#we should have a day to remember all the people who died from rabies because holy fucking shit

[justanotherfanartist]

every once in a while I read the wikipedia page for Rabies again and I get the Fear of God instilled in me

[detachedfacade]

You are Eddie Munson. You wake up late every morning and groan at your alarm signalling another goddamn day at the school you've outgrown. You pull on whatever clothes you can find that smell good enough before you remember it's hellfire tonight and search through your closet to find one of the five you own. It should be easier, shouldn't it? Given that they're the only shirts you own that aren't almost completely black but damn are they evasive. You storm out your room to the living room and before you can open your mouth your uncle is throwing the shirt across the room to you.

"You left it on the couch, I gave it a wash." He says. He's still wearing his work clothes, he just got in. "You ought to let me do some more of your laundry boy."

"Not a chance Wayne, you don't want to go rifling through my stuff you'd have a heart attack." You say.

"I can avert my eyes from any girly mags you have, I used to share a room with my brother I've seen it all."

"Ew." You say. "May I remind you that brother is my father." And you don't correct him about the girly mags because, well maybe he's not completely wrong. Those fantasy erotic graphic novels do focus heavily on the female characters. But it's the male characters you look at, when you are looking at all. And you know your uncle wouldn't judge, heck you've even heard him say as much about the young guy he works with, "Queer as a $3 bill" he said "But a hard worker and a nice kid. So I make sure the guys don't give him any stick, god knows he gets it back home." But you lost enough parents as it is, so you hedge your bets and stay closeted. For now at least. Besides you have school and you're late and you're finishing the curse of fucking vecna campaign tonight so you have a few other things on your mind.

School is soul crushing, of course. But you're grateful for at least one thing, Steve Harrington doesn't go there any more, and your planet sized crush had left with him. So it's just Jason (the prick) and a couple teachers with a vendetta (okay maybe you didn't do the homework) to deal with.

You deal drugs, you always have. You think you'll never be able to touch that tin lunch box again. You don't even wonder how you'll pay off the supplier. Because a nice girl who needed help just fucking died on your ceiling and you didn't know what to do so you ran.

You hold a glass up to the neck of the guy you used to crush on. It's hard to remember liking someone when you're being hunted down by jocks and you're pretty sure a poltergeist snapped someone's neck in front of you.

Things get crazier but you manage to calm down. Like maybe this is all just an elaborate dnd campaign. And you can convince yourself of that for a while.

And the man you had a crush on rips a bat in two while shirtless and its your erotic fantasy novel come to life, and what you wouldn't give to be the busty underdressed lady in this fantasy. Except its not a fantasy, it's real, and people are dying and you see this man is sad behind those eyes. You see he is lonely but you know he would never look at you the way he looks at her. So you tell him, go get the girl Harrington. Because he deserves to be happy, even in and amongst this shit show. But you can't stop looking at him, and you can't stop yourself from flirting with him because Jesus fuck does he look hot in your vest. And you wonder if he noticed the pink triangle pin on the inside of the lapel, you wonder if he knows what it means. But he doesn't say anything.

Not until a week later, when you survive somehow, and are covered in scars, and the pretty boy comes to visit you in hospital.

"We match." He says, lifting up his shirt.

"Fingers crossed we don't get rabies." You reply.

"You sure you don't already have it?" He says, his hand furling your hair. "You look pretty rabid to me."

You almost lose it, almost forget how to talk, but then he's placing your vest, cleaned and ironed, gently on your lap. And he taps his finger over the front pocket. "You don't have to hide this from me." He says, when he moves his hand you see its the pink triangle pin. "Hide from anyone you want but...just know you dont have to hide from me."

You convince yourself it doesn't mean what you think it means. You tell yourself you are just being delusional. He's just an ally, that's probably what it is. He knows what it means and he's an ally. But you don't really believe that, and maybe it's hope talking but you don't. So you grab an old jacket from the very back of your wardrobe and you make sure it smells okay, maybe add some of your cologne to the collar, and you head over to Harringtons. You hold it in front of you. "A gift." You say. "You can cut off the sleeves too, if you want. Mod it anyway you want. I have some patches if you wanted any, for the inside or outside."

Steve seems delighted. "I've heard acid wash is really in." He say. "I don't know if I'd cut the sleeves but maybe I'll add some patches. What do you have?" and you hold out the patches in your hand. It's an obvious ploy, and Steve knows, his eyebrow quirking and a smirk forming he gives you a look. He picks up the bisexual flag one. "Maybe you can help me sew it on?" He says. And you're in his house, and soon you will be on his couch and then his bed, and while you're there you'll decide to throw out those old mags in your room. You'll have the real thing.

[endlich-allein]

Interview with Till about his life: he fought with his father, killed his beloved dog, swam on a wild river and worked on suffering. How Till Lindemann's mind works

"I will finish you off" and why you fought for the German army.

Werner Lindemann wanders around the room, interrupting the silence with strange questions, writing something down. His motive is to get to know his son and make him a friend. But it's complicated. Generational conflict.

"My island of tranquility is shaken every day. The day before yesterday, a guy pulled on my socks because his were torn. Yesterday he didn't put out a single lamp in the house. Now, with voluptuous delight, he spits cherry pits into the cat's fur. Is this grown boy really an adult?"

The apprenticeship in Rostock, where you have to do window production after graduation, is the limit of boredom. Till Lindemann moved to his father in the countryside so that he could forget about the hustle and bustle of the city and not fall under the article for anti-social attitudes. He thought of a new life, in which there was no pointless work, and arranged an attic in his father's house.

In the mornings over coffee, he scolded life that everything went according to schedule. And listened very loudly to music - electronics and metal. My father didn't understand and grumbled: “I matured late. Naturally, I wanted to listen to the music I liked, but I could not get my hands on these records. For example, my father did not understand when I bought the Alice Cooper record for a month's salary.

Werner Lindemann was a children's writer who went through the war.

At the height of his career he disappeared for weeks on literary tours - his fame spread to teachers and librarians across the country. His father pecked at Lindemann for refusing to work and promised to turn him in:

"My willful child. What doesn't fit his standards is rejected as nonsense or crap." So he took a job as a carpenter, where he made shovel cuttings and cart wheels. The head foreman constantly drank vodka during the day, didn't want to be annoyed with questions and addressed the long-haired Lindemann with the nickname: "Mozart!" This suited him.

Werner Lindemann talked about war, hard existence and limitations. For example, about a grenade splinter that remained in his body. Lindemann did not believe in all these stories - but categorically did not accept service, war and murder:

“After that I objected: “I would hide, I would not go to war. Why did you even let yourself be dragged into this? You could have hidden."

And he said: “It didn't work out. They searched for it and it took away."

Then I said: “I would rather go under arrest. Never in my life, I would go to the front line to shoot people. It's against my nature. It would be better if I went to jail."

Much of the time father and son were simply silent, even while watching television.

"He regularly made me feel guilty, to say the least, he placed himself on a pedestal towards me: I shouldn't complain. At your age, I ran barefoot through the stubble, and in my stomach - a potato in a uniform."

The only acceptance is Mike Oldfield's music: "One day my father came to grumble again. At that moment I was listening to Mike Oldfield, and he sat down and said: "That sounds interesting."

For me it was like a quantum leap: my father sits in my room, listens to my music and thinks it was good. Probably because of melancholy. He was sitting in a rocking chair that I made myself - at the time I was working as a carpenter on a farm. I, too, always sat in an armchair, immersed myself in music and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes."

The conflict was intensified by a fight. Lindemann bought a Trabant car, installed speakers in it and tested the sound - loud as usual. “Then my father came and I had to turn off this fucking music. It was kind of loud for him. He was then fiddling around his cases of flowers, and then suddenly the situation escalated. I think he slapped me while I was still in the car.

He leaned toward me and hit me with the back of his hand. I made some bullshit remarks like, "Leave me alone," something like that. That was a provocation to him, and he said: "If you do that again, I'll hit you for real." And I said, "Then you'll get it back. Because you're crazy. Don't you dare to hit me anymore."

And then he hit me with his palm again. He wasn't controlling himself.

He was exalting himself. Instantly he introduced himself as a boxer - he had boxed in the Hitler Youth - and I just... I thought I didn't hit him, I just pushed him away. And then he stood in front of me again, "Come on, I'll finish you, you haven't got a chance!" Somehow. After that, he went up to the attic and threw all my stuff out the window.

It happened over the weekend, my sister was there, a lot of screaming, serious drama. Then I packed my things, put them in the car, went to a friend's house and never went into his house again. At first I lived with this friend, and a week later I bought myself a house in the village."

His father's book is about his son, which the son will only open up after the death of the father.

Lindemann is a late child. He was born when his father was 36. The gap in their relationship was felt in everyday life and perception of the world. Werner Lindemann woke up early in the morning, worked with the circular saw under the windows and did not understand when his son slept until noon after a working week.

Lindemann's parents then lived separately, but kept in touch. Mom worked as a journalist and discussed her texts with his father. "She still lived in Rostock and always came to see him only on weekends. Mostly on Sundays she came back quite early, because she couldn't stand the stress of being with him, either."

In 1988, the book “Mike Oldfield im Schaukelstuhl Notizen eines Vaters" In this book, Lindemann Senior describes the relationship with his son (whom he calls Timm in the book), who settled with him at the age of 18. The book was written in the 80s and laid on the table until the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany were reunited.

Werner Lindemann wanted his son to take up writing too. But this only amused him, although as a child he wrote poetry. At the age of 13, little Till Lindemann and his father were returning home along the bumpy road to Mecklenburg. They talked about career self-determination:

"You should already have thoughts about what you want to become, boy." My answer: "I don't know yet, maybe a fisherman on the high seas."

But immediately, no matter what I said, objections arose: “But then you have to get a certificate of maturity. But then you will be away all the time. But then you won't be able to start a relationship."

There was always a “but”.

At some point it got on my nerves, as usual. And I said: "Worst case scenario, I'll just become a writer.

I still remember how alienated his face became. "And what do you think then, what do I do! It's a very hard job! In fact, it's not even a job, it's a passion. And it's a job that's supposed to be enjoyable."

I said, "I don't know anybody who works with pleasure."

"Yeah, that's the problem. You have to look for a job that gives you pleasure." Then I say again, "But some people never get to choose..." This gigantic discussion happened because I didn't take his profession seriously. At the same time, he was completely lost, funny!"

Lindemann thoughtfully read his father's book, in which he comprehends their relationship, after his death. Faked for hidden anger and indecision. For example, in a situation where their dog Kurt was bitten by a fox. The father was frightened because of rabies: “At the same time, we did not even know whether he was bitten by a fox or not. The father immediately called the huntsman. But I said: no one will enter this courtyard and shoot the dog. I'll do it myself if I really need it. At some point I really had to kill the dog."

Lindemann is not a monster. The animals he fiddled with are an important attribute of childhood. He had an aquarium and hamsters, brought mice and rats home, and was friends with dogs. “Like many children of new buildings, he felt the need for someone alive, in need of love,” said Werner Lindemann. Sometimes the appearance of an animal in the house was surprising:

“This guy will never say what he's up to. He appears on the doorstep at the same time as me. He gets out from his vehicle, throws his coat open and puts a young black shepherd in my hands. "Your Christmas present!"

Till's father is speechless. My son stands before me like the sun's little brother. Touchingly concerned, he directs me into the house, working out a plan for the animal husbandry, accommodation and diet of our new pet housemate.

With confusion, a question flies from my lips, "Wheredid you get the dog from?" "Timm" is gibbering, "Imagine, the mason in the barnyard wanted to hang him, simply wanted to strangle him with a rope, said he was a worthless eater..."

Werner Lindemann died of stomach cancer in 1993, when his son was 30. They didn't finally reconcile, but Till visited him in his last days and was there for him with his mother: "They couldn't be without each other, even though they lived apart. Unreal, but my mother never had another man afterwards. To this day she can't let go of him."

- Not going to the Olympics in Moscow and ending up in the German ghetto

Lindemann had the knowledge and the potential to be a swimmer. And a shyness that pounded harder three days before the competition than concerts in front of crowds of thousands. "I know how difficult it is to develop willpower and stamina and instill those attributes. In the GDR this was instilled in us by coaches and so-called functionaries."

Lindemann came to swimming at the age of eight and devoted his entire youth to the sport. He would get up for training at five in the morning and pass out in the evening. His grandmother watched him from the stands. At a competition in Leipzig she shouted at the coach, who told Lindemann off for a poor result. The grandmother took the coach by the ear and said: "How do you talk to my grandson?"

Sports tightened up his upbringing and developed self-discipline. “Drilling - probably the boy has already received this experience as a swimmer,” Lindemann's father wrote. - Once he had to take second place in a competition, but by no means first place. Of course, he got carried away, forgot about it, became the first, thanks to which he received a shouting for indiscipline. And whenever he lost in the future, his coach would torture him at practice for a long time and yelled at him: "Even if you win, you're not a winner yet!"

Lindemann swam the 1.5 km freestyle and could have gone to the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Everything was ruined when he left the hotel without permission during a competition in Florence: "I didn't want to run, but just wanted to look at the city. Cars, bikes, girls. I was caught and kicked out of the team, but then I didn't give the required results either."

Lindemann competed at the European Junior Championships, but did not go any higher. After the story in Florence, his career in sport slipped away. Perhaps an abdominal injury influenced his departure. Lindemann is gone, but he doesn't yearn: "I was relatively young. There were no good [memories] left. I was glad it was over."

"The hardest part was getting back to normal. I fell into a real hole. My home was no longer a sports school, but a ghetto in Rostock. Now I stood out through drinking and fighting. I used to be surrounded only by beautiful ladies who were interested in swimming. Now I had fierce women standing in front of me asking, "How come you don't drink?" When I was shy about approaching a girl, it was interpreted as: "Are you gay?"

Lindemann now works with a coach and swims a few kilometers before his tours to get in shape: "When I exercise, I feel a certain lightness - not only physically, but also mentally. I just feel better. The main problem is staying in shape. That's where self-discipline comes into play. Teeth grinding is important."

- Three weeks in the wild and loneliness as a creative tool

Emotionally, concerts = sports:

"How do I go on tour? Hungry. And happy. It is good to compare concerts with sport. You don't want to do both at first. You don't want to go on stage. You don't want to go to the pool. You don't want to go to the boxing ring. It all happens with reluctance. It has to be accepted somehow, that's life: spring, summer, fall, winter.

When it's done, winter's gone, the blooming begins, greenery appears, it gets bright, and you start to get a taste for it. When it's over, you feel happy. Then the body produces a sea of chemistry, a lot of happiness hormones. I think the body rewards itself."

The stage, like sports, is an embarrassment, but a necessity. Lindemann wore dark glasses in order to collect fewer views from the audience. Therefore, a couple of steps before the water, he looked at the pool with a shiver. You need to cope with yourself in order to open up to new emotions.

Lindemann's gut requires solitude and moderate solitude. This is the point:

“Loneliness is always good for a creative push - you drink a glass of wine and you feel even shitier. Art is not complete without suffering; art exists to compensate for suffering."

With his friend Joey Kelly, Lindemann spent three weeks on the Yukon River. They paddled through the wilderness in a kayak for eight to 10 hours each and lived in a tent. Lindemann didn't take a tape recorder with him, so he transferred the lyrics wandering in his head on paper.

They were catching inspiration and atmosphere:

"There were times when we wouldn't say a word for hours, but then: look there, look there! It was breathtakingly beautiful. These relatively fast-changing panoramas and skies, layers of clouds, the colors.

Except for a few bears and wolves, it's hard to see anyone else out there, it's exhilarating. Along the way we saw two hunters setting traps. No one else.

I grew up in the countryside, and I have a very strong connection to nature. I love fishing, hunting. It's an archaic experience that I like to revisit over and over again. When I'm in the city for too long, I start to miss it."

To recreate situations in the Yukon, Lindemann and Kelly trained for nine months on the Rhine river in Germany because of its liveliness.

"We went down the Rhine to where the transport ships create huge bow waves. If we hadn't had a coach with us, we probably would have been sunk by the side wave impact already during our first attempt," Lindemann said.

Together with Kelly, he had four sessions with two coaches and swam from Cologne to Koblenz [more than 100 kilometers by car]. Lindemann trained separately each week on the lakes in Mecklenburg. It's both physically challenging and savage identical to being natural.

In 2015, Till started his solo project Lindemann. On the album Skills In Pills, the song Yukon was released, in which the lyrics appeared first, and then the music.

- "My lyrics come from pain rather than desire."

The country boy is big and not much of a talker. That's how the Rammstein members saw him at the start, when they were hanging out at home. "He looked cool, like a big peasant talking one sentence an hour," keyboard player Christian "Flake" Lorenz recalled. - He always had food and vodka. He'd just steal a couple of ducks somewhere and cook them on a tray. And then, frozen like in Sleeping Beauty, there were people lying in corners and on trunks in his house."

Lindemann loves and appreciates home gatherings. This came from my father, who always had guests. “In my opinion, this is the little bit that I inherited from him. Throwing parties and gathering people. Throwing parties and getting people together. He just enjoyed being a good host. The house was always full of guests from Leipzig, from Rostock, foreign guests, even from Kazakhstan.

It was always exciting for him. He stood at the stove, cooked, bought an abundance of wine, and there was always a fire in the garden. At some point he stopped drinking, then he left the party at 21:00 and the whole company continued to feast. And in the morning he got up at four, cleaned and tidied up."

Till Lindemann is about self-digging, overcoming and childish shyness, which is covered by a pumped-up figure of a swimmer. This is how Lindemann decrypts himself:

• “And I really am like a big child - ill-mannered, but harmless. People think that I am always strong, explosive. This is not true. I am sensitive and easily hurt, but in love I am romantic and passionate."

• “At the very beginning, you sit somewhere in a dark room, open a bottle of wine and figure out how to make the lyrics popular with the music. At first you only have a vague idea of ​​what it could be.

And when, three years after recording, mixing, and more mixing, developing the artwork, all this nonsense, then you stand on stage, and what you came up with then really works, when you manage to get 20 thousand people to raise their hands, then you experience incredible sensations."

• “Art is a kind of therapy.

When I feel that something is arising inside me, domineering and is most often dark, I need to give it a way out, otherwise it will simply crush me. So destruction and self-destruction are the two pillars on which my creativity is based.

But everyone chooses this for himself.

• “My lyrics arise from feelings and dreams, but still more from pain than by desire. I often have nightmares, and I wake up at night sweating, as I see terrible bloody scenes in my dreams. My lyrics are a kind of valve for the lava of feelings in my soul.

We are all struggling to hide behind good manners and outward decency, but in fact we are governed by instincts and feelings: hunger, thirst, horror, hatred, the desire for power and sex. Of course, there is also additional energy in us - this is love. Without it, all human feelings would fade away."

- "When you're constantly living someone else's life, it's very hard to get back into your own skin. I like that in principle, but sometimes you start to get confused - are you out of a role or not yet. You're already Till, or you're still a homicidal maniac."

- "I hate the noise. I hate the chatter. I expose myself to it, which is pure masochism. And then I have to protect myself from it. Noise makes you crazy. You die in it."

• “I think there is no God. And if he is and actually allows all the misfortunes on this earth, then he must punish me along with other sufferings. I will not pray to such a god."

This is how the members of Rammstein see Till - flexible and with a split personality:

Guitarist Paul Landers: "Till is so good that when you let him know that his lyrics should go in a different direction, the very next day he brings a new version of the song."

Guitarist Richard Kruspe: “He's a hell of an extreme man. He dives very deeply into situations where I cannot follow him. Everything he does is very extreme; I don't know anyone who does it. "

Drummer Christoph Schneider: "I would not want to be in Till's shoes: his soul is tormented by doubts and contradictions, he is equally a moralist and a monster."

June 1, 2021 - Translate by Lindemann Belgium

[beginagainunsolved]

RYAN: This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we’ll be talking about the mysterious “death” of Jason Todd.

SHANE: Why is death in air quotes there?

RYAN: You’ll see.

SHANE: I love it when you get all mysterious. Really draws me in. You’ve got me on the edge of my seat here, Ryan!

RYAN: Oh, it gets edgier.

SHANE: Don’t think that works in this context, buddy.

RYAN: It does. You’ll see. This guy’s a real edgelord.

SHANE: Gross.

RYAN: Shut up. Anyway, this is actually one of our most highly requested cases. We get comments to do this one every time we post a new video, so —

SHANE: You guys can SHUT UP now. We’re DOING IT. Get off our BACKS.

RYAN: Okay, maybe don’t — maybe don’t yell at them.

SHANE: Hey, I’ll yell if I want to yell.

RYAN: Okay.

RYAN, NARRATION: Jason Peter Todd was the second ward of billionaire Bruce Wayne, adopted shortly after his first ward, Dick Grayson, was emancipated and moved away from Gotham city.

SHANE: Why is this guy always adopting kids? Can that be the next episode?

RYAN: That would be so boring. “This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved: A Billionaire is Lonely.”

SHANE: There are better ways to deal with loneliness, Ryan.

RYAN: I don’t know. He seems to like his way.

SHANE: I guess.

RYAN, NARRATION: Not much is known about Jason’s life prior to his adoption. Unlike Wayne’s previous ward, Dick Grayson, it doesn’t appear that Todd had any sort of public persona. Most reports claim he was born to a poor family and largely grew up on the streets, but it’s difficult to confirm.

SHANE: You mean you couldn’t find it on Google?

RYAN: Yeah, I couldn’t find it on Google. I typed in “Jason Todd - Street Youth?” And nothing came up, so I called it a day and got a smoothie.

SHANE: (wheeze)

RYAN, NARRATION: Most accounts of Jason’s life begin shortly after his adoption. During this time, it appears that Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne weren’t on speaking terms, at least to the general public. Shortly before Jason’s adoption, Dick stopped making public appearances and attending galas with Wayne. Many speculate that Jason’s adoption was Wayne’s attempt to fill the void left by his first ward’s departure.

SHANE: Oof.

RYAN: Yeah, oof.

SHANE: And I thought my family had drama!

RYAN: Your family has you. That’s enough drama.

SHANE: Didn’t your dad cut someone’s head off once?

RYAN: Please stop telling people that. Someone’s gonna believe you! The FBI are going to show up at his door!

SHANE: I hope they do. I hope SHIELD interrogates him.

RYAN: NO!

RYAN, NARRATION: People who knew Jason Todd in the years immediately following his adoption into the Wayne family paint the tale of a troubled young man vying for the attention of his newfound father. After his supposed death, many of Wayne’s high status acquaintances who had met the boy at galas and public events were quick to come forward with their own accounts of his demeanor and personality.

SHANE: Ryan, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…

RYAN AND SHANE, IN UNISON: Rich people fucking suck.

SHANE: Rich people fucking suck!

RYAN: On this, we absolutely agree.

SHANE: This one thing!

RYAN: This one thing, yeah.

SHANE: Anyway. Eat the rich!

RYAN: Okay.

RYAN, NARRATION: The real mystery of Jason Todd, of course, doesn’t lie in how he became associated with Bruce Wayne. The real mystery comes from how this association ended.

SHANE: Here we go!

RYAN: Here we go.

RYAN, NARRATION: Then, in 2010, not long after his adoption into the Wayne family, Jason suddenly disappeared from the public eye. Much like Dick Grayson before him, he stopped attending galas and public events. Unlike Dick Grayson, no one seemed to know where he ended up at all.

SHANE: So this wasn’t a “I’m mad at my dad so I’m gonna crash on my buddy’s couch” type situation.

RYAN: Oh, no, definitely not. This kid seemingly vanished into thin air.

SHANE: Like Amelia Earhart! We all remember her!

RYAN: Don’t say anything about the —

SHANE: She was eaten by crabs.

RYAN: Jesus Christ.

RYAN, NARRATION: This went on for some time, with Jason out of the public eye and Bruce largely dodging questions about him when asked. Then, one day, Bruce Wayne called a press conference and made a startling revelation: Jason Todd was dead.

SHANE: Not a fun press conference.

RYAN: Not really, no. It’s — You can still watch it on YouTube. It’s bleak, man.

SHANE: Well, he’s announcing his son’s untimely death, Ryan. There’s not gonna be confetti.

RYAN: Yeah, but I mean — he pretty much just gets up on stage, makes a depressing ass announcement, and leaves right away.

SHANE: Imagine being a reporter there. Just standing out in the rain. Was it raining? I bet it was raining.

RYAN: I think it’s just, like, perpetually raining in Gotham. It’s got those kind of vibes.

SHANE: Depressing noir detective vibes, yeah. That’s why all those people dress up like bats and clowns. Nobody does that in L.A.

RYAN: No, we don’t get a lot of bats or clowns in L.A.

SHANE: We had the flame head guy! Miss him.

RYAN: He comes up in this.

SHANE: HE DOES?!?

RYAN: Spoiler alert!

SHANE: No, she lives in Gotham, too.

RYAN: Shut up.

RYAN, NARRATION: Life seemed to move on for the Wayne family after this. Jason was buried in a Gotham cemetery following a private funeral. Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne seemingly reunited. Some time down the line, Wayne adopted Tim Drake, a boy whose recently deceased parents ran in his social circles. Jason continued to be a rarely mentioned subject in any public appearances made by the Wayne family and their close associates, and any time he was brought up in interviews, journalists were categorically shut down.

SHANE: This is getting depressing, but I want to circle back around to this guy’s kid adopting addiction. Nobody should have this many orphans, Ryan.

RYAN: I mean, he’s helping them, right?

SHANE: Is he? He’s just replacing one with the next! Like a congo line!

RYAN: A congo line of — You know, I say this a lot, but this time I really mean it. You are going to get us so sued.

SHANE: It’s like the Macarena. You put an orphan in and take an orphan out.

RYAN: That’s the Hokey Pokey.

SHANE: And shake ‘em all about.

RYAN: Please stop.

RYAN, NARRATION: With most cases, this would be the end of it. A bleak end to a bleak story. But instead, this is where things get weird.

SHANE: Hooo boy. This is where the air quotes come in.

RYAN: This is where the air quotes come in!

RYAN, NARRATION: A few years after his death, Jason Todd seemingly reemerged. He was spotted leaving Wayne Manor, a few inches taller and with a new hair do.

SHANE: I’m just gonna put this out there, like, as an unofficial theory.

RYAN: Oh god.

SHANE: Are we sure this wasn’t just some other random orphan? The guy likes orphans, Ryan. He has an orphan problem.

RYAN: If it was another random orphan, it was a random orphan that looked exactly like Jason Todd.

SHANE: Wouldn’t put it past him!

RYAN: How would he even manage that?

SHANE: I don’t know! He’s rich!

RYAN: That can’t be your answer to everything shady you accuse someone of doing.

SHANE: It can, and it is.

RYAN: I really hope Buzzfeed has lawyer lined up for us. We’re gonna need so many lawyers.

SHANE: I’m sure we’ll be fine.

RYAN: (long sigh)

RYAN, NARRATION: When asked about Todd’s sudden reappearance, members of the Wayne family dodged the question just as thoroughly as they once dodged questions regarding his death. Their excuses, typically flimsy, varied from person to person with some saying the man who appeared to be Jason was actually someone else, and others saying said man didn’t exist at all.

SHANE: Pfffft. “Oh, no, there’s no man here! No man at all!”

RYAN: I actually looked up a lot of the denials, and some of them get… wild. Dick Grayson once claimed that no one ever said Jason Todd died at all.

SHANE: The press conference is on YouTube!

RYAN: He said it was a prank.

SHANE: A prank? Man, fuck this guy!

RYAN: I think he just panicked.

SHANE: He can panic more smoothly than that, at least! Have a little respect!

RYAN: (wheeze) You’re telling people about respect now?

SHANE: I’m very respectful, Ryan.

RYAN: You told a ghost to eat your ass last week!

SHANE: We’ve been over this. I don’t respect ghosts because they aren’t real. I told an empty room to eat my ass. And it did not comply.

RYAN: You accused Bruce Wayne of stealing orphans three minutes ago!

SHANE: I don’t respect rich people, either, because fuck ‘em.

RYAN: (wheeze)

RYAN, NARRATION: So, what ever happened to Jason Todd? Let’s get into the theories.

SHANE: I’m sure they’re all perfectly reasonable.

RYAN: As always.

SHANE: Oh, no.

RYAN, NARRATION: The first theory is that Jason Todd’s “death” was a coverup for a ransom attempt.

SHANE: That kind of makes sense.

RYAN: Yeah! Like, obviously Wayne wouldn’t want people to know his kid was abducted for ransom. Especially if he was going to plan on paying it.

SHANE: Well. I don’t think he’d say “yeah that kid’s dead” if he was planning on paying the ransom.

RYAN: You think he left him to die?

SHANE: RICH PEOPLE SUCK!

RYAN: God. I can taste the lawsuit.

RYAN, NARRATION: This theory is a rather straightforward one: After receiving a ransom note for his son some time after his disappearance, Wayne announced Jason’s death to cover it up and prevent the kidnappers from getting the publicity that would have made them infamous.

SHANE: Like a big ole fuck you!

RYAN: Yeah, I mean, you’d get a lot of clout for kidnapping a famous billionaire’s son. Especially in Gotham, right? Out there, it’s like… Crime is currency, almost. You build up a reputation like that, you can rule the city.

SHANE: Exactly! So by taking that away… Kind of ruins their whole thing.

RYAN: Right! And then they’ve got no use for Jason anymore and, you know, killing somebody’s a lot harder than kidnapping them, so…

SHANE: Oh, I don’t think they let him go. That kid was scrappy. He probably gave ‘em all rabies and ran.

CAMERAMAN, IN BACKGROUND: Guys. Defamation —

SHANE: Yeah, yeah, we know. Let’s move on!

RYAN, NARRATION: The next theory ties back to Jason’s alleged life before his adoption as a street kid. This theory states that Jason, like many young people in Gotham, got tangled up with some of the neighborhood’s local gangs and got in over his head.

SHANE: His sordid past as an eight year old came back to haunt him?

RYAN: Well, presumably he stayed in contact with people he knew at the time and got pulled into the gangs later.

SHANE: Nah, I want an eight year old with a shiv. He’ll shank you… but only from the waist down. Can’t reach any higher.

RYAN: (wheeze)

SHANE: Except for on you! You’re, like, the size of an eight year old. Man, he’d crush you.

RYAN: Yeah, well, you’d be fine, Gumbo. He wouldn’t be able to reach anything above your foot. You’d be like a giraffe stepping on a thumbtack.

SHANE: I keep telling you, Ryan, I am average height. You’re just abnormally short.

RYAN: Fuck you, buddy.

SHANE: Ouch.

RYAN, NARRATION: According to this theory, Jason’s death was faked in order to save his life from mobsters associated with famed Gotham gang leader Oswald Cobblepot, otherwise known as the Penguin.

SHANE: Why does everybody in Gotham have a stupid name?

RYAN: You don’t like the Penguin?

SHANE: I don’t care for it, no, but I also don’t love the name ‘Oswald Cobblepot.’ Like, that sounds ridiculous.

RYAN: Maybe that’s why he chooses to go by the Penguin.

SHANE: He should choose to go by Stan.

RYAN: Stan?

SHANE: Stan.

RYAN: No clarification there?

SHANE: I don’t believe it needs any.

RYAN: Okay.

RYAN, NARRATION: Our third theory is by far the most simple: Tired of the life of a billionaire’s son, Jason asked Bruce to fake his death in order to allow him to disappear from the public eye.

SHANE: (wheeze)

RYAN: I will admit… There are probably better ways to duck out of the public eye.

SHANE: YOU THINK?

RYAN: Like, faking my death might not be my first resort.

SHANE, IN AN EXAGGERATED IMITATION OF A CHILD’S VOICE: Oh, I’m tired of people taking my picture. Papa, will you tell them all I died a gruesome death? I’m going to Fiji!

RYAN: (wheeze)

SHANE: And then Wayne, what, just went along with it?

RYAN: Well, I guess he was due for another orphan soon anyway.

SHANE: I’m so glad you’ve warmed up to these jokes.

RYAN: I’m getting sued anyway, I might as well have fun with it.

SHANE: I am loving this development for you, Ryan!

RYAN, NARRATION: The next theory ties into a legend that some of our viewers from the Los Angeles area may be familiar with, —

SHANE: OH HELL YEAH! HERE IT COMES!

RYAN, NARRATION: — the Ghost Rider.

SHANE: (cheering)

RYAN, NARRATION: This theory states that Jason Todd’s anonymity exists to cover up his identity, and that the initial ‘death’ occured when he took up the mantle. Some believers of this theory claim that Wayne may have actually believed Todd was dead at the time, as he may have dropped off the radar entirely in order to pursue work as the Ghost Rider.

SHANE: This is my favorite one.

RYAN: I don’t think there’s any merit to it.

SHANE: Oh, absolutely not. But you’ve gotta love the theater of it!

RYAN: It does have a certain level of aesthetic appeal, yeah.

SHANE: Just some random rich kid out here with his head on fire, killing guys with crowbars.

RYAN: (wheeze) Why crowbars?

SHANE: I don’t know. Crowbars feel right here.

RYAN: That doesn’t make any sense.

SHANE: And the rest of this does?

RYAN: Good point.

RYAN, NARRATION: Perhaps supporting this theory is the fact that Ghost Rider tends to go after gangsters much like the ones Todd would have been dodging as a young man in Gotham. It also seems to tie into the rash, angry personality that many people claim he displayed. According to this theory’s supporters, Todd became fed up with the state of the city.

SHANE: And… what? Decided to light his head on fire?

RYAN: Well, maybe he was a metahuman.

SHANE: I guess that’s why he didn’t stay in Gotham. Doesn’t Batman kick them all out?

RYAN: That’s what people say, yeah.

SHANE: Man. Dick move of Batman to kick Bruce Wayne’s kid out of the city. (chuckles.) Get it? Dick?

RYAN: Oh my god.

RYAN, NARRATION: Our fifth and final theory is that Jason Todd was abducted by aliens.

SHANE: Nope.

RYAN: Don’t you at least want to hear the full theory?

SHANE: Absolutely not.

RYAN: Well, they do.

SHANE: Who is ‘they’ ?

RYAN: The people!

SHANE: They don’t want to hear your alien theories, Ryan. No one does.

RYAN: Well, it’s my video. And I’m going to tell the alien theory.

SHANE: (long sigh)

RYAN, NARRATION: This theory states that aliens, in an attempt to gain power and intel in preparation for an invasion, targeted Jason because of his close relationship with one of the richest and most prominent men in Gotham.

SHANE: So they interrogated him and then just spat him back out?

RYAN: Let me finish!

RYAN, NARRATION: According to this theory, the Jason Todd who returned after his ‘death’ was not Jason Todd at all but, rather, was an alien clone.

SHANE: I regret letting you finish.

RYAN: (wheeze) I knew you would!

RYAN, NARRATION: Believers of this theory claim it’s supported by the physical differences between the Jason Todd who disappeared and the one who lives in Gotham now, including his hair and his height.

SHANE: Or, hear me out. He grew. And he dyed his hair.

RYAN: Aliens seems more plausible to me.

SHANE: I hate you.

RYAN: (wheeze)

RYAN, NARRATION: So, what really happened to Jason Todd? Did he fall in deep with the wrong crowds and have to give up his life to find his way out? Was he kidnapped in an attempt to get money and influence from his wealthy adoptive family? Or is there something otherworldly about his disappearance and reappearance into the world? With the Wayne family refusing comments and no other sources to consult, it looks like the truth behind the scenes of Gotham’s most prestigious family will have to remain… unsolved.

WHAT UNSOLVED MYSTERY DO YOU WANT TO SEE NEXT?

[inkribbon796]

It’s Not Rabies, It’s . . . Ch. 1

Summary: There was an old phrase that the Jims believed in wholeheartedly: “If I cannot find trouble, I will create it.”

Or: King gets a crash course in parenting in the weirdest way possible.

A/N: This was a suggestion-request from the anon NightFall on AO3. Which resulted in this story and since this one was getting a bit long it inspired a bit for the Visitation Day on Sunday which will be a lot less angsty.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

Chapter 1: I’m Sorry, You’re Dying

It was another slow day in the city, typical city crime mixed with the fact that Anti was busy stalking Henrik and Remus had a bout of food poisoning. So not a lot of bot supervillain crime was being done.

That mixed with over two feet of snow kept a good number of people indoors. King especially didn’t want to deal with Dark mother henning him, was sitting in the main common room of the heroes’ base next to Yancy. He was communicating with a couple of people on his phone.

But because there wasn’t anything big happening in town, the Jims were bored. And bored Jims led to only one thing: trouble.

There was an old phrase that the Jims believed in wholeheartedly: “If I cannot find trouble, I will create it.”

It was a surprise when RJ and CJ came bursting into the room with Marvin hot on their heels. None of the other heroes had even seen them come into the base, but that was nothing new.

“Hey dumbasses, let’s not play with cursed shit,” Marvin ordered.

“Look out Jim, I’ve got a stabby,” RJ held up the spike in his hands, the thing looked like it was made of stone with some runes carved into the side of it.

And what would happen next would become the single most preventable accident that had happened in the base for the past seven years.

King and Yancy were used to sudden bursts of noise. Between Wil and their siblings, King especially was good at tuning out background “white noise” as King called.

So King hadn’t even realized the Jims had run in, hadn’t seen RJ get closer until he accidentally stepped on his cape. King startled, pulling on the cape as he rushed to stand and scurry away from the Jims.

But it wasn’t fast enough, RJ tripped and slammed into King. In actuality RJ just tapped him with the thing but as if it was triggered to go off, the center of the spike detached and violently stabbed into King’s chest and punctured all the way until there was about an inch sticking out the other side.

RJ and King looked at the spike in horror and then at each other before King slumped to the ground like a marionette with its strings up.

Instantly the other heroes rushed to King’s aid. Marvin doing his best to stabilize him, fearful of taking the spike out without killing him. He wasn’t moving, the young man was barely breathing.

It was so bad Iplier thought he was already dead when he checked for a pulse.

Iplier stared at King in shock. “His heart’s still beating.”

“Vat?” Henrik asked in surprise. He was in the room already preparing for the postmortem surgery to remove the spike.

“He’s not dead so we need to work fast,” Iplier realized, calling in for anesthesia and all kinds of help.

They worked quickly to stabilize King’s condition and eventually pull the spike out. Marvin and the Host, or just the Host because he quickly pushed Marvin out of the room, helping to make sure there wasn’t a magical infection of some kind.

When King woke up, his chest was killing him. “Ughhhh.”

Scratch that. It felt like he was hit by a truck, died, was drop kicked out of Heaven, and sent back to Earth. Everything hurt.

“Congrats,” Iplier started. “You are no longer dying.”

“Fucking thanks, I guess,” King groaned.

“I take it you’d like a higher dose of morphine,” Iplier asked.

“Pllllleeeeease!” King groaned.

That got a slight chuckle out of Iplier.

The next week was absolute hell. The first two days after he got out of the hospital he was fine. He tried to take it easy around the park. He didn’t want to overexert himself and damage his heart again. But after that second day he had a constant shrilling migraine. It hurt to be outside, hearing people talk felt like his brain was being stabbed. He felt too exhausted to move, he couldn’t even think about eating without wanting to throw up.

Virgil was the one who found him on that absolutely dreadful third day, shaking on his floor.

Iplier was called back in and King went right back to the hospital. His heart was fine and thanks to the Host he hadn’t even gotten scars.

After checking his symptoms, Iplier got worried and furious. He proclaimed it to be rabies, something he’d warned King about since day one.

King didn’t remember being bitten, but knew it could have happened literally at any moment he’d been outside.

For a week, since he’d been stabbed, he lay on a hospital bed, 100% certain that he was going to die in an agonizingly slow fashion.

Then one night, while Yancy had fallen asleep watching over him, King went to sleep. He began having a weird dream where he was walking through a field and came across a dismantled house. The only thing left standing apart from the frame was a single interior wall and a mirror.

The young man looked at the mirror, shrinking back from the mangled, hideous image he saw . . .

And then he was awake. His headache, gone.

It was euphoric.

All the pain he’d felt in his body had simply vanished. He wondered if he’d died, looking over to see Yancy still slumped uncomfortably in a hospital chair.

King was about to call out to him, to ask if he had died, when something in his bed bit him.

He screamed in pain, almost throwing himself out of the bed. Yancy startled awake.

There was something in King’s bed, still under the sheets. It was about the size of a wiffle ball and it was making little growling noises.

The young man threw off the covers and he saw that there was a drawing pressed flat to the bed, and it was moving, as if King had trapped something under a cup and then lifted it to get a better look, allowing it to escape.

Darting quickly the figure moved along any connected surface, hitting the wall and moving around. As if the figure was frantically searching for something.

“What is that?” Yancy demanded.

“I don’t know,” King admitted.

The Host chuckled, suddenly appearing in the room, he was careful not to use the door, “Yancy and the King of the Squirrels should greet the newest member of their family.”

“How’s that thing ours family?”[1] Yancy demanded.

The Host reached up and the figure particulate jumped him and the chittering, echoing scream died down as it just started devouring the Host’s aura. Which would have been a problem if they weren’t doing the equivalent of using a thimble to drink out of an ocean.

The Host had a smile on his face. “They have a diet that consists primarily of aura but in a couple months they should be on solid food. And they are King’s child.”

“My what?” King screamed. “I can’t have kids, not on my own, and I can’t have them in a day.”

“The King of the Squirrels was hit by a soul splitter. Normally a soul splitter would kill a human, or splinter them, but the King of the Squirrels is lucky that he was not human. So the soul splitter merely snapped off a portion of the King of Squirrels’s soul to create his child.”

“So they’re a part of me,” King asked, hesitantly reaching out his hand and the figure snapped onto King’s hand. He felt a tingling as the figure began trying to consume his aura before standing calmly on King’s shoulder. “You got your own name little buddy?”

“Lunky,” the Host introduced.

“Lunky?” King smiled, the figure turning to look at him. It almost sounded like they were purring. “That right or is Uncle Host playing a joke on me?”

Lunky went back to exploring the room. Now that there was no danger, reality clouded around King’s mind.

“What am I going to do?” King panicked a little bit. “I can’t take care of a kid! I can barely take care of myself.”

“Youse[2] got this,” Yancy reassured. “Youse are the most responsible ‘a all’a us.”[3]

King did feel a little better but at that moment Dr. Iplier walked in and saw all of them standing up.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Iplier demanded, leaving the door open. It was an action that immediately caught Lunky’s attention as they realized there was a world beyond the four walls they were in.

“Surprise, I’m not dying anymore?” King tried.

“Ahh, Iplier has made a mistake,” the Host grinned as Lunky’s figure stretched vertically and grabbed onto the door.

“Oh no!” King realized, as Lunky was already speeding along the walls, looking for aura to eat. They were following an old trail that Anti had left a couple hours ago, following it to Henrik’s office before doubling back and slipping through the sliding front door that activated as Lunky neared them. And with that he had escaped the hospital before Yancy could make it down the hall to look for them, cursing as he went.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations

1. How is that thing our family?

2. You’ve

3. You’re the most responsible out of all of us.

[dailytafsirofquran]

Tafsir Ibn Kathir: Surah Al-Baqarah Ayah 47-48

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

47. O Children of Israel! Remember My favor which I bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the Alamin (nations).

Reminding the Children of Israel that They were preferred above the Other Nations

Allah says;

O Children of Israel! Remember My favor which I bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the Alamin (nations).

Allah reminds the Children of Israel of the favors that He granted their fathers and grandfathers, how He showed preference to them by sending them Messengers from among them and revealing Books to them, more so than any of the other previous nations.

Similarly, Allah said, And We chose them (the Children of Israel) over the Alamin, (nations) with knowledge. (44:32)

And (remember) when Musa (Moses) said to his people: "O my people! Remember the favor of Allah to you: when He made Prophets among you, made you kings, honored you above the Alamin (nations).'' (5:20)

Abu Jafar Ar-Razi reported that Ar-Rabi bin Anas said that Abu Al-Aliyah said that Allah's statement,  (and that I preferred you over the Alamin) means, "The kingship, Messengers and Books that were granted to them, instead of granting such to the other kingdoms that existed during their time, for every period there is a nation.''

It was also reported that Mujahid, Ar-Rabi bin Anas, Qatadah and Ismail bin Abi Khalid said similarly.

The Ummah of Muhammad is Better than the Children of Israel

This is the only way the Ayah can be understood, because this Ummah is better than theirs, as Allah said; You are the best of people ever raised up for mankind; you enjoin good and forbid evil, and you believe in Allah. And had the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) believed, it would have been better for them. (3:110)

Also, the Musnad and Sunan Collections of Hadith recorded that Muawiyah bin Haydah Al-Qushayri said that the Messenger of Allah said, You (Muslims) are the seventieth nation, but you are the best and most honored of them according to Allah.

There are many Hadiths on this subject, and they will be mentioned when we discuss Allah's statement (You are the best of peoples ever raised up for mankind), (3:110).

48 And fear a Day (of Judgment) when a person shall not avail another, nor will intercession be accepted from him, nor will compensation be taken from him, nor will they be helped.

After Allah reminded the Children of Israel of the favors that He has granted them, He warned them about the duration of the torment which He will punish them with on the Day of Resurrection.

He said, And fear a Day, meaning, the Day of Resurrection.

When a person shall not avail another, meaning, on that Day, no person shall be of any help to another.

Similarly, Allah said, And no bearer of burdens shall bear another's burden. (35:18)

Every man that Day will have enough to make him careless of others. (80:37)

O mankind! Have Taqwa of your Lord (by keeping your duty to Him and avoiding all evil), and fear a Day when no father can avail aught for his son, nor a son avail aught for his father. (31:33)

This indeed should serve as a great warning that both the father and the son will not be of help to each other on that Day.

Neither Intercession, Ransom, or Assistance will be accepted on behalf of the Disbelievers

Allah said,

nor will intercession be accepted from him, meaning, from the disbelievers.

Similarly, Allah said,

So no intercession of intercessors will be of any use to them. (74:48) and described the people of the Fire saying, Now we have no intercessors. Nor a close friend (to help us). (26:100-101)

Allah's statement here, (2:48), nor will compensation be taken from him, means, that Allah does not accept the disbelievers to ransom themselves.

Similarly, Allah said,

Verily, those who disbelieved, and died while they were disbelievers, the (whole) earth full of gold will not be accepted from anyone of them even if they offered it as a ransom. (3:91)

Verily, those who disbelieve, if they had all that is in the earth, and as much again therewith to ransom themselves from the torment on the Day of Resurrection, it would never be accepted of them, and theirs would be a painful torment. (5:36)

And even if he offers every ransom, it will not be accepted from him. (6:70)

and, So this Day no ransom shall be taken from you (hypocrites), nor of those who disbelieved. Your abode is the Fire. That is your Mawla (friend _ proper place). (57:15)

Allah stated that if the people do not believe in His Messenger and follow what He sent him with, then when they meet Him on the Day of Resurrection, after remaining on the path of disbelief, their family lineage and/or the intercession of their masters will not help them at all. It will not be accepted of them, even if they paid the earth's fill of gold as ransom.

Similarly, Allah said,

Before a Day comes when there will be no bargaining, nor friendship, nor intercession. (2:254)

On which there will be neither mutual bargaining nor befriending. (19:31)

Allah's statement next, nor will they be helped.

means, "no person shall get angry - or anxious - on their behalf and offer them any help, or try to save them from Allah's punishment.''

As stated earlier on that Day, neither the relative, nor persons of authority will feel pity for the disbelievers, nor will any ransom be accepted for them. Consequently,  they will receive no help from others and they will be helpless themselves.

Allah said,

While He (Allah) grants refuge (or protection), but none grants refuge from Him. (23:88)

So on that Day none will punish as He will punish.

And none will bind (the wicked, disbelievers and polytheists) as He will bind. (89:25-26)

"What is the matter with you? Why do you not help one another (as you used to do in the world)!'' Nay, but that Day they shall surrender! (37:25-26)

Then why did those whom they had taken for alihah (gods) besides Allah, as a way of approach (to Allah) not help them Nay, but they vanished completely from them) (46:28).

Also, Ad-Dahhak said that Ibn Abbas said that Allah's statement, ("What is the matter with you?

Why do you not help one another?''), (37:25) means,

"This Day, you shall not have a refuge from Us. Not this Day.''

Ibn Jarir said that Allah's statement, (nor will they be helped), meaning, on that Day, they shall neither be helped by any helper, nor shall anyone intercede on their behalf. No repeal or ransom will be accepted for them, all courtesy towards them will have ceased, along with any helpful intercession.

No type of help or cooperation will be available for them on that Day. The judgment will, on that Day, be up to the Most Great, the Most Just, against whom no intercessor or helper can ever assist. He will then award the evil deed its kind and will multiply the good deeds.

This is similar to Allah's statement, But stop them, verily, they are to be questioned. "What is the matter with you?

Why do you not help one another?'' Nay, but that Day they shall surrender. (37:24-26)

[starcloaked]

Laurel: If you could write the books, what changes would you make?

okay it’d be a Lot of them.... i haven’t particularly thought it through too much but i think anyone could right the books better than the erins

okay first series additions.... make princess have a larger role. she does nothing but have babies and is there sometimes & i like her so she is a cool supportive big sister now. joining the clans would be lame but she could be the Voice of Reason w all the stupid clan rules and give her brother advice

umm make redtail b alive longer so his death isn’t just a random plot device. introduce rusty to the clans and have everything be peachy for even like a day before his murder where he gets a taste of the danger that all of them r constantly in. more impact

this is going to sound crazy but hear me out okay. i want sandstorm to take the role of graystripe and be fire’s pal from day one. she could still have the ‘lol ur weak lmao <3’ thing but whitestorm is a good mentor and she warms up to him quicker. make More conflict with gray and darkstripe being half brothers and have him be friends with dustpaw instead. he uses jokes to mask his own feelings but internal,y he is conflicted over wanting to be friends with firestar or disappointing his clique of clanmates

okay okay hear me out but silverstream & sandstorm. they r dating !! sandstorm doesn’t have any canonical parents here so she leaves for riverclan with her and they have a litter with the help of some guy idk. silverstream still dies in childbirth and sandstorm, wracked with grief eventually leaves the clans with her kits when tensions with thunderclan start to get high. stay with me here but she eventually joins bloodclan w her kits because that would make feather and storm a Lot more interesting

uhh back at home bluestar should have a closer bond with tigerstar. remember her taking in whitekit n stuff? do That with bluestar and just have her like kits a lot. would make more cents with the oak heart stuff idk!! they are pals but he is evil so on and so forth

i like ravenpaw for the most part but he should be the main one who pulls graystripe from his clique bc fire is kinda out of touch when it comes to serious emotion. he leaves afterward and the two bond <3 i don’t really have any idea of who fire should be mates with here to be honest but either sand Or gray is cool. wait a second if sandstorm graystripe can she be mates with millie?? never thought of that before it’s cute. she can still be the surrogate mother of leaf & squirrel too

OH scourge. to be honest i never really found the appeal of having the brother revelation not being known by either fire or him sooo. up the tensions a little here!! scourge should live ofc by idk maybe princess stops fire from killing him?? something like That and here’s my great idea guys instead of having poor barley be alive at the end of graystripes vow make it scourge. just some crusty old man telling warriors cats roleplayers stories of old and really wishing he were a ghost rn

neeew prophecy uhh . uhhhhhh feather and storm move back to riverclan and have Cool backstory now yahoo!! squirrelflight lesbian i like her and tawnypelt together <3 nightleaf cannon make her sad cause she has stupid crowfeather as a mate and run away w leafpool. she has the kits (we r going to Ignore the fact that they would all be black furred because of reincarnation bullshit) and so on. um i don’t know how to fix the mess that is brambleclaw but honestly i think he should keep his characterization from the first book and just be Some Guy like brackenfur or whatever. squirrelflight is like his sister in law so his later descent into Bad territory still has the weird power balance nepotism thing + he can still be alder and sparks dad

assfur?? keep him the same ig people seem to like the fire scene but make him a lot more of a loser. cinderholly cannon umm lionblaze has a more interesting character arc where he struggles with his powers leaving him a possible danger to others. make jayfeather hate him and other disabled warriors less dear god and have him decide to be a med on his own after training under brightheart for a while. night and leaf can have a messy breakup and get back together in starclan (as a treat ❤️) and breezepelt has parent drama because neither of his parents truly love one another and are still caught up on lovers from the past. make him regret his actions more and give him a proper redemption arc pwease thank youuu

my brain is pretty fried rn but that’s like.., all i’ve got for ideas atm so there u go!! uh last additions rootshadow real have briss look more like hawkfrost to tie into brambles trust in her and you know what give that bitch rabies and then have him be possessed. good night

[paulisweeabootrash]

2020 mini-review pack

Di Gi Charat (1999)

Episodes watched: 7

Platform: VRV (Hidive)

Di Gi Charat (pronounced like “carrot”) is a series of fast-paced 4-ish-minute shorts nominally about Dejiko and Rabi-en-Rose, rivals trying to be Earth’s greatest idol.  Who are, respectively, a catgirl and a bunnygirl.  Oh, and also they’re aliens?  That’s... uh... certainly a premise, I guess.  The actual show consists of self-contained gag-filled episodes with no ongoing story, in almost a sitcom kind of way, throwing the characters into situations without context, but with a stable “baseline” situation (unlike, say, Pop Team Epic, where the characters serve more as stock personalities playing different roles in different sketches).  Dejiko is a snarky schemer.  Rabi-en-Rose is a snarky schemer whose main activity seems to be bothering Dejiko at work.  Puchiko is a small and quiet child and behaves accordingly.  And Gema is... something?  I have no clue, honestly, and neither does the fan wiki.  Other recurring characters fill stock roles such as “manager” and “otaku”.  A lot of the humor centers around poking fun at fandom.  It’s a show by, for, and about otaku from an era before our current internet culture, and since I’m a millennial and not from Japan, that makes it unusually hard to evaluate.

W/A/S: 8/2?/5?

Weeb: Chibis.  Catgirls.  Idols.  Kappas.  Kawaii verbal tics.  Akihabara.  Low-detail background characters who look like blobs or thumbs with faces.  Kanji left on-screen but untranslated.  Particular sorts of highly-exaggerated facial expressions we may have become familiar with through emoji, but which still haven’t made their way into American media generally.  This is ludicrously Japanese.

Ass: This really isn't that kind of show.  Although it is certainly designed for adults, as evidenced by the presence of phrases like “naughty doujinshi”.

Shit: The art is fun.  It has style shifts from comic strip to watercolor painting to mainstream 90s anime, and looks better than some of its contemporaries that were, uh, “real” shows.  The opening takes up about a quarter of the total runtime and gets annoying quickly (but that's because it’s clearly designed for being part of a broadcast block, not binge-watching).  Still, unless I’m missing hidden cleverness on account of not having the background knowledge, there’s not much to it.  It’s just okay.

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First Astronomical Velocity (band, active 2011-present)

Platform: Spotify, surprisingly

Okay, this one is a bit different, and I’m jettisoning the whole format for it.  Remember how I said the music-centered episodes of SoniAni were actually pretty good, even though the modeling-centered episodes were so offputting I never finished the show?  Well it turns out that First Astronomical Velocity, Sonico’s band, has released several IRL albums.  Physical copies may be a little hard to come by, but official uploads of a lot of their music can be found on Youtube and Spotify.  Do your musical interests include at least two of: string arrangements that would be at home in a particularly sappy movie soundtrack, 90s-00s alternative rock, synthesizer beep-boops, and that constricted cutesy Japanese women’s vocal style (you know the one I mean)?  Then this is for you.  They’re a pretty good... uh... alt-pop-rock band, I guess is what I’d call them.

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Interspecies Reviewers (2020)

Episodes watched: the entire 12-episode season

Platform: I plead the 5th.  But it’s getting a video release soon, so it will finally be legitimately available in English!

I started this year with a plot-light fanservicey animal-people show, and now I’m ending the year with... a plot-light fanservicey animal-people show.  But unlike Nekopara, this show had me cracking up, eagerly clicking “next episode”, and not complaining about the premise.  I’m sure a lot of people do have a problem with this show’s premise -- which centers almost entirely on various forms of sex work -- and I understand and respect that they will want to skip this show.

But for the rest of you: Interspecies Reviewers is a wildly-NSFW comedy about a group of fantasy world adventurers who gain fame and fortune reviewing brothels of different species.  I expected excessive nudity and fantasy tropes, but I didn’t expect to also get serious thoughts.  Like showing, in the golem and Magic Metropolis episodes, some of the unsettling problems that are looming IRL as deepfakes and sex robots are in development -- note especially the contrast between consensually and non-consensually basing automata on real people in those episodes.  Or the discussion in the last episode of how much riskier sex would be in a world without magic (i.e., ours).  This is a much smarter and more interesting show than you’d expect, considering that it has so much sexual content that it got dropped by two of the networks airing it and even its US distributor.

W/A/S: 5/10/4

Weeb: Although heavily influenced by the Western fantasy media canon of European mythology and Tolkien and tabletop RPGs, familiarity with the tropes of fantasy anime will help you “get” this too, as will familiarity with the -sigh- character dynamics and censorship practices of hentai.  Especially because it’s a comedy, there are probably also instances where I have completely missed topical references or wordplay that a Japanese person would get, but I can’t think of any specific instances right now of “there was clearly supposed to be a joke but I missed it”.

Ass: Look, this could not possibly have more sexual content without unambiguously becoming porn.  Genitals are (almost) always carefully hidden by viewing angle or conveniently-placed glowing (something lampshaded in one episode as an actual feature of one of the species they review), but otherwise, expect lots of nudity and almost nonstop crude humor.  Do not watch this with children.  Do not watch this with your parents.  Do not watch this with friends you don’t know well enough to know how they’ll react to something like this.

Shit: This show is better-made than it deserves to be.  It’s pretty dumb at points, but it’s fun enough to make up for it.  The art is consistent and pleasant, and the opening and ending themes are extremely fun, but it’s not a serious standout in any of those departments.  Also, I swear the background music is stock music, but I don’t remember what other show(s) I’ve heard it in before.

Stray thought: Crim is a precious and relatable cinnamon roll and I love them.

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OreSuki OVA (2020)

Platform: Crunchyroll

So, I know I didn’t cover the whole season in my initial review, but I still want to mention the hour-ish-long finale of this show, which was released straight to streaming.  Short version of the rest of the season: Joro starts to actually fall for Pansy, but a new challenger, Hose, appears.  He is irritatingly attractive and effortless at maintaining the right persona for the situation, leading Joro to describe him as “the main character”.  Hose is the sociopathic manipulator Joro wishes he could be, and Pansy, who has a bad past with him, clearly wants nothing more than for Joro to stand up to him.  But, since this is OreSuki, it’s not going to be handled simply.  No, instead, strap in for a grand finale of Joro and Hose competing in, and trying to manipulate through rules-lawyering, an absolutely ludicrous competition to win the right to date Pansy.  And, on top of it, we also get to finally see how Sun-chan got to be the way he is and what happened at that pivotal baseball game that set off the whole plot.  What has Joro learned from the experiences of the past season?  You’ll see!  And you’ll facepalm about it!

Really, you must watch this if you watched the regular season.

W/A/S: 6/5(!)/4ish

Weeb: Basically the same as I said before.  Gags referencing other Japanese media, anime and otherwise, and it's better if you’re familiar with the high school romcoms and harem comedies Joro thinks in terms of.

Ass (and slight content note): -sigh- Why does the camera need to be there?  Also, Joro, you just committed a little bit of sexual assault for the sake of this contest.  Stop.

Shit: I want to rate this overall better than I did the regular season because I think it’s an excellent finale overall because, even though it ends in a very “let’s leave everything unresolved” way that’s common in media that rely on absurd relationships to propel the plot, it does so in a way that makes sense in character.  I personally think it would’ve been stronger if it had, well, confirmed its title, and at least some of the other “challengers” had lost interest in Joro, but I guess they probably want a Season 2, since they have so much more source material to work from.  There are... oh god 14 light novels?!  That is too many.

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Your Name. (2016)

Platform: DVD

Two high schoolers -- small-town girl Mitsuha, from Itomori, and big-city boy Taki, from Tokyo -- find themselves in each other’s bodies for a day.  They both think at first it must be a very vivid dream, but when it happens again, and they start finding clues like notes they don’t remember writing and comments by friends and relatives about their out-of-character behavior, they realize the body swap is real.  This begins a relationship of mutual understanding that nobody else can really understand -- or would even believe (except Mitsuha’s grandmother, who is... familiar with this phenomenon) -- and the plot then pivots to a tense adventure where they use their connection, some crucial information Taki has, the skills of Mitsuha’s friends, and the intervention of Itomori’s patron deity, to save the town from an impending disaster.

And that’s all I’ll say about that, because I really do think this is something you should go into blind.  My only remaining comments are that (1) the red string of fate is critically important imagery, and is particularly interesting to me here because, if I took a particular scene correctly, Mitsuha made her own red string of fate from sheer necessity, which is a very different twist on that trope, and (2) I am now curious about the history of the body-swapping phenomenon in-universe.

W/A/S: 4?/2/2

Weeb: As mentioned above, symbolism of the Red String of Fate shows up throughout the movie, as do the occasional distinctly Japanese quirk like a wildly out-of-place vending machine or a café with dogs, and but for the most part it’s a cross-cultural story of understanding and dealing with someone else’s life, and of forming a connection other people don’t -- can’t -- truly understand, and to some extent of divides between urban and rural and modern and traditional that I think could play out in any country with just the local symbolism tweaked.  The significance and content of Shinto beliefs and practices depicted, particularly kuchikamizake, are made pretty explicit, so although foreign to the vast majority of the non-Japanese audience, I feel like this movie also has nearly no barrier to entry for people not familiar with the cultural context, so I don’t want to rate it very high on this scale.

Ass: Look.  It involves teenagers switching bodies.  What do you think they do?  Especially Taki?  But it’s played for laughs, not titillation.

Shit: This movie is beautiful and punched me in the feels and was very satisfying.  The closest I have to a complaint about any aspect of it is that the musical breaks that I guess are supposed to mark acts of the movie almost make it feel like binge-watching a short series instead of watching a single self-contained movie.

[amirosebooks]

Dean’s Old Yeller Principle

“He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks. That’s how much I’d come to think of the big yeller dog.”

— Fred Gipson, Old Yeller, Chapter 1 (Published in 1942)

When I was twelve or thirteen my English teacher passed out copies of Old Yeller as assigned reading. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, the quote above from the opening chapter tells you most everything you need to know for the context of this meta post. And for those of us who are still emotionally scarred from the damned book, I’m sorry for dredging up those memories.

Now, before I go any further, a disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah, this meta and interpretation of canon is my own. I’m not trying to “preach” to anyone about why Dean “is allowed” to be an asshole while he’s grieving or going through some shit. Or any other argument that consistently gets thrown back in the face of meta posts like this whenever Dean is being an emotional dick. You’re entitled to your interpretations, feelings and reactions, as am I. I’m merely offering this meta to 1) get it out of my mind 2) point and wave about the nods to this classic book that’s traumatized generations of American children 3) cheer Dean on for turning yet another teaching from the “older, wiser generation” John came from on its head.

Groovy? Okay, now we can move on.

I’m gonna throw the rest of this under the cut for length and to keep people who are sensitive to pets / animals dying in really sad ways from having their days ruined by talking more about the book unless they’re good with having that happen.

Now, as I said in my disclaimer bit, Old Yeller is largely considered classic literature here in the states. My memories of it are a weird mix of vague on the details and strong on the emotions it evoked. From what I remember, the main character was a young teenager when his family brought home Yeller. For whatever reason, our main character hated this dog. I don’t remember the details and they’re honestly not important to this meta. The hate he felt toward the dog is important. So is the fact that the hate slowly turned into love and devotion to the dog. Which made it even more gutting when, on a hunting trip (if I remember correctly) Yeller was bitten by a rabid animal and contracted rabies.

At the end of the novel, the Coates family are once again attacked by a wild animal, a wolf, and saved by Yeller’s bravery. Yeller is bit during the attack and becomes infected with rabies. Travis knows that despite his connection to Yeller and Yeller’s protection of his family, the dog must be killed before it becomes fully rabid and does any harm to him and his family. As the man of the house while his father is gone, Travis takes it upon himself to put Yeller out of his misery with his hunting rifle. Travis is heartbroken by what he has done, but knows that it was the right thing to do for his family. (From here.)

Sound familiar? Good. That’s what I thought too when we got the shot above in the graveyard in 14x20.

[Obviously, rabies, once there are symptoms like Yeller had, is incurrable, so putting him down was literally the only option. And we are talking here about Supernatural, which operates on soap opera rules so anything goes, but let’s just roll with the similarities for the sake of argument.]

I remember telling my husband while we were watching it “Dude, they’re really going to Old Yeller Jack, omg.” (I even made fanart of the moment.)

And then, something incredible happened.

Dean threw out the script yet again and set off season 15 with the dull thud of a gun being tossed into the grass.

Now, I hear you. “That’s great, Ami. Why should we care?”

Lemme tell you a thing, friend.

In order to tell you thing thing, I want to take a trip way back to season 4. Back when the brothers were still nose deep into John Winchester’s gospel of Monster = Evil = Kill The Thing.

(Screencaps are all from Home of the Nutty.)

4x21 - When the Levee Breaks

Sam: Stop bossing me around, Dean. Look. My whole life, you take the wheel, you call the shots, and I trust you because you are my brother. Now I’m asking you, for once, trust me.

Dean: No. You don’t know what you’re doing, Sam.

Sam: Yes, I do.

Dean: Then that’s worse.

Sam: Why? Look, I’m telling you-

Dean: Because it’s not something that you’re doing, it’s what you are! It means- Dean cuts himself off.

Sam: What? No. Say it. (Sam has tears in his eyes.)

Dean: It means you’re a monster. (Transcript from here.)

I remember the first time I watched the show and I got to this episode. That fucking line was such a gut punching moment. And it was such an effective and emotional moment that Ruby was able to extend it later to further manipulate Sam.

Now, the screencap I grabbed for this moment is of Dean in tears (well, that single man tear he’s known for) after labelling Sam a monster for a reason. I want to remind all of us of just how much it killed Dean to have to use that label for Sam. To have to try to rationalize that the boy he raised, his brother, the guy who has been there forever and has always been Dean’s charge to take care of is now the thing that Dean is going to have to put down because he falls under the label of monster.

You know what, let’s go back a little farther, to the first episode of season 2. To this moment:

Remember this look? The one we later learned was thanks to John telling Dean that Dean was going to need to put Sam down? That Sam was going to become a monster? Yeah, ouch.

I added the year Old Yeller was published (1942) to the quote at the top of this meta to help give some context about the time it was written and the world it was released into. I’d also like to make note that in 1957 (or about a year before Henry Winchester jumped forward in time to meet the brothers in season 8 and give them keys to the bunker and had to choose to abandon John when John was still a fairly young boy) Disney released a movie version of the book. It’s absolutely, if the movie exists in the SPN world, the kind of thing young John would have watched and taken some kind of black and white moral guidance from.

It’s the kind of book/movie that John would have probably (note, this is where we start diving into my own headcanons for a moment) made sure the boys were aware of when he started thinking about bringing them on hunts to keep them from freezing because the “person” on the other end of their shotgun is someone’s mom. I could see it being the kind of thing he’d use as a way to show them both that, yes, shit is hard but you have to do the right thing and sometimes that means killing the thing you love. At least, I could picture him thinking that way. (Also, this still makes me wonder about exactly how early John started suspecting there was something different about Sam, but that’s a whoooole other post.)

Moving on and forward to season 6.

6x20 - The Man Who Would Be King

Castiel: The angel-proofing Bobby put up on the house – he got a few things wrong.

Dean: Well, it’s too bad we got to angel-proof in the first place, isn’t it? Why are you here?

Castiel: I want you to understand.

Dean: Oh, believe me, I get it. Blah, blah, Raphael, right?

Castiel: I’m doing this for you, Dean. I’m doing this because of you.

Dean: Because of me. Yeah. You got to be kidding me.

Castiel: You’re the one who taught me that freedom and free will –

Dean: You’re a freakin’ child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn’t mean that you get to do whatever you want!

Castiel: I know what I’m doing, Dean.

Dean: I’m not gonna logic you, okay? I’m saying don’t… Just ‘cause. I’m asking you not to. That’s it.

Castiel: I don’t understand.

Dean: Look, next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest things I have to family – that you are like a brother to me. So, if I’m asking you not to do something… You got to trust me, man.

Castiel: Or what?

Dean: Or I’ll have to do what I have to do to stop you.

Castiel: You can’t, Dean. You’re just a man. I’m an angel.

Dean: I don’t know. I’ve taken some pretty big fish. (Transcript from here.)

This was after two seasons of Cas fighting by their side. Two seasons of Cas giving heaven the middle finger on behalf of the Winchesters. It was enough time for Dean’s first reaction in a time of confusion on a hunt was to call Cas for help. And it was enough time for Dean to go from assuming Cas was a demon summoned with “bad mojo” to drag him out of hell on behalf of Sam to genuinely starting to care about Cas.

Dean did threaten to take Cas out here if he persisted down the path he was on, but you can tell by the rest of the conversation and just how hard it was to convince Dean that Cas was lying to them that Dean was hoping talking would work and he wouldn’t be forced to put Cas down.

Unfortunately…

6x22 - The Man Who Knew Too Much

Castiel: You doubted me, fought against me, but I was right all along.

Dean: Okay, Cas, you were. We’re sorry. Now let’s just defuse you, okay?

Castiel: What do you mean?

Dean: You’re full of nuke. It’s not safe. So, before the eclipse ends, let’s get them souls back to where they belong.

Castiel: Oh no, they belong with me.

Dean: No, Cas, it’s it-it’s scrambling your brain.

Castiel: No, I’m not finished yet. Raphael had many followers, and I must punish them all severely.

Dean: Listen to me. Listen, I know there’s a lot of bad water under the bridge, but we were family once. I’d have died for you. I almost did a few times. So if that means anything to you… Please. I’ve lost Lisa, I’ve lost Ben, and now I’ve lost Sam. Don’t make me lose you too. You don’t need this kind of juice anymore, Cas. Get rid of it before it kills us all.

Castiel: You’re just saying that because I won. Because you’re afraid. (Behind him, Sam picks up the angel killing sword.) You’re not my family, Dean. I have no family. (Sam stabs Castiel in the back with the angel killing sword. Sam groans. Nothing happens. Castiel pulls the sword out. There’s no blood on it. He puts it down.) I’m glad you made it, Sam. But the angel blade won’t work, because I’m not an angel anymore. I’m your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you. (Transcript from here.)

Again, Dean tried to argue with the overpowered angel, he tried bargaining, pleading, and appealing to Cas’s fondness for them, but it didn’t work. Sam was the one who was forced to try stabbing Cas and it… also didn’t work.

7x01 - Meet the New Boss

Sam: Dean, look, I know you think that Cas is gone –

Dean: It’s 'cause he is.

Sam: He’s not! He’s in there somewhere, Dean. I know it.

Dean: No, you don’t.

Sam: No, I don’t. But, look, I was pretty far gone sometimes myself, and never gave up on me.

Dean: Yeah, and it turns out that you’re about the Same open book as you’ve always been. Hallucinations? Really? I got to find out from Death?

Sam: What was I supposed to do?

Dean: How about not lie? How about tell me that you’ve got crazy crap climbing those walls?

Sam: Why? You can’t help. You got a lot of pretty severe crap swinging your way lately, and – and I thought –what? I thought why burst the one good bubble you had left? It’s under control.

Dean: What? What, exactly, is under control?

Sam: I know what’s real and what’s not.

Dean: Sam –

Sam: Dean, look, we can debate this once we deal with Cas.

Dean: Yeah, you know how I’m gonna deal? I’m gonna stuff my piehole, I’m gonna drink, and I’m gonna watch some Asian cartoon p**n and act like the world’s about to explode because it is. Hey. You got to be kidding me. “Massacre at the campaign office of an incumbent Senator by a trench-coated man.” There’s security footage. Well, I think reaching Cas is, uh… out of the cards. (Transcript from here. And hopefully my slight censoring the last paragraph keeps tumblr from blacklisting this post into the aether…)

Here’s a sad thought for you, how often do you think–while Cas was terrorizing the country as Godstiel and, later, after he walked into the lake and exploded into Leviathan goo–Dean thought about how he should have listened to Bobby and Sam and taken Cas out before he had the chance to swallow the Leviathans and become super powered? Probably a lot, I’d guess.

This moment, as much as I, personally, hate seasons 6 and 7, went pretty damn far to reinforce this Old Yeller principle in Dean’s moral code.

He had to sit back and watch, literally, while someone he cared about went out of their goddamn mind with power while killing and terrorizing people. He had to do that knowing that there was a moment when he could have done something to prevent it. He could have killed Cas when he had him locked up in the ring of holy fire and they were having one of their many breakup moments.

Dean felt like he could have stopped all of this, but he’d been weak and tried talking it out first instead. And you can’t convince me that he didn’t check the news and every drop of blood Godstiel brought about to the blood on his own hands because of that choice to give Cas a chance to see reason.

10x09 - The Things We Left Behind

CASTIEL: How are you, Dean?

DEAN: Fine. [Cas gives him a look.] I’m great!

CASTIEL: No, you’re not.

DEAN: Yeah, well, I lost the black eyes, so that���s a plus. But I still have this. [Dean reaches over and gently slaps the Mark on his arm.]

CASTIEL: Is the Mark of Cain still affecting you?

[Dean flashes back to his dream from earlier, of the blood covering him, the dead bodies lying around him.]

CASTIEL: Dean?

[Dean blinks hard, coming back to the present.]

DEAN: Cas, I need you to promise me something.

CASTIEL: Of course.

DEAN: If I do go dark side, you got to take me out.

CASTIEL: What do you mean?

DEAN: Knife me. Smite me. Throw me into the freakin’ sun, whatever. And don’t let Sam get in the way, because he’ll try. I can’t go down that road again, man. I can’t be that thing again.

(Transcript from here.)

I may hate seasons 6 and 7, but holy damn do I love season 10. I know it’s not a favorite among many people in the fandom, but it’s one of mine.

This moment, this burger date of sadness and pain, is a big favorite for me. Dean sees the writing on the wall. He’s been a Knight of Hell now. He’s been as darkside as he can get. He’s, likely, being reminded daily of his time in Hell in the last ten years of his stay there where he was torturing souls. And he’s begging Cas to keep him from returning to that place. He’s begging Cas to adopt the Old Yeller principle because he sees it as the only option left if the mark consumed him again. And that kills me.

Let’s take another jump forward to season 13, where Dabb & Co really started putting Dean’s Old Yeller principle into text in a heavy, purposeful way.

13x02 - The Rising Son

SAM Dean, wait a second. (Sighs) The kid came through for us today. Jack saved us.

DEAN No. No, whatever that was, that was a reflex. It was a sneeze. Maybe next time he sneezes, he kills us. Good night.

[DEAN hears a clacking sound coming from a distance. He follows the noise to JACK’s room.] JACK Ah!

[DEAN finds JACK trying to stab himself with a blade. The wounds immediately heal.]

DEAN Okay. What the hell?  (he gets in the room) Give me that. You—Don’t be an idiot. Look, A, this is not gonna do anything to you, okay? And B, you… What the hell?

JACK Exactly. What the hell am I? I can’t control… whatever this is. I will hurt someone.

DEAN You know, my brother thinks you can be saved.

JACK You don’t believe that.

DEAN No, I don’t.

JACK So… if you’re right?

DEAN If I’m right… and it comes to killing you… I’ll be the one to do it.

[DEAN leaves.]

(Transcript from here.)

Can I just bask in the glory of the grieving widow!Dean arc from the beginning of 13 for a moment? I’d also like to take a moment to 🙌 Jack for being a wonderful Team Free Will mirror (and mimic) from the word go.

Ahhh…

Okay, moving on.

I loved this bit in 13x02 so much. Partially because it’s such a heavy handed foreshadow to 14x20, but also because it shows so clearly how good Jack is at reading the emotions in the room. He’s, like, three days old at that point, but he’s already having an existential crisis about whether or not he’s evil. He already understands (yes, thanks to jackass grieving widow!Dean…) the whole Monster = Evil = Kill The Thing.

He also shows that he understands the Old Yeller principle. And, for better or worse, he and Dean reach an unspoken agreement here about it. (Again, this is my reading. Your mileage may vary.)

13x04 - The Big Empty

JACK I’m afraid.

MIA/KELLY Why? Why are you afraid?

JACK Sam thinks you were right, that—that I’m good. He wants me to believe it, and I wanna believe it, too. It’s just, I… I’ve hurt people. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. And I know I should feel bad, and I say I feel bad, but most of the time, I mostly… I don’t feel anything. And that’s why I think maybe… Maybe I’m a monster.

MIA/KELLY Jack. It doesn’t matter what you are. It matters what you do. And even monsters can do good in this world.

JACK You really believe that?

MIA/KELLY I have to. I have to.

[MIA hugs JACK again.]

(Trancript from here.)

Killing me would be kinder than subjecting me to these feelings so soon after being introduced to this fucking character. Omg. Poor Jack.

Now, yes, a huuuuge part of Jack’s opinion of monsters and the whole “What do we do with monsters children? That’s RIGHT, we kill them.” thing is because Dean is an asshole when he’s emotional and grieving and deep into survival mode.

But, that doesn’t change the fact that Jack is still worried about the fact that he doesn’t feel things the way that everyone else seems to. That he has powers no one, including him, can understand. And that he’s killed people without meaning to. He’s afraid of himself just like Dean was afraid of what he was capable of if the mark took him over again.

13x23 - Let The Good Times Roll

(Sam continues down the hallway while Dean turns to another hallway and approaches his bedroom door. He stops as if to listen to something and then continues down the hall, away from his bedroom door. He enters Jack’s room, where Jack is sleeping and talking in his sleep)

JACK Stop! No!

DEAN Jack? (Dean touches Jack’s shoulder to wake him) Hey. (Jack jumps up, anxious and disoriented. Dean holds out his hand towards Jack to calm him) Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy. You’re just having a bad dream.

JACK (breathing heavily) Sorry.

DEAN It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize. I have 'em, too. All the time.

JACK You do?

DEAN Sure.

JACK You, um… What do you see?

DEAN Well, depends. Mostly…mostly people I couldn’t save.

JACK Me, too. Over there in the other world, I said I’d protect those people. But…I saw so many of them die. And…I tried to save them. I…I tried, but… I’m sorry. I wasn’t strong enough.

DEAN Jack… (Dean sits on the edge of Jack’s bed) it’s not about being strong. I mean… Look, I don’t know what you saw over there, and I don’t know what you went through. I know it was bad. But I also know that you came out the other side because you are strong. But even when we’re strong, man, things are gonna happen. We’re gonna make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. Right? But we can get better. Every day, we can get better. So whatever you’re dealing with, you know, whatever…whatever comes at us, we’ll figure out a way to deal with it, together. You’re family, kid, and we look after our own.

(Transcript from here.)

It’s not about being strong. IT’S NOT ABOUT BEING STRONG.

This is where we veer away from Old Yeller a tiny bit because, again, in the book Yeller had rabies which they could do nothing about.

The moments I’ve highlighted in this post all come back to one motivation. The overpowered person/angel/asshole in question was trying to gain enough strength through supernatural (lol) means in order to have the power to destroy a (perceived) bigger threat than whatever the cost was to get that power.

Sam’s demon blood drinking was supposed to give him the power to destroy Lucifer and get revenge for Mary and John and their lost childhood. It went badly and earned Sam the label of monster and falling, at least temporarily, into the territory of the Old Yeller principle.

Cas started lying to the brothers and working with Crowley so they could gain the power to stop heaven from starting yet another apaocalypse. Cas wanted to keep the Winchesters (Dean) safe from being destroyed in a holy war after being forced to fight his brother to the death. Again, this did not go well and lead to Cas succumbing to the Leviathans’s power and dying front of Dean after losing the Winchester’s trust.

Dean took on the Mark of Cain to defeat Abaddon, the evil that made John grow up without a father. It left him torn between going on a, essentially, soulless killing spree or becoming a Knight of Hell… again.

Hell, even the way Jack came into the world was fraught with Sam lying to Dean about working with the BMoL to have the power and strength to defeat Lucifer/the nephilim. Not to mention the months of lying Cas did after he decided that Jack’s power and strength was the only way they could destroy Lucifer once and for all. Again, this ended with Cas dying in front of Dean and the BMoL trying to exterminate everyone including the American hunters.

That’s the lesson Dean is trying to instill (hypocritically, let’s be honest) to Jack here. Strength and power come at a terrible cost and if you can solve a problem without resorting to that level of fuckery that things will be better.

And, also, that if things do go bad, that Jack is family and “we look after our own.” To Dean, this is where the Old Yeller principle kicks in. It is, in a rather fucked up but well earned way, the best option he knows for making sure another one of his loved ones doesn’t fall under that monster label. That none of them end up with more blood on their hands or bringing about the end of the world, again, because of their soap opera problems.

13x23 - Let The Good Times Roll

JACK I’m sorry.

(Jack walks towards the exit and Castiel goes to follow him)

CASTIEL Jack!

(Dean grabs Castiel’s arm)

DEAN No, hey, just – just let him go.

(Jack is walking through the woods, banging a closed fist into his hand and punching his shoulder)

JACK You keep hurting people! You keep… (Jack flashes back to all the people he has hurt with his powers – Nate, Sam, Dean, the female police officer) hurting… (flash to the male sheriff) (yelling) Why do you keep hurting people?!

(Transcript from here.)

This lesson, the lesson of power and strength not being the best answer because of the cost it comes with is not an easy one to learn. Especially when you were born as a superpowered, emotional Winchester by adoption. Life is scary when that’s the hand you’ve been dealt and using the power you have is an appealing balm to combat that fear.

13x23 - Let The Good Times Roll

JACK (moving towards Lucifer, eyes glowing and hand outstretched)Tell me the truth!

(Lucifer’s eyes start to glow, his head tilts to the side and he starts speaking)

LUCIFER She saw me when I was scouting out the bunker. She saw me and she screamed, and then…so I crushed her skull with my bare hands. And it was warm and wet, and I liked it.

(Lucifer’s eyes return to normal and he looks confused)

JACK You’re not my father. You’re a monster.

LUCIFER (yelling) Come on, man! (Lucifer bellows so forcibly that Sam and Dean cover their ears, his eyes glowing red) Okay. I tried with you. I really tried with you.

JACK Everything you told me was a lie.

LUCIFER Because I told you what you wanted to hear, man. So what?! I killed the girl! Big deal! She’s a – she’s a human! She doesn’t matter!

JACK So am I!

LUCIFER Yeah? And that’s your problem. (pointing at Jack) You’re too much like your mother.

(Transcript from here.)

To me, this moment reads as Jack embracing that black and white Winchester thinking. He has yet (even now that’s he’s currently dead in season 15) to grasp the concept of people being morally gray. He sees himself as either embracing the monster side of himself from his bio dad or rejecting that side of himself to embrace Kelly’s human side. The side that can’t hurt people on accident. The side that makes him more like the Winchesters. Because he doesn’t want to fall under than monster label. He doesn’t want to fall under that Old Yeller principle. He doesn’t want to hurt so many people that he will have to die because neither he or anyone else can control him.

Yes, this moment is FAR more complicated than just that, but it’s definitely part of it.

14x10 - Nihilism

DEAN Sam said that one of your reapers really came through with the assist. I’m thinking that was probably you.

BILLIE Don’t tell anyone.

DEAN You broke the rules.

BILLIE I took a calculated risk. I warned you about the dangers of jumping from world to world. But you ignored me, didn’t you?

DEAN Rescuing Mom and Jack, helping out those other folks – I’d say it was worth it.

BILLIE And just look at you now. Do you remember visiting my reading room? The shelves and shelves of notebooks describing the ways you might die?

DEAN Yeah. Upbeat classics.

BILLIE Well, it’s the funniest thing, but they’ve all been rewritten. They all end the same way now – with the archangel Michael escaping your mind and using you as his vessel to burn down this world.

DEAN All of them?

BILLIE All of them. Except one.

(Billie hands Dean a book. He opens it and then looks at her, stunned)

DEAN What am I supposed to do with this?

BILLIE That’s up to you.

(Dean looks at the book again and when he looks up, Billie is gone. He looks back at the book and then looks around, a mixture of fear and confusion on his face)

(Transcript from here.)

Remember what I said about Dean being well aware of the price that has to be paid in exchange for the power and strength to defeat supposedly unbeatable enemies?

Yeah… Dean “knows” that the time has come for him to call his own bluff. The one from all the way back in 10x09 (not that he was bluffing then, but he didn’t have to take action on it then) when he asked Cas to take him out. “Knife me. Smite me. Throw me into the freakin’ sun, whatever.”

We didn’t know that was what this moment was until the next episode. But this is the moment when the Old Yeller principle went into effect again. And you can see how much it hurts Dean, how resigned and heartbroken he is over it.

14x11 - Damaged Goods

DEAN It’s a Ma’lak box. [DEAN closes the door to the box. He and SAM are standing over it.] Secured and warded. Once inside… nothing gets out, not even an archangel. Especially an archangel.

SAM Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve – I’ve read about these, but – but no one’s ever – they’re impossible to build.

DEAN Yeah, well, not so much.

SAM That’s your plan? You want to be buried alive?

DEAN Buried’s not safe enough. Plan is, pay a little hush money, charter a boat to take me out to the Pacific. Splash.

SAM You and Michael, trapped together – for eternity?

DEAN Yeah.

SAM You do realize how insane this is, right?

DEAN It’s the only sane play I’ve got. Michael gets out, that’s it for this world. And he will get out.

SAM Well, how do you know that for sure?

DEAN Because I do. Because I can feel him in my head. That door is giving. I can feel it giving.

SAM But there has to be another way.

DEAN There’s not, okay? There – Sam you’ve tried. Cas has tried. Jack… And I love you for trying. But none of it’s gonna work.

SAM We don’t know that.

DEAN Yeah, we do.

SAM What?

DEAN Billie.

SAM Billie?

DEAN She paid me a little visit. She said that there’s only one way this ends right. And this is it. This, right here, this box. So, she gave up the special recipe, and all I had to do was the work. It’s fate.

SAM Since when do we believe in fate?

DEAN Now, Sam. Since now.

(Transcript from here.)

Here is the moment. The one where Dean was at his absolute lowest. When he hit that point where resignation about his fate met having to act on his principles. 

14x12 - Prophet and Loss

DEAN Well, I will call this a win. Kinda nice. Going out on a high. SAM “Going out” being the operative phrase. DEAN Sorry. SAM “Sorry.” How sorry are you? Sorry that you fight to keep Donatello alive, but when it comes to you, you just throw in the towel? Or are you sorry that, after all these years, our entire lives, a-after I’ve looked up to you, after I’ve learned from you, I-I-I’ve copied you, I followed you to Hell and back… are you sorry that all of that it – it – it means nothing now? DEAN Who’s saying that? SAM You are, when you tell me I have to kill you. When you’re telling me that I have to just throw away everything we stand for, throw away faith, throw away family. We’re the guys who saved the world. We don’t just check out of it! [SAM pushes DEAN.] DEAN Sam, I have tried everything. Everything! I got one card left to play and I have to play it. SAM You have one card today! But we’ll find another tomorrow. But if you quit on us today, there will be no tomorrow! You tell me, uh, you don’t know what else to do. I don’t either, Dean. Not yet. But what you’re doing now, i-it’s – it’s wrong! It’s quitting! I mean, l-look what just happened. Donatello never quit fighting. So we could help him because he never gave up. [SAM moves closer to DEAN.] I believe in us, Dean. [DEAN doesn’t say anything. SAM gets angry and punches DEAN in the face.] I believe in us. [SAM tries to punch DEAN again, but he stops him.] DEAN Hey, hey, hey, hey! [SAM hugs DEAN.] SAM Why don’t you believe in us, too? DEAN Okay, Sam. Let’s go home. SAM What? [SAM pulls away from the hug.] DEAN Let’s go home. Maybe Billie’s wrong. Maybe. But I do believe in us.

(Transcript from here.)

And just like Dean predicted in 10x09, Sam was able to talk him out of sacrificing himself. How was he able to do that? By reminding Dean that they were the fucking Winchesters. They fucked with the cosmic balance constantly and always, always found another way. A way to avoid the Old Yeller principle. A way to live and fight again.

Which, they totally did, but the price of not throwing Dean into the ocean for an eternity of alone time with alt!Michael banging away in his head was their adopted child.

14x20 - Moriah

JACK: You’re not gonna lock me up again, are you?

DEAN: No.

(Dean raises the gun, aims at Jack and exhales deeply. Jack kneels down and bows his head. Dean, looking puzzled, lowers the gun and walks closer towards Jack. When he’s right in front of Jack, he aims the gun directly at his head. At this moment Sam comes speeding into the cemetery, car tires screeching. He gets out of the car and starts running towards Dean and Jack)

SAM: Dean? Dean!

JACK: (to Dean) I understand.

(Sam is still running, yelling for Dean. The music is getting more suspenseful as Dean holds his aim steady at Jack)

SAM: Dean, don’t! Dean? Dean!

JACK: I know what I’ve done.

SAM: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Dean! Hey, hey, hey! Dean!

DEAN: Stay back, Sam!

SAM: (Panting)

JACK: And you were right all along. (Chuck comes up alongside Sam) I am a monster.

SAM: (to Chuck) Do something. … You’re enjoying this.

CHUCK: Shh.

(Dramatic music plays)

(Dean cocks the gun. He looks Jack in the eye for several seconds and then slowly lowers the gun. At this point, Castiel also comes running towards the area)

(Dean uncocks the gun and tosses it to the side)

(Transcript from here.)

I have yet to rewatch this episode, but from what I remember I don’t think it had completely sunk in to Dean in that moment of choice that Chuck was there revealing that he was invested in the outcome of this showdown between Dean and Jack. In that moment, that split second of choice between following through with what he’d believed for so long for following through with an extension of the order John gave him about Sam back in the hospital back in 2x01, Dean made a choice for himself. And that choice was to believe that they’d find another way. He decided that when it came right down to it, he couldn’t kill his child for making the same bargain for power and strength that he himself had made multiple times over the last 14 seasons.

He was also directly confronted with a similar situation to that from the end of season 6 and beginning of 7 with Cas and the Leviathans, in that when it really came down to it, he wasn’t capable of murdering someone he considered family.

And then Chuck had to go and erase any chance they had in following up on that. He killed Jack so that they didn’t have a chance to find a way to help Jack balance the power he’d absorbed from destroying Michael or living without his soul.

So yeah, from where we sit now with only one episode of season 15 under our belts waiting with baited breath to see where the rest of this end of the road season takes us, it makes sense that Dean, of all people, would be in the middle of an emotional fucking collapse. And that he would be a huge, whiny, pissbaby douchebag about it because that’s the Dean Winchester way.

Does that make his behavior okay? No, of course not. But does that turn any of the rest of them into saints? Nope, of course not. And I, personally, wouldn’t have it any other way. I like that they’re flawed and fucked up and keep getting back up and going back to each other and keep trying. That’s why we’ve had 15 goddamn seasons of this. Because it’s what they do.

[beatriceinmessina]

Halloween Terrorfest, Day VIII: ‘Call in the spirits’

(A note: This one is one of my favorites that I’ve written.  I hope you get a laugh or two from it.)

“This is the stupidest idea you have ever had.”

“No, that was when he talked us into eating from those cans and we all got food poisoning for a month.”

“I still think that wasn’t veal in mine.  Goldner’s is people.  It’s people and we’re cannibals.”

“It’s not people, George, enough with the Soylent Green bullshit,” Edward sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “I can’t believe I agreed to this.”

“You agreed to it because we need your house and you haven’t got any other friends,” Henry said.  He frowned and leaned closer.  “No wonder you don’t.  You’ve got like, the worst case of Resting Sad Face.  How can you go around all day looking like a kicked puppy?”

 “I agreed to it because Sol’s in Gloucestershire visiting his aunt.  If he were here I would have said no and spent the evening at his place.”

“And then you would have died,” said Henry, “because you would have fucked and then a murderer would have gotten you.  Rules of horror, remember?”

“Like that hasn’t stopped you from--”

“We’re going to die for this,” John interrupted nervously.  “We’re not supposed to mess with spirits.”

“Please,” Edward snorted.  “The odds of ghosts showing up are zero.”

“I don’t know about that,” Henry said, apparently deep in thought.  “Didn’t you say your parents got this because it was way cheaper than it should have been?  Property value dropped because ghosts.  You practically live in the Murder House.”  

“I hate that season.”

“I still don’t understand why you think Hotel is the greatest thing ever,” grumbled John, who thought the entire show was too ridiculous to be any fun.

“Because James Patrick March is hilarious, that’s why.”

“I thought it was because you think Evan Peters with a mustache and a weird accent is hot,” George said, and Edward whirled on him.

“I told you that in confidence!”  

“Well, we all know that I’ve got a thing for Sister Mary Eunice when she’s possessed, so I don’t know why you get to keep yours a secret.”

“Wait,” Henry said, an evil grin spreading across his face, “he told me he wished John Lowe was real so he could, and I quote, ‘rail me until--’”

“ENOUGH!” Edward shouted.  “One more word about this and the only ghosts in my house will be you three!”

“Alright, alright,” sighed Henry, throwing up his hands in defeat.  “Lead the way, Violet Harmon.”  Edward gave him a death glare and unlocked the door.  

“If I’m Violet, you’re Dandy Mott.”

“I look like Finn Wittrock?  Thanks.”

“No, you’re really fucking annoying and sometimes I want to strangle you.”  Edward walked through the door and the others followed.  As much as he hated to admit it, Henry was right--his house was exactly the type to have ghosts.  47 Franklin Street was a gothic Victorian mansion in all but size, built of stone with one part of the building sectioned off into an honest-to-god tower with a balcony on its roof.  His parents had loved the aesthetic and decorated the interior accordingly, and now he spent half his time at home wondering if he was supposed to inherit the place, marry some wealthy American heiress, and poison her for her money.  Except he didn’t have an insane sister to screw, so he’d have to push his wife off the upstairs railing himself.  Great.

“Wow,” John said as he came into the entrance hall.  “Feels like the House of Usher.”

“Blame my mum and dad.  They love that kind of stuff.”

“You hiding any vampire brides in this place?” Henry asked.  “Sol will be furious.”

“No,” Edward ground out from between clenched teeth and wondering why he was ever friends with Henry in the first place.

“Where are we going?” George asked as Edward led them up the winding staircase.  Edward didn’t answer and continued on his way until they reached his mum’s office, which had a door in the ceiling.  Wheeling her chair over its general area, he climbed atop it (which was a bad idea of the highest order because it was a swivel chair and wouldn’t stop twisting this way and that) and, struggling to keep his balance, managed to get a hold on the door-handle and pull it open so he could retrieve the ladder which folded out downwards from it.  John’s jaw dropped.

“The attic?  You want us to go… the bloody attic?  There’ll be rats -- and cockroaches!”

“We got an exterminator the week we moved in, it’s fine up there,” Edward said.  “Come on.  You wanted a seance and the attic’s the best place for one.”

“Sounds good to me!” Henry chirped, and began his ascent.  Edward followed, then George, and finally a reluctant John, muttering about how they would all die of rabies if the rats didn’t bite them to death first.  Once they were all safely inside Edward turned on the light and pulled up the door.  The attic was spacious and his parents had decided to use it as a storage space for everything they didn’t need all the time, so boxes were stacked up against the wall.  Henry looked disappointed, and Edward rolled his eyes.

“What were you expecting?  The bodies of my dead wives?  Dracula in his coffin?  Sorry.”

“Jesus Christ, we’re feeling feisty today.  Let’s do this thing.”  Henry sat down and pulled out his phone.  “I’ve got the instructions right… here…”  He looked up.  “Come on, sit down.”  They all followed his suit and looked to him for further instruction.  “Okay, now we join hands.”

“If any of you jerked off before this and didn’t wash your hands after,” George said, “you have to tell me.”  John gaped at him, aghast.

“You’re… it’s a school day!  What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Just a precaution.”

“I hate all of you right now.”

“Join hands already!” Henry barked, suddenly impatient, and, with much groaning and grunting, they did.  “Close your eyes.”

“You better not be using this as an excuse to put a spider on my face,” John muttered.

“That was one time and it was the tiniest spider ever.  Now shut up, we have to concentrate.”  Henry shut his eyes and began to hum off-key.  Edward resisted the increasingly strong urge to get up, open the door, and throw him down to the office.  Maybe he should have cut class and taken a bus to Cheltenham so he could let Sol fuck him into oblivion.  Or fuck Sol into oblivion, whichever.  Either way would be incredibly preferable to Henry’s horrible scale-climbing.

“Should we have turned the lights off?” George asked.  “I think the lights are supposed to be off for stuff like this.”

“Too late now, fuck you very much,” Henry singsonged, and resumed humming at a somewhat earsplitting pitch.  He opened his eyes.  “Spirits of this dwelling!  We would speak to you!” he intoned, and Edward snorted.  Henry glared at him and resumed.  “We only need a few minutes of your time.  Please grace us with your presence.”

“What if one’s a school shooter?” John whispered.  “What if they’re all serial killers?  Will we--”

“For the last time, I do not live in the Murder House!” hissed Edward, ready to drop his hands and throw himself down the ladder.

“John, you’re scaring them away!” Henry hissed in succession.

“He can’t scare them away because they don’t fucking exist!”

And then the lights went out.

“The fuck?” Henry whispered delightedly.

“This is how I die,” George moaned.  “Tell my dad I’m sorry about the time he found Billy Gibson about to blow Cornelius in my closet.”  Despite the darkness, Edward turned to him.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“We were playing Seven Minutes in Heaven and it got out of hand.  All I did was make out with Charlie Des Voeux a little,” he added quickly.  “And it sucked.  He bit my tongue.  I have a scar, if you wanna see-”

“No one wants to see your tongue scar, George; why are we talking about this when there’s a ghost?”  Henry squealed.  “Just listen!  I can hear it!”

Sure enough, there was a moaning from somewhere in the house, faint but creeping closer.  John squeezed Edward’s hand tight enough to cut off the blood-flow, earning himself what sounded like a feral snap of the teeth at his ear.  “Ned, did you just try and bite me?!”

“Well, I can’t think properly when you’re murdering my hand!”

“Who could it be?” Henry wondered aloud, seemingly oblivious to the distress surrounding him.  “A man whose wife murdered him when she found out he cheated?  A girl who was smothered by her father so she wouldn’t run away?  A boy who fell off the roof?  Candyman?”

“Candyman’s in America,” Edward grunted, trying to extract his hand from John’s death grip.

“Yeah, but he’s English in the short story.  What if he moved back?”

“He didn’t because he’s not real -- ugh.  John, let me go!”

“Oh god, I hope he is,” whispered Henry, and shivered.

Edward finally pulled his hand free, groaning and flexing his fingers.  “Please tell me you’re not into him.”

“You want James Patrick March to shove his tongue down your throat, I want Daniel Robitaille to tell me he wants me right here and right now in that sexy deep voice of his.  We’re all a little weird.  Now be quiet!”

“You were the one who started theorizing--”

“Shut up!”

“I hope it’s Betelgeuse,” said George.  “He’s fun.”

“Why would Betelgeuse moan like that?” asked Edward, but John had already started singing.

“Panic and stress, oh, ain’t it the best?  The sound of a heart exploding inside a chest--”

“SHUT.  THE FUCK.  UP!” Henry bellowed.  “I can’t hear it anymore.  You scared the ghost away.”

But there the moaning was again, now coming right up through the floor.  On and on it went as they all fell silent, until a few minutes had passed with the source still unrevealed.

“Maybe we need to open the door for it,” John whispered, now positively strangling a white-faced George’s hand.  Henry shook his head.

“It’s a ghost.  It can just, like, float up or teleport.”

“Maybe real ghosts are different than fictional ones,” George wheezed, tugging his arm away from John fruitlessly.  “Open the door.”

“No.”

“Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte,” Edward hissed, bled dry of every single drop of patience, “open the goddamn door so we can get this over with or I will honest-to-gods strangle you!”

“Fine, Dad.”  Henry rolled his eyes and got up, walking over to the attic door and pulling it open.  (The lights were, disappointingly, still working in the rest of the house.)  A second of silence, and then he sucked in a terrified breath.  “Oh, no.  Oh, shit.”

“What is it?”  Edward rose and went over to him.  “If you’re screwing with me I swear -- fuck!” he yelped, seeing the source of the moaning.

It was no ghost that stared back at them.  It was an enormous fluffy white cat, evidently lost.

Tuunbaq.

“No,” Henry whispered, backing away.  “No, no, no.  Oh shit, we’re stuck up here!”

“What is it?” George asked, dangerously pale.  John made a nervous squeaking noise.

“The cat,” Edward said grimly.  “Silna’s cat.”

“Silna’s cat?” John repeated.

“You know.  Her cat who hates every single one of us.”

“Oh,” George mumbled, looking rather dizzy.  “Her cat who… tried to chew off my arm…”

“John, let him go,” Edward snapped, still hanging over the edge of the open door.  “Okay.  Maybe we wait for him to leave?”

“He’ll still be in the house, he could maul us the second we think we’re safe,” John said, finally letting go of George’s hand, who flopped over onto the floor.  “We should find stuff to throw at him.”

“Yeah, and if we kill him Silna and Harry never talk to us again.”

“That’s a small price to pay,” George squeaked from the floor.  “I’m with John.”

Tuunbaq mewed and padded forward, climbing nimbly up the ladder and, before Edward could move, leapt onto his chest, knocking him down and meowing triumphantly, quite pleased with himself.

“Stupid… fucking… cat… get off me…”

“I mean…”  Henry grinned.  “This is actually kind of cute.”

“Cute?  Cute?  CUTE?!  I have a demon cat on my chest!”

“Yeah, but look at him!  He’s all curled up and purring.  Like a big fuzzy snowball.”

“I don’t care.  Get him off me.”

“Just give me a sec.”  Henry already had his phone out and was snapping pictures.  “Everyone’s gotta see the latest installment in the Murdering Cat saga.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Edward hissed, flipping Henry off with both hands.  

“Ooh, sorry, I’m not willing to be a homewrecker unless you take me out a few times first.  Now Fairholme from maths class?  There’s a homewrecker.  He broke up James Ross and Ann Coulman last month.”

“How?” George asked.  “Who’d he screw?”

“Neither.  He told Ann he saw James making out with Eleanor Porden in the Tesco car park and she broke up with him.”

“Was James doing that?”

“I don’t know.  Fairholme’s a bit weird, I think he just likes destroying people’s happiness.”

“Hello?  Demon cat!” Edward shouted.  “Get him off me!”

“He’s sleeping now,” John said, leaning over cautiously.  “Awwww.  He’s not so bad when he’s sleeping.”

“Again, I don’t care.  GET.  HIM.  OFF.  ME.”

“Fine, jeez.  Maybe we can just, like… push him off you, or something.  If we’re careful he might stay asleep.”  John cocked his head to the side, observing Tuunbaq carefully.

“Yes, great.  Do that before he crushes my ribcage.”

Henry was the first to try, leaning over and cautiously prodding Tuunbaq with a finger.  When the cat didn’t respond, he tried pushing him across Edward’s chest towards the floor.  Still the cat slumbered.  Another push.  Another--

Tuunbaq was almost completely on the floor when his eyes snapped open and he launched himself into the air.  “MOVE!” George roared with the sudden, thunderous force of a drill sergeant, and they all scrambled backwards from the flying white blur, who landed in the middle of the floor with his head held high.

If cats could smirk, Tuunbaq was doing just that.  With another pleased mew he descended the ladder and disappeared from their sight.  One by one they crept forth from the corners and peered over the edge.  Tuunbaq seemed to be gone.

“We have to look for him,” Edward said, and the others looked at him, utterly astonished.  “I am not living for who knows how long in fear of being mauled in my own house.”

“It’s your parents’ own house, technically,” John began, and Henry elbowed him.  “Ow!  Fine, let’s go.  I hate this attic anyway.”

 They climbed down the ladder, and, since they knew that splitting up always led to inevitable death in these kinds of situations, stuck closely together as they searched each room on the second floor, and then on the first.  Even the basement and the tower yielded no sign of the cat, and once they came up from the former John pointed out an open window.

“He probably jumped out there,” he said.  Edward blinked and stared at the window.

“That was closed.  I know that was closed.”

“Magic,” Henry whispered, doing jazz hands.  “Ghosts.  Witches.”

“For the last goddamn time, my house is not haunted, and your stupid seance just proved it.”

“But that window--”

“Can I play a little?” George interrupted, gesturing to the grand piano in the living room.  (For some reason it had been gathering dust in the basement when they’d moved in.  No one played it, but Edward’s dad thought it pulled the room together.)  “We’ve just got the upright at home.”  

“Go ahead.”  No sooner had George settled at the piano than the requests came flooding in.

“The Beatles--”

“Florence and the Machine--”

“Cabaret--”

“Stevie Nicks--”  At the last one George nodded and started to play, picking out some notes on the lower keys before beginning a familiar tune on the higher ones.  Edward promptly burst into song.

“Just like the white-winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singin’ whoo, whoo, whoo.  Just like the white-winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singin’ whoo, baby, whoo, said whoo.  And the days go by like a strand in the wind, in the web that is my own I begin again--”

“Jesus Christ,” said Henry.  “Stevie you are not.”

“Yeah, and you can’t sing that well either.  And none of us can dance.  Do I have to sing this by myself?  But that moment when I first laid eyes on him, all alone on the edge of seventeen -- just like the white-winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singin’ whoo, baby, whoo, whoo--”

George, John, and Henry joined in the singing, and, if they hadn’t been so busy only slightly butchering those immortal lyrics, they might have noticed the yellow cat’s eyes staring at them from behind the grandfather clock.

They had spoiled his nap.  Tuunbaq would have his revenge.  

[nataliesewell]

monster prom pop quiz results

I was bored, so I decided to try and record all the questions and answers in Monster Prom’s Stupidest Pop Quiz Ever(tm). It’s really likely I haven’t found them all, so I’ll come back and add to this from time to time.

The pop quiz consists of three questions; the first two go towards determining your highest stats at the beginning of the game, while the third chooses your possible prom date (this isn’t set in stone; you can still try to pursue a different character in the actual game). The order of the questions is randomized.

Other links: Vera Walkthrough

You can find the questions and their results under the cut!

stat questions

What is your spirit emoji?

a. Caucasian guy with a turban because fuck stereotypes. +CREATIVITY

b. Octopus emoji. Best animal on Earth. I know 5 mixed drinks, 3 drug cocktails, and 17 sex positions that involve one or several octupi. +FUN

c. Snowman, because that motherfucker is in the middle of a blizzard and he’s fuckin’ smiling. He doesn’t give a fuck about blizzards. And he has a kickass hat. +BOLD

It’s your chance to fix global warming. Go ahead!

a. Global warming isn’t real. I invented it, and now science is claiming authorship because science is a lame copycat with no original ideas. +CREATIVITY

b. Nah, the world is doomed. But I’ll start investing in ships and start a profitable business for the “soon to be covered by water” world. +WEALTH

c. It’s time to be a real hero: I’ll lead a mission to the sun in order to... invite the sun to the party of its life! We’ll have so many hilarious misadventures that the sun will eventually become... cooler. ;) +FUN

Be a visionary: what will the next big social media craze be?

a. Bull$hit: it’s Facebook, but each time someone shares news that isn’t supported by real facts, they’re taxed, and the money goes to the people exposed to that bullshit. +WEALTH

b. Greek Agoras: like literal Greek agoras re-instated in our cities. Places where philosophy and arts are discussed by the greater minds. That’s the social media I want to log into! +SMARTS

c. Rbert: from now on, a socially awkward guy named Robert will do everything he’s commanded to do through the app by its users! +CHARM

You wish you were raised by...

a. A mysterious old man who saved me from the streets in order to raise me as his disciple in the ancient ways of rad DJing! +FUN

b. A pack of wild wolves... who also happens to be tech moguls who own some of the most profitable companies of Silicon Valley. They would be kick-ass role models AND wild wolves! Sick! +WEALTH

c. A really progressive marriage between a kick-ass venomous snake and... actual fire. I love fire and I see no issue with being raised by it. +BOLD

You build a 100ft statue commemorating an event so that in 1000 years archaeologists can learn something about the people of our time. What does the statue represent?

a. That glorious instant when your friend stopped you from texting embarrassing stuff to your ex while hella drunk. +FUN

b. That mind-blowing twist in your favourite TV show that clearly changed the life of everyone forever, unlike all that boring stuff they show on the news. +CREATIVITY

c. Your least favourite political figure... being devoured by rabid rhinoceri... which are also covered in badass tattoos. +BOLD

Which is the coolest mythological creature?

a. The invisible hand of the free market. +WEALTH

b. A sphinx... who’s super turnt up and ready to party! And she raps all her riddles (she still kills you if you don’t answer them correctly... but she raps the riddles)! +FUN

c. This weird creature I drew when I was six and which is clearly super derivative from other mythological creatures... but it’s super cool and it’s my OC and my spirit animal, okay? +CREATIVITY

You’re elected president for a day. What’s the first law you pass?

a. You can deduct taxes by writing sonnets instead. Amount of taxes deducted are calculated based on the beauty of the sonnets. +CREATIVITY

b. Trivia fact: presidents don’t pass laws... so is this a trick question or are you just being an idiot? +SMARTS

c. One dollar bills will now include a picture of me and the inscription “Beware: Too Much Awesomeness.” My presidency might last a day, but my fame will last forever! +CHARM

A radioactive possum just bit you... what superpowers did you get?

a. The superpower of always choosing the right combination of emojis to get the desired reaction from all people: seducing my loved ones, burning my enemies, settling an argument, and even conveying complex emotional thoughts. +CHARM

b. Uh, probably rabies? I’d go to a hospital immediately. +SMARTS

c. The incredible power of writing fanfiction so compelling that the actual creators of the TV shows decide to go with my ideas and crazy ships. +CREATIVITY

School is outdated and lame. We need a new school subject asap!

a. Critical thought. I mean... damn, this country could really use a subject like that in schools. +SMARTS

b. Turning people into your puppets through emotional warfare and deception 101. +CHARM

c. How to correctly punch a crocodile without terrible consequences. +BOLD

If you had to have sex with animal... which animal would it be?

(You don’t get six answers; the three answers you get are randomized.)

a. A great white shark. I have to fuck an animal, let’s at least make it a story worth telling! +CHARM

b. A swan. They’re classy. Plus it reminds me of that myth of Leda and the Swan, so at least by bestiality standards it has a certain chic appeal. +CREATIVITY

c. A human being, because I’m the kind of douchebag who loves to find loopholes in stupid questions like this one. +SMARTS

d. A purebred horse. At least I can keep his semen and sell it. It’s worth a lot! Who said there was no silver lining to bestiality? +WEALTH

e. A dolphin. They’re the only other animal that fucks just for pleasure, so at least we can both do our best to have a good time, right? +FUN

f. No on can make me fuck an animal. If I fucked an animal, it’d be of my own free will. As a matter of fact, I already have fucked an animal, so the joke’s on you, pal. +BOLD

The coolest reality show would be...

a. Twelve experts on the various arts of seduction live in a house where they must face a common challenge: seducing a potato into marriage... somehow. +CHARM

b. Eight rich people fight in weekly challenges to see who’s the best at giving money to you. +WEALTH

c. People in various positions of power must face all sorts of questions relevant to their field, and if they fail, they lose their jobs... and society wins. +SMARTS

You get the chance to produce a movie. It’s based on...

a. The most influential Russian novelists of the XIX century... have gone nuts! They don’t remember anything about last night and now they can’t find the manuscript of The Brothers Karamazov; and Dostoyevsky has to deliver it TODAY! +FUN

b. Two cool guys walking away from rad explosions. And they don’t look at the explosions. THEY DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE EXPLOSIONS! They reflect on life and love... AND IT IS SUPER DOPE AND KICK-ASS BECAUSE THEY DO SO WALKING AWAY FROM NEVER-ENDING EXPLOSIONS! +BOLD

c. Something about superheroes, but with a love triangle between a beauty yet somehow relatable girl (maybe she’s always stating she’s a mess?) and two of the super hot superheroes, which are also like vampires or pirates or both. Instant hit! +WEALTH

Democracy is just broken. What would be the best way of choosing the leaders of modern society?

a. Whoever can play the most heartbreaking violin solo wins. +CREATIVITY

b. You put all the candidates in an empty room... with a wild grizzly bear. Whoever kills the bear should be our president. If everyone dies, then it’s obvious: the bear should be our president. +BOLD

c. We create a reality show called “America’s Next Top President” where the candidates compete in all kinds of physical and mental challenges. Voter turnout would increase and we would turn a profit on it! +FUN

If you could put a curse on your worst enemy, what would it do?

a. I’d curse them to fall in love with a wonderful person and be happily married before they realize that all this time... their partner was a wild panther in disguise! Then the panther viciously devours my enemy. Classic! +BOLD

b. The curse of always meeting obnoxious people at parties who are super into new fad diets that feel the need to explain them in detail. +CHARM

c. You can’t rely on the effectiveness of a curse. I prefer to take care of my enemies the old-fashioned way: by exposing them to unsafe doses of radiation over the course of several years. +SMARTS

What would be the coolest prize you could find in your box of cereal?

a. A tiny piece of sharp metal, so every scoop will be full of thrill and danger! +BOLD

b. The phone number of the sexy tiger on the front of the box. He’s so passionate about breakfast and health that he’s surely also a grrreat lover. +CHARM

c. A sample of a more nutritious breakfast option, so people are encouraged to stop eating that colorful crap. +SMARTS

What inanimate object do you think would make the best girlfriend or boyfriend, provided you went criminally insane?

a. A human-size pillow depicting a character created by myself. As a matter of fact, I have all the needed paperwork and I’m only waiting for the conservative narrow-minded laws of our country to finally step forward into waifu and husbando territory, as was clearly intended by God. +CREATIVITY

b. A dildo, duh. +FUN

c. An ATM. Sugar baby life, here I come! +WEALTH

Which god do you pray to each night before sleeping?

a. Praying is kind of lame. I have a group text set up with some deities: Dionysus, Bastet, Loki... coolest cats in town. +CHARM

b. Praying is for fools. I took some compromising pics of a god molesting a tree, and now I blackmail him for whatever I want. A lot more effective. +SMARTS

c. Oh, I pray to all kinds of gods. I have this business where people pay me to deliver their prayers every night. I’ve even started to look for a Chinese factory to outsource the prayers. +WEALTH

prom date questions

What is the sexiest type of knowledge a lover can have?

a. How to set stuff on fire. ❤️DAMIEN

b. All the principles to build a financial empire. ❤️VERA

c. Lyrics to all Disney songs. ❤️MIRANDA

d. Obscure 80s movie trivia. ❤️LIAM

e. Sports things. ❤️SCOTT

f. How to make a killer cocktail out of anything. ❤️POLLY

Your partner just gave you a cool gift for your anniversary but you totally forgot! Quick, come up with an idea for a great gift!

a. The head of their fiercest enemy. ❤️VERA

b. A silly toy that makes silly noises. ❤️SCOTT

c. The abstract concept of gratefulness. ❤️LIAM

d. A pony. Always a pony. ❤️MIRANDA

e. Anything on fire. Or a weapon. No, no: a weapon on fire. ❤️DAMIEN

f. Anything capable of leading them to an overdose of some sorts. ❤️POLLY

What would be a deal-breaker for a potential lover?

a. The person lacks taste. ❤️LIAM

b. The person is mediocre. ❤️VERA

c. The person is a coward. ❤️DAMIEN

d. The person is boring. ❤️POLLY

e. The person hates the outdoors. ❤️SCOTT 

f. The person lacks manners. ❤️MIRANDA

What would be a killer accessory?

a. Sunglasses... at night. ❤️POLLY

b. A fabulous purse made from the skin of your worst enemy. ❤️VERA

c. Coolness itself. ❤️LIAM

d. Fancy brass knuckles. ❤️DAMIEN

e. A necklace with your own name... in case you forget! ❤️SCOTT

f. Shiny armor. ❤️MIRANDA

The world will end tomorrow... What will you do today?

a. Nobody ends the world but me! I’ll end the world today. ❤️DAMIEN

b. It’s okay! We invented the apocalypse to take care of the overpopulation of commoners. ❤️MIRANDA

c. I’ll finish my novel... whoever comes after the end should know my legacy! ❤️LIAM

d. 100 push-ups... no, no 200 push-ups! ❤️SCOTT

e. They always tell you the world is ending... I’ll profit on other people’s hysteria. ❤️VERA

f. I always party as if there were no tomorrow... so who cares? ❤️POLLY

Which criteria would you use to name your children?

a. Meh... no name? It’s just too much work! ❤️POLLY

b. I will research for a name that is pun-proof and joke-proof. No one will pick on them. ❤️VERA

c. A non-heteronormative name to give them freedom to define themselves on their own terms. ❤️LIAM

d. Just a swear word. ❤️DAMIEN

e. My name + “II” (the Second). ❤️MIRANDA

f. Something simple and friendly, like Bobby or Mary. ❤️SCOTT

If you were an ice cream... which flavour would you be?

a. Double creme de la Gruyere and meringues. ❤️LIAM

b. Spicy chocolate. No... chocolate on FIRE! ❤️DAMIEN

c. Success. ❤️VERA

d. Tequila and coke. ;) ❤️POLLY

e. Rainbows and gummy bears. ❤️MIRANDA

f. Meat! ❤️SCOTT

What would be your dream first date?

a. An art exhibition experimental enough to give you a seizure. ❤️LIAM

b. A sweaty and manly wrestling match. ❤️SCOTT

c. A professional meeting where you charm your date with some astonishing business advice! ❤️VERA

d. A wild party in international waters. ❤️POLLY

e. A lovely walk in the forest... after rescuing your date from a dragon! ❤️MIRANDA

f. Crimes. ❤️DAMIEN

You find a genie in a bottle. You can ask for whatever you want. What do you ask for?

a. A rainbow that you can eat! ❤️MIRANDA

b. I don’t ask for anything. I drink the genie from the bottle. I can grant my own wishes! ❤️DAMIEN

c. Before asking for anything, you try to negotiate up to the three standard wishes. ❤️VERA

d. Infinite confetti! ❤️POLLY

e. ...His friendship! ❤️SCOTT

f. Him to not be so cliched. Genies and wishes... so mainstream! ❤️LIAM

What would be the most appealing in a love partner?

a. A big... horn. ❤️DAMIEN

b. Sharp wits. ❤️LIAM

c. Kawaii eyes. ❤️MIRANDA

d. A very tsundere personality. ❤️VERA

e. Soft fur. ❤️SCOTT

f. A taste for party. ❤️POLLY

[littlemessyjessi]

Bobcat and Raven: My Beginnings With the Craft : A Personal Experience #MagicalMonday

Hello, smoochies!

Welcome to my witchy weirdness!

Now, disclaimer here:  I do not claim to know everything or anything.  I don't claim that my way is the right way or the wrong.  This is just my way that works for me and I thought I'd share it with you.  Feel free to tweak it to your own needs but lord, here we go.

If you'd like to read more of the Witchy Weirdness series, you can find the masterlist HERE  :)

I know it's been a hot second since the last installment but I'm trying to make a nice little schedule and get things out to you when I can.  

Today's post will be a taaaaaad bit different.

So a few of you have asked me if I'd talk about my own personal experience with the craft.

For a while, I didn't see the point because we're all different and unique but then I realized....there's a lot of people out there that feel like they're alone and they're scared.

And that's ok, honeybuns...but you're not alone.

We're here with you.

Brothers, sisters, it's ok loves.  

Be afraid if you'd like and you claim your fear because that's yours.

And I guess...that's where my journey started.

I was maybe six or so at the time when I first started my path.

My great granny, bless her soul, kept me a lot back then and I was one hell of a little demon.

Her and Pap were getting much too old to deal with the likes of me but they did it anyway because my mom wasn't the best of caregivers and just basically abandoned me and when she did have me....well it just wasn't a pleasant experience let's put it like that.

So, anyway, Granny took care of me a lot.

She taught me how to cook and how to garden.

How to grow my own food and what to do with it.

Natural remedies and to thank whoever for whatever the earth gave you.

I think in a lot of ways she was my first experience with the craft even if she didn't call it that.

She...she just taught me a lot.

Ya'll forgive me if I ramble.

This is very personal and I'm bound to get emotional.

And while I've been criticized for the way I write...I just type what goes through my mind's eyes...so it's rather raw and unfiltered most of the time.

I'm sorry, lol.

Anyway, she taught me a lot and she died the year I turned thirteen.

How cliche huh?  But that's how it happened.

She died in church that Sunday and I remember very distinctly that I was upset because I hadn't been with her in her last moments.

I'd been away on a trip at the time- gone off with some friend to the mountains for some reason or another.

We were outside playing in the woods (Like we shoudn't have been without supervision) and somehow I'd gotten seperated from Sarah Beth.

I remember laughing and giggling because we'd been playing and then realizing how alone I was.

And that's when I heard it.

A little whine of sorts, this awful little sound.

I remember stomping through the mud, making my little New Balance tennis shoes completely caked in it...something I was sure to recieve a whooping for whenever I got home.

And I kept hearing this sound and I looked in this little hole/cave like area in the side of the hill (which was very stupid btw. Do not do this.  There could've just as easily been a mountain lion in there with cubs and I could've gotten my face torn off. But I digress.)

Anyway, I pulled back a bunch of mud and muck and I found this little kitten.

Now, to me it had just looked like a little tabby cat kitten.

I was too young to know the difference or to know that you should not pick up wild animals.

But I did anyway.

It was tiny and covered in what I now realize was basically amniotic fluid.

I remember freaking out because I thought it was bleeding and it was a little bit because half it's damn right ear was gone.

That's when I saw what must've been the momma...dead.  

She'd clearly been attacked and there were little kits on the ground next to her.

All dead.

No one had survived but this little stinker and it was barely kicking as it was.

Clearly, it escaped with just part of the ear missing.

So I did what you're not supposed to do...

I tucked it in my jacket and headed back to Sarah Beth who nearly killed me for running off.

Now, I know some of you might believe this next part and some of you make thing I'm totally nuts.

But I believe in reincarnation.

And I believe that that little kit was my Granny being reborn into this world again.

I know some of you think I'm nuts.

But here's the kicker.

That was a bobcat.

And no I should not have touched it.  

Especially when I saw the momma but it just didn't click in my head.

Now the reason that this is so important is because my Granny's nickname was Bobcat.

Pap called her that since they were children and they lived just down the street from each other.

He used to call her "Kitty" when she was little because she was a touch me not and then when she developed an attitude and damn near tore his face off more than once....he called her Bobcat and it stuck.

For 53 years, guys.

She called him Ray, short for Raven, because he was always following her around and mocking her.

Note:  Ravens are scavengers and due follow animals.  They are also known to mimick sounds and are very good at this.

So, that was one thing that stood out to me but I honestly didn't really think about it until it began to grow.

Now, I took it back and Sarah's parents just about killed us and even though I bawled my eyes out....they turned it over to the authorities in the area so it could be nursed back to health.

So anyway, we head back home and I get there and I'm informed that Granny has passed.

Of course, I'm completely heartbroken.

I remember I didn't even really talk for about three days.

I stayed outside, in the tree house for a couple nights until my Uncle just made me go inside.

I just felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest.

So for a while, I stopped living on an earth centric path.

Several years passed and by the time I was about seventeen...things were really bad.

A lot of things happened in that time.

A lot of dark things.

A lot of really damaging things happened to be and I got further and further away from the light.

Eventually, I was very near suicide and apparently everyone could see it.

I wouldn't admit.

There was no way you'd ever get that out of me but it was gonna happen sooner or later.  

A few of my family members and my then boyfriend took me up to the mountains again for about a week.

I mean, honestly, I felt like I was on house arrest.

I couldn't be alone.

Everyone was watching me.

They kept trying to distract or get me to talk.

I was just so sick of it.

So one night I woke up in the middle of night...and just went outside.

Which mind you...is stupid to do in the mountains.

Especially, in that particular area because it's entirely possible to have a mountain lion or a bear out there.

Don't do that.  I was an idiot.

So anyway, I go out in my fucking pajamas with a cigarette and nothing else.... like a nutcase and I'm sitting there on the railing smoking something I managed to bum off this kid at the front desk at the cabin check ins.

And then I hear something.

I look around and I don't see anything...because it's dark and I couldn't be bothered to turn on the light.

Honestly, it's miracle something didn't eat me just to get rid of my stupidity.  

I'm serious.

Well, anyway.

I look over and there sitting on this porch swing...is a bobcat.

Now, I wasn't a total idiot and I did realize that there was a bobcat sitting there on a swing not three feet from me and if I pissed it off....it could easily fuck me up.

So I froze and then tried to back into the cabin.  

I knew that typically they tended to shy away from human and here this one sat on the porch swing close to me and that if it had rabies that could cause erractic behavior.

I also knew that they were super fast and had crazy sharp claws.

So since I didn't favor being turned into shredded chicken any time time...I tried to back again.

Attention:  Do not fucking run from them as it will provoke them to chase you.  Same with mountain lions.  Please for the love of gods, do not fucking run from mountain lions.  You will not win and it will not end well. That sounds savage but I'm just telling you.  

Anyway, I get back into the house and I stop because in what little light there is outside I see a shadow of this fucking bobcat....with half of it's fucking ear missing.

And I just freeze like an idiot.

And then I started crying because I was positive that this was the little kit that I found several years back.

Eventually someone heard me and jerked me back into the house before turning the light on and making enough noise to run it off and wake up everyone else.

I was lectured.

I was hugged close enough that I could feel my lungs squeeze.

I was told that we were going back home.

However, I begged them to stay.

I told them I'd talk.

I'd work through it.

Honestly, it was more than anyone had heard from me in a long time so we stayed.

Pap was with us on that trip and finally I broke down and told him about the bobcat, and the one I'd found...and why I got so emotional about it.

He understood and the next morning I saw him sitting in the swing with coffee in hand...and that bobcat was on the side of the hill, head down on it's paws, just looking at him.

I remember I tried to get his attention to keep him safe but he just told me to come on outside.

I was cautious but I went because I trusted Pap and sat with him.

He looked at the bobcat and looked at me and he said, "You know that's your Granny."

I'll be honest.

It chilled me to the bone because there was no way I was going to say that outloud.

Given everything that had happened to me and my depression...I knew saying that would get me put into a glorified looney bin.

Call it what you will but we all know what it is.

I remember trying to beat around the bush and he called me on it more than once.

He told me that he just knew and that he knew that I knew...because Granny and I always had that connection.

I remember him pointing out the ear.

Now, it's important to know that my Granny was a cancer survivor.  

She had it four times and kept pulling through.

However the last time had caused her to lose a good chunk of her ear because they had to cut it out.

I had honestly forgotten about it at the time because I just didn't see that kind of thing when I looked at Granny.

I remember him telling me how a normal bobcat would've already run off but that that had to be his "Bobcat" because while she was a touch me not...she always wanted the attention.

He also informed me that while my Aunt was trying to load up my suitcases that morning while I was asleep (so that we would have to go home sooner)....the bobcat was sitting on top of the jeep.

I remember him telling me how she was my guardian all my life and that she was my guardian again now.

I remember just breaking down and crying for hours.  

People came out to try and help but Pap just waved them off...and that bobcat stayed there the whole time.

Never moved.

Never did anything.

Guys, I'm sorry if my writing is so broken for this but I get very emotional with this memory.

I'm trying to share things with you because I think it's important to share them but wow, I just really miss her.

Anyway, I'm getting it together.

So, my point is half the family went ahead and went back home and I stayed there in the mountains with Pap, my Uncles for another week.

It was pretty quiet and honestly I felt better than I had in a while.

I stayed in the loft and kept the blinds open.

The bobcat would come back every day and just lay there.

Pap would sit outside and drink coffee and he eventually convinced me start meditating.

I'd do my thing and he'd ask me ever so often if I could mix up something for his psoriasis because it was itching.

I remember telling them that I didn't really remember how to do it anymore but that I had some lotion.

He said nothing being the natural and eventually the guilty got the best of me and I tried my best to make him an oil for it.

I was rusty and it was waaaaaay rough around the edges but he used it anyway.

We actually happened to be there towards the end so that it did actually coincide with a full moon.

Which has less to do with coincidence and more to do with the fact that I ended up in that damn cabin for close to 2 1/2 weeks, lol.

Anyway, it had been a long time since I'd done anything full moon meditation and so I took a minute to do it by sitting in front of the window and closing my eyes.

I prayed.

I focused.

I meditated.

And when I was done and I opened my eyes....there it was again.

It was just laying there until it got up and jumped down on to the porch and up onto the other side of the window.

It stared at me right through the glass and I'll admit to being afraid.

It just stared until it leaned forward and pressed it's head against the glass.

I don't know what possessed me to do it but I just did it too.

And all I could hear was my Granny's voice in my head telling me that she loved me and that it was ok to be sad.

It's your choice to believe me or not because that's not what mattered.

After that, the bobcat just looked at me for a moment and then walked away.

I didn't see it again on that trip after that and then we went back home.

But guys, a few years ago my Pap died and we had his funeral in the mountains because that's where he was from and where his original family was.

So we all went and we got a different cabin so we could stay a week.

I'll be honest, I was really devasted when he died.

The other family that went with us on the trip was my Dad's side of the family.  

Pap just went because he loved and cared about me.

So really Granny and Pap were the only ones on my mother's side of the family who really gave a damn about me...and I just felt so empty again after that.

I remember bawling my eyes out again but doing much better than I had the first time.

I was older now and an adult so I got up and got a cup of coffee.

I went out on the porch with my coffee and my poptart (like a fully functioning adult, lol) and sat on the little bench and when I finally looked up I nearly had a heart attack.

There was a bobcat and a raven on the hill side.

Fear and panic were the first things to course through me because hello, bobcat.

The second was shock because what the fuck?!

And then I noticed that damn ear again and I just started tearing up.

I remember actually whispering 'Granny?' and it just laid down.

And that raven...

Which by the way, this is important.

Raven's are not a popular bird in Tennessee.  This is usually more of a crow territory but there is a specific popular of ravens that migrated into the mountains of east tennessee years ago.  Ok, factoids over, lol.

Anyway, this damn raven just hops up and lands on the railing in front of me...and I'm just sitting there staring at the both of them like I'm looking at Jesus Christ himself.

And I'm just crying because I have no doubt in my mind that that was Granny and Pap.

Bobcat and Raven.

For me, that was magic.

That was the earth and the universe pulling it in.

I don't believe that we ever leave each other.

I don't believe than anything is really ever over.

Have I seen them again since then?

No.

But I like to think that maybe one day when it's my time to go....they welcome me on a walk through the mountains with them.

Thank you for being apart of my little walk down memory lane.

I'm crying again.

Bawling my eyes out actually.

I'm not sad really.

I just miss them and I'm so grateful to have had them in my life.

Thank you, smoochies for listening to me blubber and I hope that sharing my experience with you had helped you.

Much love, all the light and many, many blessings to you.

)0( Kennysaurus )0( Love you forever Bobcat and Raven

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[elliemarchetti]

THIAM FIC PART 2

I finally figured out how to work from my pc! Since some of you liked my previously Thiam fic and since I already wanted to write a part 2, here we are, with some more Thiam angst and some Scolia cuteness. 

Words:2237

The tree house was a cube of six and a half feet on each side, so low that Liam could not stand up straight. He liked that place: it had an opening in which to slip and a window on the opposite wall. As a child he had placed an old stool, on which he put the cores of candle that he stole from his mother; he needed them to sneak out at night and enjoy the solitude. Even as a child, even before the Devenford Prep disaster and his transformation, Liam was a particular child. He never needed the tree house again, after his transformation and the first, terrible nights, but now it was different: his room’s walls seemed to suffocate him and he needed some fresh air, even if, in California, there was no fresh air, in February, just warm breaths of wind. Why does he needed to choose what to do with his life in February? And why he can’t be with his friends after all the time he spent with them? He needed to run away. He jumped down from the tree and stepped over the fence that divided the courtyard from the road. He had painted it a long time ago with his father, and already at the time, the gate creaked loudly.

Beacon Hills wasn’t a pretty place, but it was perfect for someone who doesn’t want to be noticed when he ran away from home at night for a supernatural run. No one went home late during the week, and anyone approaching the forest knew about the existence of werewolves and other such creatures, so that night, everything went smoothly. Liam saw no living soul on his way and went into the woods with his yellow eyes and fangs pressing on his fleshy bottom lip. If his mother saw him like that, she would have died of a heart attack, he knew. Liam had sometimes saw himself, in the reflection of shop windows or in some, sporadic mirror: it was not a good sight. After a long time, however, he had come to terms with his being and the need to hide began to get on his nerves: almost all of Beacon Hills knew of supernatural creatures. Except for his parents, of course, or they wouldn’t allow him to leave the house ever again, werewolf or not.

Liam felt himself observed, and turned, just to make sure no one was following him. Monroe's followers were no longer around, but there could be other fanatics ready to shoot him. He sniffed the air, for safety, motionless, with his back against a tree. There were no smells other than those of the forest, and no suspicious noises. Probably, by pretending to be a normal boy, he had begun to behave like one, scared by the night and by the woods sounds. After some time he cannot help himself and he turned back again. There was clearly something following him, but it could have been a wild animal, and as long as he did not have the rabies, he would not have to worry. He mentally reproached himself for his foolish behavior, but ran closer to the road, frightened by the possibility that whatever might follow him could take him into the woods, alone and impossible to save. If he had howled, so close to the road, some of his friends would have heard it before Lydia announced his death with one of her screams.

Liam abruptly stopped his run when he saw a big, surely not normal, black wolf, looking at him straight in the eyes. At first, he didn’t recognized Theo, but when he came closer, it was obvious it was he: he even had the same eye color. He reached out a hand slowly, hoping that the friend would let the space between his straight and pointed ears touched.

"Can I know what you are doing around in the middle of the night? Should not you sleep?" Liam asked, even though he knew that he would not be able to answer him. Finally, his fingertips reached the soft, thin coat of the wolf, who allowed him to caress his head for a few moments, before biting the boy's pale wrist playfully. "Cantankerous as usual, I see." Liam commented, throwing his arm down his side. It was a strange feeling, he could feel his humanity still intact, despite the yellow eyes, yet he felt perfectly at ease, crouched there, together with a wolf who could not answer, as if he were made for that life, as if the woods called him.

Theo, however, for a few moments would have liked to be able to leave aside his own humanity, let Liam caress his back and neck without having to regret it the next day. He would have liked that Liam could transform himself, that he would finally become an Alpha, that finally he was able to fully understand his own strength. In short, he would have liked many things to happen, but none would have been realized, so he stood up on all four legs, a clear sign that even Liam would have to get back on his feet.

"Do you want to follow me in my night run?" Liam asked, going over the wolf. He was certain that Theo would not attack him. Liam had been the first to allow himself to turn his back on what had once been their enemy: it had seemed a great sign of trust, and Theo seemed to have caught it.

With a small smile, Liam started to run again, deeper in the wood, this time, because with Theo he felt like he was invincible. They were a great team, like Sherlock and Watson, but Liam can’t figure out who should have been Sherlock and who should have called himself Watson.

Liam stopped, exhausted, and sat on the dry topsoil, his back against a tree. Theo felt sorry for Liam: he wasn’t tired, not even a bit. It was as if his friend was stopping himself to fit in someone else’s canons, and the letter he received from Pomona didn’t seemed to help him. In any case, that Theo was sorry or not, he should have left. Getting away from Beacon Hills would do him good, allowing him to grow up and make a normal life. Then, maybe, he would even find his ex-girlfriend, that idiot, at school. If he did not remember badly, before becoming a wolf, he was good at some sport, so a scholarship was almost assured now. Or it was Scott’s ex, the lacrosse player? It didn’t mattered, anyway. He hated both. And he even had to kiss Hayden to make one of his plans worked! Looking back at it, it was unbelievable to him how high school girls could be silly. Because of a kiss, both Hayden and Tracy believed him and they lowered their guard. If Theo had learned something from the terrible person he had been, it was always keeping his watch high and thinking the worst about people. Only with Liam he could not do it. He had tried several times, but the boy had always shown him to deserve his trust and respect. He was starting to be nicer even with Lydia, but perhaps he was only attracted by her immense power and the current aura of despair and self-pity that surrounded her. She was also a promising mind who had decided to stay in Beacon Hills against the wishes of her parents, a mind so promising to be willing to lie to the majority of people she loved just to stay in that hell she called home. Someday, that place would have killed her. And it would have happened to Liam too, if he had not hurried to decide to accept the place in Pomona. Everyone in that city seemed to be ready to give up something for the one they loved, like Mason who wanted to go to a worst college than the ones that offered a place for him to stay with his boyfriend.

As he tried to catch his breath, Liam watched Theo in his wolf form, as if he wanted to impress that moment in his mind. If he really had to leave for college, he wanted to remember every single reason why he should not have done it.

It was not usual to see Theo in his animal form; he always said he felt more vulnerable, like that. Liam believed, instead, that he preferred his human form only because in that way he could respond with sarcastic remarks to anyone who surrounded him.

It was more than a week that he did not see him and he really began to miss him a lot. He believed that, after that afternoon spent together in the suburbs, the need to see him and stand next to him would have faded for a while, but it seemed only to be increased, leaving a sense of terrible nostalgia for the moments they had spent together in the last year.

Theo also studied Liam. He was by far the nicest guy in town, not just in Beacon Hills High School. His brown hair, blue eyes, that spontaneous smile that lit up his still so childish face. He was changing, Theo had to admit it. The jaw began to be more squared and the cheeks more dug, a sign that the juvenile chubbiness would soon abandon the boy. He had also become more muscular, in the last period, as if he were training more consistently, pushing himself to the limit. In the dim light, Theo noticed that he also had deep dark circles. He must have slept too little recently. The black t-shirt and sweatpants he had decided to wear were worn, with holes in several places, like it was his in-the-woods running suit.

Theo would have sat all night watching him, but a noise he could not immediately define made him raise his ears. Liam must have heard it too. Even in the form of a wolf, Theo raised his eyes to the sky: he had imposed to himself only one task, and that was to keep safe that walking mess next to him, and the danger reached them there, in the woods. He had suffered for weeks, he had decided to stay away even when the only thing he wanted was to waste his time with him, to keep him away from any risk, and now how those hunters dared to approach them so, in the only moment of peace that Theo has allowed himself to have? He ran to the danger with a growl, hoping Liam had the good sense to follow him. The ideal would be for someone to escort him home, but there was no one else with them, and Theo preferred to have his friend in his field of view, rather than put him at risk. Moreover, in the various battles they had fought together, they had always been a great couple, certainly the best. Scott and Malia did not have the same chemistry, they could not think like a single person. Liam also thought it that way, or at least, with his terms. Their friendship reminded him of that of the Greek warriors in ancient poems, linked to their companions by a bond that some called almost supernatural. Much of their skill as warriors was due to the support of their companion, and if alone they were only good fighters, they were invincible together. And it was not good, because soon or later Liam would have to leave Theo's side and live a life of his own, even if he was nauseated at the thought.

They reached the source of the noise, and Liam almost fainted at the sight of that wolf so mammoth. He had never seen anything like it, not even Derek had evolved that way. In front of them a black beast, so similar to the beast of Gévaudan, who had taken possession of his best friend, was chasing a coyote. After the initial moment of shock, Liam noticed that what was clearly supposed to be another werewolf was much smaller, compared to Sebastien Valet, and that somehow, underneath that dark skin and furry hair, its features were still partly visible. It looked like a half-completed transformation, and not the half that they all shared when their mind was still human, but they needed a different force but  a half that tasted like failure. The first thing Theo noticed, however, was that the coyote that that werewolf was chasing was Malia. He had known her in her wolf form first and could hardly forget it. A wave of joy crossed his body: if that wolf wanted to do the dirty work for him and get rid of her, better for him. But that werewolf did not seem at all intent to hurt her, their chasing and letting go seemed more like a game than something dangerous. Liam was the first to recognize that family face so tormented.

"Scott?" Liam asked, amazed. The werewolf turned, and the monstrous expression on what was impossible to decide whether to call face or muzzle disappeared. Theo, in a moment of lucidity, was sad for him. His work was about to be judged by the one who had once treated like a son and, suddenly, had decided to betray

[nerd-on-edge]

The Benefits of Rabi’-ul-Awwal: its Significance, Lessons and Blessings

Safa Faruqui



When is Rabi’-ul-Awwal?

Rabi’-ul-Awwal is the third month of the Islamic calendar, occurring after Muharram and Safar. In 2020, it will begin on either 18th October or 19th October, subject to the sighting of the new moon.

The literal meaning of Rabi’-ul-Awwal is ‘the first spring’, but this has no relevant meaning today, because the Islamic calendar follows the moon rather than the solar seasons. Thus, Rabi’-ul-Awwal will begin in autumn this year.

Why is Rabi’-ul-Awwal important to Muslims?

Muslims consider Rabi’-ul-Awwal to be significant because the following events took place during this month:

The birth of the Prophet Muhammad (saw), the final Messenger to whom the Qur’an was revealed.

The Hijrah of the Prophet (saw), when he emigrated from Makkah to Madinah. The Islamic calendar is dated from this event.

The death of the Prophet (saw), on 12th Rabi’-ul-Awwal in the eleventh year of Islam.

 

Does Rabi’-ul-Awwal have any special blessings or benefits?

Unlike, for example, the months of Ramadan or Dhul Hijjah, there are no special recommendations to fast, pray or make du’a during Rabi’-ul-Awwal. However, the events that took place during this month mark it as specifically blessed.



Allah chose Rabi’-ul-Awwal to send the Prophet (saw) into the world, and to take His Beloved (saw) back to Him. Out of the twelve months in the lunar calendar, He chose to bless only Rabi’-ul-Awwal in this way. Therefore, it is of course a special month and deserves our attention and respect. With that in mind, let’s take a more detailed look at the blessed events of this month and what we can learn from them.

Event One: The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad (saw)

Rabi’-ul-Awwal is one of the most significant months in Islamic history, because humanity was blessed by the birth of the Prophet (saw) during this month. He (saw) would eventually lead the world, beginning with the Arabs, Persians and Romans, from the darkness of ignorance and oppression into the light of Tawhid, and true justice and peace. His birth was ‘a mercy to the worlds’ (Qur’an, 21:107), and Allah chose Rabi’-ul-Awwal to illuminate us with this mercy.

The Prophet (saw) was born in Makkah on a Monday in Rabi’-ul-Awwal, though narrations differ on the exact date. Many narrations say the 12th, but others have mentioned different dates between the 8th and the 17th. Nevertheless, he (saw) was definitely born on a Monday:



His birth had been anticipated for a long time. Isa (as) had mentioned it to his people five centuries earlier:

'And remember when Isa, the son of Maryam, said, "O Children of Israel! I am the messenger of Allah [sent] to you, confirming the Torah (Law) [which came] before me, and giving glad tidings of a Messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad"'. (Qur'an, 61:6)

Ibrahim (as) and Isma’il (as) had also prayed for the Prophet’s (saw) birth when they were rebuilding the Ka’bah:

'Our Lord, send among them a messenger from themselves who will recite to them Your verses and teach them the Book and wisdom and purify them. Indeed, You are the Exalted in Might, the Wise'. (Qur'an, 2:129)



There were many miracles surrounding his birth. The Prophet’s (saw) mother, Aaminah, was conscious of a light within her when she was pregnant with him, which one day shone from her so intensely that she could see the castles and palaces of Syria. (Ibn Ishaq) 

There were also the miracles witnessed by his foster mother, Halimah, who had been hoping for a rich child to nurse, because her family was suffering from drought. Nevertheless, she took fatherless Muhammad (saw) as her foster child, and her family were blessed for years afterwards:



It is clear the Muhammad’s (saw) arrival was much-anticipated and it was widely recognised that he was a blessed and special child. Even his name was unique; it means ‘one who is praised’, and no one else used that name at the time. His mother, grandfather (‘Abdul-Muttalib) and foster-parents all knew that great things lay in his future.

So what lessons can we draw from his (saw) birth this Rabi’-ul-Awwal?

The Importance of Loving the Prophet Muhammad (saw)

‘The Prophet is closer to the believers than their own selves’. (Qur’an, 33:6)

The month of Rabi’-ul-Awwal is a good time to remind ourselves of the place of the Prophet (saw) in our lives. He is the best of creation, and he should be dearer to us than any place or person, including ourselves. 

If we do not feel this closeness to the Prophet (saw), the solution is simple: learn more about his character and his life, and naturally our love for him will grow.



This Rabi’-ul-Awwal, why not begin reading the Seerah (the Prophet’s (saw) biography) so you can learn more about the best of creation? It is also a good idea to start following Prophetic habits, such as visiting the sick and elderly, smiling often, and feeding the poor. 

Take this chance to revive or strengthen your connection with the Prophet (saw) and his Sunnah.

Event Two: The Hijrah of the Prophet Muhammad (saw)

The Prophet (saw) and his Companion, Abu Bakr (ra), also emigrated from Makkah to Yathrib during Rabi’-ul-Awwal. This event is known as the Hijrah, and we date the Islamic calendar from it. So, the first year they spent in Madinah was the first Islamic year, the second year was the second Islamic year, and on. The Islamic year is denoted by ‘AH’, which stands for ‘After Hijrah’. We are currently in the year 1441 AH.

Umar (ra) said, ‘The Hijrah has separated truth from falsehood, so calculate dates from it’. (Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani)

The Hijrah marked the beginning of a new chapter for the Muslims. The Prophet (saw) united the tribes of Yathrib, guiding them with justice, wisdom and mercy. The city of Yathrib became known as ‘Madinah al-Munawarah’, the Illuminated City, and is now commonly called Madinah. 

Did you know that the first masjid was also built in Rabi’-ul-Awwal? The Prophet (saw) left Makkah with Abu Bakr (ra) and they crossed the desert to Quba, a town near Yathrib. They stayed there for three days and built the first masjid, before travelling on to Yathrib, where they would begin building a second masjid, known as Masjid An-Nabi today.



The Prophet (saw) greeted the people of Quba by saying, ‘O people, give one another greetings of peace, feed the hungry, honour the ties of kinship, and pray in the hours when men sleep. Then you shall enter Paradise in peace’.

The anniversary of the Hijrah should remind us of these words. In both Quba and Madinah, the Prophet (saw) established a community centred around Allah’s worship, where the beautiful lessons of the Qur’an and Sunnah were followed. The Prophet (saw) said, 'Leave me as I leave you, for the people who were before you were ruined because of their questions and their differences over their prophets. So, if I forbid you to do something, then keep away from it. And if I order you to do something, then do of it as much as you can'. (Bukhari)

This Rabi’-ul-Awwal, we should strive to follow the Sunnah of the Prophet (saw) as much as possible in our daily lives.



The best way to follow the Prophet's (saw) example is to read, understand and follow the Qur’an. Increase your Qur’anic recitation, and bring life to the Qur’an and Sunnah in your house by reminding yourself to be kind, generous, patient and grateful. The Prophet (saw) is the best example for us, and this Rabi’-ul-Awwal, we should take the opportunity to remind ourselves of the lessons he taught and build good habits. 

Event Three: The Death of the Prophet Muhammad (saw)

On Monday 12th Rabi’-ul-Awwal, in the eleventh year of Islam, the Prophet (saw) passed away. 

A day or two before his death, he had gone into the Masjid and told the people from the pulpit, ‘There is a slave amongst the slaves of God to whom God has offered the choice between this world and that which is with Him, and the slave has chosen that which is with God’. He had been ill for a few days, and his family and closest friends knew that it would soon be time for him to go back to Allah. 

Nevertheless, it was still a great shock to the Muslims when he died, so much so that some of them refused to believe that he had passed away. Just a few hours before his death, he had gone into the Masjid and watched the people praying, and Anas (ra) later said, ‘I never saw the Prophet’s face more beautiful than it was at that hour’. It seemed impossible that he (saw) should have left them, and even Umar (ra), one of his closest Companions, was adamant that it was a lie.

Abu Bakr (ra), however, reminded the people that the Prophet (saw) was only a human Messenger, and he was not immortal. Abu Bakr (ra) said,

‘O people! If it was Muhammad whom you worshipped, then know that he is dead. But if it is Allah whom you worshipped, then know that He does not die’. 



It was as if the people had not known of the revelation of this verse until Abu Bakr recited it that day. They took it from him, and it was on all their tongues. Umar (ra) said afterwards, ‘When I heard Abu Bakr recite that verse, I was so astounded that I fell to the ground. My legs would no longer carry me, and I knew that Allah's Messenger had died’.

Allah had presented the Prophet (saw) with the choice to live a little longer or to return to Him. Allah’s Beloved chose to return to him. The grief and sorrow felt by the Muslims was immense, in Madinah in particular. They were grieving not just for the Prophet (saw), whom they loved more than anyone else, but for the end of Revelation:.

‘I don’t weep for him’, said Umm Ayman, who had been like a mother to the Prophet (saw). ‘Don’t I know that he has gone to something which is better for him than this world? But I weep for the tidings of Heaven which have been cut off from us’. 

Since the Prophet Muhammad (saw) is beloved to all Muslims, it is natural for us to mourn the Prophet’s (saw) death, and to feel great sadness at his loss. With that in mind, here is one final lesson we can draw from the month of Rabi’-ul-Awwal.

Gratitude for the Prophet Muhammad (saw)

It is only through the sacrifices, efforts and immense love of the Prophet (saw) that we have been given the incredible guidance of the Qur’an and Sunnah. Allah says in the Qur’an:

‘Indeed Allah conferred a great favour on the believers when He sent among them a Messenger from among themselves, reciting unto them His verses, and purifying them, and instructing them (in) the Book (Qur'an) and Al-Hikmah, (the wisdom and the Sunnah of the Prophet (saw)), while before that they had been in manifest error’. (Qur’an, 3:164)

We naturally tend to remember the beautiful character of the Prophet (saw) more in Rabi’-ul-Awwal, but we should not single out this month to connect with him and follow his Sunnah. Rather, we should use this month as an opportunity to build good habits so we can emulate him throughout the year. 

Above all, Rabi’-ul-Awwal is a time for being grateful to Allah for the amazing blessing of sending the Prophet (saw) to us and guiding us to His Light. It is a time for grounding ourselves in our purpose once more and reviving our connection with Allah and His Messenger by learning more about the Qur’an and Sunnah. This is the ultimate blessing and significance of Rabi’-ul-Awwal.

[dailytafsirofquran]

Tafsir Ibn Kathir: Surah Al-Kawthar Ayah 1-3

Revealed in Al-Madinah, and They also say in Makkah

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

1 Verily, We have granted you Al-Kawthar. 2 Therefore turn in prayer to your Lord and  sacrifice. 3 For he who hates you, he will be cut off.

  Muslim, Abu Dawud and An-Nasa'i, all recorded from Anas that  he said, "While we were with the Messenger of Allah in the  Masjid, he dozed off into a slumber. Then he lifted his  head smiling. We said, `O Messenger of Allah! What has  caused you to laugh' He said, Verily, a Surah was just  revealed to me. Then he recited, Verily, We have granted you Al-Kawthar. Therefore turn in prayer to your Lord and sacrifice. For he who hates you, he will be cut off. Then he said, Do you all know what is Al-Kawthar? We said, `Allah and His Messenger know best.' He said, Verily, it is a river that my Lord, the Mighty and Majestic,  has promised me and it has abundant goodness. It is a pond where my Ummah will be brought to on the  Day of Judgement. Its containers are as numerous as the stars in the sky. Then a servant of Allah from among them will be  (prevented from it) and I will say: "O Lord! Verily, he is from my Ummah  (followers).'' Then He (Allah) will say: "Verily, you do not know what he introduced (or  innovated) after you.'' This is the wording of Muslim. Ahmad recorded this Hadith from Muhammad bin Fudayl, who  reported from Al-Mukhtar bin Fulful, who reported it from Anas  bin Malik. Imam Ahmad also recorded from Anas that the Messenger of  Allah said, I entered Paradise and I came to a river whose banks  had tents made of pearls. So I thrust my hand into its  flowing water and found that it was the strongest (smell)  of musk. So I asked, "O Jibril! What is this'' He replied, "This is Al-Kawthar which Allah, the Mighty and  Majestic has given you.'' Al-Bukhari recorded this in his Sahih, and so did Muslim, on the  authority of Anas bin Malik. In their version Anas said, "When  the Prophet was taken up to the heaven, he said, I came to a river whose banks had domes of hollowed  pearl. I said: "O Jibril! What is this'' He replied: "This is Al-Kawthar.'' This is the wording of Al-Bukhari. Ahmad recorded from Anas that a man said, "O Messenger of Allah! What is Al-Kawthar?'' He replied, It is a river in Paradise which my Lord has given me. It is  whiter than milk and sweeter than honey. There are  birds in it whose necks are (long) like carrots. Umar said, "O Messenger of Allah! Verily, they (the  birds) will be beautiful.'' The Prophet replied, The one who eats them (i.e., the people of Paradise) will  be more beautiful than them, O `Umar.  Al-Bukhari recorded from Sa`id bin Jubayr that Ibn Abbas said  about Al-Kawthar, "It is the good which Allah gave to him (the Prophet).'' Abu Bishr said, "I said to Sa`id bin Jubayr, `Verily, people are claiming  that it is a river in Paradise.''' Sa`id replied, `The river which is in Paradise is part of the  goodness which Allah gave him.''' Al-Bukhari also recorded from Sa`id bin Jubayr that Ibn Abbas  said, "Al-Kawthar is the abundant goodness.'' This explanation includes the river and other things  as well. Because the word Al-Kawthar comes from  the word Kathrah (abundance) and it (Al-Kawthar) linguistically means an abundance of goodness. So  from this goodness is the river (in Paradise). Imam Ahmad recorded from Ibn Umar that the Messenger of  Allah said, Al-Kawthar is a river in Paradise whose banks are of  gold and it runs over pearls. Its water is whiter than milk  and sweeter than honey. This Hadith was recorded in this manner by At-Tirmidhi,  Ibn Majah, Ibn Abi Hatim and Ibn Jarir. At-Tirmidhi said, "Hasan Sahih.'' Then Allah says, Therefore turn in prayer to your Lord and sacrifice. meaning, `just as We have given you the abundant  goodness in this life and the Hereafter -- and from that is  the river that has been described previously -- then  make your obligatory and optional prayer, and your  sacrifice (of animals) solely and sincerely for your Lord.  Worship Him alone and do not associate any partner with  him. And sacrifice pronouncing His Name alone, without  ascribing any partner to Him.' This is as Allah says, Say:  "Verily, my Salah, my sacrifice, my living, and  my dying are for Allah, the Lord of all that exists. He has no partner. And of this I have been commanded, and I am the first of the Muslims.'' (6:162-163) Ibn `Abbas, Ata,' Mujahid, Ikrimah and Al-Hasan all said, "This means with this the Budn should be sacrificed.'' Qatadah, Muhammad bin Ka`b Al-Qurazi, Ad-Dahhak, Ar-Rabi, Ata Al-Khurasani, Al-Hakam, Isma`il bin Abi Khalid and others from the Salaf have all said the same. This is the opposite of the way of the idolators, prostrating to other than Allah and sacrificing in other than His Name. Allah says, And do not eat from what Allah's Name has not been pronounced over, indeed that is Fisq. (6:121) The Enemy of the Prophet is Cut Off Allah says, For he who hates you, he will be cut off. meaning, `indeed he who hates you, O Muhammad, and he hates what you have come with of guidance, truth, clear proof and manifest light, he is the most cut off, meanest, lowliest person who will not be remembered. Ibn `Abbas, Mujahid, Sa`id bin Jubayr and Qatadah all said, "This Ayah was revealed about Al-As bin Wa'il. Whenever the Messenger of Allah would be mentioned (in his presence) he would say, `Leave him, for indeed he is a man who is cut off having no descendants. So when he dies he will not be remembered.' Therefore, Allah revealed this Surah.'' Shamir bin `Atiyah said, "This Surah was revealed concerning `Uqbah bin Abi Mu`ayt.'' Ibn `Abbas and `Ikrimah have both said, "This Surah was revealed about Ka`b bin Al-Ashraf and a group of the disbelievers of the Quraysh.'' Al-Bazzar recorded that Ibn Abbas said, "Ka`b bin Al-Ashraf came to Makkah and the Quraysh said to him, `You are the leader of them (the people). What do you think about this worthless man who is cut off from his people He claims that he is better than us while we are the people of the place of pilgrimage, the people of custodianship (of the Ka`bah), and the people who supply water to the pilgrims.' He replied, `You all are better than him.' So Allah revealed, "(For he who hates you, he will be cut off.)''

This is how Al-Bazzar recorded this incident and its chain of narration is authentic.

It has been reported that Ata' said,

"This Surah was revealed about Abu Lahab when a son of the Messenger of Allah died. Abu Lahab went to the idolators and said, `Muhammad has been cut off (i.e., from progeny) tonight.'

So concerning this Allah revealed, "(For he who hates you, he will be cut off.)''

As-Suddi said,

"When the male sons of a man died the people used to say, `He has been cut off.' So, when the sons of the Messenger of Allah died they said, `Muhammad has been cut off.' Thus, Allah revealed, For he who hates you, he will be cut off.)''

So they thought in their ignorance that if his sons died, his remembrance would be cut off.

Allah forbid! To the contrary, Allah preserved his remembrance for all the world to see, and He obligated all the servants to follow his Law. This will continue for all of time until the Day of Gathering and the coming of the Hereafter. May the blessings of Allah and His peace be upon him forever until the Day of Assembling.

This is the end of the Tafsir of Surah Al-Kawthar, and all praise and blessings are due to Allah.

[drferox]

20 Questions with Dr Ferox #21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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