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idledreams-burninghearts · 1 year

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So autistic burnout and how it impacts me

Basically it happens when you mask too much and fuck it if I don't mask like all the time

I've basically been masking since I was born lol. There are varying levels of masking, for me at least, I can't speak for other people

I guess the person I mask around the least is my ma but considering I live with her and I only get 14 hours a week actually alone, you can see how that isn't good right? Lol

Anyways, here's some ways it can look in adults

emotional dysregulation (lmao, def feeling this, could have probably stuffed my feelings down and snuffed them out if I hadn't been going through burnout for a couple months now)

decreased self-care (I am trying so hard but I've got no energy to do anything for myself. All my energy is going to work and my dog)

increased frequency of autistic traits (I can feel like they want to pop out but I'm not sure if people can actually tell? I really don't know how to unmask but I can feel the struggle of it trying to slip off)

irritability (yeap, being very resistant to change at work and yeap)

low motivation (oh yea, I really do not care about sales at work, I really don't care about doing anything except for sleeping)

Here's what it feels like to be going through it

anxiety (yeap! But I'm always anxious lol)

depression (yeap! Also always depressed)

extreme lethargy (yeap! I have chronic fatigue but it is definitely worse right now)

inability to ask for help (yeap! I have never been able to ask for help though)

memory issues (yeap! Also have always had a shit memory, thanks childhood trauma!)

loss of words or selective mutism (def going through that)

reduced executive functioning -e.g., staying organized, making decisions (yeap! And I think this is why I'm dissociating so much right now too. Kinda miss the full on black out dissociation. Not liking this fuzzy foggy sense of self and sense of the world, makes it real hard to know what's real)

trouble bouncing back from daily tasks (oh yea, but how can someone not have trouble with this when going through everything else?)

suicidal thoughts (yeap! Normally I'm just passively suicidal, like it would be nice to die but I'm not gonna do it, but it has definitely been pushing into actively suicidal lately, womp womp)

Besides masking, an article I'm reading says "Another reason you may feel exhausted is that you’re required to participate in long-term interactions that don’t offer much relief, like socializing at work. Though they may be 'lower-level' interactions, says Lombardo, they can deplete your energy." And I'm just like, yea, if you're masking then that is a huge chunk of energy. I love my coworkers (some more than others lmao whoops) but it is draining. And I work in retail so I have to interact with customers which I 100% do not want to do lol

Frequent changes are also listed as a reason for burnout and there have been a lot of changes going on at work since they were bought out. Manager was like "stop complaining about corporate they haven't even done anything lately" (which not true, they recently added a pop-up when you clock in saying to make sure you have your name tag and smile on and that felt like a huge slap in the face to me as I'm struggling with masking and is basically telling me that I can never unmask at work) but like I'm still struggling with the dress code change and being promoted to a supervisor position I never asked for and how the store no longer feels like we're finding the best option for the customer according to their needs but to just get them to spend as much money as possible and just like every change that has happened

The article lists some barriers in getting adequate support

"In a 2020 studyTrusted Source, participants reported that the inability to receive support for their needs contributed to a sense of burnout. This included:

being told burnout is your own fault (luckily I have not experienced this one)

hearing that it happens to everyone (my manager has said this to me lol, I have talked to her about it but it fucking sucked)

getting dismissed when you ask for help (it is very hard for me to ask for help so I don't really do it directly. "I'm too autistic for this" "we are understaffed" of course management doesn't listen to that. Plus I mentioned being understaffed one too many times and my manager snapped at me lol, I don't blame her she is under a lot of stress and she did put up now hiring signs after that)

Some ways to recover from burnout include

Removing obligations : It’s time to get a little ruthless with your schedule and commitments. If something isn’t 100% necessary, take it off your calendar for the near future. Your new goal is to try to find as much downtime as you can, with fewer extracurriculars, work projects, and social events."

Which I am doing. I've quit my dnd group. My schedule at work is going to be reduced to 3 days. I really want to work on cosplay but I'm waiting until I've recovered (which hopefully I'll still have enough time to work on at least one lol). A coworker friend invited me to sushi with everyone and I'm like that's nice but I can't lol.

And participating in soothing activities which they list a few

spend time in nature (trying to do that more, tossing peanuts for crows at work and such)

practice a calming visualization

exercise (lmao fuck no)

draw (I don't have the creativity right now)

listen to music (yes yes yes)

journal (yes sorry to everyone that I use Tumblr as my journal, ironically hiding myself and keeping secrets is a trigger for me. Like I make it so hard for people to know me and I mask but hiding myself and keeping secrets is a trigger? Like I know exactly why, this is childhood trauma shit but like what the fuck)

stretch (yes and popping everything as I do so)

sit in silence with someone you love (I love my ma but there's issues I can't get past while living with her so I don't think this would be a good option for me) (sitting in silence with other people I love are also not good options because they are too far away and it takes up too much energy to get to them and our schedules conflict and it takes up too much energy to plan something out or because I'm crazy lol)

Sensory interventions like compression, noise canceling headphones, texture seeking, enjoying favorite smells, having a sensory closet

I don't have a weighted blanket and I'm not sure how I would feel about compression anyways. I don't need noise canceling headphones at home and I can't wear them at work lol. I do enjoy textures at home but it's harder to do that at work. Also can't enjoy favorite smells at work. And I wish I had the space for a sensory closet lol, maybe when I have the energy I can go through my closet and start tossing the stuff I need to toss.

Sleep is great for burnout but also if you can't sleep, just rest

I am doing a lot of both when I'm not at work lol. Wow, I really hate that I have to work in order to survive. This is a huge issue for me regarding my depression but that is a whole other post

Practice self compassion

Haha, yes yes

Something this specific article doesn't mention is that a lot of people on the spectrum also develop gastrointestinal issues and I think one of the reasons that happens is because of masking and I do think my gut problems get worse when I'm in burnout.

#idle posting

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karenpageweek2022 · 2 years

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Karen Page Week Official Schedule

Hello everyone and welcome to the official page for Karen Page Week 2022! In this post we will be reminding everyone of the date and prompts, as well as any additional info!

Rules

Be respectful to people participating, this includes those that do not share the same opinion as you

If you repost any content, remember to credit the original author correctly

You are not required to participate every day or follow every prompt

Tag your posts #karen page week 2022 so we can all find and enjoy your posts. Feel free to tag us in your posts!

Date

Karen Page Week will run from September 18-24!

Who can join?

This event is open to anyone and everyone! Users who have been here since the start of the Karen Page community as well as new ones who have just found it are all able to participate in this appreciation week!

Content

When it comes to the content you can share to contribute to Karen Page Week, it really is up to you. Drabbles, artwork, moodboards, incorrect quotes, music playlists, etc are all allowed! Whatever you feel most comfortable sharing is what you can do.

What to tag

If you would like your content to be seen/shared by this account, please tag @karenpageweek2022 and #karen page week 2022! It’s both the easiest and fastest way for all of us to find Karen Page Week content!

Prompts

Day 1: Favorite Scene/Quote

Tell us your favorite Karen Page scene and/or your favorite quote of hers.

Day 2: Karen Page Unhinged | Girl with a Gun

We can all admit that Matt, Karen, and Foggy all became a little unhinged in season three in their effort to lock Fisk up (and we love them for it). Today’s your day to name your favorite Karen Page unhinged moment from season three.

And/Or

Karen may not know martial arts or how to use a bow and arrow, but she owns a gun and knows how to use it, and will do so without hesitation. Let us know your favorite scene with Karen Page and her gun.

Day 3: Parallels | Captain of the Vigilante Protection Squad

Today’s your day to share any parallels you find between Karen’s story and another character’s story.

And/Or

What is it about Karen’s past that draws her to, and causes her to defend, vigilantes like Daredevil and The Punisher?

Day 4: MCU Females | If She Were a Man

Ever wish Karen had more girl friends around? Tell us which female(s) from the MCU (past, present, or future) that you would like to see Karen team-up with.

And/Or

We can all list numerous times where this fandom criticizes Karen for something that it wouldn’t criticize a man for, so today’s the day to list the things Karen could get away with…if she were a man.

Day 5: Karen and Foggy | Nelson, Murdock, and Page

While Matt’s off being Daredevil, Karen and Foggy have been able to form one of the most beautiful friendships in the show. Let us know your favorite Karen and Foggy moment!

And/Or

What do you think the future holds for our favorite trio?

Day 6: Romantic Pairing

Frank? Matt? Someone else entirely? Tell us who you hope Karen ends up with.

Day 7: Best Dressed Badass | Free Day

Not all badasses wear armor, some wear pencil skirts and high heels. Let us know your favorite Karen Page outfit or you can choose to post anything you want! Have fun!

Questions and Concerns

If you have any questions at all pertaining to this event, don’t hesitate to message the event account, @silverflameataraxia, @rcughroad , or @a-court-of-valkyries!

Thank you everyone for your interest in Karen Page Week. We cannot wait until it rolls around! Be sure to follow this blog for reminders and hype.

#karen page appreciation week #daredevil #karen page #karen page daredevil #karen page edit #karen page the punisher #the punisher #daredevil fandom #daredevil s2 #daredevil season 2 #the punisher s2 #kastle #karedevil

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tenkasato · 2 years

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Fanfic Recs: Avatar

Okay, real talk. Who doesn’t love the Avatar series? Let us have a long conversation, shall we? Kidding aside, here’s my contribution to the fandom! Go over the list of fanfic recs I prepared because they’re absolutely amazing.

Another Brother by AvocadoLove

Author’s summary: It was a mission of revenge. There weren't supposed to be any survivors, but Chief Hakoda couldn't bring himself to kill the Fire Nation boy. Against his better judgment, he brought him home. A Zuko joins the Water Tribe story (ongoing)

Thoughts: Creatively done. If you’re interested about a realistic albeit unique depiction of a water tribe Zuko, here’s your treat. Not to mention, the heartwarming relationships they share.

Ripples in the Water by Ness Frost (Sequels: Set in Stone, From the Ashes)

Author’s summary: Ozai won the final battle, and Aang did not survive. Having lost someone they both care about deeply and separated from the rest of their friends, Zuko and Katara are forced to flee for their lives, and have no one to rely on but each other to survive... and to find and train the next Avatar. Not a shipping fic. Rating is for violence; full warnings inside.

Thoughts: Avatar never lacked in portrayals of war victims. This fic, however, further explores through an AU where everything went south for our heroes. Deliciously dark and haunting.

Reluctant Hero by P.A.W.07

Author’s summary: "It was an accident." That was what Zuko had said to his crew when he used an element he hadn't been meant to. He wasn't the Avatar. The Avatar was supposed to be in the Earth Kingdom, hidden by its walls. Unless the old Avatar had died long ago ... and had already been replaced fifteen years ago. AU.

Thoughts: What’s worse than Zuko being exiled to find the avatar? The answer: Zuko finding out he’s the avatar.

My Name as It's Called Again by Like A Dove

Author’s summary: Mako will always be with the Avatar.

Thoughts: The plot twist in the end is gut-punchingly good.

Mending Wounds » by FictionIsSocialInquiry

Author’s summary: 'The Fire Prince is older. You can see it in the calmness of his expression, the relaxed carriage of his shoulders. He is smiling at her. She's never seen the Fire Lord's son smile.' While lost in the Foggy Swamp, searching for her brother and her Avatar, Katara is haunted by visions of the Fire Nation's disgraced prince. Visions of peace after war, visions of honour and secrets…

Thoughts: Zutara fic at its finest. Character portrayal was on spot.

Distorted Reality by Baithin (Comic adaptation: @avatardistortedreality)

Author’s summary: Three years after losing the war, a bitter and cynical Aang is told by the Avatar spirits that he has to relive his adventures - this time, with Zuko and Azula at his side in a war against the Water Tribes.

Thoughts: One of the best AUs I’ve encountered. The plot itself is literally an AU in their own sense. Interesting characterizations. Also check out the brilliant and beautifully crafted comics I linked.

I love Avatar so much it’s literally that one show I keep coming back to even through the years. If you have other fic recs, feel free to reply here! Thank you to these authors for sharing them to us. Take care everyone.

Image source

#avatar #the last airbender #atla #legend of korra #avatar fanfiction #zuko #aang #katara #mako #korra #azula #fanfic recs #rec list #fic recs

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herpronuonsarefemslash · 4 years

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Coming Soon! “The Boxing Day Disaster”

Every year, one of Petunia’s relatives hosts the extended group for Christmas. Since he’s The Boy Who Lived, not The Boy Who Makes Good Choices, Harry tries to keep in touch with the Evanses and this means Petunia Dursley (nee Evans), too. Harry’s the Head Auror and Gabby runs a famous witch fashion magazine. Hermione took over Hogwarts from McGonagall and Fleur teaches Defense. Dudley is an engineer who helps with the freeways around London and his wife is a professor of physics. Petunia is a cancer survivor, and it’s possible that her radiation treatment was given by a doctor who had some Liquid Luck snuck into his coffee. Part of my “Topsy-verse” stories which also includes this shapeshifty, lesbian twist on Goblet of Fire and this “hot for Teacher” epilogue and this smut. -----

"I don't see why we have to..." Vernon huffs.

He's been complaining about fetching the spare china for almost an hour. He complained about the whole idea of hosting from August to the start of the month. But there was nothing to be done.

By sacred tradition, every year, someone hosts Dursleys for Christmas. Her family was no different, so they just combined the lists. With only themselves, Marge, and three first cousins on her side whom they don't get on with at all, the rotation always comes round quicker than she'd like.

And Harry, for some godforsaken reason, keeps trying to mend fences. Something about his therapist's advice and forgiving being easier. ----- Hermione's fingers tiptoe through the fold-out maps as the clerk tortures an already badly-creased copy of the newspaper. A round man of probably sixty, with a neatly trimmed mustache and madcap, bushy eyebrows. The owner of the place, she suspects, going by the fact it's not a chain and the shabbiness of the cardboard stands for the snacks and knick-knacks. They needed a ladies' room and for some unknowable reason, Fleur wanted to stop at a petrol station. Hermione is faced with picking out snacks that will appeal to a literal faerie princess while staring at a rack of the sort of sugary lunacy she was taught to fear as a little girl.They really have no business being here. Fleur's ridiculous car doesn't seem to run out of anything, or get foggy windows, or lose one iota of traction in sleet.

... A bell jingles. Whatever word was halfway out of the man's mouth snags when Fleur emerges, purifying magic frothing on her fingertips as she hangs the key for the bathroom back on the hook. Fleur strolls out the door, holding it open for a young couple who give her a half-muttered thanks. If only that woman knew what it took for her boyfriend to stop ogling Fleur the instant he caught himself, she might realize what a good thing she's got going. The old man hasn't properly recovered, so Hermione casts a confundus charm on the other two, goes around the back of the counter and scans the items herself. She swipes her card and hoists her bags. ---- Gabrielle is the best thing that ever happened to him, and she's whole in the places he's cracked, which makes them perfect together. She's a veela, though, and veela enjoy being mothers but most of the time, one or two children is all they can get from a human father, especially a pure or half-blood wizard. So when their oldest was followed up by identical triplets, Harry noticed a distinct and frightening gleam in Gabrielle's eyes. When they visited the enclave the next winter, he could feel dozens of blue eyes following him everywhere and Gabby's hand gripped his so tight he's surprised he didn't need any Skele-Gro potions. If he doesn't watch it, he'll be tied to the bed and they'll have a quidditch team to raise by the time Lily's out of school. ... Lily's amazing. They were going to name her after his mother either way, but the moment her jade-green eyes opened and met his, it felt like more than that. Kind and quiet and supportive of her younger sisters, even in moments where Harry finds himself thinking about casting a muffling charm and going downstairs to have a drink. She's in fifth year, so put-together and organized that her 'Aunty Hermy' had only one tip on organizing her notebooks. The triplets are trouble. Practically since birth, they've known they outnumbered their parents and acted accordingly. They look like Gabrielle in miniature, only with eyes a bit more turquoise than indigo and hair a bit honey blonde rather than platinum blonde. Hair that comes out fashionably tousled naturally, rather than straight and sleek naturally. Everything he contributed is a tweak. Blink and you miss it. One teacher at their primary school just across the street made a Children of the Corn reference. Poor bastard probably figured it would go right over Gabrielle's head, given her accent and her style. As it happened, they'd been deep in a Hermione-mandated course of study on muggle pop culture. She asked Harry to leave the room, and he did...right after casting an injury detecting charm on the teacher. He's stood here a long time now, staring at a powder-purple BWM panel van with tinted windows. They got it off a delivery service. Gabby insisted that some particular thing about the way the car was built was important 'for safety' and he got the sense this was something she learned in her Beauxbatons classes about survival. If driving what amounts to a brick stood on end keeps them or their daughters safe, then that's what they need to do. The Chosen One not only drives a minivan, he drives a minivan that his wife retrofitted from a company car and gave him as a birthday present. If only Sybil Trelawney knew how loopy her prophecy would get at the other end.

#fleurmione #abo #harry x gabrielle #my fics #previews

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beca-mitchell · 4 years

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brain is in the back seat (heart's in drive) (1/1)

Summary: Life has a way of not working out like the movies. Not like Beca likes movies anyway. Beca and Chloe’s first kiss.

Word count: 4,125 words.

Fic title from the song "the movies" by Nightly. Part of the daylight au. As always, many thanks to @asimplefavors for letting me cry at you re: this fic which I’ve been sitting on forever. I’m just glad it’s done.

Read below or on AO3.

* * * * *

LOCATION: Brookline, MA MONTH: March AGE: 15/16

* * * * *

Beca hates movies, so it makes sense that she’s kind of getting the feeling that her life is turning out like one.

After the Winter Formal, Beca kind of just wants things to go back to normal, not that she really has a baseline for that anymore.

It also doesn’t really help that she has to endure Valentine’s Day amidst all her peers. If there’s something people never really grow out of, it’s the excessive gift giving and over-emphasis on the quantity of candy grams received in one’s locker on that specific day.

...And it further didn’t help that Beca had quickly shoved the Valentine’s card she had been planning to give to Chloe into her own locker upon seeing Tom walk down the fall with his arm snugly around Chloe’s shoulder, a small bouquet of roses pressed into her arms. Beca had thought it inappropriate at the time—figured Chloe didn’t need extra Valentines when she was so obviously taken...even though it had been their tradition for years.

And of course, the fact that Chloe hadn’t given her a valentine either. That was telling enough. Not that Beca gave her much reason to, with how much avoiding she had been doing since January.

That February break that follows immediately after is one of the most relaxing breaks Beca has ever experienced. She spends most of it sparsely replying to texts from Chloe and begrudgingly visiting her father and his family for the short break.

It’s the time apart (again) that really only cements that the nauseating feeling in her stomach is because she’s not getting over her feelings for one Chloe Beale anytime soon.

The more selfish part of her—the part entirely consuming her heart—doesn’t really want to give up on her feelings, but the rational part—somewhere between her heart and her head—knows that she’s just setting herself up for more heartbreak, if the Instagram updates from Chloe and Tom are any indication. It’s horrible, really because they’re not even together in person. Beca knows this solely because she knows Chloe’s family takes a trip to Stowe every February break for a ski trip.

It’s like the social media back and forth is just designed to hurt her. The little comments they leave on each other’s photos. The hearts. The inside-joke emojis.

She knows rationally that her thoughts are spiralling and it’s entirely untrue that Chloe would ever want to hurt her purposefully. It’s just that, well, Beca wouldn’t blame her. She knows that her avoidance of Chloe over the past few weeks has been more than obvious and less than desirable.

So when Beca sits down with her father and his new family, the sensation of being replaced never really gets old even if she knows that she has no real right to feel that way. But it’s hard, looking around her and feeling so out of place, and then knowing that when she returns home, the one person who she had always considered the literal embodiment of home is also starting a new segment of her life in which Beca has no real place.

And even sitting in her father’s home in New Haven, she imagines what it would be like to blurt out that she’s in love with her best friend—a girl—simply to see the disdain cross his face like a shadow. It would be enough to make her forget about her current plight. Plus, she’s just so tired of feeling like shit all the time.

She sees it, in all honesty. Like her mind has two screens, she sees the mildly foggy memory of her father saying something disparaging against homosexuality on one screen while the other gleefully rolls imagined footage of Beca sweeping his pretentious dishes off his dining table and declaring her love for her best friend, the very girl she grew up next two for the past eleven years.

Still, as appealing as that sounds and looks, she bites her tongue and listens to her father spout off something about psychology or some other academic topic that Beca has zero interest in. She would normally be texting Chloe, but she just can’t bring herself to pick up the phone.

Chloe doesn’t text her either.

It all sucks.

February break sucks.

She sucks.

Her thoughts follow her all the way back home to the desolate wasteland she calls home (classic Boston-in-February weather) where her mother (shockingly) greets her with a hug and the promise of a sit-down meal. The thought warms her for a moment before Beca remembers that her mom probably just feels guilty without really wanting to do anything. Not even apologize for being absent. Emotionally distant. Neglectful. Beca’s sure the list could go on.

As she sits at the dinner table thinking about a myriad of things floating around her mind in an attempt to distract herself including the dreaded first day back at school, the assignments she should probably work on, seeing Chloe again—

Her fingers twitch towards her phone on instinct.

She draws back with a flinch, resisting the urge to mindlessly text Chloe even though it’s what she wants most in the world at the moment. Quickly, she spares a glance at her mother who hasn’t looked up from her own plate.

With a sigh, Beca furrows her brow and returns to staring sullenly at the table until it is an appropriate enough time to retreat to her room.

The next day passes without incident. Beca decides to walk to school early instead of catching a ride from Chloe’s brother like she normally would. She’s not sure what the point is. Chloe will just figure out a way to corner her later regardless.

Even with that in mind, Beca isn’t expecting to see Chloe sitting on her bed when she opens her bedroom door. In fact, she’s kind of expecting her room to be exactly as she left it that morning before heading out for school—empty, her bed unmade, and cold.

But now—

“What are you doing here?” Beca asks, harsher than she intends. She swallows, willing herself to reign in her emotions as best as she can.

“Your mom let me in,” Chloe says softly. Her palms glide briefly over Beca’s bedspread before she’s pushing herself off the bed and moving awkwardly to the middle of Beca’s bedroom. “I…hope that’s okay?” she asks hesitantly, like she is no longer sure of her place in Beca’s house; in Beca’s life.

Beca steadies her grip on her backpack for a moment before dropping it to the floor unceremoniously. “It’s fine,” she says finally, trying to ignore the way her heart pulls and tugs at the mere sight of Chloe—Chloe, out of her school clothes and wearing comfortable loungewear. Chloe, with her hair down instead of up in a ponytail. Chloe, whose lips are slowly spreading into a hesitant smile. “I just…” Beca blinks, turning to walk to her desk quickly to be safe. Distant. “Why are you here?” she asks again, softer.

“I…” Chloe takes a deep breath, but she thankfully does not seem to move closer to Beca in any capacity. “Are you mad at me?” Chloe asks with a delicate softness that only makes Beca’s heart ache more.

In her mind’s eye, she plays out the variety of expressions Chloe could possibly be wearing. An expression designed to elicit the highest amount of sympathy in a willing audience. Outwardly, Beca stares hard at the notebook on her desk, reaching out to run her finger along the spiral. “No,” she murmurs. “I’m not mad at you.”

“Did I…” Chloe sighs, like she can’t quite bear to finish that question. But Chloe, as resilient as ever, pushes through, though she doesn’t finish the question. “Beca, please just look at me.”

Beca bites her lip but she complies nonetheless, taking her time to drag her eyes up to Chloe’s face.

She hates that she immediately wants to break into a smile upon simply seeing Chloe’s face—a natural by-product of the happiness she usually feels upon seeing her best friend’s face, though her more recent emotions have obviously been veering towards the romantic.

But more than all of that—more than the positive emotions—she hates the hurt she sees there, especially knowing that she had actively contributed in some way.

“Did I do something?” Chloe asks rather quickly. Nervously. Her hands come up to grip her own arms, hugging herself. “Did I do something to you to make you…”

“To make me what?”

“Like this,” Chloe says quickly. “Like you can’t stand being around me.”

It’s not you, Beca thinks. It’s me and I’m so sorry. “It’s…nothing,” Beca says evasively. “I…” Her eyes narrow as her brain catches up with the rest of her emotions. She fully processes that Chloe is in her room. After school. On a nice evening. “Didn’t you have plans today? With Tom?”

A blush rises on Chloe’s cheek at the mere mention of his name, as usual. And as usual, Beca finds herself reacting viscerally with something akin to nausea. “I cancelled,” Chloe admits. “I wanted to see you. It’s been a while since—”

“—Well, you’ve seen me.” Beca tries not to let some of the acidity seep into her tone because Chloe doesn’t deserve it, but it does anyway. Too late. Beca sighs. “I have homework to do.”

Chloe brightens. “Great! So do I. We can do it together.”

Chloe’s chipper tone, while normally something that Beca finds charming and attractive, grates on her nerves today. Beca glances at Chloe out of the corner of her eye. It’s then that she notices Chloe’s full backpack resting on the floor by her feet. “Don’t you have to do it with Tom? Like you guys normally do? He made that pretty clear.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Chloe says in a tone that Beca can’t identify. She doesn’t know if she has the energy to identify anything at this point.

Beca grits her teeth. “I still think you should go.”

“Why?” Chloe challenges. When Beca doesn’t respond, Chloe continues, this time with an angry tone. “Do you know how worried I am about you? What’s going on? Why are you avoiding me? Is it Tom? Did he say something to you?” The way Chloe says his name then is so distinct that it makes Beca’s ears perk up. It reminds Beca of so long ago—of Chloe immediately demanding the names of people who had hurt Beca’s feelings.

Her own knight in shining armor.

Beca exhales noisily and finally meets Chloe’s eyes head-on. “Chloe, no. We’re not doing this right now.”

Blue eyes flash like lightning. “Oh, well at least you’re looking at me now.”

“Chloe,” Beca says, exasperated at the bitterness in Chloe’s tone. It is absolutely well-deserved, but the sting makes Beca’s hackles rise nonetheless. “Come on.”

“No, I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s been going on with you.” Chloe literally stomps her foot on the ground. “I swear it, Beca Mitchell.”

Chloe kind of looks like she might stomp her foot again. Instead, she crosses her arms and stares at Beca defiantly.

It’s like the dam breaks all at once. Beca bursts out laughing at both the sight and the sound. “Did you just—? A foot stomp? Really?”

Chloe freezes, like she isn’t quite sure what’s going on. “Oh, I…” The mild confusion in her eyes causes Beca to smile again, unable to hide her own adoration for her best friend even if she tried.

(Which she has been. Trying, at least.)

For a moment, it is finally silent in Beca’s room. Chloe’s stance softens and she is suddenly staring at Beca with a different kind of expression on her face. “What?” Beca asks, not realizing that she has the tiniest smile on her face still.

“There you are,” Chloe says affectionately. “My favorite smile.”

Beca blinks, feeling the sudden urge to cry. All kinds of emotion well up inside her, each warring for some kind of dominance; each warring for attention. Beca feels like Chloe is really looking at her for the first time in a while.

It also occurs to Beca that they’re finally alone and Beca has no idea what to do.

“Stop,” Beca says quickly. She averts her gaze. “Stop doing that.”

Chloe’s confusion is immediately visible. New tension grows palpable between them. “Stop doing what?”

“Stop…” Beca gestures wildly. “Doing those things. Saying those things that make me…” she trails off, licking her lips. The air feels thick. Difficult to breathe. “Stop,” she whispers.

Her heart races uncomfortably, like what Beca imagines a heart attack to feel like. Or if she’s being less dramatic, what she imagines a panic attack to be.

“Beca,” Chloe murmurs. “You can talk to me. Please, you’re scaring me.” She steps closer, right in front of Beca. Beca sees Chloe’s annoyingly cute socks in her line of vision and slowly lifts her head. “Hi,” Chloe says softly upon catching Beca’s eyes with her own. “Beca,” she starts. “It’s okay.”

Is it? Beca thinks. Will it ever be?

It’s then that Beca realizes how close they’re standing. How nice Chloe smells. How much softer her sweater looks up close. The very light freckles on Chloe’s face, now faded compared to how prominent they had seemed during the summer months.

I love you so much, Beca thinks, her traitorous mind breaking down every last confine as usual. I don’t know what that means, but I know that it’s true.

Beca isn’t sure what comes over her then.

(She kind of knows, but still. It’s easier being ignorant to her thought processes.)

In reality, it feels like the oddest fog passing over her brain while her heart beats with startling clarity. Her fingers graze Chloe’s cheek before she realizes what is happening and her lips meet Chloe’s with force that surprises both of them. Beca feels the tension leave her body immediately replaced by the most peculiar warmth—a warmth that fills her chest unexpectedly and so wholly that her body all but sags into Chloe’s.

To her surprise, just as she is about to pull back, Chloe’s hand comes up to cup the back of her head while the other hand curls around her hip with, Beca realizes with a jolt of fire to her chest, stark possessiveness and protectiveness. For a few blissful moments, Chloe’s lips move in tandem with her own, as soft as Beca always imagined. The initial shock of experiencing her first kiss wears off, but…

Chloe is kissing her back. Chloe is kissing her and Chloe is not moving away except—

She does.

Chloe finally moves back, their lips separating with suddenness and abruptness that leaves Beca reeling.

“Oh my God,” Beca says immediately. Her throat feels tight and her voice is high and rough with the fear that courses through her body. “God, Chloe, I—”

“You just kissed me,” Chloe interrupts. Her voice trembles even as she continues. “You kissed me, Beca.”

There is something more than accusation in her tone. There is a hint of desperation that Beca recognizes all too well and further, something almost foreign in terms of their interactions with each other. Chloe has never sounded unsure or insecure when talking to Beca. The fact that she did just then breaks Beca’s heart a little bit.

“I’m…” Beca swallows. Pushes down the emotion threatening to spill over. She isn’t even sure what there is to really say. All she can think about is how Chloe pulled away first—essentially pushed her away. It stings more than Beca had anticipated even though it had been what she entirely expected. “I know. Chloe, please, just listen."

“I’m dating Tom,” Chloe responds immediately. “I’m dating Tom and I can’t…you can’t just spring this on me and just…” Chloe’s eyes well up with tears and Beca feels her own eyes sting at the sight. “I can’t cheat on him.”

“We didn’t,” Beca says quickly. Desperately. “Chloe, please, can we just…” Beca feels the last false shred of happiness finally crumble away as she sees the despair in Chloe’s eyes.

She doesn’t feel the same way.

She never did.

She was just caught up in the moment.

“I don’t know what I expected,” Beca says in a small voice. “Fuck,” she murmurs, running her hands through her hair. “I’m sorry.”

She feels so fucking embarrassed.

Chloe hesitates. “Beca, wait.”

“No, you should just go. You should go and just.” Beca turns back to her desk and grips the edge of her chair tightly. “Just go do your dumb homework and go be with your boyfriend. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I just need time—”

“Chloe, now.”

The way Beca’s voice rings around her bedroom weighs heavier than the silence that follows. She thinks she hears Chloe sniffle once, but she can’t bear to look. She can’t bear to see Chloe’s expression and even more viscerally, the metaphorical imagery of Chloe finally crushing the last pieces of her already-shattered part as she leaves Beca’s bedroom.

The door clicks quietly, but the sound still makes Beca jump. Unfortunately, not like a movie, these end credits close out with nothing more than a whimper from her own mouth.

She finally allows herself to crumble, finally unable to outrun the magnitude of her emotions.

Not like running had worked very well before.

* * * * *

Chloe I shouldn’t have left, i’m sorry

That’s the text message Beca receives the next morning.

Beca I wanted you to go

It’s one of the few lies Beca has ever told Chloe over the span of their eleven-year friendship.

Beca I’m sorry too

She bites her lip at the added-on text, sending it on impulse because she doesn’t want Chloe to be upset with her. Whether she’s apologizing for the kiss, for her feelings, or for chasing Chloe out of her bedroom, she’s not sure at this point.

It doesn’t matter, however. Chloe doesn’t reply; doesn’t even call her out on it.

* * * * *

Beca goes a few days with some relative quiet in her life. She drags herself around aimlessly doing her best not to be too rocked with guilt and discord as her mind traitorously replays the kiss at unfortunate moments.

“Beca, wait!”

Beca does her best to steady herself and she takes a breath. It does feel like self-sabotage, knowing that Chloe is equally likely to spend time at this specific spot—their spot—so Beca supposes a part of her wanted so badly to just see Chloe’s face again. Just to see if Chloe would be disgusted or upset with her.

All she sees is desperation written across Chloe’s face. The same desperation that had been on Chloe’s face just a few days ago in her bedroom. Since then, Beca had been avoiding her as best as possible, weaving around people whenever the opportunity presented itself (which was often, due to Beca’s smaller stature).

Beca had never been so grateful for crowded high school hallways. Blending in and being nearly invisible never felt so good.

“We need to talk,” Chloe says quietly. “You know we do.”

“There’s…” Beca presses her fingers tightly into the metal bar in front of her, unable to look at Chloe directly. She should have expected Chloe to come here. Self-sabotage, she supposes. “Nothing to talk about.”

“That’s crap and you know it.”

Beca refuses to acknowledge that. “I can’t right now, Chlo.”

“Please,” Chloe says, a bit closer than before. “You…” Chloe sighs. “You can’t just kiss me like that and—and—” Biting frustration seeps into her tone. “I shouldn’t have left you alone like that,” Chloe whispers after a moment of silence. “But there’s no way you can just expect me to ignore what happened between us.”

Beca takes a brief moment to marvel over how Chloe somehow manages to be good with words. Or at least that she manages to get words out at all. It’s something Beca envies.

“I’m trying so hard to understand, Beca,” Chloe murmurs, taking a step closer.

Beca continues to focus on anything but Chloe. “There’s nothing to understand. I made a mistake. You can forget about it.”

The air seems to still around them. Beca can hear the shouts of their peers, sharp and crisp in the brisk, chilly air.

Finally, Chloe responds, voice thick with emotion. “I don’t want to forget about it, Beca.”

That makes Beca look at Chloe. She twists so sharply and quickly that she think something cracks in her neck, but she brushes off the brief twinge that runs through her body. “Why?” she asks, hating how weak her voice sounds. “You should, it’s for the be—”

“I don’t want to forget about it,” Chloe repeats, firmer than before.

“Why?” Beca asks quickly as curiosity and hope win out.

Chloe says nothing, simply watching Beca with a near-inscrutable expression. Finally, she sucks in a breath. “Why did you kiss me?” she asks, in lieu of responding, like it’s all the response Beca needs. The challenge in Chloe’s voice is familiar. It makes Beca’s heart race. She resists the urge to reach out and grasp onto Chloe’s forearms or shoulders to steady herself. Instead, Beca forces herself to keep her eyes on Chloe steadily.

In that moment, Beca just wants Chloe to steal the words right from her mind. She wants Chloe to speak so she doesn’t have to—Chloe has to know at this point. She has to know, there’s no real reason for her not to know. It becomes evident that Chloe isn’t going to let her off the hook so easily. Beca sighs. “You know why,” she finally murmurs. “You know,” she presses.

Chloe’s eyes flash with emotion—finally something akin to the familiar passion that Beca has come to know over the years. It sends Beca’s heart into a tangle of emotions as she attempts to steady her own breathing. She could go on. She could keep talking. She feels the urge—she recognizes it in its rarity—course through her with startling sincerity. You know why, her own words echo back at her. Tell her, she begs herself. Please.

I like you.

I’m in love with you.

I love you.

“Then you know why, too,” Chloe finally says after a long silence.

Beca’s eyes must do something—she feels some muscle in her face twitch—because Chloe takes an immediate step back after the words leave her mouth.

“Chloe,” Beca breathes, like it’s the first breath of pure air she has taken in and expelled in a long time. Tom, Beca thinks frantically. But Tom is—it can’t be—

“I—I should go. But—um.” Chloe shifts, drawing her lower lip between her teeth as she assesses Beca once more. Beca doesn’t dare breathe, wondering if Chloe is going to kiss her—whether Chloe will kiss her first this time. Or if Chloe will hug her. Or if Chloe will say more. She longs to ask more questions, say more words, but she’s too afraid of the thick air between them suddenly.

Chloe finally takes a breath; she finally takes a step back and lifts her hand in a half wave, like she realizes she needs to leave. “I have to go,” she repeats. “But I...Beca,” Chloe murmurs. She lifts her hands together, like she might take the necessary steps to close the distance between them, but she casts Beca a sad expression, clenching her hands into fists and drawing them close to her chest. It is so vulnerable and unexpected for Chloe that Beca has no idea what words could possibly come out of her mouth then. “Don’t give up on me.”

That alone steals Beca’s breath from her once more. She can do nothing more than nod, because how can she even fathom the thought. It had been nice to indulge in the possibility of not loving Chloe Beale—not being with her, even as friends—but this reality, however half-formed is more than Beca could have ever dreamed of.

With that, Chloe finally twists and darts away from under the bleachers. Beca watches her go with bated breath, and when she finally exhales, she watches the way the air condenses in front of her, like a flurry of thoughts and emotions finally making themselves known in Chloe’s wake.

She breathes, allowing herself to think of their shared kiss in Beca’s bedroom just days ago. Maybe even a week now.

“I won’t,” she replies, speaking to nobody except the ghostly presence of the memories past, present, and future.

And she finally feels like the future—whatever sequels may follow—might not look so bleak.

fin.

#bechloe #now i see daylight #pitch perfect #fanfiction #beca mitchell #chloe beale #au #high school au #my fanfic #mine #text #queue

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cardest · 4 years

Text

Ireland playlist

Feck!

Pog my thoin! It’s my Irish playlist. My precious treasure has been opened! Inside my pot of gold lies an Irish playlist of songs I put together. Forget the diamonds in Antwerp! It doesn’t matter if you are from Rhode Island or South Korea, this is the only Irish playlist you need and for your travels across the green hills. Play the songs here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-iHPcxymC1_4UCcVH8Jcka-whydlPzH6 So load up your iPods and whatever you use and enjoy this with a pint of Guinness! Stay safe. Stay at home. Wash your hands. Burn a bra.

IRELAND PLAYLIST

001 Carrentouhill - Welcome to Ireland 002 Thin Lizzy - Do Anything You Want To 003 Makem & Clancy - The Rocky Road To Dublin 004 Ash - A Life Less Ordinary 005 Absu - Tara 006 Type O Negative - Be My Druidess 007 Dexy’s Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen 008 Horslips - Dearg Doom 009 Boomtown rats - Banana republic 010 Dublin City Ramblers - Dicey Reilly 011 Simple Minds - All The Things She Said 012 Cruachan - The Brown Bull Of Cooley 013 Ween - The Blarney Stone 014 Primordial - Where Greater Men Have Fallen 015 The Pogues - Dirty Old Town 016 Van Morrison - Cyprus Avenue 017 Wings: Wild Life - Give Ireland Back To The Irish 018 Devin Townsend - Irish Maiden 019 The Rumjacks - An Irish Pub Song 020 Dominic Behan - Biddy Mulligan 021 Waylander - Brú na Bóinne 022 John Lennon - The Luck Of The Irish 023 Gary Moore ft. Philip Lynott - Out In The Fields 024 Whiskey on a Sunday - Irish Rovers 025 Týr - The Wild rover 026 Sleep - The Druid 027 The Waterboys - Fishermans Blues of Gael Bay 028 Clannad - Siúil A Rún 029 Leprechaun in the Hood - The Leprechaun Rap 030 Leaves' Eyes - [feat. Carmen Elise Espenaes] 031 Thin Lizzy - Dublin 032 Cruachan - The Marching Song of Fiach Mac Hugh 033 Fairport Convention - She Moves Through The Fair 034 My Bloody Valentine - Soon 035 Steve Earle - Galway Girl 036 The Wolfe Tones - A Nation Once Again 037 Mael Mórdha - Cluain Tarbh 038 Celtic Legend - Irish Drinkin Song 039 Therapy? - Auto Surgery 040 Bob Geldof - The Great Song Of Indifference 041 Makem & Clancy - Little Beggarman 042 ABSU - Of Celtic Fire, We Are Born - Terminus (...In the Eyes of Ioldánach) 043 The Nolans - Gotta Pull Myself Together 044 Johnny Cash - Danny Boy 045 Dropkick Murphys - Fields Of Athenry 046 Ahab - Red Foam (The Great Storm) 047 Omnia - Fee Ra Huri 048 Banba Óir - Clannad 049 Maighread & Triona Ni Dhomhnaill - The Spanish Lady 050 Gary Moore - Over The Hills And Far Away 051 Slomatics - Electric Breath 052 The Irish Rovers - Finnegans Wake 053 The Cranberries - Dreams 054 Orthodox Celts - Star Of The County Down 055 Mamas Boys - Mama Weer All Crazee Now 056 The Dubliners - All for me Grog 057 Gems of Ireland - The Last Of The Irish Rover 058 Paddyman - The Leprechaun Song 059 Primordial - Heathen Tribes 060 Beithioch - Ghosts of a world long forgotten 061 The Wolfe Tones - Come Out Ye Black And Tans 062 Diddler on the Hoof - Some Say The Devil Is Dead 063 Planxty - The Bonny Light Horseman 064 Sinéad O Connor & The Chieftains - The Foggy Dew 065 The Berry Swine Liners - GO ON HOME BRITISH SOLDIERS 066 Scath Na Deithe - Unrecognized disease 067 No Spill Blood - White Out 068 Irish Music - Ancient Druids 069 The Corrs - Toss the feathers, go braless 070 Cruachan - Diarmuid And Grainne 071 The Lord Weird Slough Feg - Blarney stone 072 Gama Bomb - Three Witches 073 VAN MORRISON - Bright Side of the Road 074 Rory Gallagher - Bad Penny 075 Feargal Sharkey - You Little Thief 076 That Petrol Emotion - Hey Venus 077 Absu - Manannán 078 Mike Patton - Catholic Tribe 079 Skyclad - The Widdershins Jig 080 Tom Waits - Rain Dogs 081 Virolac - Masque 082 Phil Lynott - Old town 083 Leaves' Eyes - Amhran (Song Of The Winds) 084 Cruachan - The Sea Queen of Connaught 085 Dread Sovereign - Cathars to their doom 086 Pagan Altar - Dance Of The Druids 087 Planxty - The Jolly Beggar/The Wise Maid 088 The Kilkennys - Will You Go Lassie Go 089 Anneke van Giersbergen, Árstíðir - Londonderry Air (Danny Boy) 090 The Dubliners - In The Rare Old Times 091 Louis Armstrong - Irish black bottom 092 Wolfe Tones - The Boys Of The Old Brigade 093 Primordial - Fuil arsa 094 The Undertones - My Perfect cousin 095 Therapy? - Acellerator 096 Cheap Trick - O Claire 097 Malthusian - across deaths 098 Absu - Bron (Of the Waves) 099 Mourning Beloveth - Theories of old bones 100 Thin Lizzy - Whiskey in the jar 101 Zom - Tombs Of The Void 102 Scáth Na Déithe - This Unrecognized Disease 103 TEN TON SLUG - Unit 104 Altar of Plagues - God Alone 105 DEVO - I'm a Potato 106 Beithíoch - Ghosts of a World Long Forgotten 107 Mahavishnu Orchestra - A Lotus On Irish Streams 108 Sacrilegia - Beyond the Fouler's Snare 109 Dread Sovereign - Cathars to Their Doom 110 Corr Mhona - Dair 111 Coscradh - Disappeared 112 The Undertones - Julie Ocean 113 Sirocco - Lambay 114 Mourning Beloveth - Theories of Old Bones 115 VAL DOONICAN WITH HIS GUITAR - THE AGRICULTURAL IRISH GIRL 116 Malthusian - Remnant-Fauna 117 The Wheels - Road Block 118 Rudimentary Peni - Ireland Sun 119 SOOTHSAYER - Cephalopod 120 Vircolac - Tether-Wane 121 Thin Lizzy - She Knows 122 Zealot Cult - Spiritual Sickness 123 Killing Joke - Wardance 124 Walpurgis Night - Ghost of Dublin 125 Absu - Bron (Of the Waves) 666 The Irish Rovers - Finnegans Wake

May the lilt of Irish laughter lighten every load. May the mist of Irish magic shorten every road... and many thanks to James (Groningen) , Garaidh & Lynda (Sydney), Nathan (Brisbane), Arto (Helsinki) for your awesome contributions to this playlist. Feck yeah! Hit play: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-iHPcxymC1_4UCcVH8Jcka-whydlPzH6 What songs did I miss? What bands are missing from this list? Let me know! No matter where you are on Earth. Stay safe Clíona!

#Irish songs #Ireland playlist #Ireland bands #Thin Lizzy #Primordial #absu #Vircolac #therapy?#altar of Plagues #The Irish Rovers #celtic music #playlists #cruachan

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goddamnitkastle · 5 years

Text

Light My Heart and Light My Shadow

I did say I was working on an Apocalypse Kastle AU fic and given the state of the world, it gave me the final push to finish the damn thing. While also getting inspiration from others sources and getting great support from @carry-the-sky and @witchygagirl. Thank you both for beta reading!

So the idea to write this AU first came about from If The World Was Ending by JP Saxe ft. Julia Michaels. Then Starkid came out with a new musical called Black Friday and well, once again, I am slightly ripping off another source material for their scenarios but then making it Kastle. That’s how I make my fics happen these days apparently.

If you’ve seen the musical, you probably know what’s coming but if you haven’t it’s okay, you can still go along with it. But also watch it cause it’s awesome (if you’re into apocalyptic musicals).

Either way, a year has passed since the hospital visit in TPS2, the world is ending now, and Frank and Karen are navigating it together.

Enjoy!

It’s dark when Frank wakes.

But that doesn’t stop the flashbacks. Or really the vivid remembrance of the last week and a half. When the world ended. Or is it still ending? He doesn’t know at this point.

I swear Micro if you don’t find Karen...

It’s been a year Frank, you really expect me to go anywhere with you...

The world is literally on fire Frank you need to get out of here...

This is the apocalypse. This is the end, not even Daredevil can stop it. Find Karen, Frank. Take care of her for me. Tell her that I’m sorry and that Foggy will always be there for her. In this lifetime or the next. Just please... go.

Karen please... let’s go.

Frank realizes he’s lying in an aisle, a row of seats on either side of him. The floor is sticky and he can smell a faint trace of buttered popcorn underneath the smoke from the fires.

How the fuck did he end up in a movie theater? And where is Karen?

He gets up and his right side flares up in pain. He groans as he reaches out into the black to find a seat. He manages to find an arm rest to sit down on.

The lights turn on and a door opens. Frank whips around. It’s Karen.

“Hey you shouldn’t be up, you’re gonna rip the stitches...”

“Where the hell are we Karen?”

“In an AMC I think? I don’t know, it’s a movie theater and you were stabbed. I had to get us away from...”

“Right. Who were they?”

“I don’t know. People driven to madness? I wouldn’t rule out zombies at this point. You’re gonna be fine though, I don’t think the knife hit any organs as for as I could tell.”

“How’d you patch me up?”

“I found a first aid kit in the box office. I think we’ll be safe here for now, I checked every door and I locked it. And if I couldn’t lock it I barricaded it. Ticket stations, chairs, tables, anything I could find...”

“You did good Karen.” He reassures her.

“Thank you.”

“No thank you...”

He looks at her. Past the grime and the dark circles under her eyes she is still so beautiful. He notices her eyebrows are knitted together and he then realizes that she is waiting for him to finish his sentence.

“...For, uh, coming with me. Still trusting me even after the hospital...” He spills out.

“Well it’s hard to fake an apocalypse, Frank.”

The silence is tense but Karen breaks into a laugh and Frank smiles for the first time in a year. It’s a brief moment of respite in the middle of hell.

“The world didn’t need to end though. It shouldn’t have had to come to that. I shouldn’t have walked away from you. Stayed away as long as I did. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I forgive you.”

Frank turns to the movie screen. He leans all the way back and rests against the wall.

“Jesus I can’t remember the last time I went to the movies. Not like I’d remember them. I, uh, only went to whatever latest animated movie Lisa and Frankie were obsessing over that also happened to have merchandise to buy.”

Karen smiles, leans back and rests against the wall.

“I had to do a couple movie reviews for The Bulletin. Trust me, you really weren’t missing much on the non-animated side. It was either about superheroes or cars or... the end of the world.”

And just like that hell comes rushing back in and Frank feels his adrenaline spike.

“Yeah we shouldn’t stay here. We gotta keep moving Karen...”

Frank starts to get up but he feels her hand grab his wrist.

“No Frank. I’m tired. I’m so goddamn tired I just want to...”

He takes her hand off and clasps in between his as he sits back down.

“God even after a year you... you still rip my heart out Frank. Even as the world burns around us my biggest fear is that I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and you’re gonna be gone.”

“I’m not going anywhere Karen. I’m never gonna say goodbye to you unless you ask me to.”

“What if I give you a reason to?”

“No reason could ever...”

“I killed my brother.”

Tears start to fall but he doesn’t let go of her hand.

“I think that’s why... your case. It wasn’t just that something wasn’t right. I realized long after that trial... I think deep down somewhere I was reaching out to you like a lifeline. To help me make sense of this loss that just consumes me some days. On those days I can still smell the blood, the burning asphalt of the pavement, feel the scream in my chest when I looked over and saw Kevin motionless next to me...”

Karen covers her mouth with her hands and a muffled, strangled sob comes out. Frank has her in his arms a moment later and doesn’t let go for a long time. Mixed in with her cries she recounts that awful night to him, learns of Todd, her father, her mother.

“It’s okay Karen.” He keeps telling her.

Nothing about what is going on is okay but he will say it for her. Say it until it’s a mantra and she believes it will be again.

...

They stay in that movie theater for a few days. All was safe and sound and Frank reluctantly agreed that he was also goddamn tired. He and Karen had been on the run, it was only a matter of time before they had to stop.

The movie theater turned out to be the ideal hideaway. Once Frank got one of the generators to work out they had electricity and plumbing. And when Karen found the stockroom, the food problem was solved. Yes it was greasy and sugary shit but it was better than nothing.

“I wonder if we could get the projector to work.” Karen muses while eating Raisinets.

“Then we really wouldn’t have a reason to leave.” Frank says as he bites into a chicken tender.

On their second night Frank finds Karen reading training manuals behind the box office counter.

“Hey.”

“Thinking of changing careers?” He asks as he cracks a side smile at her.

She rolls her eyes but a small smile appears.

“Come on, I got something to show you.”

Frank leads them to the auditorium and, hopefully, if Frank timed this right...

Let's all go to the lobby To get ourselves a treat

“You didn’t.” Karen exclaims.

“If you ever decide to open a movie theater, let me know if you need a projectionist. Only took me a day and half to figure out the damn thing.”

They go inside and take their seats. They have their snacks and Frank can almost forget what is happening outside.

“What movie are we watching?”

“Yeah about that...”

Jingle bells suddenly ring out and the movie title appears in bright red letters:

Santa Claus Is Going to High School

“Oh no...” Karen gasps as she leans forward, her hands gripping the back of the seat in front of hers.

“Yeah sorry this was the only movie that I could get to play.”

“Oh God I had to see this movie. For The Bulletin.”

“Shit. I would pick the one movie you’ve actually seen...”

“Yeah after that I told Ellison I was never going to do the movie reviews again and to give those pieces to the interns.”

“What’s it about?”

“Um.. so Santa Claus finds out that every kid in the world is on the naughty list. He realizes he may be out of touch so he turns himself into a teenager to... I guess to get back in touch with them? Or to spy on them... it’s bad Frank. It’s Never Been Kissed but make it Christmas.”

Frank laughs.

“High school, huh?”

“Yeah... why anyone would willing go back to high school I could never...”

“I would.”

Karen turns her attention away from the movie and onto him.

“Really?” She asks skeptically.

“Does that surprise you?”

“Kind of. Let me guess... quarterback?”

“Offensive line. And wrestling. I was a jock, what can I say? But high school... I liked the structure though and even the, uh, learning... when it wasn’t hard. What about you?”

“Please don’t.”

“Karen...”

“I told you I was...”

“You said yourself that was end of senior year. When you met Todd. Are you telling me that was when your life began? That there was nothing before the drugs?”

“Don’t be an asshole Frank. Okay? I played basketball, I contributed to my school’s literary magazine and... I’m not that girl anymore.”

Karen gets up but Frank grabs her arm.

“You don’t have to be.”

“What are we doing Frank? The world is fucking ending and here we are reminiscing about high school...”

“And? Jesus Karen I was just trying to...”

“What?”

“I don’t know, forget? Just for a moment forget all the shit that has happened to me? Who I’ve been for the last four years? Tonight I just wanted to be a man, seeing a movie with a beautiful woman, and hope that there was something still there.”

“Frank we can’t just... forget.”

“Why not? It’s you and me. You and me at the end of the world with no reason to run away or leave or to say goodbye. No past. No future. Just now. And I want you.”

He reaches for her and takes her hands in his.

“You’ve forgiven me time and time again. Even when I don’t deserve it. Please let me...” He pleads as he runs his thumbs over her wrists.

“Do you mean it Frank?”

“I do.”

His forehead lightly bumps into hers. The movie has been white noise from the start but in this moment the screen goes white, bathing Karen in a color other than red and black for the first time. It’s like daylight and he feels like he could cry. But then she pulls her hands from his and places them over his heart and the touch alone sends a shudder through him.

“We have got to work on our timing.” She whispers as her fingertips press deeper into his chest.

And then she kisses him. He opens his mouth as she grabs his face in fierce desperation. He goes to work on getting his flannel shirt off and she decides to help. They have both forgotten how buttons work but they manage to get it off. As Karen pulls Frank by his tank top, they fall on the linoleum floor in an ungraceful thud. Her fingernails dig into his shoulders and he’s got his hand under her shirt groping at her breast when...

“A red tricycle!”

“Santa!”

A crowd starts cheering and Frank is pulled out of the moment. He makes a face trying to imagine what could be on screen right now and snorts into Karen’s neck. She sighs and grabs the back of his neck like a puppy being pulled by their scruff. Her stare is deadly and Frank is all ears now.

“Really Frank? The movie is that distracting?”

Despite her tone her face and neck are flushed red and yeah, fuck that movie.

“Sorry. Let me see if I can...”

He sticks his hand down the front of her pants, determined to make that movie the last thing on their minds. The world is ending and it’s now or never to see where this thing between them will go. But whatever comes tomorrow, they’ll take it on together.

#kastle #kastle fanfiction #meganerinff #frank castle #karen page #kastlenetwork #carry-the-sky #witchygagirl #daredevil #the punisher #light my heart and light my shadow

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nitewrighter · 5 years

Note

Why about Mercy having a flu because of the bad weather and the lack of “me time” (too much work at the Watchpoint with her research). Would Genji take care for her? In need of a “pamper time” fic of these two. Thank you for reading!

Mercy moaned and shivered from the bed. “What did I do to deserve this?”

Genji pushed through the door, in his full cyborg armor to keep from contracting the virus, but donning a frilly lemon-printed apron over it, “Do you want me to run down the list? There’s the late nights, the meal-skipping, the constant travel, the exposure to literally every other sick person on the watchpoint, the flights in freezing temperatures at high altitudes–”

“I mean karmically. What did I karmically do to deserve this?” said Mercy as Genji set a tray of miso soup and a glass of orange juice in front of her.

“Absolutely nothing, but that hasn’t stopped the universe before, has it?” said Genji. His helmet was on, but Mercy could hear the smile in his voice.

Mercy huffed. “Are you enjoying this?”

“Well, in my experience, nothing helps you get through a bout of sickness faster than a positive attitude!” said Genji, putting his hands on his hips.

“…and a mystical dragon which likely augments your immune system like it augments your strength, stamina, and metabolism,” muttered Mercy.

“…probably that as well,” Genji conceded, “But you don’t need a dragon as long as you have…” he gestured proudly at the tray, “Lots of bed-rest and fluids!”

“You are definitely enjoying this more than you should,” said Mercy, sipping at her miso. She had to admit, the heat and saltiness was a comfort, though.

“I–sorry,” Genji rubbed the back of his neck, “It is hard seeing you sick, but at the same time you’re always so… focused and independent… it means a lot to me to be the one helping you… to feel like I can contribute in ways that don’t involve swinging a sword around.”

Mercy tucked her hair back, inwardly cringing at its greasiness from her own fever sweats, but she smiled a little and looked down at the bowl of miso still in her hand, “It means a lot to have you here,” she said, before sipping her soup again, “Back when I was doing my relief work, I’d always be sure to be updated on my immunizations, but some bugs still found their way through and…well…” she glanced down at the golden cloud of miso in its dashi and swirled it a little, “It would be lonely, and a lot harder, being sick in a place where hardly anyone knows you,” her voice trailed off briefly and she looked back down into the soup, a few rectangles of wakame drifting in a circle. “It’s so strange that you can search for a place that feels like home for so long, yet when you finally find it… you hardly notice. It’s easy to take for granted.”

Genji brought an arm around her shoulders and touched his faceplate to the top of her head, nearly a kiss. “You’re home to me, too,” he said softly.

Mercy touched his faceplate tenderly, “We should be careful,” she said with a wry smile, “That armor’s not completely sealed… you could still get sick too.”

“A risk I am willing to take,” said Genji. touching under her chin as well.

“Especially when your dragon does all your flu-fighting for you,” said Mercy, grinning.

“Soup is just as good as a dragon,” Genji assured her and she rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Well this flu is keeping my head too foggy for work–”

“Which you shouldn’t be doing to begin with because you have the flu,” Genji folded his arms.

“Want to watch a terrible movie or something on the holo-screen?” suggested Mercy.

“It would be my honor,” said Genji.

#gency

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maxattack-powell · 6 years

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17: A love bite - Chris x MC pls?

Hey Nonny! Sorry it took a while to get this out here… I try to use the asks/prompts as bonus posts in between long chapter updates…

But this week, all my Chris asks will be used for #CaptainPowellWeek hosted by our joint blog, @chrispowellappreciation!

This is my first contribution to Captain Chris Powell Appreciation Week! With The Senior ending this Friday we thought it would be a nice way to celebrate our favorite Hartfeld Quarterback. 💗

If you would like to join in, please check out the blog/hashtag above for more info! Every tagged post counts as an entry for a prize drawing after the week is over.

Here we go!

Flushed

It was the warmest day of the year so far and the entire Hartfeld campus was alive with activity, arguably the most it had seen in months. Chris and MC were not immune to the power the change in weather clearly held over everyone, both beyond tired of being stuck inside for so many days thanks to the cold northern weather. Sure, they have been having their share of fun, often entertaining one another under warm covers and behind locked doors, but after a while a everyone needs to breathe fresh air.

Today was that day, the newfound warmth pulling people out into the common spaces throughout campus grounds, creating heavily populated waves of like minded people everywhere they looked. Chris was especially enjoying the effects of the weather change, often glancing over at MC’s bare shoulders provided by one of his favorite sporty tank tops.Of course he had seen every inch of her body over the winter months, but there was something about her glowing skin in the bright sunlight that keeps drawing him back in.

“What?” Her question interrupts his thoughts, causing his eyes to flick up and find hers locked on his with a curious expression.

He shrugs, turning his gaze forward as he forces his increasingly dirty thoughts to evaporate. “N-nothing.”

MC’s eyes narrow and she stops walking, causing him to halt his forward movements as well seeing how his arm was hooked around her waist. “Uh huh… spill Powell.”

Chris shakes his head and starts moving again, tugging her until she falls in step next to him as they make their way to the campus cafe. “I’m just glad to be outside… in the sun… again.”

She doesn’t say anything and he shifts his gaze from the path back to her face, finding that smirk he loves so much across her features before she speaks. “And…”

He sniffs dismissively as they take the next right, now within a block of the popular cafe. “And… nothing.”

“Don’t make me poke you.” She says with a humorous tone.

Chris shakes his head and closes his eyes with a sigh, knowing he only has seconds before she follows through and goes right for the one spot that will make him cringe. “Okay. I like being outside.”

“Uh huh.” He can still hear the smirk in her tone.

“In the… warm weather.”

“Uh huuuuh.” A small smile appears on his lips as he can tell her smirk is clearly still in place.

“With you.” He says in a lower voice, glancing around to see if their conversation might be overheard.

“Okay…” She arches a brow as he turns to look at her, their united pace slowing together.

His eyes slip down from hers, first to her neck, then her shoulders, before gliding across her upper chest. He takes his time to admire the perfect amount of cleavage peeking out of the snug tank top as his right hand slides up from her lower back to splay across her bare shoulder blades. Her muscles flex under his touch as they continue to walk slowly, making him hum as he feels her sun warmed skin.

He turns his face slightly towards hers as he leans over, knowing she wasn’t yet satisfied with his answer and brushes his lips against her ear. “Because all I want to do… is see every inch of you…”

MC swallows hard as he continues, “…bare…”

She glances around, hoping no one can hear their suddenly very private conversation. “…fully exposed. In this light.”

“Umm…”

He cuts her off before she can formulate an actual response. “Because all I can think about is putting my lips on every square inch of your flushed skin.”

Chris smirks when he sees the effect his words are having on her. “It’s like you’re my own brand of MC muffins… warm and ready for me to devour you.”

MC can feel herself reacting to his words, her body beginning to tingle as she imagines it becoming true. She licks her lips and takes a deep breath, trying to come up with some type of verbal response, but her mind is completely foggy. So much so, that she doesn’t notice when Chris shifts, lowering his head more to drag his lips down her neck until she shudders from the ticklish feeling. Her body snaps, now more alert and focused than before. It’s when he pulls his lips back, baring his perfectly straight teeth and bites the sensitive spot where her long neck meets the left shoulder that she jumps with a gasp.

He chuckles and does it again. “Someone was deep in thought.”

She squirms, doing her best to get away from his persistent assault on one of her most ticklish spots. “Chris!”

He laughs harder, tightening his grip on her, circling her with both hands so she can’t escape him as he continues to playfully nip at the areas around her shoulder, neck and ear.

“Ayuh, beautiful?” His warm words slides across her skin and she sucks in a sharp breath through clenched teeth.

MC gives up trying to form words, crushing her eyes closed as she does her best to not outright scream when he adds his fingers to the attack, moving them nimbly up and down her sides as his lips find an even more sensitive spot near her throat.

What should be words yelling for him to stop, are now peals of laughter that only break for a moment when she gasps for air. Chris can tell she’s trying to break free but he doesn’t give in, increasing the energy behind his surprise attack instead. MC focuses for a second and actually manages to open her eyes, but not much.

Glancing around through narrow slits, she finds many pairs of eyes unexpectedly watching the two of them as Chris holds her hostage. She continues to struggle to no avail. Her face begins to heat up as a few faculty members look at them both with concern, but only for a moment before they join the clumps of grinning students, laughing with amusement once they realize what’s happening.

Embarrassment begins to fully take over now, her face flushing even more as she somehow manages to squeal even louder when all she wants to do is hide. “Chriiiissss…. stoooop!”

She swats at his massive shoulder, earning a chuckle from her wide bodied boyfriend as he finally pulls his lips from her ambushed skin. MC pants as she tries to catch her breath from the non stop laughing Chris managed to drag from her lips in between the shrieks and gasps. When their eyes meet once more she sees the mischievous glint in his bright blues, but only for a second before he also looks around, finally noticing the audience he created.

MC shakes her head before hiding her face in the crook of his neck as he grins bashfully, clutching her to his chest with one arm as he holds the other up and waves apologetically for disturbing the peace. “Hey… uh, sorry. My fault. As you were.”

Finally catching her breath, MC does her best to seem angry, biting him on the collarbone so he can feel her disapproval.

Chris lets out a startled noise before tilting his head enough to brush his lips over her ear again and speak quietly, this time clearly just for her. “Just. You. Wait.”

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littleladygodiva · 6 years

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Not to be that person...(I’m about to rant about Karen Page for a good couple paragraphs)

but fuck it. I’ve been seething for a full 24 hours now. Karen Page is an inherently flawed character. That is what makes character writing good! All of the Daredevil characters are extremely complex, and are dealing with a host of difficult and seemingly hopeless situations at any point. If characters always knew what to do all the time, and were confident in there decision making then we as viewers would miss out on watching them grow. We would miss out on the sweet feeling of pride swelling in our chests when they finally find themselves down the right path and gain clarity. But there is a fine line between being flawed and completely lacking foresight and critical thinking.

Karen Page is a good person.

Everything she does is to, what she perceives, is the greater good. She is always working hard to find out the truth and help people. Even when she knows she’s going to put her own life in danger, it doesn’t stop her from wanting to do what is right and expose the truth. It’s this dedication to truth and justice that makes her such a thrilling compliment to Matt and Foggy. One who chases justice through vigilantism and the other who has almost complete faith that the law (despite seeing the system fail time and time again). Karen Page is the middle ground between Matt and Foggy’s ideals.

That being said Karen is extremely reckless and at any given point she goes from asset to liability. I’m not sure what it is. Maybe her desperate need to help Matt and Foggy bring down Wilson Fisk makes her want to contribute more. Karen, just as much, if not MORE, than Matt and Foggy has every reason to fear Wilson Fisk and want him locked behind bars. Going toe to toe with Wilson Fisk will always come with high risks, and that is absolutely unavoidable, but that means more than anything you have to be smart and plan ahead (even if Fisk is 5 steps ahead of you). For Example:

- What happened at the Bulletin was NOT Karen’s fault. She and Matt both agreed that Jasper Evans was there best shot at taking down Fisk and she did the right thing trying to bring him in for questioning. There’s not way she could have known that Wilson Fisk was planning to mold Benjamin Poindexter into a fake Daredevil. There’s no way she could have known that he would have come down to her office and kill innocent people. Of course Karen and Matt could have both anticipated that Jasper Evans was being watched (as all people of interest under Wilson Fisk are) and that bringing him to the Bulletin could be dangerous, but the Bulletin is also a NEWSPAPER office. If you wanted to assassinate a person of interest a the office of a famous newspaper is not the place to do it. But yet again, Wilson Fisk was planning more than that so the Bulletin ended up being the perfect place for him to plan his smear campaign against Daredevil.

- What happened at Clinton Church was 100% Karen’s fault. First and foremost, it was not in anyway smart for Karen to assume that she could go toe to toe in mental mind games with Wilson Fisk of all people. This is the same woman that couldn’t even stand questioning by Agent Nadeem without stuttering, and almost breaking down into tears. That whole 10 minutes of questioning was downright painful. Every ‘No’ that came out of her mouth sounded like more of a lie than the last one (Yeah she was telling the truth, but it didn’t look like it and if I didn’t know any better I would assume she was lying just be her behavior). Agent Nadeem and Wilson Fisk aren’t even in the same league. It was idiotic for Karen to try and challenge Fisk, even if she intended for him to choke her tf out and go back to prison. James Wesley was extremely important to Fisk, the man himself says that Wesley was like a son to him.

Karen knew that once Wilson knew the truth that he was going to send people after her to kill her. THAT’S WHY SHE RAN IN THE FIRST PLACE. It’s not likely that she would have gotten very far, but that’s the poison she picked. Knowing that she was number one of Wilson Fisk’s hit-list, she STILL allowed herself to let Sister Maggie talk her into staying a Clinton Church. Karen knew damn well it wouldn’t be safe.

KARE PAGE WILLINGLY AND KNOWINGLY PUT EVERYONE IN THAT CHURCH AT RISK BY STAYING THERE. THE DEATH OF FATHER LANTOM IS HER FAULT AND THIS IS FACT.

The moment Karen Page left Wilson’s penthouse he was watching. There’s no way she couldn’t have known. Wilson Fisk is calculated in that way and that’s no secret for people who have been up close and person with him before. She knew someone would come after her and therefore putting everyone else at the church at risk. (I’m sure you could argue the same thing for Matt, but this isn’t about him so). And yeah, everything worked out in the end, but that’s only because Matt was able to get there in time to rescue her.

So long story short, I have a lot of feelings about Karen Page and they could not be more conflicted. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

@peachesannndgravy @the-winter-senpai

#karen page #wilson fisk #Daredevil #daredevil season 3 #daredevil spoilers #matt murdock #foggy nelson #bullseye #james wesley #father lantom #sister maggie #this is long #sorry not sorry #apologies for any typos

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ironiccrus · 6 years

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@nelsontheavocado

Tony had a long, long list of people to call when things went a little bit haywire. Connections that he made decades ago were far from useful now - they were prepared to help out the Tony Stark that threw raging parties every other weekend or helped them navigate out of a business deal, not the Tony Stark that flew around in a metal suit saving cats from trees - but he had made all new ones in his career as Iron Man. One of the best, though, had to be Foggy Nelson. Bar a few cases dropped on his desk, Tony had been unsuccessful thus far in encouraging the man to take up a full time position at Stark Industries, but he was sure if he kept treating him to expensive dinners, he had to wear him down sometime. He had reports that he was very persuasive (read: irritatingly persistent) when he wanted to be!

“Thanks for meeting me,” Tony said, walking in as usual twenty minutes late to the restaurant. He sat down, running his hands through his hair, attempting to tame it somewhat. “A riot broke out in Michigan, had to go sort that out first. Can you believe it? Michigan?” He took a breath, gathering himself, and then looked at Foggy. “You sounded a bit distracted on the phone,” he commented, casually. “Is it busy in the world of corporate law at the minute? Sorry if I contributed to that.” Tony had a way of pissing people off and inviting lawsuits. It was a thing.

#char: foggy nelson #para: expert opinion

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elsinore-snores · 6 years

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The Accuracy of Liminal People

My mom lived in the Alaskan wilderness in 1982 and helped me write a book about queer scientists of color surviving in the Arctic in the winter of ‘82. To thank her completely and properly, I decided to list all the things she helped fact-check and all the content she contributed from her own experiences, all of which made it into the novel, Liminal People.

The make and model of the black powder anniversary shotgun they use throughout the story is an actual gun one of her friends had.

What games (not beer pong) drunk people played, i.e. paper football. My mom knows this because she was a bartender at a hot spring.

What it’s like to be high on LSD, how to make LSD, and what it’s like to be LSD and alcohol at the same time.

What media they would have had access to in the arctic and what they would have talked about. For the record, my mom recalls having VHS tapes of two episodes of Columbo, four of Magnum P.i. and the first Star Wars.

The way the autistic, stoner lesbian main character fights off a bear and evades a wolf pack are taken directly from how my mom’s friends instructed her to handle such situations.

What was in 1980s civilian MREs, specifically the dietary needs people needed for living in a rarely sunny, isolated, nutrition-depleted environment.

The food and alcohol they have in the cabin, aside from the MREs, is also what my mom had.

Proper, era-accurate terminology for snow gear, as well as what people actually would have had in an arctic cabin. Literally, it’s the exact same clothing my mom wore in real life that is in the story, down to the soles of the shoes being leather instead of rubber.

Arctic tundra landscape/plants/herbs/animals, as well as proper techniques for hunting/gathering.

How generators, flash floods, CB radios, well pumps, pot grow rooms, avalanches, frozen lakes work.

How to make CB oil. How to make gunpowder. How to light a signal fire. How to grow pot. How to drive a snow plow. How to restructure a house (that one’s actually from my dad but she did help.)

First-aid for electrocution, animal bites, rabbit starvation.

Every way the main character makes animal traps and how to shoot a gun are actual traps my mom saw people use.

Much more I can’t think of now, nor can I ask my mom, because she’s sleeping on the couch after flying 18 hours to see me. <3

Fuck, the entire concept of Liminal People comes from a real story from her time in Alaska. She, a dog, and her pilot boyfriend, needed to take a detour back to the city tp make a delivery on time, and also because they didn’t have enough gas, and they ended up going through a foggy valley and flying in between trees, even having some of the tops of the pines brush against the wing tips! I always thought, “What if they had crashed?” and that’s how the novel began.

Since then, the novel has been pretty popular and the reviews of it have been complimentary, and I proudly show my mom each star and sale and reaction and tell her, “We did this!” I couldn’t have done it without her. :D

If you’d like to buy the $5 PDF of Liminal People, you can click here. If you’d like the $15 paperback, you can click here.

#please reblog this if you can!#my mom is here and im so happy #liminal people #signal boost

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alittlenomadchristina · 5 years

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Sharm El Sheikh: Snorkeling Guide

If you want to experience the stunning underwater world of Sharm El Sheikh snorkeling, this guide is for you.

Not all of the beaches provide a great snorkeling experience, and some sites can only be reached by boat.

I’m a German expat and scuba diver and I’ve been living in Sinai since 2016.

I’m sure I can provide you with some great tips and advice that will make your snorkeling holiday in Sharm El-Sheikh a fantastic one.

Besides listing all of the best Sharm El Sheikh snorkeling spots, I will also help you with some snorkeling equipment advice as well as some rules on how to act responsibly underwater and snorkel safely.

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Getting started: Bring the right snorkeling equipment

There is no need for you to actually go scuba diving to discover the beauty of the Red Sea. Grab a mask, snorkel, and fins and you’re good to go.

I’d recommend bringing your own snorkeling equipment as it’s not only more hygienic, it will also save you money in the long run and make sure you won’t be struggling with foggy masks, slipping out of your fins etc.

Having the right mask and fin size for your individual needs makes everything so much easier.

I’ve listed my favorite products down below if you don’t have your own snorkeling equipment yet and you’re not sure what to look for.

Except for the winter season (let’s say December to March), you don’t need a wetsuit as the water is warm enough in Sharm El-Sheikh. If you freeze easily, you might want to rent a wetsuit at a dive centre during winter.

You can check the air and water temperatures in my scuba diving guide to Sharm.

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The correct behavior underwater

Many people who are new to the underwater world are not aware of the impact they have on marine life, so I’d like to take a minute to explain.

There are a few things you should know about how to behave underwater in order not to harm the marine life and corals.

I didn’t know most of this before I became a scuba diver and moved to Egypt.

There’s no shame in not knowing, but once you do know, please make sure you really follow this advice.

We all want to enjoy the Red Sea underwater world as long as possible so we all need to contribute to its health.

Don’t walk on the reef table. The corals are alive and are harmed by walking on them. It may also be dangerous for you as you might step on sea urchins or similar dangerous things.

Don’t touch ANYTHING underwater. Whether it’s corals or fish or anything else. Watch, but don’t touch.

Only go in the water with reef-safe sunscreen. Regular sunscreen harms corals. You can see a recommended product in my equipment recommendations. Yes, it is more expensive than regular sunscreen, but it’s not only better for your skin thanks to less (or no) chemicals, you also have a clear conscience and know that you’re not contributing to destroying the environment.

If you see bigger sea creatures like turtles or dolphins, which happens a lot around the waters of Sharm El Sheikh, don’t chase them. Admire them from a distance and be respectful, you’re a guest in their “house”, not the other way around.

Never ever feed the fish. Over time, they become dependent on humans and forget how to feed themselves which has detrimental effects on the biological balance of the system.

The Best Sharm El Sheikh Snorkeling Spots

Now that we’ve established some ground rules and know how to be respectful visitors of the underwater world, let’s get to the fun part.

Where are the best snorkeling spots in and around Sharm El-Sheikh?

Snorkeling the Straits of Tiran

The straits of Tiran consist of 4 reefs and make for some of the most amazing snorkeling in the entire Red Sea.

They absolutely burst with life and have stunning coral gardens. You don’t even know where to look first.

Beware of the currents though, they can get quite strong. Always follow the instructions of your guides.

Gordon Reef:

Gordon Reef is the most southerly of the 4 reefs.

From the surface, you can see it easily because this is where the wreck of Lovilla sunk and you see parts of the remains.

Gordon Reef teems with hard and soft corals and rich fauna. Fire corals are common as well here though, so pay attention not to accidentally touch them.

Jackson Reef:

Similar to Gordon Reef, Jackson Reef is landmarked by a wreck - the cargo ship Lara which sunk here in 1985.

Jackson is one of the best dive sites in the entire world, and you will notice this instantly even if you’re just snorkeling.

It’s a fantastic site to spot pelagic predators (like white tip reef sharks and hammerheads) and majestic sea turtles. Like in all snorkeling sites of Tiran, be aware of strong currents and fire corals here as well.

Laguna Reef:

Laguna is the calmest and most sheltered place in the Straits of Tiran which is perfect if you’re a beginner snorkeler as the currents in the Red Sea can get quite rough sometimes.

It’s a great place for your boat to stop for lunch and admire the azure waters.

Expect to see colorful hard and soft corals as well as plenty of reef fish under the surface.

Sharm El-Sheikh: Snorkeling at Ras Nasrani

Unlike most other snorkeling spots, this site can be reached by land.

The long, beautiful beach about 10km north of Na’ama Bay is a perfect spot to spend the day and dip in the water every now and then.

You will see colonies of massive pore coral heads and Tridacna shells cluster in huge numbers here.

With plenty of reef fish around, you might also get lucky and spot some larger predators.

Take care of the currents which tend to flow in the direction of the headland where they often gather momentum.

Snorkeling at Far Garden

Located at the northernmost tip of a large bay where the Hyatt hotel is situated, this snorkeling spot is another great one to explore without having to go on an all-day boat trip.

Four large pinnacles just break the surface a few metres from the reef. The abundance of hard corals really earns this spot the name “garden”.

You will see no less than 30 species of hard and soft corals which attract huge schools of multicolored reef fish.

You might very well be completely surrounded by anthias, fusiliers, or sergeant majors at times.

Snorkeling at Near Garden

Between the Sofitel and the Hyatt hotel just north of Na’ama Bay lies Near Garden, one of the busiest sites for snorkelers.

There are often lots of glass-bottom boats which you should be careful to avoid.

Just a few minutes by boat and you arrive at this snorkeling spot which expects you with a myriad of hard and soft corals on the sandy bottom.

By the tip of the reef, you’ll find a series of 4 pinnacles running in a downwards sloping line that looks like an underwater ridge.

At Near Garden, you will encounter napoleonfish, trigger fish, butterfly fish and the occasional eagle ray. Look out for blue-spotted stingrays on the sandy plateu as well!

Snorkeling at Ras Umm Sid

Ras Umm Sid is the most famous local dive site in Sharm and a paradise for snorkelers like you as well.

It’s renowned for the extraordinary fan coral forest which only starts at around 15 meters, unfortunately, so you will have to admire those from pictures.

Or maybe it’s time to finally do your scuba diving course? :)

Either way, Ras Umm Sid will be more than enjoyable with just a mask and fins as well.

Expect to be blown away by the extremely vibrant reef. You’ll probably see big schools of butterfly fish close to the reef, and parrot fish, lionfish, moray eels, schools of anthias and some big Napoleon fish.

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Every once in a while you might even spot a shark. Most likely you get to see barracudas, snappers, and jacks, too.

Snorkeling at Ras Mohammed National Park

The national park of Ras Mohammed is extra-well taken care of environmentally and therefore offers some of the best Sharm El Sheikh snorkeling spots.

There are 3 sites within this stunning area that are great for you to explore while snorkeling:

Marsa Ghozlani:

This one is definitely a favorite site of snorkelers as it’s easy to moor up and well protected from rough sea conditions.

It’s also accessible by land from within the national park, a glorious beach lets you enter the magnificent underwater world here.

Marsa Ghozlani features a reef brimming with hard corals. Surgeonfish roam around the reef plateau leading to a gentle slope which descends to around 4-5 metres.

Ras Ghozlani:

The dive and snorkeling site of Ras Ghozlani is a predominantly sandy area with stunning coral heads, stingrays, torpedo rays and butterflyfish.

It’s rather rarely visited and therefore particularly interesting for both the excellently preserved madrepores and the rich reef fauna.

You may explore the external and internal sides of the cape. On the eastern side, you’ll see many large table corals and blue-spotted stingrays resting on the floor.

Jackfish Alley:

Jackfish Alley is famous for its underwater landscape brimming with life.

The name Jackfish Alley is owed to the sandy “road” at a depth of about 20 meters at the foot of the reef wall, where plenty of jackfish live.

You can snorkel just a few meters from the reef and explore the vibrant underwater scenery that includes a beautiful coral garden as well as plenty of spy reef fish and lionfish living in caves that come out to hunt in the afternoon.

You’ll also most likely see blue-spotted stingrays and, if you’re lucky, the occasional manta ray.

I hope my Sharm El Sheikh snorkeling guide was helpful for you.

If you are thinking about doing your scuba diving certification, you should also check out my scuba diving guide to Sharm El-Sheikh to find out which are the best dive sites in the area, what’s the best time to go scuba diving, dive centre recommendations, etc.

You should also do a day-trip to Dahab, a small Bedouin village that isn't as touristy as Sharm. It has a very unique flair and you can easily go snorkeling from the shore there.

Dahab has some amazing dive and snorkel sites, including the famous Blue Hole.

Pin your Sharm El-Sheikh Snorkeling Guide for later:

See Full, Original Article Here: Sharm El Sheikh: Snorkeling Guide

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 5 years

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Moonie Buddhist Catholic: A Spiritual Odyssey by Thomas W. Case

pages 9-10

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?

The grand-daddy of the mind-bending cults; a sophisticated Eastern religion; the Catholic Church. Buddhism is represented by the Karma-Kagyu sect as taught by Chogyam Trungpa, a tulku from the wild Kham region of Eastern Tibet. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s he made a splash with Allen Ginsberg and the Crazy Wisdom crowd in the high Colorado Rockies, and I was a part of that action, a poet among poets and a Buddhist among Buddhists. Some years later I entered the Catholic Church, drawn by the Virgin Mary, the Bible, and the love of Jesus Christ. Here I remain, troubled as the world is troubled by these last years of the millennium.

That is the middle and the end: Buddhism and Catholicism. But the greater portion of this tale is the tale of my seven-year, on-again off-again life with the Moonies. If a cult experience is sui generis, unlike anything imaginable, it is also, beneath the surface, a voyage into the depths of all religion. It strikes at the heart of what it means to be a human being. There is nothing so humanly powerful as the event that brings together God and an intensely inter-woven tribe, a tribe that trades in the individual ego for a communal ego, so that all within the tribe are as if one person. It is a “person” that often calls itself “The Family.” It can drive the individual person down to the foundations of person-hood, blast away those foundations, and build them up again on another, alien, model. I have never been so exalted and so stricken with the ambiguity of horror as when I was a Moonie.

The odyssey that brought me finally to Rome encountered other tests and detours besides Tibetan Buddhism and the Unification Church. Making little poisonous appearances in this story are The Way Ministry (a Christian sect), Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s Summit Lighthouse (a theosophical sect), Synanon, and Scientology. I went wading in the first two organizations in this list, and I know something about the other two. The first chapter, a magical mystical tour of the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco in the 1960’s, sets up the later search through the spiritual supermarket. You will find in this book not only a personal journey, but an archetypal exploration of spiritual and social realities in an America which today seems intent on stumbling blindly towards the apocalypse.

A spiritual odyssey that goes to the roots of things is bound to encounter flashes of heaven and hell. It may be your story too, if you have ever searched for God, practiced magic, been a Moonie, a TM’er, a Scientologist, a Buddhist or a Hindu, or found a friend in Jesus Christ.

pages 36-52

Inside Look at a Boonville Moonie Training Session

Touring the magical sixties as a precursor to my arrival at the doorstep of the Moonies is significant to my own story, but it can give the wrong impression. It can seem as if the candidates for cults are always products of a rootless life. ... I was indeed ripe for the Moonies, but what I consciously walked into was not to my mind a totalitarian society filling a vacuum of authority in my life. It was a small commune of interesting and friendly people. The Moonie hook to begin with was not discipline but affection. It was people who cared about me. And that kind of hook can hook anyone.

Was I brainwashed? Does the Unification Church brainwash its recruits? “Giving it up,” as it pertains to religious or mystical experience, means giving up your separate, critical, worrying identity to a higher power. It is a voluntary act that often occurs somewhere within any genuine spiritual commitment. Being voluntary, it is not brainwashing. One may decide, however, that the Unification Church’s method of recruitment is not a matter of you “giving it up,” but of them taking it away from you. By the end of a weekend Moonie training session (called “seminars” for the benefit of the unenlightened) you are in a highly suggestible frame of mind. Why? What have they done to you?

You may realize that you have not been alone from more than five minutes out of the last forty-eight hours. An intense personal interest has been taken in you by someone, a sort of constant companion, usually of the opposite sex, usually the person who recruited you (that is, the person who invited you to a weekend seminar—the language changes once you are inside). This person has been at your side during the whole weekend, attending to your wants, pumping you for your comments and attitudes about the last lecture, asking about your family, your work, your desires and ideals in life, putting her arm around you in lectures, giving you little gifts, holding your hand as she looks searchingly into your eyes while you try to explain your life to her, and, likely as not, following you to the bathroom and tucking you into bed at night. She has been nice to you and has made you feel important; she has been a little severe with you if you have decided to act “laid back” or lazy or if you have rebelled against attending the next group session or the next lecture. If you say to her, “I just have to go off and think things out for a little while; I’ll just go over and sit down by that tree over there”—she is apt to express her disapproval ever so mildly. She pouts a little, and looks a trifle guilty, as if she has let you down somehow, as if she has failed you.

“No, no,” you say, “it has nothing to do with you. I just have to have some time to think.” She doesn’t believe you. She pouts. Now you feel like you have let her down somehow. You contritely walk back to the group. After all, hasn’t she done so much for you?—invested all her time in you? You, who have never had so much attention since you were a baby.

The day is drawing to a close. There is a large campfire. You are sitting with your group, hunched up together, shoulder to shoulder. Dinner is being served. Hot dogs smothered with melted cheese, baked potatoes, and a large, amorphous green salad. A plate is handed to you. You are about to begin eating when you notice that the other people in the group are passing their plates around the circle. You look up guiltily and pass your plate to the next person. You are getting the hang of it. Your “spiritual parent”—that sincere, pretty girl with nice legs who invited you to dinner yesterday—peels an orange and sections it, and hands it over to you. You thank her, smiling, a little confused. She smiles back, reassuring you. On a sudden, absurd impulse you pass half the orange to the dumb-looking, foggy hippie hunched up beside you (the guy you have been trying to avoid all day.) He turns a suddenly grateful face in your direction—and you think things are getting out of hand. When are we going to eat? What does this absurd little ritual of giving have to do with the real world?

Exactly. It is in contrast to the real world, of course. The contrast is intentional. This is not a ritual passage into adulthood á la American reality. This is a ritual passage into paradise. It has the quality of a dream.

All this personal attention, all these kindnesses and gestures of giving, all this praise and enthusiasm and friendly (but unsexual) touching, all this face to face nonsense (you always sit in circles at a Moonie training camp—no place to hide)—all this is a pollyanna fairy tale compared to the fare ordinarily served up by the world. Just when you think things have gotten a little bit too silly, a little too out of whack with expected human behavior, here comes another peeled orange at you—with a smile. Now, you’d be a pretty hard-hearted bastard not to join in with the spirit of things, wouldn’t you?

This is all so silly. But it feels... so good. So what the hell.

You have flash memories of how it was on jobs, in school, in college, the loneliness and sudden love, breaking into new realities, compromising, gaining and losing, but you kept your integrity... all that garbage of growing up becomes the bad dream, and this baby-ga-ga stuff feels wonderful. A security grows; love grows. You all of a sudden remember that you once read in an anthropology course about an African tribe of hunters with diminishing game to hunt, near starvation. Each member would, if he made a kill, call out to attract other members of the tribe; he would be incapable of eating if he had no one to share his food with. What a funny time to have such a memory! Then another thought comes unbidden into your mind: the tribal state of life is the natural and good state of life for mankind; where there is no such thing as an “individual” and the tribe is as if one person.

The campfire glows. The stars are coming out against a high, deep blue sky. Everyone now has a full plate in front of him, everyone eats. I am purring like a kitten, blown out with comfort. The group leader (Center Man in Moonie lingo) announces, “We have forty-five minutes to make up a skit to perform for the Family. Does anyone have any suggestions? A song we can write?”

My stomach contracts into a tight knot. Perform? In forty-five minutes? In a skit? On a stage? In front of a hundred people? Arrrrrgh! Somebody suggests a popular song, a melody to write new lyrics to. We go with it. Even I, desperate now to give something, come up with a rhymed couplet.

“That’s not Principle,” says the group leader. (What he meant was that my contribution was outside the bounds of what is appropriate for a spiritual community in conformity to the Divine Principle of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon—my rhymed couplet was a little risqué. But he had made a slip of the tongue. “That’s not Principle” is an in house slogan, an authoritarian bat used a hundred times a day in Moonie life to beat down any small demonstrations of independence or self-will.)

“Let’s try to focus on this weekend,” says the group leader. “Let’s try to make a statement about our experience here.” (You get the idea. First a lecture, then discussion of the lecture, an experience, then comment on the experience, recapitulation of the experience in dramatic presentation, concentration on and celebration of us, our thing, our sudden new life, in the exact here and now. Impressing it into each one of us.)

Some things are suggested. We move away from the song to a skit. It is five minutes to show time. Everyone is scrambling around for pencils and paper to write down the lyrics. It turns out we have a song and a skit. The group leader confidently merges the scattered melange into a whole, but I know this is all an impossibility. With two minutes to go, we begin to rehearse. It is time for our group to go up to the stage area. I have no idea of what is going on. We’ll never be able to get across this complicated choreography. It will be a mess, a dismal failure, a humiliation—

One of us, the dumb hippie I have been trying to avoid, has been chosen to play God. He sits on a chair on a platform at the back of the stage. He expresses approval or disapproval at the events going on below. Below and at stage left a few of us are playing disgruntled, ultra-hip dope addicts. One of us who has a guitar plays our song: it expresses tough cynicism and despair. We sing along haphazardly. God expresses his disapproval. At stage right some joyful young girls are selling flowers. One of our gang glances up, moseys over to stage right, and buys a flower from one of the girls. She smiles. He smiles. God expresses his approval. (He knows who is selling those flowers. Heavenly children. Moonies.) The audience cheers. We have been a success. We sing a Principle song (Amazing Grace) all together now in the center of the stage. God climbs down off his throne and puts his arms around me and my spiritual parent. The audience goes wild with cheers. I sure feel good.

Other groups have presented their shows before us and have been cheered. Other groups have followed us and we have cheered them. The last skit is over. Everyone is exultant and exhausted. Even the cynics, while maintaining a superior mental stance, have gotten a kick out of it all. Oh yes, I am aware of these. I have watched them during the day, noticing when each one bends a little, taking cues from them for my own unbending. But now, like them, I am pretty unbent. All the groups come together now in a big circle around the campfire. We all grow quiet, and then begin singing a song that goes:

When true simplicity is gained To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed....

and afterwards we move into a long, slow, full-throated “Jacob’s Ladder,” arms draped over each other’s shoulders, being served marshmallows singed over the campfire. I am so relaxed, so fulfilled, I feel so warm, so good, so unified with my brothers and sisters. The stars twinkle overhead in a navy blue sky gone ecstatic in the presence of love.

And so, to bed. The men sleep in the Chicken Palace, so named because this is a farm in northern California with a large chicken house now used as a barracks. This is Boonville. If you have read any Moonie exposes, you know what Boonville is. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the place where your poor, innocent, naive sons and daughters are being cruelly brainwashed into an alien creed.

As I spread my sleeping bag out on the floor of the Chicken Palace, I trade a few words with another man, a man a couple of years older than me. He has left the Unification Church and come back, after spending some time in India at the feet of a Guru. We commiserate over the fact that there are so few of us who are over thirty. (Most Moonies—in the early 1970’s at least—were in their twenties.) We agree that most people our age have committed themselves to a life (such as it is) in some career or at least in some gainful employment (such as it is) and have become just a little too crusted-over, a little too much invested in their particular status quos, to be susceptible to something new and ideal and adventurous. More’s the pity. Before I climbed into my sleeping bag, I made the sign of the cross on my chest. I apologized to my companion, saying, “I’m not a Catholic. It’s just that, just that, I felt like doing this. Making some sign.” He smiled. He knew what I meant.

I didn’t know what I meant. I had prayed instinctively as a Catholic on a hilltop when I was in a tight spot after my divorce. Now here I was in a Moonie training camp once again making a Catholic sign. God creeping in again? Giving His blessing to this? Or signifying my future, ten years down the road?

From the time we sat down to dinner to the time we went to bed, at most four hours had passed. In those four hours I had gone through all the extremes of emotion. I had felt bewilderment, absurdity, relaxation, silliness, serenity, love, sudden anxiety, terror, excitement, exaltation, deep calm, and unity.

I have a couple of questions. First of all, what genius (evil genius?) created Moonie training sessions? Secondly, and more to the point, is this brainwashing, or is it just that our separate, individual, defensive egos are an artificial construction from beginning to end? That what happens at a Moonie training camp is a sample, if you will, of the natural way mankind should be or can be? Is our susceptibility to this tribal mentality and giving up of ourselves indicative of a psychological weakness or is it a recognition of the lost paradise that is the rightful state of mankind?

Never have I felt so loved and loving—in a trans-personal or all-personal sense—as in a Moonie training session. These words, these descriptions, cannot get the flavor of it right, the sense not only of unity but of being taken out of the mundane world of ordinary life, into a higher, deeper, more real world, that cannot help but elicit from us a gigantic “Yes!”—as if in our heart of hearts we knew that this new world is our birthright. A world that existed perhaps before the Fall of Man.

Isn’t heaven supposed to be a place where everyone loves everyone else, where everyone delights in giving, and where there are no defensive barriers between people?

It is Sunday morning. Some idiot walks cheerfully into the Chicken Palace, creaking the wooden floorboards, playing a guitar, and singing, “When the red red robin comes hop hop hopping along, along....” He passes down one alley and up another between the rows of sleeping bags. You bestir yourself and glance around, looking for something to throw at this singing idiot, this rude interrupter of your delicious slumber—but—wait a minute. You are suddenly awake, and, come to think of it, you feel refreshed, and—you catch yourself just in time from starting to sing along, to join in with this infantile ditty. Next, you think, he will sing, “You are my sunshine.” He does.

You get out of your sleeping bag and stumble over to the door of the Chicken Palace, vaguely thinking about finding a place to urinate. You calculate that the creek is nearer than the outhouse, and formulate your plans accordingly. As you walk out into the bright and oddly happy sunlight—who is standing there to meet you with a joyfully insipid smile on her face but your spiritual parent! Ahhhhh...nuts. You mumble something about having to take a leak and try to wave her away but she takes you by the hand and walks you up the hill to the outhouse, and stands outside (standing outside listening to you, you think) and then when you come out she takes your hand again and leads you to the shower stalls, and you think, Oh Christ, it’s happening again.

In spite of it’s beginning to happen again, you feel a little devilish—you are not fully awake and self-censored, and you notice that your spiritual parent has nice legs and you would really like to take her down by the creek and play with her in the country way, but then you know she knows what you are thinking and she gets a mildly disapproving look on her face, and anyway the sunlight would no longer be happy with you and you remember God on the stage last night. You haven’t had a cigarette in twenty-four hours, yesterday’s events have made you relaxed and a healthy, you are getting aroused just by looking at this young woman—but you know it is not in the cards. So you walk hand in hand (chastely) with this girl you have fallen in love with down to the shower stalls and go inside and brush your teeth and take a shower (while she waits for you outside) and everything is, uh, nice... in a nicer, gentler way than you ever felt possible after your stumbling-around passage into adulthood.

Later I find, through turning the tables on this pretty girl and pumping her for information, that she has been strung out from Minneapolis to Timbuktu, addicted to heroin, raped by Arabs in the Sahara desert, meditated in the Himalayas, had once been a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist (the Japanese sect of Buddhism where you chant for goodies to a sacred scroll on the wall), had been on LSD, peyote, hashish and methedrine; she had bounced and been bounced all over the world, and she has landed in a Moonie training camp being nice to me. I gain a sort of respect for her. Then I realize she could have been a kindred soul of that blond beauty I once loved, the Steppenwolf girl who felt the call of India and left me in despair in a flat in San Francisco in the bad old days. And I also had once been a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist, chanting to a sacred scroll on the wall, for a month or so in 1968. Now I was in a Moonie training camp, being mothered by the queen of the flower children. It seemed fated.

After breakfast (each with his group), we return to the Chicken Palace for a Sunday morning songfest. The sleeping bags have been removed. Twenty rows of chairs face a low wooden stage in front. You are sitting in the middle of a row; on either side of you is the rest of your “Trinity”—the small group you do everything with during the weekend. Each Trinity has its own row of chairs. On your right side in your spiritual parent. She massages your neck as the sun streams into the place and lights up the dust particles in the air. The guitar and tambourine players are warming up on the stage. Ragged songbooks are passed up and down the rows. You share one with your spiritual parent. On the stage someone grabs a microphone and we all break into a spirited rendition of “Higher Ground.”

“Lord lift me up”—we all hold hands and pull each other to our feet—“and place me down”—a hundred buttocks hit the chairs (not quite in unison; this is a roughly humorous, amateur show of fun; people are laughing as they sing, looking around at each other; a bearded young giant in a motorcycle jacket has a silly grin on his face as his tiny waif-like spiritual mother drags him to his feet and drags him back down again)—“by faith on heaven’s tableland”—people cross their arms and hold them out away from their chests, suggesting a—well, a tableland—“A higher plane, than I have found”—arms zoom around, dip and climb—“Lord place my feet”—stomp, stomp—“On higher ground”—we all climb up and stand on our chairs. The song ends amid a cacophony of cheers and applause and back-slapping.

After the songfest comes a lecture, then we break into our small groups for discussion and lunch, then a fierce dodge ball game (the sides assaulting each other not only with a dodge ball but with loud made-for-the-minute chants like “Holy Avengers bomb them for Father”), then a last lecture followed by a quiet dinner, all in a huge circle. Sunday is pretty much a repeat of Saturday, except on Sunday people are a lot looser.

All lectures are preceded and ended by songs, to establish a rapport between the lecturer and the audience, and to keep the level of attention and harmony high. In the Unification Church, group participation is fostered on every occasion. In what follows I will present some themes of Moonie theology that one hears in the “Advanced” lecture series. (The “Primary” lectures, the ones you hear at your first training session, are largely an inoffensive introduction composed of vaguely Confucian philosophy and appeals to idealism.)

According to the Divine Principle (allegedly the product of the mind of Sun Myung Moon), God is dual. He is interior character and exterior form. Everything in the creation is likewise dual: interior character and exterior form. Everything is divided into two. The world is divided into Satanic nations and God nations. The Communist nations are Satanic; free nations are Godly. (Actually, all anti-communist nations are called God nations, whether they are democratic or tyrannical.) The bible is subjected to a peculiar symbolic interpretation. The Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, for example, represents Adam. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents Eve.

At the center of religion is the great theme of man’s departure from God, his exile, the road back, and the perils and difficulties of that return. This is the seemingly eternal story of human guilt and aspiration, whether the goal is called Heaven or Unity or Perfection or Happiness. The Unification Church seeks to conclude the story happily through a series of ritual, symbolic, faithful, and courageous actions on the world stage, wherein “Indemnity” plays a central part. Indemnity plays such a huge part that though the goal is heaven on earth (a Moonie heaven on earth), the methods are such as to exacerbate the guilt of the individual Moonie. But more of this later.

History is crucial, and for the Unification Church, history is mostly Biblical history. Cain and Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Jesus are all interpreted as figures in the working out of God’s redemption of fallen man. God chooses his companions through accumulated tribal or racial merit (Israel’s fidelity to the One God resulted in a high level of merit), and through individual merit, accumulated through obedience to God’s will and acts of courage. After that it is up to the potential champion to follow explicitly God’s often curious directions—such as, in Abraham’s time, the exact rite of sacrifice—in order to establish a “Symbolic Foundation”; and also to demonstrate ultimate courage. A halfhearted commitment is bound to fail, allowing Satan to “invade” the operation. If this happens, the operation has to be repeated at some later date and under more critical conditions, after an indemnity has been paid.

Several major themes of Moonie theology can be gleaned from the above. Firstly, Satan has a pretty large control of things on earth. If God and man, working together, don’t get it just right, Satan not only recoups his losses but actually increases his control of the earth. The theory of Indemnity is important here. Abraham’s failure to execute the sacrifice of the animals correctly (he forgot to slice up the dove and the fledgling) allowed Satan (in the form of a raven diving down and stealing the birds) to mess up the proceedings. (See Genesis 15:9-11.)

The message for Moonies is the crucial importance of following God’s instructions exactly, even if some of those instructions may seem trivial or even evil. (Do you see where this can lead? Torture, murder, genocide—all can be justified if God demands it to defeat the wily Satan.)

From this comes the Moonie slogan of “Following Principle.” God’s champion must obey God exactly. The champion’s followers stand in the same relation to God’s champion. They must follow the champion explicitly in all their thoughts and actions. The same relation holds between the Trinity leader or “Center Man” and Trinity members. So if a rank-and-file Moonie does not obey his “Center Man,” he is guilty of a sin against God. He is not “Following Principle.” The totalitarian structure goes in a straight line from top to bottom. If a Moonie fouls up, he is not only sinning; he is directly responsible for the failure of God’s plan of redemption. He has allowed Satan to invade.

Abraham finally succeeded in the individual level (if not the symbolic level) by his great act of faith: his willingness at God’s command to sacrifice his own son. And thus God could still use Abraham for his redemptive plan. But Abraham’s earlier failure (the botched sacrifice of the animals) caused the 400 year exile of the Hebrews in Egypt.

Heavy indemnity for so slight a mistake! The Jewish diaspora and 2000 years of alienation and harassment after the time of Jesus is seen in the same light—an indemnity necessitated by their failure to “join with” Jesus. Is God such a harsh tyrant then? It would seem so. But Indemnity is not the same thing as punishment. Huge Indemnity when things go wrong is a consequence of Satan’s huge power on earth. These niceties are however lost on a humane person contemplating the holocaust of the Nazi extermination camps, as if the Reverend Moon were somehow justifying the outrage. And somehow it seems that he is.

The niceties are lost in the Unification Church’s theology too. Who, actually, is requiring these horrifying “indemnities”? God or Satan? It is not always clear. There is a legalistic smell to the proceedings. Satan gets off on a technicality, and is free to wreak further havoc. If it is not quite clear why the omnipotent God is so hamstrung by the powers of evil, the message is terrifically consequential for Moonies. Nearly everything is under the control of Satan. Every event becomes a matter of spiritual life or death. Satan is always just outside the door, waiting to invade. If a Moonie has an automobile accident, it was not caused by his inattention to his driving, but because Satan invaded. If a Moonie falls asleep at the wheel or in a lecture or Family Meeting, it is not because he has not had any sleep to speak of in the last four days, but because “Sleep Spirits” have invaded him. If a Moonie is all of a sudden possessed by a dislike for one of the group leaders, he is just that: possessed.

To return to the lecture. Satan is strong on the earth, God is weak. In fact, God is so weak that he cannot act without the cooperation of man. A much repeated statement: “God has 95% of the responsibility, and man has 5%. But man’s 5% responsibility requires his 100% commitment.” God will choose a champion, but then everything afterwards is left to the champion, and, just as important, the fidelity of the champion’s followers. The whole equation is necessary. Jesus failed his mission because, though his obedience was perfect, the people failed to follow him. (Jesus was supposed to become a Messiah for the whole world in his own lifetime, and was supposed to have married and sired a perfect family as well.) The definition of Messiahship is ex post facto: Mr. Moon will have been the Messiah if the whole world follows him. Otherwise he will be just another failed champion, like Jesus. The hint is not lost on Moonies. Nor the terrible consequences of a failure of faith.

(But this coyness about the real nature of Mr. Moon is for public consumption, and for the second level of Moonie gnosis. At the first level, often lasting some weeks, Mr. Moon is not even mentioned by name. At the third level it is still only whispered knowledge, but certain knowledge, that Sun Myung Moon is indeed the Lord of the Second Advent—with no ifs, ands, or buts about it. This is the last, greatest, binding secret for a Moonie: that the Lord walks on the earth today. Page 160 of the Moonie 120-Day Training Manual delivers up the secret for anyone to check out: “Then they can understand that Reverend Moon is Messiah, Lord of the Second Advent.”)

History, which is essentially the spiritual history of God’s redemption of man, is repetitive. If some scenario, some drama of redemption wasn’t accomplished successfully the first time around, it will be repeated in its essentials after a symbolic number of years has passed. It will be repeated in order that a necessary condition is brought about so that a foundation can be laid. The condition may be ritual or symbolic or actual and political according to its type, and the foundation likewise. A Foundation must be laid for a Messiah to appear in the world. The 400 year exile of the Hebrews in Egypt laid the foundation for Moses to appear and lead the people to their Abrahamic homeland. The Babylonian captivity of the Jews foreshadowed the “Babylonian Captivity” of the medieval popes at Avignon. Both exiles are said to have gone on for 210 years before things got back in their proper order. Numbers are very important. Early on in history, Satan “invaded” the number “40,” so 40 and its multiples (times ten) become significant in terms of redemption history—as does the number “21” and its multiples. If this kind of statement is patently absurd to a rationalist, it is not so to one familiar with traditional gnostic or numerological doctrines, or to a certain kind of Bible Christian who reads significance into every date and jot and tittle of the Word.

Four thousand (forty times 100) years passed between the creation of Adam and the birth of Jesus. Forget that fossil traces of human beings have been discovered dating back perhaps 500,000 years. Those were “symbolic times,” and in those times, time itself was foreshortened in relation to real time. These are the times of fulfillment, and the counting of years is now literal. A complicated conception, but in this manner differences between modern science and Biblical dating are sidestepped, or, if you accept it, understood and overcome.

It is more important to see that history is spiritual history in its fundamentals, and these are the end times. Now the world will be destroyed—not by God’s fiat but by man’s doing nothing to prevent it; or it will enter on the blessed era of the New Jerusalem. It is up to us.

At this point the lecture is over. Wild cheers erupt from the audience, hands are clapped, then held, one with another. Everyone stands and sings “God Bless America,” swaying shoulder to shoulder, tears streaming down some faces. It is a riveting and exalting moment. It is the last lecture of the training session. Afterwards will be dinner, not now in separate groups but all together. Then there will be more songs, quiet now, everyone peaceful (if they are already committed) or undergoing a severe conflict of the mind and emotions (if they are not). And now come the gentle, heartfelt invitations to join the Family.

Reviews:

Thomas W. Case dropped his book on my desk at work and I cheerfully paid the entry fee into the Moonie World. I have known Mr. Case personally for several years, and was curious as to what I might find in his writings. I can tell you from personal observation that the book did not disappoint; the Thomas Case I know and the Thomas Case of the book are clearly the same character!

Having said that, knowing that in my case my curiosity was piqued by the fact that I knew him, I did not then know what to expect from the book. What I found was a window into Moonie-Land, both the good and the bad. And there was good that brought Case into the fold. The spirit of camaraderie, the idealism, the desire to change the world was a strong incentive of the cult. Unfortunately, the over riding desire to build the “material foundation” which included a rather lavish lifestyle for the leaders at the expense of bleary eyed, exhausted kids selling flowers in a Michigan winter played a stark and disturbing counterpoint to the idealism and bliss. Thomas Case saw this, and yet he also felt the strong “family” bond with other individuals at the grass roots level. The exploitation of the slave labor by the ruling class caused Case to wish to leave while the “family” and comraderie caused him to want to stay or come back. This was his dilemma for many years. He has woven the narrative very skillfully, and from the points of view of both himself as individual and as representative of his generation...as he said in his writings, “I lived in the Haight before it was the Haight.”

Thomas Case experienced every echelon of the Moonies, from the lowest levels all the way up to their attempts to recruit or groom him for the upper echelons. He tells the story skillfully and sustains the reader's interest throughout the entire narrative. The only critique would be, while dwelling upon and giving good account of the Moonie experience, the remainder of the volume is rather slim. He wishes to round out his spiritual journey and it's ultimate destination...Catholicism...but does not provide the same level of detail as he does for his Moonie encounters. However this does not in any way distract from his compelling narrative regarding the Moonies.

For a window into Moonie-Land and, in a way, into a bygone era, read “Moonie Buddhist Catholic.”

Gordon Neufeld: “Thomas Case provides a clear picture of the Unification Church that I myself once experienced as a member of that same group from 1976 to 1986. In particular, he nails exactly the strong attractions and serious defects of the branch of the Unification Church through which we both joined, Mr. Case in 1973 and myself in 1976, namely, the “Oakland Family,” ruled by the formidable Onni Soo Lim, and spearheaded by the redoubtable Morrison clan, particularly Kristina. ... his Moonie experience, and indeed, he returned to the Moonies twice, despite knowing many negative truths about them, simply because they offered such a potent communitarian solution to the anomie and confusion of more conventional spiritual paths. The book is ... a good account of the Moonies and their flaws during the 1970s and 1980s. I knew many of the players he describes, including Kristina, Jeremiah and Dr. Durst, thought not as well as he did, and I can testify that he has described them exactly as they were.”

Moonwebs: Journey into the Mind of a Cult by Josh Freed

Crazy for God: The nightmare of cult life by Christopher Edwards

Mitchell was lucky – he got away from the Unification Church

Life Among the Moonies – Deanna Durham

My Time with the Oakland Family – the Moonies

UC leaders stole passports from guests at California workshops

Recruitment – The Boonville Chicken Palace by David Frank Taylor, M.A., July 1978, Sociology

“Socialization techniques through which the UC members were able to influence” – Geri-Ann Galanti, Ph.D.

Boonville in the spring of 1974 – Thomas W. Case

Ford Greene – the former Moonie became an attorney

The Tragedy of the Six Marys website

#Thomas W. Case #Moonies #Boonville #cult recruitment

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