. diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, another move that is expected to upset China as the Trump administration winds to an end. The Trump administration has sought to strengthen bilateral relations with Taiwan. It announced Thursday that U.N Ambassador Kelly Craft would go to Taiwan, a move that sparked sharp criticism from Beijing and a warning that the U.S. would pay a heavy price. In August, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the first Cabinet member to visit Taiwan since 2014. Pompeo said that the State Department has created complex restrictions when it comes to contacts between the two parties. He said those actions were taken to appease the Communist regime in Beijing. “No more,” Pompeo declared in a statement. “Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions.” The Chinese government maintains that mainland China and Taiwan are parts of “one China.” China has been stepping up its threats to bring the self-governing island under its control by military force with frequent war games and aerial patrols. It has been using its diplomatic clout to stop Taiwan from joining any organizations that require statehood for membership.

Japanese pray for end to pandemic in annual ice bath ritual at Tokyo shrine (Reuters) Men wearing traditional loin clothes and women dressed in white robes clapped and chanted before going into an ice water bath during a Shinto ritual at a Tokyo shrine on Sunday to purify the soul and pray for the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a dozen people took part in the annual event at Teppou-zu Inari Shrine, scaled down this year due to the health crisis, compared to over a hundred in early 2020. After doing warming-up exercises and chanting under a clear sky with outside temperatures at 5.1 degree Celsius (41.18 Fahrenheit), the nine male and three female participants went into a bath filled with cold water and large ice blocks. Fewer participants at the Shinto ritual made the water extra cold, participant Naoaki Yamaguchi told Reuters. “Normally we have more participants and it makes the water temperature a little bit warmer. But this year, there were just twelve people, so it (the cold) was crazy,” the 47-year-old said.

Indonesian divers find parts of plane wreckage in Java Sea (AP) Indonesian divers on Sunday located parts of the wreckage of a Boeing 737-500 at a depth of 23 meters (75 feet) in the Java Sea, a day after the aircraft with 62 people onboard crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta. Earlier, rescuers pulled out body parts, pieces of clothing and scraps of metal from the surface. It’s still unclear what caused the crash. There was no sign of survivors. Fishermen in the area between Lancang and Laki islands, part of an archipelago around Thousand Islands north of Jakarta’s coast, reported hearing an explosion around 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

At a Yemen hospital wracked by U.S. funding cuts, children are dying of hunger (Washington Post) Her infant son, weakened by hunger, needed a better-equipped hospital in the capital, Sanaa, roughly 30 miles away. But Hanan Saleh could no longer afford even the $30 taxi fare. Before, she depended on a Western aid organization, Save the Children, for funds, drawn from money donated by the United States, to cover the travel costs, said employees of the organization and hospital officials. But last year, the United States slashed its funding to United Nations groups and others such as Save the Children. So Saleh had to raise money to treat her son, Mohammed, in Sanaa until those funds ran out, too. Her last option was a small hospital in this northern Yemen market town, a 15-minute walk from their home. The staff tried to build up his skeletal, malnourished 9-month-old body. “He died two months ago,” Saleh recalled in November, breaking down in tears. Aid cuts by the Trump administration and other Western countries, intended to prevent Yemen’s Houthi rebels from diverting or blocking funds, are worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis, already considered the most severe in the world. Last year’s pledges totaling $1.61 billion were less than half of 2019’s funding, and hundreds of millions of dollars committed by donors have not yet been paid, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office for Yemen. At least 15 of the U.N.’s 41 major programs have been scaled back or closed, and additional programs could shutter in the months to come, if more funds are not received, U.N. officials say.

The Tiny Satellites That Will Connect Cows, Cars and Shipping Containers to the Internet (WSJ) Scientists who track the health of Adélie penguins on the ice-covered wastes of Antarctica are managing their cameras from thousands of miles away—via tiny satellites orbiting above our heads. Energy companies are exploring using the same technology for monitoring hard-to-reach wind farms; logistics companies for tracking shipping containers; and agribusiness companies for minding cattle. It even helped National Geographic track a discarded plastic bottle from Bangladesh to the Indian Ocean. In the near future, it isn’t unreasonable to imagine this evolving satellite technology could put a distress beacon in every automobile, allow remote monitoring of wildlife in any environment on earth, and track your Amazon shipment—not just when it’s on a truck, but backward, all the way to the factory that produced it. And it could be done at a fraction of the cost of earlier satellite tracking systems. These novel networks of nanosats—aka cubesats—are a result of a number of factors. First, the satellites themselves are smaller, cheaper and more capable than ever. Just as important, there’s the rollout and adoption of new long-distance, low-power wireless communication standards that can work just as well in outer space as they do on the ground. In the next year, hundreds of satellites from more than a dozen companies are set to launch.

[taketherisk]

DICK GRAYSON, AKA NIGHTWING ⟶

Full name

Richard John Grayson

Preferred name/nickname

Dick

Generally referred to as

Dick, Grayson, Nightwing

Appearance.

FACECLAIM: Toni Mahfud SEX: Male HEIGHT: 5′11″ WEIGHT: 175 lbs. BUILD: Very toned. Muscular, but not bulky. Tight, corded muscle typically seen on acrobats and ballet dancers. HAIR: Not too short, ever, even though he knows it’d be more practical for combat. It is usually long just because Dick doesn’t make time to see a barber until it starts getting in the way. EYES: Bright electric blue. HANDS: He has long fingers. He’s been told he should play the piano. He did not let Bruce sign him up for piano. SCARS: Dick has an old gunshot wound on his shoulder, as well as his knee, and also several, smaller scars scattered over his body. CLOTHES: He would rather elect to wear something comfortable than dress up or adhere to a particular style of fashion. He likes his uniforms to reflect who he is, because authenticity is important to him, but this often results in fashion mishaps.

Speech.

ACCENT: No accent. He worked hard to rid himself of anything that could stand out in his voice in order to lessen the chance of it being recognized. LANGUAGE: Dick is fluent in Romany, English, Spanish, Italian, Farsi, Japanese, German, Russian, French, American Sign Language, Latin, Arabic, Swahili, Kikuyu, Mandarin, and Cantonese. He has a decent grasp on Portuguese, Romanian, Ukrainian, and Dutch due to his fluency in other languages with notable similarities. He would likely understand and be able to carry on a conversation, but he would not be fluent. As far as alien languages, he has a fair grasp of Tamaranean and is fluent in Kryptonian. ARTICULATION: Dick has an extremely difficult time articulating his feelings. He processes those in his head. He has a natural tendency to deflect on others (or change the subject) rather than divulge negative thoughts. EDUCATION: Dick’s tendency to show off has nothing to do with words. However, he’s not a moron. He will drop a big word here and there if he just can’t think of another way to describe what he’s trying to say. LAUGHTER: Dick laughs all the time. Even at his own jokes. He is constantly seeking levity and a way to lighten the mood. Usually it is to distract himself, however, because he is always willing to listen to others with complete and quiet seriousness.  GRUMP: When he was young he had his moments of grump, usually in the form of sneering or sarcasm, but he has (mostly) moved beyond that stage. BREATHING: Dick sighs a lot when he’s bored or made to wait. It isn’t because he’s trying to be rude, he barely even realizes he’s doing it, but he needs to direct the energy somewhere.

Mannerisms.

FACE: It depends. Dick’s priority first and foremost is maintaining a degree of professionalism. However, he feels very deeply and his internal ethics and values mean a lot to him. He has difficult displaying anything but authenticity. It takes effort to keep his face unreadable, but his sense of duty makes this possible. The same can’t be said around others, however. Dick wears his feelings on his sleeve. He just can’t help it. HANDS: Yes. He runs his hand through his hair, presses his knuckles against his lips, and gestures wildly with one hand even when he is completely silent.  LEGS/FEET: Oh, yes. Dick has a lot of nervous energy. Not just because he keeps a lot to himself, but his mind moves quickly and is constantly making connections, moving on to the next thing, and it’s difficult for him to get caught up in trivial matters when he can see the bigger picture. EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS: Now, I want to stress that this isn’t common. However, Dick has a temper. Despite wearing his heart on his sleeve and being willing to demonstrate positive feelings, anything that could be seen as negative or “wrong” is completely repressed. When under normal day to day stress of being a superhero, he can manage this well. However, when he is saddled with added pressure, stress, or experiences loss, he lashes out at the people he loves. For Dick, it makes more sense to push them away so they won’t see these flaws he isn’t even ready to acknowledge within himself. In these rare instances Dick can withdraw from his family. POSTURE: Dick is very confident, so his posture is typically very straight. However, he is prone to slumping in place when in the throes of self-disappointment. WALKING POSTURE: Because of his extensive background in dance and acrobatics, Dick is graceful without being aware of it. This translates to almost everything he does. At this point in his life, it simply comes naturally to him. PERSONAL SPACE: When it comes to people he is comfortable with, personal space does not exist. However, in the context of unwanted touch or flirting, he experiences obvious discomfort. SPACIAL AWARENESS: Dick has good spacial awareness simply due to his past as an acrobat and the constant vigilance he was expected to maintain as a young vigilante. 

Health:

DIET: Dick doesn’t know recipes off the top of his head, but he can figure out how to cook anything with proper instructions. His biggest danger in the kitchen is getting distracted and forgetting something was ever in the oven. However, most of his meals are quick. He isn’t very good at managing his time. SLEEP: Because of his lifestyle, Dick’s sleeping pattern can be erratic. He also has a hard time getting to sleep. His mind overworks and he has too many nightmares. EXERCISE: He trains regularly, but with how often he patrols the streets his training is typically covered in patrol. ACTIVITY: This is strange for Dick. He overworks himself and is a perfectionist, but also lazy about other things that he doesn’t prioritize or see as important. For example: he will overwork himself to prove his competence and to live up to his need uphold an image of perfection. On the other hand, his counter is frequently scattered with days worth of mail and he regularly leaves his suit on the floor. I would never call him lazy, but he is an odd mix of unforgiving and laid back. CLEANLINESS: With a suit like that, he has no choice. He baths every night. Desperately. ODOUR: Bergamot and eucalyptus soap. Boy needs all the stress relief he can get. MEDICINAL DRUGS: No. NARCOTICS: No. ADDICTIONS: While he would never admit it, even to himself, Dick has a self-destructive streak and an addiction to adrenaline. He isn’t addicted to sex, but he had used it as a means to cope when he was at his very, very lowest. Again, this is not common for him. He is not comfortable with his inner darkness. ILLNESS: No. INJURIES: One of his knees is weaker than the other due to an old gunshot wound.

Personal.

INTROVERT/EXTROVERT?: Extrovert. Dick analyzes his environment and connecting seemingly unrelated events in order to form a conclusion and the best plan of action that is consistent with his inner values. OPTIMIST/PESSIMIST: Optimistic. GENDER: Cisgender. SEXUALITY: Dick falls in love easily. He finds it impossible to let go of people once they have found a way into his heart. Most of his serious relationships have been with women, but he has no preference for sex, race, species. Nothing. He cares about connections. However, he doesn’t spend a lot of time analyzing his sexuality and doesn’t think it’s important. ROMANTIC: He is extremely romantic and desperately wants to be married and have an idyllic life. However, he’s also made the mistake of convincing himself to take the step with the belief that it would fix a broken relationship. MEMORY: Dick is a big picture thinker. It isn’t his natural inclination to remember details. However, his training under Bruce has strengthened that tendency and he makes for a good detective. Most of his biggest breaks have been because of hunches and making connections, however, rather than remembering specific details like dates. PLANNING: Being leader of the Titans, Dick had no option but to plan. His goal was to keep his team safe. However, he was not happiest in the leadership role. He was good at it because of his interpersonal skills and ability to bring people together, as well as think on his feet, but he does best when working independently. It causes him too much stress to carry that responsibility. As Nightwing, he never has the sense that he is filling a role. PENSIVE: Yes. Dick is hard on himself and therefore spends a lot of time thinking about how he could have done something better, with better results, and blames himself when something goes wrong. INTUITION: Dick has extremely high intuition and it has gotten him out of tight spots in the past. It is his greatest strength. PROBLEM SOLVING: It depends on the puzzle. With dry facts, no. Dick’s problem-solving abilities hinge on the opportunity to approach the problem from various points of view. It is also important that the solution does not go against his personal values. Despite his tendency to prioritize ethical standards (and being more of a feeler), he is proficient with logic. GOALS: Dick has no broad, sweeping goals; all he wants is to prevent one kid from going through what he went through. INSECURITIES: Dick is insecure about his authenticity. He works hard to meet Bruce’s expectations, but he also hides things that don’t line up with this image. That tendency puts a wall between him and others. It is difficult for him to reconcile with not being perfect. ACHIEVEMENTS: His siblings.  ANXIETY: Helplessness, boredom, and confusion give Dick the most anxiety. OVERWHELMED: He can often get overwhelmed, he carries too much on his shoulders, but it takes something extra to make him actually lash out. SELF-HELP: Unfortunately, he doesn’t. Dick’s coping mechanism is deflection, denial, and avoidance. He doesn’t like to discuss his own feelings because that would mean putting his issues on others. He would rather handle it himself. Unfortunately, he can’t. COMFORTS: An honest conversation and feeling as if he’s made real progress in his relationships with his brothers or in his own life. Stagnancy is not an option. BAD HABITS: Deflecting. PHILOSOPHY: Continuing to place trust in people, because anyone is capable of change.

Relationships.

FRIENDSHIPS: Dick is someone with a lot of friends, but they all know him in different capacities. He only has a handful of close friends. FRIENDS IN NEED: Dick is a supportive listener and is willing to stop everything to be there for the people he cares about. ADVERSARIES: Friendship, being lied to or betrayed. Romance is harder. Dick has a hard time ever letting go of past loves. ENEMIES: Betrayal and an understanding that no redemption exists. STRANGERS: Respectful, unless the stranger does something off the bat to insult or degrade Dick’s belief system. BEST FRIEND: Roy Harper and Wally West. LOVE: Barbara Gordon was the one that got away. WORST ENEMY: Joker. RESPECT: It depends on the enemy, but Dick would not be able to see them as a true enemy, or there would be substantial grey area.

Interactions.

MINGLING: Making new friends comes easily for Dick, but he would find it difficult to admit that trust does not. COMFORT LEVELS: He feels comfortable almost immediately. However, that switch can flip just as quickly if someone challenges one of his deeply held values. PHYSICAL: He is physical to those he knows well and knows would feel comfortable with it. Dick has been made to deal with unwelcome touching and it makes him uncomfortable. GROUPS: Dick is comfortable in a big group. He likes to relax and tease. Sometimes being one on one can be a bit too intense for him. Opening up to people doesn’t happen quickly. GENEROSITY: He is generous to a fault, to the point where he would be easily taken advantage of, but he has money to burn. JEALOUSY: Dick isn’t immune to jealousy and he felt his share when he was young and still understanding the ins and outs of relationships. He knows not everyone shares his desire to be monogamous and he is often concerned about making someone feel trapped. TEMPER: It takes a severe circumstance or a long build up of tension/issues/pressure/stress for Dick to lose his temper. However, it’s unnerving because he acts so out of character. EMPATHY: Dick is very empathetic, but he also puts his own values above others and this can come off as dismissive. AFFECTION: Touch. Gifts. Words of affirmation. Dick isn’t too proud and he’s certainly confident enough to admit his feelings for someone. He has no trouble being the pursuer.  DISTASTE: The type of person he would dislike would either disrespect and speak against Dick’s personal moral code, something he holds very dear, or he would disrespect those close to him. His response would be stubbornly dismissive. If this were someone he cared about, he would desperately try to convince him that his way is best. ETIQUETTE: Dick’s etiquette is practiced because he was raised as Bruce Wayne’s heir. However, he has a hard time acting fake polite, which can put a considerable strain on interactions if he is offended or annoyed. RESPONSIBILITY: Yes. If Dick sees the consequences of his bad choices, he is quick to take responsibility and (sometimes unfair) blame. SELF ESTEEM: While Dick doesn’t let others push him around in any sense, if someone manages to tap into his insecurities, he will not lie and argue against the truth of his perceived shortcomings. However, when it comes to his decisions and competency, he has high self esteem and he will only listen to others if they present a solid point. CONFIDENCE: Only his family and those he cares about. HONESTY: Dick is always honest, but he also errs on the side of hopefulness and rarely speaks in absolutes unless it comes to his own feelings. He does not sugarcoat a situation when it looks bleak because he knows it does little good to lie and will not solve the problem. It ties into his difficulty in being fake. LEADER OR FOLLOWER: Leader. But he prefers working alone. PARTY TRICKS: He’s very flexible and knows a lot of random circus tricks. Tumbling, gymnastics, acrobatics, and impressive parkour gets some oohs and ahhs.  PRAISE: Dick yearns for praise, but because he still feels as if he falls short, it is natural for him to find reasons to underscore his accomplishments. CRITICISM: Criticism is something he takes to heart if it taps into what he already thinks about himself. INSULTS: Unless they reflect his true inner self, Dick brushes them off. EMBARRASSMENT: No. When he is embarrassment, he finds a way to laugh it off. FLIRTING: Yes, but selectively flirtatious. Dick yearns for connection and validation, which is something he seems to think he’ll get from love. ATTENTION SPAN: It depends on the circumstance. Dick can be remarkably focused and he doesn’t tap out of the situation unless it is just incapable of holding his attention. He’s intelligent; so, like his body, his brain is restless and eager to jump onto the next theory once he’s exhausted the current one. SITUATIONS: Because Dick has remarkable empathy and he cares about people, he is very good at handling interpersonal conflict and treating his team the way he knows he’d want to be treated: like equals.

Life.

SHOPPING: Only when absolutely necessary. Dick doesn’t need to surround himself with things he doesn’t need. He rarely spends time at him as it is. DRIVING: Yes, all manners of vehicles. FINANCES: Being that Dick is the son of Bruce Wayne, his financial position is secure. He does have to set up everything through auto-pay however, or he will forget. MARRIAGE: Dick does want to get married because he thinks that falls in line with who he wants to be. KIDS: Same as above. PETS: He could take them or leave them, but he does like animals. He just doesn’t have time for them. LAW: Countless acts as a vigilante have been illegal, not least of all murdering Joker. ILLNESS/MENTAL OR OTHERWISE: Other than constant anxiety, no. WORRIES: Everything. Literally. Mainly he worries about the safety of his family. PEACE: Dick can’t stand total silence because he gets overwhelmed with his thoughts. He always has to have something playing, even if he’s not listening to it. PARTYING: Dick isn’t a big partier. He doesn’t like to drink or act fake, so it just isn’t his scene. HOBBIES: He likes to play the guitar. He also enjoys, particularly Shakespearean roles, and he’ll dramatically act out the parts and make his siblings laugh.

[i-see-r-3-d]

And its officially the Rainy season here 😀

The first drops of rain always bring a smile on our faces and we heave a sigh of relief – hoping that it will now cool the soaring temperatures

Bombay/ Mumbai is at its beautiful best during the rains! And the perfect way to celebrate this dreamy atmosphere around is to sit near the window – and not just watch the rains, but enjoy the soothing sound of rain, breathing deep – taking in the freshness of the air that only a fresh rainfall provides; watching children splash around in the puddles and making paper boats and rejoicing in the smell of fresh earth! Don’t we just want to sometimes just go out there and dance in the rain?

To make it even more perfect – is to now sip on the hot mint-ginger chai with some fried yummies like pakoras or the king of Mumbai street food – Vada pav!! Don’t we all crave this? Did you know – it is not some silly fancy to crave these foods during rains – but there is an actual reason behind this. Our innate cravings that come from our gut have solid logic to them.

Most mothers know and some rather dread rains as they bring with it infections – both respiratory and digestive, fevers and various other issues. Why just children, don’t we also fall ill?

Now let’s talk logic – when or why do we fall ill? Why is it that some people fall ill more easily and others don’t? The reason is Immunity or the Immune system.

Immunity is the body’s natural defense system against illness and infections. Everyday several bacteria, virus and germs attack our body. Our body shows resistance against these attacks. This resistance level depends on how strong is our immune system. Strong immune system is a key for proper functioning of the body and to fight off most diseases. For staying healthy, our immune system should be really strong

Low immunity has become a major cause of concern today owing to changes in lifestyle and our eating habits! And one of the most overlooked reasons why our immune system collapses is insufficient calorie intake.

Be it at restaurants or at parties or in trains, anywhere for that matter – one of the hot topic for conversation includes counting calories and discussing our new discovered weight loss techniques or fad diets. So people want to avoid ‘the-so called-high-calorie’ food like the plague. And yesterday I overheard an even more fantastic gyaan (I am being sarcastic here!) – “we must never give our taste buds of anything that it wants.” And let me tell you – it did not come from a fit woman – rather from the exact opposite of fit!

Given that Aunty’s logic – means no garama-garam pakoras or vada pavs! And yes a pakka chance of catching flu or cold-cough and general dullness. Coming back to what I always say – our body or gut and our innate cravings are not our dushman (enemy)! Your body is not planning and plotting all the time to ruin your “weight loss” program!

In fact – we should revere our bodies for not reacting the way it should ideally have – for all the torture we put it through in the name of diet or exercise. Many people exercise as a way to punish their bodies for over eating. To them I would like to ask – did you eat the food or your stomach grew an arm and a mouth to eat it all! You were not mindful when you ate and you literally tortured your stomach into digesting all of that and if that was not enough you run like a maniac on treadmill to now burn it all off and punish yourself! Does this even remotely make sense? But so many people do this!

We should eat and exercise from the perspective of being FIT, HEALTHY and HAPPY and not to punish ourselves. And to be honest these punishing tatics never work – because most people who may have lost “weight” doing these things always put it back on!

Shouldn’t our diet and exercise plan aim to keep us fit for the rest of our lives? Or are we meant to yo-yo from losing weight and putting it back on? – and this seems to be like on a loop!

So again – your palate is not here to disrupt your your weight loss plans. It is only trying to protect your immunity – so that you do not fall prey to a whole range of infections. To provide the system with the adequate calorie surge needed to protect from bacterial and viral and other infections does our body urge us to eat fried food. And simply because it cannot speak in the formal way – do we end up craving for these.

To my thinking minds – tell me one thing – during summers does our body not quease at the thought of eating these same fried food! This is because our gut-feelings are intelligent enough! Give your body some credit.

So it is not you being crazy with your cravings and it has nothing to do with ‘control’ or ‘willpower’ as a few people feel.

There are essential fats, like in filtered groundnut oil – being rich in antioxidants (much more than your 1 cup of green tea) that help you fight free radicals and prevent illnesses and infections. These also make your skin glow and strengthen the roots of your hair. (Are we not told to oil our hair – when we face hair fall – same logic!)

And I am talking about the pakoras and vadas that you fry at home – so you know exactly what oil you are using and you will not re-use that oil – which happens outside!  And the craving for the ginger-mint chai with these is because ginger assists your intestines to break down fat and rids your stomach of gas. That way, your smart body has taken care of what-looks-like overindulgence too.

So stop cursing your body – your cravings and your calories. Eat mindfully and eat in moderation and exercise right and you will find yourself enjoying your food and yet being Fit-Healthy and Happy!

Happy Eating 😀

#Love#Snacks#Monsoon❤️#rainydays

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Sleep Deprivation

Chris Elkins had sung in choirs before, so he was told that joining the New Hope Singers was something he might like to do. Rehearsals were held at the Belvedere training center in Tarrytown, New York, purchased after a nationwide candle-selling blitz had yielded about $800,000.

The schedule at Belvedere was rigorous: get up out of the bunkbed at 6:00; exercise at 6:05; clean up and get dressed at 6:15; pray at 6:35; eat oatmeal and water at 7:00; do chores at 8:00; attend training sessions at 8:45; eat bread, butter, and jelly sandwiches at 1:00; tend the grounds at 1:45; shower at 3:30; attend training sessions at 4:00; eat casserole with flecks of meat at 7:00; attend training sessions at 8:00; go to team meetings at 11:00; do individual study at midnight; go to bed at 1:30. There was no free time, and everything was done in groups supervised by a leader.

The three functions in the life of a Moonie—to be indoctrinated, to fund-raise, to recruit new members—required so much time that only a few hours were left for sleep. Working with limited rest was a purifying act of self-sacrifice that proved one’s allegiance to Moon. The timetable for achieving his goals was short. In three years’ time he had to have thousands of servants “marching the main streets of the capital of each nation.” And by 1981, Communism was to be defeated. To keep down individual dissatisfaction about sleep, he whipped up group thinking in his training speeches:

MOON: Would you prefer to sleep seven hours instead of six hours?

MEMBERS: NO!

MOON: Would you prefer to sleep for seven hours or five hours?

MEMBERS: FIVE!

MOON: Would you prefer to sleep five hours or four hours?

MEMBERS: FOUR!

MOON: Would you prefer to go to work without sleeping or sleeping?

MEMBERS: WITHOUT SLEEPING!

MOON: I don’t want you to die, so I will let you sleep barely enough to sustain your life. What I’m thinking is that although you get thin like ghosts, with big eyeballs, skinny all over and stooped down like this in walking, stuttering—but if by your doing that, by your being like that, we are successful in God’s providence, I would prefer to have you do that.

from Robert Boettcher, Gifts of Deceit (1980) 

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Barbara and Betty Underwood: In Canada, she got an importer’s license, opened a bank account and rented vehicles using a phony address and pretending to be a Canadian citizen, in apparent violation of Canadian immigration laws.

“We were going by divine law,” she explained. “We weren’t going by secular law, democratic law.”

Barbara’s journal includes her own list of 18 ways the Moonies routinely broke the law, including soliciting without permits and in forbidden areas, driving uninsured vans, giving false information on welfare and medical aid applications, ignoring traffic tickets and failing to file traffic accident reports.

“We were in a lot of car accidents because people were so tired driving,” she said. “One car was totaled. It was always because somebody fell asleep.”

Stories from the Bay Area Unification Church – Barbara Underwood

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Members died in traffic accidents on Mobile Fundraising Teams (MFT) – more were injured, some permanently. But the financial goals set by the “church” had to be met. When the Japanese began to take over MFT leadership in America, the pressure for results increased, the hours worked increased, and the number of accidents increased. Many members were only getting a few hours sleep. 

Sun Myung Moon said: “A while back there were 82 traffic accidents reported in one month in our movement.” (October 3, 1976) So Moon knew the situation but seems to have done nothing. Moon’s “heavenly soldiers” were expendable.

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Sleep Hygiene: Train your Brain to Fall Asleep and Sleep Better

By Emma McAdam

Sleep Hygiene is an essential mental health skill.  

When my clients come in for treatment for some of their challenges like depression, anxiety or relational problems, one of the most common associated problems that they have is difficulty sleeping. This shows up as either having a hard time falling asleep, staying asleep or just feeling tired all the time. Getting enough quality sleep can make your brain function much better, you’ll be better at solving problems and feel more self-control.  In this video we’re going to talk about how to train your brain to sleep well, it’s called sleep hygiene

Sleep is essential for good mental health. Lack of sleep can actually cause mental illness.  Research is showing that one of the most effective ways to treat depression is by helping people improve the quality and quantity of their sleep. One study of people with depression found that after resolving their insomnia, 87 percent of them experienced major improvements in their depression, their depression symptoms disappeared after eight weeks of good sleep.

Sleep Therapy Seen as an Aid for Depression – New York Times

So how do we improve our ability to get sleep? We can train our brains to sleep better. Sleep Hygiene means going through a routine that trains your body to know when to sleep.  Like a muscle that strengthens with practice, sleeping well is a skill we can develop.  Here are some essential skills to develop better sleep.

VIDEO: Sleep Hygiene: Train your Brain to Fall Asleep and Sleep Better

_________________________________________

LACK OF SLEEP – Huffington Post

Let’s recap the research that shows functioning consistently on just three or four hours of sleep can seriously mess with your health — and even more concerning, with your mind and your temper. If you don’t get enough sleep:

1. You’re more likely to be emotional A 2007 study from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Medical School used brain scans to show that emotional centers of the brain were 60 percent more reactive in individuals who were sleep-deprived compared with individuals who had a normal night of sleep.

2. You have trouble focusing Several studies have shown that lack of sleep affects our ability to focus. And in a study published last year, researchers found that animals with complex nervous systems (humans included) need sleep to support cognitive functions — and tasks that require more attention also increased the need for sleep and intensity of sleep.

3. You’re more likely to make bad decisions According a 2015 study, sleep loss affects critical aspects of decision-making in high-stakes situations. The study simulated a situation where participants had to complete a task to test their decision-making while adapting to changing circumstances — and participants who were sleep-deprived were more likely to make the wrong decisions than participants who had slept.

4. You have trouble with learning and memory When you haven’t slept, your ability to learn new information could drop by up to 40 percent, Matthew Walker, a Berkeley sleep researcher, told the National Institutes of Health. Experts say sleep plays an important role in how we learn new things, according to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

5. You might make less appropriate moral decisions Another study found that individuals took longer to decide how to respond to a personal moral dilemma when they were sleep-deprived compared to when they were well-rested. And when sleep-deprived, people may be prone to making different decisions than they would have in a fully rested state, one of the study’s authors, William D.S. Killgore, now associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, said in a statement.

6. You feel stressed, angry, sad and mentally exhausted A study of healthy adults found that getting less than five hours of sleep a night for seven nights in a row led the individuals to report feeling more stressed, angry, sad and mentally exhausted.

____________________

9 Science-Backed Steps to Have the Best Sleep of Your Life — Tonight

__________________________________________

Sun Myung Moon said the mind and body are in conflict. Not so.

[mobius-prime]

221. Sonic the Hedgehog #153

Oh god, is Sonic, like… okay? Is he all right up there? What horrific manner of trouble did he get himself into this time to have his face become deformed like that? Also, I like how this cover implies that Sonic is being hunted down by someone shooting lasers or something, when literally nothing even close to the sort happens within the issue. I know it's perhaps getting a bit stale to point out every time the cover art doesn't reflect the stories inside, but dammit, it makes me laugh so I'm gonna keep doing it.

Songoose (Part 1 of 2)

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

Eggman has a new agenda to enact. He's offered Nack the Weasel a large sum of money in exchange for assassinating someone very important within Knothole, and despite Nack's apparent reservations about waltzing into a place where he's wanted for quite a few crimes, he seems pretty jazzed to accept the offer nonetheless. Within Knothole, Sally has arranged a mock battle training exercise between the Freedom Fighters and the Chaotix to strengthen team bonding and combat skills, and oversees the training along with General D'Coolette, discussing the various combatants' strengths and weaknesses.

Uh oh, that doesn't sound good. In fact, at that moment they get a call from the king and queen, still halfway around the world, and apparently the king is also exhibiting similar symptoms to the general, prompting Sally to muse on whether their illnesses are related. She wonders if they should cut their trip short and return home, something which the king is against but the queen tentatively supports, but the conversation is interrupted when suddenly, the general seizes up and then collapses onto the ground. That's… probably not a good sign. Worse still, "Antoine" doesn't even seem to care, though of course we know why.

So this is actually a plot point that's kept up throughout a lot of subsequent issues - apparently, Tails' crush on Fiona is still going strong, despite the fact that he literally "fell in love" with a robot duplicate of her which had nothing in common with the real her. It's honestly a very weird detail to seize upon, as while Fiona being a real person and a unique character in her own right is interesting, and the fact that she's joined the Freedom Fighters even more so, Tails trying to like… flirt with her and become her boyfriend is just a bizarre place to take it, especially considering the age difference. I mean, don't get me wrong, I know it's not uncommon for a kid to end up with a crush on an older teenager, but multiple writers from here on out write Tails as being actually infatuated with her and unable to "let her go" after her robot duplicate broke his heart. It just doesn't feel like Tails to me and it's frustrating, to say the least. But anyway, moving on, everyone agrees it's a good idea to go to Mina's concert tonight and disperse. Sonic catches up to Fiona and tries to explain that Tails looks up to her, but she just makes a snarky comment about Sonic being one to talk about respect given how he acted the other day towards her - yeah, apparently he still hasn't told everyone that it was his evil double flirting with all the girls. Also, we never actually saw Evil Sonic come on to Fiona before, but I guess it just happened offscreen. She then admits to him that she hated him for a long time for leaving her behind in Robotnik's prison camp all those years ago, but changed her mind after seeing him sacrifice himself for the planet during the Xorda invasion, making her realize that he never left her behind on purpose. Aww, that's actually nice! Fiona has the potential to be a really interesting and complex character, and, well, honestly she's one of my favorites of the later comics, so I'm glad to see her getting more screentime.

That night, Sonic and the others show up backstage at the venue to give Mina a friendly pep talk before her show. She hugs Sonic, thanking him for the encouragement, and Ash immediately becomes very jealous and butts in to remind everyone that he's Mina's boyfriend and band manager and that she needs to go to the stage now, prompting a clueless Sonic to wonder what his problem is. However, Mina's performance actually kind of reveals that Ash has a good reason to be suspicious of her interactions with Sonic, as the sappy, lovey-dovey lyrics of her songs all reference the color blue in various ways, and are clearly influenced by her previous infatuation with Sonic. But things aren't as happy and peaceful as they seem, as a suspicious figure lurks in the crowd…

So Mina was Eggman's target, huh? Strangely enough, Nack, with a totally clear shot to the stage, misses and hits a tree several feet above and to the side of Mina. Like, it's not even played off as "oh, he was trying to make the tree fall on her, or someone bumped his elbow" or something - he just straight up misses for no reason, sets the tree on fire with the blast, and then tries to make a run for it. Some assassin you are, especially considering your alternate name is Fang the Sniper! Sonic, Bunnie, and Ash immediately race onstage to check on the startled but unharmed Mina, and Bunnie focuses on putting the fire out while Sonic races after Nack, catching and knocking him out easily. Nack wakes up hours later in Knothole's jail, where Sally and Sonic attempts to question him on his motives, and he decides to be all flippant and act like it's no big deal that he was caught, as he'd rather spend some time in prison than ruin his "cred" by giving up the name of his employer. I'm sorry, Nack, but what freaking cred are you even talking about? Like what, are you gonna go around telling prospective employers that your skill set includes missing a target forty feet away, setting a random tree on fire, and then immediately getting arrested? Sally merely points to the cell across from him, where he's quite perturbed to see the three other weasel associates who helped him kidnap her a year ago, and she invites him to go ahead and spend his time in jail sharing space with them after he knowingly left them to take the fall for his failed plan. Of course, he spills the beans on Eggman immediately.

Well… I suppose that's not even out of character for Eggman, considering his original counterpart also hated music. Sally decides to assign Sonic as Mina's personal bodyguard for now, while the other Freedom Fighters keep an eye out at the next night's concert to make sure nothing comes near Mina. Ash isn't pleased at all with Sonic being close to his girl, and stomps off, with a bemused Sonic commenting to Mina that he's pretty sure her boyfriend doesn't like him. Gee, what gave you that idea, Sonic? Sally's caution is warranted, however, as back in New Megaopolis we see Eggman preparing his next plan of attack in the wake of Nack's abysmal failure - he's rebuilt Heavy and Bomb, and is ready to sic them on Mina! Man, it's been a while since we saw those guys, huh? Now that I think about it, after they got reprogrammed by Eggman before, Sonic just kind of straight up killed them when they tried to attack the royal family, and no one seemed upset about it at all. Well, maybe with them back, they'll get a chance to be freed and find redemption… or maybe the writers still don't care and they'll get fridged again. Guess we just gotta wait and see!

Fairy Tale (or the Adventures of Pirate Sally)

Writer: Romy Chacon Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Josh Ray

Wow, it's been quite some time since we last had a "telling a bedtime story based on real events in the storyline to kids" episode, huh? Apparently, Rosie's three young charges have caught a bad cold, and as she brings them medicine to try to help them sleep they all start begging for her to tell them a story. She's reluctant, claiming she's not good at stories, but relents when they persist in asking. She invents a magical world of pirates and wizards, where the "Elfen Fox" falls onto "Pirate Sally" and "B-Bot's" ship, having had one of his two magical tails stolen by the "Rogue Assassin," who doesn't really live up to her name if all she's doing is going around stealing things. Man, what is it with wildly ineffective assassins this issue? Pirate Sally and B-Bot decide to help out the fox, and along the way meet their new allies Ant the Foole and the Blue Knight, who help them defeat various baddies based on the main villains of the comic's storyline. Finally, they make it to the Evil Wizard Kintobor's lair, whom they fight against as a team and help the Elfen Fox take back his missing tail.

I actually love this story, entirely because of the way the kids just start roasting Rosie's storytelling skills as soon as the whole thing is over. Hey, look on the bright side Rosie - now that they're preoccupied with coming up with a way to fix your terrible story, they won't be pestering you for more anytime soon!

[gloverdominic92]

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out of my mind | lee minho

genre: lee minho x fem!reader feat. jisung, woojin, & chan | angst ; fluff ; science experiment au ; kind of soulmate au ; “maniac” tv series au ; au within an au ; mentions of mental illness summary: you and minho are two of ten strangers who are test subjects for a series of pills that supposedly cures all disorders of the mind. while under the influence of the pills, you fall into your dream world that overlaps with minho’s every time. as you two live multiple lives as partners in crime, lovers, or simply strangers in passing in the dream realm, the bond between you only strengthens as the testing continues.  wc: 15.6k a/n: based off of the netflix show “maniac” and this gifset i made! this is a wild genre i’m not used to, in both writing and reading, so i hope it’s not too far-fetched for this fandom and i hope you guys like it!

You can’t count on your hands how many e-mails your school would spam you with about participating in some sketchy experiments with promises of some pocket cash. What you did know though was that each time you received one, you trashed it right away. What was the point in wasting so much time for such little money? Might as well just get a job.

Last week’s email was the only one you didn’t throw away.

Essentially, the email went like this:

Participate in District Pharmaceuticals’ trial for their new and radical product, The ABC pills! Designed by Dr. Kim Woojin, The ABC pills are a sequence of pills made to cure anything and everything about the mind, from mental illness to heartbreak, without any side effects. Our company is in the final stages of testing, just before we are able to release this on the market, where participants will test out the effectiveness of the full sequence for the very first time. With your help, you will be helping us change the lives of billions.

As a participant, you will:

Stay at our facility for an extended period of time (food and housing provided).

Consume and test the potency of the pills within that time frame.

Answer post-testing questions to help us better understand the effectiveness of the pill.

All participants who complete the entire testing scheme will receive a whole year of free tuition, regardless of whether or not testing passes FDA approval. Are you interested? Stop by District Pharmaceuticals for more information.

This company was obviously catering to your young adult needs, as nothing else could convince you to do something this stupid besides being offered a whole tuition-free year at school. It was one thing when hospitals would ask to monitor your sleep patterns or your diet and exercise or take multiple pints of your blood, but this company was asking you to ingest not just one drug, but a whole sequence of them! That meant they would only get stronger as the pills progressed, which could mean a high potential for you or someone to experience side-effects that the company claimed wouldn’t happen, develop a dependency, or even die of overdose. For a reward that generous though, you expected the risk would be at a maximum.

For now, as you stood in line at District Pharmaceuticals, the only thing you had to worry about was whether or not they would allow you to test. You would think that most people in line have seen a professional and have been diagnosed properly with whatever they had, so obviously their chances were much higher than yours. You’ve never been to a therapist, or a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, but you didn’t need a professional to determine that something was off about you. When there were days you couldn’t get out of bed; or when you cried for three hours straight so you could sleep; or when your wrists bled but you felt nothing; you figured that they would up your resume even if it was just a little bit.

Even with such a high reward, you had to be out of your damn mind to be signing ten pages worth of consent forms along with a questionnaire with only a backpack full of your belongings in the building today. Maybe the pills could cure your stupidity, too.

After completing the forms, you walked back up to the counter to hand them to a lady behind the counter. She told you to wait so she could confirm a denial or approval of your stay in just a couple of minutes. You took the time to look around and see who else was willing to go through such high-risk testing. Though your email provided promises of free tuition, some of the people here looked way beyond their years of college. Sure, they could be just older folks who decided to go back to school, but there was no way all of the potential participants here were like that... You had to have been the youngest person here.

You finally saw someone your age next to you in another line. A boy with dark brown hair handed his consent forms over to the same lady and waited patiently alongside you. He must have felt your gaze on him as he turned to face you and gave you a friendly smile.

He looked exhausted - like maybe the testing was his last chance at something.

After shyly returning the gesture, you quickly turned away, deciding that maybe it was best that you mind your own business in a place like this. Who knows what kind of skeletons people were hiding?

The same lady came back and stood between you and the boy on her side of the counter. She handed you and him laminated cards on a red lanyard. You had number one and he had number nine.

“Take a seat in the waiting area. When it’s time, we’ll call you both up.”

You and the boy gave each other a quick look, questioning the vagueness of her statement. Did this mean you both passed and were approved for testing? You decided not to question her though, as she looked annoyed that you both hadn’t moved since she said anything. Before she took your badges away, you did as you were told and walked towards the waiting area with the boy following closely behind you.

Minho sat across from you in the waiting area and tried to figure out what was it about you that made you familiar. It wasn’t the clothes you wore, or the way you tied your hair, and it certainly wasn’t the way your eyebrows raised as you read your badge, but there was just something about you that made him believe he knew you.

Maybe it was in a dream.

The way you looked at your badge must have meant there was something interesting on it, so Minho took a look at his, too.

9. Lee Minho Occupation: Student Defense Mechanism: 7 Level: X X X X X

Nothing else was on it. Not his birthday, height, weight, IQ, literally nothing else that would indicate he was a good candidate for testing. It seemed like District Laboratories only cared about his occupation and his defense mechanism, but he was unsure what ‘level’ meant and if five X’s was a good or a bad sign.

He wondered what was on your badge.

“Hey.”

Your voice pulled him away from his thoughts. As if reading his mind, you openly exposed your badge to him and pointed to the bottom line, where your ‘level’  held the same five X’s. Your name was _____ _____, you were also a student,  and your defense mechanism was four.

“What level are you?” you asked, hoping it didn’t sound as stupid to him as it did to you.

“U-Uh, I also have five.”

“Really?”

“The Level just means the risk of the study,” another voice chimed in. “It has nothing to do with you personally.”

A couple seats down was a boy with blond hair who was also around your guys’ age. He didn’t look up from his cell phone as he said those words nonchalantly, indicating that he seemed familiar with this whole process.

“Have you done this before?” the boy across from you asked.

“A few times. Enough for them to pay for a bit of my schooling, at least,” the handsome blond boy finally turned his attention to the both of you, finding it amusing that you two seemed terrified of what’s to come. “I only participated up to Level Three testing, though. I have no idea what Level Five entails, but hey, high risk high reward.”

“You're not scared or anything...?” you asked.

“Nah ~ I’ve tested here plenty of times to know that these things are harmless, regardless of which Level I’m in. Is this your guys’ first test?” Both you and the other boy nod. “Ah, not surprised - you two seem like newbies.”

“Odd numbers, please report to Gate Three. Odd numbers, please report to Gate Three,” said a voice over the intercom.

“That’s us,” the blond sighed, slinging his roughed-up duffel bag over his shoulder. As his tag swung around, you noticed that the number on his ID was five.

Numbers one through nineteen lined up in numerical order at the gate, where two heavy-set body guards stood at the entrance and one walked up and down the line confiscating all electronics, including cell phones. You should be intimidated and feeling vulnerable without your phone, but somehow you felt calm in their presence, like you hoped they would be the ones to protect and save you throughout the duration of this experiment.

When the doors swung open, you saw the most handsome man you’ve seen in your entire life wearing a long white coat.

“Hello, everyone,” he greeted happily. “My name is Dr. Kim Woojin and I will be leading this experiment for the entire duration. If you will all follow me, I will take you to the facilities and we will have an overview of what’s to come.”

Dr. Woojin gives you a gentle smile before gesturing you to follow, to which you gladly obliged. With a man like him being the lead, maybe the testing wouldn’t be so bad after all.

He led you and the single file line behind you through a long, dark corridor with no windows. You and the other nine subjects followed Dr. Woojin mindlessly while trying to pay attention to the history lesson he gave you as you walked through a confusing series of different doors and hallways. He talked about the time his father found the cure for the common cold, how his grandfather found the cure for HIV/AIDS, and how his older brother just released the famous cancer-killing pills out on the market for hospitals all around the world to purchase. Dr. Woojin had some big shoes to fill.

He must have recited the history enough times to know that as soon as he finished, you all arrived to the facility. Through the sliding doors, you were the first to enter a huge room shaped like a perfect cube with no windows to the outside. In the center was a circular table with ten chairs meant for all of the test subjects with a bright, white light that simulated a sunny day shining down on it. On one of the walls was a huge window that looked into another room with another set of ten chairs and two metal plates at the headrest - a room you promised to look into more later. The third and only thing that mattered to you was the wall that contained all of the beds. Well, more like sleeping pods or incubators arranged like a morgue. No matter the look, since the mattress was soft and the blankets smelled like fresh linen.

When you popped out of your pod, you noticed that number nine took the pod right next to yours. For that, you were thankful, hoping that either he or number five could be your friend until this was all over, whenever that was.

You sat next to each other at the round table and you wondered if he felt the same familiarity about each other as you did. You’re not sure what it was, but you found yourself dangerously less nervous than you should be and you think it’s because of number nine. Not knowing his real name was killing you, so without him noticing, you took a peak at his card.

His name was Lee Minho and his defense mechanism was seven, which doesn’t seem much higher than yours, but if this was on a scale out of ten, then you were screwed.

Lee Minho... the name was unfamiliar, but you thought it suited him nicely.

“Welcome to your testing facility,” Dr. Woojin began. “You are sitting in the common area, where all of you will stay when we are not testing or conducting a post-testing review. You can talk to each other, read a book, do some crafts, play a game - we have provided endless amounts of entertainment during your awake hours. The room over there,” he said, pointing to the huge window, “is where the actual testing takes place. I will explain more later tonight when we conduct our first test. Next, are the sleeping pods, which you all have already settled into, the bathrooms are over there, and lastly, this is the round table, where all meals will be served.”

“Question,” the blonde boy piped. “How long is this testing?”

“Six days.”

“Wait, a week? That’s it? For a Level Five testing?”

“Correct.”

Dr. Woojin didn’t elaborate further on the topic, raising the suspicion of all the test subjects. As much as he wanted to, Number five didn’t press the matter further.

“The testing scheme will go as followed: as I said, tonight we will conduct our first test, which will be for Pill A, followed by a post-evaluation. Tomorrow we won’t test. The following evening will be Pill B and a post-evaluation, then another day of no testing. On the last night, we will be testing Pill C, which will go into the morning the next day. A final evaluation will be recorded, and from there, we will determine whether or not you are cured.”

“Just like that, we’ll all be cured?” Minho muttered incredulously.

“I wouldn’t say ‘just like that’... It may not work the same way for you as it does with someone else who was cured. That’s what this study is for, though, to make sure that everyone will be cured.”

“In just a week...” you trailed off. There was no way this only took six days. There had to be a catch.

“We will discuss more later tonight in the testing room. For now, please enjoy your dinner. I will see you all at midnight.” With that, he left the room.

“Cryptic, but ok,” you scoffed as a plate of food was placed in front of you. At least it looked good.

“He has to be hiding something from us, right?” Minho whispered to you. “There’s no way this is that easy...”

“Like he said, it may not be that easy.”

“But come on, look at all of us! Clearly we all have a lot of damage and it’s impossible that three pills would be capable of curing all of us in six days, right!?”

“Well, people once said curing the common cold and HIV was impossible and look where his bloodline got us.”

“You’re uncomfortably optimistic.”

“One of us has to be. Lee Minho doesn’t sound like an optimistic name, anyways.”

An embarrassed blush spread across his cheeks when you said his name. “Agree to disagree then,” Minho sighed.

He prayed that this would all be worth it in the end.

Dinner was quiet due to the fact that everyone was still trying to get used to the fact that testing had technically already started. Jisung, number five’s name you found out, was the most calm out of everyone. Naturally, since he’s done this plenty of times, but he was still wary.

“Something doesn’t add up,” he told you and Minho in secret by the sleep pods. It was only 9:00 PM when you three met up. “Never, in my two years of being a test dummy has the testing scheme lasted shorter than a couple of months. A couple of weeks is one thing, but six days? To complete an entire Level Five testing scheme!? That’s sus, you know?”

“Do you think we’re in danger?” Minho asked.

“We might be. Even so, we signed a contract and consent forms... We knew what we were getting into when we signed them. Legally, we can’t back out.”

“You think we’ll die?” you asked nonchalantly while casually flipping through a magazine. After listening to Jisung and Minho panic for over an hour, you were begging to get bored and desensitized of the fear.

“No ~ They wouldn’t let that happen to us...! I think...” Jisung gulped.

Until midnight, you three stayed together and talked about life outside of these sleeping pods. Turns out, all three of you had a lot in common. You all also agreed that despite going through your own struggles with mental illnesses, the other test subjects probably had it much worse. Everyone else’s IDs had a green sticker on them, while the three of you had red, which Jisung said it indicated that everyone else was mature enough to actually seek help while you three didn’t have the time, money, or patience for all of that.

The one thing you noticed about Jisung’s ID was that his defense mechanism was eight - double the amount of yours.

“Do you know what it means?” you asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve never had that section on my ID before. If it’s out of ten, I think Minho and I are good. You, on the other hand...”

“Lucky me, huh?”

“Maybe it’s not important,” Minho reassured. “Could be just a random stat. Like your blood type, or something.”

“Even if it was important, it’s not like they would just blindly throw you into knowing that.”

That, and Minho’s gentle smile, calmed you down a little bit. “Thanks, guys.”

A few minutes before the clock struck midnight, the entire cube fell silent, anxiously awaiting orders from our doctor. Everything was so up in the air at this point that the best you could do was expect the unexpected.

On the dot, Dr. Woojin walked into the room.

“Good evening,” he greeted. “Let’s all go to the testing room.”

The testing room was a lot bigger from the inside. Ten reclining chairs were nailed down in a circle all facing each with two large metal plates hung on each side of the head rest. The security guards instructed all of you to choose one to sit in and you, Minho, and Jisung decided to sit next to each other. Once the seats were chose, the security guards handed each of you a small cup with a pill shaped like the letter A.

“Tonight we will be studying the effects of Pill A. Out of the three pills, Pill A has the lowest concentration of the active ingredient, so the team behind the double mirror,” Dr. Woojin paused, pointing behind him, “will be making sure that everything is within the range of that concentration. All of our data is measured through the metal plates on each side of your head. The data measured is just like any other sleep study - brain waves and eye movement are measured through the built-in electroencephalograph and the electro-oculogram. The duration of the test will take six hours, around the average time a person spends going through all of the sleep cycles. That’s about it - the other two tests will be conducted similarly. The only precaution that I have to offer is that you may experience extremely vivid dreams to the point where you remember every detail, to which we will use in our post-evaluation. Are there any questions?”

No one raised their hand even though it looked like you all had a million questions to ask.

“Perfect.” Dr. Woojin and the body guards exited the testing room to go in the room where his team would be monitoring your sleep. “Please take the pill,” he ordered over the intercom.

You, Minho, and Jisung gave each other one last look before downing the chalky, cherry-tasting pill without water. You felt the sedative kick in right away like it was the strongest form of Nyquil you had ever experienced.

“Lights are dimmed. EEG and EOG are on. Pills are ingested. Testing will begin in three... two... one...”

You’re in a coffee shop sitting at one of the tables in the corner by the large window-wall, casually flipping through one of your many dating apps waiting for your partner to arrive. He was always fashionably late. Even if you purposely told him to come at an earlier time, he saw right through you and would still arrive later than you expected. Luckily, you hadn’t ordered anything yet, so at least your drink wouldn’t be cold.

“Sorry I’m late,” Minho said half-assed as he plopped down on the chair in front of you. He held two cups of coffee in his hands, to which you gladly took one.

“No, you’re not.”

“I bought our drinks, so we’re even.” From his backpack, he pulled out several folders stuffed with papers and documents and dropped all of them on the table. “Are you ready for this?”

“Why are we doing this here? This is so not discreet, like what kind of a spy are you!?”

“That’s the beauty of it, love - they would never expect us to be this stupid that we’d be discussing our business in the open like this.”

“If I die on the clock, I’m blaming it all on you and will spend my time in the afterlife haunting you until you join me,” you scoffed before sipping your coffee. “So who’s our target this time?”

“Son Chaeyoung, heiress of one of the country’s most popular airline companies. She’s supposedly one of ten people in the entire world who owns a pair of the famous pink diamond heart-shaped drop earrings.”

Her name sounds painfully familiar. You recognized the stinging pain in your chest at the sound of her name, but chose to ignore it, unsure of why this was happening to you.

A whistle escaped your lips upon hearing her history. “Must be nice to be rich.”

“Actually, her fiance gave it to her.”

“That must be nice, too.”

“... Anyways, the plan is to go to the party she’s hosting at her mansion and steal it then.”

“You and I are going to steal from her own home?” Minho nodded casually as if it was a simple favor he was asking of you. “How do you plan on doing that without getting caught!?”

“Seduce her, of course.”

“Yeah, like you could seduce an heiress,” you scoffed.

"Wanna bet on it?” he challenged with a smirk.

“Didn’t you just say she’s engaged? Isn’t this really risky?”

“When have either of those factors ever stop us before!?” You fell silent at his truthful statement. Seduction was just one of your’s & Minho’s many fields of expertise. Sure, you’ve had your fair share of flirting with engaged men just for Minho to snatch up whatever was on the wanted list, but that didn’t mean you never felt bad about it. “Look, the resell price we could make from this set is far too good for us to pass up. Think about it, we wouldn’t have to heist for months! We can take a break and buy a ticket to any corner of the world - just you and I. You’ve always talked about going to Singapore, right? Let’s go there!”

There’s something in you that says that seducing this poor girl for her beautiful jewelry given by her fiance is totally wrong and that you should move on to some other poor rich sucker, but there’s a stab in your chest whenever you hear her name and for whatever reason, you really wanted to take those earrings away from her.

“Fine, I’m in.”

“Yes!” Minho cheered, rubbing his greedy little hands together. This was the type of adrenaline that he lived for. “Let the heist begin.”

For the duration of your time at the coffee shop and up until the weekend, you and Minho spent nearly every waking hour together coordinating the master plan. You were in charge of getting the blueprints of her mansion, finding out what type of man she was into, and somehow receiving an invite to the party. Minho was in charge of the attire, the equipment, and the itinerary. The blueprint was the most important tool in the heist, which allowed you two to gauge where her bedroom was so no time was wasted aimlessly wandering around. Of course, her bedroom was at the farthest corner relative to where the party was being held, but you’ll make your way there somehow. You just hoped Minho would be able to distract her long enough.

“How did you manage to get an invite?” Minho called from your room as you were getting dressed in the bathroom.

“I had Jeongin hack into her assistant’s laptop and add us to the guest list. We couldn’t get a physical copy of the invite, but apparently that’s just for aesthetics - they still check off names at the door.”

“That’s incredible! We should hire that Jeongin kid one day. Maybe we can be a threesome.”

“That sounds like a great idea as long as you don’t call us a threesome.”

Minho halted his snickering when you waltz out of the bathroom head-to-toe in the ensemble he picked out, jewelry on and everything. He’s seen you in this type of clothing all the time, but you were always a sight for his sore eyes.

He whistled lowly while cheekily eyeing you up and down. “Lookin’ good, partner.”

“Not so bad yourself,” you grinned while you smoothed out his suit. “Are you wearing your Bluetooth set?”

He tucked his hair to show you the little pod in his ear. “Yup. Got your cute and tiny gun?” he teased.

"It’s not cute and tiny, it’s stealthy and practical,” you pouted while exposing the gun strapped in by your garter.

“Whatever you say. But anyways, I think we’re set. Are you ready, partner?”

“As I’ll ever be. Let’s get our tickets to Singapore.”

Minho drove his fancy all black car that had those butterfly doors that opened upwards just so he could flex on all the other rich men who thought they were all that. You thought it was a bit too extra and might raise suspicion from some wary guests, but there was no turning back now. On the way to the mansion, you quizzed Minho on the topics that would make Chaeyoung fall head-over heels for him.

“Ok, so she collects art pieces from all over the world, right? She loves the Baroque period, but she’s gained a huge interest in Surrealism so I’ll say some shit like I have an original Dali piece, or something.”

“Hey, that’s pretty good. I'm feelin’ pretty seduced right now.”

“Really!? That’s a good sign coming from you,” Minho chuckled cutely.

The mansion was nothing short of what you expected it to be. It was huge, with white columns, each covered with flowers that were different shades of pink. The valet took Minho’s car keys once he approved both of your names on the guest list and that was the green light for you two to start the heist.

The inside was naturally even more stunning than the outside. From the marble tiles, to the staircase, and to the shining chandelier, everything was all-white and gilded in gold. You’ve seen more extravagant mansions, but for an heiress no older than you and Minho, this was pretty impressive.

“All right, partner - seduce away,” you teased.

“Will do. Don’t get caught or die or anything, ok?"

“No promises. Give me the green light whenever you’re ready.”

With that, you both went your separate ways. It still felt like you were near each other though, because every once in a while one of you would comment on some cool thing you saw in one of the infinite rooms or hallways. While exploring the depths of Chaeyoung’s palace all the while trying to layout the blueprints you memorized, you noticed there was a tall staircase just as beautiful as the main one that was closed off with a velvet rope.

“I think I’m close,” you muttered to Minho in your earpiece. “I found the staircase that led up to one of the corners of the second floor.”

“Hey, great. But don’t go in there yet - I think Chaeyoung’s still making her rounds.”

It wasn’t until two hours into the party after you and Minho devoured in hors d’oeuvres and painfully resisted champagne when Chaeyoung finally approached your handsome partner who was eyeing the Vanitas Flower Still Life by Willem van Aelst.

“This is one of my favorite paintings in my collection,” you heard Chaeyoung say through your earpiece.

“A fan of the Baroque period?” Minho replied.

“Oh, yes. I can’t explain why, but there’s something about this style that just draws you in, right? Maybe it’s the way the pastels sit on a dark negative space.”

You wondered if he understood what any of those words meant. “I’m more of an Impressionist kind of man.” Minho ignored your ugly snort when he said that. “Monet is a classic favorite, you know?”

“Agreed!”

“But do you know what my absolute favorite movement is?”

“What is it?”

“Surrealism.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I have an original Dali piece hanging in my study.”

When Chaeyoung bit her lip and grabbed Minho’s hand to take him to God knows where, he figured he got this in the bag. As the two of them were walking through a crowd of loud and drunk guests, he took this opportunity to talk into his earpiece.

“Go now.”

“Huh... That was easy.”

“So is she, I guess.”

As quick as you came in, you hopped over the velvet rope and ran up the stairs. You ditched your heels in one of the laundry chutes in the process, as you found out that even the second floor was laid out in white marble. If you remembered the blue prints correctly, you knew that her bedroom was on the other side of that floor level, which might not sound so far in a normal home, but considering that was the size of a hotel, you had to figure out how you would make your way over without getting caught.

It was hard to stay focused when you could hear sloppy kissing on the other end.

“Can you be quiet, for Christ’s sake!? All I hear is saliva!” you whispered.

Minho ignored you scolding and continued on with his task. So you wouldn’t puke all over her nice floors, you lowered the volume and kept going. This was going to be a long night.

After avoiding Chaeyoung’s house staff and running down several long hallways, you were finally face-to-face with the only black door in the whole house. This had to be her room.

“Hey, I think I found it,” you told Minho.

“Mm,” was all you received, either as a confirmation or he was in the moment still with his new heiress friend.

The door was unlocked and inside was a man dressed in his pajamas casually sitting on the ginormous king-sized bed. Panic began to rise in your chest and you think you have to use your gun, but he didn’t seemed startled when he saw you. Rather, he gave you a gentle smile that flipped your heart and a simple wave. There’s something familiar about him and it pained you the same way when you saw or heard of Chaeyoung.

“Hi,” he greeted. “Can I help you...?”

Fuck. “O-Oh...! This isn’t the bathroom?” you burst out into a loud giggle that hid your panic. “Silly me! I must have drank too much champagne.”

“Yeah, that can happen. There’s a bathroom around the corner if you need it.”

“Oh, thanks!” Before the handsome man could say anything else, you run into the room next door.

On the other end of the line, you heard Minho excuse himself to find a bathroom of his own. “What happened!?” he whispered.

“Her fiance is in the bedroom! What do I do?”

“Guess you have to seduce him, too.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Do you want to get the fuck out of here, or not!? I’m sacrificing myself by seducing Chaeyoung, you should, too!”

“Oh, shut up, you’re enjoying this way more than you should be,” you mumbled. “Fine. I’ll let you know what’s up.”

“Ok, good. I guess I’ll get back to making out with my target now...”

You ignored his last remark and check the time on your watch. The hands read 00:00, but that couldn’t have been right... You swear that you and Minho have been there for hours beyond that. The seconds hand was stuck right on the twelve mark and you’re not sure if that’s a coincidence or if something was up. You let it slide, thinking that your watch was simply broken.

You invited yourself into their bedroom once more, making sure to give the fiance a knock on the door as a warning. Again, the man is not surprised nor is he upset. Instead, he found this quite amusing.

He found you quite cute, too.

“Can I help you again?”

“Yeah, uh... I’m not feeling too hot. Do you mind if I sit with you...?”

“Please,” he encouraged, patting down a spot next to him. “I’m watching some trashy drama. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all! I love shitty dramas. But why aren’t you downstairs with everyone else?”

“Ugh, I just hate huge parties like this. I tell Chaeyoung every time that I never want to attend these functions, but you know her, she just goes and does whatever she wants. I’m just her fiance, after all,” a tired chuckle escaped his lips. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever introduced myself. My name is Bang Chan.”

There’s a sting in your heart that felt like several nails were being hammered in at all angles and all crevices when you heard his name. You know you’ve heard it somewhere before and you know there’s a reason for all the heartache, but you can’t put your tongue on it. But that was crazy for you to believe you knew his name - you’ve never met this man in your entire life! You didn’t even know what Chaeyoung’s fiance looked like before this heist, and yet there’s something about him that made you believe you’ve spent at least one lifetime together, just by hearing his name.

Maybe it was in a dream.

“And you are...?” he trailed off.

You swallowed hard. “_____ _____.”

“Nice to meet you, _____.”

“Bang Chan, have we met before?”

He thought for a moment and shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so. I would have definitely remembered you if we have.”

Your cheeks warmed so quickly so embarrassingly, but Bang Chan thought it was charming, so he laughed. It sounded like hearing your favorite song for the very first time.

“_____, get out of there!” Minho hissed, breaking you away form your broken thoughts. “Chaeyoung is wearing the earrings right now and she’s going up to her room to change!”

“U-Uh, I have to go,” you muttered, hopping off of the bed.

“Oh, ok...” For a moment, you thought he was sad you’re leaving, but that couldn’t be it. “I’ll see you again sometime?”

“Sure.”

“Promise?”

You didn’t answer. “Good bye, Bang Chan.”

You then slipped away from the bedroom and hoped to never see his beautiful smile ever again. But the feeling of leaving his side was more painful than when you met him.

When you turned the corner, you bumped into the ever-so famous and beautiful Son Chaeyoung, who looked annoyed that someone had dared to touch her other than Bang Chan or art-enthusiast Lee Minho.

“Watch where you’re going!” she scolded, not even questioning why you were up there in the first place.

You didn’t let her snobbiness bother you. How could you let it, when one of her pink heart-shaped diamond drop earrings fell on the floor right in front of you?

You snatched it off of the floor and sprinted down the stairs, where an impatient Minho waited for you.

“Go go go!” you giggled, grabbing the hand of the confused man. He didn’t question it though, thinking that your giggling was a good sign.

Minho grabbed his keys from the valet, telling the nervous boy that he’d retrieve his car himself, since you were already halfway to the parking spot. Never in either of your careers had you two so messily escaped a scene just now and never had he heard you laugh like a hyena before.

“Why are you being so weird!?” he asked after speeding away from the mansion. “I’m sweating so much right now.”

“Look!” you beamed, holding up the one heavy earring, and soon Minho joined you in your wild laughter.

“You know how that happened?” Minho began his story, rather than making it a question. “While I was, you know, ‘doing my job’, I would have my hands on the back of her head and I’d try to loosen the backing of the earring. I can’t believe it fucking worked!”

“I feel like crying,” you said once your giggles subsided. “Ready for Singapore, partner?”

“Yeah, but we only have one earring, so spend your half wisely.”

You awake in your chair sweating like your finished a marathon. It took a second for you to realize that yes, you are definitely breathing, but you should calm down before you pass out. Other than the heavy breathing and gross amounts of sweat, you feel just fine - as fine as you were before taking Pill A.

Oh, that’s right - you must have completed the first phase of testing just now. You were in District Pharmaceuticals, you were a test subject for a sequence of pills, and you just had a vivid dream with Minho in it. Dr. Woojin warned you and the other subjects six hours ago that these dreams were possible, yet knowing that Minho, a complete stranger to you, was in them felt... not necessarily wrong, but it definitely didn’t feel right, either.

Next to you, Minho was thinking and feeling the same thing. He was sweating, it was hard for him to breathe, and when he looked at you, it was like he knew what you dreamed about just now because hes was in there with you. Maybe that’s what happened when a bunch of people are dreaming and are surrounded by all the rays that measured their brain activity. Maybe other subjects’ dreams overlapped with each other’s, too.

“No, I was alone in mine, with only people that I knew poppin’ up here and there,” Jisung said when you asked him. It was just you two sitting at the table drinking some water while Minho went straight for his sleeping pod, clearly not wanting to socialize after something like that. You didn’t blamed him. “Were you not alone?”

“No, Minho was in my dream.”

“Really!? That’s crazy! Were you in his?”

“I have no idea. But you what else is crazy?” Jisung leaned in. “I have this feeling that he and I were having the same dream.”

“What? Like you two had two separate dreams and you just somehow appeared in each other’s?”

“No, even weirder - I think we had the same, single dream bubble.”

“Maybe Dr. Woojin can help you figure it out during post-evaluation.”

“Number one, you’re up first,” ushered one of the security guards.

“Speaking of. Good luck in there, friend. Let me know how it goes,” Jisung reassured.

“Will do.”

The security guard led you through an unfamiliar hallway that you swear you didn’t pass through yesterday. Who knows though, maybe you did and you just didn’t realize it. All of the hallways were starting to look the same at this point.

It’s been about half an hour since you woke up from you vivid dream with Minho. You could still picture every second of that scenario and could describe it in detail if Dr. Woojin asked that of you. You didn’t question why that specific plot line was how your dream went because did any of your dreams ever make sense? No, but you couldn’t figure out why Bang Chan and Son Chaeyoung, of all the fucking people in the world, appeared in your dream. After today, Dr. Woojin was probably going to tell you how your traumatic experiences with them contributed to your well-being, or some bullshit like that, but you didn’t need an expert to tell you that. Somehow, though, seeing them felt... relieving?

“Welcome, number one,” Dr. Woojin greeted as you stepped into the room. “It’s _____, correct?”

You were too mesmerized by all of the cameras surrounding the chair you would sit in that pointed at different angles. A bunch of monitors hung on the wall behind you and you were starting to get nervous. You didn’t like being recorded.

“Y-Yes, _____ is right.”

“Please, have a seat.”

And so you did, with the eyes of at least eight cameras staring right at you. Then, with you barely noticing, Dr. Woojin linked you up to some heart rate monitor or brain wave monitor - you couldn’t tell the difference when only your hand was connected.

“I will be asking you a series of questions and monitoring your answers as we go along. Do your best to answer as clearly, concise, and honest as possible, ok? This won’t hurt, or anything.”

His reassurance was enough to calm you down just a little. “Ok,” you replied.

“Good. First question. Describe your experience when you took Pill A.”

You take a deep breath to calm you beating heart. “Pill A was chalky. Kind of like those Flinstones vitamins you used to get when you were a kid, you know? Cherry flavored is what I can recall. After that, I fell asleep.”

“Would you say your experience was satisfactory?”

“If the purpose of it is to knock me out, then yes, very satisfied.”

“Excellent,” he jotted down several words you couldn’t read and check marked several boxes. You hoped that was a good sign. “What was the first thing you noticed after that?”

“I noticed that I was out in public.”

“What did you see?”

Minho. “A coffee shop. I was in a coffee shop.”

“Did you see anyone you recognized?”

You lied and shook your head. “No, not there.”

“But somewhere else?”

“Yeah, I... It was weird. I was like, a spy or something? I was on a mission to steal some really expensive earrings so I could travel to Singapore.”

“How did the heist go?”

“It went well - I got one earring, hopped in the car, and drove away. The dream ended there.”

“So you saw someone you recognized sometime during the heist?”

Your jaw was beginning to hurt from the grinding your teeth. “Yeah, I saw my ex-boyfriend and the girl he cheated on me with.”

“What was their role in your dream?”

“I was stealing the earrings from her and my ex was her fiance. Weirdest fucking dream I’ve had in my entire life.”

“How did you feel after that?”

“Invigorated. Like they got what they deserved, and I didn’t even have to punch them in the face for it. But god, just seeing them was so painful... I mean, really I should be over it by now... It’s been over a year since that happened. But I could never seem to let it go.”

“Would you say you could now?”

“Well, since I’m not actually in Singapore, not 100 percent but... I feel like I’m a one step closer to doing so. It’d be the most progress I made since it happened.”

“That’s good. I’m glad,” Dr. Woojin gave you a calming smile. “Your evaluation is over. You may return to the common area.”

A heavy weight lifted from your shoulders and you’re starting to see the purpose of the study a bit clearer than last night. You initially thought you were just going to pop some pills and call it a day, but oh no, this was way beyond your expectations and you’re not sure if you should be glad you took up this opportunity or terrified that this could actually work.

And where did Minho tie in with all of this? You had to find out.

When you arrived back in the common room, you spot Minho’s head lift up from his book to catch your gaze. He looked both terrified and unsettled as he made his way back to his sleeping pod and shut the curtains.

You needed answers from him. You needed to know if he dreamed the same thing.

“Hey,” you muttered, opening his curtains just a tad. His back was hunched over facing you, not wanting to acknowledge you even a little bit. “I need to ask you something.”

“Please close my curtains,” he asked, not turning around.

“This is important.”

“Can’t it wait until later?”

“What did you dream about last night?”

Minho’s brief moment of silence was enough to answer your question. For some reason, he just wasn’t as excited or interested in this as you are - you, on the other hand, found this fascinating. How was it that two complete strangers were able to experience some form of life together? In that dream, you felt like Minho was your best friend. Was it destiny or some weird fate that brought your dream bubbles together?

Minho sighed and turned around to face you, surprised that you made yourself comfortable inside of his pod. Clearly, you wouldn’t be leaving without an answer, and in a way, he knew that. “You know what I dreamed about.”

“I knew it! You were totally there with me!” you beamed. “That’s crazy, right!?”

“Yeah...”

“How do you think this happened?”

“Computers and testing go wonky all the time. Maybe they accidentally crossed us over, or something.”

“For the whole duration of the dream? No way.”

“I don’t know.”

“You know, you weren’t this shy in our dream.”

“Do you want me to steal jewelry for you, too?” he scoffed. He gave up trying to ignore and turned around to face you, who was already inside his pod uninvited.

You only rolled your eyes. “Hey, tell me something - did you see anyone you knew in our dream? Like, a friend you know or like a teacher while we were separated?”

Minho shook his head. “I was confused, if I’m being honest. Usually when you dream, your brain uses faces you recognize to form the people that pop up in your dreams. But I didn’t recognize anyone. Did you?”

“Yeah, a couple.”

Minho didn’t press you for an answer, thinking your matter was private and he respected that. He had to in a place like this.

“By the way, about the post-evaluation,” you whispered, leaning in closely. “I didn’t tell Dr. Woojin that I saw you. I was afraid he’d throw one of us out, or something if he found out we’re overlapping.”

He nodded and understood. “Thank you. I’ll do the same.”

“Thanks!”

Minho kind of liked the way you smiled and leaned back against his pod like you were at peace with this moment in such a place like this. You seemed to be taking this whole testing thing a lot lighter than everyone else here, aside from Jisung who was used to all of this by now. Maybe that was the right attitude you needed to survive all six days, but then again it was only day two.

He can’t explain why, but he’s glad it was you of all people he got to share his dream bubble with. If it were anyone else, he’d probably beg to be taken out of the experiment saying some shit like he was unstable to continue forward. But he trusted you as much as he could trust just any random girl he met at a testing facility. And he enjoyed his dream with you, at least. You were fun to be around in that world, like he had experienced it with you hundreds of times before.

“Do you think we’ll see each other again tomorrow night?” you asked, breaking his thoughts.

He shrugged, "It’s possible. I won’t be too surprised this time around.” Though he secretly hoped he’d see you.

“Let’s hope the next time won’t be as dangerous,” you teased.

“Oh, but Danger is my middle name.”

“As long as we don’t die. You know what they say ~”

“You die in your dream, you die in real life?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ll make sure to be extra careful then.”

You were oddly excited for the following night. You couldn’t wait to see what type of dream you would have next, and whether or not Minho would be there to join you. It wasn’t that you needed him to be there, and was fun having a buddy with you to live a life you could literally only dream about living, but if the rest of your dreams would be as traumatic as the first, then having him there would help a ton.

You wondered what kind of dream you’d have next - maybe you would pass through a different era? Maybe this time you’d solve a murder mystery? The possibilities were endless! But you couldn’t control anything, so all you could do was hope.

And there was something about him that you couldn’t put your finger on - it was on the tip of your tongue - that made you feel a sort of natural attraction to him. He pulled you in without any intention. It was like you were meant to meet here. All the more reason for you to figure him out while you run through more adventures in your dreams together.

The daytime went about calmly. You, Jisung, and Minho were just hanging out talking more about your lives before any of this. Jisung tried to see if there was any kind of overlap with your’s and Minho’s lives that would explain why you two experienced the same dream, but nothing was connecting. You and Minho came from two different sides of town, different social class, different universities - pretty much nothing about you and Minho was even remotely similar, so yeah, Jisung concluded that this was some act of fate.

“Wow, nothing adds up at all,” Jisung said, completely baffled.

“Pretty cool, right?” you admitted.

“I don’t know if cool is really the right word...” Minho mumbled.

“Maybe you two were fated to meet.”

“In our dreams as test monkeys?”

“Fate is fate, Minho. Who knows, maybe you guys are soulmates, in some twisted way. That’s kind of romantic, right? Are both of you guys single?”

“Shut up, Jisung,” you and Minho said simultaneously.

Although you couldn’t wait to take Pill B, when you entered the testing room for the second time, the chairs and head plates were still terrifying. To maximize the likelihood of merging dreams, you and Minho sat in the same chairs right next to each other. Pill B was then given to everyone in a small dixie cup. This time, the pill was blue.

“We will now commence the testing of Pill B,” Dr. Woojin said over the intercom. “Ingest Pill B.” You all did as such with much less hesitation. This one tasted like blueberry. “Everything is set. Testing will begin in three... two... one...”

The first thing you saw was yourself as you looked into the mirror, dressed in an elegant jewel tone gown ready for a night out. You must have been inside your bathroom and not a public one, as you saw all of your expensive make-up, perfumes, and some jewelry scattered all over your side of the Jill sink. On the other side with the Jack sink laid shaving equipment, skin care products, and cologne untouched as their owner was out of sight.

Just as you were thinking about him, a pair of warm, strong arms wrapped themselves around your waist.

“Hi,” Minho whispered, nuzzling his head against yours in the softest manner. His stray hairs, all messy from bed still, were tickling your neck. “What are you looking so beautiful for?”

“Nuh-uh, don’t even try to compliment your way out of this one. We have your parents’ wedding anniversary, remember?”

“Mm, I was hoping you’d forget so we wouldn’t have to go.”

You turned yourself around so you could face your loving husband who now pressed you to the side of the sink. He wanted to be as close to you as possible because he could never get enough of touching you. It was his way of telling you how much he loved you without having to say a word.

“Don’t be so pouty tonight, ok? Let’s have some fun - tonight’s a night to celebrate love.”

“We can do that in the bedroom ~” he mumbled lowly, lips travelling to the crook of your neck to that one spot that made your knees weak.

Playfully, you shove your handsome man off before you caved in and made your way out of the bathroom. “I’ll be in the kitchen whenever you’re ready.”

“We can celebrate there too, if you want!”

You ignored his whines and waited a patient half hour in the kitchen while he got ready. Tonight was your in-laws’ celebration of their 25th wedding anniversary. Before meeting the Lees, you’ve never even heard of an anniversary celebrated before the 50th year, but the Lees were a special kind of expensive family who celebrated anything and everything. If you thought their 24th anniversary party last year was huge, this year’s was going to be ginormous.

Mr. Lee Minho, CEO of the Min Hotel and your loving husband, slyly walked towards you with his signature smirk that made you fall for him at first sight. He wore some designer suit you couldn’t pronounce and his cute dangly earrings.

“Hey, handsome. Come here often ~?” you teased.

“Can you imagine if that’s what you asked me when we first met?”

“Instead of ‘hi, would you like to try our special peppermint latte today?’ No, I can’t imagine.”

“Did I ever tell you that was the best peppermint latte I’ve ever had?”

“Only every other day. Are you finally ready to head out?”

“Do we really have to go...?”

“Yes, we do. We don’t have to stay long. At least to go see your mother.”

“Fine, but don’t you dare leave my side unless it’s for food, booze, or the bathroom.”

“Ok, whatever you say ~”

Minho’s driver pulled up to meet you at the front door. He was also your driver, but you’ve never found a need to use him so often when you could just drive yourself. You don’t think you could ever get used to your husband’s lifestyle, no matter how long you two have been together.

The car ride was spent with your head on Minho’s shoulder while holding his hand. He liked playing the game of drawing little shapes and words on the back of your hand and you’d have to guess what he drew.

“That’s a star,” you said.

“Mhm.”

“That’s a... cat face?”

“Soonie or Doongie?”

“Soonie!”

“Wow, you’re good. How about this one?”

“That’s inappropriate, Mr. Lee,” you scolded, slapping his hand away.

Minho chuckled and held you closer, peppering little kisses all over the top of your head until you finally looked up and pulled him in for a real kiss. Neither of you could stop smiling nor kissing like newly weds on their honeymoon.

“We have arrived,” your driver announced through the crack of the partition.

“I really don’t want to go,” Minho sighed into the kiss, feeling a painful sting in his chest.

“Just for a little bit,” you reassured. “C’mon, we’re already here.”

Hand-in-hand, you and Minho walked into The Min Hotel, the number one luxury hotel in the country. Minho was already overworked running this place and now he had to actually socialize and attempt to enjoy such a place. You could tell he was tense the second you both walked through the doors, so you squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“Remember to have fun, ok? You’re not working today or anything.”

“I’m here with you, so of course I’ll have fun,” he said.

The ballroom was decked out in twinkling lights and white lilies, the same decorations that were arranged at his parents’ actual wedding. Only the finest plates and crystal glasses were at the tables with open bottles of expensive champagne ready to be poured. Even if you could think up the biggest most expensive wedding reception of your dreams, this venue could not even come close to your imagination.

But that’s ok, because you already lived your dream wedding - just you and Minho, alone with the minister in a rose garden as you said your vows. Neither of you needed a huge audience to witness.

“Minho!” you both heard his mother call.

Like a true mama’s boy, he ran up to his mother happily and gave her a big hug. She was dressed in a beautiful long, white gown and looked like she hadn’t aged since she got married twenty-five years ago.

His father was nowhere to be seen.

“_____, you’re as stunning as ever,” his mother complimented, immediately going in to hug you.

“I’m nothing compared to you,” you said back.

“Ah, you always make me feel so young ~” she gushed happily, blushing as pink as a rose.

“Where’s Dad?” Minho asked reluctantly.

“At the bar, as usual.”

“Well, that’s one corner I know to avoid.”

“Hey, be nice tonight, ok? It’s our anniversary, for God’s sake,” his mother scolded, pointing an accusatory finger at her pouty son. “Now you kids have fun, ok?”

“Yes, mom...”

For the first half of the night, you and Minho delved into the luxuries of the party. You both snacked on caviar and capers that the waiters handed out on silver platters, drank golden champagne from the crystal glasses, and spent an eternity at the dessert table. The entire affair was too way too extravagant for such an occasion, but at least the food was to die for.

While you were trying to have fun for the both of you, Minho couldn’t shake off the anxiety he felt whenever he saw his father. He was boring holes into his stupid, designer tuxedo, yet he never gave him the time of day. He didn’t stop to say hi on his way to the bar for the fifth time, didn’t wave, and didn’t even look his way. Even though he was the star heir to the hotel, Minho might as well have not existed to his father. It was like he was the child of disappointment and regret all over again.

This dream was starting to get too real... Then it clicked.

Fuck this pill.

“Hey,” you said, tearing him away from his moment of existential crisis and self depreciation. “Dance with me?”

You must haven’t realized this was the effects of Pill B yet, but your smile was so warm and loving, how could he say no? In this lifetime, in this world, this version of you, you were so deeply in love with him and he needed that so desperately right now.

In this dream, he loved you so much, too, so he’ll play along until it was time to wake up.

“Of course, love,” he said, taking you to the middle of the dance floor where the whole venue could see.

You delicately wrapped your arms around his neck while he rested his at the small of your back. For three dances, your husband was quiet, eyes drooping lowly like he was about to fall asleep. Was it that late already? You checked your watch for the time.

00:00, with the seconds hand stuck on the twelve.

Everything clicked.

The space around you both began to change and it did not go unnoticed. By the fifth song, the twinkling lights dimmed to blackness. No longer could either of you see the rest of the guests and even his parents, who you thought were approaching you two just a second ago, were nowhere to be seen in the darkness. All you could see was Minho’s handsome face just centimeters from yours.

“Are we still dreaming?” you whispered, though already knowing the answer.

“I really, really hope so,” he admitted.

“Are you ok?”

“Yeah.. Uh hey, since we’re dreaming... can I kiss you?”

You only nodded in response, and before you stopped, Minho immediately leaned down to press his lips to yours. Even if this was a dream, it felt so, so real - his lips were soft, warm, and desperate, finding solace by molding with yours. You felt ever bit of sadness he experienced in the dream in his kiss and you figured this was something he needed.

The second he pulled away, he disappeared and your vision went black.

You awoke in the same manner from two nights ago - covered in sweat, gasping for air, with a sped up heart rate. Minho woke up the same way, and neither of you could look each other in the eye after that dream.

Pill B contained a higher concentration of whatever active ingredient it had, and you supposed that correlated with the intensity of the dreams. Compared to the dream from Pill A, Pill B felt much shorter, almost half the time you experienced in Pill A, but the realness of the dream felt like it was ten times stronger. This dream was about Minho and his relationship with his father, but the minor details of the dream were meant for you to delve in.

You had complete and entire memories in that dream bubble. You and Minho had memories of when you first met, of your first date, of the day you got married, and every kiss, fight, and laughing fits you ever experienced. Truly, you two lived an entire life filled with love under the influence of Pill B - a life you could only ever dream about. When your ex-boyfriend Bang Chan left you for Son Chaeyoung, you never thought you could experience a love so true ever again. You lived in constant fear and pessimism that love was never real and that everyone was only lying to themselves when it came to the matter. But in this dream, you experienced a life full of love that you’ve always wanted with Chan. And even if you would never experience that with Chan - even if you experienced it with a stranger named Lee Minho - you knew this was something you wanted in your next relationship.

Soon you would learn and accept that a love like your’s and Minho’s would come easily - as easy as it would in a dream.

Again, you were the first to give your post evaluation. You said all there was about it, from beginning to end, and what you thought it could mean. You didn’t say you were with Minho. You said you were with some faceless man and said how that represented the void that you felt when Chan left you. Or some bullshit like that.

You didn’t care about the post evaluation. You just wanted to talk to Minho again.

But maybe you would be over-stepping your boundaries. This was pretty much his dream, after all. You didn’t want to be nosy by asking him what the dream and the kissing at the end meant to him.

Maybe you were taking this testing too seriously. You would never see him again after this was over anyways, right? But for some reason, just thinking about that made your heart drop to the pit of your stomach.

There was something in Pill B that made you feel extra light headed after your evaluation, so you headed straight for your sleeping pod, ignoring the curious stares of Minho and Jisung. Today, you were the one not up for any socializing.

Hours passed as you not only napped in your pod, but read a few chapters of some book, ate your breakfast and lunch, and did a couple of puzzles in your pod, also. You had to keep yourself occupied in a prison like this. How else were you going to survive such a powerful and painful mental cleansing? Even after all of that, your light headed-ness was still present. Didn’t Dr. Woojin say there were no side effects? Maybe that was due to your level four defense mechanism.

To your surprise, sometime at around 8:00 pm, your curtain was pulled open.

“Hey,” Minho greeted shyly. “Can I come in?”

Wordlessly, you nodded, scooting over so he could sit next to you. You could really use his company right now.

“I, uh, figured I should explain why our dream was like that.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I want to, if that’s ok.”

“Of course, Minho.”

Hearing his name sent a shock through his body. “You met my mom in the dream. She actually passed away a couple of years ago. Since then, my dad hasn’t been able to keep a job or complete any regular daily tasks other than downing any alcohol he can find. He’ll put the blame for her death on himself and then on me, and soon I really began to believe it was my fault. He can’t even look at me anymore.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It’s ok.”

“Why are you telling me this, though? I’m just a strange girl in your dreams, for all you know.”

He shrugged, not really knowing the answer himself. “I don’t know. I just... wanted to talk to you. I also thought me giving you some background information would somehow justify me asking to um, kiss you earlier, but it really doesn’t, does it?” he chuckled nervously.

“Is that the reason you ended up here?”

“Yeah... that, and other personal struggles, but yeah. I miss her a lot, you know?”

“You look a lot like her.”

“Do I really?”

“Yeah,” you smiled. “I bet she would be proud of you for coming here and trying to seek help for yourself.”

Cautiously, Minho laid his hand on top of yours, painting the same little shapes on the back with his thumb. “Thank you for saying that.”

“Wanna hear my story?”

“I would love to.”

“You know our first dream with the heist?” Minho nodded, listening attentively. “Chaeyoung is the girl my ex-boyfriend cheated on me with.”

“Ouch...”

“Yeah. Her fiance I met upstairs in her room was my ex. I caught them at a party one night last year. He left my side and said he was just going to make his rounds and say hi to his friends, but when I went to look for him after a while, they were in some stranger’s bed. It really doesn’t sound like a big deal - other people who get cheated on, they could just drop him right away and move onto the next person just like that. But how could I when he made me feel like I could fly for those years we were together? It wasn’t even him cheating on me that made me lose my sense of self, you know? I was just so dependent on him for self-worth... It was like I didn’t know who I was without him. This past year without him has been really hard, to the point where I almost flunked out of school. And so I ended up here, because my heart is so very weak and pathetic and I need to fucking fix it.”

“You’re not weak or pathetic. Just fragile.”

“That’s just a nicer word for it...”

“Eh, yeah. That’s what my mom used to say to me. My dad would call me weak a lot and then afterwards, my mom would wipe my tears and say that I wasn’t weak, I was fragile. I just needed to be taken extra care of.”

“Your a soft dude, Minho,” you teased. “Is it weird to say that I really enjoyed being married to you for those five fake years?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You took extra care of my fragile, level four defense mechanism of a heart while we were together. It really, truly felt like you did that for five years.”

A dark blush burned his cheeks. “I’m glad you thought so.”

“Mm. I hope to feel the kind of love I felt for you for real one day.”

“Me, too.”

“Tell me your life story, Minho.”

“Ok. I was born on October 25th...”

You spent the next couple of hours talking to Minho like he was your best friend while you both continued to play with each other’s hands. He gave you a very detailed timeline of his life from the day he was born up until he met you and you did the same, losing track of time completely. Then the next morning you continued on talking about your favorite movies, books, foods - anything you could think of to fill in the gap until it was time to test the very last pill, the strongest of them all.

“What do you think we’ll dream about this time?” you asked excitedly.

“We’re both idols.”

“Ugh gross, I don’t wanna dream about that! Besides, I don’t think Pill C would be called the strongest pill if that’s all we end up dreaming about.”

“Ok, how about we’re cowboys in the wild west with those weird American accents? We have guns and stuff.”

“Ooh interesting, I like that one. Or how about assassins?”

“A little risky considering if we die in the dream, we could die in real life.”

Then midnight came around. After tonight, everyone would have their final evaluation and then you’d be cured! Well, maybe. One thing for sure was that in a matter of hours, you would no longer be with Minho. You two would move on with your lives like you never met, like those fake five years married together and being partners in crime meant absolutely nothing.

It broke your heart, just a little.

“Welcome to the last test, Pill C,” Dr. Woojin said over the intercom after everyone was settled in their seats. “Pill C has the highest concentration of the active ingredient. You will experience the most vivid and possibly violent dreams you will ever experience in your lifetime. The final test and the evaluation that follows will ultimately determine if you have been cured - a confrontation of some sorts. Although my description remains to be as mysterious as ever, I hope by now that you all have faith my testing scheme to continue forward through completion. We will now commence the testing of the last pill. If you will now please ingest Pill C.”

The flavor was grape.

“Excellent. Pill C has been ingested, instruments are operating, and the last testing will begin in three... two... one...”

You see black; you smell blood; you taste fabric that’s been wrapped around your mouth to keep you quiet; you feel your wrists chafing against the rope that held them together; and lastly, you hear a gun cock before it’s being pressed to your forehead.

The gag in your mouth gets yanked off and you can finally breathe, though you’re not sure for how much longer.

“Who do you work for?” an unknown voice threatened lowly in your ear.

“I work for no one,” you said as you were always taught.

A hard slap hits your cheek and you feel high levels of heat rising to the point of contact. Your whole body stung in various ways so a slap to the cheek just added to the pile.

“Who do you work for?” he repeated.

“I work for no one.”

Another slap to the other cheek and this time you think you taste blood.

Your sweat-covered blindfold finally gets taken off and thrown to the floor. It takes you several seconds for your eyes to adjust to the single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. Your surroundings are familiar - you’re in a clean, smooth-walled room with no windows, a table, and a single man standing in front of you inspecting his shiny glock. You were still in their interrogation room.

The cold metal of the gun rested on the bottom of your chin and forced your head up to look at the handsome man straight in his catty eyes. Despite his position in front of you at the moment, you would have never expected such playful eyes to take part in the mafia.

“Are you a cop?” he asked.

The longer you refused to answer, the more the gun was being pressed to your throat until the back of your neck hit the chair and you were trapped in between.

“No, I’m not,” you spat out.

“Then who do you work for, hm? That snake Seo Changbin?”

“No.”

“If you don’t work for anyone, why were you at our rendezvous spot?”

“Mere coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” he scoffed, finally letting the gun fall so he could twirl it around careless like a toy. “You think it was a coincidence that you ended up at our spot while our drug-moving got busted? At the fucking pier?”

“I like to jog by the ocean.”

The young mafia lord burst into a loud fit of laughter, really surprised that you were keeping up this facade for as long as you could. He had to give you props - no one had ever sat in front of Minho without confessing right away or pissing their pants on the spot. Either you really didn’t care to live or you were extremely loyal.

He’ll give you credit for that.

Your not sure what’s taking this guy so long to just pop your head off. There’s something he wants from you, and you know it, but he should know by now after days of interrogation that you weren’t going to spill. And it wasn’t like the precinct was going to find you anytime soon. It would be so easy for him, too - like ok, you weren’t going to give him any sort of information? Fine, he’ll just end it there, saving both him and you tons of time and unnecessary torture.

But maybe that’s what he wanted - to torture you and starve you to death. He would never actually shoot you. No, that would be way too easy. Lee Minho, The Boss of his Mafia in District 9, wanted to squeeze you dry until the very last drop where you’d confess everything and he’d let you go.

If that was the case, this guy was a cruel man, though you didn’t expect anything less.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Why did it matter? Shouldn’t he have asked you this two days ago? “_____.”

“_____,” he repeated with honey dripping from his voice. “Such a pretty name for a pretty girl.”

“I guess...”

“And what does _____ like to do for fun?” The man was now sitting on the other chair with the gun on the table, not really interested in using it at the moment, accompanied by his feet. We he trying to make small talk with you?

“I like to read...”

“That’s not very fun.”

“What do you like to do for fun?”

“Do I look like I have time for fun, my love? Well, actually this is quite fun.”

“Is this a normal thing in daily Mafia Boss life?”

“For Lee Minho it is.”

“Why even bother? Can’t you just shoot me and get it over with?”

“Because there’s no fun in that, silly! Besides, I kind of like you,” he winked.

“Wh-What?”

“You’re not scared of me, you’re loyal to your team, and you’re obedient. It’s a shame you don’t work for me - I would have loved to have you on the team.”

“It’s not too late ~”

“Ah, nice try. You’re funny, _____.”

There’s an odd shiver that traveled down Minho’s spine whenever he said your name. It felt hot, as if someone spilled hot coffee down the back of his shirt. There’s a weird familiarity about you that he can’t put his tongue on, but he pushed that thought to the back of his mind when he saw you falling asleep again.

“What’s your favorite food, _____?” he asked, jolting you awake.

“I don’t know... pizza?”

“Hm, good choice. I’m more of a fried chicken guy.”

“Fried chicken makes me break out.”

“Ah yeah, it can do that.”

“Lee Minho, is it?”

Another hot sensation runs down his spine. “Yes it is, my love.”

“Do you like being the Boss?”

“Do I like it? Huh... Honestly, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know...?”

“I’ve never been asked that question before.”

“How did you end up in your position then?”

“My father was the boss before me. When he saw that it was time I took over, I did. Whether I wanted to or not, I didn’t have a choice. So I can’t really answer your question if I’m here against my free will.”

“You either like murdering people and pushing drugs or you don’t, which one is it?”

Minho shrugged, too lazy to punish you for such a tone. “Asking if I like what I do is a hard question to answer. I have to do it, so why go through the trouble of trying to like it when I’ll be doing it anyways?”

“Are you always this difficult?”

“Are you?”

“I’m still here on day three, aren’t I?”

A sharp tisk left Minho’s lips. “Maybe I should have just killed you...”

Suddenly, the entire room began to shake. The table, the chairs, and you and Minho start to vibrate with the floor and nothing is heard but a low hum for a solid ten seconds. Panic was rising in both of your chests, unsure of what the source of such a phenomenon could be. You constrictions only raised the panic even more.

An army of footsteps could be heard from above followed by an overkill of gunshots.

“Fuck,” Minho cursed, grabbing his gun. “Looks like your crew came and found you. At midnight on the dot, too.”

“Midnight?” you muttered, swinging your head around to where Minho saw the time.

A white clock is hung high on the wall, completely mismatched from the environment of the interrogation room. You saw your trigger - all three black hands are on the twelve, with the seconds hand struggling to pass. In the midst of all the madness, you thought to yourself that Dr. Woojin was fucking insane for formulating Pill C this way.

You see Minho start to panic, unsure of whether he should kill you first before making a break for it.

“Minho!��� you cried out. “It’s me, _____!”

“No fucking shit, Sherlock -”

“Listen to me, we’re dreaming right now. This is it, this is Pill C! Do you understand?”

Minho tried to understand. Your words made sense, but they didn’t make sense to him, at least not fully. Pill C... what was so familiar about Pill C?

“Pill C, Minho! We’re testing, remember? You’re number nine!”

The gears in his head clicked. Number nine, Lee Minho, with a level eight defense mechanism.

“Fuck, we have to get out of here,” he said, rushing to your side to untie you. 

The footsteps and gunshots sound like they’re coming closer and there wasn’t much time left to lose. After successfully freeing you from the ropes, Minho worried deeply about your well-being, as your wrists bled from all the chafing and it really looked like you were roughed up those past fake-two days of interrogation. But that didn’t matter now, because you thanked the heavens that Minho snapped out of it before you died in your own damn dream.

Mafia Boss Minho took your hand and ran out the only door in the room with the gun in his free hand just in case. He has a faint fake memory of the layout of his base and if both of you could get to the elevator, you would both be safe for the time being.

A bullet whizzed by you before breaking a window.

“Guide me that way. There’s an elevator that can get us out of here. I’ll shoot,” Minho ordered, already taking down a bunch of unknown men.

“Who are those people!?” you asked while gripping onto Minho for your life. Shooting enemies while running backwards was not an ideal tactic.

“I think it’s your defense mechanism? Dreams have that, right? They must have sensed you were in danger.”

“That’s so fucking stupid. Way to go, Minho!”

“What!? I didn’t do anything!”

“In front, in front!” you screeched as you saw some men sprinting.

With ease, Minho eliminated them like it was nothing. He handed you a gun from a fallen soldier on the way to the elevator and you thought that probably wasn’t the best idea, considering you haven’t held a gun in your entire life, but anything can happen in dreams as you eliminated with one-shot kills each time. Minho never thought that he could be attracted to you in this way.

“This is supposed to be level four!? What the hell would level seven be!?” Minho cried out.

“Just be happy we won’t ever have to know!”

After shooting dozens of men down, cutting hundreds of corners, and nearly dying every five seconds, you both made it into the elevator. As soon as the doors shut, you both fell to the floor with a heavy thud, still hand-in-hand.

Neither of you were willing to let each other go.

“Where do we go from here?” you asked after catching your breath.

Minho shrugged. “Try the star button.”

So you pressed it. “What do star buttons mean in regular elevators again?”

“The lobby.”

“Do mafia properties usually have a lobby...?”

“Not mine.”

From whatever floor you were at below ground level, the elevator began to take you all the way up to the star floor. It was a long, torturous, raggedy ride and you thought at any moment, the elevator was going to give out and drop you all the way down. Minho figured you were nervous for what was to come as you haven’t loosened your grip on his hand since he freed you from your ropes.

You flinched when he ran his thumb across your wounds.

“I’m so sorry I did this,” he whispered, unable to look at you.

“You didn’t do it. Maybe one of your minions did,” you teased.

“But what if I did?”

“We’ll never know. Even if you did, you were just being Big Scary Mafia Boss Minho, right?”

“Still...” He returned his hand for you to hold again, which eased his anxiety tenfold. “Were our guesses for what our dream would be way off, or what?”

“I don’t know, I think my assassins guess was pretty close.”

The elevator made a dinging noise and stopped at level nineteen. You and Minho stood up, getting ready with your guns in your hands with whatever was to come at you next. But as the doors slid open, you see test subject number nineteen still living in their dream bubble, running through a meadow of sunflowers without a care in the world.

“This testing scheme is... elaborate...”

“I can’t believe Dr. Woojin did all of this. Why weren’t any of our dreams like that?” you pouted.

The next level the doors opened for was seventeen, and you figured the elevator was going to open its doors to everyone’s dream bubble until the very last subject, which was you. This must have been how everyone else got to this point - this very elevator.

“This must be what that confrontation thing Dr. Woojin was talking about,” Minho sighed. “Do I have to face my dead mom, or something?”

“Pill C for confrontation? Clever.”

Level nine was next and the last thing Minho wanted to do was leave you in the elevator to face what was to come. But he made it to the very end - both of you did. You both came all the way from opposite sides of the country to make yourself better again and neither of you were going to back out of this one like you backed out of all the other important decisions of your lives.

Level nine was here and the doors opened to reveal Minho’s beautiful mother sitting on a couch reading one of her many books she’s read many times over. She looked up to you two with a bright smile and waved like you were coming to visit for some lunch.

“I can’t do this,” Minho told you.

“Do you want me to go with you?” He only nodded in response. “Ok. I’ll be right behind you. But you have to do this on your own.”

He bucked up the courage to leave the elevator first and you soon follow, only taking a couple steps out. From afar, you watched Minho join his mother on the couch and pull her into a long, warm hug.

“I miss you, mom,” he told her.

“I know you do, dear. I hear you’re not doing so well?”

“No, I’m not,” he admitted, holding back his tears. “I don’t have you, I don’t have Dad, I have no one. How am I supposed to go on without you?”

“You just do,” she said. “I know it’s not something you want to hear, but sometimes people leave and you don’t know why. You can’t keep dwelling on my death, love. You have to live your life to the fullest and go see the world! You can’t do that if you’re stuck here with me.”

“You expect me to get over this just like that?”

“Of course not. It’s not easy losing your mother. But I promise you, with time, it will get easier. You love me, don’t you?” Minho nodded. “Then live your life the way you would if I was still around.”

“Ok... I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask of you.” She pulled her son in for another loving hug. “I’m so, so proud of you, my son.”

“I love you, mom.”

“I love you, too. Promise me something else?”

“Anything.”

“Try to be more understanding of your father. It’s not easy losing someone you’ve loved for twenty-five years.” With tears in your own eyes, you watched his mom wipe away her son’s tears gently. “Now leave. You’re almost done.”

Before he changed his mind to stay, he followed you back into the elevator. He grabbed to hold your hand again hoping it would fill the empty void of what was left of his mother.

“How do you feel?” you asked.

Through the tears, he gave you genuine grin, one you haven’t even seen in your dreams. He looked so beautiful this way.

“I feel good.”

“I’m happy,” you smiled back.

“Are you ready for yours?”

“No. Can you come with me?”

“Of course.”

Level one - the last level before the star. The doors revealed to you a patiently-waiting Bang Chan at a coffee shop, the very one where he asked you to be his girlfriend.

He saw you once the doors opened and shot you the same dimply smile you fell so deeply in love with and you think to yourself that there’s no way you can do this. Then Minho’s hand is at the small of your back and he guided you out the elevator.

“I’ll be right here,” he told you.

You made your way to the empty chair in front of Chan. In front of you, he ordered your favorite drink, customized just the way you liked it. He always paid attention to the littlest details about you.

“Hello, _____,” he greeted first.

You wasted no time jumping right into it. “Why did you cheat on me?”

“You know I can’t answer that when you don’t know the answer yourself. I’m your subconscious, remember?”

“But I need to know why!”

“Are you going to let that question keep you from finding love again?”

“Yes, because you made me believe that you were in love with me as much as I loved you! What if I never meet someone who will love me the same way? What if my love is never reciprocated? What if I’m not lovable!? I can’t trust myself to find that person.”

Chan reached across the table to wipe away the one tear you allowed to fall. He took your hands in his and looked at you with the same intensity of the sun.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be the person who you wanted me to be. But there is someone out there who is. He’ll love you and care for you way better than I ever did. He’ll make you feel like you’re flying above the heavens among the Gods. You have to believe that one day you’ll find a man who will look at you like you’re the only thing that matters in this cruel world.”

“I hate that you made me feel this way for so long.”

“I know.”

“I hate that I thought I couldn’t be loved because of you.”

“I know.”

“And I hate that you’re right.”

“I know,” he chuckled lightly.

“But I can’t forget about you...”

“Maybe you can’t now, but when you find that someone, you will.”

“Promise?”

“I pinky promise.”

“It was nice loving you, Bang Chan.”

“I’m glad. Now go back - you’re almost done.”

Before you reached the elevator, your vision went black.

You woke up clean and dry without a single drop of sweat on your forehead, which was surprising considering the dream and the confrontation. You were the last to wake and the last to enter the common area where Dr. Woojin and his crew were waiting with bright grins on their faces. You and all the other test subjects looked the same - confused, exhausted, and ready to go home.

“Congratulations, subjects,” Woojin greeted. “You all have completed the final test - the confrontation. From your results, I can conclude that you are all cured.”

“Just like that!?” Jisung exclaimed.

“Just like that.”

Nothing made sense. Sure, the dreams had their purpose, but literally nothing made any fucking sense, I mean how as Dr. Woojin supposed to confirm something huge like that!? But no one argued, and you weren’t about to either because you think, well... maybe he’s right.

Like zombies, everyone gathered all of their belongs they came in with and mindlessly and silently walked out of the common area back to the main lobby of the company building. The same lady who you handed in your evaluation to six days ago handed you a pamphlet and said something about making sure you completed a satisfactory rating and that a follow-up email would be sent regarding your tuition, but it went in one ear out the other. All you wanted to do was leave and take a taxi home.

Wait, where was Minho?

You were afraid it was too late when you lost sight of him. He was nowhere to be seen in the lobby nor among the crowd of people and you think that was it. Not ten minutes out of the testing facility and you already lost the only person you wanted to see. You would never see him again.

Begrudgingly, you walk outside to the line of taxis. You were about to get into one until you saw Minho sitting alone on one of the bus benches staring off into nothing. You ran to him.

“Hey, handsome. Come here often?”

Minho didn’t have to look up to see that it was you. He smiled at your flirty comment, but he wished you didn’t find him.

“Why did you leave so quickly?” you asked.

“I just want to go home. I’m so tired. I want to sleep for days and dream of nothing.”

“Did you... not want to keep in touch...?”

He dared to look at you and instantly regretted it, seeing the hurt look written across your beautiful, gorgeous face.

“What happened in there was crazy, right?” he began. “Never in a million years did I think I could live as a spy with my best friend, or be happily married for five years, or even a damn Mafia Boss all within a span of six days and sharing that experience with you. I’ve lived three fulfilling, loving, and thrilling lives with you, and you’ve seen the deepest parts of me that no one else ever has. It’s as if we really knew each other for those five years, and there’s something telling me that maybe you’re meant to be in my life, but... I can’t think anything of this.”

There’s a sting in your chest, but you’re unsure why when you wholeheartedly agree with what he’s saying. Regardless, you asked, “Why not?”

“We barely know each other, _____! We spent what, a couple of hours actually talking and getting to know each other? That’s nothing!”

“Then let’s get to know each other.”

“You don’t understand. The same thing happens every time I meet someone or get close to someone. I mess it up. You don’t know me outside of that facility. I’m gonna get frustrated with you one day and… and then you’ll stop calling back. I’ll be so deeply in love with you, but I’ll get frustrated and you’ll change your number and it’ll break my heart,” his voice cracked somewhere in between. “I wish you stayed a dream. It’s just easier if you’re not real...”

“But I am real,” you insisted, taking his shaky hands in yours. He forgot what it felt like to hold your hands and he begins to miss the feeling even while you’re still holding them. “I really like you. I want to get to know the spy Minho, the Mafia Boss Minho, and even the husband Minho.”

“What about the emotionally unavailable Minho?”

“He can me the emotionally unavailable _____.” You take Minho’s chuckling as a good sign. “Why can’t we just start off simple? Will you grab food with me?”

His mom’s words echoed in his head and he can’t believe he’s about to spend the day with a stranger he stole with, fell in love with, and almost murdered in his dreams.

“As long as it’s not caviar and capers again.”

“Ok, then you choose - pizza or fried chicken?”

“I think you already know my answer to that question.”

[ceridwenofwales]

Random but remember the scene where Lagertha killed Aslaug she said that Aslaug bewitched Ragnar. Rewatching vikings & in S1 ep.9 Lagertha goes to the Seer to ask about the dreams she’s having. She fears for Ragnar’s life and the Seer tells her that the shadows are from Hel’s Hall, the shadows want to take something from her. He also tells her that Ragnar is in danger from the magical world. This is the episode where Gyda dies and Aslaug is introduced. She really did bewitch him. Thoughts?

I’m so sorry that took me this long to reply. I needed to watch two episodes of the first season and check it out some of my favorite sources to give you a more appropriate reply. I don’t think Aslaug bewitched Ragnar and I’ll explain why I think so.

I was writing a meta and Dumblr (how I lovingly refer to Tumblr when it sucks) erased my highly detailed post. ;(

Brace yourself, it’s a meta. Hahahahaha.

I think to answer this we have to go back to episode 8 from season one “Sacrifice”. Lagertha suffered a miscarriage and they are preparing to go to Uppsala to ask for the Gods’ favor.

Ragnar: “Of course I’m happy. Why should I not be happy? When we reach Uppsala, we shall ask the gods why they give with one hand, but take away with the other? Why they make me Earl, yet kill my son?”

Lagertha: “We can have more sons.”

Ragnar: “Have we not tried?”

When they reach Uppsala, Lagertha and Ragnar talk to the Gods:

Lagertha: “Freyr, lord, fill me with seed and give me a son. Do as you will with me, make me blind or deaf if you want to, but give me a son. Accept the sacrifices of blood we make to you, the honor we offer you. My lord, make me conceive again before it’s too late.”

Ragnar: “Lord of lords, father, hear my prayer. Let me understand your will. Is it true that I shall have more sons like the seer says? Accept the sacrifice I plan to offer you and then answer me. Who will bear me my son?”

Notice that Ragnar is already doubting Lagertha will bear him another child and searching for the fulfillment of his prophecy elsewhere. Aslaug was yet to be introduced at this point.

Seer: “Do you think your husband is in some kind of danger?”

Lagertha: “I’ve had strange and disturbing dreams.”

Seer: “What happens in your dreams?” 

Lagertha: “Dark shapes come to me at night. Monstrous forms. When I wake, they skulk in the shadows, shapeless, but no sooner am I asleep than they creep forward again.”

Seer: “Ah, yes. The shadows come from hell’s hall. No one can ensnare them, not even the gods.”

Lagertha: “What is it that they want?” 

Seer: “To take something from you.”

Lagertha: “My life?” 

Seer: “No, something far more important to you than that.”

Lagertha: “My husband’s life? Tell me.”

Seer: “Why must you all force me up and unearth me to sorrows? Your husband is in danger, but not for his life. He is in danger from the magical world.”

Lagertha: “How? Answer me.”

Seer: “I was unwilling to speak and I will say no more now!”

The Seer is clearly disturbed by Lagertha’s insistence and dismisses her. 

In the following scene, Arne and Torstein see Aslaug bathing and she seems curious at the mention of his name. I think, as a Völva, she knew her destiny was with Ragnar and told his men that Ragnar should apologize to her on their behalf.

Ragnar: “Who is she, anyway, to put such a high price on her nakedness?”

Arne: “We didn’t ask.”

Ragnar: “I’m intrigued.”

Bjorn: “What’s so intriguing?" 

Ragnar: "Sometimes the gods put things like this in front of us as some kind of test.”

Ragnar then challenges Aslaug to join them neither dressed nor undressed.Neither hungry nor full, neither in company nor alone.

Siggy: “What did the Seer tell you?" 

Lagertha: "He said that it’s true; That Ragnar is in danger.”

Siggy: “From whom?" 

Lagertha: "I don’t know.”

Siggy: “Who do you think?" 

Lagertha: "I think he is in danger from himself.”

Lagertha knows Ragnar is ambitious and this scene is symbolic because as we talk about free will and fate, Lagertha is working on a loom. The Norse people believed the fate was woven by the Norns and so the female’s role of weaving, spinning, etc was related not only to the Norns but also to the practitioners of seiðr. 

Any kind of textile work, particularly weaving, was believed to be a way of exercising supernatural power. One enigmatic aspect of seiðr is that it was connected with ergi ‘unmanliness’. If seiðr was spinning, it would certainly be unmanly for men, because spinning was the most characteristic women’s work. The feminine character of spinning also fits with seiðr in other ways. Firstly, manipulation of other people’s lives was also done by other kinds of women’s work.

There’s another important scene that implies this symbolism: Floki and King Horik’s conversation happens as they see a spider’s web. Floki is saying that the wolf Fenrir couldn’t be constrained by any mean known to humans.

Floki: “I came to ask about Jarl Borg. He won’t sell. He wants to make a deal.”

King Horik: “I’m not interested in deals.”

Floki: “That would make it hard for Ragnar.”

King Horik: “Ragnar will come to the right conclusion, and make the right decision.”

Floki: “Don’t you care if the negotiations fail? 

King Horik: “Mm Look!" 

Horik shows Floki how the spider attacks the fly trapped in its web. The web here can represent more than fate. Horik sent Ragnar to a doomed mission in hope Borg and Ragnar would destroy themselves and he would be rid of two problems at once. Let’s remember Ragnar is getting more famous than the King himself. Jarl Borg tried to convince Ragnar to form an alliance against King Horik and then asked Rollo to join him against Ragnar. There are more threats to Ragnar than the arrival of Aslaug.

When Aslaug agrees to follow Ragnar and his companions to the Ash tree that is believed to be Yggdrasil, he asks her:

“Why did you come along with me?” 

Aslaug: “Because I had no choice.”

Ragnar kisses her for the first time and later on when Aslaug gives him the news she is pregnant, she says:

"I’m carrying your child. Did the Seer not promise you more sons?”

We might interpreter her words as a sign she knew of her role in Ragnar’s fate and that’s why she mentioned she had no choice earlier. Ragnar is conflicted because while he seems pleased his prophecy is being fulfilled, he knows Lagertha won’t take it lightly.  

Now we have to examine the reasons why Lagertha could be suspicious Aslaug bewitched Ragnar.

The vǫlur were referred to by many names. Old Norse völva means “wand carrier” or “carrier of a magic staff”, and it continues Proto-Germanic *walwōn, which is derived from a word for “wand”.

Historical and mythological depictions of vǫlur show that they were held in high esteem and believed to possess such powers that even Odin consulted a völva to learn what the future had in store for the gods. Such an account is preserved in the Völuspá, which roughly translates to “Prophecy of the Völva ”.

In addition to the unnamed seeress (possibly identical with Heiðr) in the Vǫluspá, other examples of vǫlur in Norse literature include Gróa in Svipdagsmál, Þórbjǫrgr in the Saga of Erik the Red and Huld in Ynglinga saga.

The vǫlur were not considered to be harmless. The goddess who was most skilled in magic was Freyja, and she was not only a goddess of love, but also a warlike divinity who caused screams of anguish, blood and death, and what Freyja performed in Asgard, the world of the gods, the vǫlur tried to perform in Midgard, the world of men. The weapon of the völva was not the spear, the axe or the sword, but instead, they were held to influence battles with different means, and one of them was the wand.

The vǫlur were known for their art of seduction, which was one of the reasons why they were considered dangerous. One of the stanzas in Hávamál warns against sexual intercourse with a woman who is skilled in magic, because the one who does so runs the risk of being caught in a magic bond and also risks getting ill. Freyja, who is the mistress of seiðr, has a free sexual life that gives her a bad reputation in certain myths.

One of the methods for seducing men may have been the use of drugs. In Fyrkat, the grave of a völva revealed the use of henbane, a drug which not only produces hallucinations but can also be a powerful aphrodisiac. If Freyja was the goddess of love in Asgard, the völva was her counterpart in Midgard.

There’s also an interesting post by @dyannehs that points out a new interpretation of the archaeological evidence of women being buried with weapons as being practitioners of seiðr and not female warriors/shieldmaidens.

This hypothesis doesn’t dismiss the shieldmaiden entirely. There’s room for a sword-wielding woman if we ever gather enough evidence to support it. But that would not have been the normal role for women in battle. This hypothesis states that if women went into battle (and if they did, then they would have been a very small minority on the field), then they were not warriors but sorceresses, who would literally be casting spells and reciting charms and curses left and right and practicing magic in an attempt to sway the outcome and protect their own men and homes.  

These women would have been in commune with the Valkyries and the gods, urging the fate of the battle in a certain direction. And the weapons found in their graves were not meant to be used but were symbolic of prowess in battle as something removed from warriors.  

After all, how else can you physically represent the power of magic in battle?

And we know that sorcery in battle was a legitimate thing. Practitioners of seiðr had a wide range of battle magic and could perform such feats as instilling fear into the enemy, hindering the enemy’s movements, strengthening armour and weapons, weakening armour and weapons, providing invulnerability, providing other protections from weapons and enemy sorcery, killing enemy soldiers, fighting and killing enemy seiðr practitioners, and breaking enemy curses. 

While a Völva was highly respected, there was also a reverential fear for the power they held. I don’t believe Aslaug manipulated or bewitched Ragnar. I think she only knew her destiny was entwined with his. I talked about Aslaug’s fate here as well.

Sources: 

Seiðr

Old Norse religion in long-term perspectives

Women and Magic in the Sagas

Völva: Sexual Rites and Drugs

Seiðr and Norse Shamanism

Spae-craft, Seiðr and Shamanism

Viking Women

Norns

[btamamura]

Sorry, this is a long post so you can feel free to just scroll past. I wrote this on the app since the web page hates my devices, so there is no Read More cut.

Time to open up to my followers.

If you’ve known me for a while, you’d know my battles over the last few years. For the new folks, here it is - I have been living with a chronic illness since November 1, 2014, and it has been awful.

It started out as just chronic nausea. We thought it might’ve been something I ate or a lingering case of gastro. But, that changed February the next year when the pain started.

I woke up one morning to find I was in extreme pain in my feet. I hadn’t injured myself but my feet felt like the bones had been shattered. The lightest touch made the pain even worse, so I was just lying on my back, feet in the air, crying and crying, trying not to scream and wishing it would just go away. The pain faded over the next couple of weeks, but never left completely. It was just an annoyance or painful but not excruciating. My grandfather offered for me to see a podiatrist, he would pay if not bulk-billed, because he thought maybe it was from the many years of walking on my toes.

The next day, right before my cousin’s birthday party, which I had planned on attending for at least an hour just to say hello to the family, the same horrible pains started in my hands. Dad just had to take one look at me to know I would not be going. I asked him, through my tears, in half-seriousness if he could find his axe and chop my hands off so I never had to feel that pain again.

I found a clinic to attend with my grandfather’s help. I saw a doctor about my symptoms. She focused on the nausea, even if I kept saying “I’m in worse pain today!”, so I tried seeing a different doctor in the clinic. The first doctor had ordered a gastroscopy to be done to see if there was something going on in my stomach.

The second doctor kept ordering the same blood tests - iron, b12, vitamin d. And even once those levels had been corrected, I was still sick and sore. I had since had my gastroscopy, which came up clear. The second doctor looked me in the eye and said outright that she believed I had to be faking in order to get out of looking for work. I was already upset that the gastroscopy had no answers (I’d already said I would cry if it came up clear, just as I would’ve if it found a tumour developing in my stomach), but then to hear that from someone who was meant to help?! I broke down crying and told her if everything I had missed in the time I had been sick. By this time, it was early 2016.

I told her of missing visiting my niece as a newborn. Of how I couldn’t attend my cousin’s engagement, Hen’s night and wedding. Of how I couldn’t attend my pop’s funeral. Or the missed annual dinners with Nan and Pop before his passing. (Pop is my dad’s stepfather and was a big part of my life growing up despite living far away.) How I had planned a holiday to the Gold Coast for my 30th birthday but instead spent that day in bed, struggling to down my food and avoiding the family as they ate theirs because the smell made my nausea worse. Of the Christmases I spent sick in bed and unable to visit my mother’s grave. Of not being able to hang out with my sister and spend time with my young nephew and much younger niece. I refused to see that doctor again and left feeling terrible.

New doctor at a clinic my great-uncle visited. He decided to do the usual blood test but also tested to see if I was autoimmune. Yep, so he then tested to see if I had lupus. Nope. But, he still seemed to be doing more for me than the last two doctors. A week after the autoimmune result came in, I wound up in hospital. I hadn’t been able to eat or drink for a week because I was having difficulty swallowing. I wasn’t in a dangerous condition, so I was only admitted overnight for observation, having some fluids by IV and to speak with a speech therapist the next morning as I was put on a purée diet. While being observed, the doctor in hospital noticed something - a goitre.

Eating troubles started becoming more frequent at that time. By the end of 2016, I was struggling with abdominal pains and low appetite. There were sporadic days I couldn’t eat a thing. I attended another appointment where the doctor forced me to have two jelly babies because my blood sugar was low - no, I’m not diabetic. They came to a head in late-March of 2017.

I hadn’t eaten more than a nibble here and there and only barely sipped at a drink for a week. I was very unwell and after the third time of being sick, I decided I had to go up to the emergency department because something was very wrong. I was right - they saw me right away. I was in the early stages of Refeeding Syndrome due to starvation, my blood sugar was low, my ketones had gone up and my organs were slowly starting to shut down. My blood was acidic. I was told to try sipping at apple juice, but it was no good, I couldn’t even muster that.

I was moved to short stay while waiting to transfer to a ward. My time in hospital was scary, and not in the usual “I’m afraid of hospitals” way. I was in danger. I was diagnosed with starvation ketoacidosis (similar to diabetic but I’m not diabetic), as anorexic (no appetite version, not anorexia nervosa) and even if they tried to get me to eat, I struggled even with crackers. They put me on Ondansetron (usually for chemo and radiotherapy patients) to ensure anything I did try to eat would stay down. I was put on different infusions - saline, glucose, potassium (THAT HURT SO MUCH, I THOUGHT SOMEONE WAS TRYING TO SNAP MY ARM IN HALF AND I ACTUALLY PASSED OUT FROM THE PAIN!!) and others. I had blood tests at least twice a day and tests for my blood sugar and ketones every time I was about to eat or if I looked a bit more unwell. I had to be hooked up to a portable heart monitor, but the first night of that, my heart rate reached 150bpm just slowly walking to the toilet, and a Med Call was made to make sure I did not go into cardiac arrest. The doctor who made his rounds had to outright tell me that if I failed to eat, I would need to be put on a feeding tube or else I would die. That’s how bad it was. I was in for a week before I was deemed well enough and safe enough to go home.

The third doctor started to let me down, ordering the same blood tests to make it look like he knew what might be going on. No good. Wound up feeling too ill later in the year so I missed my uncle’s funeral.

In 2018, I started going downhill. Wound up hospitalised with starvation ketoacidosis again following a bout of gastro the day before. Falls also started occurring. But, it was no good, I couldn’t find a good doctor who could help instead of just playing around with the same old blood tests. I missed more events including my other niece’s first birthday and my great-uncle’s funeral.

2019, still struggling. I’m seeing a new doctor, but she very quickly lets me down by saying EVERYTHING is just tied to my anxiety. At least she took the lump in my breast seriously - thankfully not cancer. But, as the year progresses, a good doctor is finally found. My cousin helped me find a clinic that bulk-bills and is taking on patients.

My current GP listens every time I see her. Every. Time. I go in with a new symptom or concern, she orders the right tests or refers me to someone who can help. Through her help, I’ve been able to see a speech therapist about the ongoing swallowing issues, a physiotherapist about my falls, a dietician about my dietary issues which contribute to deficiencies, a surgeon about my goitre (he put me on medicine because my thyroid was a bit overactive - suspecting hyperthyroidism or any other forms of it - in the most recent blood test through the hospital when I went up by ambulance with chest pains, ordered a CT scan and believes the best course of action may be to perform a complete thyroidectomy, meaning removal of my thyroid), had me undergo full blood tests (not just the usual), had me undergo an ECG and TTE (trans-thoracic echo, an ultrasound of the heart) just to make sure all is well there since I keep having chest pains and most recently referred me to a neurologist because she believes my symptoms line up with a rare genetic condition. She’s also looking into finding a neuropsychologist who can help with an autism assessment.

Because of the help I’ve been receiving, I’ve been a bit more hopeful of a diagnosis finally coming in the near future. Because I’ve been seeing a physio who helped me with strengthening exercises for my legs, I have been able to go out walking for a little while - never out on the streets but yes in shopping centres, that way if something goes wrong, someone is nearby to get help.

I still feel nauseous (still on Ondansetron for that). I’m still in pain every second of every day. I still feel that weakness. But, I’m starting to have those okay moments where I can go shopping or play with my niece and nephew - both occurred over the last couple of days, a water fight two nights ago where I just stood there shooting a water pistol at them as they ran around me, and an hour out shopping with my niece. Yes, those hit hard the next day and up through the next week. I do not intend to push myself so hard I’m at risk of hospitalisation. But, I also need to work at rebuilding my stamina. My father and grandfather have special birthdays next year and I want to be able to attend the dinner organised...even if I can’t eat while there, as long as I’m there is what matters.

But, for now, it’s baby steps. Sitting up and watching a movie. Washing some dishes. Carefully playing with the kids. Try to keep the shopping trips short. Eat what is possible, not what is a must.

[talysings]

Springtime Songs and Such!

I performed at the Elysium last evening. The theme was meant to be cherry blossoms, or flowers . . . but I had trouble staying so narrow in focus, and did two songs about springtime in general, about welcoming the awakening of the earth, and blossoming, and dreaming of the possibilities all that brings.

In truth, I suppose that theme is much on my mind. Some reasons are obvious. I turned 29 at the end of the winter, which is not exactly young for a Miqo’te. In my head, I don’t feel old or anything--in most ways, I feel much the same as I did when I was 10 years younger. And Savo says that Miqo’te who live in the city, or at least under more modern conditions, can live much longer than those in the wild. And for the most part, I take very good care of myself, with the exception of my recent adventures. I maintain a regime of training and exercise, even though I am scouting less, and I don’t indulge in too much food or drink, or any other somewhat dangerous substances. I guess it doesn’t make me a lot of fun at parties . . . but then again, I don’t get invited to a lot of parties anyway. So, there’s all that arguing that I could have many years in front of me.

Still, 29 seems important. In another year, I will be starting on a whole new decade of my life (assuming I survive my upcoming trip to the desert, of course). It makes me think about what I want--where I am headed, and where I want to end up. And my experience going through the Rite of Passage with the Keepers . . . it’s made me think about things as well. When I went, my goal was to survive, for the practical reason of maintaining a grip on my little home, and also to prove something to myself . . . and, I guess, to the ghosts of my mother’s people. That they were wrong to cast her out--that she was not a piece of garbage to be tossed aside for one mistake (not a mistake in my eyes, but theirs), no matter how egregious. That I am her daughter, and I have worth.

But what I found also was a connection, to them, to my past and even to nature, that I have never felt before. The cobbles of a city keep you from feeling that connection, but it was there to be made all along had I looked for it. A spark has been lit inside me, and what the coming fire will do, I cannot say yet. 

So last night I sang of the joy of spring, and my awakening. I wore a costume that was somewhat revealing, but with less apprehension than I would have had a year ago. I made a couple mistakes on my first song, but I didn’t crumble into tears backstage as a result of it (which I pretty much did last spring for similar mistakes). I guess I feel a bit more confident, somehow--not cocky, mind, just . . . steadier. I still get nervous, and off stage, as my normal self, I still feel awkward and blush often. But on stage, at least, my persona seems to have strengthened. Who knows what the future will hold?

Vylette came to see the show. At intermission, I was able to leave the backstage and sit with her for the second half. She was with two friends, Rose and Zara.(who look a lot alike, but swear they aren’t related!) They had been drinking during the first half, and Vylette was somewhat, umm, emboldened as a result. I cannot lie and say that it didn’t excite me, especially considering everything I just wrote. A person would have to be dead to not respond to Vylette under any conditions, let alone these.

They all wanted to go to another club after the show, so we started off to another ward. However, it turned out they had closed, and Rose and Zara went off. We were debating going back inside, and Vylette and I were getting a bit, umm . . . frisky? When Mr. Sotore came by and broke us up.

All right, to be fair . . . my conscience would have kicked in all on its own if things had progressed much further. I’ve only been with one woman ever, and if I am going to be with someone, I don’t want to ever wonder if part of the reason they said yes was artificial. I want them to really make a choice to be with me. And I know where Vylette’s head is on this, and I am sure she would have put the brakes on all on her own. So I guess he did us a favor, so that when we stopped, it was early enough that I didn’t go home feeling all . . . well, feeling like it was time to play my ceruleum guitar with the orchestrion on full volume. If you understand my meaning.

We went back inside and I bought a bottle of absinthe for Vylette, which is her drink of choice these days. She said it has hallucinogenic capacities. I had never tasted it before, but as usual, my peculiar chemistry meant that it did nothing to me at all. I did not see any green fairies. It’s a bit frustrating. I see people drink, sometimes a lot, and I see the effects, and not all of them are pleasant obviously--but I’d at least like to have an idea what that feels like, if only as a life experience.

We sat with Savo, Fhey, and some friends of theirs and talked a while. When one of them left, Fhey told a very off color story (of course) with a questionable moral, and then she and Savo enacted an ill-conceived plot to kidnap the other person, a Roe Scholar named Serene, for some scavenger hunt they are a part of.

Vylette and I thwarted their efforts--Vylette much more effectively than me, if I am honest--and eventually were able to placate Serene into not calling the city guard and pressing charges.Serene left, and Savo and Fhey sat in the middle of the kitchen, which was trashed, acting as if they had nothing to do with what had just happened! In some ways, I envy them their ability to be so innocent as to the results of their actions.

They eventually wandered off to sleep, or to continue their hunt, and Vylette and I were left alone. It was not the most romantic of settings, with pots and pans all over the place, and torn curtains, but . . . with Vylette there, it was more than romantic enough. We kissed good night, and we each went home. 

And here I am, thinking about what I want, and where I want to be. I think I’ll be thinking about this a lot for the foreseeable future. But today, maybe I don’t want to think too much right now. I have a show with Savo coming up, and I need to focus on my songs.And there’s the desert to plan for, of course, and things at the Palazzo to think about. So much vying for my attention. And . . . there’s Vylette. Always Vylette.

Maybe I don’t want to think at all right at this moment. Maybe . . . maybe there’s time to just play a song on my guitar.

Full volume?