#that's all shaped by laws and society and the dreaded politics

[the-dot]

having a thought but dont have words and don't want to open myself to disk horse and i'm too tired to really be coherent. thoughts in tags because i'm a coward. this post was originally about how e*rovision trying to say their event isn't political is idiotic. it kind of got away from me because i've slept maybe 6 hours in the last 2 days

[dwellordream]

“The role and growth of London were aspects of the changeable and exciting but unstable world in which Austen lived. By 1800, London had a population of more than a million. Five years later, George III, who had a markedly conservative view of social values and structures, referred to “the overgrown metropolis,” a long-standing Tory theme. London, nevertheless, was the center of government, the law, and consumption, and its position in the world of print helped shape news, opinion, and fashion. Both the role and growth of London were key points in the cultural critique of change that was a long-standing feature in England. It was notably so in conservative, rural, and Anglican circles. 

Set in Surrey, a county in the shadow of London, Austen’s Emma very much reflected traditional themes of such criticism, themes that are accentuated by the proximity of London. So also with Pride and Prejudice, which is set in Hertfordshire, a county close to London from another direction. From a greater geographical distance, this critique of change was also the key issue in Mansfield Park. London’s role and growth focus the more general pressure on established conventions and assumptions and practices of politeness. The equivalent disruption in Pride and Prejudice was the war and the resulting military preparations. 

The self-confidence of Londoners was reflected in Pride and Prejudice, when Bingley’s sisters, in response to Jane Bennet’s poor health, opposed the idea of local medical attendance and, “convinced that no country advice could be of any service, recommended an express to town for one of the most eminent physicians.” Both Bingley and Jane Bennet rejected this advice, which was not in the event required. Physicians congregated in London and Bath, whereas country apothecaries were trained only by apprenticeship. The comparison of town and country is a frequent theme, especially in Pride and Prejudice. The following morning, a somewhat different cast return to the theme. Darcy declares, “In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.” 

Elizabeth Bennet refers to people changing so much that there is something new to be observed in them forever. Mrs. Bennet then states that there “is quite as much of that going on in the country as in town. . . . I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country for my part, except the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal pleasanter.” Appealed to, the emollient but honest Bingley, possibly reflecting Jane’s views, reflects: “When I am in the country, I never wish to leave it; and when I am in town it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be equally happy in either,” earning the justified assessment, “That is because you have the right disposition.”

In Emma, Mr. Woodhouse, a fussy and self-obsessed valetudinarian, and thus unwitting source of humor, is repeatedly concerned about one of his two daughters, who lives in London. This concern leads to a dialogue that presumably reflects the views of many in the period, albeit with his characteristic fretful commitment to self-centered complaint: “Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a dreadful thing to have you forced to live there!—so far off!—and the air is bad!” “No, indeed—we are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is so very superior to most others!—You must not confound us with London in general, my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very different from almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be unwilling, I own, to live in any other part of the town;— there is hardly any other that I could be satisfied to have my children in:—but we are so remarkably airy! . . . “. . . but after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of your different creatures; you do not look like the same.”

Air, indeed, is a theme. Thus, Sir William Lucas thinks of moving to London: “For I am fond of superior society; but I do not feel quite certain that the air of London would agree with Lady Lucas.” In this and other cases, air stands literally for air quality but also for a range of less obvious issues about suitability, including sanitation. Mr. Woodhouse’s concerns were differently expressed by the London-based Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, which noted in 1805 that many of the inhabitants of the more crowded parts of the Metropolis suffer very severely under infectious fever  

.  .  . that in many parts of the habitations of the poor are never free from the febrile infection; there being not only courts and alleys, but some public buildings, in which it has continued for upwards of 30 years past;—and that, by means of the constant and unavoidable communication which exists between the different classes of the inhabitants of the Metropolis, and between the Metropolis and other parts of the kingdom, this dreadful disease has frequently been communicated from the London poor to country places, and to some of the more opulent families in the Metropolis.

Nevertheless, for those who could afford it, medical expertise was present more in London than elsewhere in England. In Sanditon, Mr. Heywood has to explain to a skeptical visiting Londoner that there is no surgeon in Willingden. In Emma, Harriet Smith goes to London to consult a dentist and, while there, visits Astley’s Amphitheatre, a performance venue opened in 1773, in which overtly patriotic shows and the circus were held, thus enjoying the variety of the city. Austen knew of London before she visited it. The fashionable world of the capital was very much part of the conversation of her cousin Eliza, who visited in December 1776. 

Eliza was brought up in London but then married a French count, and she and her mother had rented a house close to Portman Square in the fashionable West End and went to Almack’s, the very fashionable assembly rooms. Austen herself subsequently visited London on numerous occasions. She stayed there en route between Kent and Hampshire from 1788 on and also stayed in London with her brother Henry, a London banker, whom she liked. Henry was important to her coping with the world of publishing and printing, as she stayed with him when she went to London to have her books edited and proofread. 

At the same time, Austen liked to visit London for social reasons and to have a break from the constant predictability of rural society. Henry was successful in banking (for a while), and he moved from Brompton, where Austen visited him in 1808, to the more spacious 64 Sloane Street, where Austen visited in 1811 and 1813, enjoying the city and moving her novels forward. London was very much the center of the publishing world, and it was not simply a contrivance of the plot in Joseph Adams (1742) that had Henry Fielding send Parson Adams to London to get his sermons published. In 1814, after the death of his wife, Eliza, the previous year, Henry moved to accommodation over his bank on Henrietta Street in Covent Garden, and Austen stayed with him there that spring. 

Later that year, Henry moved to a house at 23 Hans Place, Knightsbridge, which Austen liked when she visited in 1814 and 1815. The house had a garden where Austen liked to walk while working. As a result of the failure of his bank, Henry moved to become curate at Chawton in 1816, and it is not known that Austen visited London again. This was typical of the closing in of options that financial difficulties caused dependents. Closing in was a theme in many novels and affects many of Austen’s characters—for example, the Dashwoods and, in prospect, the Bennets. 

…In Pride and Prejudice, the Bingleys stay in Grosvenor Street, which is central to the West End, and Miss Bingley disparages Elizabeth Bennet for having an uncle “somewhere near Cheapside”— in other words, in trade. Geographically, Cheapside is outside the West End. Both Elizabeth and Jane had “frequently” stayed with their uncle, but it is “so different a part of town, all our connections are so different” to those of the Bingleys. In contrast to the Bingleys, the fallen Wickham and Lydia hide outside the West End: in St. Clement’s—St. Clement’s Eastcheap or St. Clement Danes.

Indeed, Pride and Prejudice sharpens the social distinctions that London engages: “Mr Darcy may have heard of a place called Gracechurch Street, but he would hardly think a month’s ablution enough to cleanse him from its impurities.” In Mansfield Park, Maria Bertram is ready to accept marriage with the wealthy Mr. Rushworth as it would “ensure her the house in town, which was now a prime object.” Planning marriage to Rushworth, Maria feels that “the preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and spring, when her taste could have fairer play.” 

In turn, as Henry Crawford has “been much in London,” he is deemed attractive. Considering whether he could be a preacher, Henry notes: “I must have a London audience. I could not preach, but to the educated; to those who were capable of estimating my composition.” London also threatens downward social mobility. In Northanger Abbey, Isabella Thorpe’s father was a lawyer, and the family who live at Putney are not very wealthy. Due to her “want of consequence and fortune,” her engagement to Captain Tilney is not welcomed by his father.

 As the center of fashion, London was a place to visit for those from elsewhere in England. Facilities for and patterns of social activity responded to the example of London, which was presented as the benchmark for habits elsewhere. Traveling from London to the Bennets in nearby Hertfordshire, Mrs. Gardiner has “to describe the newest fashions  .  .  . long sleeves.” Lady Catherine tells Elizabeth Bennet, “Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters,” which would have taught her skills. In Persuasion, Sir Walter Elliot, pressed to save money, complains about being unable to visit London. 

In Emma, Miss Bates hears that Mrs. Ford, the shopkeeper, has “a charming collection of new ribbons from town,” which always means London, and certainly so in nearby Surrey. Edward Ferrars suggests that if Elinor and Marianne Dashwood had been wealthy, London’s “booksellers, music sellers, and printshops” would have thrived. So also for politics. Returning from London at Hartfield, Mr. Weston at dinner “spread abroad what public news he had heard” before “proceeding to a family communication.” The “public news” is not specified, which helps ensure the book did not date. 

London was crucial to the economy of England, indeed all of Britain, including in publication, an economic as well as cultural activity. John Tisdal, a Belfast printer who, in 1782, published Flora’s Banquet, a collection of Irish poems he had edited, stated, “It does not follow, that works of merit can only originate in the metropolis of England; and that, unless a book is distinguished by a London title page, and character in the review, it is beneath the notice of the curious.” However, the London publishers were dominant. 

The city was presented by some as a site of liberty, trade, and progress; others viewed it in terms of moral, political, and economic disorder and decay, Edward Gibbon referring to “crowds without company and dissipation without pleasure.” Provincial self-consciousness helped focus unease about London. The city was certainly very different in all physical forms, as it was crowded, dirty, noisy, and more colorful. The smoke and dust of a coal-burning city were part of a physical assault that included the sight and smell of filth from large numbers of people. This was very different from country life. The filth provided work for bootblacks and also increased the pressure on servants to keep clothes clean. 

Concern about public morality in London helped lead to George III’s 1787 proclamation “For the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue, and for the Preventing and Punishing of Vice, Profaneness and Immorality” and to the activities of the related Proclamation Society. The role of London as a center of pointless conspicuous consumption is shown in Robert Ferrars’s lengthy purchase of an expensive toothpick case in Sense and Sensibility. The city is the counterpoint to “the happy privilege of country liberty, of wandering from place to place in free and luxurious solitude,” as enjoyed by Marianne Dashwood at Cleveland in distant Somerset.”

- Jeremy Black, “London: The Capital of Empire.” in England in the Age of Austen

[girlmeetsliv3]

Lilies of the Valley II

A/B/O!BTS x Reader

Flowers can have different meanings depending on the flower shape, color, and method in which they are presented. Lilies are my favorite for such a simple flower can have so many distinct meanings.

Chapter Two: Tears of the Virgin Mary

   “In Victorian times, lily of the valley meant a “return to happiness.” In Christian legend, Eve's tears as she was expelled from the Garden of Eden turned into lily of the valley.”

Release Date: 05/22/20 @ 7 pm

previously ~ next

           YN was beginning to wonder if all Jungkook had in his closet were suits, or if that was a part of the pack uniform. It wasn’t even ten minutes after YN finished speaking to him, that the alpha stormed in threatening to tear the place down, by his side a lean figure with styled blonde hair that she recognized as the infamous Park Jimin. I should stop referring to them by their maiden names. The second Jungkook saw YN he rushed towards her, hands gripping the bars tightly. “Are you hurt? Are you okay?” Jimin stood off to the side, watching their interaction. As much as YN disliked them, at least they’d come to the rescue.

           “Thank you for coming.”

Jungkook nodded quickly, his eyes roamed every bit of her body frantically as if to make sure she was alright. "We'll see to it that the charges against you are dropped," Jimin spoke, he sent a polite smile YN's way. The beta had a calming effect on YN because if he was here Jungkook would restrain himself - theoretically of course. The guard by the door seemed stumped, "no charges are being pressed on either of them." This caught both Jimin and Jungkook's attention as they turned toward the cop. Before either of them could say anything Rosé finally spoke, truly exasperated.

           “So you were simply going to send us to the boarding house with no reason?!”

           YN swore under her breath. Jungkook however flew into a rampage, heading straight for the cop. Thankfully Jimin stepped in, holding Jungkook back by his hand. “Go get your superior right now.” The tone in which Jimin spoke was far more terrifying than the look in Jungkook’s eyes. The guard nodded and hastily walked away.

“Fucking genderists.” YN heard Jimin mutter under his breath, he pulled Jungkook towards him and leaned into his chest. “Call Hobi, he’ll know what to do.” Jungkook nodded and climbed up the stairs, but not before sending YN a small smile. If it was meant to be comforting it did the opposite. YN sighed, leaning back against the wall before casting a glance at Rosé. Her eyes were filled with questions that YN didn’t know how to answer; she couldn’t even begin to try. Rosé was bound to misunderstand like everyone else or worse - pity her - YN couldn’t lose her only friend too.

   "I'm sorry you had to be here for so long," Jimin was now by the cell door, he reached into his pocket and pulled out her belongings. "I believe these are yours." They'd been confiscated when the two of them had been imprisoned. YN stepped forward, thanking him as she reached for her things. Their hands brushed and YN was amazed by how soft they still were. Jimin had always been soft with her, understanding even if she was nothing but cold to them. Something flashed in his eyes but it happened so quickly YN missed it. Minutes later, Jungkook came back downstairs followed by officer Hwang. The man looked smug, as he took in the situation.

   “See I knew you had an alpha. No need to lie.”

    YN would've ripped his throat out right there and then if she wasn't sure Jungkook would do it for her. Instead the young alpha marched towards Jimin, lips turned down into a scowl. "They won't let them leave, not both of them." At this Jimin frowned. YN saw Rosé visibly tense when the officer got near her cell, "Your family has been called, your brother is on his way to pick you up." For some reason, Rosé's eyes filled with panic. YN wanted to question her on it, but Hwang turned to her instead.

    "Unfortunately you're unregistered so you'll be taken to the boarding house after all." YN felt faint as if all the blood was being drained from her body. It was when she swayed that Rosé rushed to her side trying to reach her through the bars. "You've got to be kidding me?! It's a partial bond, she doesn't have to be registered." Jimin was now screaming at Hwang, who seemed to enjoy having riled the beta up. Hwang leaned forward as if to mock the height difference between Jimin and him. Immediately Jungkook stepped forward, a low warning growl emitting from the center of his chest.

    "I don't make the rules. You can either register her or she'll be taken away. The choice is yours."

     The choice was theirs because in the society in which they lived in YN would never have a choice. She stood to lose too much if they took her away, but she stood to lose much more if she accepted. YN wouldn't simply be registered as Jungkook's omega - he wasn't lead alpha, it wasn't his pack. She would become a pack omega forced to uproot her life and abide by the rules established by her mates. It wouldn't simply be under society's rules that she'd be mated but under the eyes of the law. There would be no escape, not unless another person was willing to be her mate and even then, it would be immensely looked down upon if it was even allowed.

     Rosé reached through the bars and placed a hand on YN’s cheek, caressing her softly. As if trying to give her strength. The look she sent her was hopeful as if to say things will get better. YN wasn’t sure they would. Her whole life had been one unfortunate event after the other ever since presenting, this would surely be the same. Still, at least there was hope if she was claimed. The boarding house only meant certain death, either to her spirit or her physical self.

    “We’ll register her.”

    “You do know what that entails don’t you?”

     “Don’t treat us like fools or you can kiss your career goodbye.” Jungkook was entirely in Hwang’s face, but the older man only laughed.

     “Whatever you say boy.” The officer turned once again towards YN, sending her a sly wink that had chills crawling up her body. “Good luck with this one, once his rut rolls around.”

   They had waited until Rosé's family picked her up, though YN could see hesitance in her friend's eyes she quickly jumped into her brother's car and sped away. YN had originally planned to ask for a ride back to her place, but it seemed that she was now stuck with the two men. It was Jimin who took the initiative to speak, "We'll give you a ride back to your place." Jungkook looked like he was about to say something, but Jimin shot him a look and the boy quickly became quiet. It seemed that even though Jungkook was the supposed 'dominant' one, his hyungs held full reign, which wouldn't stray too far from what she remembered.

    The ride was awkward and tense, to say the least, YN thought the two men would ride shotgun while she sat alone in the back. When the driver pulled up to the curb, she realized that was not to be the case. It was a thirty-minute drive from where she lived to the police station, fifteen if one sped but it seemed the driver was taking his time. Likely ordered to do so by his patrons.

   "How have you been YN?" Jimin asked, turning in his seat to look at her properly. Jungkook was seated beside him, glancing out the window. YN couldn't help but feel Jimin had noticed how tense she was around the alpha, so he'd done this to make her feel secure. Sadly his efforts were wasted, YN wouldn't feel safe even if there was an entire continent between her and the men. "I've been better." That was as polite a response as she could offer up. Jimin seemed to take it, smiling at her. "We've been looking for you. We wanted to meet and discuss things, but you moved away and didn't tell anyone." YN didn't see what they had to discuss, she'd long forgiving the others for the part in which they played. She was trying to forgive Jungkook, even if she wasn't there yet. But YN could never forget. That moment would forever be imprinted in her memory and body until she eventually died.

   "I just don't see what there is to talk about." She folded her hands in her lap, glaring down at them. "What's done is done." Jungkook scoffed but didn't say anything else.

   Jimin moved to lay his hand on top of hers, “We don’t see it that way. You’re a part of us. You always will be.” Yeah right.

   YN withdrew her hands from under his, crossing her arms though she noted Jimin’s hand remained placed on her lap. “Thank you for helping me and my friend out back there. You didn’t have to and I appreciate that.”

    “Of course, we’d help you. You’re our -”

    YN noticed they were near her apartment and quickly cut him off, “Thank you for the ride. I’ll contact you if anything else happens.”

    Before she could jump out of the moving vehicle Jungkook said something that made her freeze, “You live in this dump?” Jimin sent a glare his way, but the words had already tumbled out of his mouth.

    "It's the only place I can afford to live. It's the only place I can live in." Her tone was sharp, barely above a whisper as she wondered how much more she would have to endure.

     "Right," the car had finally pulled up right in front of her apartment. "See you soon." YN exited the car, slamming the door. She practically crawled up the stairs, dreading having to have lost so much potential sleep. Her senses become hyper-aware when YN notices her front door is open, clearly hearing sounds coming from inside. Remembering that someone had broken into Rose's and with Jungkook's snarky remark at the forefront of her head, she prepared herself for whoever or whatever was inside.

           Rosé stood in the middle of her apartment with all her belongings, the second her eyes met YN she broke down. "I'm sorry your landladies let me in." YN rushed to embrace her in a hug, perplexed at everything that was occurring. "Ro, please tell me what's wrong. I know that something is and I can't stand seeing you like this." Gently, YN pulled Rosé towards her bed arranging all the pillows and blankets to resemble a nest. YN wasn't big on cuddling, but she knew her best friend needed her. It took hours for Rosé to finally calm down, but now it was YN who was even more anxious. Her friend was never like this. Rosé was the bubbly of the two, the sunshine that accompanied her clouds.

           “What’s wrong?”

           “My brother’s alpha propositioned me.” Her tone was so dull and lifeless; resigned.

           “What? Why would he do that?” YN had never met Rosé’s family, but she’d heard enough from Rosé herself when her brother finally found a mate. ‘He’s a good man. A kind one.’

           It’s always the nice ones. Rosé sniffled, “He didn’t even offer to mate. He simply told my brother that I was getting too old and that it was his responsibility to take care of me. My brother thinks it’s because he can’t have pups.”

           “I’m so sorry Ro.” YN hugged her tightly, rocking her gently. “That guy is an asshole and I’m sorry your family ever had to cross paths with him.”

           “T-they said,” sobs were threatening to leak again but Rosé bit her lip to prevent them from coming out. “I-if I don’t t-then they won’t support me anymore.” That’s why she was here with all of her stuff. Rosé had come from a family of Omega’s, being born to a single mother and then placed into the foster system wasn’t easy. It was her older brother who’d she bonded most with and it was he who helped her maintain herself.

           “It’s alright, babe. You can stay with me, we’ll figure it out.”

         YN would have to move, find somewhere cheaper where she could maintain both of them. Rosé's job couldn't cover rent and YN couldn't possibly ask her parents for more money. The issue was finding a new place: very few places in Seoul rented to unmated omegas, even fewer to multiple. They would all just direct them to the boarding house and if they tried to hide, then they'd be arrested. YN had already seen this morning that the system was set up against her, not that she didn't know that already.

           There was a knock at the door and YN had to pry herself away from Rosé promising to be back soon.

           There stood her two landladies outside the door. Well fuck. “Hi, how can I help you?” YN stepped outside and tried to close the door as much as possible. “Oh we just came to check up on your friend, YN. She looked wrecked.” Though her landladies were nice, they weren’t once to be trifled with. Both of them were sticklers for rules and YN could already guess why they were here. “I’m sorry her apartment was broken into while she was sleeping and her families out of town.”

           “Oh what a shame.” Spoke the taller of the two, Min So, her brow raised as if she didn’t believe a word YN had just spoken.

          "Ah I heard something about that on the news. Terrible crime rates these days. Well anyhow there was something we wanted to talk about." Ivy's tone was always polite, bordering on being too nice as if it was all an act. Min So was the one who spoke now, YN wondered if they took turns speaking; the way twins sometimes do. "We wanted to remind you that your rental contract is almost up and that we don't rent to multiple omegas or mated ones." YN's eyebrows shot up at that statement. Wondering how exactly they'd found out so quickly, it was then that YN remembered that mates are public records.

From their faces YN knew that the jig was up. She was beginning to question what she'd done in her past life to merit such bad luck. YN felt like she was the protagonist of Shakespearean tragedy forced to undergo trials and tribulations until her inevitable death. Casting one last glance at the door behind her YN let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in, "That's exactly what I wished to speak with you about."

           “No, absolutely not. I’ll find a place to live.”

      YN groaned falling back on the sofa, she'd spent several minutes trying to make Rosé see reason. "It's fine Ro, it's not like I can even live here. I'll find someplace else and I refuse to let you go back out there knowing that predator is waiting for the perfect opportunity.” Finally her best friend relented, “but where will you go?” Rosé intertwined their hands together, she was big on skinship, having been raised as omega it was the only way she knew to express affection.

           “I’ll find a new place.”

           “With your mates?”

     It wasn't her fault, she didn't know. YN simply nodded, not wanting to add more stress onto her friend's plate. She would figure it out. She always did.

           “How long do you have to move out?”

           “Three days.”

           “Well then you better get packing.” It was said in a teasing tone, but that didn’t stop the dread from setting in. “I can start on dinner while you call your mates, yeah?” Yeah like that’ll be easy.

      Getting in touch with them wasn't difficult, she had Jungkook's number in her phone and a business card with their work on it. It was building up the strength to make that call that took her the entirety of the day and a bit of the morning. Jungkook had been extremely pleased when she'd called, though it fizzled out a bit when she asked to speak with Jimin - privately. Still the alpha obliged, Jimin seemed surprised but his tone implied that it was rather how soon she'd called rather than that she had contacted them at all.

       Now YN sat near the front of a cafe, facing the window waiting for two of them to arrive. She had asked, as cautiously as she could, that Jungkook was not present or any other alpha's for that matter. Jimin obliged, saying he understood her hesitance and that he wanted her to feel as comfortable as possible around them. That would likely never happen. Truly she didn't know who he would show up with and it worried her. She knew most of them from school, having all attended the academy where elementary, middle, and high were each a few steps away from each other. However, they didn't know her at least not until the incident that created this mess.

         YN took a sip of her now watered down tea, hoping to calm herself down before she simply ran out of the cafe. From where she was seated YN saw a Bentley Bentayga pull up to the front of the building before the passenger doors opened from which Park Jimin and Min Yoongi stepped out. Their walk was full of swagger and it attracted the eyes of everyone around them. Even if Beta's had a muted scent there was a different allure to the two of them: something that made people want them even if they knew they could never have them. They faced forward when they walked, heads held high as if they had only ever seen the sky and that ahead - never the ground.

          Min Yoongi turned his head over so slightly and YN, fearing that he might look her way and their eyes would meet, looked down at her trembling hands. Here goes nothing. The little ring of the bell attached by the door announced their arrival. Shortly YN heard the scrapping of the chairs until Yoongi and Jimin were seated in front of her waiting.

          “Hello.” It was all she could muster, she forced her downcast eyes up and met their stifling gaze. YN nearly trembling in her chair.

         Jimin's lips turned upward, "You called?" There was something in his eyes, expectancy perhaps. Though YN didn't want to dwell on what he might be expecting. "Did you run into trouble?" It had been a while since she heard Yoongi speak, she'd forgotten how mellow yet rough his voice was. Back then it had been more high pitched too, but that was an expected change. Yoongi had his arms crossed but leaned forward ever so slightly. It made her uncomfortable. Having them so close, even in a public setting, made her uncomfortable. YN shook her head, she opened her mouth to talk but Jimin spoke before she could get a word out.

           “How’s your friend?”

           “Um, Rosé is good...kinda.” The look the two betas gave her was enough for her to launch into explaining the situation. After she was done, they both looked at each silently communicating with each other. “So...you need a place to stay?” Jimin questioned, repeating what she’d just said moments prior. YN nodded, “I know that you guys have a lot of connections, so I was wondering if you knew anyone who was renting or someone to room with.” YN knew it was unlikely but she had to try and they were her last hope.

    Yoongi shook his head, “That’s ridiculous. You’re staying with us.”

 Taglist will be in the comments! 

[blasphemouscontenttrigger-bct]

Intro to CT , week 1; reflection

Who am I? (Intersections)

I see myself as cross between designer and engineering hat (as per the 4 creative hats module) as I am almost always pursuing a user or client focus rather than some vision or innate born requirement to fulfil. I certainly envy those who were born to do something but my life has always been lead by what is the best thing I can do that will improve the lives of those around me.

What is Creative Tech?

Creative tech is the recognition that the greatest changes to our society don’t normally come from cutting edge state of the art tech but more commonly widely available tech being used in disruptive and unexpected ways. This is due to human’s curiosity and experimental nature that I wish to nurture further in myself.

How am I using my 10 hours this week for ICT?

Obviously, any outlined work or reading will take precedent which I will estimate would be 2-3 hrs a week, Additional time will be used on further reading and work on my own creative goals and assignments.

How do I reflect?

In my normal life I do not often reflect which is something I will be working on more. However when the need has arisen either due to a large change in my life or a problem I have overcome, I find that having clarity on what my questions are helps best. I will work on trying to narrow down and focus on the main question or underlying issue in order to see how effective I was at dealing with the issue or how best to proceed further. This is often the most difficult part for me as once I have a clear question the answers seem far easier to find.

How do I learn?

Finding passionate people about what I want to learn is the best way to learn for me. Passion is contagious and I am so often torn between all the different things I want to learn that if I truly need to focus on a subject or topic, I need to build a fire of passion for it.

How do I want to make a difference?

When I think about large ‘wicked problems’ that face our world I often have a feeling of existential dread and just get overwhelmed. I know that for many people this is the same and we end up not doing anything about the issue that worry us most. If I could make one difference in the world it would be to be able to give these wicked problems tangible and clear paths to success.

Feasible + Desirable + Viable: What does this mean to me?

Feasible means are the real-world limitations going to make a product possible to make.

Desirable means does it work in the environment it would be placed in. This to mean is not just aesthetic but also culturally, societally or emotionally how users would react to it.

Viable means simply does it achieve the goal it is setting out to do. I always find this is the best place to start as concessions early on viability often lead to finalised products that lost sight of their intended goal.

How is the future shaped?

The smart ass in me would say time but that is only looking in the progression of the dates. If we are talking about ‘the future’ as more of an idealised utopia we want to work towards its shaped by so many factors. To me the main ones are culture, politics, our environment and technology. Most of this comes down to people’s collective desire for a similar goal. Space flight was achieved 60 years after the first flight because people were racing for it. 60 years after that and we have stalled because no one (until very recently) has had any interest in it. The future is shaped by the collective agreement on what future we all want.  

How do technology and humans shape each other?

People often think about how technology is changing society with a lot of ‘kids these days’ mentalities. They focus on how it used to be and make wild predictions on what will be. What is not often talked about is how society shapes technology. Technology only progress as far as a need exists for it and a desire to make it happen. The ‘kids these days’ behaviours are only possible because of the foundational blocks that the previous generation built upon. Moore’s Law is not some cosmic force of the universe, but a representation of humans continued need for further developing technology. Its not inevitable and would stop the second that humans stopped wanting that change (despite how much they many complain about the by-products later on).

[benlaksana]

Coming Home

If there is one constant emotional response that my mind and body has conjured since coming back to Indonesia, it is anger. The reasons are plentiful. Chronic social and economic injustice, growing government oppression, sheer incompetency of many government officials, religious conservatism, as the proverbial saying goes, the list goes on.

And now with the coronavirus devastatingly consuming Indonesia and my government’s response has not only been weak and slow, lacking in coordination, but also simply at many times blatantly incompetent, anti-science and anti-expertise, resulting in the deaths of many including doctors and nurses, and with no full lockdowns initiated, no mass testing, just some half-baked government encouragement to physical distancing and good hygiene. I’ve observed that this time not only am I consumed with fervent anger but at many times deep sadness and crippling fear. An unholy trinity. In the name of anger, sadness and lingering fear.

Here’s some trivia and personal info for you folks. Did you know that Tuberculosis (TB) usually leaves scars on lungs it once infected and even though it’s been decades since my bout with TB, my lungs today, as you might expect, are not in tip-top shape. So that’s my pre-existing condition that at times, at many times, throws me into a panic and into a sudden cleaning spree. Wipe here, wipe there, disinfect door knobs, drowning recently handled money in warm soapy water. Irrational fear? On the contrary my beautiful friends. Indonesia has one of the highest Covid death rates in the world and with Covid patients on the rise but not at its peak, our already sparse healthcare system is already showing its cracks. Again, just to remind you, Indonesia is not even near the peak and we’re not even doing massive tests but everything is already hanging on a thread. Adding to this misery, the lack of some kind of social safety net has this climate of dread creeping up on me, this I acknowledge and I am trying as much as I can in keeping this at bay. Dread induced paralysis is not something I can to endure at the moment.  

That’s some personal (slightly existential) rant right there.

But I understand that I’m lucky and painfully privileged to be able to work from home unlike so many others. So since at this moment my productivity rate is reaching zero and I’m basically pushing away work and other responsibilities as much as I can (which will probably come back and haunt me soon), let me just first reflect on life at the moment, updates on other things aside from this feeling of impending doom.

I’ve realized that I do not update this blog of mine as often as I would like to. Desires are kept as desires, and slowly wither away as desires. Yet as 2020 dawned on me and ages with uncertainty I spent my time re-reading old books that I have read many years ago and some of my old blog posts as well. Beginning with my first blog post which is now the ripe old age of 10 years old. One decade old. With the breakneck speed of change of today’s internet, 10 years is perhaps close to immortality in internet years. That being said, I still use Hotmail for my main email which I’ve had since 1998, the year I was introduced to the internet...and politics.

It was 13th of May 1998. I was at home with my dad as schools and offices were closed. The day before that soldiers opened fire at a student demonstration in front the University of Trisakti, Jakarta. Four students were killed, riots and demonstrations were happening everywhere the following day. So most people decided to stay home.

I remember my dad narrating the 1998 May protests as we attentively watched the event unravel through our old school CRT TV. My dad was thankfully percipient enough to refuse to go to his office during that week, but he did have friends in high places so it wasn’t much of a surprise if he received some kind of insiders info. I was about 12 years young at that time, on the cusp of teen hood. Puberty was on my mind, but that moment of watching a historical event unfold (which of course I did not understand it as something momentous) with my dad explaining with excitement of what was going on, even though I sure as hell did not understand the most of it, was illuminating. A father and son bonding session as result of reformasi. That sounded like a thesis topic: Family Relations and Social Change: Exploring Familial Relations through the 1998 Reformasi. (Hah!)

It did however shape my values and ideas that I still hold on to this day not only on politics per se but what I wanted or expected from this thing called the nation-state. I have to say that the May 1998 riots and demonstrations, the visualization of the riots on TV and my dad narrating in the background constantly interrupting the reporter, was the reason why I remember that day so clear. It made an indelible mark on me. I can’t even begin to imagine the impact to those who were physically effected by the riots, houses and stores burned down, people being raped and/or murdered..

About a week after the riots, on the 21st of May 1998 President Soeharto resigned after 32 years in power. I saw my dad cheering, again not fully grasping the reasons why, although he did try his best to explain. But it piqued my interest in politics, and being told that this this new thing (really new for me at that time) called the internet had much to offer about what was happening then, a few weeks after that, using my mom’s 36.6 kbps dial-up modem that I was awfully proud of, I registered for a shiny new Hotmail account. In hopes of joining mailing lists.

Wasantara-net, owned by Indonesia’s postal service, was my family’s choice for the internet service provider. I hated them as they were first-class in unreliability, but they were the only providers to be able to connect my house, on the edge of bogor, to the world wide web. My first few emails, if again I remember correctly, were chain mails about the May riots that I subscribed through questionable mIRC chats. Chats that start with A/S/L, age, sex, location, and either ends in hook ups, or being involved in something you’re too young or ignorant to fully understand.

Being young(er) and wanting to be part of something important is such a motivating factor in us actually doing and becoming something. With Carl Gustav Jung in mind, being young or old, we are but “modern man in search of meaning” and being part of something greater than ourselves does still give me meaning.

Fast forward a few decades, I’ve noticed that you get a raised eyebrow when you tell people that you’ve been using the same email for more than 20 years now, and you get double raised eyebrows and an instance of wincing, once they find out that said email is a Hotmail account. I am coming up with less and less excuses of why I haven’t migrated fully to other emails. But hey, you know what they say, habit brings comfort, repetition brings comfort, knowledge that arises from experience, from personal history, brings comfort. Although not always, the past brings comfort, while the future which is riddled with unpredictability is lamented and brings worry if not angst. Comfort though, I have come to understand, brings laziness and at many times dullness.

It is however always interesting looking at one’s own past and how it is intertwined with the past of others. I think I’ve written about this a number of times, and most of my writings are born from the act of retrospect. I often assume that I would not be able to talk about my future if I never look at my past, but what also happens is that I also end up talking more about my past or at the very most my present rather than talking/thinking about my future. Is that bad? Is that good? Am I shying away from discussions about my particular future? Maybe, I don’t have an answer to that now. But I know it’s there, tucked away in the back of my mind so I’ll probably talk more about that someday. And with Covid-19 destroying all of my plans in the near future that someday will probably come sooner.

Coming home to Indonesia, after a number of years abroad, I have also come to realize, sadly, that many of my social activities here in this space which I reluctantly call home, are more often than not, performative acts that I do not like performing for. I am basically faking it and I am doing this by fulfilling a cultural and social role that I necessarily do not have strong feelings for, or even just feelings for, but I have adapted myself into it. Somewhat. The reason why I do this is simply out of respect of others. Things that do not give meaning for me, has often been deeply meaningful for others and expressing it verbally does not bode well for maintaining relationships. I am happy to say that I have Rara to remind me when I have become too logical (I am happy to say that I have Rara to remind about many things in life) in understanding the meaning of culture for many. But it is, simply put, not without its personal struggles.

Being a son, being a son-in-law, being a younger and the youngest child in a family oriented, confuscianist-style, hierarchical, the-individual-is-constantly-attached-to-the-social kind of society. And then being a husband in a patriarchal society, where I am expected to fill a kind of leadership role that tires, bores and disinterests me.

(On a side note: for some reason, I have often come across this odd discussion of alpha/beta male/female amongst my peers here. Which I find interesting as it denotes a fixation to hierarchy and also the assumption of fixed temperaments/personalities of an individual across space and time. Are they basically saying that agency of one’s self perceived to be rarely possible? Is change and adapting to a situation impossible? )

Then without doubt as a citizen of a nation that I superficially identify with. How can I ever identify with a nation that happily and openly oppresses others for the sake of unity? And not only rarely admits it but even more rare tries to amend it. It is a simple rhetorical question.

In sum, I have to be honest with myself here, coming back home to Indonesia is not home for me and I don’t think it will ever be one. It is more of a burden than something that brings joy.

The food is great here and I have my family here which is also nice but life of course is much, much more than just culinary preferences or familial ties. I am losing my sense of self here, and it is destructive for me. I am losing myself.

Fully realizing this I was looking for a sense of direction when I reread some of my old already read books that once inspired and also my old blog posts these past few weeks. At the crux of it, this blog has always been for me. It is shared publicly in hopes of others sharing what they have learned through life and what I have done wrong in my life. And I have done many wrongs that have not been righted, some no longer even have the possibility of being righted.

Rereading my blog, I realize much like others, that our attempts in finding meaning, and our meanings when they are found are frail and delicate. It is constantly assailed and it is easily lost, and at times harder to find when lost. Life it seems always tries its best to rob you of meaning. Not because it is intent in doing so, but because the very nature of life is in its impermanence. Everything is impermanent including meaning itself.

Intellectually and experientially I understand this. But again like many, I’ve still tried to find meaning in others, and much like many I’ve lost these people in which I have found meaning in. This is the constant dillema as naturally social creatures.

It is perhaps in our nature to be contradictory, or to live in denial, to assume that meaning and the people or objects that give meaning is eternal.

Some of these people that I have acquired meaning from I have forever lost through death, much like so many people out there. I have also lost some rather unintentionally, such as due to spoken words that are not carefully thought out. Some by design, on purpose, with deep intent and thoroughly planned with precision execution, slowly letting go. At other times, a harsh break, a rude awakening on both ends, yet ending in a sigh of relief. As some relationships, although lush with wonderful memories, are never meant to last and can never be let to live in the future. Memories that remain as memories, stories of the past, that do not become worries of the present nor burdens of the future. Our understanding of meaning is often forced to change and to morph and at many times, to end. People and things that once provided meaning no longer do, as people and the things around us change. People including me.

I’ve changed, I know I’ve changed, I’m quieter yet more angry of the world, hopefully a bit more thoughtful of my words and actions. But one thing that hasn’t changed is how I am not done with grief, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be done with it. I’m not even sure if it’s actually grief. Because we all know that the tragedy of growing old, is the tragedy of unwillingly filling your life with regrets and maybe my grief is but a thin veil for my regrets.

One of my plants in my garden died today. A lush rosella bush that I was hoping to make some tea out of its beautiful red flowers. The days are drawing long, and hope is few and far in between.

Be well everyone.

[the-dust-jacket]

As much as I adore Georgette Heyer's frothy, funny, swashbuckling romance, it's true that some of her books are easily read and easily forgotten. But this one keeps sneaking back into my mind. It's a different sort of Heyer Regency: unlike the novels that trot around London High Society or dash back and forth between France and England, London and Bath, it's almost a bottle story, taking place entirely on one rural estate. The estate in question belongs to proud but impecunious Lord Darracott, who has recently lost his heir in a boating accident. To the rage of His Lordship and the bewilderment and indignation of the rest of the clan, the next legal heir is an unknown cousin, the grown offspring of Darracott's beloved son whom he cut off entirely for marrying beneath himself. Thus, the future Lord Darracott, a "weaver's brat" and army veteran from Yorkshire, is summoned, along with the rest of this dysfunctional family, that he might be browbeaten into aristocratic shape. Naturally, shenanigans ensue. 

There is, of course, a romance at the heart of the story, and it has humor and banter and chemistry, and quite a lot of discussion of land management. But to a large extent The Unknown Ajax is not a portrait of a romantic hero and heroine, but of an argumentative extended family caught in the toxic orbit of a cantankerous, autocratic, and belligerent patriarch, who also happens to be a terrible manager to his lands and tenants. The family is full of classic Heyer archetypes: the incorrigible dandy; the excitable, petted stripling; the rakish and arrogant aristocrat; the prim and intimidating matron; the frustrated father with his nose out of joint; the beleaguered daughter-in-law. But Heyer seems to have committed to locking all of these humorous sketches in a room together and injecting them with humanity. They're not a terribly lovable bunch, but I could not find it in me to actually dislike any of them. Just as the Darracotts are forced to reassess their assumptions about Hugo the Yorkshire interloper, I reassessed my assumptions about them. Never fear, there is also a healthy amount of slapstick, swashbuckling, and over-the-top comedy. The bitter feud between two competing valets was a high point (this book spends more time with servants and villagers than any Heyer I've read yet, and while I can't say it bothers to give them any depth or delve into pressing 19th century social issues, it made an interesting change). Another is the persistence of smuggling in the neighborhood, with attendant local politics, and the mystery of exactly how those untaxed bottles are getting around and what that poor excise-man is so determined to dig up. The smuggling plot ends in a frenetic and magnificent climax for a book that mostly proceeds at a leisurely pace. Georgette Heyer cared about land management, taxes, and the preservation of the stately English houses just as much as she did about accurate detail in historical carriages, and a lot of that is present here, with the post-war concerns of 20th century Britain bleeding into the post-war world of fantasy-version Regency England. Heyer was a Tory bigot and a dreadful snob, and I don't think we'd agree on a thing in real life, but perhaps it is her genuine preoccupation with the issues that give The Unknown Ajax its touch of gravitas amidst its unlikely chances and wish-fulfillment. That and the gentle but unsentimental examination of what this household does to shrink and embitter its occupants, and the ultimately hopeful promise of redemption for both the family and the estate, make the book a memorable, rather odd, thoroughly satisfying entry in the Heyer canon. I would not recommend it as a Heyer 101, or for anyone who is not already enamored of historical romance, manor house shenanigans, or long walks in the countryside, but I enjoyed it immensely. 

[spacegaywritings]

Dark puzzles

I can finally post my gifts! Summary: Virgil visits the dark sides. He finally realised his actions may have been shit. Will they take him back or reject him like he rejected them after leaving? (Dee hisses a lot.) Tags: death/execution/stoning/slaughter mention, serial killer mention, politics implied, mass shooting mention, implied animal cruelty, Remus being fucking Remus and being absolutely odd, sexual innuendo if you wanna read it that way (nothing worse than canon Remus), emetophobia (mention), mentions of skinning, mentions of making out, a bit of crying, non-sexual nudity, mentions of body horror (slight bc Remus), mention of bugs/cockroaches, porn mention, reference to snake anatomy, “platonic safewords”, implied synethesia, mention of depression, ADHD Remus (implied, stimming mention), tentacles but nonsexual (it looks like a lot but is basically just remus being remus)

a3o link here.

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Story under the cut:

The night struck the seemingly empty apartment. Silence hung in the air, heavy like a loaded truck. The whole place looked much like the rest of Thomas’ home if it was not for the rather dark looks. Some things were laying around carelessly, almost as if dropped right after the moment of use. It was so different from the light side’s space but it was still strangely similar. It was like looking into a mirror but one that twisted things and turned reality into something it was and was not at the same time instead of reflecting it properly.

Roman had explained it quite well when he had tried to explain his relationship to Remus, the other side of creativity. However, it never explained the relationship the dark sides had among one another. Virgil had not once spoken about it and while Deceit had teased the idea of their connection, it remained a mystery. As always, Remus seemed too confusing and changing like the flowing water in a river to actually get information out of him.

All the light sides knew were that Virgil used to be a dark side until Thomas started accepting and including him and even worked to hear him out as much as possible. Deceit was on the way to it but he still had not shared his name. Patton tried his best to pave the way for Thomas to accept him too but now it was their way to try and accommodate someone other than Virgil for once. Thomas knew about how Virgil used to be a dark side and it had prompted him enough to make a start and encourage Deceit to join their VLOG once. Patton did his best to ask the lying side to join their activities and general meetings such as eating together, just hanging out or accompanying Thomas during certain events.

Still, .. Deceit was not all in and neither was Remus. Remus was a lot harder to win over for one of the sides. Thomas had issues accepting the Duke as he was but he made an effort to go slow and ease up into it (which made it somewhat more manageable but it was still work). Logan kept warning him to never overdo it or force himself into acceptance since that would be counterproductive as well.

There was just so much to pay attention to and the light sides as well as the others were just in a myriad of shards, their respective spaces of the mind absolute messes compared to before. It counted for the mind space the light sides were in charge of. The space the others inhabited looked unusually clean for someone like Remus living in that area. Virgil carefully stepped through the dark version of the living room and carefully looked around. Remus’ whole outfit was there. Just dropped right on the spot and there was a banana peel, perked up on the table in all provocation it could come up with.

The anxious side ducked a bit as he let his gaze roam over the floor before him. Having Remus around was a lot since usually, things like Lego stones and similar things were jut laying around. Sometimes they popped out of his body for no reason or literally any reason at all. Magic trick? Sure thing. Oh, rather a random intermission? Right there for ya! Feel like lifting up the mood? Everyone likes Lego. Fucking around with Dee? Pull out the stones and leave them laying around on the floor just for getting on the perfectionist’s nerves.

Alright, sometimes Lego stones were needles, pins or straight up frozen nipples digging into your skin. One could never really know with Remus around. Consistency did not necessarily exist with him, neither did it in this place - probably correlation, as Logan would conclude.

Virgil carefully dipped closer to the kitchen. He could hear the steady flow of water running and the repetitive yet random ticking of the clock. There was no rhythm to the time flowing in here yet at least the sink did the trick of sticking to physics. If he had not gone into this space with a certain determination filling him, he would have been affected by the sound of measured time passing. But he came here for something.

Remus was probably asleep or some shit so he could not fuck around with the laws of nature. Or he just did not feel like it. That was more like it. His moods painted the mindscape and shaped the loose for it usually took.

Dee... Dee was around. He had to be around. Time running wild was his way of insisting that time was just another dumb concept society came up with in order to trap everyone in a certain system and enslave the people according to certain measures as were scales and the BMI or grades. Actually, everything was pure evil in the eye and a half of a frustrated snake.

The once-upon-a-time-dark-side carefully stepped closer, finally having reached over to the kitchen. Anxiety was sitting heavy in his gut. A big, dark pitfall of emotions and dread eating him up form the inside out. It was the pure panic as always. Virgil had always dreaded these moments but with his heart on his tongue at the moment, honesty up his sleeves and pure openness in his eyes, he was scared of bringing his vulnerable state into a conversation with the angry snake. He had all right to be angry. They used to have it all and now, all he had served to split up what they used to be. It was his fault.

The anxious trait took a shake breath and blinked over the snake and took off his big jacket.

“Damien.”

After this, a lot of things happened at the same time and Virgil could do nothing but blink.

Dee immediately spun around, something in his hands and immediately slipping from his exposed fingers. Too slipper to keep up an angry grip on all that was real and all that was a potential reality. Virgil flinched as the plate crashed onto the floor and burst into an uncountable amount of little fragments, only held together by the idea of how this used to be a plate once in a lifetime. Now not Remus painted the space but the white porcelain directed what this place would look like from now on.

The sound had Virgil let go off his jacket and freeze up like a deer in the headlights. Caught off-guard and prepared for nothing ever in his entire life, he inhaled sharply. Dee’s piercing eyes nailed him to the wall he had kept close to. There was no hat, no cape and no gloves either. They were both vulnerable. Equally so. The dark space was a place for them to be who they were at any moment and with any mood they could come up with. They were loosely bound to Thomas’ experience but they were much freer than the light sides. Partly because they were not as involved in his life but also because Thomas did not pull them into question of fulfilling tasks for him in his cognitive processes. He rarely took deception into consideration, neither did he often summon the darker themes of his creativity.

Hence, the sides varied their appearance when not with Thomas. The light sides just did not insist on it too much because they were legitimate parts of Thomas, they both identified as such. It was a mutual relationship. The others were not so lucky. They varied greatly from their origin. When Thomas did not imagine them to be in a certain way, they let their own imagination and potency flow and just existed, sometimes even without corporal form.

Virgil pressed himself against the wall, staring at his ex-friend with a blank expression. Purple panic dripped into his face. The lying side stared back at him. Silence stretched out between them like a lazy cat trying to get a tan.

Dee carefully patted his hands dry, the scaled fingers dancing around the towel and gently gripping it ever so slightly. Virgil wondered whether anyone knew how delicate Damien’s grip could be when he wanted to. No matter the temper tantrums, he had never been a violent or brutal type. He was a delicate touch, a person to stay in your mind for his mind, for his eyes and his arguments that would stick with you even months after your encounter.

“He-hey”, Virgil mumbled. He was speaking through his teeth as he bit down onto his lips and looked at the other. Dee was readily putting his hat and gloves back on as he let the first greeting slide and with a dull snip of his fingers, his cape was back in place.

“Hello, Virgil”

The anxious trait carefully shrug his shoulders and averted his gaze. The floor looked interesting again despite there being no more obstacles to worry about with Deceit working on consistent order and banishing Remus from wrecking havoc outside of his room. It was new.. but it seemed like a change he did not hate. If he was allowed to judge it after all... it did not feel as if he was all too welcome after all. He could not exactly blame Damien for that. Virgil sighed. He had been a bad friend. A truly shitty companion and he got what he deserved when the other’s gaze simply wandered through him as if he was made of glass and anything but his existence was more interesting than him.

“I-I’.. sorry.”

Damien continued looking through him. By now his clothed fingers worked to adjust his bowler head, the coal colour resonating with his aura. Virgil could feel darkness oozing from the other. It was common to be more sensitive to certain influences in this corner of Thomas’ mind but Virgil had forgotten just how intense it was for him to be around the liar, not too far away from the chaotic creativity either. The influence was undeniable and while it could shut up people like Logan, Virgil felt his tongue feel nearly freed.

“Ssssorry?”

The word hit him like a whip and made him jump. It lashed out onto him, revealing wrath and destructive powers while the hiss lingered after him. It was the sneakingly slow threat of a snake. Virgil nodded eager as the word shot into his ears and he carefully rubbed over his exposed arms. It suddenly felt so much colder. He was all exposed on his own, now.

He did not think he could deal with this.

“You are sorry why? Because you interrupted me?”, the words were glowing like the last piece of blaze in a campfire on a trip into the lonely woods. Virgil forced his eyes shut. He should just say it. Just rip it off like a band-aid. That was what he could do, yeah. He should just..just speak up and get it out. He knew he could, it was like saying his name, it was like saying Damien’s name-

“Dee, I -I fucked up!”

He dug his hands into his lower arms as he curled them around himself and pushed his limbs into his lower abdomen. Maybe he was not real, but the panic and the dread was. It was a dark shadow spreading within him and poking him in all the sensitive spots. It rose and spread and stretched all over him like ingested poison travelling through a body.

One of Deceit’s many arms ducked out from under his cape and he handed Virgil a tissue without further comment. All his hands were gloved in yellow. He just rarely used them all at once. When did you ever need six arms? Virgil took the little tissue with care. Warmth spread from one hand to another and he gently padded at his eyes.

The anxious side was obviously working hard to be absolutely in an extreme state of overdrive with his makeup darkening a large part of his face, eyeshadow opaque and thick on his skin. Damien must have realised Virgil would not just come down for nothing and try to force his tears back while talking to him. He might have his feelings about their situation but he was no fool. He could sense a special situation when it was in front of him. Or maybe he just wanted him gone because having him around was possibly bothering. Was it because the triggered memories pained him or simply due to Virgil taking up valuable time and space Dee could put to much better use than interactions with the former dark side.

“Sweetie, what brought you here? Does Patton need anything? Thomas, perhaps?”

He assumed, with mild interest, that someone had sent Virgil down to them because he was very much able to be rather unaffected by the other dark sides. He did feel their influence but it did ultimately not bring out anything excessive within him due to his own history of being one of them. That being the case, it would not corrupt Thomas in any way. Maybe this Virgil was just another of Remus’ experiments to show Deceit that he was, in fact, not over their previous friendship and started intervening with Thomas’ business for more than just benefits but also to show Virgil’s new “friends” that he knew more about him, that he had more power over him after all.

The other carefully shook his head and bit down onto his lip with more force. The snake could see the dark lips paling and caving as small dents appeared in it.

If Virgil could, he would cuddle into the depth of his jacket and curl into the oversized mess that was basically a whole fucking blanket to him. His body was meant to swim in this thing! However, right now he was standing in front of Dee, sweatshirt covering him as much as his bangs and the usual ripped black jeans. All he could do was play with his thin sleeves, pick at them and stare at his fidgeting fingers as he hunched over and shook his head.

If he came down into the comfort of Deceit’s space, then he needed to show he was of good intentions and reveal a bit more of himself that he other side did not quite know enough about. It was like playing poker and he had caught up on when to risk and when to play it safe. He needed to pay a tribute and raise the stakes.

“No, nobody sent me.”

He straightened his back, the curve around his shoulders disappearing and instead his body rose into a more straight-up position. His body was slightly hover over Damien. The lying side was slightly shorter and the tip of his head reaches about Virgil’s nose. Actually, he was not just smaller than Virgil but all in all, the shortest of the sides who have openly interacted with Thomas so far. Funnily enough, Remus was the tallest and nobody ever talked about it because everyone could just manipulate their heights anyway (given Thomas did not actively imagine them in a certain way).

“I sent myself”, he said with a shrug, eyes still darting into any direction but Damien’s piercing gaze, “I wanted to come.”

The shorter side shifted but stayed in place. Upon clearing his throat, he prompted his ex-friend again. Even the thought of the prefix to this term hurt.

“Oh, Virgil. Did Patton finally give up on you?”

Something sparkled in the other’s face and his cheeks pushed themselves upwards in circular-shaped hills of laughter.

“Did your happy friends finally get enough of you sso now you come crawling back to me because you are sscared to be alone. Because you refussse to be the only bad guy, sszweetie?”

His words rolled off his lavish tongue, heavy and sweet like honey but they were spice to his open wounds. The more he talked, the more hot and hurtful energy they seemed to charge. The boiling hiss shot its explosive load right at Virgil. It felt like Romans’ sword practice with the Dragon Queen had to feel for the latter party. They were directed at Virgil’s heart and thrusted right into it. At least Anxiety was more than ready for Deceit’s lies and attempts at hurting him in return for having been hurt before by his all he had done.

God, how could he ever have done that. He really fucking deserved and that just made it worse for him to cope with this. It was a last straw but it was all he could focus in when he felt panic creep into his system like the despicable hoard of cockroaches everyone tried to keep locked away.

“Inktea”

Damien blinked. For a moment, the force of his presence seemed to distance itself a bit It let Virgil breathe just a tad better.

“Pardon me?”

Without any other moment passing, the kitchen lights flickered and a rather happy yet naturally clothed Remus appeared in the room. Which was nothing but a euphemism for Remus being in all the glory of how nature had made him. ...Or Thomas, actually.

“You summoned me?”

His voice scratched over the kitchen surfaces and made the snake man groan in response. The room was immediately filled with the gradually intensifying reek of ivy and something unidentifiable. It smelled familiarly unpleasant but at the same time, it was a somewhat oddly comforting smell. Like one of those things that smelled bad but still made one smell them again because they were actually not that bad but kinda got one all hooked up but were ...reek after all.

Still, there was not a single moment in life during which Virgil was more relieved (or positively feeling at all) about the Duke being finally a part of the gathering. Especially considering the man did not even have the decency to cover his personal parts.

“Nobody ssssummoned you”, he hissed back at the other and picked up Virgil’s jacket with one of his many hands. “And Virgil isss on hiss way out!”

The Duke let out a cartoon-like huff. His voice was comically shrill and annoying. It was so high-pitched, it made Damien wonder just how the fuck this man was a part of Thomas after all. Then again, they were all differing to certain degrees for more than just good reasons. It did nothing to help anyone over the fact that a loud and intense contribution from Remus had the capacity to hurt ears.

“Eh- sounds like bullshit to me, Virgil called the safeword on us. I am here. The rules said for me to join if I can and I can. And you made the rules so fuck you, Dee. And you know I gladly will!”

While Remus’ voice made a leap from strong and confident, the good impression immediately yielded to yet another drop into the scratchy sound of his voice. And the even more horrible imagery to come with his words. Dee blinked in reply at the statement.

“He wh-”

Remus turned to look at Virgil, his eyes widening in his calm chaos.

“Emo!”, he cheered and spread his arms, approaching the unusually exposed figure, “you came back!”

Virgil let out a protesting sound and shoved the tall man away by his chest, his nose scrunching up just enough for it to show a difference on his facial features as they pulled into a little wrinkles for a moment just short enough for someone to notice.

“Yeah, still don’t like hugs, eh.”

Virgil threw the Chaos Creativity a look. Remus squeaked in delight like an excited puppy.

“Also you are kinda naked, dude. Not my comfort.”

Remus tilted his head, wide shockingly open eyes staring into the void that was Virgil before him.

“Oh. That sounds like a YOU problem, tho!”

Virgil squeaked and shook his head as Remus made a dove for him, trying to catch him in his hug but the usually rather lethargic man was quick to dodge and flee himself next to Damien instead who just eyes the two as if he was staring at a camera in The Office. Honestly, at this point, he might have just been in this show, considering how everyone around him behaved so ridiculously.

“Stop it, you two”

His voice interjected as Remus arched his back and ... uh,, kinda hissed like a cat in an attempt to mimic a war screech and be somewhat intimidating. At least that it what it seemed to be like when Virgil jumped away like chased prey getting trapped and Remus just got ready to drop down and jump after him. It was a lot like dog and cat since Virgil was such a little shit after all. It was almost like old times.

Deceit’s six arms jumped out and grabbed the two before they could run through the whole mindspace and ruin the whole order he had just established. (With Remus around, the whole place was just a second away from burning down or spontaneously combustion but..well, the short side somewhat decided to bother enough to care about any of this.)

“You sssit down. And we will talk about this. You do not get to walk out of our livess and just pop back in and play with Remus like he iss your best friend when you left without a word. He may have the attention span of a dying mayfly but you don’t get to jussst barge in here like that. Not on my watch.”

Virgil could nearly hear a pun in his ears, Patton’s cheerful voice and little giggle ringing in his memory with a hint of nostalgia to it. Something on his face must have given away enough of his mental images for Damian to let go and look him over for a minute.

“Nobody is forcing you. You can go. You can always walk out of here. I will not stop you and I will make sure Remus won’t either, sweetie.”

A little bit of soft sparked in Dee and for a moment, the reek from Remus was not as bad. For a moment, the past never happened and they were just .. friends.. like they used to be before Thomas had decided to change something about himself. Light blinked in Virgil’s heart. For just a moment. And there was warmth between them

“...okay.”

Remus whistled and gave the two a smirk. A seemingly knowing one. His eyes were reading books and porn at the same time as they reflected the couple before him.

“You two need to get a room”

And then, without another prompt.

“Are kitchens rooms? Kitchens are rooms but do not count as rooms. Such horrible thing! In rooms you do private things like slaughtering your pet and now you do not have any privacy in the kitchen? Did slaughter become a social event?”

Virgil blinked at him. Kinda.. Kinda did not miss that part of the dark sides.. not really. He sighed in vain. Remus continued on.

“Now, consider. Beheadings were public and so was the execution by guillotine and then there was also the case of stoning people - well actually that is still a thing! And also, there are bull fights and the media feasting on mass shootings anD-”

With a snap of Dee’s fingers, the kitchen was gone and the chaotic Creativity fell onto a leathery couch. Plain. Black. Remus sighed- possibly in distaste. The side felt insulted by how simple everything around here seemed to be. Damien was like the Logic of the dark sides. Boring (to put it maliciously) and simple and Remus had his thoughts on the lying short stack but he also has his thoughts on the lack of blood and man-eating jelly plants around here. It was shocking to say at least but well, it was not his fault the lying side decided to live without the true beauty of a precious life dedicated to creativity.

Virgil was seated next to Remus, rather unceremoniously falling into his corner of the couch and scrambling to shift into a more comfortable position on the icky feelings below him. He retreated his arms into his sleeves and let his palms push down onto his knees. Leather was so cold and stiff and - A shiver ran down his spine and he visibly shook. Just the thought of how much he disliked the feeling of it made him feel worse about where he was sitting

“Wait, I can dress up for you! I will make it super hot, tho!”

Remus shot up before Deceit could stop him and the Duke was gone for but a moment just to freshly pop up in an actual dress. It was short, barely covering his fine ass that Thomas had worked on so well. The long legs were covered in fishnets -probably made from actual fishnets he used to catch some octopus friends because why not. There was no reason to what he did, just ‘mood’ as Virgil would say and a sense of curiosity that Logan would envy to have. The black of his dress was slightly floating but it was rather simple compared to Remus' usual attire (given he was clothed at all). The front has strings to tie him into the dress and adjust his slightly bulky figure. He was a bit broader than Thomas but the dress easily reached up to the middle of his upper arms and concealed his inviting shoulders. Some intricate green ornaments decorated the part of the dress that could be tied together flexibly. The strings were silver, slightly sparkling and looking about as strangely fitting as the skunk streak in the garbage man's nest of a hair. The dress hugged Remus' body shape in all places, adjusting to his form like an actual birth suit.

Remus flopped down again and sprawled over the couch, excitement glimmering in his eyes like dreams and hopes of children a moment before it was time to receive gifts on the holy night. He really reminded Damien of a of a dog. It made him wonder how Patton had not tried adopting him yet but that was another part of hypocrisy he did not have the nerve to think about at the moment.

“uh... thanks, Ree”, he mumbled in reply and the dark creativity sniffed the little sounds the other made like expensive perfume gracing his nostrils. His head inched closer but Virgil did not make any inclination to meet him.

Damien was standing before them, his stance implying that he did not plan on joining them on the couch but instead stare into them. He cleared his throat.

“Yes, Double D?”

Ah. How original. Virgil giggled and Remus looked as if he would spontaneously hyperventilate if Virgil did any other thing around him, willingly, without even gaining a bit of dark eyeshadow. Dee blinked, unamused.

“You used the word, darling. Why are you here and why are you saying these things?”

The snake man let his eyes gaze at the puddle of black and purple once more, a clear sigh provided despite Remus’ clear intention to leap onto the ...the intruder. Deceit could not even think about how he felt about this but it was a strong sensation within him, from as far as he could tell. It felt as if he was about to split from his own existence or immediately vomit his guts out. ... difficult to describe but something within him felt sick, as if he had ingested poison he could not quite handle. It was something he rarely ever handled..

The bitter taste of the unwanted truth. A product by cold reality.

Virgil scratched the back of his head and carefully drew his legs closer to himself.

“Uh... I.. I thought it all over and.. I -I am sorry, okay? I fucked up, messed it all up big time and I get it. I..um did a lot of stupid shit and I regret it but I thought this was different.”

The anxious trait sighed and played with his sleeves, pulling at them a tearing at the ends of them.

“I thought.. I thought we were all bad for Thomas and then I tried to not be bad but you all still were and I really believed that we actually harmed him before and that you wanted to bring him down... when I am the only who really did.”

Dee blinked at the speaking person.

“I made a mistake and I.. I am sorry.”

Virgil shrugged and brushed through his bangs, the hazel strands falling through his fingers with ease.

“I should have talked to you or something”, he started and let out a heavy sigh, “literally anything rather than just fucking off like the coward I am. Uh, anxiety things I guess. Fight or flight and all..”

The man in question shrugged and Remus let out a little squeak in response. It reminded him of an aroused pig but with Remus, nobody could really tell with confidence. It was just assumptions and educated guesses.. or literally any random suggestions which are probably more likely to hit the spot than any logical deduction could ever get to.

Dee looked between Remus and Virgil for a moment. He could not feel the anxious trait lying at all. Usually he would feel a contradiction in himself, in the world itself. The liar would see the lie in the words, he would see the letters break and fall apart because they had no ground to stand on. There was no truth to build up on that that could keep the words together.

“Really, you get anxious?”, Remus piped up with his voice ending on a slightly increased volume in all the seriousness his chaotic mind could come up with. Virgil simply glared at him before rolling his eyes so hard, it looked as if they might as well just pop out and leave his face forever. Remus briefly wondered whether he could kinda suck on them but that would probably be a bit too close for the purple man.

“Yeah, no fucking shit, Sherlock. I AM Anxiety. I gotta do my job at least somehow.”

Remus snickered and stuck his tongue out at the other without further comments. Damien let out a little sigh and rubbed his temples. No word in the English language had the capacity to describe the emotional state he was in at this moment. It was a lot, akin to taking one of these depression showers after a big and greasy depression nap. When feeling better yet still bad, the feeling of comfort and ugliness clashed together in this weird mix. And at the end of all, there was Dee. Washed with the waters of truth and refreshed with new information and feelings but he was but a clean slate, a tabula rasa and absolutely void of experience to deal with this.

He knew how to handle Virgil before he left, he knew how to handle Remus before Virgil had left. Deceit used to have it all under control and now it was coming back but it was not quite the same.

“Virgil, let me be clear here”, he started eventually.

His voice was settled, sedated like a tired dinner in among loving family with young children.

“I am sorry, too.”

The anxious side blinked rapidly, jaw falling open just a tad for Dee to acknowledge it with a little nod and even a smile.

“Yes, I know.”

He shook his head.

“We all made mistakes, sweetheart. We made the mistakes to tale Thomas’ changes personal.”

For once, not a single lie or condescension weighed the value of his words down. The truth liberated his sentence and let the sounds of his verbalisations fly through the air like a happy bird baby that had finally learned how to navigate through the air and raise up into the sky.

Dee sighed and made a somewhat swipe-like gesture with his gloved fingers. Virgil shoved himself into the middle of the couch and Remus immediately retreated his legs to himself for his favourite emo to have some space next to him. Remus let out another squeal and started bouncing a little, his body trembling like some strange sea monster in the middle of the ocean that only moved for the sake of shaking the water and causing some waves.

Again, Remus was simply a fucked over yet absolutely endearing dog. Loyal, excited.

“Hug?!” Remus blinked. Somehow, his bouncing got more intense.. The fabric of his dress was slightly shifting here and there, his body budging along with him but his butt was mostly staying on the couch rather than wobbling up and down like the odd jell-o creature he made himself out to be.

This man was going to explode if he did not get to stim or at least have someone to be squished within the death grip of his arms. The touch-starved eyes glances over Virgil again and then continued on, eventually locking with Dee’s wondrous eyes.

“Still don’t like touches, Ree”

Virgil tried a soft smile in reply only to be countered with a scoff from behind him. He turned around, meeting Deceit’s intense glare as he shook his head slowly. His tongue clicked a few times for added suspense and the extra effect of scolding a kid.

“Virgil, I told you before. It takes a liar, to know a liar. You don’t need to save face here.”

The addressed man shook his head, heat rising to his face and painting red over his cheeks. His chest burned like hay.

“I-I am not lying! I told you before, I meant all I said, I-”

“Shhht”

Dee pressed a clothed finger to Virgil’s lips and winked.

“Sometimes, you need to be quiet, my little raccoon. You know as much as I do that there is touch you would never say no to.”

Damien’s voice dropped low, travelling over his skin and leaving imprints in the form of goosebumps all over his body as his words made their way over to Virgil.

“Darling, you and I both know that you enjoy touch if it is just the right one. Now, what is the matter? Do you have a problem with the touches Remus would give you? He is not Patton.”

Virgil curled up on himself and shook his head violently, gently hugging his legs and hiding in them. His sweatshirt was far from enough at this point. His skin screamed for more to cover him in these trying times of social interaction. Being put on the spot was an especially extreme case of socialising. At the same time, his body did not even burn enough to challenge whatever he felt whenever he was around Roman or Patton a lot. Logan was not even a person to throw him off.

“I-”

Remus already charged at him and rolled his heavy body onto Virgil’s in a sudden movement. Squeals and little squeaks accompanied his sudden leap and he threw his arms around Virgil to engulf his friend in the fluffy trap of his physical love. A muffled sound came from the emo but he finally wrapped his arms around the other and let his head be tucked under Remus’ chin and mumbled some words of little meaning.

Dee watched the scene for a moment, a warmth blooming within him, unfolding and spreading until he actually felt a warm sensation tug at him. Remus.

The chaotic trash master carefully pulled at him. His movements were soft and repetitive so he would not rip the other’s clothing yet still get his attention easily. Once his focus was acquired, the lying side did not wait for Remus to ask him again and he leaned in, his chest soft pressing against Virgil’s slightly bigger body. His muscles were tangible from under thin sweatshirt he was wearing after he had taken off his clothing as special sign of vulnerability.

Nobody made him regret it. Not a single act or word had given Virgil just enough of a shock to summon his clothing back around his body or transfer his body back into his room, into the safety he desired and required when he pressed the panic button of this last-minute appearance in his own four walls.

The three remained in the soft comfort of one another for several moment. Just breathing in the weird mixture of Virgil’s rather decent yet rather sweet smell, Dee’s scent that reminded everyone of nature and then there was the weird, oddly slimy and sticky smell of saltiness that emanated off the Duke. It also reminded him of ivy but that was covered by Deceit as well. Whatever it was, it felt like the weirdest yet somewhat greatest mix to ever exist. It was like chocolate and mint. It was weird but at the same time still tasty. To some people at least. For some reason, it was actually a real treat during winter time. Like pumpkin being an autumn thing, mint and cinnamon were the spices and scents of the cooler months in a year.

“How was that again?”, Dee teased softly, “ ‘don’t hug me, I’m scared’, isn’t that right?”

A low grumble could be heard from the violet spider in Dee’s many arms and Ree’s long limbs.

“Aw, come on, Virgil. Don’t be like that. I just want you to be honest with yourself. Who knows who long you will let me around this time.”

A growl could be heard but this time it came from the taller of the three.

“Deeeeeeeeeeee” The scratchy whine reached a nasty level. “Don’t be meaaaaaan! He used the word for stopping and we are stopping! It is the rules! You made the rules and you have to play by the rules or you are a bad person to play with!”

Remus retreated to his corner of the couch again, slightly tugging at Virgil but ultimately leaving him in the centre. The snake man looked back at the dark Creativity and nodded.

“It had been so long anyone ever used the word, I nearly forgot. Oh honey, even before you left, you were the only one to really make use of the word.”

Virgil brushed through his precious bangs once more as if to brush off the sudden sweetness in Dee’s voice and the space he had gained despite Remus’ obvious desire for more affection and proximity.

“You kinda made that word a thing so I could clock out whenever you guys got too far with me. No wonder I am the only one to use this shit.”

Damien rolled his eyes playfully. He then allowed the others back into the hug and the pouting tentacle man was quick to squish their dark friend between him and the snake. Deceit’s body fit right together with Remus and Virgil, their position natural, almost necessary between them. Their existence was linked together. They were hooks - all attached to one another and difficult to get apart, even when trying a lot. It did obviously not really work out even now. They were just “simply meant to be”, as Roman would probably sing for them.

Remus carefully nuzzled Virgil’s neck and sent tickles and shivers down the other’s body.

“HEY!”

Virgil pushed his body as far away from Remus as he could. By far, a harsh activity to submit himself to, seeing that he was sandwiched between the two dark sides in a rather close hug. All he did was essentially drive himself into Damien’s many arms. Once he was pressed against Deceit, he looked at the Duke, lips pushed into a pout and head ducked like a cautious kitten.

And then he let out the most slurred excuse of a hiss one had ever heard in the history of human life. That man was threatening no one but children with a lisp who feared the idea of being put on the spot when working out their little speech impediment whenever they heard a faulty ‘s’ around them.

Remus giggled. Oh he giggled like a crazy maniac when he got started. The sounds quickly shot into a pitch so high, his voice doubled down on taking it further yet basically cracked and came out in nothing but squeaks that resembled the level of intrusion from a door creaking whenever someone as much as just looked at them. He pounced onto the emo again and hugged Damien and Virgil with his immensely long arms and inhumane power to just squish the two smaller sides together.

“Remus- What the actual hell”

Deceit’s words were met with no verbal answer. Instead, he was allowed to witness Remus being himself in all his shameless glory. A purr could be heard as the predator stuck his face close to Virgil’s neck much to the other’s dismay (which he voiced in several moments of squeaking out ‘no’ and hiding his head away in Dee’s cape).

And then. I t. happened.

Remus had gotten close enough to not just nuzzle Virgil again - which he did not, for that matter - but instead lick him all over his neck and make the light side freeze in motion and immediately fall silent.

“Mine.”

“Remus you sick fuck, howmst the fuck darest thou”

Virgil glared at the man. There was no fire in his eyes. Actually, he was even smiling while trying to rub the saliva off his neck, using the sleeve of his trusty sweatshirt. Remus had already pulled back in order to look at Virgil, a lazy grin spreading over his lips as they broadened.

“I think we need to claim Dee, so he is all ours only~ Care to give me a hand?”

Anxiety’s face reflected Remus’ own smirk all of a sudden. A true mirror at hand and without another blink of an eye, the two strove forward to launch themselves at Dee. However, the lying side was quick to jump out of reach and off the couch. Within a heartbeat, he was gone and quickly made a run for the hallway - all but in reach of the two dorks who wanted to wet his cheeks and claim him for some stupid reasons they made up in their tiny pea brains!

He dashed away, casting abandonment on the others as he sprinted forward. Heads clashed together and Remus jumped down to follow the lead of their prey while Virgil rubbed his forehead. A small yet visible patch of red started fading onto his pale skin and he could feel his head aching and wounded place throbbing uncomfortably.

They were mental projections of Thomas’ personality but if they could be hurt and get emotional, they might experience physical pain, temporarily. This one counted as one of these moments in which he felt actual agony and it was not over one of Logan’s issues with taking proverbs literal or Patton making puns or, behold, Roman serenading all his activities and generally breaking into songs at any given moment. ... they all had issues, and sometimes they were a lot, okay?

“Stay away from me!”

Remus screeched in laughter while Dee ran back to the kitchen, his hat flying due to the speed of his attempt at a dramatic escape as fast as possible from these lovable idiots.

“Don’t dare the Dukey ~”

Damien jumped out of reach once more but the kitchen had been the closest choice and then again just a dead end. He was trapped. Virgil was finally back on board and trailed after the others with sneaky, fast-paced steps. His movements echoed through the hall and let the yellow man narrow his eyes at the entrance to the kitchen. Shreds of white were flying across the floor as Deceit’s hurrying feet kicked them around.  

It was coming.

“Raccoon! Come over here~ Our friendo needs help with our affection”

Dee was glaring at the other.

“Keep your filthy tongues away, you heathens. I. dare. You.”

The Duke was suddenly silent and still and Virgil nudged him in the side as soon as he reached up to him. He was not that fast compared to the other sides.

“Yo snake, come on”

He did not budge.

“Talking about snakes, do you want to know what is up my butt th-”

“I can tell you for sure that nobody wants to know this right now, Ree”

The chaotic man snickered briefly, the sound resembling a shadow sneakily crawling away from its owner and moving on its own.

“Does this mean we can come back to this at another time?”

Virgil glared at him for a moment, scoffing but not minding the comment with any more words. Unbeknownst to him, Remus was using his Remusness for exactly this special time and promptly scooped up the trophy that was the lying side. During the whole exchange, he had used his tentacles to strive forward and reach for the man in cape and more. He was quick to work these things off so he could see the other in his usual attire again, the clothes he allowed himself to wear around The Others.

He was comfortable with them. The man dared to reveal himself when the was in the darker spaces of Thomas’ mind. Whenever he visited the light sides, he was notorious to cover up. Every patch of skin he could alienate from the original Thomas was to be hidden away. He was not him.

By now, he had to worry about several other things than just wearing clothing or losing his cape and glove to the tentacles. His tired glare merely graced over Remus. Deceit actually looked like a guys who has had his fair share of dealing with kindergarten children all day long, five days a fucking week for the rest of his time until fucking retirement.

“Do you feel better now that you removed my gloves, honey?”

Remus eagerly nodded at the man and his question. His voice dropped down into the usual tone he used to talk around the light sides, the sneaky sound of evading a straightforward answer.

“Now we can love you!”

Virgil shrugged, his lips twitching into a smile.

“Yeah, dude, you gotta stay with us so we can, like, be nice or whatever.”

Dee dropped his shoulders and his usually upright position reverted to a slight slouch. Instead of a proud position, there was a comfort rather than the attempt at ascertaining dominance as he did in court. There was no need to do this here, not around his dear ones. Not around the people he could trust with his life.

“Only if you stay”, he whispered. His voice was a needle dropped in absolute silence.

“At least come around a lot, just come over some time.”

The vigilant side looked up at him and carefully inched closer until they were close enough to hug. Remus quickly moved over to join the hug, drawing the two slightly smaller sides to his warm chest. His tentacles, with the life of their own, slowly retreated. They had some clothes to chew on for now. Their transluscent green forms gradually inched away from the deceptive side and left the three have their moment of intimacy over their reunion.

“Now, Now, Snake Whisperer, Virgin. We will always stay together. I can glue us together if that helps you-”

He gently nudged him, making the classic man sniffled.

“I’m .. I am not able to just come back but I can drop in as much as Thomas’ mind lets me. I will stay around for as long as I physically and mentally am able to manage.” Virgil took a deep breath and wiped at the salty liquids that formed in his heterochromatic eyes, the precious gems of different colours and wild secrets. They held all that Thomas knew and repressed, it was all the knowledge about lying and certain obstacles in life.

“If you leave, I might skin you”

Virgil giggled.

“Please don’t say that”

“Please don’t leave”

“Please, shut up, you two.”

They all chuckled and Virgil pressed a kiss to Dee’s cheek while Remus leaned in to push his tongue against the other’s scales.

“Mine!”

Deceit snorted.

“You are such a fucking mess.”

Remus kissed the top of his head and gently tugged him and Virgil closer once more. As they should be. This was where they belonged. They were the dark sides and they were the ones who would always stick together. Virgil may be a light side or not, they belonged together and with him around, they could finally complete their own puzzle. They had the little piece that made them whole and filled the void the other had left after his transition to the light sides (due to Thomas’ change in cognition and attitude).

“My room. I mean.. you are not really affected a lot by my room since I, uh... relocated it to the other side and all. I mean, like, you know. That is okay for you? Is it?”

Deceit nodded and the Duke simply wiggled his eyebrows at the suggestion.

“Can I visit Thomas? OW”

The snakey snake retreated and straightened out the wrinkles in his clothing that came from the little struggle they had together. His hand reached over to the wet spot on his cheek and he wiped over it before washing his hands under the sink.

“Disgusting.”

Another sound of giggles erupted from the creative side while he held his Virgil. Soon after, he could draw Damien back into their little cuddle pile. Deceit was the shortest side along with Roman but he was still a powerful and proud man. He had the power to pinch a man and evoke pain if he wanted to!

“Aw okay, then maybe we will just go to Virgil’s room already and stay there and then we can cuddle and finally get to make the fuck out! I wanna taste some tongues!”

Virgil let out a prominent noise that resembled a big old ‘blergh’ but he threw himself into the others and let them appear in his room. Their bodies crashed into his bed and foreheads bumped together as they embraced one another and giggled.

Sounds were swallowed and Remus’ idea was taken more serious than anyone would ever admit to one another or the sides outside of this room. Giggles drowned in the joy of feeling and tasting one another. Feelings sparked in colourful fireworks and there were smiles colouring their faces that could not and would not be wiped away.

Finally, all pieces were back together.

[readingontheredcouch]

Leviathan Falls speculations: How is the Expanse book series going to end?

Spoilers ahead, read at your own risk if you haven’t finished all the 8 books of the Expanse series yet!

With the title of the final instalment revealed at long last, we have received quite a substantial clue as to the possible ending of the Expanse series.

In order to understand the above statement better we need to step back and examine what one of my favourite writers, Kurt Vonnegut, considered his prettiest contribution to culture (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/09/kurt-vonnegut-graphed-the-worlds-most-popular-stories/). In a largely forgotten master’s thesis he wrote, while studying anthropology, he identified a hand full of core patterns in storytelling. The patterns are summarized as follows:

Man in a Hole

The main character gets into trouble then gets out of it again and ends up better of for the experience. Book example: Arsenic and Old Lace

Movie example: Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle

Boy Meets Girl

The main character comes across something wonderful, gets it, loses it, then gets it back forever.

Book example: Jane Eyre

Movie example: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Creation Story

In many cultures’ creation stories, humankind receives incremental gifts from a deity. First major staples like the earth and sky, then smaller things like sparrows and cell phones. Not a common shape for Western stories, however.  

Old Testament

Humankind receives incremental gifts from a deity, but is suddenly ousted from good standing in a fall of enormous proportions.

Book example: Great Expectations, Flowers for Algernon

New Testament

Humankind receives incremental gifts from a deity, is suddenly ousted from good standing, but then receives off the charts bliss.

Book example: Great Expectations with Dickens’ alternate ending

Cinderella

It was the similarity between the shapes of Cinderella and the New Testament that thrilled Vonnegut for the first time in 1947 and then over the course of his life as he continued to write essays and give lectures on the shapes of stories.

From Bad to Worse

The main character starts off poorly then gets continuously worse with no hope for improvement

Book example: The Metamorphosis

TV example: The Twilight Zone  

Which Way is Up?

The story has a lifelike ambiguity that keeps us from knowing if new developments are good or bad.

Book example: Hamlet

TV Example: The Sopranos

So let’s look at the Expanse series from this point of view. Apart from some impressively creative sci-fi and blasting off the page in space action, what did actually happen in the eight books so far?

Well, not much actually. In the beginning of the first book humanity comes in contact with the technology of a long gone far superior alien race. Over the course of the next eight books humanity tries to deal with the new reality. Immense possibilities literally open up through the ring-gates, science is advanced hundreds of years in a very short period of time. Sure, politics, logistics, law and regulatory affairs, all need to adjust. And the way humanity once again copes with change and uncertainty through the tried and true mechanism of crime, war and terrorist attacks, in the end amounts to a brilliant thought experiment and a truly enjoyable read. However, as the main theme of the Expanse series, I think we can agree that ‘humankind receives incremental gifts from a deity’ is the most fitting main theme.

So where do we go from here? Well, the destruction of the Earth by Marco Inaros and the Free Navy has caused a downwards slope in the pattern eliminating the Creation Story outcome, which in any case wasn’t a very likely scenario. So now only the Old and New Testament patterns remain. Is it going to be off the charts bliss for humanity and the crew of the Rocinante or a fall of enormous proportions? As much as I would like for the series to have a happy ending, I don’t think that off the charts bliss is a likely outcome here. Let me explain why I think that the Old Testament pattern is probably the most fitting for the Expanse series. First of all I think that he destruction of the Earth in Nemesis Games sealed the deal on the possibility of a positive outcome and marked a distinctive downward spiral in the story pattern development. There is just no coming back from the destruction of the home world for any species, and in particular such a vulnerable and pampered carbon life form as we are. But any hope for a positive outcome that still remained was shattered by the reveal of the title of the final installment: Leviathan Falls. Here we see a distinctive and downward pattern compared to the Leviathan Wakes of the first book. Not to mention the fact that Leviathan is a primordial sea snake of the Old Testament. I am actually beginning to wonder whether the James S.A. Corey writers didn’t give away too much at this point in time. Finally, looking at the cultural context wherein the Expanse series have been created, for as many of my favourite writers have said before, science fiction is a representation of the present and  not the future, and without going into too much details, I don’t think a truly happy ending is possible considering the current state of the world we are living in. The writers will probably want to caution us against hubris and discord and will want to provide a silver lining, while mirroring the bleak state of affairs nowadays.  

So what plot developments are possible within the Old Testament, or as I like to think about it, the Flowers for Algernon story pattern framework?

I think the most likely scenario is that the gates are going to close for good, cutting the Solar System off from the colonised worlds. The gates have been malfunctioning ever since they first opened, so that definitely isn’t that far of a plot stretch. What is left of humanity will have to rebuild the Solar System in dreadful conditions and without the resources of the home planet. This is going to be a daunting and dangerous task, but the silver lining in this outcome is that due to the loss of the Earth humanity will become more tolerant and more equal than ever before in its history. The Earther, Martian and Belter division is going to disappear and humans will resemble a classless society for the first time in history. So that is definitely a change for the better. And what about our crew? Wherever they are going to end up, if alive, they are going to learn to live with their own renewed insignificance. Not a very appealing end for a bunch of already old heroes. That is why I think that we will have to say good bye to at least some additional members of our beloved crew in a similar fashion we already did to Bobbi Draper.

And what about the colonies? As we have learned time and time again, most of the colonies weren’t self-sufficient enough to survive without the commodity influx of the Solar System yet. So most of the colonies will probably die, with a very few colonists surviving in extremely primitive conditions. Now I am merely speculating, but the evolution will probably run its course until in a million years the new humans will find a remainder of the alien technology, will discover the ruined Earth, the extinct Solar System and will wonder what unknown enemy could have ever conquered such a superior species. And just like that looking forward has provided us with a possible explanation of how the alien technology ever came to be in the Solar System in the first place and what unknown enemy has tempered with the ring-gates and caused the extinction of the alien race. For if we know how the Free Navy has demolished the Earth, is it such a stretch to imagine that the superior alien race has destroyed itself from within as well? And that the superior alien race was no more and no less than a previous installment of humanity itself?

in any case I can’t wait for the book to come out in 2021! I have already made some space on my shelf :)

[secretsantasides]

Gift #6: Dark Puzzles

Gift for @tina0555

Request: DLAMP, LAMPT, just polyships in general

TW: death/execution/stoning/slaughter mention, serial killer mention, politics implied, mass shooting mention, implied animal cruelty, Remus being fucking Remus and being absolutely odd, sexual innuendo if you wanna read it that way (nothing worse than canon Remus), emetophobia (mention), mentions of skinning, mentions of making out, a bit of crying, non-sexual nudity, mentions of body horror (slight bc Remus), mention of bugs/cockroaches, porn mention, reference to snake anatomy, “platonic safewords”, implied synethesia, mention of depression, ADHD Remus (implied, stimming mention)

Dee hisses a lot.

The night struck the seemingly empty apartment. Silence hung in the air, heavy like a loaded truck. The whole place looked much like the rest of Thomas’ home if it was not for the rather dark looks. Some things were laying around carelessly, almost as if dropped right after the moment of use.

It was so different from the light side’s space but it was still strangely similar. It was like looking into a mirror but one that twisted things and turned reality into something it was and was not at the same time instead of reflecting it properly.

Roman had explained it quite well when he had tried to explain his relationship to Remus, the other side of creativity.

However, it never explained the relationship the dark sides had among one another.

Virgil had not once spoken about it and while Deceit had teased the idea of their connection, it remained a mystery. As always, Remus seemed too confusing and changing like the flowing water in a river to actually get information out of him.

All the light sides knew were that Virgil used to be a dark side until Thomas started accepting and including him and even worked to hear him out as much as possible.

Deceit was on the way to it but he still had not shared his name. Patton tried his best to pave the way for Thomas to accept him too butnow it was their way to try and accommodate someone other than Virgil for once.

Thomas knew about how Virgil used to be a dark side and it had prompted him enough to make a start and encourage Deceit to join their VLOG once. Patton did his best to ask the lying side to join their activities and general meetings such as eating together, just hanging out or accompanying Thomas during certain events.

Still, .. Deceit was not all in and neither was Remus.

Remus was a lot harder to win over for one of the sides.

Thomas had issues accepting the Duke as he was but he made an effort to go slow and ease up into it (which made it somewhat more manageable but it was still work). Logan kept warning him to never overdo it or force himself into acceptance since that would be counterproductive as well.

 There was just so much to pay attention to and the light sides as well as the others were just ina myriad of shards, their respective spaces of the mind absolute messes compared to before.

It counted for the mind space the light sides were in charge of.

The space the others inhabited looked unusually clean for someone like Remus living in that area.

Virgil carefully stepped through the dark version of the living room and carefully looked around.

Remus’ whole outfit was there. Just dropped right on the spot and there was a banana peel, perked up on the table in all provocation it could come up with.

 The anxious side ducked a bit as he let his gaze roam over the floor before him. Having Remus around was a lot since usually, things like Lego stones and similar things were jut laying around. Sometimes they popped out of his body for no reason or literally any reason at all.

Magic trick? Sure thing. Oh, rather a random intermission? Right there for ya! Feel like lifting up the mood? Everyone likes Lego. Fucking around with Dee? Pull out the stones and leave them laying around on the floor just for getting on the perfectionist’s nerves.

 Alright, sometimes Lego stones were needles, pins or straight up frozen nipples digging into your skin.

One could never really know with Remus around. Consistency did not necessarily exist with him, neither did it in this place - probably correlation, as Logan would conclude.

 Virgil carefully dipped closer to the kitchen. He could hear the steady flow of water running and the repetitive yet random ticking of the clock. There was no rhythm to the time flowing in here yet at least the sink did the trick of sticking to physics. If he had not gone into this space with a certain determination filling him, he would have been affected by the sound of measured time passing.

But he came here for something.

 Remus was probably asleep or some shit so he could not fuck around with the laws of nature. Or he just did not feel like it. That was more like it. His moods painted the mindscape and shaped the loose for it usually took.

 Dee... Dee was around.

He had to be around.

Time running wild was his way of insisting that time was just another dumb concept society came up with in order to trap everyone in a certain system and enslave the people according to certain measures as were scales and the BMI or grades. Actually, everything was pure evil in the eye and a half of a frustrated snake.

 The once-upon-a-time-dark-side carefully stepped closer, finally having reached over to the kitchen.

Anxiety was sitting heavy in his gut. A big, dark pitfall of emotions and dread eating him up form the inside out. It was the pure panic as always.

Virgil had always dreaded these moments but with his heart on his tongue at the moment, honesty up his sleeves and pure openness in his eyes, he was scared of bringing his vulnerable state into a conversation with the angry snake.

He had all right to be angry.

They used to have it all and now, all he had served to split up what they used to be. It was his fault.

 The anxious trait took a shake breath and blinked over the snake and took off his big jacket.

 “Damien.”

 After this, a lot of things happened at the same time and Virgil could do nothing but blink.

 Dee immediately spun around, something in his hands and immediately slipping from his exposed fingers. Too slipper to keep up an angry grip on all that was real and all that was a potential reality.

Virgil flinched as the plate crashed onto the floor and burst into an uncountable amount of little fragments, only held together by the idea of how this used to be a plate once in a lifetime. Now not Remus painted the space but the white porcelain directed what this place would look like from now on.

 The sound had Virgil let go off his jacket and freeze up like a deer in the headlights. Caught off-guard and prepared for nothing ever in his entire life, he inhaled sharply. Dee’s piercing eyes nailed him to the wall he had kept close to. 

There was no hat, no cape and no gloves either.

They were both vulnerable. Equally so.

The darkspace was a place for them to be who they were at any moment and with any mood they could come up with.

They were loosely bound to Thomas’ experience but they were much freer than the lightsides. Partly because they were not as involved in his life but also because Thomas did not pull them into question of fulfilling tasks for him in his cognitive processes. He rarely took deception into consideration, neither did he often summon the darker themes of his creativity.

 Hence, the sides varied their appearance when not with Thomas. The light sides just did not insist on it too much because they were legitimate parts of Thomas, they both identified as such. It was a mutual relationship.

The others were not so lucky. They varied greatly from their origin. When Thomas did not imagine them to be in a certain way, they let their own imagination and potency flow and just existed, sometimes even without corporal form.

 Virgil pressed himself against the wall, staring at his ex-friend with a blank expression. Purple panic dripped into his face.

The lying side stared back at him.

Silence stretched out between them like a lazy cat trying to get a tan.

 Dee carefully patted his hands dry, the scaled fingers dancing around the towel and gently gripping it ever so slightly. Virgil wondered whether anyone knew how delicate Damien’s grip could be when he wanted to.

No matter the temper tantrums, he had never been a violent or brutal type. He was a delicate touch, a person to stay in your mind for his mind, for his eyes and his arguments that would stick with you even months after your encounter.

 “He-hey”, Virgil mumbled. He was speaking through his teeth as he bit down onto his lips and looked at the other. Dee was readily putting his hat and gloves back on as he let the first greeting slide and with a dull snip of his fingers, his cape was back in place.

 “Hello, Virgil”

 The anxious trait carefully shrug his shoulders and averted his gaze. The floor looked interesting again despite there being no more obstacles to worry about with Deceit working on consistent order and banishing Remus from wrecking havoc outside of his room.

It was new.. but it seemed like a change he did not hate. If he was allowed to judge it after all... it did not feel as if he was all too welcome after all. He could not exactly blame Damien for that.

Virgil sighed.

He had been a bad friend. A truly shitty companion and he got what he deserved when the other’s gaze simply wandered through him as if he was made of glass and anything but his existence was more interesting than him.

 “I-I’.. sorry.”

 Damien continued looking through him. By now his clothed fingers worked to adjust his bowler head, the coal colour resonating with his aura. Virgil could feel darkness oozing from the other.

It was common to be more sensitive to certain influences in this corner of Thomas’ mind but Virgil had forgotten just how intense it was for him to be around the liar, not too far away from the chaotic creativity either. The influence was undeniable and while it could shut up people like Logan, Virgil felt his tongue feel nearly freed.

 “Ssssorry?”

 The word hit him like a whip and made him jump. It lashed out onto him, revealing wrath and destructive powers while the hiss lingered after him.

It was the sneakingly slow threat of a snake.

Virgil nodded eager as the word shot into his ears and he carefully rubbed over his exposed arms.

It suddenly felt so much colder. He was all exposed on his own, now.

 He did not think he could deal with this.

 “You are sorry why? Because you interrupted me?”, the words were glowing like the last piece of blaze in a campfire on a trip into the lonely woods.

Virgil forced his eyes shut.

He should just say it. Just rip it off like a band-aid. That was what he could do, yeah. He should just..just speak up and get it out. He knew he could, it was like saying his name, it was like saying Damien’s name-

 “Dee, I -I fucked up!”

 He dug his hands into his lower arms as he curled them around himself and pushed his limbs into his lower abdomen.

Maybe he was not real, but the panic and the dread was. It was a dark shadow spreading within him and poking him in all the sensitive spots.

It rose and spread and stretched all over him like ingested poison travelling through a body.

 One of Deceit’s many arms ducked out from under his cape and he handed Virgil a tissue without further comment.

All his hands were gloved in yellow. He just rarely used them all at once.

When did you ever need six arms?

Virgil took the little tissue with care. Warmth spread from one hand to another and he gently padded at his eyes.

 The anxious side was obviously working hard to be absolutely in an extreme state of overdrive with his makeup darkening a large part of his face, eyeshadow opaque and thick on his skin.

Damien must have realised Virgil would not just come down for nothing and try to force his tears back while talking to him. He might have his feelings about their situation but he was no fool. He could sense a special situation when it was in front of him.

Or maybe he just wanted him gone because having him around was possibly bothering. Was it because the triggered memories pained him or simply due to Virgil taking up valuable time and space Dee could put to much better use than interactions with the former dark side.

 “Sweetie, what brought you here? Does Patton need anything? Thomas, perhaps?”

 He assumed, with mild interest, that someone had sent Virgil down to them because he was very much able to be rather unaffected by the other dark sides. He did feel their influence but it did ultimately not bring out anything excessive within him due to his own history of being one of them. That being the case, it would not corrupt Thomas in any way.

Maybe this Virgil was just another of Remus’ experiments to show Deceit that he was, in fact, not over their previous friendship and started intervening with Thomas’ business for more than just benefits but also to show Virgil’s new “friends” that he knew more about him, that he had more power over him after all.

  The other carefully shook his head and bit down onto his lip with more force. The snake could see the dark lips paling and caving as small dents appeared in it.

 If Virgil could, he would cuddle into the depth of his jacket and curl into the oversized mess that was basically a whole fucking blanket to him. His body was meant to swim in this thing!

However, right now he was standing in front of Dee, sweatshirt covering him as much as his bangs and the usual ripped black jeans.

All he could do was play with his thin sleeves, pick at them and stare at his fidgeting fingers as he hunched over and shook his head.

 If he came down into the comfort of Deceit’s space, then he needed to show he was of good intentions and reveal a bit more of himself that he other side did not quite know enough about.

It was like playing poker and he had caught up on when to risk and when to play it safe.

He needed to pay a tribute and raise the stakes.

 “No, nobody sent me.”

 He straightened his back, the curve around his shoulders disappearing and instead his body rose into a more straight-up position.

His body was slightly hover over Damien. The lying side was slightly shorter and the tip of his head reaches about Virgil’s nose. Actually, he was not just smaller than Virgil but all in all, the shortest of the sides who have openly interacted with Thomas so far.

Funnily enough, Remus was the tallest and nobody ever talked about it because everyone could just manipulate their heights anyway (given Thomas did not actively imagine them in a certain way).

 “I sent myself”, he said with a shrug, eyes still darting into any direction but Damien’s piercing gaze, “I wanted to come.”

 The shorter side shifted but stayed in place.

Upon clearing his throat, he prompted his ex-friend again.

Even the thought of the prefix to this term hurt.

 “Oh, Virgil. Did Patton finally give up on you?”

 Something sparkled in the other’s face and his cheeks pushed themselves upwards in circular-shaped hills of laughter.

 “Did your happy friends finally get enough of you sso now you come crawling back to me because you are sscared to be alone. Because you refussse to be the only bad guy, sszweetie?”

 His words rolled off his lavish tongue, heavy and sweet like honey but they were spice to his open wounds. The more he talked, the more hot and hurtful energy they seemed to charge. The boiling hiss shot its explosive load right at Virgil.

It felt like Romans’ sword practice with the Dragon Queen had to feel for the latter party.

They were directed at Virgil’s heart and thrusted right into it. At least Anxiety was more than ready for Deceit’s lies and attempts at hurting him in return for having been hurt before by his all he had done.

 God, how could he ever have done that.

He really fucking deserved and that just made it worse for him to cope with this.

It was a last straw but it was all he could focus in when he felt panic creep into his system like the despicable hoard of cockroaches everyone tried to keep locked away.

 “Inktea”

 Damien blinked.

For a moment, the force of his presence seemed to distance itself a bit

It let Virgil breathe just a tad better.

 “Pardon me?”

 Without any other moment passing, the kitchen lights flickered and a rather happy yet naturally clothed Remus appeared in the room.

Which was nothing but a euphemism for Remus being in all the glory of how nature had made him.

...Or Thomas, actually.

 “You summoned me?”

 His voice scratched over the kitchen surfaces and made the snake man groan in response.

The room was immediately filled with the gradually intensifying reek of ivy and something unidentifiable. It smelled familiarly unpleasant but at the same time, it was a somewhat oddly comforting smell.

Like one of those things that smelled bad but still made one smell them again because they were actually not that bad but kinda got one all hooked up but were ...reek after all.

 Still, there was not a single moment in life during which Virgil was more relieved (or positively feeling at all) about the Duke being finally a part of the gathering.

Especially considering the man did not even have the decency to cover his personal parts.

 “Nobody ssssummoned you”, he hissed back at the other and picked up Virgil’s jacket with one of his many hands.

“And Virgil isss on hiss way out!”

 The Duke let out a cartoon-like huff.

His voice was comically shrill and annoying. It was so high-pitched, it made Damien wonder just how the fuck this man was a part of Thomas after all.

Then again, they were all differing to certain degrees for more than just good reasons.

It did nothing to help anyone over the fact that a loud and intense contribution from Remus had the capacity to hurt ears.

 “Eh- sounds like bullshit to me, Virgil called the safeword on us. I am here. The rules said for me to join if I can and I can. And you made the rules so fuck you, Dee. And you know I gladly will!”

 While Remus’ voice made a leap from strong and confident, the good impression immediately yielded to yet another drop into the scratchy sound of his voice. And the even more horrible imagery to come with his words.

Dee blinked in reply at the statement.

 “He wh-”

 Remus turned to look at Virgil, his eyes widening in his calm chaos.

 “Emo!”, he cheered and spread his arms, approaching the unusually exposed figure, “you came back!”

 Virgil let out a protesting sound and shoved the tall man away by his chest, his nose scrunching up just enough for it to show a difference on his facial features as they pulled into a little wrinkles for a moment just short enough for someone to notice.

 “Yeah, still don’t like hugs, eh.”

 Virgil threw the Chaos Creativity a look. Remus squeaked in delight like an excited puppy.

 “Also you are kinda naked, dude. Not my comfort.”

  Remus tilted his head, wide shockingly open eyes staring into the void that was Virgil before him.

 “Oh. That sounds like a YOU problem, tho!”

 Virgil squeaked and shook his head as Remus made a dove for him, trying to catch him in his hug but the usually rather lethargic man was quick to dodge and flee himself next to Damien instead who just eyes the two as if he was staring at a camera in The Office.

Honestly, at this point, he might have just been in this show, considering how everyone around him behaved so ridiculously.

 “Stop it, you two”

 His voice interjected as Remus arched his back and ... uh,, kinda hissed like a cat in an attempt to mimic a war screech and be somewhat intimidating.

At least that it what it seemed to be like when Virgil jumped away like chased prey getting trapped and Remus just got ready to drop down and jump after him. 

It was a lot like dog and cat since Virgil was such a little shit after all.

It was almost like old times.

 Deceit’s six arms jumped out and grabbed the two before they could run through the whole mindspace and ruin the whole order he had just established.

(With Remus around, the whole place was just a second away from burning down or spontaneously combustion but..well, the short side somewhat decided to bother enough to care about any of this.)

 “You sssit down. And we will talk about this. You do not get to walk out of our livess and just pop back in and play with Remus like he iss your best friend when you left without a word. He may have the attention span of a dying mayfly but you don’t get to jussst barge in here like that. Not on my watch.”

 Virgil could nearly hear a pun in his ears, Patton’s cheerful voice and little giggle ringing in his memory with a hint of nostalgia to it.

Something on his face must have given away enough of his mental images for Damian to let go and look him over for a minute.

 “Nobody is forcing you. You can go. You can always walk out of here. I will not stop you and I will make sure Remus won’t either, sweetie.”

 A little bit of soft sparked in Dee and for a moment, the reek from Remus was not as bad. For a moment, the past never happened and they were just .. friends.. like they used to be before Thomas had decided to change something about himself.

Light blinked in Virgil’s heart. For just a moment. And there was warmth between them

 “...okay.”

 Remus whistled and gave the two a smirk. A seemingly knowing one. His eyes were reading books and porn at the same time as they reflected the couple before him.

 “You two need to get a room”

 And then, without another prompt.

 “Are kitchens rooms?

Kitchens are rooms but do not count as rooms. Such horrible thing! In rooms you do private things like slaughtering your pet and now you do not have any privacy in the kitchen? Did slaughter become a social event?”

 Virgil blinked at him.

Kinda.. Kinda did not miss that part of the dark sides.. not really.

He sighed in vain.

Remus continued on.

 “Now, consider. Beheadings were public and so was the execution by guillotine and then there was also the case of stoning people - well actually that is still a thing! And also, there are bull fights and the media feasting on mass shootings anD-”

 With a snap of Dee’s fingers, the kitchen was gone and the chaotic Creativity fell onto a leathery couch.

Plain. Black.

Remus sighed- possibly in distaste. The side felt insulted by how simple everything around here seemed to be.

Damien was like the Logic of the dark sides. Boring (to put it maliciously) and simple and Remus had his thoughts on the lying short stack but he also has his thoughts on the lack of blood and man-eating jelly plants around here.

It was shocking to say at least but well, it was not his fault the lying side decided to live without the true beauty of a precious life dedicated to creativity.

 Virgil was seated next to Remus, rather unceremoniously falling into his corner of the couch and scrambling to shift into a more comfortable position on the icky feelings below him.

He retreated his arms into his sleeves and let his palms push down onto his knees. Leather was so cold and stiff and -

A shiver ran down his spine and he visibly shook.

Just the thought of how much he disliked the feeling of it made him feel worse about where he was sitting

 “Wait, I can dress up for you! I will make it super hot, tho!”

 Remus shot up before Deceit could stop him and the Duke was gone for but a moment just to freshly pop up in an actual dress.

It was short, barely covering his fine ass that Thomas had worked on so well. The long legs were covered in fishnets -probably made from actual fishnets he used to catch some octopus friends because why not.

There was no reason to what he did, just ‘mood’ as Virgil would say and a sense of curiosity that Logan would envy to have.

The black of his dress was slightly floating but it was rather simple compared to Remus' usual attire (given he was clothed at all). The front has strings to tie him into the dress and adjust his slightly bulky figure. He was a bit broader than Thomas but the dress easily reached up to the middle of his upper arms and concealed his inviting shoulders. Some intricate green ornaments decorated the part of the dress that could be tied together flexibly. The strings were silver, slightly sparkling and looking about as strangely fitting as the skunk streak in the garbage man's nest of a hair.

The dress hugged Remus' body shape in all places, adjusting to his form like an actual birth suit.

 Remus flopped down again and sprawled over the couch, excitement glimmering in his eyes like dreams and hopes of children a moment before it was time to receive gifts on the holy night.

He really reminded Damien of a of a dog. It made him wonder how Patton had not tried adopting him yet but that was another part of hypocrisy he did not have the nerve to think about at the moment.

 “uh... thanks, Ree”, he mumbled in reply and the dark creativity sniffed the little sounds the other made like expensive perfume gracing his nostrils.

His head inched closer but Virgil did not make any inclination to meet him.

 Damien was standing before them, his stance implying that he did not plan on joining them on the couch but instead stare into them.

He cleared his throat.

 “Yes, Double D?”

 Ah. How original.

Virgil giggled and Remus looked as if he would spontaneously hyperventilate if Virgil did any other thing around him, willingly, without even gaining a bit of dark eyeshadow.

Dee blinked, unamused.

 “You used the word, darling. Why are you here and why are you saying these things?”

 The snake man let his eyes gaze at the puddle of black and purple once more, a clear sigh provided despite Remus’ clear intention to leap onto the ...the intruder.

Deceit could not even think about how he felt about this but it was a strong sensation within him, from as far as he could tell. It felt as if he was about to split from his own existence or immediately vomit his guts out.

... difficult to describe but something within him felt sick, as if he had ingested poison he could not quite handle. It was something he rarely ever handled..

 The bitter taste of the unwanted truth. A product by cold reality.

 Virgil scratched the back of his head and carefully drew his legs closer to himself.

 “Uh... I.. I thought it all over and.. I -I am sorry, okay? I fucked up, messed it all up big time and I get it. I..um did a lot of stupid shit and I regret it but I thought this was different.”

 The anxious trait sighed and played with his sleeves, pulling at them a tearing at the ends of them.

 “I thought.. I thought we were all bad for Thomas and then I tried to not be bad but you all still were and I really believed that we actually harmed him before and that you wanted to bring him down... when I am the only who really did.”

 Dee blinked at the speaking person.

 “I made a mistake and I.. I am sorry.”

 Virgil shrugged and brushed through his bangs, the hazel strands falling through his fingers with ease.

 “I should have talked to you or something”, he started and let out a heavy sigh, “literally anything rather than just fucking off like the coward I am. Uh, anxiety things I guess. Fight or flight and all..”

 The man in question shrugged and Remus let out a little squeak in response. It reminded him of an aroused pig but with Remus, nobody could really tell with confidence.

It was just assumptions and educated guesses.. or literally any random suggestions which are probably more likely to hit the spot than any logical deduction could ever get to.

 Dee looked between Remus and Virgil for a moment. He could not feel the anxious trait lying at all. Usually he would feel a contradiction in himself, in the world itself. The liar would see the lie in the words, he would see the letters break and fall apart because they had no ground to stand on. There was no truth to build up on that that could keep the words together.

  “Really, you get anxious?”, Remus piped up with his voice ending on a slightly increased volume in all the seriousness his chaotic mind could come up with.

Virgil simply glared at him before rolling his eyes so hard, it looked as if they might as well just pop out and leave his face forever. Remus briefly wondered whether he could kinda suck on them but that would probably be a bit too close for the purple man.

 “Yeah, no fucking shit, Sherlock. I AM Anxiety. I gotta do my job at least somehow.”

 Remus snickered and stuck his tongue out at the other without further comments. Damien let out a little sigh and rubbed his temples.

No word in the English language had the capacity to describe the emotional state he was in at this moment.

It was a lot, akin to taking one of these depression showers after a big and greasy depression nap. When feeling better yet still bad, the feeling of comfort and ugliness clashed together in this weird mix.And at the end of all, there was Dee. Washed with the waters of truth and refreshed with new information and feelings but he was but a clean slate, a tabula rasa and absolutely void of experience to deal with this.

 He knew how to handle Virgil before he left, he knew how to handle Remus before Virgil had left. Deceit used to have it all under control and now it was coming back but it was not quite the same.

 “Virgil, let me be clear here”, he started eventually.

 His voice was settled, sedated like a tired dinner in among loving family with young children.

 “I am sorry, too.”

 The anxious side blinked rapidly, jaw falling open just a tad for Dee to acknowledge it with a little nod and even a smile.

 “Yes, I know.”

 He shook his head.

 “We all made mistakes, sweetheart. We made the mistakes to tale Thomas’ changes personal.”

 For once, not a single lie or condescension weighed the value of his words down. The truth liberated his sentence and let the sounds of his verbalisations fly through the air like a happy bird baby that had finally learned how to navigate through the air and raise up into the sky.

  Dee sighed and made a somewhat swipe-like gesture with his gloved fingers.

Virgil shoved himself into the middle of the couch and Remus immediately retreated his legs to himself for his favourite emo to have some space next to him.

Remus let out another squeal and started bouncing a little, his body trembling like some strange sea monster in the middle of the ocean that only moved for the sake of shaking the water and causing some waves.

 Again, Remus was simply a fucked over yet absolutely endearing dog. Loyal, excited.

 “Hug?!”

Remus blinked.

Somehow, his bouncing got more intense..

The fabric of his dress was slightly shifting here and there, his body budging along with him but his butt was mostly staying on the couch rather than wobbling up and down like the odd jell-o creature he made himself out to be.

 This man was going to explode if he did not get to stim or at least have someone to be squished within the death grip of his arms.

The touch-starved eyes glances over Virgil again and then continued on, eventually locking with Dee’s wondrous eyes.

 “Still don’t like touches, Ree”

 Virgil tried a soft smile in reply only to be countered with a scoff from behind him. He turned around, meeting Deceit’s intense glare as he shook his head slowly. His tongue clicked a few times for added suspense and the extra effect of scolding a kid.

 “Virgil, I told you before. It takes a liar, to know a liar. You don’t need to save face here.”

 The addressed man shook his head, heat rising to his face and painting red over his cheeks. His chest burned like hay.

 “I-I am not lying! I told you before, I meant all I said, I-”

 “Shhht”

 Dee pressed a clothed finger to Virgil’s lips and winked.

 “Sometimes, you need to be quiet, my little raccoon. You know as much as I do that there is touch you would never say no to.”

 Damien’s voice dropped low, travelling over his skin and leaving imprints in the form of goosebumps all over his body as his words made their way over to Virgil.

 “Darling, you and I both know that you enjoy touch if it is just the right one. Now, what is the matter? Do you have a problem with the touches Remus would give you? He is not Patton.”

  Virgil curled up on himself and shook his head violently, gently hugging his legs and hiding in them. His sweatshirt was far from enough at this point.

His skin screamed for more to cover him in these trying times of social interaction. Being put on the spot was an especially extreme case of socialising.

At the same time, his body did not even burn enough to challenge whatever he felt whenever he was around Roman or Patton a lot.

Logan was not even a person to throw him off.

 “I-”

 Remus already charged at him and rolled his heavy body onto Virgil’s in a sudden movement. Squeals and little squeaks accompanied his sudden leap and he threw his arms around Virgil to engulf his friend in the fluffy trap of his physical love.

A muffled sound came from the emo but he finally wrapped his arms around the other and let his head be tucked under Remus’ chin and mumbled some words of little meaning.

 Dee watched the scene for a moment, a warmth blooming within him, unfolding and spreading until he actually felt a warm sensation tug at him.

Remus.

 The chaotic trash master carefully pulled at him. His movements were soft and repetitive so he would not rip the other’s clothing yet still get his attention easily.

Once his focus was acquired, the lying side did not wait for Remus to ask him again and he leaned in, his chest soft pressing against Virgil’s slightly bigger body. His muscles were tangible from under thin sweatshirt he was wearing after he had taken off his clothing as special sign of vulnerability.

 Nobody made him regret it. Not a single act or word had given Virgil just enough of a shock to summon his clothing back around his body or transfer his body back into his room, into the safety he desired and required when he pressed the panic button of this last-minute appearance in his own four walls.

 The three remained in the soft comfort of one another for several moment. Just breathing in the weird mixture of Virgil’s rather decent yet rather sweet smell, Dee’s scent that reminded everyone of nature and then there was the weird, oddly slimy and sticky smell of saltiness that emanated off the Duke. It also reminded him of ivy but that was covered by Deceit as well.

Whatever it was, it felt like the weirdest yet somewhat greatest mix to ever exist. It was like chocolate and mint. It was weird but at the same time still tasty. To some people at least. For some reason, it was actually a real treat during winter time. Like pumpkin being an autumn thing, mint and cinnamon were the spices and scents of the cooler months in a year.

 “How was that again?”, Dee teased softly, “ ‘don’t hug me, I’m scared’, isn’t that right?”

 A low grumble could be heard from the violet spider in Dee’s many arms and Ree’s long limbs.

 “Aw, come on, Virgil. Don’t be like that. I just want you to be honest with yourself. Who knows who long you will let me around this time.”

 A growl could be heard but this time it came from the taller of the three.

 “Deeeeeeeeeeee”

The scratchy whine reached a nasty level.

“Don’t be meaaaaaan! He used the word for stopping and we are stopping! It is the rules! You made the rules and you have to play by the rules or you are a bad person to play with!”

 Remus retreated to his corner of the couch again, slightly tugging at Virgil but ultimately leaving him in the centre.

The snake man looked back at the dark Creativity and nodded.

 “It had been so long anyone ever used the word, I nearly forgot. Oh honey, even before you left, you were the only one to really make use of the word.”

 Virgil brushed through his precious bangs once more as if to brush off the sudden sweetness in Dee’s voice and the space he had gained despite Remus’ obvious desire for more affection and proximity.

 “You kinda made that word a thing so I could clock out whenever you guys got too far with me. No wonder I am the only one to use this shit.”

 Damien rolled his eyes playfully. He then allowed the others back into the hug and the pouting tentacle man was quick to squish their dark friend between him and the snake.

Deceit’s body fit right together with Remus and Virgil, their position natural, almost necessary between them. Their existence was linked together. They were hooks - all attached to one another and difficult to get apart, even when trying a lot.

It did obviously not really work out even now.

They were just “simply meant to be”, as Roman would probably sing for them.

 Remus carefully nuzzled Virgil’s neck and sent tickles and shivers down the other’s body.

 “HEY!”

 Virgil pushed his body as far away from Remus as he could. By far, a harsh activity to submit himself to, seeing that he was sandwiched between the two dark sides in a rather close hug. All he did was essentially drive himself into Damien’s many arms.

Once he was pressed against Deceit, he looked at the Duke, lips pushed into a pout and head ducked like a cautious kitten.

 And then he let out the most slurred excuse of a hiss one had ever heard in the history of human life.

That man was threatening no one but children with a lisp who feared the idea of being put on the spot when working out their little speech impediment whenever they heard a faulty ‘s’ around them.

 Remus giggled.

Oh he giggled like a crazy maniac when he got started.

The sounds quickly shot into a pitch so high, his voice doubled down on taking it further yet basically cracked and came out in nothing but squeaks that resembled the level of intrusion from a door creaking whenever someone as much as just looked at them.

He pounced onto the emo again and hugged Damien and Virgil with his immensely long arms and inhumane power to just squish the two smaller sides together.

 “Remus- What the actual hell”

 Deceit’s words were met with no verbal answer. Instead, he was allowed to witness Remus being himself in all his shameless glory.

A purr could be heard as the predator stuck his face close to Virgil’s neck much to the other’s dismay (which he voiced in several moments of squeaking out ‘no’ and hiding his head away in Dee’s cape).

 And then.

I t. happened.

 Remus had gotten close enough to not just nuzzle Virgil again - which he did not, for that matter - but instead lick him all over his neck and make the light side freeze in motion and immediately fall silent.

 “Mine.”

  “Remus you sick fuck, howmst the fuck darest thou”

 Virgil glared at the man. There was no fire in his eyes. Actually, he was even smiling while trying to rub the saliva off his neck, using the sleeve of his trusty sweatshirt.

Remus had already pulled back in order to look at Virgil, a lazy grin spreading over his lips as they broadened.

 “I think we need to claim Dee, so he is all ours only~ Care to give me a hand?”

 Anxiety’s face reflected Remus’ own smirk all of a sudden. A true mirror at hand and without another blink of an eye, the two strove forward to launch themselves at Dee.

However, the lying side was quick to jump out of reach and off the couch. Within a heartbeat, he was gone and quickly made a run for the hallway - all but in reach of the two dorks who wanted to wet his cheeks and claim him for some stupid reasons they made up in their tiny pea brains!

 He dashed away, casting abandonment on the others as he sprinted forward.

Heads clashed together and Remus jumped down to follow the lead of their prey while Virgil rubbed his forehead. A small yet visible patch of red started fading onto his pale skin and he could feel his head aching and wounded place throbbing uncomfortably.

 They were mental projections of Thomas’ personality but if they could be hurt and get emotional, they mightexperience physical pain, temporarily.

This one counted as one of these moments in which he felt actual agony and it was not over one of Logan’s issues with taking proverbs literal or Patton making puns or, behold, Roman serenading all his activities and generally breaking into songs at any given moment.

... they all had issues, and sometimes they were a lot, okay?

  “Stay away from me!”

 Remus screeched in laughter while Dee ran back to the kitchen, his hat flying due to the speed of his attempt at a dramatic escape as fast as possible from these lovable idiots.

 “Don’t dare the Dukey ~”

 Damien jumped out of reach once more but the kitchen had been the closest choice and then again just a dead end. He was trapped.

Virgil was finally back on board and trailed after the others with sneaky, fast-paced steps. His movements echoed through the hall and let the yellow man narrow his eyes at the entrance to the kitchen.

Shreds of white were flying across the floor as Deceit’s hurrying feet kicked them around.  

 It was coming.

 “Raccoon! Come over here~ Our friendo needs help with our affection”

 Dee was glaring at the other.

 “Keep your filthy tongues away, you heathens. I. dare. You.”

 The Duke was suddenly silent and still and Virgil nudged him in the side as soon as he reached up to him.

He was not that fast compared to the other sides.

 “Yo snake, come on”

 He did not budge.

 “Talking about snakes, do you want to know what is up my butt th-”

 “I can tell you for sure that nobody wants to know this right now, Ree”

 The chaotic man snickered briefly, the sound resembling a shadow sneakily crawling away from its owner and moving on its own.

 “Does this mean we can come back to this at another time?”

 Virgil glared at him for a moment, scoffing but not minding the comment with any more words.

Unbeknownst to him, Remus was using his Remusness for exactly this special time and promptly scooped up the trophy that was the lying side.

During the whole exchange, he had used his tentacles to strive forward and reach for the man in cape and more. He was quick to work these things off so he could see the other in his usual attire again, the clothes he allowed himself to wear around The Others.

 He was comfortable with them. The man dared to reveal himself when the was in the darker spaces of Thomas’ mind.

Whenever he visited the light sides, he was notorious to cover up. Every patch of skin he could alienate from the original Thomas was to be hidden away. He was not him.

 By now, he had to worry about several other things than just wearing clothing or losing his cape and glove to the tentacles.

His tired glare merely graced over Remus. Deceit actually looked like a guys who has had his fair share of dealing with kindergarten children all day long, five days a fucking week for the rest of his time until fucking retirement.

 “Do you feel better now that you removed my gloves, honey?”

 Remus eagerly nodded at the man and his question. His voice dropped down into the usual tone he used to talk around the light sides, the sneaky sound of evading a straightforward answer.

 “Now we can love you!”

 Virgil shrugged, his lips twitching into a smile.

 “Yeah, dude, you gotta stay with us so we can, like, be nice or whatever.”

  Dee dropped his shoulders and his usually upright position reverted to a slight slouch. Instead of a proud position, there was a comfort rather than the attempt at ascertaining dominance as he did in court.

There was no need to do this here, not around his dear ones. Not around the people he could trust with his life.

 “Only if you stay”, he whispered.

His voice was a needle dropped in absolute silence.

 “At least come around a lot, just come over some time.”

 The vigilant side looked up at him and carefully inched closer until they were close enough to hug. Remus quickly moved over to join the hug, drawing the two slightly smaller sides to his warm chest.

His tentacles, with the life of their own, slowly retreated. They had some clothes to chew on for now. Their transluscent green forms gradually inched away from the deceptive side and left the three have their moment of intimacy over their reunion.

 “Now, Now, Snake Whisperer, Virgin. We will always stay together. I can glue us together if that helps you-”

 He gently nudged him, making the classic man sniffled.

 “I’m .. I am not able to just come back but I can drop in as much as Thomas’ mind lets me. I will stay around for as long as I physically and mentally am able to manage.”

Virgil took a deep breath and wiped at the salty liquids that formed in his heterochromatic eyes, the precious gems of different colours and wild secrets. They held all that Thomas knew and repressed, it was all the knowledge about lying and certain obstacles in life.

 “If you leave, I might skin you”

 Virgil giggled.

 “Please don’t say that”

 “Please don’t leave”

 “Please, shut up, you two.”

 They all chuckled and Virgil pressed a kiss to Dee’s cheek while Remus leaned in to push his tongue against the other’s scales.

 “Mine!”

 Deceit snorted.

 “You are such a fucking mess.”

 Remus kissed the top of his head and gently tugged him and Virgil closer once more.

As they should be. This was where they belonged. They were the dark sides and they were the ones who would always stick together.

Virgil may be a light side or not, they belonged together and with him around, they could finally complete their own puzzle. They had the little piece that made them whole and filled the void the other had left after his transition to the light sides (due to Thomas’ change in cognition and attitude).

 “My room. I mean.. you are not really affected a lot by my room since I, uh... relocated it to the other side and all. I mean, like, you know. That is okay for you? Is it?”

 Deceit nodded and the Duke simply wiggled his eyebrows at the suggestion.

 “Can I visit Thomas? OW”

 The snakey snake retreated and straightened out the wrinkles in his clothing that came from the little struggle they had together. His hand reached over to the wet spot on his cheek and he wiped over it before washing his hands under the sink.

 “Disgusting.”

  Another sound of giggles erupted from the creative side while he held his Virgil. Soon after, he could draw Damien back into their little cuddle pile.

Deceit was the shortest side along with Roman but he was still a powerful and proud man. He had the power to pinch a man and evoke pain if he wanted to!

 “Aw okay, then maybe we will just go to Virgil’s room already and stay there and then we can cuddle and finally get to make the fuck out! I wanna taste some tongues!”

 Virgil let out a prominent noise that resembled a big old ‘blergh’ but he threw himself into the others and let them appear in his room.

Their bodies crashed into his bed and foreheads bumped together as they embraced one another and giggled.

 Sounds were swallowed and Remus’ idea was taken more serious than anyone would ever admit to one another or the sides outside of this room.

Giggles drowned in the joy of feeling and tasting one another. Feelings sparked in colourful fireworks and there were smiles colouring their faces that could not and would not be wiped away.

 Finally, all pieces were back together.

[immigrationvisaforyou]

10 Things You Need to Know About Canada

As you get ready to grasp your welcome to Canada, realize that a few things are probably going to be done another way than what you are acquainted with.

This article will help set you on the correct way to incorporating into Canadian life. Less disarray and reasonable expectations whenever you’re having visa immigration to Canada will help you become successful.

1.     Weather

Whether sun or snow, Canada is a nice place to live.

If you’re living on the BC coast (or less significantly, portions of Southern Ontario), you are practically sure to encounter cool, frigid winters and blistering summers, with short temporary seasons.

On the off chance that you originate from a mellow or warm atmosphere, the bitter cold of a Canadian winter makes certain to astonish you. It’s hard to describe how cold – 25°C can feel, however dread not, fortunately you can come arranged with the correct attire and mindset.

Another thing you must know that Canadians don’t underestimate summer — they realize how to benefit as much as possible from the warm seasons.

2.     Diversity

Ages of outsiders have gotten a warm greeting to Canada. Multiculturalism is essential for the Canadian ethos, and key to public strategy.

More than 40 sitting Members of Parliament were brought into the world abroad. In any significant city, just as numerous rural communities, you will experience horde dialects, religions, societies and cultures.

You don’t have to relinquish your way of life or values in the wake of moving to Canada; however you do need to develop with the goal that you can effectively modify and have the best possibility of achieving success. Keeping a receptive outlook will benefit you, just as people around you.

3.     Tipping

You may originate from a nation where laborers in the services and hospitality gain an ensured decent pay with extra advantages, and accordingly tipping may not be an aspect of your way of life. That is incredible, however Canada is unique, and getting acquainted with tipping is a basic culture they practiced.

Bartenders and servers for the most part acquire the lowest pay permitted by law, which, depending on the province, is around $10 every hour. In reality, a few regions have a lower the lowest pay permitted by law closer to $8 for service workers, on the expectation that they will earn tips to compensate, and staff typically need to “tip out” other staff, (for example, those in the kitchen), with a portion of their sales.

The standard tip is 15% of the complete bill (or 20% for profoundly proficient, mindful assistance), or a dollar for every beverage.

4.     The job hunt

Researching, looking for and applying for jobs in Canada can be a lengthy process — perhaps much longer than what you are used to, as you establish connections in your new home. Months can pass before you land a professional position, so you should plan accordingly to ensure your welcome to Canada goes smoothly.

Exploring, searching for and going after jobs in Canada can be a protracted cycle — maybe any longer than what you are utilized to, as you set up connections in your new home. Months can go before you land a professional position, so you should plan likewise to guarantee your welcome to Canada goes easily.

This means:

Carry enough funds to tide you through your first few months.

Be set up to take on a non-career job temporarily however consistently be keeping watch for your next professional move.

Start to think and act Canadian before you even set foot in Canada. This implies adjusting to the resume design in Canada, organizing and being proactive.

5.     Cost of living

Evade a harsh greeting to Canada by knowing the essential typical cost for living in your adopted city before you move. In the event that you move and are shocked by how costly lease or transportation is, that is not the city’s shortcoming — it’s yours.

Research is essential. Toronto and Vancouver, especially the midtown regions, are moderately costly. Rent-controlled Montreal, on the other hand, has low property estimations and low lease, yet in addition lower pay rates.

6.     Smoking

It is illegal to smoke in broad daylight places, for example, cafés, stores, workplaces, medical clinics and different work environments. This likewise incorporates public or shared regions of high rises and rental edifices.

On the off chance that you smoke, the main spots you would now be able to do so are in your own living space, your vehicle (except if you have a minor with you), and in the great outdoors

7.     Healthcare

Known the world over for its greatness, the medical care system is one of the columns on which the warm welcome to Canada got by newcomers is built.

It’s conveyed through a publicly-funded system, which is generally free at the purpose of utilization and has most services given by private sectors.

Medical services, however paid for utilizing some federal funds, are controlled by the provinces. A health card is given by the Provincial Ministry of Health to every person who enlists for the program, and everybody gets a similar degree of care.

Permanent residents can receive provincial cover, but in some provinces will have to wait a few months for their provincial coverage to begin. Private comprehensive health insurance policies are available during that period.

Permanent occupants can get provincial cover, however in certain regions should trust that their provincial coverage will start. Private complete medical coverage polices are accessible during that period. Temporary residents (e.g. holders of a working holiday visa in Canada) and visitors will require a private policy throughout their stay. You can explore options for travel insurance for Canada here.

Temporary residents (for example holders of a working holiday visa in Canada) and guests will require a private policy throughout their stay. You can search alternatives for travel insurance for Canada here.

8.     Driving licenses

Most of the tests or assessments you have finished in your nation of origin may not be substantial in Canada, or require desk work so as to be changed over.

Driving licenses are a minefield for two reasons.

Firstly, licenses are granted by the provinces, not the government, and individual regions have their own rules and testing methodology.

Also, various nations around the globe have specific concurrences with the provinces.  

Know the guidelines for international license-holders in your picked province or territory and guarantee you accumulate the right documentation before you show up in Canada.

9.     Taxation

Under Canada’s decentralized government system, charges are collected at various levels. Annual assessments are gathered by both the federal and provincial governments.

Contingent upon your status and terms of employment, you might be qualified for a tax refund toward the finish of the financial year.

Sales taxes change between the territories, from 5% in Alberta to 14.975% in Quebec. These are included at the retail location, not on the sticker price, so know that a product promoted as $10 will cost you more when you pay for it.

10.The Charter of Rights and Freedoms

When moving to Canada, it is critical to recognize what rights you have on arrival and all through your stay.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures certain political rights to Canadian residents and social equality to everybody in the nation, from the arrangements and activities everything being equal and levels of government. In doing as such, the Charter shapes the bedrock of Canadian political, common and social society, and diagrams the sort of welcome to Canada newcomers can anticipate.

You’ve received your welcome to Canada Immigration. What next? Ensure you stay up with the latest with most recent migration advancements, since changes happen consistently that can influence your turn.

[onbeatbot]

This meme depicts a faceless cartoon-y character with its limbs knotted up, standing unsteadily on the ground. The loving character represents how difficult it is to fully comprehend the meaning of Christian Aestheticism. Why does something stemming from a revolutionary artistic and intellectual movement have negative connotations? How does emphasis on beauty encourage violence? Vox Populi, Vox Dei translates to “The voice of the people is the voice of god.” Fundamentally, this is an anarchist ideal. The validity of human law is null and void in light of nature’s laws. Bakunin says the scientific method is reflected in the real world as a societal shift towards types of organization that most accurately reflect life. Government will inevitably become what religion already has become: an old, man-made structure that goes to violent means to retain the power it has been granted by the people. Religion results in Christian Aestheticism, where intellectuals and artists support aesthetic values over socio-political themes. This aestheticism complements capitalism, because it promotes class (and therefore ignorance and oppression), and leads to utilitarianism, where the human populus is heartless and mindless. Aestheticism encourages pure beauty and aims to please visual and emotional senses. These elements cannot satiate the human intellect, but they are pleasing distractions. Capitalism pits the individual against society. Goldman says the individual is the heart of society; the lungs being society itself (supplying the life materials or elements experienced by the individual). Society shapes the individual, so a poison society, where domination is the key essence of form and function, poisons individuals. Positivism and statism imply that society requires domination. Domination is not sustainable according to nature’s laws. All of the three forms of domination defined by Weber lean on some faith in rule and man-made law. If liberty was a primary concern of a nation, that nation would foster a healthy symbiotic relationship between society and the individual by halting domination and building a society from the bottom up, as anarchism aims to do. This requires halting class, which cannot be done when nihilistic religious mentalities are employed via wealthy, aesthetically oriented organizations. Positivism claims that scientific evidence and empirical study are the only effective ways to study how societies work. Metaphysicians, Bakunin writes, value science as a powerful god, and theory as set guidelines that may encompass life, as opposed to manifestations or indicators of different forms of life (natural, social…). This allows for justification and longevity of terrible historical themes such as slavery and apartheid. Systematization of society boils down to statism, a political system where the state has centralized control over social and economic affairs. Statism reflects life by demonstrating the toxic futility and dreadful repercussions of class. Wealthy oppressors tend to use aesthetics for advertising. Aesthetics can be used to silence populations that need to be given a voice to catalyze change. In conclusion, starvation of the human intellect such as that which occurs in caste systems or societies that utilize domination makes way for larger class divides and human suffering.

[dwellordream]

“...As they created their special variant of childhood and parenting, Americans were creating a social revolution fully in line with the political changes that began with the famous revolt of 1776. Both rejected entrenched hierarchy, and embraced independence and more personal autonomy. Both revolutions were uneasy and often hazardous undertakings. Together they made the United States into a very strange place in the world. That strangeness is captured in many of the opinions voiced by articulate Americans in the first sixty years of the republic. 

“Our children,” Nathaniel Willis declared in 1827 as he launched his new publication, The Youth’s Companion, “are born to higher destinies than their fathers.” This vision has become a cliché to us today. But it was alien to most Europeans and would have been unfamiliar to American colonists. For centuries in the Western world, elders reigned and were assumed to possess knowledge and wisdom as well as power. Their welfare and needs were primary and their dictates unquestioned. This perspective is still common in many parts of the world today. Lady Elphinstone of Scotland captured its essential meaning when she declared, “My children from the youngest to the eldest love me and fear me as sinners dread death. My look is law.”

Views like these dominated Old World values regarding the appropriate reverence and obedience of children toward their parents. American revolutionaries had rejected this tyrannical posture in the political arena. In the circumstances of the world they were creating, Americans also rejected such views as a guide to household affairs. Although Europeans, too, were changing their perspective on childhood as they absorbed the lessons of the Enlightenment, and as they responded to the political revolutions erupting throughout the continent, the social conditions of European life made it more difficult for them to change as rapidly or as fully as Americans in regard to how the generations treated each other.

Why and how had things become so different in the nascent United States? Historians of the American Revolution have long understood that the changes articulated in that event were deeper than politics, that they had roots in cultural and social life, and affected the domestic realm and private relations. American children, famed historian Bernard Bailyn speculated over fifty years ago, needed a different, more open- ended kind of schooling. Since they needed to adapt to the new circumstances of a changing landscape, following in their fathers’ footsteps was not good enough. That knowledge was often inadequate to the circumstances. 

Individual resourcefulness and the willingness to adjust to the unexpected and to create the still unimagined became basic values as Americans defined a new type of individual adequate to the possibilities of the new world they were creating. Children, who were less constrained by ingrained habits, had an advantage over their elders in the American environment. At a time when European Enlightenment thinkers were seeking to throw off the shackles of custom and tradition, Americans reorganized their lives in ways that unselfconsciously adapted those perspectives, removing layers of tradition and encrusted custom. 

Even before the Revolution, Enlightenment European thinkers, such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, were read with marked appreciation by Americans who believed that these philosophers’ views about children, and about childhood as a formative phase of life, were especially relevant to their environment. John Locke is best known today for political writings that helped to establish the basis for America’s commitments to liberty, for opposing tyrannical rule, and ideas that Jefferson and others used in formulating their views about freedom of religion and conscience. But Locke was also looked to as a pioneer in ideas about how children could be raised to become responsible citizens and trusted to exercise their independent judgment. 

He believed that children were malleable and childhood was a time when habits were laid down that would shape later life. He urged parents to appeal to children’s reason, not to their fear of punishment. Fewer restraints and adult impositions during childhood and a willingness to accept a child’s natural inclinations as a basis for learning underwrote Rousseau’s more radical beliefs in the innate wisdom and natural sensibilities of children. Rousseau looked to rid society of traditional ideas and social patterns by giving children more leeway to grow and time to exhibit that wisdom. 

In tracts written from the late seventeenth through the mid- eighteenth century, these two philosophers helped to shape modern ideas about children that were important throughout the West. For Americans eager to be informed, Locke and Rousseau captured the special importance of childhood to the ideals of a reformed society. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, questions regarding parents and children and what they owed each other were very much part of the American conversation. After the Revolution, Americans eagerly addressed parent- child relations, sometimes with considerable urgency, because they saw the Revolution and republican government as setting special requirements for childrearing. 

Fathers’ injunctions, like kings’ dictates, were problematic in the new society they sought to create. The American revolutionaries spoke regularly of the rule of law and argued that they were trying to maintain liberties threatened by British imperial action. But even as they spoke about conserving older liberties, they turned toward more radical social notions. In attacking the legitimacy of the king— the most revered of earthly authorities— they undercut the unquestioned authority of fathers. That authority remained elsewhere the guiding basis for domestic and social relationships.

 In France, whose own revolution similarly raised fundamental questions about the rule of kings and fathers, republican beliefs initially dismantled patriarchy after the Revolution of 1789, but it was reassembled within a decade as the French republic tumbled and fell. In the United States, preexisting conditions and the continuity of republican and democratic ideas created a context in which social and family changes were sustained and elaborated. Not only were old- fashioned fathers deeply suspect in the United States, but Americans were asking what kinds of children were needed to maintain the revolution that Americans continued to embrace. 

This made matters regarding childrearing part of the national agenda from the very beginning of the republic. Most American historians have not fully appreciated how radically the American environment and the revolution that it spawned were revising the most fundamental of human bonds. European visitors to the United States in the half- century after the Revolution saw it clearly. As they witnessed the behaviors and demeanors of the old and the young, they witnessed a series of historically important changes. The great observer and French political theorist, Alexis de Tocqueville, devoted a chapter of Democracy in America to the unusual nature of American family relations. 

Among chapters registering his observations about (and sometimes disdain for) Americans’ peculiar cultivation of the arts, their transformations of the English language, and their neglect of traditional philosophy, Tocqueville was much more admiring when describing “The Influence of Democracy on the Family.” That influence, he argued, was in line with other leveling effects of the greater equality experienced in the United States. “It has been universally remarked that in our time [1830s] the several members of the family stand upon an entirely new footing toward each other; that the distance which formerly separated a father from his sons has been lessened; and that paternal authority, if not destroyed, is at least impaired.” 

Societies throughout Europe and the Americas were also starting to feel the crosswinds of change, as the Western world came under the influence of democratizing conditions, but Tocqueville found it to be “even more striking” in the United States. Speaking of young people beyond the earliest years, he observed: “The same habits, the same principles, which impel the one to assert his independence predispose the other to consider the use of that independence as an incontestable right.” In Tocqueville’s view, independence in children was more than a practice; it had become a conscious part of a child’s self- understanding. This all took place peacefully, since there was no struggle between the generations. 

Fathers feel “none of that bitter and angry regret which is apt to survive a bygone power.” Instead the expectations had become an instinctive part of the culture as “the father foresees the limits of his authority long beforehand, and when the time arrives, he surrenders it without a struggle.” Tocqueville went on to contrast the quality of feelings in more traditional societies with those in the United States. In the one, the father “is listened to with deference, he is addressed with respect, and the love that is felt for him is always tempered by fear.” 

But in democratic America, as fathers yielded authority, “the relations of father and son become more intimate and more affectionate; rule and authority are less talked of, confidence and tenderness are often increased, and it would seem that the natural bond is drawn closer in proportion as the social bond is loosened.” Tocqueville was probably too quick to identify these two— the social, with its weakened emphasis on hierarchy, and the emotional, whose qualities Tocqueville argued resulted in an increase of “tenderness” on both sides. We would do well, for the moment at least, to separate these two aspects of the changed relationship between parents and children. 

Many memoirs from the period document the former; few tell us much about the latter. Tocqueville’s observations about greater warmth and affection may have been (and not for the first time) an instance of wishful thinking by a social observer eager to believe that natural “feelings” and natural “bonds” would grow when social ties were loosened. Somewhat later than Tocqueville, another observer of American domestic relations, Polish count Adam de Gurowski, concluded that in the United States, children matured early and were early “emancipated . . . from parental authority and domestic discipline.” 

In this way, Gurowski accounted for the observations common at the time that “[c]hildren accustomed to the utmost familiarity and absence of constraint with their parents, behave in the same manner with other older persons, and this sometimes deprives the social intercourse of Americans of the tint of politeness, which is more habitual in Europe.” Many Europeans commented on the rude manners of American children, but few appreciated, as Tocqueville and Gurowski did, that this resulted not from parental laziness or indifference to child governance but from a different kind of disciplinary regime. 

One who did and who made the contrast with European children explicit was the author of a volume called America as I Found It. “English children in the presence of strangers are reserved and shy. They feel that the nursery and school room are their proper sphere of action. . . . Most unlike to these is the sentiment of the American, both parent and child. The little citizen seems to feel at a surprisingly early age, that he has a part on the stage of the world, and is willing enough to act a little before his time.” 

The notion that children believed they had a part to play on the stage of the world was an unusually effective way of seeing that American children had large expectations and they were early trained toward the appropriate habits of mind and demeanor. Probably nowhere else in the Western world could one visit the homes of respectable families and find children who so easily took part in the family circle and were so comfortably regarded as equals, not as subordinates or dependents. 

In fact, throughout the West during the nineteenth century, middle- class opinion was endowing children with special appeal and setting childhood apart, and family practices were distinguishing children’s activities from those of their parents. While Americans, too, saw something precious and important about childhood as a stage of life, their cruder conditions and more demanding economy made it far less likely that children would inhabit an exclusive world in nurseries and at play away from the travails of the world.”

- Paula S. Fass, “Childhood and Parenting in the New Republic Sowing the Seeds of Independence, 1800–1860.” in The End of American Childhood: A History of Parenting from Life on the Frontier to the Managed Child

[enfpguy]

BioShock Infinite MBTI and Enneagram — Cornelius Slate Cornelius Slate is a side character within BioShock Infinite, he’s a disturbed man with an interesting backstory who stands in the way of our protagonists because he wants a worthy death. We’ll be taking a deep look into his history and the history of the battles he took part in. Dominant Function: Extroverted Thinking Outspoken, organized, efficient, practical, rigid, stubborn, aggressive, and a leader, Slate bleeds TE dominant traits. To start our analysis on him, we’ll first need to know some of his backstory. Captain Cornelius Slate served in the United States Armed Forces. He participated in several battles but most notably the Battle of Wounded Knee where he became acquainted with Booker DeWitt, The Battle of San Juan Hill which is not mentioned with the game and The Battle of Peking during the Boxer Rebellion on behalf of Columbia who was allied with the U.S. After the battles Slate questioned Comstock’s systematic whitewashing of history. Slate wanted the truth and confronted Comstock. This defiance against the prophet stripped Slate of his rank, publicly branded him a liar, and forced him to work at Finkton. Slate immediately vowed to destroy Comstock. This prompted him to join the Vox populi and united they waged war on Comstock, this action was inspired by a TE-NE loop. His first action was to take over the Hall of Heroes and vandalize it, calling it the Hall of Whores. Comstock is a sellout who changed history. This action was meant to enrage Comstock and make him face a real soldier aka Slate. He believes practical action always trumps political subterfuge and strongly dislikes when anyone isn’t honest or direct. We can identify Slate’s TE-SI traits through his beliefs, and actions he takes against Zachery Hale Comstock. Such as organizing an army who willingly joined him to fight Comstock. Slate also tests Booker DeWitt to see if he can meet his expectations to consider him a worthy soldier by sending hoards of soldiers at him. This impresses Slate since Booker provides his men with the glorious death they seek. Slate only cares for the feelings of his men and can see Booker has no interest in harming him or them. Apparently, this is how Slate has always been he’s been disregarding others and always making enemies as Booker claims.  Auxiliary Function: Introverted Sensing Before we venture into Cornelius Slate’s SI function, we’ll be looking into the battles Slate was a part of so we can better understand his experiences. (If you have no interest in history, you can skip this segment) The Battle Of Wounded Knee or better known as the Wounded Knee Massacre which took place on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek in Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. Tensions were high before this battle took place because the U.S. government was seizing Lakota Sioux lands and refused to stop. There was great unrest. Later, a prophet named Wovoka founded the Ghost Dance religion. This caused a movement. The Ghost Dance movement was associated with Wovoka’s prophecy of an end to white expansion while preaching goals of clean living, an honest life, cross-cultural cooperation, and peace. This united the Lakota Sioux peoples, and in 1889 they gathered at Wounded Knee to participle in the Ghost Dance. Fearing large numbers of armed Lakota Sioux peoples, the U.S. military surrounded Wounded Knee and attempted to ban the Ghost Dance ceremony. This failed, and the government sent Indian agency police to arrest Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota leader whom they suspected in joining the Ghost Dance Movement. This ended in bloodshed and resulted in the death of Sitting Bull. Tensions drastically increased and on the morning of December 28, the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Spotted Elk, a Miniconjou Lakota chief. They demanded Spotted Elk to surrender his peoples weapons, they complied since they did not want violence, they were escorted to Wounded Knee and asked to set up camp there so 7th Calvary could slowly remove their weapons. It’s now December 29 and this is when the massacre would start. No one truly knows who fired the first shot, but some claims mention a misunderstanding broke out between a solider and a Lakota warrior. Thus the bloody massacre had begun. Historians estimate 150—300 Lakota peoples perished in that battle. Half of the casualties were unarmed women and children. While 25 U.S. soldiers died and 39 were wounded. This battle was the last major battle of the American Indian wars. Our next battle is the Battle of Peking, which took place during the Boxer Rebellion on August 14th to 15th 1900 in Beijing. Before we get into the battle, we need to understand how it started. In the mid-1880s a secret society called the Yìhéquán or the Fists of Harmony and Justice started to gain power within the Qing Dynasty. By 1899 their numbers increased drastically. Their numbers swelled to 50 000 to 100 0000 members, they were now known as the “Boxers” to the rest of the world. They oppressed the Westernization of China and Christian missionary activities being practiced by foreigners. Eventually, the Boxers became violent. They torched Western churches, murder Chinese citizens who practiced Christianity, and attacked foreigners. This kicked off the Boxer Rebellion and lead to the Battle of Peking. The battle was massive over 18 000 soldiers from the British Empire, Russia, France, Japan, Germany, the United States, Italy, Austria-Hungary joined forces with the Mutual Protection of Southeast China against the Boxers and the Qing Dynasty. The objective of this battle was to fight their way into the city of “Peking” to rescue 900 foreigners who were captured by the Chinese Army since the 20th of June. Peking had formidable defenses. The city was surrounded by walls that spanned 21 miles with 16 gates. The wall around the inner city was 40 feet tall and 40 feet wide. On the dreadful night of August 13, The Eight-Nation Alliance thought they failed their rescue mission because the sounds of heavy artillery and machine-gun fire could be heard within the city. Within those walls, another battle was taking place. The Pei-Tang cathedral was being sieged by the Boxers and the Chinese army. 28 foreign priests and nuns, 42 French and Italian soldiers, and 3400 Chinese Catholic citizens defended that church. Inside that church 2800 Chinese Christians took shelter. Several hundred people died from starvation and disease, while 66 of the 900 foreigners died and 150 were wounded during that battle. Sadly, the casualties among the Chinese Christians were not recorded. But that’s not all the battle still rages on! It’s now 3:00 am on August 14 that assault from the allies has started, each nation attacks a different gate. First to attack was the Russians who broke formation and took the Americans designated gate. This resulted in the Russian army getting pinned by opposing forces, 26 of their soldiers die and 102 are wounded. The Americans arrive at their gate at 11:03 am to find the Russians pinned down both join forces and scale the walls. By 4:30 pm the siege has ended. There were 60 recorded deaths and 205 wounded within the Eight-Nation Alliance. As a consequence, the city was looted and burned. Many of the nations committed atrocities and even the captured civilians, missionaries and Chinese citizens pillaged the city for all it’s worth. At the end of it all, China had to pay $335 million (over $4 billion in current dollars) plus interest for 39 years, exile the government supporters of the Boxers, and destroy Chinese forts within northern China. The Qing Dynasty would end in 1911 as a consequence of the Boxer Rebellion. Alright, the history lesson is over, we’ll be returning to the analysis. Slate took part in both battles. He massacred the Lakota Sioux peoples and set fire to Peking. During that battle, he lost 30 men and his left eye. He’s so obsessed about these battles that he forces Booker and Elizabeth to combat his soldiers through “replicas” of them. These battles also have shaped his personality and identity. Therefore Comstock changing history hurt Slate since he was part of that chaos and he’s the one who suffered. To Slate, you should never change history, especially if you didn't fight within it. Most of the time Slate's SI function is used interchangeably with his TE function. However, his SI function is overdeveloped and refuses to let go of the past. Instead, he’ll drag others into like Booker and Elizabeth. Here are 2 examples influenced by SI usage that involve protagonists. As Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth enter the Hall of Heroes, they spot a grand statue of Zachery Comstock. Slate immediately contacts Booker and remembers him being a true soldier and demands Booker to kill his men. “All my men have left is a choice: die at the hands of a tin soldier, or a real one!” This forces Booker's hand who has no interest in harming Slate or his men. We can see another example after Booker kills Slate’s men, Slate calls Booker a hero and Booker disagrees. Slate then explains to Booker that if he takes away all parts of Booker DeWitt that Booker tries to erase, then what’s left? Slate is suggesting that our past is exactly what makes us. By deleting your past, you delete yourself. The last example of his SI function can be seen within his attire. To further prove he’s still living in the past and denial, Slate still wears his uniform but with a twist, he has an American flag on his right shoulder and a Pinkerton badge on his eye. It’s possible Slate views the Pinkerton detective agency as an organization that deserves his respect thus uses it to cover his left eye to fill what he’s missing with justice and law. Tertiary Function: Extroverted Intuition Slate often ignores the NE function for his dominant TE and auxiliary SI functions but will use it effectively when he feels threatened or wants to prove a point. Slate has a problem with Comstock altering history other than his strong personal feelings towards the subject. Changing history means Comstock is becoming a tyrant and will silence anyone who opposes him, including Slate himself who is a known war hero. Slate proves his point by having Elizabeth and Booker walk-through Comstock’s false history. Slate also ends being correct about Comstock silencing him. His disagreements with the prophet got him arrested and sent to work in Finkton. Slate isn’t dumb though and saw this situation as an opportunity and joined the Vox populi. He knew that after he’d defeat Comstock he’d be labelled as an assassin and would trade Comstock’s lie for another. This suggests that thinks the Vox populi would change history to indoctrinated younger generations as Comstock did. His analysis is completely based on inductive logic and patterns that have occurred in our history. This type of thinking can be seen within individuals who use both TE and NE. TI users rely on deductive and situational logic. Inferior Function: Introverted Feeling The FI function is pretty tricky with Slate, since most of his feelings are driven by his past and how he refuses to let go of it. Oh, and he’s also gone completely mad. Naturally, this causes him to become trapped in an FI grip. For Slate, he must remain as true to himself as possible, and he projects this idea onto his soldiers. Slate believes he’s still a soldier, therefore he must do his duty as one, and if that fails he must die as one. Slate and his men believe to die in battle is honorable, but they don’t want to die to fake “Tin men” but rather a real soldier such as Booker DeWitt who’s proven his worth time and time again. This belief is so extreme that if Booker refuses to kill Slate at the end of the Hall of Heroes battle, he will equate Booker to a heartless “Tin Man” and will allow himself to get captured by Comstock to be tortured into submission. To Slate, if a real soldier like Booker doesn’t kill him then he is not worthy of an honorable death. Here’s a bonus fact. Ken Levine’s inspiration to create Slate was driven by the pathologizing of soldiers in war. In the end, Cornelius Slate was a victim of his own inner war. An unwavering soldier to the end. https://youtu.be/jJMc0ishwbs

[tinydragonadventures]

World Building Tips

@reeseweston asked me if I have any tips on world-building, so I thought I’d share them on here in case it's helpful for anyone else. (You tagged me as @thereisnothingwrongwithbeingmad - this is my writeblr.)

I can only speak for what I personally do and what works for me, but feel free to reblog this and add your own tips and advice from your own experience. So, let’s start by breaking it down into different sections. Before anyone panics - I very rarely fill all of these points out before I get into the story (or even after I finished it), and I don’t think you should either. Just start with the basics - the first two is the one I find most essential - and come back to the list whenever you’re stuck while you’re writing the story, or whenever something pops into your mind that you think would be helpful later.

Geography - To me, this is the most helpful thing to start with. You don’t necessarily have to draw a map, it’s enough if you write down where everything is and what characteristics each place has (dry, humid, forests, deserts, etc.), but you should know where your settings are within the world you created. It doesn’t matter what genre you write in or how big your world is - like, half of my current WIP is going to take place on a ship, but I still have to know where my OCs are going and why. It also gives you an opportunity to name everything, so your characters can actually refer to places by their names.

Political/social structure - Second most important thing when I’m starting a new story. How is your world governed? What is it made up of? Countries? Empires? Kingdoms? Are there governments? Oligarchies? City states? Tribal chiefs? A mixture of things? Is there a religious authority? Multiple religions clashing with each other? Is religion outdated or a central aspect of life? What is people’s relationship to their regional authority? Do they like how things are going? Is there a revolt brewing? Is there slavery? Lower classes? Filthy rich people? Is the state responsible for keeping everyone fed or is it every men for himself? And most importantly - what is your characters’ relationship to the governing authorities? Do they like how things are run? Are they outside of the influence of their government/king/etc.? Or are they in the middle, taking part in every important decision?

Religion/Science - What is the central truth that the inhabitants of your world live by? Is it technology and science that runs everything? Is it magic? Religion? Post-apocalyptic sense of dread and survival instincts? What do people think about the world and why? Do your characters agree with the mainstream? Disagree? If you have a religion, what type of god/gods are there? What are the rituals that need to be observed by people to be considered good citizens? If science is what people trust and believe in, how do they view religious societies outside of their own country/region? Did their beliefs change over time? Why?

Law and Justice - What sort of moral codes do people in your world have? How is murder viewed and punished? Can you get into jail for stealing some food? What sort of disciplinary actions are there to keep people from breaking the law? Who are the people allowed to judge and punish others? Is law to be feared or respected? Do people have a right to a trial when accused? Do the gods decided or do men decide? Humans or other species? Are there death sentences?

Creatures/species/races - is your world inhabited mainly by humans? What sort of species are there other than your average human? Are there fantastical creatures like griffins, dragons, etc? Do they co-exist peacefully? Is one considered inferior to the other (i.e. humans vs other species)?

History - what events in the country/realm/planet’s past have defined their present? Were there wars with others that shaped how they view the world and interact with each other? Did they form alliances with others? Are they a big power or an insignificant political entity? Did religion disappear in favour of science? The other way around?

Culture - what behaviours are seen as normal? Is there a difference between what is expected from men and women? Low and high classes? How do they view art? Is a profession like being a painter or a singer accepted or frowned upon? Do they have an extensive written history? Do they use books for record keeping or entertainment? Do they even have books/ever had books? Do they have time for leisure or is it all business? How many languages are there and is it important to know more than one? What does an educated person behave and look like in your world? How do people dress?

[quakerjoe]

Americans’ attitudes about fascism have always been based on the assumption that fascism, as occurred in Germany when Hitler came to power, “can’t happen here,” that we love our freedom so much we would never give in to an authoritarian populist regime. We never stopped to consider what might happen if Americans’ conception of freedom became so twisted that it came to embody the “freedom” to deprive other people of their freedoms, while preserving your own. Fascism is not just a historical relic. It remains a living and breathing phenomenon that, for the generations since World War II, had only maintained a kind of half-life on the fringes of the American right. Its constant enterprise, during all those years, was to return white supremacism to the mainstream, restore its previous legitimacy, and restore its own power within the nation’s political system. With Trump as its champion, it has finally succeeded. It’s important, first, to understand just what fascism is and what it is not. The word “fascist” has been so carelessly and readily applied as a shorthand way to demonize one’s political opposition that the word has become almost useless: used to meaning anything, it has almost come to mean nothing. One commonly, and wrongly, cited definition of fascism is attributed to Benito Mussolini: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” According to the investigative reporter John Foster “Chip” Berlet, Mussolini never said nor wrote such a thing. And neither did the fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile, to whom it is also often attributed. “When Mussolini wrote about corporatism,” Berlet writes, “he was not writing about modern commercial corporations. He was writing about a form of vertical syndicalist corporatism based on early guilds.” The terms “corporatism” and “corporate” meant an entirely different thing in 1920s Italy than they mean today: “corporations” were not individual businesses, but rather were sectors of the economy, divided into corporate groups, managed and coordinated by the government. “Corporatism,” Berlet says, “meant formally ‘incorporating’ divergent interests under the state, which would resolve their differences through regulatory mechanisms.” In fact, says Berlet, this supposed definition of fascism directly contradicts many of the things that Mussolini actually did write about the nature of fascism. Another thing that fascism decidedly is not is what the right-wing pundit Jonah Goldberg says it is: a kind of socialism and therefore “properly understood as a phenomenon of the left.” This notion is such a travesty of the idea of fascism that it functionally negates its meaning. George Orwell wrote that “the idea underlying Fascism is irreconcilably different from that which underlies Socialism. Socialism aims, ultimately, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite.” Not only did Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, published in 2009, become a New York Times bestseller, but its thesis became widely accepted on the American right among Patriots and Tea Partiers in the years leading up to Trump’s ascension, who eagerly accused President Obama and liberal Democrats of being the real fascists. Historians of fascism were scathing in their assessment. For example, Robert O. Paxton, an American political scientist who is professor emeritus at Columbia University and the author of seminal studies of fascism, wrote: “Goldberg simply omits those parts of fascist history that fit badly with his demonstration. His method is to examine fascist rhetoric, but to ignore how fascist movements functioned in practice.” In reality, fascism is a much more complex phenomenon than Goldberg’s or the “corporate state” definition would have it. Historians have for years struggled to nail down its essential features, partly because, as Paxton notes, fascism in the 1920s “drew on both right and left, and tried to transcend that bitter division in a purified, invigorated, expansionist national community.” In the postwar years of the 1950s and ’60s, political scientists and historians tried to define it primarily by assembling a list of traits common to historical fascists. The problem with this approach was that as historians examined the record more closely, they grasped that fascism was constantly acquiring and shedding one or another of these traits. It was a protean, shape-shifting phenomenon, and a simple list of traits failed to capture this dynamic quality. In response, some scholars, notably Roger Griffin, a modern historian and political theorist at Oxford Brookes University in England, have attempted to distill fascism into a singular quality, an underlying principle that remained constant all throughout its various permutations. Griffin ultimately zeroed in on what he called “palingenetic ultranationalism”: a revolutionary movement based on the belief that a nation can be restored to glory via a process of phoenix-like rebirth by activating, or creating, national myths of original greatness (“palingenesis” is the doctrine of continual rebirth). Griffin explains fascism further as a “modern political ideology that seeks to regenerate the social, economic, and cultural life of a country by basing it on a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity. Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy. Despite the idealistic goals of fascism, attempts to build fascist societies have led to wars and persecutions that caused millions of deaths.” While Griffin’s approach is extraordinarily useful and insightful, it still fails to fully explain the dynamic nature of fascism. Robert Paxton’s 2005 book The Anatomy of Fascism, widely considered to be a definitive text on the subject, attempted to tackle that aspect of the phenomenon. His definition of fascism is placed in the context of the reality of its behavior: that is, fascism cannot be explained solely by its ideology; it is also identified and explained by what it does. By examining the historical record, Paxton has been able to describe its constantly mutating nature as occurring in five identifiable stages: 1. Intellectual exploration. Disillusionment with popular democracy manifests itself in discussions of lost national vigor. 2. Rooting. A fascist movement, aided by political deadlock and polarization, becomes a player on the national stage. 3. Arrival to power. Conservatives seeking to control rising leftist opposition invite the movement to share power. 4. Exercise of power. The movement and its charismatic leader control the state in balance with state institutions such as the police and traditional elites such as the clergy and business magnates. 5. Radicalization or entropy. The state either becomes increasingly radical, as did Nazi Germany, or slips into traditional authoritarian rule, as did fascist Italy. Paxton explains that “each national variant of fascism draws its legitimacy … not from some universal scripture but from what it considers the most authentic elements of its own community identity.” He also examines the underlying principles that fueled the rise of fascism, and determines that there are nine “mobilizing passions” that have fed the fires of fascist movements wherever they have arisen: 1. A sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions 2. The primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether universal or individual, and the subordination of the individual to it 3. The belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against the group’s enemies, both internal and external 4. Dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effect of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences 5. The need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary 6. The need for authority by natural leaders (always male), culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s destiny 7. The superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason 8. The beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success 9. The right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group’s prowess in a Darwinian struggle. This last “passion” was explored as an essential aspect of Nazism by the Norwegian social scientist and philosopher Harald Ofstad, whose interviews with former Nazis led him to write Our Contempt for Weakness: Nazi Norms and Values—And Our Own (English translation, 1989). It described the logical extension of that Darwinian struggle against the “lesser” that pervades so much fascist literature: the deep-seated hatred and contempt in which all persons deemed “weaker”—ethnically, racially, medically, genetically, or otherwise—are held, and the desire to eliminate them entirely that it fuels. Paxton ultimately summed this all up in a single paragraph: “Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal constraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. Fascism is both a complex and a simple phenomenon. In one sense, it resembles a dynamic human psychological pathology in that it’s made up of a complex constellation of traits that are interconnected and whose presence and importance rise and fall according to the often fast-changing stages of development it goes through; and in another, it can in many ways be boiled down to the raw, almost feral imposition of the organized violent will of an angry and fear-ridden human id upon the rest of humankind. Throughout history, it has only ever achieved real power when it was able to coalesce its many contentious and often warring factions under the banner of a unifying charismatic leader. The lack of such a figure at those periods when fascist tendencies were ascendant in the United States is one of the primary reasons historians believed that fascism never could obtain the “political space” required for obtaining power in the United States: “It can’t happen here.” That’s where Donald Trump comes in. Fascist elements and tendencies have always been part of the nation’s political DNA, even though many Americans cannot admit this. Indeed, it can be said that some of the worst traits of European fascism were borrowed from America, particularly the eliminationist tendencies, manifested in the form of genocidal violence toward indigenous peoples and racial and ethnic segregation. Hitler acknowledged at various times his admiration for the American genocide against Native Americans; for the segregationist Jim Crow regime in the South, on which the Nazis modeled the Nuremberg Race Laws; and for the deployment of mob violence by the Ku Klux Klan, which was the inspiration for the murderous street thuggery of the German Brownshirts and the Italian Black-shirts. According to Ernst Hanfstaengl, a German American who was a confidant of Hitler’s for a time, Hitler was “passionately interested in the Ku Klux Klan … He seemed to think it was a political movement similar to his own.” And it was. Despite these tendencies, the United States had never yet given way to fascism at the national level. No doubt this, in the second half of the twentieth century at least, was due to horror at what ultimately transpired under the Hitler regime—namely, the Holocaust. We were appalled by racial and ethnic hatred, by segregation and eliminationism, because we saw the pile of corpses that they produced in Europe. We didn’t make the connection with our own piles of corpses, until the civil rights movement finally redressed our own national wrongs. However, that was a different generation, one that grew up in the shadow of World War II and experienced not only McCarthyism but also the civil rights struggle. Today, it is not uncommon to see Nazi regalia treated as a kind of fashion statement and outrageous genocidal racial sentiments tossed about like popcorn, dismissed as a kind of naughtiness. White nationalism and supremacism, nativism, misogyny, conspiracism, sexual paranoia, and xenophobic hatred, once embodied in German National Socialism, have experienced a revival in twenty-first-century America in the form of the alt-right and Patriot-militia movements. Relatively early in the campaign, a flood of observers began using the word “fascist” to describe Trump’s campaign. Not all of these concerns were coming from the left: in November 2015, a number of conservatives began sounding the alarm as well, especially in response to Trump’s vows to crack down on Muslim immigrants. “Trump is a fascist. And that’s not a term I use loosely or often. But he’s earned it,” the conservative pundit Max Boot, a Marco Rubio campaign adviser, tweeted in November 2015, after Trump had retweeted a graphic from #WhiteGenocide. Steve Deace, a Ted Cruz supporter and conservative Iowa radio host, tweeted in November 2015, “If Obama proposed the same religion registry as Trump every conservative in the country would call it what it is—creeping fascism.” Even the staid, Republican-owned Seattle Times used the term to describe Trump in a November 2015 editorial: “There is a bottom line, and it’s simple: Trump’s campaign message reflects a kind of creeping fascism. It needs to be rejected.” Of course liberals, too, were alarmed: the historian Rick Perlstein, in a Washington Spectator piece titled “Donald Trump and the F Word,” explored the question of Trump’s fascist tendencies in depth, concluding that although Trump himself might not be a fascist, the phenomenon he was empowering was troublingly close to meeting Paxton’s condition of fascism at the power-acquisition stage. Trump was tapping into a wellspring of discontent: “If he’s just giving the people what they want, consider the people,” he wrote. “Consider what they want.” There is little doubt that there is a significant resemblance between Trump’s ascendance and that of previous fascist figures in history beyond Hitler, including Mussolini, Francisco Franco, and Miklos Horthy, partly because the politics he engenders indeed fill out so many of the key components that collectively create genuine fascism, as we’ve come to understand it through deep historical scholarship. A careful examination of Trump’s campaign and post-election messages in light of Paxton’s definition reveals a raft of fascist traits: 1. Eliminationist rhetoric is the backbone of Trump’s appeal. His opening salvo in the campaign —the one that first catapulted him to the forefront in the race, in the polls, and proved wildly popular with Republican voters—was his vow, and subsequent proposed program, to deport all 12 million of the United States’ undocumented immigrants (he used the deprecatory term “illegal alien”) and to erect a gigantic wall on the nation’s southern border. The language he used to justify such plans— labeling those immigrants “criminals,” “killers,” and “rapists”—is classic rhetoric designed to dehumanize an entire group of people by reducing them to objects fit only for elimination. Trump’s appeal ultimately is about forming a “purer” community, and it has been relentless and expansive: When an audience member asked him at a town-hall-style appearance when and how he was going to “get rid of all the Muslims,” he responded that “we’re going to be looking at a lot of different things.” He also claimed that if elected, he would send back all the refugees from Syria who had arrived in the United States: “If I win, they’re going back,” he told one of his approval-roaring campaign crowds. He told an interviewer that the Black Lives Matter movement was “looking for trouble” and later suggested that maybe a Black Lives Matter protester should have been “roughed up.” 2. Palingenetic ultranationalism, after race-baiting and ethnic fearmongering, is the most obviously fascistic component of Trump’s presidential election effort, embodied in those trucker hats proclaiming, “Make America Great Again.” Trump amplifies the slogan this way: “The silent majority is back, and we’re going to take the country back. We’re going to make America great again.” That’s almost the letter-perfect embodiment of palingenesis: the promise of the phoenix-like rebirth of a nation from the ashes of its “golden age.” 3. Trump’s deep contempt for both liberalism and establishment conservatism allows him to go over the heads of established political alignments. The conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has noted, “In parlaying this outsider status of his, he’s better at playing the insiders’ game than they are … He’s running rings around all of these seasoned, lifelong, highly acclaimed professionals in both the consultant class, the adviser class, the strategist class, and the candidate class. And he’s doing it simply by being himself.” 4. Trump exploits a feeling of victimization, constantly proclaiming that America is in a state of crisis that has made it “the laughingstock” of the rest of the world, and contends that this has occurred because of the failures of (primarily liberal) politicians. 5. He himself embodies the concept of a lone male leader who considers himself a man of destiny. His refusal to acknowledge the lack of factual basis of many of his comments embodies the fascistic notion that the leader’s instincts trump logic and reason in any event. 6. Trump’s contempt for weakness was manifested practically every day on the campaign trail, ranging from his dissing of John McCain as “not a hero” because “I like people who weren’t captured,” to his onstage mockery of Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who has a disability. This list is thought-provoking—and it is meant to be thought-provoking—but as part of our exercise in examining the attributes of real fascism, we also can begin to discern the difference between that phenomenon and the Trump candidacy. For example, fascists have, in the past, always relied upon an independent, movement-driven paramilitary force capable of intimidating their opponents with various types of thuggery. In Italy these were the Blackshirts; Hitler imitated the Italian units with the formation of the Brownshirts, the Storm Division. Trump has no such paramilitary force at his disposal. Members of various white-supremacist organizations and bona fide paramilitary organizations such as the Oath Keepers and the Three Percent movement are avid Trump backers. Trump has never made known any desire to form an alliance with or to make use of such groups. However, via wink-wink nudge-nudge cues Trump has on occasion encouraged or failed to condemn spontaneous violence by some of his supporters against both protesters at rallies and groups they consider undesirable, such as when “enthusiastic supporters” committed anti-Latino hate crimes. Encouraging extralegal vigilante violence can be classified as a fascistic response. Yet a serious fascist would have called upon not just the crowd to respond with violence, but also his paramilitary allies to respond with retaliatory strikes. Trump didn’t do that. Another perhaps more basic reason that Trump cannot be categorized as a true fascist is that he is not an ideologue who acts out of a rigid adherence to a consistent worldview, as do all real fascists. Trump’s only real ideology is worship of himself, “the Donald.” He will do and say just about anything that appeals to any receptive segment of the American body politic to attract their support. One segment of the body could be called the nation’s id—groups that live on paranoia and hatred regarding those different from themselves and also the political establishment. There’s no question that these supporters brought a visceral energy to the limited universe of the GOP primary, though I don’t know anyone who, in 2015, expected that such a campaign could survive the oxygen and exposure of a general election. Those observers, including me, were all proved wrong. Few observers had any clue how successfully the Alt-America worldview could become in muscling its way into the national spotlight. However, the reason why Trump has never yet called upon the shock troops of a paramilitary wing for support, and why he has attempted to keep an arm’s-length distance from the overtly racist white nationalists and neo-Nazis who have become some of his most enthusiastic backers, is simple: he isn’t really one of them. What he is, says Chip Berlet, is a classic right-wing nativist populist demagogue: “His ideology and rhetoric are much more comparable to the European populist radical right, akin to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front, the Danish People’s Party, or Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. All of them use the common radical right rhetoric of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism.” Trump himself is not a fascist primarily because he lacks any kind of coherent, or even semi-coherent, ideology, nor has he agitated for a totalitarian one-party state. What he represents instead is a sort of gut-level reactionism that lacks the rigor and absolutism, the demand for ideological purity, that are characteristic of full-bore fascism. But that does not mean that the movement he has unleashed is not potentially dangerously proto-fascist, nor that he is not dangerous to American democracy. Indeed, he has now proved to be more dangerous than an outright fascist, because such a figure would be far less appealing and far less likely to succeed in the current milieu. What Trump has succeeded in doing, by exploiting the strands of right-wing populism in the country, has been to make the large and growing number of proto-fascist groups in America larger and more vicious. In other words he is simultaneously responding to and creating the conditions that could easily lead to the genuine growth of fascism. The journalist Milton Mayer, in They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933–1945 (1955), describes how these changes happen not overnight, but incrementally: “You see,” my colleague went on, “one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty … “Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.” We lose our humanity incrementally, in small acts of meanness. The Nazis’ regime ultimately embodied the ascension of demonic inhumanity, but they didn’t get that way overnight. They got that way through, day after day, attacking and demonizing and urging the elimination of those they deemed their enemies. And this has been happening to America—in particular, to the conservative movement and the Republican Party—for a very long time. Donald Trump represents the culmination of a trend that really began in the 1990s. That was when we first saw the popular rise of eliminationist hate talk. It was first heard in Patrick Buchanan’s 1992 declaration of a “culture war”; it was then wielded with thoughtless glee and great regularity by an increasingly rabid set of right-wing pundits led by Rush Limbaugh; then it was deeply codified by a new generation of talking heads who have subsequently marched across the sound stages at Fox News. It surfaced particularly with the birth of the Tea Party, which became perhaps the single most significant manifestation of right-wing populism in the nation’s history, certainly since the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. Trump aligned himself very early with the Tea Party elements, remarking in 2011, “I represent a lot of the ingredients of the Tea Party.” And indeed he does—in particular, its obeisance to the captains of industry and their untrammeled right to make profits at the expense of everyone else. Right-wing populism is essentially predicated on what today we might call the psychology of celebrity worship: convincing working-class schlubs that they, too, can someday become rich and famous—because when they do, would they want to be taxed heavily? It’s all about dangling that lottery carrot out there for the poor stiffs who delude themselves about their chances of hitting the jackpot. The thing about right-wing populism is that it’s manifestly self-defeating: those who stand to primarily benefit from this ideology are the wealthy, which is why they so willingly underwrite it. One might be inclined to dismiss it as a kind of “sucker populism.” But that would be to overlook the reasons for its appeal, which run much deeper, and are really in many ways more a product of people’s attraction to an authoritarian system. Those psychological needs often are a product of the levels of general public fear, much more so than of economic well-being or other factors. That fear is generated by a large number of factors, including the spread of unfiltered social media, as well as the rapid decline in basic journalistic standards of factuality in the larger mainstream media, as well as the mainstream media’s increasing propensity to promote information that, producers say, reflects what people want to see rather than what responsible journalistic ethics would consider more important: what they need to know. That’s how Alt-America became so powerful a political force. This right-wing populism, largely lurking on the periphery and gradually building an audience, was whipped into life by Ron Paul’s and Sarah Palin’s 2008 candidacies, and then became fully manifest as a national movement in short order with the rise of the Tea Party in 2009. Not only was the Tea Party an overtly right-wing populist movement, it soon became a major conduit for a revival of the populist Patriot-militia movement. Many of these “Tea Party Patriots” are now Oath Keepers and Three Percenters whose members widely supported Trump’s candidacy, and are now vowing to defend his presidency with their own arms. Most of these extremists are only one step removed, ideologically speaking, from the neo-Nazis and other white supremacists of the racist right, and both of those segments of the right lean heavily on nativist and authoritarian rhetoric. It’s only somewhat natural that Trump’s right-wing populism would be mistaken for fascism—they are closely related. Not every right-wing populist is a fascist, but every fascist is a right-wing populist. Thus, Donald Trump may not be a fascist, but with his vicious brand of right-wing populism he is not just empowering the latent fascist elements in America, he is leading his followers merrily down a path that leads directly to fascism. If the final result is fascism, the distinction between right-wing populism and fascism is not really significant except in understanding how it happened in the first place. The United States, thanks to Trump, has now reached a fork in the road where it must choose down which path its future lies—with democracy and its often fumbling ministrations, or with the appealing rule of plutocratic authoritarianism, ushered in on a tide of fascistic populism (if history serves as a example, the fascistic populists will eventually overwhelm their plutocrat sponsors). Trump may not be a fascist, but he is an authoritarian who, intentionally or not, is empowering the existing proto-fascist elements in American society; even more dangerously, his alt-right–Tea Party brand of right-wing populism is helping these groups grow their ranks and their potential to recruit new members by leaps and bounds. Not only that, he is making thuggery seem normal and inevitable. And that is a serious problem. How can you talk with a diehard Alt-American if you are a dedicated mainstream liberal? Many Americans confronted that question over their family Thanksgiving tables a couple of weeks after the election. The conversations often did not turn out well. But it is no longer a question we can pretend away, perhaps by choosing to stay away from those tables altogether. The American radical right is a real force with real power—both political and cultural—and it is no longer alarmist to point that out. Nor is it a problem that we can hope to attack head-on through blunt political force, though without question the barrage of attacks on Americans’ civil rights that very likely now await us in the coming years will require our most vocal opposition. It will be incumbent upon this political opposition to be totally dedicated to the principles of nonviolent resistance. During the anti-Trump protests that immediately followed his election, the liberal mainstream media characterized a handful of violent incidents as riots. That undermines the aims of the anti-Trump protest. Fascist movements have a long-documented history of converting any violence they encounter after having provoked it into a justification for further violence that far outpaces anything that the opposing left might be capable of mustering. The rise of the radical right is a symptom of problems more deep-seated than the purely political level. Fascism, at its base, is fueled by hate and the pure objectification of an utter lack of empathy for other human beings. Thus, the negation of this negative emotion is not love, but empathy. Confronting fascism—as J. K. Rowling suggests with a theme running through her popular “Harry Potter” series of children’s books—means first embracing humanity, both ours and theirs; from that embrace we can make the personal choices that define what kind of people we are. We need to be able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, even if we do not agree with them, for our own sake as well as theirs. Harry’s experiences observing young Tom Riddle, the nascent Lord Voldemort, through the magical “Pensieve” gave these stories a surprisingly profound depth of meaning. Empathy as an essential political principle actually comes naturally to progressives as a policy imperative. Certainly the liberal social policies that have created wealthy liberal urban enclaves that were the base of the Democratic Party’s support in the 2016 election reflect that empathetic impulse, in the form of broad social safety nets, supportive urban-oriented programs, high-powered educational systems, and bustling economies. The impulse behind most modern liberal programs has been to raise the standard of living for ordinary people and to defend the civil rights of everyone, especially those who have not enjoyed them for much of the nation’s history. That’s a fairly empathetic agenda. Liberals’ dealings regarding rural and Rust Belt America, however, have over the past forty years largely been characterized by at best benign neglect, in terms of both economic policy and culture: wealthy urbanites do often look down their noses at rural and working-class citizens and consider their concerns and attitudes at best antiquated and at worst backward and stupid. This political disconnect emerges in all kinds of cultural expressions, from movie stereotypes to thoughtless remarks from liberal politicians. Which is perhaps why the conversations around our Thanksgiving tables were so deeply awkward, if not deeply disturbing, in the wake of Donald Trump’s surprise election. And yet that is the kind of place where the deeper change that needs to occur in our relationships with each other as Americans can happen. One healing conversation at a time. If Americans of goodwill—including mainstream conservatives who recognize how their movement has been hijacked by radicals—can learn to start talking to each other again, and maybe even pull a few Alt-Americans out of their abyss along the way, then perhaps we can start to genuinely heal our divisions instead of relegating each other into social oblivion and, maybe eventually, civil war. Some kind of cultural or political civil war is clearly already on many minds. The bottom-line issue is really an epistemological one: how is a rational exchange possible when we can’t even agree on what constitutes a fact and factuality? Most liberals (certainly not all) tend to prefer traditional standards of factuality and evidence in which concrete information from reliable sources is accepted as fact, and scientific evidence obtained through peer-reviewed methods is considered the gold standard for presentable evidence in a discussion. Pretty much the opposite is true in Alt-America. Science and scientists are viewed with suspicion as participants in the “conspiracy,” and so their contributions are instantly discarded as worthless, as is the work of any kind of academic in any field, including history and the law. The only sources of information they accept as “factual” are tendentious right-wing propaganda riddled with false facts, wild distortions, and risible conspiracist hyperbole. Fox News—whose mass failures regarding factual accuracy are now the stuff of legend—is considered by Alt-Americans to be the only “balanced and accurate” news source, though even it is viewed with deep suspicion by alt-righters, Patriots, and Alex Jones acolytes. Breaking through that wall is at best difficult, and in the case of dedicated and fanatical Alt- Americans, probably not worth the personal costs in terms of the emotional abuse they like to heap on those with whom they disagree. But finding people who remain within reach—those for whom common decency and respectful discourse and Christian kindness are still important values, even though they may have voted for Trump—may provide an avenue for deeper social change. At some point, there will have to be a discussion about just what is a fact and what isn’t, because that eventually will determine whether or not you can ever come to a rational common ground. But getting there first will take a lot of empathy. The communications expert Sharon Ellison specializes in what she calls “powerful nondefensive communication”; she has developed an effective empathy-driven model that she has shown can be effective in at least breaking down the interpersonal barriers that modern politics have erected, and upon which the radical right thrives. The starting place, she says, is curiosity: "Instead of blasting Trump or insulting the morality or intelligence of his supporters, first, just get curious. You don’t have to agree; you’re simply gathering information and trying to understand where they’re coming from, even if you believe they’re deeply misguided. "Make it a dialogue, not a debate or an inquisition. No matter how true and rational your analysis is, force-feeding it will not go down well. Nor will a premeditated series of sugar-coated questions designed to subtly lead the person to “get it.” The right question, skillfully and non-aggressively posed, could prompt someone to gain unexpected insights, and when they realize something for themselves, they can more easily accept it. "Your questions should be very specific but posed in a non-judgmental way. (Note that I’m calling the questions “specific” rather than “pointed,” which implies that a question is a weapon.)" Ellison cautions against using general, open-ended questions such as whether people can ever learn to get along. Some of us gravitate toward these because they feel softer, but they can wind up serving as an invitation to rant. The key to understanding people who have become drawn into the Alt-America universe is the role that the hero myth plays in framing their worldview. Dedicated Patriots and white nationalists, just like the hate criminals they inspire, genuinely envision themselves as heroes. They are saving the country, or perhaps the white race, or perhaps just their local community. And so anything, anything they might do in that act of defense is excusable, even laudable. This embrace of the heroic is what ultimately poisons us all. The sociologist James Aho has explored this concept of the hero: "The warrior needs an enemy. Without one there is nothing against which to fight, nothing from which to save the world, nothing to give his life meaning. What this means, of course, is that if an enemy is not ontologically present in the nature of things, one must be manufactured. The Nazi needs an international Jewish banker and conspiratorial Mason to serve his purposes of self- aggrandizement, and thus sets about creating one, at least unconsciously. By the same token, the radical Zionist locks himself in perverse symbiosis with his Palestinian “persecutors,” the Communist with his “imperialistic capitalist running dogs,” the capitalist with his Communist “subversives.” Aho goes on to describe how the enemy is constructed as embodying “putrefaction and death,” is experienced “as issuing from the ‘dregs’ of society,” whose “visitation on our borders is tantamount to impending pestilence … The enemy’s presence in our midst is a pathology of the social organism serious enough to require the most far-reaching remedies: quarantine, political excision, or, to use a particularly revealing expression, liquidation and expulsion.” What Aho describes is a dynamic latent in all sectors of American society but finding a virulent expression in right-wing extremism. It is one in which both sides—the heroic exemplars of the far right and their named “enemies,” that is, Jews, civil-rights advocates, and the government— essentially exchange roles in their respective perceptions; the self is always heroic, the other always the enemy. Each sees the other as the demonic enemy, feeding the other’s fears and paranoias in an increasingly threatening spiral that eventually breaks out in the form of real violence. There is, as Aho suggests, a way to escape this dynamic, to break the cycle. And it requires, on the part of those seeking to oppose this kind of extremism, a recognition of their own propensity toward naming the enemy and adopting the self-aggrandizing pose of the hero: "As [the cultural anthropologist] Ernest Becker has convincingly shown, the call to heroism still resonates in modern hearts. However, we are in the habit of either equating heroism with celebrity (“TV Actress Tops List of Students’ Heroes”) or caricaturing the hero as a bluff-and-swagger patriot/soldier making the world safe for, say, Christian democracy. In these ways heroism is portrayed as a rather happy if not entirely risk-free venture that earns one public plaudits. Today we are asked to learn that, in the deepest and truest sense, heroism is really none of these things, but a largely private vocation requiring stamina, discipline, responsibility, and above all courage. Not just the ascetic courage to cleanse our personal lives of what we have been taught is filth, or even less to cleanse society of the alleged carriers of this filth, but, as Jung displayed, the fortitude to release our claim on moral purity and perfection. At a personal and cultural level, I believe this is the only way to transcend the logic of enemies." For all of its logic and love of science, modern liberalism as a social force is weighed down by its most consistent flaw: an overweening belief in its own moral superiority, its heroism, as it were. (Not, of course, that conservatives are any better in this regard; if one factors in the religious right and the “moral values” vote, they are objectively worse.) This tendency becomes especially noticeable in urban liberal societies, which for all their enlightenment and love of tolerance are maddeningly smug, intolerant of the “ignorance” of their rural and “fly-over country” counterparts. It’s not an omnipresent attitude, but it is pervasive enough that others’ perceptions of it are certainly not without basis. There’s a similar stigma attached to religious beliefs as well, especially among more secular liberals, and that in turn has given birth to a predictable counterreaction that is only partially a result of misunderstanding. If we look at the 2016 electoral map, and see all those red rural counties and come to terms with the reasons why none of them ever turn blue, it’s important to come to terms with our own prejudices and our easy willingness to treat our fellow Americans—the ones who are not like us—with contempt and disrespect. Simply beginning the change will require both humility and empathy. That’s not to suggest that we respond to racist or violent provocations with touchy-feely attempts at “reaching out” to the other side; these are always rejected with contempt, or viewed as a sign of weakness. Certainly it does not mean we need to “reach out” to the rural haters and the conspiracy-spewing Patriots. I grew up in rural America, and I’m all too familiar with the bullies and swaggering ignoramuses who hold too much sway in that culture, and whose politics and worldview are now ascendant beyond their wildest imaginings (and they are wild, trust me). There’s really no point in trying to reach out to people who will only return your hand as a bloody stump. The only thing they understand, in the end, is brute political force: being thrashed at the ballot box, and in the public discourse. So it is vital for liberals, progressives, moderates, and genuine conservatives to link arms in the coming years to fight back against the fascist tide. It will require organizing, and it will require real outreach. And if this coalition wants to succeed, its members will need to break the vicious circular social dynamic that right-wing extremists always create, particularly in rural communities where their bullying style of discourse can stifle honest discourse. To do that, some self-reflection will go a long way. Respecting those from rural areas, those who hold deep religious beliefs, doesn’t force progressives to compromise their own beliefs or standards. It simply means being part of a democracy, which is enriched by its diversity. It means once again empowering the many rural progressives who have lived there all along, fighting the good fight against all odds, because they are the people who are best equipped to have those many dinner-table conversations. Certainly traditional rural values such as communitarianism, common decency, mutual respect, and respect for tradition should have a place among all that diversity that liberals are fond of celebrating. Because until urban progressives learn to accord them that respect, they are doomed to remain trapped in the vicious cycle being fueled on both sides. For liberals and moderates, breaking out may be a matter of survival—especially as the rabid right’s fantasies begin coming to fruition. Alt-America, thanks to Donald Trump, is no longer merely the stuff of these fantasies. It will take the best of us, the most decent part of us—the better angels of our nature, as Abraham Lincoln invoked in his first inaugural address—to prevent right-wing dreams from becoming realities. David Neiwert

[swordoforion]

Orion Digest №23 — A Personal Anecdote

What has shaped history more than the power of belief? Everywhere I go throughout my nation, I see the signs, the echoes of one man who walked through the desert and preached his values thousands of years ago, the symbol of his punishment plastered on the very soul of many cultures worldwide. Similarly, the spirit of colonial revolution remains alive in the hearts of the citizens of the U.S., and basic symbols and figures of a long bygone war are nearly mythic in the modern world.

I have not always been interested in the matters of the world at large. As a child, it was all so much bigger than me, and I was concerned with the fictional — cartoons and video games and books, things that were simple. The Internet and its subsequent culture grew around me with age, and soon, the world felt smaller and smaller. I met and talked to people from faraway lands, found that my experience was but a drop in the vast ocean of humanity — only a small part, yet not altogether different from the rest. There are things that we share so fundamentally human, as wide as the divides between us may seem.

But as I grew older and my world grew smaller, the problems that only adults talked about became more and more evident. My friends weren’t concerned with gathering sticks and playing tag; they started talking more and more about realistic, terrifying problems. Elections caused them to feel dread, news stories about other nations incited passion within them, and pollution became less of a thing warned against on television and more of a very real threat. Admittedly, I found these things at first strange and confusing — this wasn’t the world I knew, and they didn’t seem to affect me in the slightest. It was upsetting to think about the world as a scary and flawed place when I could easily continue to escape into fiction.

But time proves the greatest bringer of sobriety, and this nonchalant, carefree attitude faded over time. What was annoyance at a constant complaint among my friends became an acceptance and understanding, and I witnessed the things they warned against become very real, very observable. To be more specific, the U.S. election of 2016 was the first time in my life that politics seemed to matter, that the constant debate and deliberation meant something, and impacted so many people. I witnessed half of the people in my life cheering on the election of Trump with thunderous applause; and the other half overtaken with fear at what might happen next, and with more of an awareness, I saw that these events led to action.

Since 2016, the world has obviously changed in many ways, often for the worse, and as each wave of disasters hit, I started to take in a bit more, to go deeper into this world I had ignored for so long. It had always been easy and convenient to ignore politics and flaws — to face them head on would be to realize how close we really are to the edge, all the advantages I enjoy without appreciation, and how my life has been built on the backs of so many less fortunate throughout history. However, by the time I came of age, ignorance had no longer become the easy option.

I had progressed past ignorance of politics, and had come to the conclusion that the world was flawed, that I had privilege because of what I looked like, who I was, and the environment I grew up in, and that there was really nothing I could do in the face of all that. I could understand and talk about these issues, I could participate whenever given the chance, but the world was really ruled by business owners, politicians, royalty, powerful factions far beyond the scope of my life, and all I could do was accept this and hope the odds shook out in the world’s favor. It was all I could do at that point to try and reckon with my place in the world, and how I could sleep at night knowing full well the hell others went through every day.

Years went by, the world worsened. Hurricanes and fires rocked my nation, innocent people were gunned down whether because of improper distribution of firearms or the irresponsibility of law enforcement, and constant war continued to plague innocent civilians, who fled their homes only to be caged and hated elsewhere. 4 years after the initial election, a virus from a lab spread across the globe, shutting down much of society for what could be 2 years. The idea of crossing our fingers and hoping things would get better hardly did, as the rich got richer and superpowers grew more embittered. The apocalypse edges closer, and much of our effort is spent persecuting celebrities over old quotes; a meaningless crusade for the illusion of change.

As I lay purposeless within the many months of quarantine, I began to ponder the rest of my life. Because I feared for the longest time ever making my more progressive opinions known to a largely conservative family, I had never imagined doing or saying anything about the state of the world outside of hushed circles of friends, in private messages, in dark rooms. But with all the time in the world to reflect, I began to ask myself what indeed I had planned to do with my life. You really only get one go-around on Earth, one life to live, before your time is up, and the chance to do anything is lost forever. As far as I knew, there was nothing before and nothing after, and anything I did not do voluntarily would be a chance wasted in life.

My thoughts drifted to grand things, to the loftiest of ambitions. To change the world, to truly leave an impact was something I thought above me, something I could never do. But what use was thinking I couldn’t do something? As difficult as it was to do, I had never tried it before, and I didn’t know for sure that I couldn’t do it. And if I never tried, then I would have gone through life simply telling myself I had limits without ever knowing. All these things I never ventured to attempt were simply things I had convinced myself I was incapable of. But what if I took a chance in life? What if I stopped fearing the unknown, and left escapist fantasy and complacency behind?

COVID-19 brought me to the realization that if I told myself that because of who I was, and because the world was so large and ruled by people so powerful, I would never be able to bring about change in the world, and that the more people like me believed in this idea, the more set in stone the current order would be. The highest heights are only achievable because we have been told that they are nigh-unreachable; even if you are incapable of getting there, the effort itself is laudable, and on the chance you do succeed, you’ve made your mark.

The world, I realized, was getting worse, and that for all the fortune I received in life, I owed it to the world to try and save it. If I stopped believing that changing the world was audacious, and focused simply on trying to change it, maybe I could be successful. I started writing, seeking out others who had similar ideas, trying to formulate a solid set of ideas about how the world could be saved, how we can move forward from here. And that led me to the most important part — as far as I can possibly go, as much as I can possibly do to help the world, I cannot do it alone. And so, I sought to find others, to create something greater than myself, bigger than me.

As I said in the beginning, our world has been dramatically influenced before by belief, and not just in Christianity. Major world religions — Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism; nationalistic identity and pride — it’s driven people in the billions to wage wars, to find love, to travel great journeys, and to devote their lives to higher callings. Belief is a powerful thing, because it’s what shakes people out of a groove and into action. Regardless of what people think of me, regardless of whether or not I succeed, and if what I do builds anything that lasts, regardless of who I am and where I come from, I believe that the world is malleable, that I can at least set a stone rolling down the path that may one day loose a boulder that knocks it all into place.

Orion is the culmination of what I hope and believe in. An organization of those with the will to shape history, to move us off the course we’re headed on, by reminding the people of the world that the power is in their hands. I labored for far too long under the delusion that the workings of politics were something I could never reach, that I was powerless, that I was just one person. But every person is an integral part of this world, and when we realize what we can do and how we can go about doing it, the goals that seemed unachievable move within reach.

I know that this essay was a departure from my usual style of writing, but I wanted to touch on what motivated me to found Orion, and what motivates me to aim higher in everything I do. I firmly believe that either I, or the things I leave behind, can make a difference, instead of allowing my fear to make me an accessory to a destructive pattern. And if you are reading this, and you have a desire to make a change for the better, the first step is believing.

- DKTC FL