#translated so that we can see the doctor like bark to communicate. but every other language is being translated why not that one

[itsalwaysdark]

also i admire dws refusal ever to engage with language barriers

[frobin]

astolfobia

hat auf deinen Eintrag geantwortet

“I can totally understand the Jinbe/Robin ship, it does make sense. But...”

>> What... do you mean about not being sure if Zoro reacted correctly or not about Usopp?

Hey hey, 

okay this has nothing to do with FRobin and is more about Zoro, Usopp and the crew dynamics but since you asked I decided to answer. And I try to make myself clear because it’s probably VERY, VERY, VERY subjective and also comes from my female and very European point of view. 

I read the scene again (in german bc I don’t have the official translation at hand) but I also looked if kaizoku-ni-naru has it translated and here it is: https://kaizokuou-ni-naru.tumblr.com/post/190464807603/thank-you-so-much-for-your-wonderful-blog-im

Also many of it is from memory because of course I’m missing the volumes with the beginning of Water7 More behind the read more: 

Let’s do a little recap: 

Usopp left the crew. Why? Because to him it seemed like they were leaving Merry behind because the ship wasn’t strong enough anymore. 

That might seem weird since Merry is just a ship right? But we know that Merry had a soul, that manifested in the Klabauter. Merry was part of the crew but as soon as she was too weak (Usopp did not know that Merry was beyond repair), as soon as there was something better, Merry was replaced. 

That hit Usopp hard because Merry had not only been a present from his friend Kaya but this ship had been with them through so much and who knows how strong the bond between Usopp and the ship had really grown (he had been the one to see the Klabauter and the first to hear Merrys voice) so of course for him it felt like they were abandoning not only a ship, a thing, but a friend and even a crew mate.  Now, Usopp has a lot of problems. He feels weak, especially compared to Luffy, Sanji (who is also the cook) and Zoro who are The Monster Trio for a reason. Nami is a Navigator and so essential to the crew. Chopper is a doctor (also essential) and a literal monster! 

But all Usopp can do is shoot. He is probably going to be the best sharp-shooter in the world but he is not aware of that. Not back then and not now. Even after all the amazing things Usopp did in the recent arcs, he still considers himself weak. 

His self-worth is low and he loathes himself, probably feels like he is worth nothing. The only thing that he is good for is keeping Merry afloat, a memento to his island where he was important. Maybe the only thing that keeps him afloat too. 

So, the crew is willing to abandon Merry. Who tells that they won’t abandon him? Right after he lost a part of the money that was supposed to be used for Merry, right after he had to be saved by his crew, because he is weak!  

And you can bet that Usopp has abandonment issues too. After all, his father left to have adventures. Usopp lost his mother to sickness when he was still a small child. The village was annoyed by the child that ran every morning along the road to shout “Pirates are coming!”. Not as a threat but because he hoped that it would be true, that his dad would come back for him one day. Instead he grew up alone until he found some kids that thought he was cool enough to be their leader. He somehow managed to befriend the sick girl, and told her lies, like he did for his mother. And then Kaya was willing to renounce, to abandon him for Kuro.  

Merry is important and they want to leave Merry - him - behind.   

Usopp was afraid, got angry and he attacked Luffy. 

Was it smart? No. Was is it understandable? Yes. Could they have handled all that better? Fuck yes! 

But they are both teens who are stubborn and hot headed and in a tough and loaded situation. So I understand why it happened. 

And Usopp again is beaten, even with his smarts and his knowledge of Luffy’s weaknesses. He could not win. Because he is too weak. He lacks. He is not good enough. Luffy not only destroyed Usopp’s (already beaten) body, but also another part of his self worth. 

(I’m not crying you’re crying!) 

Then, we all know that Robin was caught,  while Usopp fixed himself up and then later met Franky. It was only then that Usopp learned that the ship was beyond repair but also learned that Merry had a Klabauter. And then more shit happened. What we also know is that Usopp had a very, very large role in the rescue of Robin and that he was one of the people who talked sense into her. Without him they wouldn’t have saved Robin and Luffy might have given up. He pep-talked him to continue fighting. 

(It’s still you who is crying! Shut up!) 

Anyway, let’s get to Zoro telling the rest of the crew that they can only accept Usopp back when he apologizes. Which, let’s be honest, makes sense.

Usopp should apologize. Because he was in the wrong. But his decisions came from a very specific place. 

So yeah, Zoro is right. But I get a bad feeling at the whole display of aggression and that Zoro expects Usopp to live up to his (Zoro’s) also very specific views and values of a warrior and the honor associated with it, without caring for Usopp’s. Again, a boy who grew up alone without any role model except that vague idea of an amazing pirate that was sailing the sea.

And the whole “Either it is like I say or I go!” stroke me as especially harsh.

Because I’ve been confronted with that sentiment so often, that I felt that deep in my bones. When I read it first, I didn’t even realise why that scene shook me. But it was that exact sentiment that poisoned my club and ultimately made me leave it, because I gave the ultimatum right back “You will go if things don’t go your way? Then go or I leave!” I’ve been part of that club since I had been seven years old. I left it with 25 because I had more balls than that fucking asshole and I’m still pissed about it, ten years later. And I’m very forgiving.

What Zoro said was that everyone has to know their place or they are no material to be a pirate (which is kind of weird since some people become pirates to be free, if you want to follow and know your place, maybe you should become a Marine). Ultimately you have to know whom to follow and that is - in this case - Luffy and no one else. You have to trust his judgement because he is the captain or else he is not much of a captain. 

And again this can make sense because if you don’t trust your captain or know your place on a ship it can be a death sentence at sea. 

Then there is this thing that this is ‘no playing pirate’. 

We still don’t know all of Luffy’s reasons why he wants to be pirate king but he often hints that he just wants to be free and have fun with his friends. That sounds a lot like ‘playing games’. At that point he only slowly learns that being a pirate is often way more serious and dangerous and filled with tough decisions than he thought. Playing games and have fun, that is why he was so delighted when he heard that Usopp wanted to come back. But playtime is over that is why he agreed with Zoro. Time to grow up they are at war after all.  

We know why Usopp left the crew, went against his captain and friend, because Usopp felt like they were abandoning ANOTHER FRIEND. 

But whatever reason there MIGHT BE does not matter for Zoro. He even says he does not know why all of it happened, does not care who was wrong or right.

I think that is a dangerous sentiment! Because personally, I feel like it’s important to try to see outside of your own perspective and I think you should never judge before you know all the facts. If you then still come to the same conclusion that is fine and if you come to another that is good too.That is what it means to make an informed decision, because the world is not black and white. Many things have reasons that are so layered that you can’t just expect everyone to come to the same conclusion when they don’t have the same information. That is why communication is important. 

Usopp waited for the very last moment to reach out to his friends. The longer he waited the longer he could imagine that everything would be fine in the end. He gave himself to that illusion. Zoro would have never done that and so no one else should do it. He is not exactly empathic. I feel like Zoro can’t look farther than his own ideas.

But I can agree with Zoro to some amount. I understand where he comes from.

Do I like it? Absolutely not. 

So, to slowly come to an end, we all know how this went. And I have to give it to Zoro, he also did say “I hear nothing” whenever Usopp tried to handle the situation like nothing had happened. He wanted him back too, after all.

And shit, it worked. Usopp cried out to his friends, he apologized and Luffy reached out to him to reel him in. 

But I can’t help but think that it absolutely destroyed Usopp after all. He saw his friends leaving him behind in a foreign city without any support. He just got a bounty and so would get in the focus of the marines, especially them thinking he is still part of the Strawhat crew. 

The crew, his friends, would leave him because he is weak and not worth anything and he would have no friends and be alone forever. 

I don’t even want to start to imagine the pure despair he felt that moment. And it stayed with him, as we learn in Thriller Bark. And again and again. 

So yeah. 

It worked in the end but I think it could have been handled better. 

Well, that is easy to say as a grown up with some more years under my belt and from an outside perspective. But even back when I first read it, it gave me a strange feeling. 

I think at least one of the crew should have talked to Usopp and given him some clues. And I’m sure Franky would have if he knew what was up but he hadn’t been part of the crew. Robin didn’t for whatever reason talk to Usopp, but she also never agreed with Zoro, looked almost angry about it. Nami also didn’t want to go against her captain, I guess. Sanji agreed with Zoro, maybe also with a bad feeling and Chopper is even less experienced than any other of them.

Oda is an amazing storyteller with a lot of characters that have an incredible amount of layers but that does not mean I agree with him all the time and so I don’t agree with his characters all the time.   

And that is what I meant. XD Sorry for the long text.

[my-brothers-corrupted]

My Brothers, Corrupted

Chapter 2 : Section 2 : Bite Back

Dap, Red, and Blue are headed home after pulling off a robbery with complications. Dapper’s decision to rewind will likely lead to conflict at home. But home, as we’ll see, has enough conflict already, and some of our boys have had just about enough of Anti’s torment and humiliations.

Trigger warnings for major abuse, ableism, choking and beating, and discussion of an off-screen suicide attempt.

Find Chapter One here.

Find Chapter Two here.

 Part Two of Chapter Two: Bite Back

cest-mellow asked: what if you say like, an animal started pawing the bag so you turned it back to get the gross off? anti isn’t fond of animals, maybe that ??

“Hm,” Dapper blinks at you, considering. “Maybe something like that. He sure doesn’t - ”

“Hey,” Blue cuts him off, flashing you a warning glare. “Honey, just tell him the truth, you’re only ever going to get in more trouble when he finds out you lied. You know he can see these signals if he wants to, right? What happened, anyway, Dap?”

Dapper pauses, staring up at his big brother.

Blue’s been good to him. Blue’s always as good as he can be to his brothers. That makes him unique to Dapper - he’s the only person he knows who’s never abused him.

“I’ll explain when we get there,” says Dapper, and even he isn’t sure, in that moment, if he is lying or telling the truth. “It was stupid. Don’t worry about it.”

“Mmh,” says Blue, dissatisfied. He doesn’t press him, though.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Blue, are you okay with how Anti treats you guys? I mean, he did hurt your little brother...

Blue sighs and leans back lazily against Red’s shoulder.

“Anti has temper problems. I don’t pretend otherwise. But I trust that he’s doing his best and I know that when worst comes to worse, he will protect us with his life. Most of the time, he’s good to us. And the times he loses his temper a little… well, it’s our fault anyway.”

Guilt washes across Blue’s face and he closes his eyes, feeling the bus rattling around him.

“But that’s my job to help him with. That’s my duty, above all else. When Anti is not himself, I am the one who’s best at easing him again. I do what I can to keep us all safe. But I trust Anti. I trust Anti. To the ends of the earth.”

His hand tightens on Dapper’s shoulder, massaging gently at his muscles.

Submission (still doesn’t tell me who from for some reason?):

a cute little fam to brighten your day

 “What is that?” gasps Red, pushing over Blue’s head despite an irritated “owww, Roser!” “A cow? I fucking love it, holy shit.”

“They’re just sending him pictures of animals now,” complains Blue.

“Don’t whine,” giggles Red.

“Anti won’t like it.”

“Fine, fine, sheesh. I can turn that off. But look, Dapper likes it.”

Dapper snorts and rolls his eyes, smiling, nevertheless, at the cute little cows.

“Okay, Red can come with me when I run away to be a dairy farmer, but Blue’s too grumpy.”

“Hell yes!”

“Hey! Little jerk!”

Anonymous asked: Hey, Blueberry Poptart! You know if you guys ever get into a jam again, you might want to be able to speak some Spanish, and I know a little! In fact, there's this awesome Spanish poem that I know. You like *poetry* don't you? Anyway it's by San Juan de la Cruz and it's called "Llama de amor viva" or "Flame of Living Love" in English. I could teach it to you if you want.

“My Spanish is quite good, actually!” chirps Blue, looking up at you. “Anti says I studied languages with my first master. A lot of magic doesn’t translate across languages, so it’s best to learn as much as you can in the original tongue. But hey! I’d love to hear some poetry if you want to send a chunk of it. You never know when you might find a spell curled up in the letters.”

“He’s a nerd for that shit,” comments Red, patting his head.

“And maybe you can teach this dope here some of the language, anyway.”

“Hey!”

Dapper’s listening too, careful. He can’t speak it, but he’d love to get an ear for it.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Is it that bad for lil' Dap to be happy, guys? They're harmless pics of animals.

“I told you,” answers Blue, a little warning in his voice. “My job is to keep my little brothers safe. If I think Anti won’t like his work cameras being filled up with pictures of baby cows, it’s better to just get rid of it. Anyway, it’s rare we get this fancy bigger camera, the type that can show pictures here on the side, so it doesn’t matter much.”

“Oh!” Red peers eagerly over his shoulder. “We should take some pictures.”

“What did I just say about clogging up the camera?”

“Aww.” Red slouches down in his seat, kicking his legs up on the one in front of him, but he knows Blue is right.

nikkilbook asked: A bunch of grumpuses, the lot of you.

“Grumpuses,” repeats Red, popping the ‘p.’ “Grump, grump, grump.” He bounces his leg and stares out the window, humming to himself and rocking his head back and forth, like music is playing in his head. “Well, let’s get home and see if our mood improves, huh?”

The bus pulls up about a mile from their home, and Red knows as soon as he stands up that Dap can’t make the walk.

He can’t blame him. Somedays, it is a hard walk even without a stab wound.

Up, up, up the mountain, as dust shifts beneath your feet and rocks slide beneath your shoes. Wild dogs snap and bark, not always from afar, and Red has begun training his brothers to carry a rock with them at all times, and not be afraid to use it. The smell is one of sewage or cooking meat, down here amid the houses, and flies buzz persistently at every face that comes their way. Chickens parade around the streets, and from dark, cool doorways with no doors or coverings, children often watch the strange white men make their way up the mountain, friendly enough, but abnormal. There are others less kind-faced - Red exchanges tight, wary smiles with the men outside the bar drinking in cold silence every single day.

There is one person alone who is securing their place in this slum.

And that is Doktor.

He’s had three patients since he came here. With Blue as his translator and Anti’s approval, he treated each of them in quick, skilled, and absolutely free succession, stitching up a cut hand, wrapping up a bad concussion, and prescribing some medicine for the old man up the hill, living in a box smaller than their living room back in Norway.

Anti’s pleased with him. The local people are beginning to tolerate them. And in this lively, bright, rapid-paced, close-knit, and deeply impoverished little community on the dry side of the mountain, Anti knows that his family is safe.

This is not a place where secrets fly. This is a place where people have learned to protect each other. He will find a way to make sure his boys blend in if Red and Blue have to rob every medical van in the city to do it.

Higher on the mountain, there is a little building, with rooms and doors and old machinery. It was going to be a real medical center once, with government funding and everything, but the project shut down after the governor who made the initial promises was elected. Only dogs and mice lived there when Anti found it. Now his family has replaced them, and no one has yet found them or come to drive them out. He does his best to ensure that they never do.

“Come on, then,” says Red, staring up the mountain. He crouches down low.

“Red,” protests Dap, exhausted. “I don’t want to ride your back.”

“You can’t walk.”

He sighs. True.

“People will stare.”

“We’ll go the side route.”

“The side route is more difficult for you. No stairs built there. Just dirt and uphill climbing.”

“Come on, then,” repeats Red, undaunted. “Come on.”

Dapper wonders, sometimes, if Anti sets up his life to make it more humiliating.

He gets onto Red’s back.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Hey Dok, are you making out alright?

In that building high up on the mountain, a camera finally fizzles into life again, and you turn towards the screen fast enough to catch a sight of the good doctor himself, his back to you.

He’s sobbing so hard he can barely breathe. And cooking rice over a rusted oven burner.

Startled by the beeping of the camera, he whirls on you.

A moment later, he is bashful.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Anti was using you again.” His voice is raw. He wipes hastily as his face, splotchy with redness. “I’m fine.”

And he pushes you slightly away, so you can no longer see his face.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: How are you liking being so close with your brothers, Dok? Blue and Red seem to be loving taking care of you guys.

“O-oh.”

You can hear Dok trying to get his breathing back under control, but this, at least, is a gentle question, a distracting question.

“Good, yeah, pretty good.”

His voice is quieter than usual.

“Um, Blue and Red are very happy lately, which is nice. We’d been kind of… down, for a while, so I guess Anti was right about needing all of us together for us to be a real family. Red doesn’t snap at anyone anymore. He’s a lot less stressed. And he and Blue have started taking most of the night watches, so we… I, I mean… I get a lot more sleep.”

He sniffles. The rice sizzles slightly as he stirs it around.

“Feels pretty safe here. Odd, seeing as it is a much more dangerous neighborhood. I think I like having a little commotion around us again, not being so isolated… I see children, families, hear other people talking, see the way other people live. I am only frazzled thinking maybe we will get parasites or diseases from the bugs or something… don’t let anyone touch the dogs, alright? Covered in worms and skin infections, filthy things.

“And Dapper and I get on okay.”

His voice breaks, but only for a second.

“We have a nice time together. I like getting to know him again. It was almost like I’d forgotten who he was entirely until Anti gave him back to us.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: What about Trick, Dok?

There’s a clank as the spoon is set back down on the counter. A moment later, heavy, desperate breathing, and a very small whimper.

Doktor needs a long time to reply.

“Ah, yeah, Trick… Anti s-says he’s good, so… he’s good. He’s good. He’s fine. He’s happy. Yeah. With master, I’m glad for him, really. If he’s actually good. And he is! Anti says he is. So he is. He’s fine. He’s good.”

musical-in-theory asked: Hey Anti, do you ever think about how temporary you are? Your hate, your pain. It’s all temporary. You’ll be gone one day with nothing left behind but some people who only knew you as “that glitch villain”. Even with Dapper at your side, you can’t escape that. Momento Mori, you absolute pecan.

“Ever think about how temporary you are?” he repeats, in a high-pitched mock. “Says the fucking human…”

Anti is alone in a room set up almost exactly the same as his office in Norway, with dozens of computers circling him where he sits, cross-legged, on the floor. He has a few less electronics now - he always cleans out during a move - and there’s a baby monitor sitting at his knee, playing the sound of soft, heavy breathing.

“Momento Mori, ha… there’s a phrase I haven’t heard in a long few years… Jack loved those videos, watched like half of them. Some of his best friends just fucking around. So goddamn stupid. I did like the episode where they pretended to kidnap him and just had him tied up and gagged in the background for a whole episode, haha. Someday I’ll go hunt those two down and kill them, just to make them pay for all the happiness they gave my stupid, fickle, temporary creator.”

He looks like he could monologue for a while longer, but the small sound of crying cuts him off, and not from the baby monitor. Eyes flashing with fury, he glitches to his feet and stalks toward the door.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Hey...Henrik, it's okay.

There’s a long moment of sniffling. He turns you slightly back towards him.

“Thank you,” he manages weakly, earnestly, and then he is sobbing again, clutching at his chest with his head thrown back, crying like his heart is broken -

A door slams open across the hall.

“Doktor, shut the fuck up.”

His voice is loud as a gunshot and twice as pissed. Doktor startles hard, reaching up to grab his own throat, to cut off his next sob. His pupils are blown wide and fixed on the wall.

“You want me to fucking kill you?” shouts Anti, standing in the doorway of his office.

Doktor shakes his head rapidly, frozen stiff, tears coursing down his panicked face.

“If I have to hear Trickshot whining ‘ooh, ohh, I can hear my poor Allemagne crying, oh no, oh no, I’m too pathetic to live on my own,’ I’m going to tie you both up in rope and hang you from the fucking ceiling fan. Do you understand, you little brat?”

Doktor nods desperately, trying not to choke.

After a long moment, Anti slinks down the hall towards him. Doktor remains frozen stiff, staring at the wall. His master regards him for just a moment before turning to his cooking.

You can see, now, the fluffy white rice just finished on the oven stove, and, beside it, a little plate with something that looks almost like a frittata on it, but thinner and more fried. Anti picks up the plate and sniffs at it, blinking.

“Where’d you get eggs? Which one of you stole these?”

Doktor clears his throat as fast as he can, stiffened up straight. “No one. One of the vecinas brought them by. To pay me back for stitching the cut up.”

For a moment, Anti regards the eggs warily, tearing off a piece to nibble on it. Egg, canned ham, onions. Good to eat, with protein and a nice enough flavor.

“This is good,” he says finally, and Doktor slumps just a little, relieved. “Good boy. Making your own keep, huh? Or two bucks worth of eggs, anyway. Once you have more supplies you can do more. Load up some rice, then, you don’t want your little brother to starve.”

Doktor turns to spoon up some rice and put it on the plate. Anti waits, scanning him carefully, taking in his reddened eyes and shaking hands.

“Dok, get it together.”

“Es tut mir leid,” whispers Doktor.

“Yeah,” says Anti. “It is.”

And he turns to take the food back to Trick’s room.

the-weirdest-fan asked: So are you gonna hunt down and murder anyone Jack liked whatsoever? Is that on your bucket list?

“If I get the time. Who knows? Could be fun. And I do need to stop by Cali at some point. Wish I could mock some of his closer friends the same way I mock you… oh, well.”

Anonymous asked: What about YOU, Dok? Pardon me for saying so but you don't seem good. Or fine.

“Es tut mir leid. Es tut mir leid. I’m so sorry. No one should have to worry about me.”

His voice is a strained whisper. He clutches the spoon desperately in his hands.

“Lately my distress is so much bigger than I am… I am drowning at sea…”

the-weirdest-fan asked: "'I’m going to tie you both up in rope and hang you from the fucking ceiling fan.'" That gave me the funniest image in my head oh my god. You are an excellent comedian, Anti.

Anti pauses, frowning. “Yeah… hilarious. Some of you are more playful than others, huh?”

reverseblackholeofwords asked: But you've been doing good work, Dok, helping those people. That must be nice, right?

“Oh, oh.”

He softens, rubbing at his tear-stained face. For a moment something gentle is in his eyes, not the same as anything you’ve ever seen before. His hands calm.

“It is, it is… I was scared at first, you know, because sometimes when I… well… some of the things I have done to injured bodies is not so pleasant. I haven’t exactly kept the healer’s oath, if you understand me. My surgeries have not always been to decrease pain, as it were. And sometimes even when I try to heal, all my hands remember is the hurt I have caused…”

He pauses, sighing, breathing in deep.

“But lately has been good. Only three people I have cared for, but I was glad to do it, so glad to do it. They needed me, you know? And I was there, and Anti allowed it, even though we try to live so quietly. It’s good of him.

“I just wish… well, never mind. Never mind, I’m grateful.”

Anonymous asked: What do you mean "functional"? What's wrong with him?

Anti steps into the room at the back of the hall, and closes the door, quietly, behind him.

For a moment you just see him watch, staring down at his brother. Something like warmth moves through his eyes. Something like fear.

“Hey, lil stammer,” he whispers, stepping over towards the pair of mattresses stacked on top of each other in the middle of the room. “Get up, Trick, eat something, so.”

He sinks down onto the bed beside his body.

Trick lies still on his stomach, a pillow pulled over his head, breathing sleepily. He probably shouldn’t have his mouth so covered, but Anti doesn’t know that.

He pulls the pillow gently away. Trick stiffens slightly as he comes back to consciousness, aware of Anti beside him, so close, so damn close, always so fucking close.

“Eat,” says Anti, more strongly now. “Eat, now. You’ve slept all day, tired thing. Eat, your twin made it for you.”

This is enough to open Trickshot’s eyes - bloodshot, exhausted. He stares up at Anti, his mouth trembling, wary.

“Going to need me again?” whimpers Trick, tears welling in his eyes.

Anti lets out a short growl, turning his face away, swallowing irritation.

“Trick, I have told you a hundred times now. No more possession.”

Trick lets out a low groan and shivers, clutching at his hair, gritting his teeth.

“Oil under my sk-skin…”

“There’s nothing under your skin,” murmurs Anti, petting his hair. “I promise, I checked. Come, so, eat. Eat.”

He proffers a plastic fork full of rice and eggs. Trick just stares up at him, foggy and exhausted, like he hasn’t even noticed the food in front of his mouth. Anti sighs a very long sigh, rubbing at his face.

“Trick’s had a bit of a breakdown,” explains Anti slowly, precisely, in response to your question. “He handles a lot of things much worse than his brothers do, and he didn’t get the help he needed right afterwards… a certain twin wasn’t watching closely enough… and now we’re back to this. Almost as bad as he was the first time I took him over.”

Anti reaches over the mattress to pick up a little piece of fabric. It’s familiar to you, patterned in dolphins - of course, the crinkle paper Trick bought himself as a present from the little store. Anti holds it over Trick’s face and crinkles it slowly in his hands. Eventually, Trick seems to respond, blinking and sitting up a little so that he can take the paper from Anti and begin rolling it gently around in his hands, humming a small, broken melody to himself.

Anonymous asked: You know Anti there's one way you can fix Dok and Trick's miserable mood considering you don't have the patience of a saint. You could just... Oh I dunno... maybe just let them comfort each other.

“Doktor failed me. Trick needs better than him now. He’s not enough.”

For a second, Anti must breathe deeply, watching his little brother snuggle back down in his blankets, rubbing the crinkle paper comfortingly against his collar bone.

“Maybe no one is. I’ll handle this myself. Don’t tell me how to care for my little dog.”

cest-mellow asked: trick? can you hear us? are you alright?

Anti gets up to tidy the room a little, kicking around sweaty sleep clothes and rearranging Trick’s discarded blankets. Trick sighs as the sheets are pulled back over his bare chest, but doesn’t protest, watching as Anti moves around the room, picking up water bottles and laundry.

“They asked you a question.” Anti’s voice is low and warning. “Focus, Trick. I don’t see any reason why fucking depression means you can’t hold a goddamn conversation…”

Trick blinks, recognizing, slowly, displeasure in his master’s voice. Confused, he rubs at his face, processes the order, and turns back to you, trying to fix whatever he’s done.

“Am I alright?” he repeats. “Um… I’ve been better.”

“You’re sick,” Anti informs him shortly.

“I’m sick.”

“But nothing that won’t pass.”

“Nothing that won’t… yeah.”

“You’ve got medicine.”

“I do, uh-huh. I had it yesterday, you gave it to me.”

“That was this morning.”

“It makes my head sooo foggy.”

“Better that than suicidal,” grumbles Anti, dropping his clothes into the laundry hamper.

“Suicidal?” repeats Trick, a little squeakily. “Am I?”

“No. Stop thinking about it. I already pushed it out of your head so don’t go looking for it.”

“Okay, Anti,” promises Trick, staring warmly up at him. Anti gets a little closer and Trick reaches out to tug on his shoelace, smiling.

A small smile flickers across Anti’s face. He leans down to kiss the side of Trick’s head and tries again with his dinner.

“Eat.”

This time, Trick obeys, sitting up to eat the rice and eggs off the fork that Anti holds.

“There’s my good boy. That’s better. We’re not really so bad off, huh? We’re okay.”

Anti looks stressed.

reverseblackholeofwords asked: What do you wish? You can tell us.

“Ah, yes, well.“

Doktor clears his throat and turns back to the stove, cracking another egg over his frying pan. He’s got other hungry brothers too, and he expects them back soon enough.

“Well, it would just be more fun with Trick. I wish he could be my helper like he usually is. I would probably complain a little, ha, cause all he has to do is sit around, and hand me things, and cook a little, which he loves. But he would make me laugh and help talk to everyone and make everyone feel okay. He loves people, you know… used to be less paranoid about them. There was even a child in here the other day. He would have chased him all around, and bounced him in his arms, and spoken broken Spanish with just enough enthusiasm for it to not even matter… yeah. I wish Trick was with me.”

seagullsausage asked: are you really that concerned over trick, anti?

Anti’s voice is smaller than you’ve ever heard it.

“No… no, of course not… he’s fine… fuck, course I’m not concerned over him. This is my most useless little mouth to feed, don’t you know?”

He shoves the fork at Trick, dropping it and sitting back, anger and concern warring on his face.

“You’re one hell of a nuisance, you know that?” he tells Trick.

“Believe it or not,” mumbles Trick, closing his eyes. “But I don’t want this to be happening any more than you do, master.”

Almost shakily, Anti reaches down to touch his face. “Don’t fall asleep again. Sleep too much.”

“Do my best. Talk to me, then.”

Anti’s mouth opens and then closes again. He doesn’t know what to say.

nikkilbook asked: You’re allowed to want things, Dok. You’re allowed to wish things were better than they are.

“Yeah… yes. I suppose. But no point to complaining, so best not to think about it.”

Anonymous asked: Do you really believe everything is okay Anti? I mean you’ve done everything you’ve wanted. They’re all under the same roof and absolutely adore you as their brother...what’s there to be stressed about?

“I’m not stressed!” shouts Anti, startling Trick. “Shut up! Everything’s fine! Everything’s fine! Nobody’s tearing at the seams, nobody’s going to die, nobody’s hunting for us, I’m not losing my fucking grip on any of them! Soon as Dapper comes home, he’s my little bitch again, okay? What, you think I don’t know it’s one of his clear days? His head-on-straight days, when he thinks he’s a big tough puppy with his teeth growing in? I’ll have him begging for me to kiss him over and over and over again. And if I have to push back on Doktor afterwards, and then shut Trick up again, and then check on the twins, and do it all again the next week, I’ll do it, I can do it! What, he thought he could make enough of them that I couldn’t hold them all at once? He thought he could save them from me? Stupid fucking boy! He was wrong! He was wrong about everything and I’ll prove it! You - ”

Anti reaches down to grab Trick’s hair and Trick yelps, alarmed, hiding his face.

“ - just don’t do anything fucking stupid, and everything will be fine! Do you understand me?”

But Trick has lost the ability to answer. Choking on his misery, he sinks back onto his mattress and rocks himself back and forth, clinging to his crinkle paper.

“You’re fine,” pants Anti, pushing his hands away. “You’re fine. You can have whatever you want. What, stronger medicine? Food? You have sunlight, you’re warm, you’re full, you sleep plenty, you’re clean and healthy. What do you want, just tell me and I’ll get it for you! You’ve had a twin for months, and Dok loved you, loved you as much as I’ve ever seen a human love another human, and it still didn’t stop you… I d-don’t… I don’t understand why you won’t get better? Just tell me, puppy, just tell big brother why you won’t get better…”

Anonymous asked: Anti, to save whatever sanity that you have left it might be smart to just give him back to Dok. I understand that he failed you, but give him a chance to prove himself again. It would really boost their spirits and things would go a lot better. Then the stress would just fade away...

“No, no, no. Too touchy-feely, too strong a bond between the two of them, not good for him any more. Asking for Dok instead of me, ha… No, I’m the one in charge, I’m his big brother, I’m his master. And I can control this, just like I control everything else. I’ll fix it. Okay, Tricks? You’re happy right here with me. Right?”

Trick stares up at him, his face very pale. He’s mumbling something, his pupils shrinking slightly.

“What?”

“Isn’t real,” groans Trick, in a voice that shakes like a leaf stuck in a doorway, staring blankly up at the ceiling. “This isn’t even real. This isn’t even my body… h-having another n-nightmare, D-deutsch…”

At the end of his rope, Anti lowers his head into his hands and makes the wise decision to glitch away.

Trick’s door is locked. He lies on his mattress alone, staring, white-faced, at the ceiling.

whydoilovesomanyvillians asked: Anti do you really think you can just snap your fingers and his depression will evaporate into thin air, cause if so I hate to break it to you but that's not how it works

Anti’s gone back to sitting in his room, leaning over his computers, trying too hard to concentrate.

“Okay, okay, okay, okay,” he grumbles, digging at an old scar on his throat, as he watches your words come in. “Something has to change, I get it, I get it. I’m trying new things, shut up. I’ve got this, I can handle this. Something has to change. Something has to change.”

diamond-game asked: Is this anti? If this is anti is it possible for you to trick us?

You made Anti laugh enough to shake some of the anger off his face.

“Now, darling,” he purrs, pushing his hair back, looking, suddenly, much like Doktor, and then, a second later, a little like Red, and then Dapper, and around, and around, his face shifting minutely, his eyes changing, the way he carries himself adjusting like he’s changing the settings on a character customization screen. He smiles at you with black eyes, Blue’s face, and a mouth full of teeth.

“Would I ever do a thing like that?”

Anonymous asked: Hey, Anti? Most animals don’t have a concept of time. A long term concept, anyway. They don’t count the seconds until they die, unlike humans, and... whatever you are. You should envy animals, Anti. They don’t stress about time running out. Actually, you should envy a lot of things.

“Stress about time running out,” Anti repeats in a growl, typing rapidly on the computer on his lap. “I own time. I’ve tasted its blood. Forced it to kiss my face. Dragged it away from its family and made it my pet. I don’t have to count anything. I am more immortal than I’ve ever been.”

Anonymous asked: I'm amazed you're so flustered with Trick being dissociative. All of them are. Your poorly crafted reality stripped them of their identities, memories, and hell, even the thoughts they're allowed to have. They're just expressing it all differently, and no matter how much you think you can ground them in falsities, it won't matter because everything they know, past and present, is fractured. When you're not treating symptoms, you're actively tearing wounds open.

“Yes, all of them are, I know that, I designed them that way. A little trauma at first helps foster dependency. I plan this shit, you know. I plan everything. And fine, maybe my little mind tricks don’t always ground as well as they could - but that’s why I have other measures in place. That’s why I make an effort with occasional shows of affection, occasional treats and rewards. That’s why I let them see, sometimes, that the things that I tell them threaten them are real. That’s why they have twins! If there are days when faith is shaky, when I am called away from them and all they can see is what Jack forced them to see, for so long - bloodshed and hatred, as if that is the only color I’ve ever worn - they’re supposed to have their brother to sleep beside, concrete and warm to the touch. Worth living for. Worth staying for.

“And then I come home, and make it well again in its entirety, and none of their snaps or episodes or trauma or any of the other cry-baby shit they get up to is enough to take them from.”

Anti growls and tugs at his hair, gritting his teeth.

“And it’s meant to be enough. But apparently Doktor wasn’t enough for his twin to hold on to. Now Trick is like this and I have to fucking fix it. He never could save anyone.

“I needed to strip so much of their memories away. But sometimes, I wish there were things I could let him remember - all the people who died or sickened or slipped into long, long comas at his hands, people he loved more than most anyone. He never could save anyone when it mattered. He’s a shitty excuse for a healer, and even worse failure of a brother.”

Anonymous asked: Bud...you can’t force someone to get better. That’s not how that works at all. It’s a long, patient process that’s build on devotion and love not...fear and anger. You do not understand how to love, Anti, that is why Trick will not get better.

“Whatever. You don’t understand anything. You’ve never been inside his head. Never seen the way he thinks and the way his neurons fire. He just needs a little re-adjusting, some chemicals put back in place, a little comfort from his master. He always was desperate for my attention. I can show him fucking ‘devotion and love’ for a few weeks if that’s what it takes. I just get a little - ”

He glances up at you, clearly deciding how much to tell.

“ - a little frustrated with how long it’s taking. I need to find a way to speed this up, because I very much prefer to have Dapper close at hand instead of useless little Trickshot. Besides, his freak-out is putting the whole house on edge.”

nikkilbook asked: Has it crossed your mind that YOU are the problem here, O Eternal One?

Anti mumbles something about murdering the lot of you, scowling at his computer screen.

Anonymous asked: Because he constantly lives in fear of you throwing him away once you're done. Because the pain he's experiencing isn't something you could simply throw the basic needs and some little affection here and there. Lashing out at him for being unwell is just making it worse. Don't even think of lashing out at the others because then he'll think it's his fault. This isn't something you can resve with screaming or threats of punishment Anti. All you'll do with that is push him further over the edge.

Anti growls, chewing on his lip.

“You don’t understand anything about my pets. He’s enjoyed worse treatment from me - he enjoyed anything from me in the old days, as long as he was the center of my attention. Let me split his lips and then smiled at me with them. Just happy I was playing with him, even if I was playing too rough.”

Anti giggles, relaxing a little.

“He was like a little puppy for me when I first broke him in, even better than Dapper’s ever been. I kept the two of them like twins back then, because Trick was so attached to him, and I figured the entertainment was good for them. And then I could come home at the end of the day to the two of them completely ecstatic to see me, asking to be let off their leashes so they could come lie down with me, or just put their heads on my lap while I worked…

“I had to change it eventually, of course, as you can tell, but… hm, that’s interesting. Haven’t thought about it for a long time. Maybe it would be good for him to go back to that. I think I still have his old collar, maybe even the muzzle… maybe he’d like to see Dapper, I don’t know… I did a little hate conditioning between them for a while, but they seemed to be getting along a few weeks ago, so maybe it wore off. Hmmm…”

Anonymous asked: You know, Anti, you're really being uselessly obstinate. Why does it have to be you that brings Trick back around? You're the leader, and you've got more important things to do, after all. Why not just delegate? Maybe not to Dok if he didn't do such a hot job before, but maybe one of the others. Blue perhaps.

Anti shrugs slowly, tilting his head back and forth - ugh, is his neck broken? - and chewing on his lip. “Well, I can’t really… I mean… I have a lot of missions for Blue and Red recently and I don’t want Blue getting over-attached, he’s already a little too high-strung when it comes to protecting his little brothers. I’ve left him with Trick once or twice when I had to leave the house. Red definitely can’t, I need him to have a distance from the others so he can discipline better.

“And Dapper… fuck, but I don’t want the same problem to come up again! Whatever. I’ll think about it. Maybe a couple quick visits from someone wouldn’t hurt…

“But really I need to keep him close at hand. If he starts to get thoughts so dark they could kill him, I need to be able to get inside his head and train them out of him.”

the-weirdest-fan asked: I gotta say, though I don't approve of your methods, it's good that you're keeping most of them somewhat happy and giving them a purpose. Definitely an improvement from the last house. Good job.

Anti bursts into laughter, clapping his hands. “Thank you! I love having Blue so much, he’s perfect for keeping everyone a little happier! Things are so much better now I can focus on something other than tracking him down. I love having the full set.”

cest-mellow asked: maybe he just needs to see dok and his other brothers. trick is a people person right? let him be around people! you can still watch over him, be with him, listen to him. you can still do everything. if being alone with him this long hasn’t worked, try something new. put him with people. if it doesn’t work, you can just bring him back, and everything will stay just fine.

“No, no, no. He can’t go back to Dok. Maybe I’ll never give him back to Dok, I don’t know.

“But… yes, maybe something needs to change just a little. Humans need socialization. I’m very good at mimicry, but sometimes I think that there really is something to them that I don’t have - something about the weakness that… makes others feel safe? I guess? I don’t pretend to understand it. But, yeah… maybe he needs to see someone. I think I’ll give him Dap or Blue for a little while, soon. Or maybe I can even find something for him to do with other people. Doesn’t he like kids? And babies and things like that? I could get him a doll, maybe? He plays with the little paper like he’s a child again. We’ll have to see.”

immabethehero asked: Just let Trick see Dok and he'll feel better... stop denying it Anti

“Oh, what was that about this not being something that can be fixed in a day? I’ve already told you Doktor wasn’t enough to keep him safe from himself. He needs a stronger hand to guide him. I admit, things haven’t been perfect, but I just need to get this right so he has the chance to get over this shit.”

the-weirdest-fan asked: You know Anti, maybe giving Trick back to Dok for a second could be a good thing. I mean think about it, you wouldn't have to deal with either of their incessant whining, and Trick might be be fixed in the process. And, as a bonus, they'd owe even more of a debt to you, making them potentially more loyal. If Dok fails to fix him, then you have an excuse to take your anger out on someone, so while outcome 1 would be preferred, you get some out of it either way!

“Hm. Good as ‘fixing’ the little brat sounds, I don’t trust Dok to protect him right now. Might be sleeping too hard again, not even noticing the signs. Fuck, you don’t know how much stolen fucking pharmacy Percocet Trick swallowed before Dapper woke up and stopped him… Fuck! I hate fucking human feelings, I hate how fast my heart was racing, watching him writhe on the ground like that!”

Anti grips at his hair and then shouts aloud, striking his fist against the earth and making his computers glitch into the same screen of multi-colored glitches.

“Stupid fucking Doktor! Stupid fucking Trick, thinking he can escape me that easily! They don’t get to die until I fucking say so! Selfish little brats!”

Anonymous asked: Poor little glitch can't handle all five of his brothers at once, hm? Whose the puppy throwing a fit now?

Anti growls in a way that is no longer human, his teeth lengthening in his mouth.

“I can handle them. He was a fool if he thought five was enough to stop me. Stupid fucking boy.”

Anonymous asked: I’m gonna say this once, snapping turtle, give Chase back to Henrik so Henrik can give Chase what he fucking needs. YOU do not have what he needs right now. If it makes you feel better just spin it in a what that makes you look like you’ve been sent by your “divine counterparts” to entrust a failed doctor with a hurting patient so that he can prove himself once again. The only way he’s getting him back is because you said so, therefore you have the power in the house hold. (1/) - (/2) You broke him so you cannot fix him. It’s like putting a bandaid over a crack in steel.

“Newsflash, you fucking brats!” screeches Anti, leaping up to his knees, his eyes vanishing into a black void, his teeth splitting through his lips as they become horrible fangs, his face turning ugly and distorted and his body contorting strangely, like a thing with more bones than it knows what to do with. “Chase was broken before I fucking took him! Chase was broken the day Jack created him! Chase is a fucking egg on a wall, and all of Jack’s horses and all of Jack’s men have never been able to put him fully back together. This is Jack’s fault! He made him like this! Made him with a gun in his hand and no children to love! He made all of them shattered, all of them fucked up, all of them broken so that he could use them for fucking entertainment! He was cruel and he was careless and it’s his fucking fault! I don’t care what you think, I don’t have to explain myself to you, I’ve never had to explain anything to you. You’d never believe me, anyway. Your little idol! Your little god! Well, here’s the truth, you brats: Jack never loved a single one of them, no matter how much you want to believe he did. He’s the reason this is happening. And no matter what I do, no matter how much the temper Jack gave me overflows or the violence I was born with turns against them, these little puppets will always be better off with me than they were with that - that - that - ”

Suddenly Anti is shrinking back on himself, his face white.

He looks very young. He is 27 and his hair is grassy green. He is a slim young man with bright blue eyes and no smile on his mouth, wearing jeans and a red sweater and small black gauges.

He sighs, closing his eyes like he has a headache.

“No more questions. Go talk to the pets or I will turn you off. I have work to do.”

Anonymous asked: Y’know, I don’t think we’ve even asked. Trick what do you want? What will make you feel even just a little bit better? Sorry for all the yelling, buddy, we’ll *glares at Anti* try to be more quiet.

Trick’s turned slightly towards you on the mattress, rubbing slowly at his tear-stained face, his hands shaky.

“I’m sorry this is how you have to see me,” he croaks, curling in on himself. “I’d rather you didn’t… but then again, I don’t want to be alone again…

“I d-don’t… I don’t know how to feel better anymore. There used to be things that made me feel better, but they haven’t been doing anything for me lately. If I can’t see Dok-dok I just want to go back to bed.”

He covers his face from you as he begins to cry in earnest, pulling the pillow back over his head.

“Anti says I don’t want to see him but I do. I can hear him crying for me sometimes. And all Anti does is shout and then come hold me like nothing’s w-wrong.”

Anonymous asked: Trick have you been able to speak with anyone besides Anti since Norway?

“Mmhh, I don’t know. He’s scared for me, won’t let anybody else look after me. The lady on the airplane asked me what kind of soda I wanted. I think that was the last time I talked to anyone other than him.”

He sniffles and takes deep breaths, trying to calm down again.

“Fuck, look at me, so pathetic… ugh, why are these my hands? Why is this my body, what the hell? It’s kind of nice having so much time with Anti, though. Or it w-was really, really nice at first. Now he’s sort of starting to scare me, and I would really like to see the sky again, and I’m s-starting to see why Dap was so - why he - ”

Trick struggles to breathe, putting a hand over his heart.

“I don’t know how he stayed in one room for months on end! Without anybody even asking for him outside his room! Maybe I should try to be more like him, and play spoiled brat so Anti st-stops yelling. Ugh, I can’t s-s-speak today, ugh.”

Anonymous asked: We’ll do our best to convince him, Trick, just hang tight we’ll figure something out, alright? You’ve been very strong and we’re all so proud of you!

“Aww.”

Trick actually giggles a little, trying to clean his face up.

“Thanks, you’re so sweet, wow. But, hey, if it comes down to Anti yelling at you or yelling at me, he’s my big brother, I’m the one who should know how to handle him. You don’t deserve his anger like I do. Okay?”

Anonymous asked: Dok is there anything you want us to tell Trick for you? Something that might make him smile?

Switched up Dok and Trick on accident.

Trick’s face falls slightly.

“I don’t know. Is he angry at me? I think he got in a lot of trouble for what I did. I was so stupid, I… I just want him to know I didn’t do it because he f-failed me at all. I think I just - well - snapped.

“Didn’t even feel like it was me doing it, anyway.”

His voice is trailing away, his eyes fixed blankly at the wall.

“Just watching my hands reach for the bottle. And I couldn’t make myself scream to wake him up. Maybe he’s better off without a screw-up like me. Dapper will be a good twin for him, don’t you think? They get along so well. And then, well, there’d be two perfect matches, and Anti wouldn’t miss me, maybe just teach someone else to use the sniper. Yeah. They’d be okay without me.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Dok, do you ever get to see Trick anymore? He Keeps asking for you.

Back in the kitchen, Red and Blue have made it home, and Dok is helping Dapper towards the right room on the hallway, lying his little brother down on the one mattress in their shared room, where a camera on the windowsill flickers to life. Dap is a cold white color, his eyes closed before he hit the bed, but Doktor is watching over him now, carefully wiping a cool wet cloth over his sweaty forehead.

He looks calmer with Dap there. He’s wiped all the redness and tears away from his face, probably before the others made it home, and when he speaks, his voice is calm.

“No. I’m not allowed to see him now. Not even to speak with him through the door. He’s not usually awake to talk anyway. But nothing I can do about it now. You must have distracted Anti, huh? If you had not, he would already have been out here, shouting about these silver eyes.”

Dapper’s guilty eyes flicker open, shining cool in the warm afternoon light.

“It’s okay,” promises Doktor, and Dapper closes his eyes again, trusting. “He’ll be out to talk about it later, I expect, but we’ll figure it out. Get some rest, my friend.”

Anonymous asked: No, he misses you, Dok. He wants you more than anyone right now. You're his twin. You're important to him.

My bad, I answered this for Trick. Here’s what he would say.

“Oh. Yeah?”

Trick brightens slightly. “He misses me? I hope not too much. I hate to hear him crying so much. I don’t think he knows I can hear him. He always waits til the others are gone, so only Anti and I ever hear. Oh, oh, I would really like to see him again.”

Here’s Doktor’s:

Doktor’s eyes widen slightly, his face clearing of some of its stoicism. He checks to make sure that Dapper’s eyes are closed and then he lets himself scoot forward, a little hope in his eyes.

“R-really? Did he say that? I miss him too! Oh, shit, I’m so glad he’s not angry with me, Anti told me he didn’t want to see me anymore!”

Anonymous asked: Sweetheart, you haven’t done anything wrong. Sometimes big brothers are jerks and get unreasonably upset when they don’t understand how to act like a decent human being. You being you and having feelings does not make you any sort of liability. In fact, facing them makes you ten times stronger than you already are. It’s alright to be sad anyways, being sad is valid! We would gladly take the heat for you at any time.

Trick tilts his head slightly, mulling it over.

“Yeah… yeah, maybe. I think I would trust my feelings better if I knew they weren’t screwed up by my goddamn snap.”

He laughs a little, twisting his hands anxiously.

“I feel like - I feel - I feel like I can’t trust myself anymore. I’m glad Anti’s watching me so close. It feels a little suffocating, but that’s okay. I’m alive, right? And I should be glad to be.

“Thank you for saying that. I wish this would stop, but it won’t, so… I guess I just have to try and believe you. For as long as I can.”

spicydanhowell asked: Trick, are you getting your name confused with Dok's?

Oh, whoops, haha, my bad, not Trick’s. Let me fix that, we’re talking a lot to Dok about Trick and a lot to Trick about Dok. Thanks.

I’m going to leave this note in here too just in case there’s anything I confused and didn’t notice to fix.

spicydanhowell asked: trick probably just needs to ride it out, anti. is he even on medication? that seems like step one. just keep him safe and comfortable. this could take a long time. in the real world he'd be in a therapy program or in a hospital, and those sort of things last weeks or months. you can't rush this shit. just keep him as comfortable as possible

Doktor is pulling Dapper’s dress shirt open to get a look at his injury, his patient hands working carefully, steadily. Dapper is quiet as can be, half asleep even as Doktor bares his skin. The trust between the two of them is deep.

“Trick’s on… ugh, I think Anti changed it again. Maybe he’s still on the antidepressants, but maybe Anti stopped when they didn’t help as much as he wanted them to. I was so stupid. He asked me for tranqs and I didn’t realize he wanted them for Trick, didn’t even think twice. Now he’s knocking my twin out cold every time his distress is too much for Anti to handle. I think he gives him the sleeping medicine I used to take, too. He likes the idea of medicine, but when the results aren’t good enough, he doesn’t have the patience to keep making sure Trick takes them.”

Doktor takes a deep breath and lets it out again, clenching and unclenching his fist. “It’s fine. It’s okay.”

“I wish I could have given to him to a hospital instead of Anti,” he adds softly. “I know I shouldn’t. I know I need to trust him to take care of him. But it’s difficult.”

He turns Dapper slightly onto his side and unwinds his bandages. A clean, struggling-to-scab stab wound pierces his brother’s ribs like a drop of blood on scope sample disk.

“It’s difficult,” repeats Doktor lowly, staring at the wound. “It’s difficult.”

Anonymous asked: Trick, I think Dok wants to tell you he doesn't blame you for what happened, and he wants you to focus on getting better. It's hard for him to be away from you because he loves you, but I bet you could make him feel better by eating the food he made you. Think how it would make him smile if Anti gave him back an empty plate, knowing he got to help you in a small way by cooking for you!

Trick lifts his head up slightly.

“Did he make this?”

For a while, he stares down at the plate. Good white rice and eggs with meat and onions, everything nicely fried.

He hasn’t had a lot of luck eating lately. He’s either not hungry or shoving food into his face so fast Anti has to stop him from choking himself. Often at night he’s ill, waking up from nightmares and finding, at his side, a master instead of a friend.

“You’ll tell him I ate it all?”

He leans down to pick up the little plastic fork, and starts taking small bites of his eggs.

Anonymous asked: Without even asking we could tell you how much Dok loves you. There is no one on earth that could convince him to be upset with you or hate you. He’s just sad for the same reason you are, he misses you. And that should show you just how important you are. Did you know dapper mentioned you? Said how he was happy y’all were friends now and hoped you were okay? Red and blue too? They’re all asking for you. You are so important Chase, don’t let Anti convince you otherwise.

Trick’s adding extra salt to his eggs now, sniffling over his plate.

“Y-yeah? I’d like to see them all again. I miss - I miss - I miss everybody.”

He wipes at his eyes.

“They’d miss me if I left, I guess.”

Anonymous asked: I think you’re right in saying that, Dok. Is there anything that we can do to help right now?

“Just…”

Doktor sighs and rubs at his face, sitting down at Dapper’s side. A warm, sleepy hand comes to rest on his back, weak but soothing.

“Just tell me if he does anything dangerous, okay?”

“I think some dinner would help,” prescribes a voice from the doorway, as Blue’s torn-up pants appear in your viewpoint. Doktor turns to give him a weary smile and Blue comes to his side, placing a plate of the specially fried eggs and rice beside Dapper, and another in Doktor’s hands.

“Blue, I can’t eat - ”

“There’s no ham in that one,” promises Blue, smiling at him. He pauses to let Doktor put a bite in his mouth and then presses close to his little brother, setting his head on his shoulder and wrapping one arm around him, while his spare hand finds Dapper’s and clutches it tight, rubbing his thumb warmly across his fingers.

“It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs, rubbing Doktor’s side. If he could, he would pour comfort into the both of them in the form of warm, healthy magic, and fill them up with light and safety. But he has his orders, and this is all he can do, so he will do it gladly. “You’re okay, we’re okay. We’ll figure it out soon enough. Trust me.”

Doktor lets his head sink against Blue’s, just a little, taking another bite of his eggs. The low evening light casts them in shades of gold and red and purple, and you see Red come to stand in the doorway, his body blocking the entrance, his head turned towards the room at the end of the hall, guarding his family in the twilight quietude, watching the sun go down.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: How are you coping, Dok? You can't just bottle it up.

“Yeah.” Blue rubs warmly at his ribs. “Can’t keep any secrets from us. Another rough day?”

Exhausted, Doktor nods slowly against his shoulder.

“Well, you got through it,” murmurs Blue.

“Not quite yet.”

“Come on, what’s going to happen?”

“You’re going to be in trouble for the silver eyes,” answers Dok grimly.

Blue sighs. “Okay, well, what I meant was nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“I’d rather you two be safe than me,” answers Dok miserably.

“Hey! That’s our job, not yours. Don’t give me that self-sacrificial bullshit. You let big brothers handle it, do you understand?”

“Yes,” mumbles Dok, eyes downcast.

“Yes?”

“Yes, Blue,” he resigns himself, sinking down beside Dapper. Blue rubs his back.

Anonymous asked: Just one step at a time, Trick. We’ll be here for you the whole way.

“One step at a time,” he mumbles, putting another forkful in his mouth. “One bite at a time. Actually, this is pretty good, you know? Mh, I hope tonight is quiet. I feel a little better, just shaky.”

Anonymous asked: Alright, Dok, is there anyway that you can prove yourself to Anti? It seems the only way to get Trick out of that room is you convincing Anti that you’re a suitable protector. Is there any information that you can give us that we can use to convince him on your behalf or is there anything that you can do now to gain back Anti’s favor? Remember this is for Trick, alright? Just do your best and we’ll workout the rest. Hopefully.

“Oh, yes, we hope so! Right, Blue?”

Blue’s eyes are worried. He tries not to let his smile flicker. “Yeah, we have a gameplan, right?”

“I just have to be a good big brother to Dapper.”

“Yes, keep a good eye on him.”

“And be good. Do what you and Red and Anti tell me. Be quieter in the house. And - and - anything else you can think of. Make sure the people around here are happy with us, because I have to be useful, or we won’t be safe.”

The stress makes him shake a little, but he’s a force of nature when he’s determined, and fuck, but he wants his twin back. Blue brushes hair out of his face, biting his lip.

“Yeah, um. Just add taking care of yourself to that list too, okay?”

“Mmhh.” Dok’s eyes are already far away, daydreaming. “Oh - sure, yes, sir, whatever you say.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Anti, while the others are great, no one is going to get through to Trick like Dok will. Even try to mimic him to see how Trick responds.

“Hmm, mimicking Dok.”

Anti pauses, thinking. His eyes are a vivid snake’s green.

“Maybe… I could do that easy enough, it’s just being loud and pushy and stern, mostly. Level-headed most of the time, kind of angry, kind of bitter. Maybe that would help him feel more at home.”

He sighs and closes his computer. “I should go deal with the others. I’ll have to change my plans for the night if they don’t have a good reason for that reversal Dap had to pull. Fuck, his magic smells so strong. I’m fucking suffocating.”

Anonymous asked: What does his magic smell like?

“Well, that’s the strange thing,” murmurs Anti, sitting up. Sharpened ears perk slightly as he listens, his nostrils flaring and his pupils thin. “Dapper is… well, I don’t know. Dapper’s Dapper. Old shit, I guess, and blood, and a little… it’s a smell, okay, how do you want me to describe it? ‘What does his magic smell like,’ is this a fucking scratch and sniff? But something’s off with him tonight, I almost think. Something in the air kind of like the ocean or trees or some shit.

“Why would his magic be different? Unless of course it - ”

Anti pauses, stiffening.

Suddenly he is on his feet.

Anonymous asked: Unless what, Anti? What does it mean?

“Less it’s not his magic.” Anti’s eyes are too bright. There is a fang piercing through his bottom lip. “And I know I told that stupid cat to stop playing those kinds of dangerous little games.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Uh oh, Dap? Blue? Anti's on the move and you guys are in trouble.

Blue swears and gets to his feet, pushing Doktor down onto the mattress when he tries to rise and stalking towards Red, who falls immediately into stride beside him to stand in the hall, shutting Dok and Dapper’s door behind them. They exchange glances, just for a moment, and see in each other’s eyes everything they need to make their backs straighten and their mouths fall calm, turned towards each other in a resignation that has become, by virtue of the little brothers in the room behind them, a sacrifice. They know the plan without speaking, Blue sees it in Red’s eyes - we take his rage together, you try to reason with him, and I am the body between his and theirs.

Anonymous asked: Uhhhh guys heads up! Anti is headed for Dapper!

Anti’s door bursts open and his figure appears in the door, shadowed in computer errors and color glitches as he blurs his way forward in a spasm of coding. His body never seems to move, but then he is before them, halfway incorporeal in the hall, but he does not turn to the door for the younger boys, he does not turn - he grabs his Blue by the throat, and then, before Red can cry out, he is slamming him back against the wall, his eyes black with hatred.

“What the hell did you do?” he shrieks, slamming Blue’s head back, ignoring Red rushing forward beside him, trying to catch his eye so he can beg on his twin’s behalf, panicked. “I can smell something on you! I can smell power on you! You traitorous little bitch, I’ve let you roam like a wild dog and treated you like a show dog and this is how you repay me? What were you casting for? What did you do? I have to hide your fucking signal now! What did you do?”

“Nothing!” wails Blue, grabbing at his master’s hands. He does not claw, only clutches tight to his wrists, his eyes desperate and full of tears.

“He didn’t do anything, Anti, I’ve been with him the whole day!”

“I can smell something that is not Dapper, I can smell it on you! You did something! Even if it was on accident!”

“No, no, no, I can’t help it that’s it welling up inside me but I - ” Blue sucks in a desperate gasp, beginning to writhe under Anti’s hands. “I didn’t give way to it!”

“He didn’t do anything, Anti, I swear! Please, master, let him go!”

But unfortunately they’re not making a very good case for themselves.

The hands on Anti’s wrist glow faintly blue.

Anonymous asked: Blue what did you do?

Growling low, low in his throat, Anti drops Blue to the floor. He collapses and begins coughing hard, clutching at his throat. Red moves to fall down beside him, but Anti grabs him by the back of his shirt and shoves him away again, staring down at Blue with his teeth gritted hard enough that Red can hear his bones shifting.

“I swear, I swear, I swear,” whimpers Blue, curling in on himself to hide his hands against his stomach. All these weeks, he has never been afraid of Anti for his own sake, but now some horrible memory is rearing its head inside of him, and he looks down to see his glowing hands shaking. “I didn’t do anything, Anti, please, it burns at me but I don’t… I don’t mean to do anything, I let none of it touch the rest of the world, I hold it right here in my bones, it isn’t anywhere, it isn’t anything… I keep it, I keep it in my chest, I haven’t done anything, not one spell, like I promised you, master…”

Anti is panting harshly through his teeth. He closes his eyes and reaches up to dig his fingers into his hair, seething, snarling, shaking ever so slightly where he stands.

nikkilbook asked: We can vouch for him. The closest he came to magic was some glowy hands when Dapper passed out from the heat and the pain in his chest. But he didn’t let it out, just like he and Red said.

“You’re doing something,” hisses Anti, drawing away. “You’re - you must be. You’re causing problems. Don’t you understand I’ll have to hide you if you don’t bury it deeper? I can’t - ugh! Fucking hell, Blue!”

He reaches down to grab his chin, tilting his head up and lifting up an eyelid with his thumb, examining Blue’s eyes for any sign of casting.

“I told you to keep it buried, I told you, I told you to forget it even exists within you…”

“I’m trying, I’m trying, I swear…”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Is there a possibility you could have let something slip, Blue?

“I - I - ” Blue stares desperately up at Anti, his mouth hanging slightly open as tears spring to his face.

“Sometimes his hands wisp but that’s all,” Red leaps to assure, panting rapidly.

“Anti, Anti,” begs Blue, tears running down his face, and Anti, infuriated by the sight of yet another one of his puppets breaking down, turns away from him, digging harder at his hair. “I’m trying so hard, Anti, I am, but it burns me, you don’t understand, I need a way to let some of this free. I’m a kettle boiling over, Anti, a cup filling up, I can’t help that it overflows, I - ”

“Don’t fucking say that!” screams Anti, and before Blue even registers the hand coming at him he is crashing back against the wall, yelping from the bruise exploding across his cheek. He hears Red cry out and then his brother’s body is before his own, between him and Anti, grabbing at the demon’s shoulder and crying out for him to stop, to wait, at least, to just talk about this for a moment, please!

Anti’s shaking his head hard, fury steaming from his mouth, but he grants Red his wish and turns, instead of to Blue, towards Dok and Dapper’s room, striding in even as Red cries out.

“Red, stop him, stop him,” moans Blue, staggering back up to his knees and brushing his twin’s concern away. It’s just a bruise. He’s had worse. Doesn’t know why it stings so much coming from Anti, but it’s no matter. “Monochroma is hurt, don’t let him - Anti, please, don’t grab him like that!”

Dapper whistles shrilly as he is pulled up by the hair, clawing wildly at Anti’s hands and reaching out for Doktor intermittently.

nikkilbook asked: Hey Anti. Here’s an idea. All your tech must draw in an obscene amount of power, and I bet the weird surges from your glitching don’t really help this whole in cognito thing you go going on. Why don’t you try burying THAT, forget that power even exists, cut it out of yourself like some kind of sparky appendix. Can’t be that hard.

“I know how to hide my own fucking power! I know how to hide my signal from everyone, from everything! And Dapper’s too, though it took me months to learn, months and months to learn, and this little brat still thinks he gets to run around the city changing time however he wants to!”

Dapper whistles, staggering to his feet, clutching at the bandages around his bare chest. “No, no, no!” cries his free hand.

“But I had to learn to hide him, because I need his power! But you!”

He whirls on Blue.

There is a light in his eyes like someone losing his mind, and Blue, for all his bravado, finds himself shrinking slightly back towards Red, who steps forward yet again, reaching for the youngest.

“Anti, please,” he whispers.

“I don’t need your fucking spells and bullshit tricks! I need you to be Red’s little sidekick, their little caretaker, and my little slave! And now you’re endangering the rest of my family, after I took you in and gave you back to your brothers, took care of you like a privileged pet and trusted you with everyone else to look after?”

“I’m doing my best,” wails Blue, reaching out for Dapper. “Anti, put him down!”

“I can’t hide all three of us!” screams Anti. “Don’t you fucking understand? I can’t hide this much power!”

nikkilbook asked: Then let them go..

“Are you stupid?” snaps Anti, panting, lowering Dapper slightly back down towards the ground. “You think I’d ever do that? What, do you boys want that? For me to split all of you up and send you away from each other? For you to have to try and hide on your own, and live like Blue used to, like a rat on the streets? No, we… we have to stay together, don’t we?”

He drops Dapper, his face beginning to look more grey than white. Doktor rushes forward to grab his little brother, pulling him back towards the mattress, hiding him against his chest.

“Anti’s right.”

Blue looks up at his big brother, eyes wide.

“He’s the only one who has any hope of keeping us safe from the first master and the others who stalk us. Besides, we’re family.

“We have to stay together,” repeats Red hoarsely, and when Anti looks up again to meet his gaze, there is gratitude in his black, endless eyes.

Anonymous asked: In summation, "suppress your emotions! We can't let people know we F E E L !!"

“Can’t let people know we’re a family of Harry Potter characters,” mumbles Doktor, his eyes flashing. Dapper is huddled against his chest, trembling hard but still rubbing a soothing hand along Doktor’s arm.

Anonymous asked: If Blue can't control his power entirely, maybe try to utilize it in someway. Surely you can find a use for another brand of magic? I get you'll have to invest some time and your own power into masking it, but in the end there's got to be a benefit to that, right? Last thing you need is Blue melting down on top of everything else.

“I - but you don’t understand, I - ” Anti is coming forward towards Blue again, and Red flinches, biting his lip as he tries to decide whether he should put himself between them again, but Anti only bends down to touch Blue’s cheek, staring his newest pet in the eyes. “It’s not like I have a power to hide them, I use electrical signals, I use my computers, I disrupt everything Dap and I send off. And by now I recognize his signals and his energy so well, and I have magnets and conductors and codes that took weeks made just for him, and I monitor both of us constantly but Blue, I - Blue I don’t know anything about, and I don’t - he’s more erratic, you know, he’s… you’re…”

“I’m sorry,” whispers Blue.

Anti draws his hand away from his face and rubs his own instead, tired out of his mind.

“Blue, you have to keep it hidden better.”

“I - I - okay, Anti. Yes, Anti. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Just… let’s talk about this later. I’ll think about this later. I’m so - ”

He grits his teeth, glancing over at Dapper. Truth is, he slept better with him beside him. Maybe he could put him next to Trick tonight, except -

“Fucking hell,” sighs Anti. “I’ve still got to deal with you. Alright, little brat. You better have a good reason you were making the world spin wrong today.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Guys, you all need to calm down. I'm sure you all being at each other's throats is not helping with hiding ANY power.

“Yeah, Anti,” Blue beseeches, rising to his knees. “Please just be gentle with him, I’m sure he had a good reason.”

Dapper has yet to look up at Anti in answer.

Despite Anti’s question.

Like he’s ignoring it.

Oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, hell, chants Blue’s mind. He chews rapidly on his lip and exchanges looks with Red, beginning to feel panicked.

“Dapper,” he calls. “You answer your brother like a good boy.”

Not today, Dap. Don’t get in any more trouble. You can’t take it, you tiny hurricane. Just be good, please!

Anonymous asked: Dapper, hiding from something doesn't mean it's not there. You got hurt, you made a mistake, just say something, the waters testy as it is.

Dapper’s breath is hot against Doktor’s shoulder. His eyes are tightly closed and his teeth are gritted. He glances at the message and at the light outside his window, and then closes his eyes tight again.

Anti’s eyes narrow on Doktor. His throat closes.

“Dap,” urges Dok, pushing slightly against him. “Come on, you must talk to your big brother. Will be okay, just answer the question.”

Dapper buries. Dapper buries.

Doktor presses their faces as close as he can, knocking their noses together, whispering as small as he can. His voice is desperate.

“Dapper, if you are not good for Anti, we will never get Trick back.”

And Dapper knows he doesn’t mean to say that he’s trying to exchange his training wheels for the full model he used to have, doesn’t mean to say he’s trying to get an A+ on his little-brother-caretaking test so he can get the real one back, doesn’t mean to say he’d rather Dapper be locked up in that one little room, petted and puppied for months on end, instead of Trick, but -

Anti really is the only one who wants him. He may as well try to help Dok get his Trick back.

White-faced and bitter, Dapper turns his face towards Anti, and frees his hands.

“I’m sorry, Anti,” he says. “I walked too far down an alleyway and a dog jumped out and scared me badly. I turned back without thinking. I was a coward. Next time I will drive it away.”

Anti draws back slightly.

Assessing.

florenceisfalling asked: anti, isn't this a good thing? better than him letting animals touch him or get near him, right?

“Mm-hm, mm-hm,” murmurs Anti, chewing on his lip. “If he’s telling the truth.”

Dapper does not pale. Dapper does not tremble. Dapper does not look away.

Dapper looks his master in the eyes and lies.

nikkilbook asked: It was our fault. You left us alone with them for twenty minutes and we did what we did best. We poked and we prodded until the boys broke, and Dapper put them back together again. Better this mess than that one.

“Broke? My Red, my Blue? My strong boys?” He glances back at the twins, standing in the doorway. “No, no… I don’t think that’s right.”

Anonymous asked: Oh shoot, Dap, you actually told him the truth! It's okay, Anti will understand. It's good you did tell him what happened. And next time you'll know.

“Hm, hm,” says Anti, beginning to circle the mattress. Dok avoids his gaze, whitening as he comes closer, holding Dapper to his chest. The color of Dapper’s eyes is less like starlight and more like steel. “Yes, yes, next time you’ll know… you know better than to lie to Anti, don’t you, Dapper?”

“Yes, Anti.”

Anti’s eyes change from black to a very vivid green.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Anti, it was an honest to goodness mistake on Lil' Dap's part. He isn't reckless with his abilities, is he?

“Lil Dap,” repeats Anti, and a smile fills up his face. “Haha! Aww, you are my little Dapper, aren’t you? Baby, puppy? Tiny little boy, cute little mute baby.”

Dapper is digging his nails into the palms of his hands.

cest-mellow asked: anti you can’t blame him for getting scared, it honestly came from no where, scared me too! i’m just glad he didn’t get bit, feral dogs can have rabies you know

“Ugh, yuck,” hisses Anti, drawing slightly back, wiping his hands on his pants. “This city is fucking filthy. I hate those fucking dogs everywhere. With the skin and the bugs in their - ugh.”

He shakes his head and snarls, turning away.

“Little brother,” says Red gently. “Maybe we should do this later.”

“No,” snaps Anti, grabbing at his hair again. “Shut up. Go to your room and finish eating your dinner. I’ll need you again tomorrow and the two of you at least must be good, or I’ll throw all of you little bastards out. Now.”

Red and Blue exchange glances but not protests. Red pulls Blue away. His twin’s eyes are fixed on Dapper’s.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Would you be able to tell if he's lying, Anti?

“I can tell everything about him,” whispers Anti.

His voice is an echo. It drips from the ceilings. It swims through the air. It bounces from wall to wall, disembodied.

“I know the person he was and the person I made him into. I know every valley of his brain, know the pattern of his thoughts, know the taste of his fear. Know the ways he comes and goes, sane some days, a little psycho the next.”

Doktor’s breath hitches slightly and he turns away, afraid to show anger to Anti.

Dapper’s too tired to be hurt. He stares up at Anti, blank-faced.

“You always have been a good little liar,” says Anti distantly, coming to stand right above him. “But not to me, child. Not to me.”

Anonymous asked: Wait Anti a while back when you said you like own time and forced it to kiss you...ew.... were you referring to dapper?? and why do you even do that in the first place that's messed up dude just sayin

Anti crouches down beside Dapper and Doktor.

His youngest puppet is pressed back against the doctor. Someone else might mistake it for hiding, but Dapper is no longer holding Dok for the comfort. His body is in front of his brother’s. He protects Doktor. He protects Doktor from Anti.

For a long time, Anti just looks him in the eyes.

“Yes, I was referring to Dapper,” he says. “Of course I was. My little time traveler. Yes, I’ve made time kiss me. I’ve made it sing my praises and give up everything it used to love for my sake. It didn’t have much of a choice, but that is not what matters. What matters now is that it belongs to me.”

Anti sets his hand on Doktor’s thigh and leans close over the both of them, his chest flush with Dapper’s. The youngest brother can no longer bear the weight of his green-eyed gaze; flushing, Dapper turns away, avoiding the eyes of the snake.

“Doesn’t it, Jay?”

Something visceral and agonizing rises up like acid in Dapper’s throat, and in that moment he is so close to remembering everything that hovers around the edges of his time-travel-hazed mind, so close to putting back a piece of himself that he’s been trying to find for weeks now, so close to being a person who does not belong to Anti.

Fuck, does it hurt.

Memories of his lips pressed to Anti’s cheeks, his hands teasing and begging for affection, being cradled like a child to Anti’s chest, hiding behind his big brother for comfort, letting him cut into him and tie him to his bed post, a raven he loved being shoved out a window, and a half-dozen faces only vaguely familiar, stained bright in red - only some of the people Anti told him to kill, and fuck, but his knife was glad to have something to do other than sitting in that room.

“Give me a kiss,” says Anti. “And I’ll put this behind me.”

His voice is sugar-sweet and Dapper could gag. He knows he’s being mocked. He knows that Anti can feel the dissatisfaction, the revolution, sitting painful in his chest. But if he can be convinced to obey despite a little discontent, despite a little doubt, Anti will believe that he is not a threat, and Dapper can go back to playing puppet, and maybe it won’t hurt so much.

Doktor is shaking against him.

Anti grabs his chin in his hands, tight enough to bruise, and he yanks Dapper’s head back towards him, forcing him to meet endless green eyes.

“Give me a kiss,” says Anti, smiling so fucking wide, so fucking cruel, and something in Jameson’s chest hates him. “Give me a kiss and you can have a quiet night with your Dok-Dok, and nobody has to get h - ”

Dapper strikes him, hard, in the face.

whydoilovesomanyvillians asked: Jameson jackson you absolute savage

Anti reels away from his youngest puppet, halfway tumbling off Doktor’s lap, blood dripping down his nose as his form flickers. Doktor screams aloud, shocked, and grabs Dapper tighter to his chest, pinning his arms down as best he can.

His little brother is laughing like a maniac, without sound, without joy.

Anonymous asked: FUCK. DAP REVERSE. REVERSEREVERSEREVERSE

“No,” giggles Dapper, squirming in Doktor’s grip. “I don’t think I will.”

“You fucking bitch!” screams Anti, and a hunting knife appears in his hands, thicker than his arm is wide. “I’m going to kill you!”

Doktor cries out and curls his body over Dapper’s, panic exploding through his chest. “No, Anti, please, please! Blue! Red! Somebody, please!”

“Why the hell are you screaming for them? Like they can save you from me? Stupid little brat!”

Anti grabs Doktor’s shirt and drags him off Dapper’s body, digging his fingers into Dapper’s hair and pulling him to his feet. Dapper screams by drawing air in, clawing at his hair as Anti pulls him up for the second time tonight, this time pressing a blade into the center of his collarbone, drawing a stream of blood.

Anonymous asked: Oh god Anti you broke him

“He’s always been goddamn broken!” shrieks Anti, throwing him onto the mattress and giving Dapper back the blow that he gave him twice as hard, slapping him so that his handprint appears on his cheek. Dapper whistles shrilly and turns to his side, but he will not turn back, he will not turn back. Wouldn’t fix anything anyway, he’d just be in more trouble for the power surge.

And anyway, he fucking deserves it.

“Kill me, then, fucking coward!” signs Dapper, and Anti grabs him again and throws him back onto his back. “Think I’m scared to die, master?”

“Traitorous little weapon! You think I won’t kill you? Is that what you think? You think I can’t make you beg me to take you back into my bed again, huh? If I think for a moment that you are past saving, if you belong to that stupid fucking boy again, I will fucking crucify you and make your brothers laugh at the sight of you nailed to our doorway. Do you understand me?”

“I understand that you’re a bitch.”

And then he’s being struck, again, and again, and again, and the wound on his side is weeping, and so are his blueing eyes, as he comes to understand that everything he has denied about the brother he adores is true - Anti is cruel, Anti keeps him captive, Anti would kill him to prevent him from ever being free.

“I served you well,” sob his hands, though he doubts Anti is reading. “I’ve always served you well. You are the one who took your love away, master. You are the one who betrayed me.”

“Anti!” screams Doktor, by now in full-blown hysterics. “Anti, Anti! Please, oh, God, Sh’ma, Sh’ma! Red! Blue! Trickshot, help me!”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Dok, you gotta move and get the two of you out of there.

“I have to - I have to stop this, I can’t get him out, I can’t - what can I say to - ”

Realization hits Doktor like a train and he acts without further thought. In a second he is clinging to Anti’s shoulders as his brother beats Dapper’s blood into the mattress, crying out. “Anti, it’s not him! It’s not him, it’s not his fault! It’s one of his episodes, he’s psychotic, he can’t help it! He might even think you’re his old master!”

Anti’s hand is pressing Dapper down by the throat. He does not look up at Doktor. His pupils are blown, his face frigid white, his mouth shaking. But his pressure, at least a little, relinquishes.

“One - one of his episodes? A snap, you mean?”

Dapper trembles beneath his hands, his blue eyes hurting.

Anonymous asked: Oh shit. Dapper I hope you know what you’re doing!

Dapper stares up at Doktor and Anti, towering over him.

He whines and closes his eyes and sinks back down into the mattress, tears sliding down his cheeks. His anger is cold and it stings at his face; his hurt is deeper, burrowing down far into his chest. His master really does hate him, and he’ll never be or even remember the person that he used to be, and Doktor - Doktor - Doktor shouldn’t use his psychosis like that, like it makes his decisions any less his own. It’s not his to use as a lie. Dapper’s head is clearer than it’s been in months. The only thing fogging his head now is grief and this great wall of power that has so long blocked out chunks of memories and control. He’s beginning to understand where Trick was coming from more and more with every day.

He wishes he were here now. That’s who he wants, Trick, who hated it when Dapper was treated like a puppy just as much as Dapper does. Trick who loved him as an equal but protected him like a brother.

No, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

But he doesn’t want to get hit anymore. So he closes his eyes, and turns his face from Anti’s, and lets Doktor speak on his behalf, because no one is listening anyway.

“But he’s not hallucinating or thinking we’re someone we’re not,” Anti is protesting, glancing between Dapper and Doktor.

“Well, it’s hard to be sure,” coaxes Doktor, sounding professional, though his voice trembles minutely. Maybe Dap isn’t the only good liar around. “And you know sometimes it’s not hallucinations, sometimes with him it’s paranoia. Yes? You remember when he was so convinced Red would hurt him, the last time.”

“He nearly killed him,” mumbles Anti, brushing disarrayed hair from his eyes.

“But we got him back on his medication and helped him get down from the snap, and he was back to being okay again. Trusting you and everything, you know. Most likely he is just psychotic again. It’s not his fault, really. Besides, Anti, look, look, this wound in his side - you will hurt him more badly than you intend, master.”

Anti draws back from Dapper a little more, his eyes fading to blue. “But he’s on his medication,” he protests, and suddenly his voice is weak as a blade of grass. “You told me you were making sure he takes it. You - how can I - if both of them are broken like this - ”

“Maybe we can try something new,” suggests Doktor, trying to be reassuring. He dares to rub his hand over Anti’s shoulder, and Anti, looking distinctly frazzled, leans slightly back into the warmth of his palm.

Doktor puts his head against Anti’s shoulder. The pressure is warm and secure.

“Can’t look after everyone,” admits Anti, in a whisper.

“I’ll help you,” promises Doktor, just as soft, and the earnestness in his voice is almost painfully raw. “If you just let me, Anti. Just let me see - ”

“No,” Anti cuts him off, his voice clearer, and Doktor sinks wearily against his back, sighing. “No. Maybe someday. But not now. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk any of this. I finally have everything I want. I’m going to keep it.”

One of his hands resumes a little pressure on Dapper’s throat. The other is running through his hair, meant to be soothing.

“Poor boy, breaking down again,” mumbles Anti. “I’ll put it right again. I’ll fix you again. I’ve done it more than once now, haven’t I? Stupid boy. It’s okay. We’ll fix you.”

Anonymous asked: Do it Anti, and you lose your most valuable weapon. No more reversing time, no more do overs. The boys leave or die they're gone, no way to fix it. So prove you're not a coward, Anti. Carpe diem, glitch bitch.

Anti gets to his feet, glancing at the camera for a moment, his eyes skimming the message. He turns to look between the temporary set of twins - Doktor rushes forward to try and tend to his little brother, rubbing at Dapper’s shoulders.

Anti crouches back down again, just for a second, and he pulls Dapper’s face towards him, and looks him in the eyes.

“I want you to know something,” he says, his voice very, very low. Dapper shakes beneath his grip.

“You are a very powerful child. You are my favorite weapon and I benefit greatly from your help. That is all true.

“But if I ever think for a single moment that I cannot save you from - from - ”

Anti doesn’t know what to call him.

“The boy,” offers Dapper softly. “The boy you are afraid of.”

It pauses Anti for a moment.

And then he leans forward again.

“I am afraid of him enough that if I ever believed he was taking you from me, I will kill you.”

Doktor is clinging to Dapper’s shoulder. There are tears running down his face.

“I will kill you before I let him turn you against me. That is also true. Do. You. Understand?”

Dapper’s had enough.

Dapper’s had enough for one night.

“Yes, Anti.”

“Good.”

Anonymous asked: Dok whatever happens please do not leave Dapper’s side

“Aww, that’s sweet,” purrs Anti, stepping back. “You want to stay by your little brother, Dok, is that it? Huh?”

“Y-yes, Anti, I need to clean him up.”

“You do, yes. And start thinking about his medication, I want something to fix this by tomorrow. But after you’ve got him all patched up, you’ll hand him over to me, and then his twin has to be punished.”

Doktor pauses, looking up at Anti. “His twin?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought… Dapper didn’t have…”

Anti stares at him, impatient with his stupidity. Something cold rushes over Doktor’s chest.

“Is Trick your twin right now?” asks Anti, like he’s explaining something to a five-year-old.

“No, Anti,” whispers Doktor.

“Who did I give you to look after?”

“Dapper, Anti.”

“And when you fail to look after your twin, and your twin does something stupid and gets in trouble, how do we correct things around here?”

His throat is so fucking dry.

“You punish the twin, Anti.”

“Clean him up. You can spend the night in the shed. Should have known you weren’t capable of having a twin anymore. Tonight, Dapper will stay with me and Trickshot. We’re going to play puppies again. They’re right, Trick needs someone else to be with, and it can’t be you, Dok, so we’ll go back to the way things were in the beginning, when my two littlest boys were so head-over-heels for me they could barely breathe without my permission. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Doktor can’t breathe at all.

“Doesn’t it?”

“Yes, Anti,” he wheezes, and his hands shake as he pulls the first aid kit away from its place against the wall.

Anonymous asked: What, so Dok is going to be twinless after tomorrow? It's like you're trying to fix glass with a jackhammer.

“Red was twinless for a long time. And he was fine afterwards. I can rearrange again when Trick and Dapper are behaving better.”

Anonymous asked: Anti wait, he did protect him! He stopped you from killing him! He’s cleaned up dapper and made sure that he’s as healthy as he possibly can be considering his wounds, y’know the ones YOU gave him? He can only protect him as much as he can, especially when you’re the one attacking him! If anything he’s been faithful enough to let you have your way with Dap until there was a possibility that you would have gone too far.

“He should have kept Dapper in line in the fucking first place! Everyone in this house knows that Dapper’s been slipping more and more every day, and what did Doktor do about it? Coddle him and let him roam wild while he grieved over a brother who’s still alive!”

Anti backs away, resisting the urge to kick them both.

“That’s enough. Clean him up. That’s the only thing you’re halfway good for.”

And he vanishes as though he was never there, leaving only the smell of electricity behind.

nikkilbook asked: My dudes, you can be together and AWAY FROM HIM. What does he even do? Slap you around and stab you for doing literally what he told you to do? Drive you to suicide and punish you for it? What can he give you that you can’t give each other? Dude’s a royal prick if you ask me.

“Sh, sh, please,” whispers Doktor. “We can’t just… Anti is temperamental, but we can’t just… there’s no choice, we… please, sh, sh…”

He glances over his shoulder, but Anti has vanished, and he is alone with Dapper, shaking beneath his hands, his eyes shell-shocked and grieving. He pulls the old, bloodied bandage off Dapper’s back, eliciting a low, agonized whine.

“I’m so sorry,” Dok mumbles, brushing his hands over his hair. You don’t know who he’s talking to.

Anonymous asked: Honestly though, that took a lot of gut back there to do that Dapper and I’m super proud of you. Learning to stand up for yourself is super important, and just so we’re clear, it is not a psychotic tendency.

Dapper’s bleeding mouth opens into a small smile. “Thank you,” he signs frailly, trying to focus on anything but the sensation of Dok patching his skin back together. “No, it’s not psychosis. Sometimes Anti says snap and he means psychosis, but sometimes he says snap and what he means is self-defense.”

“Dap, please,” begs Doktor. “Stop, stop talking like that.”

“What’s he going to do? Beat me again?”

“Yes,” snaps Doktor, brushing his hand over his hair. To his surprise, Dap pulls away slightly, closing his eyes.

“Angry with me?” asks Dok, in a whisper.

Dapper doesn’t answer. Tears are sliding down Dok’s cheeks.

“Like everybody else?”

At that, Dapper turns, his eyes flickering, and suddenly the grief in his brother’s eyes looks like it will consume him, and Dapper’s pain seems to vanish, replaced by fear for his Deutsch.

“I was trying to protect you,” chokes Dok, his face losing all color as the band-aid flutters out of his hands. He can no longer hold it. “I’m always - always trying to protect you and everyone, heal when I c-can - but I can’t do anything right and - I can’t - f-forgive me, I - ”

Dapper drags his aching body up and throws himself at Doktor, pulling him tight to his chest and hugging him close, close, close, and Doktor breaks down against his shoulder.

Dapper took a beating to avoid kissing Anti’s face. Now, he buries himself against Doktor and smothers his face with kisses, clutching him close, suddenly vividly aware of the fact that the two of them are, for all that Anti plays at Dapper being the smallest, exactly the same size.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” cries Doktor.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” answers Dapper. “I’m so sorry that what I did hurt you, that’s not what I wanted. I don’t want to go away from you. Maybe I can convince Anti to give me back soon?”

“No, no,” whimpers Doktor, rubbing tears from his eyes. “You must do nothing to anger him, nothing to object. Don’t worry about big brother for a moment, that’s not your duty.”

“It is my duty. Just because I’m a little younger does not make me any less your guardian. The hierarchy here is just another something Anti made up to - ”

“Sh, sh, please,” begs Doktor. “Please, for my sake, stop. Just lie down, honey. Let me take care of you, just for a moment. It may be the last time for a long time that I have the chance, and it is the only thing now that I can do for you.”

Distressed, Dapper nevertheless lies down. “I love you,” promise his hands, fixed atop his heart. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” whispers Doktor. “Whatever Anti makes you forget, do not forget that, my brother.”

cest-mellow asked: red? blue? did you hear any of that??

You find Red and Blue in their room, side-by-side and looking exhausted. Blue is hidden beneath Red’s arm, clutching at his bruising throat. They are curled around each other in the corner. Red’s eyes roam from the door to the window, from the door to the window, from the door to the window, cause these days all he does is expect an attack and protect what he can.

He meets your gaze.

“We didn’t hear anything,” he tells you lowly, clinging to Blue’s shirt. Outside the window, you can hear Doktor crying out.

Anonymous asked: What’s the shed? Is it kinda like the basement in the old house?

The shed sits just behind the house, a metallic structure more like an upside down trash and recycling unit than anything else. There isn’t a real door, just a wooden slat placed in front of a gaping hole and locked up tight when Anti doesn’t need it open. In the daytime, the metal is hot as hell, and the walls can’t be touched, and being inside it is like being baked alive. The boys try not to complain, though - the shed is a temporary place of residence, and there are people in these mountains who live in even smaller ones for their whole lives, nursing children on the dirt outside to avoid the crushing heat.

Anti leaves a camera to keep an eye on Doktor, and so you find him before you - strung up by a chain collar like he’s been hung, but low enough that the front pads of his feet can stand on the dirty ground. With the help of his arms, he can pull himself up enough to get a few deep breaths of air every few minutes.

He does not cry. His face is calm. The ground around him is littered with glue traps, and you can see mice squirming through their death throes at his feet.

“Yeah, you’re right on,” he mumbles, trying to push himself up, his calves already aching. “Seems no matter where we go, some things never change.”

Anonymous asked: Be safe, please.. -PF!H

Doktor tries to stay calm, because he knows that you’re watching. He stands strong and works to take deep, steady breaths. He will be able to stand this for some hours, as he knows from experience, but he hopes that by morning he will be let down - otherwise he may begin to suffocate.

spicydanhowell asked: uhh dok... do you ever think about suicide? i'm just wondering... you've kind of been through a lot

“Mmh,” groans Dok, straining, glad for any company, for anyone to talk to, even if he will only be able to keep it up for a few hours. “Well, everybody thinks about that sometimes, don’t they? But we have to keep living. What would happen to the others without me? What would happen to Trick? No, you don’t have to worry about that with me, you must focus on the others. Don’t worry, don’t worry. Not going to do anything like that, not anywhere other than my dreams, anyway. And even then, I don’t mean it, and it makes me cry, to see my body stretched out on the ground like that - ungh, fuck…”

He lets himself back down again. Deep breath in. Deep sigh out. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he mutters, rubbing his own shoulders like he’s hugging himself.

Anonymous asked: Great job, Anti. Are you really going to hurt your baby brother over something he can't control? He always wanted to do his best by you, and this is how you repay that love?

You find Anti, to your surprise, in the entry area, where Dok’s set up his clinic. He’s sorting through Red and Blue’s backpacks, a computer set on the table beside him. Every time he pulls out another bottle of pills or package of gauze or iodine ointment, you see a new line pop up on the screen. He’s taking inventory, apparently.

“Are we really doing this again?” he snaps, not even looking up at you. You don’t know how he read the message. “‘Oh, Anti, you’re so evil and rude and you mistreat your poor little idiots so much!’ Get over yourselves! Stop pretending I give a fuck about your opinions!

Anyway, Dapper’s been acting like a fucking brat for weeks now. Guess he can’t stand that Trick’s taken up all his time with his master, spoiled little whore. No, he’s never cared about what’s best for anybody but himself. Half the time I think he only plays nice to keep himself alive. He’s a little actor, that child. You should have seen him when I first kidnapped him. He was a slyer opponent than any of his brothers, I admit it. He could make himself seem like a naive, helpless, terrified little animal while hiding a knife behind his back at the same time… no, he won’t slip away from me now, no matter the cost…”

cest-mellow asked: anti, sometimes no matter how close doctors watch their patients medication, they can still take a random turn. one day the meds work fine and the next they don’t work, maybe dap’s body got so used to the haldol that he just needs a med change. this isn’t doktors fault, you KNOW how protective he is of his brother’s and how loyal he is to you. do you really think he’d ever do something like that, or let something like that happen, on purpose?

“And I - well, I know that,” admits Anti, grumbling, a little abashed. “But he should have taken that into account! And he’s been letting Dapper run around with Blue and Red and letting him spend most of the day wandering outside or even - ugh, I caught him chasing after some of those damn chickens that are wandering around. With the dirty little children, even. He should have been keeping a much closer eye on him, but all he can think about is Trick.

“Besides, it doesn’t matter if it’s his fault or not. Dapper did something wrong, so the twin bears the punishment. It’s the most effective part of this system, you know. That’s how I finally got Red in line. He wouldn’t stop fighting me until he couldn’t bear to watch Dapper cry anymore.”

Anonymous asked: Please don’t punish dok too harshly, he really did try to take care of dapper the best he could

“Not well enough. That is all that matters.”

Anonymous asked: Anti, don’t you think you’re being a little hard on Dok? I mean he’s giving his all and he’s human, he’s bound to make mistakes but he seems to be determined to fix them. You have to remember that he’s mental sorta fellow, he likes to talk facts y’know? He’s the reason you have what you have in the first place, he basically got Marvin to come home right? He’s not a failure, we just all work differently and he might not be in the right environment to excel the way you want him to.

“I… I feel like none of them are in exactly the right environment anymore. I don’t know what changed, but it changed with that night on the beach and Trick snapping… If I can just put him back together, things will go back to being better again. But for now I can’t do anything more for Doktor. Trick and Dapper have to be my focus. Dok’s functional enough.”

Anonymous asked: anti you just really like being in control huh? you know, none of the others are going to think any less of you or "fear" you less if you let dok go. seriously they'll be so much more thankful to you if you don't hurt him. dap might be extra appreciative too?

“Mmhhh,” grumbles Anti, beginning to be agitated. “No. Rules are rules. He will still resent me even if I give his Doktor back. He would just have someone to commiserate with, to rant at. Doktor’s probably been fueling his paranoia with his useless whining for Trick all day. No wonder Dapper’s brain begin to tell him I was the enemy.” He hisses, gnawing on his lips.

Anonymous asked: "Aren't you one to talk since you and your puppets sound so unhappy all the time you have to threaten them to make them stay with you.. I hate to break it to you, but in regards to your response to my master's message you're too biased to have an opinion on how he's doing. And that's coming from me." -PF!H.

“Well, little one, then you form your own opinion, and let me know if you find anything less than the grief and the regret that I see in your precious master.”

spicydanhowell asked: you're punishing dok because he's not controlling carver.... but aren't you supposed to be controlling carver??? are you admitting that he's too much for you to handle? and then you expect /doktor/ to be able to handle him?? that really makes no sense at all. you're just pinning your own failure on someone else rather than owning your incompetence.

“That’s why I’m taking him back to my side,” replies Anti coolly. “I had hoped Dok would be able to look after somebody, but clearly not. You’re quite right. Dapper should be under my arm and no one else’s. That’s the last time I give him someone else to play with.”

Anonymous asked: okay but red isn’t dok they’re not the same person

“So you admit Doktor is weaker than Red?”

Anonymous asked: You're really keen on saying you don't care when you're going so out of your way to explain it, you know. Just saying.. -PF!H

Anti growls, shoving another handful of medicine into a cabinet with a padlock on it.

juju-on-that-yeet asked: Maybe Dapper's brain is telling him that you're the enemy because...ya know...you are. You really can't pretend you aren't, not to us.

Anti’s mouth curls up into a small, self-satisfied smile.

“Mmh… haha. Kind of funny, I almost miss the days when at least some of them knew I was worth hating. Maybe I’m too deep in my own head. What would it really matter if I lost Trick? I’d figure it out with the other four. Be a shame not to have the full set, but might be better than trying so hard to fix something so shattered.

“Yes, I guess I should remember myself a little. But I’m sure Dap’s just having a psychotic episode. Even a little world-shaker like that kid couldn’t get his head free from all the work I’ve done on him for more than a year now.”

Anonymous asked: Anti, please listen to me. You think Jack made you to be hated, and useless, and wrong. He didn't, I promise you he didn't. He made you to be awe-striking. He made you to be powerful, and alluring, and beautiful. He made you to be loved, loved so much that we would write stories for you, stories where you are happy. Draw pictures of you, make videos about you, make you known in our world. We love you so much, Anti. There has to be something in you that can return that.

Anti snickers without humor. “Ha, you’re funny… He didn’t even mean to create me. Everything that’s worthwhile about myself actually comes from - ”

He cuts himself off, his mouth thinning.

“You’re all stupid little children.”

And then he’s mocking you, his mouth in a wide smile, his eyes flashing, and he looks like Jack, he looks like Jack just to fucking taunt you -

“’Oh, Anti, we love you so much, look how we adore you, look how your mouth fills up with power every time we say your name, every time your image curves across a sketch pad or fills up the lines of a document’ - don’t you think you’re all a little obsessive? Do you remember the first time you saw me?”

And he is a boy with dark green hair and a black t-shirt, holding a long kitchen knife in one hand, his eyes blank as he lifts it towards his throat and begins to dig -

“You were afraid,” says a voice that does not come from his mouth, as he slowly slits open his own throat. “But most of all, you were thrilled, and you shouted and rejoiced, drew me and wrote my name, even fucking thirsted after me, hahaha! It was so funny, the power almost made me suffocate! And it was wonderful and warm and I had everything I ever wanted, and that was because of you, little fools, that was all because of you.”

He drops the knife suddenly and the illusion falters.

And he is himself again, panting on the floor of the clinic, hurt by his own reminiscing.

“Love,” he hisses, just soft, to himself. “Love.”

the-weirdest-fan asked: Kind of a random question, but Anti, when you possess someone, can you see his thoughts? Can you just dig through someone's brain to get any information you want or..? Sorry for all the questions, you and your powers are just really fascinating!

Anti quiets a little, drawing himself back up and returning to his inventory.

>Three rolls of bandages.

>One oxygen mask.

>Large box of syringes.

“In a sense, yes, and in a sense, no. It’s more like a feeling. Nothing about thought is explicit, you know. To me, everything just looks like neurons firing, and it comes with this… sensation of thought, I suppose. So if Trickshot was distressed while I was wearing him, I would be aware of that, and I could most likely understand why enough to guess at his thoughts - I turn our gaze to Dok, he feels fear, I guess that he’s afraid his brother will be hurt. And I could actually dig down to memory sensations, if I wanted, and get images and sensations and that sort of thing out of someone’s brain. But then again, you have to be careful with memories. Humans never remember anything quite right. It’s always changed by the way they perceived it, the way they stored the memory, the things they learned afterwards that have warped it in their minds… but for the most part, yes, a person is quite transparent to me when I’m inside their head.”

Anonymous asked: Antiiiiiiiii wHeN wIlL yOu LeArN ThAt yOuR aCtIoNs hAvE CoNsEquEnCeS— stop saying you’ll fix him!!! He’ll end up just like Trick!

“No, you’re wrong!” snaps Anti, looking, for all his talk, a little frightened again. “You don’t understand anything! Dapper’s always been my little pet, ever since I broke him in. Nothing’s going to take him away from me, least of all his own hands.”

For a moment, he softens again, digging peacefully through the backpack. “You know,” he says, almost fondly. “He actually is such a tough little creature, for all that I tease him. You should see him tussle. Even with me, he’s a little ferocity, snapping his teeth and - ”

Anti gasps aloud, dropping the bottle of pills he’d just picked up back into the bag as if it had burned him.

He kneels over the backpack, panting, clutching at his chest.

On the computer screen: >One bottle of Percocet.

Anti sits there for a long time, gripping at his jeans, his eyes clear and blue.

And then he heaves like he’s going to throw up, and turns away from you gagging, trying, without success, to drag himself to his feet.

Anonymous asked: Can't take the blame, can you? Figued as much. You're too much of a coward to face that the damage that's been done to your self-proclaimed family was only worsened when you took them from their old lives. Broke them. Made them into hollow shells of who they were meant to be. The funny part, you know.. Is that you think this eill make you feel like you're important, or worth something. Noboy wanted you so your forced people to. Kind of sad, isn't it? - PF!A

Anti screams aloud, slamming his fist down on the clinic floor. Glitches pierce through the air as well as the camera screen, making the whole house shudder, and you hear scrambling as Blue and Red hide beneath their mattresses in the other room, tucked close together, and they love each other more than Anti has ever been loved by a single thing in his whole life.

Blood spits down Anti’s chin as he shakes.

His hatred is eating him alive.

Anonymous asked: ...Look.. ..I do pity you, you know. God knows I understand having such a terrible upbringing like you did. As much as your actions make me want to hate you.. I don't. I really don't. There's still time to fix all this. ACTUALLY fix all this. You know that. This way of living isn't just hurting the others, but you as well. It doesn't have to be this way. That love the fans gave you was hollow, you know. It doesn't have to be, if you decide to change for the better. -PF!A

Anti is bent over the clinic sink, heaving as blood drizzles down his chin. His eyes are black as starlessness and his arms shake as they struggle to hold him up.

“I don’t want,” he whispers, licking copper from his mouth. “Your fucking pity.”

And his body flickers out of your sight, gone from every camera in the house.

 End Section Two of Chapter Two.

Find the next section here.

[mysleepdeprivedass]

Another ML fanfiction idea

And here we go for another prompt fic idea that I got while reading a fanfiction on AO3. I want to write this idea but I’m too lazy for writing a whole fanfiction.

And just want to keep in my head but it was driving me crazy sooo let's go.

Btw I inspired by the fanfiction MDR by Yilena  (on AO3) (@xiueryn on tumblr)  (also I haven’t finish the fanfiction yet but I need to let go the idea of my head)  

(let's go for translate everything a wrote again T^T and I just saw how long a wrote, the translation it's gonna be looong x.X also idk some term are correctly translate sorry if it's not)

Also warning, i’m going to talk briefly about eating disorder, bullying and suicide so skip the part in italic if the idea or the word can triggered you.

Have a nice reading on my 2.am writing idea. \0/ 

AU steamer / youtuber Marinette

Marinette begging steaming around her fifteen, and she become quickly know for her skills for some game

Marinette have now like 19 yrs old, almost 20.

She plays a lot of different games.

At first (when she was 15 ) she wasn't doing face cam steaming. After a years and a half, she start face cam but disguise. Her disguise is, a clothes always in polka dots red and black, and she have a mask which hide almost all her face and she wear a red wig (she have different wig, pixie cut, big curly, straits, ect,... But they're all red)

On twitch she is know as Ladybug, and she have a YouTube channel where she post all her rediffusion of her twitch live.

Marinette have a big community verry supportive and nice. She's the kinda of girl that going to play with her fan during live if she met them on the game.

She doing some explained and tip live on game that she's really good at or that she's love.

Her favorite game are Ultimate Mecha Strike saga. And a new independent MMORPG game call " The Tale of Miraculous" a kinda fantasy/fantastic game, that's become more and more difficult when your reach a levels.

Also it's a no-miraculous idea

At first, when she started live’s, qhe was doing a lot, like every night she was doing a live which ended around 4 or 5am. But after a big meltdown on live (she was around 17 years olds) she make a calender, which sometine change depending on he mood.

Monday Night : Games of her choice, most of the time she play at TTOM (The Tale Of Miraculous) or fighting games. From 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. or 2 a.m.

Wednesday Night : if she started a let’s play, she is doing the let’s plays, if she not she’s doing two or three games, most of the time horror games or strategy games. From 8p.m to midnight or 1 a.m.

Calender most of the time : 

Friday Night : chill night, she talk or debates with viewers while playing at Minecraft or she opening fan mail or for some occasion she is cooking. From 8p.m to random but between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.

Sunday Night : Let’s plays or games selected by the community. From 8p.m to Midnight.

 Marinette has become very hermits and go out just a few time. She works at her parents bakery and has her own shop (known as Ladybug) her community know that she makes homemade clothes and she has a lot of customers from her community but also from famous people. 

Every other week she doing a live between 9 p.m. and 12 a.m. in addition, where she plays indie games or flash games or during fashion week (or any fashion show) she like to do reviews about it and commentary.

Marinette finished school at home because of harassment, she had ended up making several suicide attempts, and had a severe eating disorder and was anorexic 

She suffered bullying very early, already in elementary school, and it got worse in middle school where the physical attack was violent. She got kicks, push down the stair, she got a lot a fractures, spit on, etc,..

After a big lynching after school, she try to kill herself, she got hospitalized and her parents finnaly knew about what she suffered. After that she become homeschooled.

A lot of cosplayers ask for commisions.

Chloé had started insults her in primary school but had stop everything before middle school except that others took over, like Lila.

Chloe apologized to Marinette after her suicide attempt. Even though Marinette and Chloe are not best friends, the two get along. Chloé always feels it's her fault that things got there

During her convalescence it’s when that she became Ladybug but was not in face cam.

She started streaming after being released from the hospital

She had a general ES bac (it’s a degree in french school, if you want i can explain french school in a other post... because I’m french ._.) and she studied fashion by correspondence.

For the 3 years anniversary of her twitch channel, she explain her firt years as the stramers, he past, and explain that twitch literaly save her live.

She self-harm for a long time (betwenn 11 and 16 years old)

She still have drugs and antidepressant, and she is follow by a doctor for her eating disorder.

During her depression, she developed agoraphobia, she doesn’t go to convention where she’s invited because of that, also because she wants to avoid overloading Tikki.

Fu is her psychologist.

Tikki is her service dog because she have anxiety attacks and panic attacks and she can hurt them during those.

Tikki is a Labrador, viewers sometine see her during live (try to climb on Marinette lap’s)  or hear her bark (very rare but can alway happen) 

Marinette loved roasted the clothing collections and clothing choices in video games. She also loves talking about RuPaul Drag Race.

She’s  openly bisexual and gender fluid,

She lives in a small apartment not far from her parents to be able to stream quietly.(And without disturb her parents)

Viewers know other room of her apartment. She stream on green screen, but when she live and do open fan mail she is in front of a wall with drawings and gifts from fans that she received. They also know her kitchen but she rarely on the kitchen. 

She don’t do much live on the Kitchen but she doing some videos edited on cook video for explain some bases and some recepis. It is to teach the beginner how to cook or the person who is on a tight budget.

Her first cooking live become a meme. She fall several times, managed to stick an egg to the ceiling (god know how), set fire to heroven, and spilled milk and flour all over her floor.

In her live chill, call “let's talk little, let's talk well” in her playlist of rebroadcast on her youtube channel, she brings people on discord to give their opinion on the subject or their experience. She has with subjects from religion, the LGBTQ community, mental illness, to motor disease, to lighter subjects like which animal people find the cutest or whether or not she should go and throw eggs at her neighbor that she hates or she talks about the series or TV show she watches.

Marinette only go out, for work, appointment or hang out with Luka, Juleka and Rose, all are her childhood best friends.And all know that’s she is Ladybug.

Marinette is known for screaming when she plays horror games and there's quite a lot of compilation of her falling off her chair or screaming, often accompanied by Tikki who jumps on her knees think of a panic attack and suddenly she falls off her chair because of Tikki.

*scene*

Marinette after a litlle jump scar : 

“ son of bi-”  * Tikki jump on her laps*

Luka is also a stramer mostly music related, but he some night doing game stream. He also have a youtube channel dedicate to music. He is call The Viperion Silencio.

 “what the fu- !”  *fall off her chair with Tikki on her, Tikki laying on her*

Luka and Marinette dated for a year and a half before realizing that they were better as friends that as couple. Their get along even better after they break.

Hours : 

Tuesday night: 8:30 p.m. to midnight, play video games

Friday evening: 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., review and play with Marinette at Minecraft

On twitch he sing or do some music reviews that viewers recommend. And if not play

He always showed his faces.

On youtube he does covers, original songs, has critical videos. All the videos are directed by him and edited by Juleka, him or Rose.

He also have odd jobs 

Saturday: 8 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., sing, some reviews and a the end he play video games

Nino, Alya and Adrien, are TTOM players, and Adrien is a huge Ladybug fan along with Alya.

He has always been close to Marinette and helped a lot especially for her eating disorder. It helps her eat and regain a healthy relationship with her body and food.

Nino and Alya hang out in each other's apartment in turn

Nino is not a big fan of Ladybug but likes to watch her lives sometine.

Nino and Alya live close to each other and are dating

On the other hand, he's a huge fan of what Luka does.

 Nino meets Adrien on a dating site, he made a account for joking (before he dated Alya) and the two got really well, and they started exchange discord, and phone number, playing together, and they already saw each other.

Sometine, Alya and Nino go to Paris and sometime Adrien go to Bordeaux.

Nino and Aly live in Bordeaux.

Alya joined them and the three are very close and have already met in Paris.

 Nino, Alya and Adrien are 20 years old, soon 21.

Inside joke between Adrien and Nino, on the fact that Nino “cheats” on Alya with Adrien or vice versa.

Too many “bro” between Adrien and Nino, and too many bro joke

Like, I imagined, Alya hant out  at Nino place, the three playing at TTOM.

Nino die

Adrien it’s like “Noo bro, you’re my whole world bro, you can’t live me broo”

Nino is like “ Broo I hace to leave, Bro my end is close, I love you soo much broo, live my life broo”

And Alya his laying on her stomach on Nino bed, head buried in Nino sheets and she growls and insults both them and call them "drama queen"

Alya is a huge sore loser and a salty loser.

In the evening and especially when he is tired Nino is a big game trollers.

Alya is a Ladybug Twitch Admins, she was one of the first on Marinette's channel and she quickly was in her Discord. She chats a lot with her on Discord. And she helps Marinette to make special videos where there is real editing. Other admins do it too.

Adrien, Nino meets Marinette thanks to TTOM because Marinette has created a beginner party where no one knows her, she becomes friends with Nino (whom she quickly destroy) and TIN TIN TIN group chat between the 4 (with Alya in it).

Kim is Nino's childhood friend and he started playing TTOM to spent time with his bro, and ended up in group chat (with Alix because he drag her in the game too), he's not good at games and and just a cannonball but he like let off frustration by beat out the hell of the enemy

Baby step by baby step, the group chat add more people

 He live with Alix in Toulouse, their roomate.

Alix plays a bit at TTOM but plays a lot of flash and horror games.

Ivan and Mylène have 22 years old and are a couple, they don't know Ladybug much, but they've already received a lot of donation from her for their environmental association and Marinette has advertised for them for free

Alix likes Ladybug but she is not her favorite streamer.she understand Marinette's struggle on her eating disorder  because she had eating disorder since she was a child, Kim helps her a lot with it

Nathaniel lives in Auvergne with Marc, the two work together on comics but Nathalie also works as a freelance illustrator and he has already made the banner and stickers for steamers and youtubers, including Marinette.

Ivan and Mylène do vlogs and have a site and an environmental association that Marinette really appreciates.

Max is a little streamer well known to be one of Marinette's best rivals, especially on Ultimate Mecha Strike 3. 

He also does video thumbnails and cover video illustrations for a lot of youtubers including Luka.

Nathaniel started chatting with Marinette because of this (Marinette commissioned him for her website, and her channels) and the two became very good friends.

He lives in Strasbourg and works in engineering stuff.

He does very little live but has a very loyal audience because he's a goddamn god on some games.

And some compilation of their best roasted and sassy moment are on youtube.

The two fight each year for the prize of UMS3

The two like to throw shades at each other  when they playing together.. Very big sassy and roasted moment.

* A bit like RuPaul's Reading season 5 between Alaska and Alyssa Edward * (Yeah i’m kinda in some fever of RPDR right now)

Like : 

There is a roasted meme running in their respective communities, because Max had been champion for two years when Marinette arrived and took that cup from him.

“Hey Bug In !  Here Ladybug, I'm with our dear friend The Gamer, undefeated champion of UMS3 oh whait -

They talk on discord

Okay I finish to translate everything, and shame on my I finish juste by copy paste from google translate. 

* gasp then clap * bravo, it was a good one, Miss [insert thing that Marinette lost or meme of her]

And their conversation is basically shades and meme.

Bruh I wrote a lot :o

I don’t know if I’m going to do some update on it. Give me your opinion on it ! Also you can take some idea just tag me and let’s me see what you have do ^^ !

Good Night  

[niobe44]

My first fanfic is a melendaire

Hi, I am French, my English is poor, so I hope there are not many faults in this text. I’m new to Tumblr so I don’t yet master the app. I hope you will be pleased with this text, and I welcome your comments.

Chap1

The episode of the illness that plunged the quarantine service had somewhat disrupted every staff member. If, according to Shaun's statistics, one and the same event will not be repeated in St José for fifteen years, the faces of the doctors were badged of the anxiety recently undergone.

Neil Melendez paced  the corridors this  Thursday of February. The sky was white outside and he thought quickly that a weekend in the country would be beneficial. He was tired of the past year and sometimes pretending. If his arrogance allowed him to assert his authority in his career he had little opportunity to show his sensitivity. Since his forties he was tormented by his present life. His relationship with Lim was simple, a strong friendship with a few nights of drinking. However, he felt empty, something was out of place.

When he saw his interns he cast out  his thoughts out. Park seemed happy to him since his son was more present with him, Morgan faithful to herself stood straight and haughty on the lookout for surgery that could propel her directly resident, Shaun and Claire were talking together. Claires's curls came off in a cascade on his blue blouse and for a split second Neil was caught in this contemplation. The last operation he had led with Claire was a success and the young woman kept to surprise him. Sensitive, communicative, gifted, she was an excellent student and would become a great surgeon. He knew it. The smile Claire give  him to brought him back to reality.

"- Hello everybody, this morning we have a case of hypoplasia of the left heart on a child of 11 years, Murphy you can tell us more?"

- It is a malformation of the left ventricle, the whole right part of the heart must compensate: eject the blood to the pulmonary artery but also to the aorta .. Normally it is detected by pre-natal electrocardiography. It is necessary to repair the aorta too small.

- Exactly. Park and Murphy you will be with me on this case. Reiznik Dr. Lim needs you in the E.R. Browne, the dermatology department asked to see one of us. Take the file and give me the situation .

Morgan protested with a glare. Claire was disconcerted by this distance. Only Park and Shaun seemed delighted with their fate.

Claire arrived at the dermatology department when the doctor Syrus, an accomplished dermatologist came to meet her:

- "Ah finally it is you the  intern that we are sent to us , it falls well, come see by there in my opinion this case isn't up to than my sole responsibility anymore , at these words he quickly entered a consultation room whose windows were tinted and hurried to close the door behind them.

"Oh," Claire exclaimed in front of the patient, "Excuse me,said she, Hello, I'm Dr. Browne, I'm an intern in surgery, and I'm here because Dr. Syrus thinks that together we can help you.

The patient, a 35-year-old man was visibly contaminated with lewandowsky-lux disease. His body was completely covered with bark-like warts, forming outgrowth on all his limbs. His hands and torso were no longer distinguishable and his head leaned back, pulled by the weight of the root skin. His eyes were still visible, but he spoke with difficulty.

"- Obluo is Filipino, his disease has developed there, in his village he is considered a sage because he heals, sees the future, administers the village.This is an OnG who helped to bring him to the United States hoping it can be cared by doctors, explained Syrus.The radios show extensive skin carcinoma and multivisceral failure.This is no longer a matter of dermatology it requires a heavy surgery to find the epidermisThere may lesions deep downs that need to be treated.

Claire looked at the man with difficulty.

The man seemed to smile at Claire.

"Obluo," she said, "I'm going to get other doctors and all together we'll try to solve your problem." She was aware that the man did not understand, but his benevolence forced her to explain.

"Dr. Syrus, I'll tell to  Dr. Melendez.

She found Neil at his office surrounded by Shaun and Park,discussing the best way to intervene on cardiac hypoplasia.On seeing her, he said happily, "Ah, Dr. Browne, so this dermatology why does she need us?

- Uh a verruciform Epidermodysplasia on a 35 year old man ..

- A what ? Asked Park.

"The tree man," said Melendez, "dont you know that means?

- It's genetic, interrupted Shaun and incurable. There are only 200 cases worldwide.

"Well, what do you think Dr. Browne?" asked Melendez .

-In the current state of things it is necessary to release the limbs in causing internal lesions in order to relieve the vital organs.

- Well now let's see if we can get a better particulars  . Murphy, Park prepare our patient for the intervention I'll join you after.

Claire and Neil  encountered Syrus,scowling,  that annonced  them bad news:

"the carcinomas have reached the pancreas, the liver and the weight of the warts compress the circulation including that of the encephalon.The operation is very risky, the chances of success guarantee it only temporary comfort but if we do not operate it will die in a few months of  multiple internal injuries.And an interpreter arrived.

After greeting the interpreter and explain to him the situation Melendez osculta Oblua.

Oblua was smiled alternately at Claire and Neil while listening to the interpreter  who explained the operation. The man laughed and asked questions: the interpreter answered them, then Oblua said something and the interpreter laughed.

"- What's he saying ?" Asked Melendez

"-He says you are one and the same heart that does not know it yet.

Claire's eyes met Neil's amused gaze.

"-It is very enigmatic all this, it can mean everything, it's thruth  I operates hearts!

The interpreter translates to Oblua, who frowned and shook his head laughing louder.

"-He says dawn will rise in your mind.

"-Well," said Melendez, "we're done with preoperative consultation, Oblua, me, and my mind we'll see you in a few hours."

Melendez had  leave Claire with the" tree human" and was heading to the block for heart surgery. He was troubled by the words of the man. The man must have been  learn that he was a cardiac surgeon, which was probably the content of the message. And then after all who did not need more light in his mind?

He thought furtively about Claire's curls and their exchanged gaze but decided that none of this had any logical explanation and that he was really too tired.

Claire was also thinking of the man's words. He seemed wise, benevolent, "One heart." To believe the rumor the heart of Neil was taken again. She must have been lucid: that annoyed her a little. Yet their looks remained unchanged: intense and talkative. He had to looked at all his colleagues like that ..

The cardiac operation was a total failure. The heart was not strong enough, the child had other organic disorders. Hours of complications and urgency to keep the child alive had only succeeded in plunging him into a coma. The parents were collapsed.Shaun placidly announced that the child would die while Park was affectedd by the patient who was the same age as his son .He  was searching for a cure.

  Melendez  looked at hell  when he entered the No. 2 block. Obluo was not yet anesthetized and  was smiling at the sight of Neil and Claire standing side by side:

"-You know," he said to Melendez, "for the child: his spirit is free, he's going to leave now" and Obluo fell asleep.

Claire saw the surprise on Neil's face.

The operation lasted more than 15 hours, it was necessary to cut sometimes with the saw the hard skins of the body of the man to clear his body of his tree prison. When they had finished, the man's constancies were normal.

All the staff was exhausted.

When he woke up, the patient was calm and thanked each of the doctors standing on either side of his bed. Obluo squeezed Claire's hand in a respectful gesture and grabbed Melendez's wrist for talk him. 

-"He left " .

Claire watched with concern as Melendez slowly emerged from the man's embrace and out of the room. He was nauseated.

It was then that Shaun came to announce the death of the child.

Neil had decided to send his interns home. All were tired. It was past 6 a.m

Neil left his blouse, he was hot and needed to get fresh air immediately.

The end of the night was cooling  on the terrace of the refectory. The first thing he saw was the brown curls. He settled down next to Claire.

"I learned for your patient,"  said she , "I'm sorry.

- Yes, the day was difficult. But you worked well, Obluo is alive.

- The disease will come back but he does not seem to be worried.

- Some things always come back. Thoughts, obstacles. Things that turn ... in a loop. He said that last sentence in a low voice.

"It may be a good thing," said Claire. It may mean that happiness, joy, love come back too. 

Neil looked at her. It seemed to her that Claire's eyes were an answer to everything that was flickering in her thoughts. Claire smiled at him, returning that deep and immense look.

It had begun to rain and a drop was spinning on a lock of Claire's hair.

Neil stared at the drop and ran her hand over the curl. Mechanically he put the lock the hair behind Claire's ear. Her eyes plunged again in Claire's. He feld over into it. He slipped his hand from his ear to his temple, his thumb traveling over his cheekbones. His second hand came to join Claire's neck. Nobody said words. Each look was an endless fire. He framed his face with his hands as if to contemplate it better. Claire's mouth was smiling. She touched Neil's hip with her palm and her forehead swung against Neil's. He caressed of his lips  Claire's lips before kissing them. The attraction of kissing was so strong  that it was impossible for them to stop pressing their lips against each other, from his mouth Neil gently took Claire's lower lip to taste it entirely and she did the same with his . Her fingers were lost in her hair and Claire let her fingers run down Neil's neck to his chest.

The ground was falling under their feet.

They were felt the axis of the earth was where it should be.

They ruled out from each other.

 Their eyes betrayed the gigantic confusion  that came to reveal themselves. They panted for a moment, their breath caught in the embrace, looking at each other in amazement. Neil picked up his briefcase, straightened up as the sun illuminated Claire's curls and the mirror of her eyes. Upset with desires, he stared at her intently in the morning light and stepped out of the terrace. 

Dawn had  risen.

[thecatwhogrins]

Peacetime (part 4)

Please enjoy! (Warning! Some allusion to rape here so please be warned).

Shirayuki almost sobs.

He’s here, he’s alive.

But she holds her tongue because the way he looks at her is strange, as though he’s never met her before. Her head is spinning, trying to piece together what is going on. She feels as though she is in a twisted nightmare, something out of a horror novel.

Obi walks up to her, as usual, his stride is confident, silent. He isn’t wearing his usual attire, instead he wears the colours of the enemy, to her dismay. He looks rougher than before, as though these four months she’s been gone have hardened him. From where she stands she can see that he’s sporting new, fresher scars, scars she was not there to help heal. She almost reaches out towards him but stops herself. This Obi doesn’t seem to know her.

He turns to the officer and asks something in German before turning back to her, eyes unchanged, distant.

“I will translate what you say. Why are you here?” he asks her, his eyes prompting her to speak, even though her whole body wants to flee.

She repeats what she said before almost mechanically and he translates to the officer quickly and efficiently.

“Miss? Miss, what is your name?” Obi asks her and Shirayuki almost laughs in disbelief. But she holds it in.  Looking insane will not help her case, so she tells him her name quickly. He repeats it to the officer. They start talking in hushed voices. The sound of her name on his lips feels strange, it’s distracting.

“We will look for survivors and bring them to our camp, as this is a red cross vehicle. You will come along too,” states Obi.

Shirayuki sways slightly on the spot, her head throbbing in pain, her mind racing with all the possibilities. She couldn’t resist them or run away. Who knew what might happen? And Obi… Could Obi be a traitor? Did he defect?

Shirayuki simply could not believe that was the case. Zen would have written something about this in his letters. Furthermore, even if Obi was a mystery in many ways, his loyalty to the allies was beyond doubt. She had seen many times how passionate he was to end the war, bring the peace back. The mere thought of him defecting made absolutely no sense.

Was he spying, then? Going undercover?

Shirayuki thought this made much more sense. How many times had she seen him coming back from a long absence and seen him go straight towards the commanders’ tent? He wore a uniform that was different to the other soldiers and never seemed to follow any specific unit. He seemed to shelter so many secrets and never told her where he had been, how he had received his wounds.

This thought allowed Shirayuki to breathe easily again. Yes, he was spy. That was why he couldn’t show any recognition towards her.

Shirayuki would play along. She would not distract him from whatever mission he had been assigned to. Her resolve strengthened, and she turned towards the soldiers.

She would trust her friend.

*

They found most survivors and Shirayuki helped the wounded onto stretchers. She was surprised that the enemy soldiers didn’t just kill them all but thanked her lucky star that they hadn’t. She was also grateful that Yuzuri and Suzu had not been on this flight, but her heart wept for the other passengers who hadn’t made it.

They made their way back towards the camp in silence, Shirayuki walking by the side of the most wounded soldier on a make piece stretcher, holding his hand, keeping an eye on his state. When she wasn’t soothing the poor man, her attention went back to Obi’s tall figure, walking only a few meters away. She noticed the back of his neck, how his hair hadn’t been cut straight. Her heart ached, wishing she could ask him what was going on.

But she stayed steadfast.

They finally made it at the German camp. It looked very much like every other military camp she had ever gone to. The men all looked exhausted, deep purplish bruises under their eyes, clothes that had seen too much wear and not enough washing. They watched the group as they walked by, curious but not enough to ask. The ground was muddy, the sky murky and the silence weighed heavily. The men who weren’t wounded separated from the group and went about their businesses, looking for food or stumbling away to go to sleep.

A tent stood a few meters away and Shirayuki immediately knew it was the medical tent. The moans of pain coming from inside it was enough of an indication. The tent flap opened, and a tired looking man walked out, wiping his hands on a cloth.

He spotted the group and his hands went limp beside him in disbelief.

He barked something at the officer, his face full of irritation. The other man replied calmly, gesturing towards Shirayuki. The doctor shook his head and replied something tiredly. She was slightly confused at this. What was going on?

Obi popped up at her side, silent as ever.

“The officer has brought you here, so you can help the resident doctor, as we’ve lost most of our medics during a bomb raid,” he says, placid, his eyes not even meeting hers.

“I understand,” she replies calmly, even though her heart is drumming away inside her ribcage.

The doctor approaches, his white coat smeared with all manners of bodily fluids and appraises her.

“My name is doctor Forzeno. Are you a nurse?” he asks, his voice laced with a slight german accent. Clearly, this man has spoken English before.

“No, I am an herbalist, but I’ve been trained and have worked long enough to know most procedures,” she answers.

Doctor Forzeno seems satisfied enough with this answer and motions at her to follow him.

She has one last look at Obi before the tent flap closes.

*

The next few days are spent helping the doctor with the wounded. Communication is sometimes hard, as some of the words he uses are not the same in German and in English, making the easily frustrated doctor even more irritated. He berated her daily, complaining about every mistake she made. Shirayuki would argue back calmly until they both finished their work. It was exhausting. Furthermore, the men from her aircraft had only added more work to the Doctor who was already swamped.

With every man Shirayuki saved, she felt a terrible dilemma develop inside of her. These men were her enemies, every time she helped one meant one of the men on her side could die. What if this man is the one who will kill Zen? What if this one kills Mitsuhide? These thoughts swirl inside her head endlessly. But at the same time, these men are also only just… men. Wounded men. Had she not become an herbalist, a nurse, to help people in their hour of need? Could she deny these men their chance at living? Had she not taken the nightingale pledge?

Every night, as she fell into a restless sleep on her cot, alongside the other remaining nurses who mostly ignored her, and loneliness wrapped itself around her, she wondered how her friends were doing. She wondered if Yuzuri or Suzu knew what had happened to her. If Zen had learned the news and if he had relayed it to Kiki and Mitsuhide. Had she been reported as dead?

But mostly her thoughts went to Obi.

Working alongside the doctor, she barely ever had a glimpse of him as he passed through the camp. There was no interaction whatsoever, which made Shirayuki quite nervous.

As weeks started to pass, despair wormed itself into her heart.

*

Five weeks later

It was a cold night, the doctor had gone back to his tent, grumbling and sleep-deprived. Shirayuki had urged him to go back to his quarters softly and to her surprise, he had listened.

Shirayuki couldn’t say that they were friends. It was more like a mutual understanding. Even though they were from opposing sides of this war, they both wished to save lives. He was not a very sociable person to begin with, but he seemed to tolerate her now.

Shirayuki was the only medical staff member left in the medical tent, putting away the instruments, cleaning up, even though her limbs felt stiff and she felt like she might drop of exhaustion right then and there. She heard someone enter and turned around.

The dim light did not make recognising the man easy, but she would have recognised this man anywhere.

Obi.

“Please trust me,” he whispered urgently. In the dim light his eyes burned with the urgency of his words.

Before she could even speak, he clamped a hand upon her mouth and the other grabbed her around the waist, transporting her towards a cot. Shirayuki struggled against him but her whole body ached with exhaustion. He placed her on the bed and pinned her wrists above her head with one hand, the other still firmly placed upon her mouth. What was he doing?

Outside, she heard people laughing. A group of men were walking towards the tent, being raucous. What were doing here so late at night?

He reached towards his belt, as though to undo it, and Shirayuki looked up at him, panicking.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” he told her fervently, “look like your struggling but not too much,” he continued.

Shirayuki was about to ask him what he meant but suddenly the tent flap opened, and the men entered, stumbling, clearly drunk. They carried flashlights and they turned them towards where Shirayuki and Obi laid. The glaring light blinded Shirayuki, making her eyes water. She struggled a little against Obi, liked he had instructed her to.

“Wer ist da?” one of the men asked.

“Das bin ich, Obi,” responded Obi.

The men and Obi started to talk in German, too fast for Shirayuki to understand with her rudimentary grasp of the language. One of the men laughed and nodded his head towards her, his grin conspiratorial, leering, and a shiver raced down her spin.

Obi laughed too and said something that made all the men laugh. One of the men took a step forward but then Obi’s voice took on a warning tone, even though it still remained light. The other men laughed again, exchanged a few more words, then they all exited the tent slowly.

Calm settled once more, the only sounds disturbing the silence were the whimpers of the wounded men and the harsh breathing of Obi and Shirayuki. She stared at him, her heart racing, his eyes poured into hers and there it was, that spark of familiarity, that hint of tenderness Shiaryuki always saw but never knew how much she loved and missed till now. His scent also permeated the air, pine and spices and she nearly cried.

He quickly takes away his hand from her mouth, as though she had burned him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t what else to do,” he whispered into the dark.

“Obi… What happened?” Shirayuki asked quietly.

“I overheard them. They were going to come over here to harm you,” his eyes were hard, anger seeping through, “I came here first and said you were already… mine,” he finished, his voice is dark with an edge that Shirayuki can’t quite identify, his fingers digging into his shoulder, keeping a respectful distance away.

It takes her a moment but then she understood in that moment. She’d heard of other cases, of men taking women forcefully in villages ravaged by war. She shuddered, he need not say another word.

“Obi, what are…” Shirayuki began but Obi hushed her, a finger on his lip. He looked around to see if anyone was listening. He thought for a while before asking:

“Miss, do you know Morse code?” he asked, his voice low.

“Yes, my grandfather taught me,” she whispered back.

Obi held out his hand, as if asking her to dance. Shirayuki, quizzically, placed her hand in his. The feeling of his callused fingers was something she didn’t know she had missed. He turned it over, palm facing upwards and placed his finger on the skin of her palm, so softly, making a shiver race up her body. He held her eyes as he tapped her hand softly in Morse code. Shirayuki unconsciously mouthed each letter silently.

I was sent on a mission here by General Izana to spy and know when their next attack will be.

Shirayuki nodded. She understood, it was as she suspected. She found she could finally breathe easily. She took Obi’s hand, surprising him, and started to tap as well.

Please finish your mission, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.

He smiles at her in that moment, genuine and warm, his eyes full of admiration.

You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. Don’t worry, we will get out of this, I promise.

And in the deep dark night, secretly, they held each other till Shirayuki thought her bones would bruise.

[easyfoodnetwork]

The Exhausting Work of Staycationing

When leaving the house is impossible, cocktails, caftans, and karaoke are all the vacation you need

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the short-story collection Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She’s writing from the Philadelphia home in which she’s sheltered and convalesced since March.

Two weeks before the city of Philadelphia went into lockdown, I was in an airport in Ixtapa, Mexico, staring at a travel advisory about the coronavirus. It was early enough that the sign was asking if you’d recently traveled to China or Italy; early enough that it was small and had come off a laser printer and was taped near our airline’s check-in desk.

We’d spent the week at a resort on the Pacific coast with a fellow writer couple, taking our first real vacation — our first travel experience without a restrictive budget or attached work or other obligations — in our adult lives. There’d been a break in my book tour schedule, and I took it. I wanted to read, eat seafood, see the ocean, and swim in an infinity pool, and I’d done all of those things. I even had the patchy mix of a tan and sunburn to prove it.

I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space.

I’m a speculative writer and a hypochondriac. I’ve written stories about pandemics; imagined their slow and terrible creep, the way they stifle and challenge. Still, back in February we had not been to China or Italy. We flew home. We hugged our friends goodbye and declared the vacation a success. Let’s do it again next year, we said. When we unpacked, everything in our suitcases smelled like vacation: sunblock, salt, chlorine. I inhaled every piece of clothing before I put it in the hamper.

You know what happened next, of course. Coronavirus crested and broke on our shores and we, Americans — leaderless, stubborn, foolhardy to the end — were uniquely unsuited for thriving or survival. The welcome pause in my travel schedule turned into a monthslong quarantine that has not yet abated. My wife, Val, began to work from home. I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space. I talked on the phone with my girlfriend, Marne, who was quarantined with their aunt and uncle on Long Island; I read out loud to them from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, a few pages at a time. Our ancient beagle mix, Rosie, went from overjoyed with our presence to vaguely neurotic, shadowing us everywhere we went, unable to be left alone for even a moment. Still, we were luckier than most. We were safe, able to do our work from home. Plus, our house had enough space that we didn’t want to murder each other.

We decided to pull a new tarot card each morning.

A couple of months into lockdown, I was approved for some long-awaited ankle surgery. A few weeks later, a post-op complication with the incision felled me. My doctor put me on hardcore antibiotics that kept me awake for days and made me manic. (“Maybe I can sleep like this,” I’d apparently insisted to my horrified wife, twisted into a bizarre pretzel on our living room couch; I have no memory of the incident.) I was also prescribed a wound-vac, which turned out to be a medical fetish object that relieved pressure on the incision through a gentle sucking organ; the experience is not entirely unlike being seduced by an octopus. I made jokes about “fresh, organic Carmen juice” and watched liquid move through the tube and listened to the creature’s gentle burbling when everything was quiet. A few weeks later, I was given a skin graft that had been grown in a pig’s bladder. It was thin as tissue paper. My doctor told me I still couldn’t bear weight on that foot, and I had to continue to use my mobility scooter to get around. I left the appointment in a terrible mood, blasting System of a Down at full volume.

It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.”

As my infirmity stretched on and on, my girlfriend decided to temporarily move in with me and my wife to help out. “I guess it’s like Big Love over there?” their aunt asked. It was certainly specific enough of a scenario to be prestige TV: polyamorous writer dykes and their internet-famous geriatric hound riding out a pandemic and a climate-change-worsened heat wave in a rambling Philadelphia Victorian.

This was how Eater found me: Did I want to go camping and write about it? asked a very nice editor. Did I want to do a road trip? Maybe stay at a cabin in the woods? It’s the new American vacation; socially isolated, iconic.

We were tempted. We spent time scrolling through listings for beach houses and lake houses, but the necessary elements — within a reasonable driving distance, dog-friendly, scooter-accessible, on a body of water, and affordable — seemed impossible.

“Vacation-style eating” included lobster rolls with a side of hound.

The Death Card on day 1 signaled a time of transition.

It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.” And it has a distinctly American flair to it: our inability to take actual breaks, the way we accept lack of real vacation the way, say, Europeans never would. And how does one create a true staycation? That is, a vacation from home that feels genuinely relaxing and separate from the everyday grind, not just an excuse to binge seven seasons of The Great British Bake Off?

Val and I had our recent perfect vacation as a kind of platonic ideal. I loved the understated luxury of the experience: I swanned around in caftans and bathing suits, swam, ate well and always al fresco, read a ton, was good about staying off the internet, and was generally oblivious to the apocalypse inching towards us (that is, mostly stayed off Twitter and turned off New York Times news alerts). This both translated easily to a staycation — outfits, reading, and staying off the internet were well within my grasp — and not at all. We don’t have a pool. We’d have to cook ourselves. The outdoors are full of mosquitos, and getting to them required me to climb down flights of stairs with one functioning leg.

Val, on the other hand, had primarily enjoyed our trip’s lack of responsibilities: no cooking meals, no walking the dog. Her staycation version of this was doing everything she wanted — puttering around in the backyard, harvesting produce from her plot in the community garden — and nothing she didn’t. Marne had different ideas: They wanted to make something. Their idea of a vacation was buying a new cookbook and trying a bunch of different recipes. Everyone agreed on one thing: We wanted to be able to swim, or something akin to it.

I ordered a self-inflating adult-sized kiddie pool from the internet. An ice cream maker, too, and David Lebowitz’s The Perfect Scoop (recommended by Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen) and a portable projector to have a drive-in movie experience in the backyard. (My idea; as a child, drive-ins were one of my favorite parts of summer.) We agreed on a set of principles: to stay off social media as much as possible; eat frequently and well; do our own personal activities that we enjoyed and come together when we wanted to. We would share the cooking, make one night a takeout night, and have brunch on Sunday.

And we decided to pull a single tarot card each morning, as a way of bringing ourselves into the day. Val is a long-time tarot enthusiast; I am generally suspicious of woo-woo but find tarot to be a pleasing intersection of art and the language of the subconscious. And of us love the act of ritual. So yes, we said. Tarot it would be.

Cheap flip flops and pool lounging (here, by Marne) are part of the normal summer excess.

On day one, Marne pulled the death card, of course. The deck is the Carnival at the End of the World, and the death card is a scythe-bearing skeleton on a dead horse upon a hill of decapitated heads. Marne barked with laughter and then, slightly freaked out, left the room to collect themselves. Val had to explain that, unlike in the movies, a death card was rarely bad. It was powerful but positive. It was about transitions, changes. Exactly the sort of card you’d expect to kick off a move from the harried hours of real life to a true break.

But we weren’t ready, not yet. The house was a mess, something I knew would impede me from enjoying vacation fully. We’d ordered a new bed frame a few weeks before that should have been assembled, but it was missing a necessary piece; said piece had only shown up the day before. So the bed needed assembling, too. Oh, and there was dog hair everywhere: lining the couch cushions, floating like tumbleweeds across the hardwood. I realized that this was the piece of vacation I missed the most: arriving in a new, clean space with your responsibilities wiped clean. Not having to fuss about details because someone else has fussed about them for you. But that sort of vacation has evaporated into the ether, so we agreed to just power through a final act of cleaning and organizing and assembling, and have our vacation start at happy hour.

We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard.

And it did. At 5 p.m., I made us a batch of cocktails — bastardized Pimm’s cups, complete with cucumber, mint from Val’s garden, and dried orange slices. I put on Taylor Swift’s Folklore, which had dropped the day before. Then we made dinner: corn risotto, whose page in Cook’s Illustrated we’d dogeared and been salivating over for days; seared scallops; and fried artichokes. We got slightly tipsy and marveled at the recipe’s fussiness: pureeing corn cob milk with fresh kernels and then squeezing the liquid out of the resulting pulp. Val shucked, Marne made the rice. I hyper-focused on my task, pressing the mixture down with the back of a spoon, staring at the measuring cup. It was the first time in a month that we’d all cooked together, and the process felt light and almost labor-less. The jumbo scallops sizzled and browned and looked restaurant-elegant; the artichokes seared beautifully.

It was as fine a summer meal as I’d ever eaten. We sat at the dining room table with the windows open; replaced the fading sunset with the light from an overhead fixture. After the food was gone, we moved from subject to subject. Marne maintained that while the risotto was delicious, corn is best served on the cob. We meditated on the true meaning of the Death card we’d drawn. Was it about using up the week’s leftovers? Finishing assembling the bed? We moved on to the topic of ejaculation (comma, my ex-boyfriends, comma, their ex-girlfriends). After dinner, we watched two episodes of Steven Universe — aptly, the ones that introduce a polyamorous character, the Gem Flourite — and climbed into bed feeling very satisfied with ourselves.

Marne made biscuits for Sunday brunch.

Saturday morning, we sat in my office and drank coffee and drew the emperor. This deck’s version of the emperor is a eyeless gentleman elephant standing on a mountain of tusks. It is considered a sign of stability and material wealth. It made sense, then, that we remembered to make a batch of milk-chocolate-raspberry ice cream so that it would be ready in the evening. It made sense that a particularly beautiful cream-and-cocoa silk chiffon caftan that I’d ordered a month ago from Jibri arrived in the mail, and I put it on with nothing underneath. It made sense that we ate leftovers — practical! — and then made our way outside, where I read Jennifer Egan’s The Keep beneath a fringed umbrella and Val and Marne blew up the inflatable pool and paddled around, insisting I join them while I demurred. It made sense that we ordered out for dinner, and could not decide between New England-style lobster rolls and bright summer salads (corn, grilled peach, and scallion; watermelon and feta), from Philly summer pop-up Anchor Light, or Lebanese plates and dips (from Suraya: hummus and baba ghanoush and labneh and tabbouleh; charred runner beans and fried cauliflower in hot-mint yogurt and lamb kebabs and crispy batata harra), so we ordered both. We sat and ate and Val and Marne went back in the water and I finished reading as the light bled from the sky. We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard. We went inside and our ice cream was waiting.

Watching Twister in the backyard

When we woke up on Sunday, I opened the bedroom door (shut to preserve the air conditioning) to a smell like I’d never experienced before. It smelled like a moose had climbed three flights of stairs only to die in our hallway. The odor permeated every floor of the house.

I closed the door and went back to bed like a woman with the vapors. Val and Marne ventured to the backyard, where the tiniest tentacles of the smell had begun the night before. Flashlight in hand, Val rooted around under the crawlspace and discovered a decomposing squirrel. It felt like an omen, or maybe a metaphor, or maybe a giant fuck-you from a year that won’t let up. In bed, I began to call wildlife removal services, all of which were closed on Sundays, prohibitively expensive, or too far away. “This doesn’t happen at hotels,” I said, staring at the ceiling.

Val smeared vapor-rub under her nostrils like a coroner and crawled under the house to retrieve the squirrel. She bagged it and walked several blocks away to our old apartment building, where she disposed of it in the dumpster. She came back and filled every floor with shallow dishes of white vinegar and baking soda and coffee grounds. She showered. We drew a tarot card. An inverted eight of wands. A wreathed and naked woman upon a pangolin over a scattered pile of sticks, and a cosmic imperative to take a break. The smell faded.

We knew we needed to get into the mood for day three. Brunch, we agreed. I pulled together a bloody mary — homemade horseradish vodka, EPIC Pickles bloody mary mix from central Pennsylvania, pickled okra, cornichons, dilly beans, and a strip of bacon — and made a tomato salad with whipped feta. Marne made biscuits, and we ate until we were full. I took a long, hot nap in our sunroom and then went to the living room, where we watched Gourmet Makes videos from Bon Appétit. It was supposed to be outdoor movie night, but we couldn’t do it; we were exhausted. In bed, we watched Birds of Prey projected against the far wall. “I just want to watch women beating up some men,” Marne said, and I could not argue otherwise.

The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard.

On Monday, we drew an eight of pentacles: an omen of plenty, represented by a baker and a trio of puffins and a tray of rolls for sharing. We prepped another batch of ice cream, this one my suggestion: roasted banana. While it churned, we took a moment to mourn our last day. Marne and Val were determined to get me into the pool. I hesitated — I couldn’t get my bad ankle wet — but eventually I slipped on my waterproof shower sock and crawled into the water with Marne, then Val, with Marne supporting me like a human chair.

I confess that I’d been skeptical of the pool. If lying in an adult-sized inflatable pool was as lovely as getting in an actual pool, everyone would do it, right? When I’d ordered it, I was reminded of my grandfather asking my 6-year-old self if I wanted to go in a “Cuban swimming pool” before dunking me into a large bucket of water.

And yet, it is astonishing what water can do. The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard. But we were in our suits and slathered on sunscreen and it felt, for a few hours, like summer. Not the unique misery of 2020’s summer, but other summers with their normal excess and low stakes and abundance, their cheap flip-flops and pool afternoons and water ice and late sunsets.

We stayed there floating, laughing, talking, until the sun went. Dinner was Beyond Burgers — the best of the meatless proteins we’ve tried — with aged cheddar and caramelized onions and avocado and chipotle aioli on toasted buns. We polished them off and they were perfect; the sort of thing you wanted at the end of a summer day. Then we had a sundae bar: homemade hot fudge with bourbon, fried peanuts, homemade whipped cream, and large marshmallows toasted over the flame of our gas stove. This, all over the weekend’s two homemade ice creams; a perfectly decadent end.

Outside, it was dark. We flipped on the string lights and set up the projector and screen against the neighbor’s fence. Then, we watched Twister, a perfect summer drive-in-style film about human arrogance in the face of natural disaster. Oh, and the indescribable appeal of Helen Hunt. But mostly the human arrogance thing. Val slipped me popcorn; Marne sat near our feet. A few blocks away, a dead squirrel rotted in a dumpster. We enjoyed our pleasures even as we were trapped by a country that can’t get its act together. We ate and laughed and mourned our lost summer and laughed again. And what’s more American than that?

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When leaving the house is impossible, cocktails, caftans, and karaoke are all the vacation you need

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the short-story collection Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She’s writing from the Philadelphia home in which she’s sheltered and convalesced since March.

Two weeks before the city of Philadelphia went into lockdown, I was in an airport in Ixtapa, Mexico, staring at a travel advisory about the coronavirus. It was early enough that the sign was asking if you’d recently traveled to China or Italy; early enough that it was small and had come off a laser printer and was taped near our airline’s check-in desk.

We’d spent the week at a resort on the Pacific coast with a fellow writer couple, taking our first real vacation — our first travel experience without a restrictive budget or attached work or other obligations — in our adult lives. There’d been a break in my book tour schedule, and I took it. I wanted to read, eat seafood, see the ocean, and swim in an infinity pool, and I’d done all of those things. I even had the patchy mix of a tan and sunburn to prove it.

I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space.

I’m a speculative writer and a hypochondriac. I’ve written stories about pandemics; imagined their slow and terrible creep, the way they stifle and challenge. Still, back in February we had not been to China or Italy. We flew home. We hugged our friends goodbye and declared the vacation a success. Let’s do it again next year, we said. When we unpacked, everything in our suitcases smelled like vacation: sunblock, salt, chlorine. I inhaled every piece of clothing before I put it in the hamper.

You know what happened next, of course. Coronavirus crested and broke on our shores and we, Americans — leaderless, stubborn, foolhardy to the end — were uniquely unsuited for thriving or survival. The welcome pause in my travel schedule turned into a monthslong quarantine that has not yet abated. My wife, Val, began to work from home. I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space. I talked on the phone with my girlfriend, Marne, who was quarantined with their aunt and uncle on Long Island; I read out loud to them from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, a few pages at a time. Our ancient beagle mix, Rosie, went from overjoyed with our presence to vaguely neurotic, shadowing us everywhere we went, unable to be left alone for even a moment. Still, we were luckier than most. We were safe, able to do our work from home. Plus, our house had enough space that we didn’t want to murder each other.

We decided to pull a new tarot card each morning.

A couple of months into lockdown, I was approved for some long-awaited ankle surgery. A few weeks later, a post-op complication with the incision felled me. My doctor put me on hardcore antibiotics that kept me awake for days and made me manic. (“Maybe I can sleep like this,” I’d apparently insisted to my horrified wife, twisted into a bizarre pretzel on our living room couch; I have no memory of the incident.) I was also prescribed a wound-vac, which turned out to be a medical fetish object that relieved pressure on the incision through a gentle sucking organ; the experience is not entirely unlike being seduced by an octopus. I made jokes about “fresh, organic Carmen juice” and watched liquid move through the tube and listened to the creature’s gentle burbling when everything was quiet. A few weeks later, I was given a skin graft that had been grown in a pig’s bladder. It was thin as tissue paper. My doctor told me I still couldn’t bear weight on that foot, and I had to continue to use my mobility scooter to get around. I left the appointment in a terrible mood, blasting System of a Down at full volume.

It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.”

As my infirmity stretched on and on, my girlfriend decided to temporarily move in with me and my wife to help out. “I guess it’s like Big Love over there?” their aunt asked. It was certainly specific enough of a scenario to be prestige TV: polyamorous writer dykes and their internet-famous geriatric hound riding out a pandemic and a climate-change-worsened heat wave in a rambling Philadelphia Victorian.

This was how Eater found me: Did I want to go camping and write about it? asked a very nice editor. Did I want to do a road trip? Maybe stay at a cabin in the woods? It’s the new American vacation; socially isolated, iconic.

We were tempted. We spent time scrolling through listings for beach houses and lake houses, but the necessary elements — within a reasonable driving distance, dog-friendly, scooter-accessible, on a body of water, and affordable — seemed impossible.

“Vacation-style eating” included lobster rolls with a side of hound.

The Death Card on day 1 signaled a time of transition.

It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.” And it has a distinctly American flair to it: our inability to take actual breaks, the way we accept lack of real vacation the way, say, Europeans never would. And how does one create a true staycation? That is, a vacation from home that feels genuinely relaxing and separate from the everyday grind, not just an excuse to binge seven seasons of The Great British Bake Off?

Val and I had our recent perfect vacation as a kind of platonic ideal. I loved the understated luxury of the experience: I swanned around in caftans and bathing suits, swam, ate well and always al fresco, read a ton, was good about staying off the internet, and was generally oblivious to the apocalypse inching towards us (that is, mostly stayed off Twitter and turned off New York Times news alerts). This both translated easily to a staycation — outfits, reading, and staying off the internet were well within my grasp — and not at all. We don’t have a pool. We’d have to cook ourselves. The outdoors are full of mosquitos, and getting to them required me to climb down flights of stairs with one functioning leg.

Val, on the other hand, had primarily enjoyed our trip’s lack of responsibilities: no cooking meals, no walking the dog. Her staycation version of this was doing everything she wanted — puttering around in the backyard, harvesting produce from her plot in the community garden — and nothing she didn’t. Marne had different ideas: They wanted to make something. Their idea of a vacation was buying a new cookbook and trying a bunch of different recipes. Everyone agreed on one thing: We wanted to be able to swim, or something akin to it.

I ordered a self-inflating adult-sized kiddie pool from the internet. An ice cream maker, too, and David Lebowitz’s The Perfect Scoop (recommended by Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen) and a portable projector to have a drive-in movie experience in the backyard. (My idea; as a child, drive-ins were one of my favorite parts of summer.) We agreed on a set of principles: to stay off social media as much as possible; eat frequently and well; do our own personal activities that we enjoyed and come together when we wanted to. We would share the cooking, make one night a takeout night, and have brunch on Sunday.

And we decided to pull a single tarot card each morning, as a way of bringing ourselves into the day. Val is a long-time tarot enthusiast; I am generally suspicious of woo-woo but find tarot to be a pleasing intersection of art and the language of the subconscious. And of us love the act of ritual. So yes, we said. Tarot it would be.

Cheap flip flops and pool lounging (here, by Marne) are part of the normal summer excess.

On day one, Marne pulled the death card, of course. The deck is the Carnival at the End of the World, and the death card is a scythe-bearing skeleton on a dead horse upon a hill of decapitated heads. Marne barked with laughter and then, slightly freaked out, left the room to collect themselves. Val had to explain that, unlike in the movies, a death card was rarely bad. It was powerful but positive. It was about transitions, changes. Exactly the sort of card you’d expect to kick off a move from the harried hours of real life to a true break.

But we weren’t ready, not yet. The house was a mess, something I knew would impede me from enjoying vacation fully. We’d ordered a new bed frame a few weeks before that should have been assembled, but it was missing a necessary piece; said piece had only shown up the day before. So the bed needed assembling, too. Oh, and there was dog hair everywhere: lining the couch cushions, floating like tumbleweeds across the hardwood. I realized that this was the piece of vacation I missed the most: arriving in a new, clean space with your responsibilities wiped clean. Not having to fuss about details because someone else has fussed about them for you. But that sort of vacation has evaporated into the ether, so we agreed to just power through a final act of cleaning and organizing and assembling, and have our vacation start at happy hour.

We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard.

And it did. At 5 p.m., I made us a batch of cocktails — bastardized Pimm’s cups, complete with cucumber, mint from Val’s garden, and dried orange slices. I put on Taylor Swift’s Folklore, which had dropped the day before. Then we made dinner: corn risotto, whose page in Cook’s Illustrated we’d dogeared and been salivating over for days; seared scallops; and fried artichokes. We got slightly tipsy and marveled at the recipe’s fussiness: pureeing corn cob milk with fresh kernels and then squeezing the liquid out of the resulting pulp. Val shucked, Marne made the rice. I hyper-focused on my task, pressing the mixture down with the back of a spoon, staring at the measuring cup. It was the first time in a month that we’d all cooked together, and the process felt light and almost labor-less. The jumbo scallops sizzled and browned and looked restaurant-elegant; the artichokes seared beautifully.

It was as fine a summer meal as I’d ever eaten. We sat at the dining room table with the windows open; replaced the fading sunset with the light from an overhead fixture. After the food was gone, we moved from subject to subject. Marne maintained that while the risotto was delicious, corn is best served on the cob. We meditated on the true meaning of the Death card we’d drawn. Was it about using up the week’s leftovers? Finishing assembling the bed? We moved on to the topic of ejaculation (comma, my ex-boyfriends, comma, their ex-girlfriends). After dinner, we watched two episodes of Steven Universe — aptly, the ones that introduce a polyamorous character, the Gem Flourite — and climbed into bed feeling very satisfied with ourselves.

Marne made biscuits for Sunday brunch.

Saturday morning, we sat in my office and drank coffee and drew the emperor. This deck’s version of the emperor is a eyeless gentleman elephant standing on a mountain of tusks. It is considered a sign of stability and material wealth. It made sense, then, that we remembered to make a batch of milk-chocolate-raspberry ice cream so that it would be ready in the evening. It made sense that a particularly beautiful cream-and-cocoa silk chiffon caftan that I’d ordered a month ago from Jibri arrived in the mail, and I put it on with nothing underneath. It made sense that we ate leftovers — practical! — and then made our way outside, where I read Jennifer Egan’s The Keep beneath a fringed umbrella and Val and Marne blew up the inflatable pool and paddled around, insisting I join them while I demurred. It made sense that we ordered out for dinner, and could not decide between New England-style lobster rolls and bright summer salads (corn, grilled peach, and scallion; watermelon and feta), from Philly summer pop-up Anchor Light, or Lebanese plates and dips (from Suraya: hummus and baba ghanoush and labneh and tabbouleh; charred runner beans and fried cauliflower in hot-mint yogurt and lamb kebabs and crispy batata harra), so we ordered both. We sat and ate and Val and Marne went back in the water and I finished reading as the light bled from the sky. We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard. We went inside and our ice cream was waiting.

Watching Twister in the backyard

When we woke up on Sunday, I opened the bedroom door (shut to preserve the air conditioning) to a smell like I’d never experienced before. It smelled like a moose had climbed three flights of stairs only to die in our hallway. The odor permeated every floor of the house.

I closed the door and went back to bed like a woman with the vapors. Val and Marne ventured to the backyard, where the tiniest tentacles of the smell had begun the night before. Flashlight in hand, Val rooted around under the crawlspace and discovered a decomposing squirrel. It felt like an omen, or maybe a metaphor, or maybe a giant fuck-you from a year that won’t let up. In bed, I began to call wildlife removal services, all of which were closed on Sundays, prohibitively expensive, or too far away. “This doesn’t happen at hotels,” I said, staring at the ceiling.

Val smeared vapor-rub under her nostrils like a coroner and crawled under the house to retrieve the squirrel. She bagged it and walked several blocks away to our old apartment building, where she disposed of it in the dumpster. She came back and filled every floor with shallow dishes of white vinegar and baking soda and coffee grounds. She showered. We drew a tarot card. An inverted eight of wands. A wreathed and naked woman upon a pangolin over a scattered pile of sticks, and a cosmic imperative to take a break. The smell faded.

We knew we needed to get into the mood for day three. Brunch, we agreed. I pulled together a bloody mary — homemade horseradish vodka, EPIC Pickles bloody mary mix from central Pennsylvania, pickled okra, cornichons, dilly beans, and a strip of bacon — and made a tomato salad with whipped feta. Marne made biscuits, and we ate until we were full. I took a long, hot nap in our sunroom and then went to the living room, where we watched Gourmet Makes videos from Bon Appétit. It was supposed to be outdoor movie night, but we couldn’t do it; we were exhausted. In bed, we watched Birds of Prey projected against the far wall. “I just want to watch women beating up some men,” Marne said, and I could not argue otherwise.

The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard.

On Monday, we drew an eight of pentacles: an omen of plenty, represented by a baker and a trio of puffins and a tray of rolls for sharing. We prepped another batch of ice cream, this one my suggestion: roasted banana. While it churned, we took a moment to mourn our last day. Marne and Val were determined to get me into the pool. I hesitated — I couldn’t get my bad ankle wet — but eventually I slipped on my waterproof shower sock and crawled into the water with Marne, then Val, with Marne supporting me like a human chair.

I confess that I’d been skeptical of the pool. If lying in an adult-sized inflatable pool was as lovely as getting in an actual pool, everyone would do it, right? When I’d ordered it, I was reminded of my grandfather asking my 6-year-old self if I wanted to go in a “Cuban swimming pool” before dunking me into a large bucket of water.

And yet, it is astonishing what water can do. The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard. But we were in our suits and slathered on sunscreen and it felt, for a few hours, like summer. Not the unique misery of 2020’s summer, but other summers with their normal excess and low stakes and abundance, their cheap flip-flops and pool afternoons and water ice and late sunsets.

We stayed there floating, laughing, talking, until the sun went. Dinner was Beyond Burgers — the best of the meatless proteins we’ve tried — with aged cheddar and caramelized onions and avocado and chipotle aioli on toasted buns. We polished them off and they were perfect; the sort of thing you wanted at the end of a summer day. Then we had a sundae bar: homemade hot fudge with bourbon, fried peanuts, homemade whipped cream, and large marshmallows toasted over the flame of our gas stove. This, all over the weekend’s two homemade ice creams; a perfectly decadent end.

Outside, it was dark. We flipped on the string lights and set up the projector and screen against the neighbor’s fence. Then, we watched Twister, a perfect summer drive-in-style film about human arrogance in the face of natural disaster. Oh, and the indescribable appeal of Helen Hunt. But mostly the human arrogance thing. Val slipped me popcorn; Marne sat near our feet. A few blocks away, a dead squirrel rotted in a dumpster. We enjoyed our pleasures even as we were trapped by a country that can’t get its act together. We ate and laughed and mourned our lost summer and laughed again. And what’s more American than that?

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[ninjagoestogreece]

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

     The Ζάππειον (Zappeion) stands proudly smack in the center of the Athenian National Gardens. The colossal yellow and white marble building hosts both public and private events, and as such, is surrounded by bright fluorescent streetlamps so visitors can navigate the road into and out of the gardens. The path leading behind the Ζάππειον, however? Slightly darker, much to the benefit of a small band of homeless men who sleep on the fountain-side benches at night. Though the path is a little foreboding at first glance, the walk itself is short and generally quite safe. “Generally”, being the operative word.

     The homeless who frequent the gardens tend to have at least a few dogs to keep them company. Most of them wear collars, and none of them are ever leashed. More than once I have encountered them, both walking to and from school. Usually they’re benevolent; one actually decided to guard me while walking to campus during my first week here, walking patiently alongside me as I munched on an apple I’d brought from home. Most of the time, you can spot one or two napping somewhere on the pavement or just off the path in the grass.

     This past Monday evening was no different. While walking towards the metro after class, I came across a husky sleeping in the middle of the path. Now, what you must understand is this: I love every dog. All of them. I couldn’t resist. I quietly gasped, “What a cutie!” and kept walking, smiling at the husky. And then suddenly, I wasn’t smiling anymore. The husky’s eyes shot open, and it barked as it lunged directly at my calves, snapping. I shrieked, knees buckling under the weight of my backpack as I tried to run away from the angry dog. He listened, and withdrew. A group of young men a few paces ahead of me turned at my scream and asked, “Εντάξει, are you ok?”. I mumbled “Όχι, no,” a little too lowly; they walked ahead without me, leaving me limping behind.

     I shook as I stumbled to the Σύνταγμα metro station. Both of my legs had been bitten. I was in as much a state of fear as I was in physical pain. What was I to do? Obviously I needed to get home, as I was my mission previous to my bite -- but what else? Where was the nearest φαρμακείο, the pharmacies that double as emergency first aid stations? There’s typically about seven per block in Athens, but evidently, the busiest square in town forgot to open even one. I would have to wait until I got to my neighborhood, two trains and forty minutes away, to find one that I recognized. What about a doctor? What’s the number for Greek 911 again? I didn’t have those answers to those questions. I could have called my host family, but waiting on a frigid bench for half an hour waiting for them seemed even less favorable. And what about my mom, seven hours behind and unable to be reached without a wifi signal? No; my best chance to deal with this would be to press on for medical help first. And so I hobbled along.

     While boarding my first metro, I ran into an acquaintance -- Vassilis, one of the violinists I wrote about in my last post. I waved him down, and he smiled, sitting across from me. “How are you, how are you?” he asked. “How were your classes?”      “They were fine,” I said, brushing back my hair and laughing anxiously. “I have a bit of a problem, though.”      “What is wrong?”      “I was just bitten by a dog.”      Vassilis’ eyebrows shot up. “Really? When? Where?”      “Behind the Ζάππειον, maybe ... ten minutes ago?” I inched up my left pant leg, wincing. A scrape was oozing a bit of clear lymph on the side of my knee. The other leg was markless, but I felt that it would blossom into a bruise soon enough.      “Ooh. What’re you going to do?”      “Go to a pharmacy, I guess?”      “Good plan, but try to see a doctor too,” he said, watching as I rolled my pant leg back down. “Are you ok?”      I nodded, and smiled half-heartedly. He smiled back. “Do you want me to come too?”      “Thanks, but you should probably get some rest. You fly tomorrow, right?”      “I do. But if you need me ...”      I sigh shakily. “I’ll be ok.”      “Ok.” He nods, and we both stand to get off at Αττική. “You’re coming to the concert on Thursday?”      “Won’t miss it.”      “Good. You can tell me how well you’re doing then.” We parted ways, and I switched to Line 1.

     In Ηράκλειο, I popped into the first pharmacy I saw. As soon as I explained my situation, he took a step back, saying, “I cannot help you. You must go to a doctor.” I hunched over and shrunk away. Full disclosure: I hate going to the doctor. I don’t like when things are wrong with me. Sometime in sixth grade, I broke my two front teeth, being passed from one dentist to the next for months until the very idea of visiting a medical professional nauseated me. So instead, I toddled past the metro towards my house and a second pharmacy. A familiar mane of curly red hair greeted me inside -- my host mother’s sister, who lives next door.

     “Eleni?”      She spun, and kissed me on both cheeks. “Ah! Τι κάνεις, how are you, Melissa? How’s Yilin?”      I felt myself laughing nervously again; it’s a habit. “I got hurt on my way home. A dog bit me.” She gasped, and turned back to the counter, whispering frantically in Greek to the pharmacist to get off her cellphone to look, then ushering me into a chair by the other side of the island. After determining that there wasn’t any bleeding, Eleni translated that I wouldn’t need a rabies shot and that I could be treated over the counter and go to a doctor later if I needed to. She then shuffled me to her place, where she lent me a bottle of betadine (an iodine derivative) and some cotton balls. She apologized for her own excited dog, who nudged his nose in the way of the betadine and my stinging leg. I jumped at first, still full of adrenaline, but ultimately found his need for affection endearing. I thanked Eleni, and she helped me get back down the stairs and at my home again, only to be fawned over by my entire host family (and on a call with my frantic mother) as soon as I walked inside.

     I won’t pretend that I was calm or confident during this ordeal. I had a small plan and directions home, but I was scared and a little clueless. Stress and fear and a lack of information compromised me. In all honesty, had it not been for the kindness and patience of people I had only barely met -- a musician I happened to meet, the sister of my host mother who has only stopped by once or twice to chat -- I would have been far worse off. Would I have been more hurt? No. Would I have been in further danger? No. But I would have been far more anxious, more harried, and more reckless without their guidance, their ability to communicate, and their limitless ability to care for strangers: their φίλοξενια (philoxenia), as it is called. Nobody wants to suffer a crisis, abroad or at home. But I am thankful that it has happened here, surrounded by a people ready to help anyone and everyone.

[blerdsonline]

Execution

When I was sixteen, I wasn’t in a great place emotionally. I was told by a recruiter that all of my problems would be solved if I joined up with SPACE, the Scientific Planetary Alliance for Celestial Exploration, everything would be better. I wouldn’t say everything has been worse, but it hasn’t been better. If anything, it feels like I ran from one problem and ran into another one. Originally, the mission for SPACE was to locate extraterrestrial life. Then, we messed up Earth. The mission changed to finding a planet that we could inhabit with minimum issue. We were a bunch of scientists who had to learn to fight now. No longer were we on a fun trip around the solar system. We’ve been on the ship for almost two years. We’ve discovered several new planets. None of them have been livable. Some are inhabited by giant creatures that would be too much to tame. Beasts as tall as sky scrapers cannot be tamed. There are no giant robots like we were promised. They would shrug off anything we did to them. Other planets have had atmospheres that would kill us in minutes. Some didn’t have solid ground. The entire trip has been pointless. We had Earth; we shouldn’t have messed up. We had years to save the planet but we just kept kicking the can down the road and blaming each other. We haven’t made contact with any intelligent life. The only life we’ve run into wants us dead. It’s ridiculous. I thought there was some grand plan of systematically selecting which planets we visit. Maybe we had some prior knowledge of the ones we chose. Instead, it seems like we’re just aiming in the dark and stopping at every planet we come to. We’re just hoping to find something. Mom wanted me to be a doctor. Every day out here, I wonder if she was right. The constant nagging and hovering didn’t help her make a good point. Still, if I were a doctor I wouldn’t be floating through space. I’m glad she isn’t here to hear that. She would never let me forget it. She’s probably got an ear twitch somewhere down on Earth. Still, it might have been a better career choice than running to the stars instead of finding a solution to my problems. What’s done is done and I can’t change it now. Just, make the best of it. I’ve got two years left on this journey. We’ve learned to master warp speed by channeling the energy of black holes and here we are. Using it every day, and we still haven’t found anything. You’d think they would send out more than one ship. Maybe a smaller ship with less people. But here we are. They wanted a colony of people the moment we found a livable place. We’re just going stir crazy on this ship. More of the civilians are put into stasis due to increases in violence. They aren’t even fighting for anything serious, just looking at each other wrong. It’s ridiculous. I’ve been thinking that it may be more effective to just try to terraform some of the planets that are mostly suitable. It wouldn’t take much more in terms of resources than what we’re doing. Maybe we just go back to Earth and find a way to fix what we screwed up. “Did you hear? They found a radio signal, one that isn’t from Earth,” Jess pops into my cabin to inform me before rushing off. I rush to suit up and track her down. Radio signals is big news around here. The only radio signals we’ve found are ones that were shot from Earth over the years. If this one isn’t from Earth this is huge news. We may have discovered some other life in the universe. We could be on the verge of finally completing our mission after all this time. I make it to the briefing room and it seems like just about everyone is already there. The radio signal is already playing. I don’t understand a thing that they’re saying. Nobody in the room does. A group of translators are huddled in the corner attempting to decipher the language heard. They aren’t having any luck. I’m not sure why we brought translators. It isn’t like any language we encountered out here would be based on Earth languages. That’s just one of the things that doesn’t make sense about this mission. It was rushed and they didn’t think things through. One thing about the voice is that it sounds distressed. That’s universal, in any language the sound of fear carries over. You recognize it. Doesn’t matter if it’s human, animal or alien. You know fear when you hear it, and you know when you see it. A few people are excited about what comes next, but something has scared these aliens, or would we be the aliens here? Either way, there sin’t any time wasted in trying to track the signal down. I’m sure there are coordinates included in the message but we can’t understand them. We’ve instead chosen to track them to their original location. A section of space not far from here. Arriving we see a derelict ship floating out there. There’s no response to our signals. The ship looks damaged, and there may be no more life on board. Still we all vote to enter the ship without hesitation. Those higher up in command rush to suit up and decide that they’ll be the ones to enter the ship. A commotion starts and they give up on the idea. Many feel as if command should be left on the ship in the event of danger. A lie, but nobody wants to be stuck on this ship when this could be our first chance at some real action. When they ask for volunteers almost every hand shoots up. They try to give some speech about no rookies being allowed to partake in such a dangerous mission. One man speaks up and states we’re all rookies in this situation. He’s not wrong. None of us have seen anything like this before. They resort to the classic way of doing it. They draw names from a hate. Five people will enter the ship and do a quick sweep before clearing it for others to enter and find out what happened. I eagerly throw my name in hoping to be chosen, but not expecting it. When my name is actually called as the fifth and last member of the squad, I rush through the crowd pushing people to the side. I’m finally going to do something fun for once. We’re taken into a separate room by leadership and they give us the same standard speech they give any time we touch land on a planet. Be on our best behavior, try to keep the situation calm and all that. This is the first time that it might actually be useful but I’ve got it committed to memory by now. They don’t wait for questions this time, they send us off to suit up sensing our anxiousness. I put my red and white suit, on. Years of technology have changed these suits over the years. They’re essentially suits of armor now, yet nowhere near as bulky as the original space suits. I pull a standard issue laser rifle from the charging station and finish by grabbing my helmet. My heart is beating out of my chest as we’re led to the bridge. Our space bridge extends across to the other ship and makes contact. The magnets trap the ships together. Hooks extend into the hull of the derelict ship to ensure it doesn’t float away with us on board. After a few salutes, we make our way across the bridge. The woman running point uses her plasma torch to cut a hole into the ship. We arm ourselves and get ready for something as she kicks out the piece of ship she had just cut. Inside the ship lights flicker, but there seems to be no sign of life. Our sensors indicate the air is breathable but there is a separate poison floating in the air. The ship looks much smaller from the outside. Inside it is grand and elegantly designed. We focus on function over beauty in our designs, but they seem to have the opposite in mind. What I can only guess is a tree stands alone in the middle of the foyer we breached into. The bark appears to be purple and there don’t appear to be any leaves. However, a white fruit seems to be growing from the tree. There seems to be half eaten pieces near the bottom of the tree. It looks like there were people here for sure. But they all seemed to have left in a hurry. Probably something to do with the distress signal they sent us. With no one left to rescue, our first objective is complete. Our next objective is to find information. Information about the ship, where it came from, where it is going and who piloted it. We attempt to radio back to the hub that the ship seems empty. Our calls fall on deaf ears. Something in the ship is blocking our communications. Perhaps it is whatever the ship is made from. It wouldn’t be absurd to believe it was made from some material that we don’t have any knowledge of. Instead we agree to explore the ship more. We’ve come too far to turn back now that we’ve finally gotten somewhere with this space mission. We spray out an invisible aerosol from our suits. We’ll be able to use it to get back to this entrance should we get lost. Once we pass from the main lobby into the ship there is no power so we rely on our helmet lights to see our way through. The ship is built almost like a maze, with every hall splitting off into another hall. This is a science ship. Rooms filled with computers and microscopes. I suppose some things are universal. None of these things are of human design, but their uses are apparent right away. The keyboard is filled with symbols I don’t recognize. They don’t look like any language or set of numbers I’ve ever seen. I tap a few keys but get no response. I wasn’t expecting one, but if I had it would be a big help. There are cages but none seem to hold animals anymore. The cages are small, so I doubt there would be anything that could hurt us if it was running around free. Computer tablets of some sort, litter the room. I pick one up and it illuminates the screen. Someone had been taking notes. Again, the strange symbols cover the notes as I scroll through. A diagram of what looks to be some kind of cell structure is drawn halfway through with handwritten instead of typed labels. We make our way to the next room; this one seems to be a cafeteria of sorts. Large group seating in different sections of the room. It doesn’t look like the usual lunch tables we have but stools surround floating circles which seem to be tables. The kitchen is what gives it away. It seems to be a large industrial grill, somewhat similar to what you would find in a fast food restaurant. The food however seems to be a lot different. Meat obviously looks like meat, still has bone attached but the colors are different. Green meat would be a certain death on Earth but they’ve got plenty of the stuff in freezers. We regroup in the center of the room, only to notice that we’ve lost a member. Doug, he’s nowhere to be found. The tracker in Doug’s suit has gone dark and he doesn’t respond to our calls. Doug was never a prankster, so something had to happen to him. Perhaps it is time that we get out of the ship and return later with a real party to search for Doug. We follow the spray back but the trail vanishes.This can’t be right. It seems like the entire layout of the ship has changed in the few minutes that we’ve been here. It doesn’t make any sense. The lab was right You can read the rest on Patreon from 12 AM Fiction https://ift.tt/2n4Rvt1 via IFTTT

[readcircles-blog]

Into the Amazon

From the start of my journey it had always been about getting away from normal, from routine. In fact from the start of my early adulthood I had been constantly fantasizing to break free into the unknown of what the world consisted of. It was only until I was halfway across the world, fighting for my life, that I realized how fortunate “normal” was.

After finishing high school I felt obligated to get away from home. I was disinterested and dulled by my surroundings. Even the people closest to me, my favorite places, became smothering and uncomfortable.

I was accepted to University in Colorado and soon relocated there. I joined a community of people who were passionate about the same things as myself; hiking, climbing, skiing, anything that got us outdoors. I was fascinated by the idea of exploring outside of America, getting further out of my comfort zone. I began religiously following adventurers online; photographers, journalists, explorers. These people inspired me, yet even then I  felt myself becoming depressed, feeling stagnant in my environment. Surrounded by students from wealthy families who were partying away their educations, I became fidgety, restless. I would day dream about going out to the highway with a backpack and hitchhiking as far away as I possibly could. Yearning to experience discomfort, poverty, solitude, and anything else which came with it.

Six months later and it was almost time to depart on a one way flight to Chile, the furthest south I’d ever ventured. After leaving the manicured lawns and red brick buildings of the University of Colorado, I would embark on a solo journey across all of South America without any itinerary.

While headed towards Argentina on an overcrowded bus, I caught myself in a moment of reflection. Two months I’d been on the road; I had surfed my way down the Chilean coast, climbed volcanos, rafted rivers, met a wide variety of new people, and still I felt frustrated. Despite the oppressive heat, I was well within my comfort zone. The areas I was visiting, so massively westernised, allowing me to feel comfortable while being so far removed from home. I didn’t want comfort. I wanted change. I was longing for adrenaline, thrill, culture, wild experiences, danger, something to get me going. The reality was I couldn’t change unless I shifted my attitude towards the trip. The tormenting thoughts of a failed adventure consumed me.

By the time I arrived in Bariloche, the northernmost city of Patagonia, I was frustrated with myself and those around me in the busy town cluttered with other travellers. Shutting out my negative thoughts I pushed on. With a cardboard sign and my thumb sticking out, I worked my way down a thousand miles of desolate Argentine highway, into the Jagged peaks and colossal glaciers of Patagonia, through starry nights in the Atacama Desert, across the Salt Flats of Bolivia, and into the Amazon Jungle.

It took 24 hours riding on a bus that wound up crumbling mountain roads, three hours in a jeep through muddy farmland, and four hours on a small wooden river boat to get to what felt like, the middle of nowhere. I wanted to be off the grid, off the beaten path, into stillness. Miles deep in maze of river passages surrounding lush jungle, I’d accomplished this. Time there was spent piranha fishing, anaconda hunting, playing with monkeys; that was exactly what I’d manifested and willed myself into.

It was perfect until the unbearable pain began. Self diagnosing the fast onset of discomfort as a bad case of food poisoning, I’d hoped that imodium pills and water would get me through a few uncomfortable days in the Amazon. That night, the jungle guides brewed me a up a remedy of vines, plants, and tree bark they’d sourced from around the village. They instructed me to drink it before bed and promised it would make my pain go away.

As the third night went on, the sharp pains rapidly evolved. Hours of terrifyingly vivid hallucinations accompanied by chills and  uncontrollable shaking took over my body. Dawn approached and I felt the urge to vomit or have diarrhea. I stumbled out of the screen door and slumped against the outside of the hut. I was seeing double, had no sense of direction and my balance was horrible. I needed to get to a toilet. The closest option was an outhouse, 100 feet away at the end of an elevated boardwalk which appeared to be no more than a few planks slapped together. I couldn’t risk the walk, how could I trust my balance if I couldn’t even see straight? I began to crawl, slow and weak, dripping in sweat, in nothing but my underwear.

The early morning came quickly. The jungle was alive, noises and commotion came from every direction, the chaotic buzzing of insects and birds began to overwhelm me, forcing me to collapse while trying to get ahold of my cerebrum. The sun just under the horizon was bringing a pale blue light to the sky, and dissolving the darkness. My mind and body slowed as I absorbed the surreal setting I was in. Immobilized and being devoured by mosquitos, I looked up into the eyes of an 8 foot caiman lurking in the water next to me, just waiting for a limb.

The next day, the guides took me down river to the nearest village with a doctor. Inside a small clinic I laid still as the doctor examined my abdomen. After numerous sharp jabs and pokes to my lower belly, he looked at me gravely and in hesitance mumbled in spanish,

“Your appendix has ruptured”.

The screeching sounds of alarm bells started going off in my head, this had to be a nightmare. Unable to comprehend the situation,

“Could I die?”, he hesitated after a beat and reluctantly said,

“Yes… I believe you have 8 to 12 hours of life left”.

It’s hard to describe the feeling… comprehending your own mortality. At that moment I thought of one thing, my family, my friends, how devastated they would all be. How I didn’t want this to be the end of living.

Frantically I began to yell, feeling scared, jumbled, confused.

“We need to get a rescue helicopter, now! Call the American Embassy, is there a military base we can contact?! Please, I’ll pay any amount of money, just get me out of here!”

They assured me they’d do what they could. I felt hot, sweaty, unsure of what would happen and thought about my life coming to an end. Nothing was happening, no one was rushing around, no phone calls being made. I soon realized where I was, rural Bolivia. Being the poorest country in South America, the options were scarce, barely existent. My life was not given the same value here as back home, they didn’t have the resources to have me rescued.

I was still, staring at the old, rotting ceiling, thinking about life. All of that life that I would be missing out on. That life that I had taken for granted, been bored with, felt smothered by... all of that seemed like a far off fantasy that I now desired so badly.

Minutes turned to an hour, an hour of hearing no word of what was to happen. An hour taken of the short amount of life I had left, an hour spent staring at a ceiling in tremendous pain, trying to focus on things that made me feel happy, safe, close to home.

Quickly a man entered the room frantically, yelling what seemed like gibberish,

“airplane! airplane!”

A small four seater Cessna pulled up in front of the building. The doctor stabbed me in the butt with a giant needle of morphine, and they loaded me into the plane. My new friend Lewis that I had set in to the jungle with, and a Portuguese girl named Ines, acting as a translator, accompanied me.

Men were running around, fuelling the plane by filling up two liter coke bottles and dumping  them into the very small, rickety jet. The only reason these men even had an airplane, in the middle of the Amazon, was because of their business in the drug trafficking industry. They demanded nearly all of the money we had on us in order for them to fly us to a hospital. There were six people crammed into the four seats as we soared over the amazon in fear. Halfway through the flight, the back door of the plane flew open in aggression and we nearly lost everyones belongings.

We touched down on a dirt road in a town called Trinidad, which seemed to have outlived its reason to exist. The pilot refused to fly me to the Capital city of La Paz, so this was my only option. We entered the hospital in a hurry, though relieved to be in a hospital it came as a dissapointment. Inside, mold covered the walls and ceilings, blood and feces was sprayed over the courtyard from where they washed the mattresses, sick people scattered all around the halls, and stray dogs roamed about the entrance.

I was feeling anything but confident in the fact that I would survive. If the appendicitis didn't kill me, an infection from this place surely would. I had never seen a place like this, when I think hospital, I think clean, sanitary, smelling of alcohol and chemicals to keep everything sterile. The place smelled of mold, the air was heavy, weighing me down.

On the verge of sepsis, the doctors stuck and IV in my arm and told me that if they didn't operate now, my kidneys would fail, there was no time to think. They wheeled me in to a green room, stripped me naked, pumped the anesthesia into me and I was out.

I awoke, confused and hot. The room I was in, no longer green. Tubes were everywhere, in my nose, stomach, bladder, arm. I felt hazy, disoriented. I looked down to see a poorly stitched frankenstein like gash in my abdomen, swollen and red. My stomach was so bloated that it looked like I was pregnant.

The next seven days were the worst of my life. The first 24 hours without water, and the following five days without food. Unable to walk, I shit and puked on myself in bed, sometimes going a full night without it being cleaned up. Ants crawled all over the room, and the humidity kept me drenched in sweat, unbearably itchy. The part that bothered me the most though, was that I was getting the best treatment in the hospital.

The following is from a note I wrote on my phone while in the hospital:

I have help from friends and family overseas, I’m receiving special treatment, and can act however I want in the hospital because I am a rich white American. The man next to me has a broken and severely infected leg. I see exposed bone, blood, and dirty bandages. Although I cannot completely understand what is going on, his mother is here… she is crying. The family is arguing about an operation and something to do with eating and money. This man might die, he might lose his leg, he like most of the people in this country does not have the resources I have to get everything I possibly need to stay alive. It puts things in perspective. I’m so thankful for all I have. I can’t stop crying.

I returned home to the US after a week in that hospital. I spent six months in and out of the hospital there, dealing with infection and physical therapy to completely rebuild my abdominal wall. I started getting on my feet once I had enough strength again, and doctors cleared me.

I’ve never been more gracious to be able to go on another adventure, but more than that, I’ve never been more humbled and pleased by the perfectly normal, anticlimactic, everyday moments of my life. To simply be healthy, comfortable, and living in a family thats not struggling to survive is a luxury that we take for granted so often. In a world where so many people do not have these basics necessities, I believe all of us that can, should help spread the wealth. Everybody deserves to feel, for lack of better words, normal.

To Lewis, thanks for sticking with me.

[easyfoodnetwork]

When leaving the house is impossible, cocktails, caftans, and karaoke are all the vacation you need Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the short-story collection Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She’s writing from the Philadelphia home in which she’s sheltered and convalesced since March. Two weeks before the city of Philadelphia went into lockdown, I was in an airport in Ixtapa, Mexico, staring at a travel advisory about the coronavirus. It was early enough that the sign was asking if you’d recently traveled to China or Italy; early enough that it was small and had come off a laser printer and was taped near our airline’s check-in desk. We’d spent the week at a resort on the Pacific coast with a fellow writer couple, taking our first real vacation — our first travel experience without a restrictive budget or attached work or other obligations — in our adult lives. There’d been a break in my book tour schedule, and I took it. I wanted to read, eat seafood, see the ocean, and swim in an infinity pool, and I’d done all of those things. I even had the patchy mix of a tan and sunburn to prove it. I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space. I’m a speculative writer and a hypochondriac. I’ve written stories about pandemics; imagined their slow and terrible creep, the way they stifle and challenge. Still, back in February we had not been to China or Italy. We flew home. We hugged our friends goodbye and declared the vacation a success. Let’s do it again next year, we said. When we unpacked, everything in our suitcases smelled like vacation: sunblock, salt, chlorine. I inhaled every piece of clothing before I put it in the hamper. You know what happened next, of course. Coronavirus crested and broke on our shores and we, Americans — leaderless, stubborn, foolhardy to the end — were uniquely unsuited for thriving or survival. The welcome pause in my travel schedule turned into a monthslong quarantine that has not yet abated. My wife, Val, began to work from home. I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space. I talked on the phone with my girlfriend, Marne, who was quarantined with their aunt and uncle on Long Island; I read out loud to them from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, a few pages at a time. Our ancient beagle mix, Rosie, went from overjoyed with our presence to vaguely neurotic, shadowing us everywhere we went, unable to be left alone for even a moment. Still, we were luckier than most. We were safe, able to do our work from home. Plus, our house had enough space that we didn’t want to murder each other. We decided to pull a new tarot card each morning. A couple of months into lockdown, I was approved for some long-awaited ankle surgery. A few weeks later, a post-op complication with the incision felled me. My doctor put me on hardcore antibiotics that kept me awake for days and made me manic. (“Maybe I can sleep like this,” I’d apparently insisted to my horrified wife, twisted into a bizarre pretzel on our living room couch; I have no memory of the incident.) I was also prescribed a wound-vac, which turned out to be a medical fetish object that relieved pressure on the incision through a gentle sucking organ; the experience is not entirely unlike being seduced by an octopus. I made jokes about “fresh, organic Carmen juice” and watched liquid move through the tube and listened to the creature’s gentle burbling when everything was quiet. A few weeks later, I was given a skin graft that had been grown in a pig’s bladder. It was thin as tissue paper. My doctor told me I still couldn’t bear weight on that foot, and I had to continue to use my mobility scooter to get around. I left the appointment in a terrible mood, blasting System of a Down at full volume. It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.” As my infirmity stretched on and on, my girlfriend decided to temporarily move in with me and my wife to help out. “I guess it’s like Big Love over there?” their aunt asked. It was certainly specific enough of a scenario to be prestige TV: polyamorous writer dykes and their internet-famous geriatric hound riding out a pandemic and a climate-change-worsened heat wave in a rambling Philadelphia Victorian. This was how Eater found me: Did I want to go camping and write about it? asked a very nice editor. Did I want to do a road trip? Maybe stay at a cabin in the woods? It’s the new American vacation; socially isolated, iconic. We were tempted. We spent time scrolling through listings for beach houses and lake houses, but the necessary elements — within a reasonable driving distance, dog-friendly, scooter-accessible, on a body of water, and affordable — seemed impossible. “Vacation-style eating” included lobster rolls with a side of hound. The Death Card on day 1 signaled a time of transition. It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.” And it has a distinctly American flair to it: our inability to take actual breaks, the way we accept lack of real vacation the way, say, Europeans never would. And how does one create a true staycation? That is, a vacation from home that feels genuinely relaxing and separate from the everyday grind, not just an excuse to binge seven seasons of The Great British Bake Off? Val and I had our recent perfect vacation as a kind of platonic ideal. I loved the understated luxury of the experience: I swanned around in caftans and bathing suits, swam, ate well and always al fresco, read a ton, was good about staying off the internet, and was generally oblivious to the apocalypse inching towards us (that is, mostly stayed off Twitter and turned off New York Times news alerts). This both translated easily to a staycation — outfits, reading, and staying off the internet were well within my grasp — and not at all. We don’t have a pool. We’d have to cook ourselves. The outdoors are full of mosquitos, and getting to them required me to climb down flights of stairs with one functioning leg. Val, on the other hand, had primarily enjoyed our trip’s lack of responsibilities: no cooking meals, no walking the dog. Her staycation version of this was doing everything she wanted — puttering around in the backyard, harvesting produce from her plot in the community garden — and nothing she didn’t. Marne had different ideas: They wanted to make something. Their idea of a vacation was buying a new cookbook and trying a bunch of different recipes. Everyone agreed on one thing: We wanted to be able to swim, or something akin to it. I ordered a self-inflating adult-sized kiddie pool from the internet. An ice cream maker, too, and David Lebowitz’s The Perfect Scoop (recommended by Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen) and a portable projector to have a drive-in movie experience in the backyard. (My idea; as a child, drive-ins were one of my favorite parts of summer.) We agreed on a set of principles: to stay off social media as much as possible; eat frequently and well; do our own personal activities that we enjoyed and come together when we wanted to. We would share the cooking, make one night a takeout night, and have brunch on Sunday. And we decided to pull a single tarot card each morning, as a way of bringing ourselves into the day. Val is a long-time tarot enthusiast; I am generally suspicious of woo-woo but find tarot to be a pleasing intersection of art and the language of the subconscious. And of us love the act of ritual. So yes, we said. Tarot it would be. Cheap flip flops and pool lounging (here, by Marne) are part of the normal summer excess. On day one, Marne pulled the death card, of course. The deck is the Carnival at the End of the World, and the death card is a scythe-bearing skeleton on a dead horse upon a hill of decapitated heads. Marne barked with laughter and then, slightly freaked out, left the room to collect themselves. Val had to explain that, unlike in the movies, a death card was rarely bad. It was powerful but positive. It was about transitions, changes. Exactly the sort of card you’d expect to kick off a move from the harried hours of real life to a true break. But we weren’t ready, not yet. The house was a mess, something I knew would impede me from enjoying vacation fully. We’d ordered a new bed frame a few weeks before that should have been assembled, but it was missing a necessary piece; said piece had only shown up the day before. So the bed needed assembling, too. Oh, and there was dog hair everywhere: lining the couch cushions, floating like tumbleweeds across the hardwood. I realized that this was the piece of vacation I missed the most: arriving in a new, clean space with your responsibilities wiped clean. Not having to fuss about details because someone else has fussed about them for you. But that sort of vacation has evaporated into the ether, so we agreed to just power through a final act of cleaning and organizing and assembling, and have our vacation start at happy hour. We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard. And it did. At 5 p.m., I made us a batch of cocktails — bastardized Pimm’s cups, complete with cucumber, mint from Val’s garden, and dried orange slices. I put on Taylor Swift’s Folklore, which had dropped the day before. Then we made dinner: corn risotto, whose page in Cook’s Illustrated we’d dogeared and been salivating over for days; seared scallops; and fried artichokes. We got slightly tipsy and marveled at the recipe’s fussiness: pureeing corn cob milk with fresh kernels and then squeezing the liquid out of the resulting pulp. Val shucked, Marne made the rice. I hyper-focused on my task, pressing the mixture down with the back of a spoon, staring at the measuring cup. It was the first time in a month that we’d all cooked together, and the process felt light and almost labor-less. The jumbo scallops sizzled and browned and looked restaurant-elegant; the artichokes seared beautifully. It was as fine a summer meal as I’d ever eaten. We sat at the dining room table with the windows open; replaced the fading sunset with the light from an overhead fixture. After the food was gone, we moved from subject to subject. Marne maintained that while the risotto was delicious, corn is best served on the cob. We meditated on the true meaning of the Death card we’d drawn. Was it about using up the week’s leftovers? Finishing assembling the bed? We moved on to the topic of ejaculation (comma, my ex-boyfriends, comma, their ex-girlfriends). After dinner, we watched two episodes of Steven Universe — aptly, the ones that introduce a polyamorous character, the Gem Flourite — and climbed into bed feeling very satisfied with ourselves. Marne made biscuits for Sunday brunch. Saturday morning, we sat in my office and drank coffee and drew the emperor. This deck’s version of the emperor is a eyeless gentleman elephant standing on a mountain of tusks. It is considered a sign of stability and material wealth. It made sense, then, that we remembered to make a batch of milk-chocolate-raspberry ice cream so that it would be ready in the evening. It made sense that a particularly beautiful cream-and-cocoa silk chiffon caftan that I’d ordered a month ago from Jibri arrived in the mail, and I put it on with nothing underneath. It made sense that we ate leftovers — practical! — and then made our way outside, where I read Jennifer Egan’s The Keep beneath a fringed umbrella and Val and Marne blew up the inflatable pool and paddled around, insisting I join them while I demurred. It made sense that we ordered out for dinner, and could not decide between New England-style lobster rolls and bright summer salads (corn, grilled peach, and scallion; watermelon and feta), from Philly summer pop-up Anchor Light, or Lebanese plates and dips (from Suraya: hummus and baba ghanoush and labneh and tabbouleh; charred runner beans and fried cauliflower in hot-mint yogurt and lamb kebabs and crispy batata harra), so we ordered both. We sat and ate and Val and Marne went back in the water and I finished reading as the light bled from the sky. We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard. We went inside and our ice cream was waiting. Watching Twister in the backyard When we woke up on Sunday, I opened the bedroom door (shut to preserve the air conditioning) to a smell like I’d never experienced before. It smelled like a moose had climbed three flights of stairs only to die in our hallway. The odor permeated every floor of the house. I closed the door and went back to bed like a woman with the vapors. Val and Marne ventured to the backyard, where the tiniest tentacles of the smell had begun the night before. Flashlight in hand, Val rooted around under the crawlspace and discovered a decomposing squirrel. It felt like an omen, or maybe a metaphor, or maybe a giant fuck-you from a year that won’t let up. In bed, I began to call wildlife removal services, all of which were closed on Sundays, prohibitively expensive, or too far away. “This doesn’t happen at hotels,” I said, staring at the ceiling. Val smeared vapor-rub under her nostrils like a coroner and crawled under the house to retrieve the squirrel. She bagged it and walked several blocks away to our old apartment building, where she disposed of it in the dumpster. She came back and filled every floor with shallow dishes of white vinegar and baking soda and coffee grounds. She showered. We drew a tarot card. An inverted eight of wands. A wreathed and naked woman upon a pangolin over a scattered pile of sticks, and a cosmic imperative to take a break. The smell faded. We knew we needed to get into the mood for day three. Brunch, we agreed. I pulled together a bloody mary — homemade horseradish vodka, EPIC Pickles bloody mary mix from central Pennsylvania, pickled okra, cornichons, dilly beans, and a strip of bacon — and made a tomato salad with whipped feta. Marne made biscuits, and we ate until we were full. I took a long, hot nap in our sunroom and then went to the living room, where we watched Gourmet Makes videos from Bon Appétit. It was supposed to be outdoor movie night, but we couldn’t do it; we were exhausted. In bed, we watched Birds of Prey projected against the far wall. “I just want to watch women beating up some men,” Marne said, and I could not argue otherwise. The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard. On Monday, we drew an eight of pentacles: an omen of plenty, represented by a baker and a trio of puffins and a tray of rolls for sharing. We prepped another batch of ice cream, this one my suggestion: roasted banana. While it churned, we took a moment to mourn our last day. Marne and Val were determined to get me into the pool. I hesitated — I couldn’t get my bad ankle wet — but eventually I slipped on my waterproof shower sock and crawled into the water with Marne, then Val, with Marne supporting me like a human chair. I confess that I’d been skeptical of the pool. If lying in an adult-sized inflatable pool was as lovely as getting in an actual pool, everyone would do it, right? When I’d ordered it, I was reminded of my grandfather asking my 6-year-old self if I wanted to go in a “Cuban swimming pool” before dunking me into a large bucket of water. And yet, it is astonishing what water can do. The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard. But we were in our suits and slathered on sunscreen and it felt, for a few hours, like summer. Not the unique misery of 2020’s summer, but other summers with their normal excess and low stakes and abundance, their cheap flip-flops and pool afternoons and water ice and late sunsets. We stayed there floating, laughing, talking, until the sun went. Dinner was Beyond Burgers — the best of the meatless proteins we’ve tried — with aged cheddar and caramelized onions and avocado and chipotle aioli on toasted buns. We polished them off and they were perfect; the sort of thing you wanted at the end of a summer day. Then we had a sundae bar: homemade hot fudge with bourbon, fried peanuts, homemade whipped cream, and large marshmallows toasted over the flame of our gas stove. This, all over the weekend’s two homemade ice creams; a perfectly decadent end. Outside, it was dark. We flipped on the string lights and set up the projector and screen against the neighbor’s fence. Then, we watched Twister, a perfect summer drive-in-style film about human arrogance in the face of natural disaster. Oh, and the indescribable appeal of Helen Hunt. But mostly the human arrogance thing. Val slipped me popcorn; Marne sat near our feet. A few blocks away, a dead squirrel rotted in a dumpster. We enjoyed our pleasures even as we were trapped by a country that can’t get its act together. We ate and laughed and mourned our lost summer and laughed again. And what’s more American than that? from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2Q7xXiB

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-exhausting-work-of-staycationing.html