#what six years of therapy does to a person's thought process: | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thetriumphantpanda · 2 years ago

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Ghost of You | J. Miller (Chapter Four)

Series Summary / Grief is a strange thing. In the beginning it had been all-consuming. There wasn’t a moment of the day where you didn’t cry, didn’t ask yourself why it couldn’t have been you instead. And no-one ever explains the guilt you feel when it isn’t anymore. When it’s just a dull ache and you can finally breathe again, when you can start letting people get close to you again. People like Joel Miller.

Pairing / Joel Miller x Widow F!Reader

Word Count / 4K

Warnings / Descriptions of grief and depression, a therapy session, some Ellie/Reader fluff but nothing else - let me know if I've missed anything!

Authors Note / You know when I said this would be slow burn? I really meant it. I really hope you guys aren't getting bored but I promise things are going to heat up from Chapter 5 onwards 👀 Thank you once again for all your love on this series - I say it every time but it's really close to my heart and to know you guys are enjoying it really does mean the world! If you like this then please considering reblogging, leaving comments or popping into my ask box with some love! I love y'all!

Series Masterlist / Main Masterlist

You never thought you’d be the kind of person who needed a therapist. Even when your parents had passed in quick succession before the outbreak you’d managed to carry on with the distraction of normal life, processing your grief quickly, distracting yourself with finishing school and applying for college. Even now, when you thought back to them, it was with fond memories. Nowhere near the level of grief you had now after losing Mark.

Maybe it was the change in the world or the fact that Mark had been a part of your life longer than your parents had? You didn’t really know. Maria had suggested that trying to unpack your feelings with a therapist would be beneficial for you, someone neutral who could help you back to the person you’d been before he’d died. It had been six months since you first sat in this chair, the same feeling of anxiety you had then was apparent now, as Belinda poured you a glass of water and situated a box of tissues on the table, you took one, knowing you’d need it like you always did.

“So, how are you?” She asks, settling down in the chair opposite you with her notepad resting on her crossed knee.

“I’m okay.” You say simply.

This is a rehearsed response. You always say it. Because if you needed a therapist, were you ever okay?

Belinda nods like she always did, “I wanted to start today by revisiting what we spoke about last time,” Her voice is high and sweet and she’s at least twenty years older than you, “Remember we spoke about doing something to push yourself out of your comfort zone?” She asks, and you nod, “Did you do anything since our last session to work on that?”

You take a deep breath; how much should you tell her?

“I have, yeah.”

“That’s good,” She praises, a genuine smile on her mouth, “Can you tell me about it?”

“I went to The Tipsy Bison last week.” Is all you offer her.

“With Tommy and Maria?”

You nod, “And his brother and the little girl he’s got.”

She quirks her eyebrow a little, if you hadn’t been paying close attention to her face you would have missed it, “And would you say Tommy’s brother is a friend?”

You shrug, “I don’t know, I guess so, he came around a few weeks ago and fixed my porch step and he’s helping to build the table and chairs that Mark was going to do before he got sick.”

“Do you talk to him about Mark?”

“We’ve spoken a little about him, he actually lost his own daughter on outbreak day, so I guess I feel like he understands what I’m going through.”

She nods, “Let’s go back a bit and talk about going to the bar,” She writes something down on her notepad, you never really know what it is she’s writing, “Was it as bad as you had expected?”

You look down at your hands, scrunched tissue in one hand as your nails pick at the skin of your cuticles, “I was nervous about going, and I think I stood outside the door waiting to go in for too long, my mind was thinking of what would happen, like I would open the door and everyone would stop and go silent and just look at me, but no-one really noticed, but when we sat down to have a drink, someone said something and it kinda ruined everything.”

“What did they say?” She pushes.

You sigh, “That I’d made a miraculous recovery all of a sudden.”

“And how did that make you feel?” Ah. The classic therapy question.

You take a moment to formulate your answer in your mind, “I was angry,” You reply, “But not at the person who said it, I was angry at myself because it was true.”

“But is it true?” Belinda pushes, “From my perspective, of course we’ve made steps since you first began coming to see me, but I don’t think either of us think you’re fully recovered, do we?”

You shake your head to agree with her, “I guess what I’m trying to say is that sure, what was said wasn’t really true, but it’s the things they didn’t say which made me think they are,” Belinda is looking at you to continue explaining, “In the back of my mind I thought, well of course I’m recovered if I’m sat in a bar with a smile on my face, and if I can do this then why can’t I go back to work? Why can’t I start contributing to the community again? That’s what I think they’re saying in their heads about me.”

“But you don’t know that do you?” She asks, “This is something I’ve noticed about you, that you project your own feelings onto other people, even though you have no idea what else they’re really thinking.”

You nod because she’s not wrong, of course she’s not, “How do I stop?” You almost beg her.

She shrugs a little, “You’ve got to stop caring about what other people think,” She says it like it’s the simplest thing to do, “Of course not the people who really matter to you, Maria, Tommy, his brother, their opinions matter, but those people who you see in passing, what they think doesn’t matter because they don’t really know you.”

She looks briefly to her watch, “We don’t have much time left, but I’m proud of you, and if you think you’re ready to go back to work then challenge yourself, maybe ask Maria for a couple of hours a week, just to ease yourself back in, and we can talk about it a bit more next week?” You nod in agreement, “And it’s good to hear you’re making new friends too, I think Tommy’s brother might be someone to keep around if it makes you comfortable, friend’s with shared experiences can be helpful in recovery.”

You nod in understanding and spend a few minutes agreeing on what day and time you’ll meet next week before she’s ushering you out of her office in time for her next patient. As you stand in front of her office, a thought spring to your mind. This is the first time you’ve left having not cried. The tissue is still dry in your hand, a small victory that you can hand yourself on your journey to healing.

Just ten minutes later you are stood outside Maria’s house, knocking on the door. You can hear shuffling behind the door before she pulls it open, a look of shock written on her face that it’s you.

“Is everything okay?” She asks.

“As fine as it normally is,” You respond, “I was just coming back from Belinda’s and I wanted to ask you something.”

“You want to come inside?” She asks, “I’ve just made coffee.”

You gladly accept and before long you’re both sat on the couch, sipping coffee, “I think I’d like to go back to work.” You say simply before you get the opportunity to chicken out.

She almost chokes on the coffee she’d just taken a drink of, “Are you sure?”

“Definitely not full time,” You’re quick to add, “I just want to start with a few hours and see if I’m okay.”

“Where’s this come from?” You let out a sigh, “I’m fed up Maria,” You speak honestly, “Fed up of people thinking I’m useless, fed up of spending every day in the same four walls,” And then you add, “And I’m fed up of thinking that Mark would hate what I’ve become over him.”

She pauses for a moment, “Let me speak to Kate and see if we can sort something out from next week,” She smiles, “I’m sure she’ll be grateful to have you back, she always complains that Charlotte still doesn’t understand the library system,” She puts on a poor imitation of Kate’s accent, “Jane Austen next to Philippa Gregory.”

You both laugh and you think it’s truly the first time you’ve properly laughed in what feels like forever. You spend a little more time with her, finishing your coffee before leaving her to it and as you walk down the street towards your own home, you can’t deny that you feel a little lighter than normal.

It’s Monday afternoon, one of two afternoon’s you’ve agreed to step back into the library to help. Kate had suggested it because it was the afternoon that the teacher’s brought the kids down to choose a book to take home. It would be busy enough to distract you and meant you wouldn’t spend your time sat thinking.

You’d already helped two classes this afternoon, the last class we’re due in a few minutes, so Kate and you were enjoying a moment to sit and recuperate over a cup of tea. Well. Tea was stretching it – it was Kate’s usual concoction of boiled water and water flavourings she could get her hands on. Today it was lemon slices and honey, but it was warm and soothing so you wouldn’t complain.

“I’m really happy to see you.” She speaks honestly, grasping at your arm to give it a squeeze, “I know this can’t have been easy, but I’ve hope we’ve not scared you off.”

You offer a small smile, “I’ve actually enjoyed it, I guess my therapist was right when she said finding distractions would be helpful.”

Kate is about to speak again when the library door swings open and the older children start filing in, their teacher doing his best to corral them into the middle of the room. It’s just as you remember, he tells them they’ve got fifteen minutes to browse and choose and book and once they have, they need to come to the front desk to check it out.

You notice Ellie is part of the group, she’s hanging back, shuffling from foot-to-foot, but once her teacher lets them go, she’s just as excited as everyone else, picking up books and reading the covers. She’s one of the first to bring her choice over to the desk. You smile as you take it from her.

“Artemis Fowl?” You grin, “Great choice, it’s really good.” You write her name in the checking-out book and then the title of the book, before writing the date three weeks from now that she needs to bring it back on the inside cover of the book.

“I didn’t know you worked here.” She comments, taking the book back from you.

“I’m only here for two afternoons, trying to ease myself back into things, but yeah, before everything happened with Mark, this was my full-time job.”

“I bet you’ve read everything here, right?”

“Not quite,” You smirk, “But pretty much, if you ever want to know what else is good to read, you know where to come.”

She smiles and says thank you and just before she turns to leave, “Say, you don’t think you could ask Joel to pop by sometime and finish up the table for me, could you?”

She smirks, “Only if I can come so you can teach me how to make pie?”

You hold out your hand and she takes it to shake, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

It isn’t until Sunday that Joel and Ellie turn up at your front door. Summer really is in full swing now and it’s warm. You’ve been padding about in the garden trying to clear up, tank top now slightly sticking to your back from the thin sheen of sweat you’ve worked up and you think it’s possible the skin on your legs will be burnt when you finish up for the day.

Joel heads straight for the back porch with his toolbox in hand, Ellie lingers at the kitchen table.

“Do you want coffee?” You ask, tilting your head around the open back door.

He shakes his head, “Water would be nice though.”

You head back to the kitchen and pour three glasses of water from the jug in your fridge, adding lemon slices to give it a little flavour. Joel thanks you when you had him the glass and you smile at him before heading back to the kitchen to focus on Ellie.

“Alright, you ready?” You ask and she nods with enthusiasm, “I tried to get apples at the market, but they were all out, so I’m afraid it’s cherries today.”

You bring out a bowl of cherries from the fridge and put them out the counter, “The first thing we need to do is wash them and take the stones out, it’s a bit fiddly but it’s fun, I promise.”

You rummage around in your cutlery drawer for the pair of chopsticks you know are hidden somewhere. You can almost imagine the family living in this house before the world went to shit, sitting at their table, eating Chinese food with them. God, what you wouldn’t give for fried rice right now. You had one of the sticks to Ellie once she’s washed her hands and rinsed the fruit.

“So, you take a cherry and pull the stem off,” You do it to show her, “And then you eat the first one to make sure the fruit is okay,” You smile as you pop the cherry into your mouth, watching as she does the same, “You think they’re good?”

She’s smiling at you, “They’re fucking great!”

You spit the stone into your palm and put your hand near her face for her to do the same before you discard the stones in the trash bin next to you, “Okay, now we know they’re good, what you need to do is take the smaller end of the chopstick, and can you see where you pulled the stem out from?” You point to the spot on her fruit, “You just push the end through it and hopefully….” You draw out as you push your stick into the cherry between your fingers, the stone pops out through the bottom, “That will happen!”

You watch as Ellie copies your movements, the stone popping out through the bottom of the cherry, “Does it matter that the fruit broke?” She asks, placing her destoned cherry in the bowl with your own.

“Not at all, we’ve got to break them to eat them, right?”

Joel is working studiously just outside the kitchen window and when you reach the last cherry in the bowl, you take it in hand, opening the window, “Hey Joel?” You call, he looks up from his work and you dangle the cherry out into the open space, he smiles as he takes it, popping it into his mouth before mirroring what you’d done, spitting the pip into his hand and slinging it over the side of your fence.

It strikes you in this moment that being with Joel and Ellie is effortless. Although they both know what happened and a little about how you’ve delt with it, they don’t seem to judge you, neither of them look at you with sorry written in their eyes, they don’t press you to talk about things you don’t want to and they both seem genuinely interested in what you have to say, or in Ellie’s case, teach them.

You take Ellie through the rest of the steps of preparing the fruit, drizzling them in a little honey in place of sugar, teaching her how to make the pastry, which involves more flour ending up on both of you that it does in the recipe. You let her pour the fruit into the pastry and decide which kind of top she wants on it. She’s a girl after your own heart and opts for lattice.

Once it’s in the oven baking, Ellie sits on your couch with her book whilst you tidy up. You refill her glass of water before heading out to do the same to Joel’s. He’s almost finished with the table, just a few more planks of wood to hammer into the top and he’ll be done.

“Thanks,” He says simply when you fill his glass, he takes it and drinks deeply, brushing his forehead for sweat, you stand with him for a while, “Ellie says she saw you at the library earlier this week, is that where you work?” He’s making polite conversation and you smile.

“I worked there before everything happened,” You explain, “I was speaking to my therapist a few weeks ago who said she thought it would be a positive step for me, so I’m just doing two afternoons a week to ease me back in,” You refill his glass when he’s finished with it, “Baby steps and all that.”

“S’good,” He nods, “You seem a bit happier today.”

“I think it’s more to do with her,” You speak honestly, motioning your head inside to where Ellie is, “She’s a great kid Joel.”

“She is,” He agrees, “I’m glad she’s finally gettin’ the chance to be a kid for a while.”

He’s finishing up with the last few bits of wood for the table, “You wanna stay for a slice of pie?” You ask, “It shouldn’t be long coming out of the oven.”

“If it’s anythin’ like the last one then I don’t think I can say no,” He smirks, “Let me finish up here and I’ll come in.”

“Oh no, stay out here, we need to make sure your handiwork is sturdy enough.” You give him a little wink just to play with him, before wondering whether that was too much. He doesn’t suggest it was, just beams his lovely smile at you.

You turn on your heel and head back into the kitchen. You kneel in front of the oven, and you can see through the door that the fruit is bubbling through the lattice top and the pastry itself is looking lovely and golden.

“Hey, Ellie, you wanna take your pie out of the oven?” You ask, she’s folding the corner of the page she’s reading and is by your side in record time.

You hand her the oven gloves, another souvenir from whoever lived here before, it’s white, or would have been before they’d been used to death and had a pretty floral pattern on it. Not what you’d have chosen if you’d been filling your new home, but you always tried to remind yourself that beggars couldn’t be choosers in this world.

“Careful when you open the door, it’ll be really hot.” Ellie shoots you a playful look that tells you she isn’t that dumb.

She pulls open the door and steps back to let the steam flow out before she’s wrapping the oven gloves around the pie and putting on the stove top to cool, “As the expert,” You speak, “I have to say that looks and smells fantastic.”

You peer out of the window; Joel is just shutting his toolbox and you watch him takes his hands a brush the tabletop of any dust and debris left over from him building it. He then takes the chairs he’d made and sets them around the table. You turn your head when he starts moving to come inside.

“Kiddo, that looks great,” He praises Ellie, looking over her shoulder at her creation, “Let me wash my hands and we can dig in.”

You busy yourself with grabbing some plates and forks, handing them to Ellie to take outside, whilst you take the oven gloves and take the pie outside, setting it down on the table. You stand back and look at what Joel’s made. In the old world, this would have cost you a pretty penny and you can’t help but realise how talented he is. There’s nothing to suggest that you hadn’t been down to the best furniture store and paid thousands of dollars for it.

“I brought a knife.” Comes Joel’s voice from behind you, he’s brandishing your biggest kitchen knife and you think that in any other circumstance you’d be threatened by him, but there’s something about the goofy grin on his face that you know means that he would never hurt you.

He gives the knife to Ellie and sits down in one of the chairs, you follow suit, taking time to warn her to be careful if she needs to touch the pie tin because it’s likely to still be hot. You catch Joel smiling at you and you know it’s because he’s her dad – whether by blood or not, you can tell that he cares deeply for her and he’s thankful, in some small way that you are too.

Ellie cuts into the pie and struggles to get it out of the tin, the pastry below breaks and the fruit spills onto the plate that she only just manages to catch the slice on.

“I’ll take that one,” You smile, holding out your hand for the plate, “Got to break it to eat it, right?” You echo your words from inside the kitchen earlier on.

Once everyone has a slice on their plate and has left it to cool for long enough, you’re all digging in and you have to admit it’s just as good as the one you made yourself.

“Maybe I should sign you up for kitchen duty,” Joel jokes as he spears another bite with his fork, “You can start earning your keep, kiddo.”

Ellie looks disgusted at the very notion of being put to work and you all laugh together. It’s in this moment that you think to Mark. Would this have been your life if you’d been blessed with children? When you’d arrived in Jackson it had been a serious conversation. You were safe. People had been having children for months. They had a real midwife for God’s sake. The lack of children hadn’t been through lack of trying either. You remember lazy Sunday mornings wrapped up in bed together, hands raking over naked bodies, moans and praises spilled from mouths. You’d just never been blessed. You’d never talked about who might have been the problem, it didn’t matter anyway, if it couldn’t be with Mark then it wasn’t meant to be.

And perhaps now you’re thankful. If Mark had still died, there would have been someone else to care for during your grief. A constant reminder, in the flesh, of who he was, who he’d been. You hated to think of not being able to look at your own child because they reminded you too much of your dead husband. No. Better to be alone in your grief than add that kind of complication.

Once the slices were finished on everyone’s plate and you’d packaged two extra slices for Joel and Ellie to take home, you’re standing on your porch. Ellie is already making her way down the street, but Joel is hanging back.

“I really don’t know how to say thank you,” You admit, “You’ve been a real lifeline since you came here so just… thank you.”

He smiles at you, secretly wishing he could reach his hands out to touch you. He can’t remember the last time he genuinely wanted to touch someone like he wanted to touch you. He didn’t even think he had that with Tess. Sure, she’d been a comfort and he cared for her, but it had never been love. Just a means to an end, a way to ease each other’s pain for a moment. Then he caught himself. This wasn’t love either. Sure, you’d spent time together and all he really wanted to in any moment he saw you was kiss away the furrow of your brow, but he couldn’t love you. Not yet.

“I just like helpin’ out,” He offers, quickly looking down the street to find Ellie talking to someone from school, “I like knowing it makes things easier for you, that’s all the thanks I need.”

“Well, consider Ellie and you guests of honor when I can finally host that dinner on your handiwork.”

He winks at you, and you think you can feel a slight flush across your cheeks, but you think if it is appearing across your skin, you can pass it off as the hear, “Consider it done, sweet pea, I’ll see you around.”

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squarebracketsmileyface · 5 months ago

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you mentioned before that tim and brian would have a hypothetical kid named jesse down the line, if jesse is going to be canon, what is he like and what is his relationship with his parents and sister?

Honestly I haven't thought much about Jesse simply because he's so far in the future and I've been very preoccupied with Birdie and Tim, but I have put at least a little thought into his relationship with his parents and sister. Well, mostly his sister lol.

He adores Birdie from the get go, is absolutely fascinated by her and constantly wants to be held by her. He'll fuss when she leaves the room etc. he's such a big sisters boy (is that a word? Like mummy's boy or daddy's girl? Whatever) he adores her, and she adores him back, constantly brings him bugs to look at and all that. He did try to put one in his mouth a few times when he was a baby though so she has to keep the bugs just out of baby-arm's reach 💀

She's also his number one defender when he starts school. They're both autistic and very weird with it (Birdie with her insects and Jesse with I think it was lizards? Reptiles and lizards and stuff like that I'm pretty sure?) so unfortunately Jesse does get bullied a bit... Until his big sister brings in the insect the kid bullying Jesse is most scared of the next day and just sorta follows him around with it, telling him facts about it while he's crying because she's chasing him with some terrifying creature in hand. She threatens to put it on him if he picks on Jesse again (even though she definitely wouldn't because the insect could get hurt that way) and yeah, Jesse doesn't get picked on again. After that he doesn't get bullied again, sorta? just that kinda mean "leaving that person out and not choosing them in PE etc" kinda bullying? That's still bullying but he's not getting physically bullied or insulted by his peers so?

He's got a couple of good friends though, and he has absolutely no qualms about spending lunch with his big sister. For the sake of me loving these two, they're at a very small school which has like, reception to year 11 —about 4 to 16 year old— kids all on one school, tho reception to year six —about 4 to 10/11 years old?— probably have their own playgrounds so they don't get kneed in the heads by older kids 💀. This is because I don't know how US schools work and I can't be bothered to work it out so I'm going with UK school age ranges and year names and all that. Basically Jesse and Birdie's primary school and highschool are the same place and Birdie can go onto the primary school playgrounds at lunch without getting yelled at by teachers (pretty sure you can't do that at UK schools either, even when primary and high school are on basically the same land, at least you couldn't at the schools I went to, but anyway)

When it comes to Jesse and his parents I've thought about it a lot less unfortunately 💀

I have thought about him and Tim a bit? Tho that was mostly me thinking about Tim and Birdie and coming up with something because of that. Anyway, Tim is a very anxious parent, he's lost so many people in his life and really struggles with not being able to see Birdie at all times, he was a major helicopter parent because he was constantly catastrophizing about something awful happening to her if he left the room for even a moment. And obviously he gets better with this over time, therapy works wonders so he was a little less of a helicopter with Jesse, but when Birdie moves away for University he really struggles with panicking about if she's okay. She phones him most nights to chat, but between those times he's gotta do something with his anxiety.

So, he puts all his focus into Jesse. Jesse's like, idk still under ten when Birdie's 18 and off to uni, so he's still living at home (duh) and Tim can just dote on him. So he does. Tim bakes with Jesse whenever he wants, let's Jesse help with making his dinner (even though it slows the process down exponentially), is happy to let Jesse stay up ten minutes longer whenever he wants (this isn't as bad as it could be though because in his head Tim's set Jesse's bedtime at like, half 8 at latest and he gives Jesse his "ten more minutes" at 7:20pm so like, Jesse's only feeling like he's going to bed late y'know?)

Jesse loves his dad's, absolutely adores them. Not as much as he adores his sister, but still a lot.

Also I keep thinking about giggly, bubbly, grinning baby and toddler Jesse sitting on Brian's lap while Brian does wheelies and spins in circles in his wheelchair. Jesse's definitely a "spinning in circles" autistic kid and his favourite way to spin is sitting in Brian's lap. Only issue there is Brian getting dizzy and not being able to do it for as long as Jesse wants lol.

#marble hornets #tim wright #brian thomas #mh brim #marble hornets oc #mh sorry its locked #pretty girl propaganda au

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vellaphoria · 2 years ago

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Can I ask about "truth serum or dare" from you WIP list? 👀

it was originally my February YOTP entry which I am very late on lol

Basically: every year, Bruce makes everyone go through something akin to exposure therapy with truth serum. Tim, Dick, Jason, Steph, and Damian have instead turned it into a modified game of truth or dare where you challenge someone to a dare and if they decline, you get to ask them a question, prompting a forced response via truth serum.

Tim usually wins the game with his lying to Batman skills, but Steph is trying to pull of a surprise victory that year by exploiting Tim's crush on Dick.

Long excerpt is below the cut:

Steph glares down at the aerosol canister like it personally broke her dad out of Blackgate, once upon a time.

"I just don't get why we have to do this every six months," she says, tossing the canister from one hand to the other.

Tim shrugs. "Could be worse. Could be every two months. Like the Gotham sewer escape drill."

"Ugh, don't remind me," She grumbles.

"At least it isn't shots anymore. That's one good thing."

There's a knock at the door frame.

"Hey, are you two ready?" Dick asks, poking his head in. He looks a bit… dressed down.

Steph almost laughs at that. While comfortable clothes are probably a good idea for tonight, he's the only vigilante she knows who consistently wears his own merch. Though she’d be lying if she said that he didn’t make the too-tight t-shirt and Nightwing sweatpants look good…

"One sec," Tim says. He holds up the aerosol and promptly sprays himself in the face with it.

“Alright. I think it’s working, but…” He raises an eyebrow at Dick. "You get one free shot. Ask me something."

"Why can't I ask you something?" Steph asks, trying not to sound whiny.

Tim makes a face. "Because you know too much," he says. Which is honest, if uninformative. "Also, that was a question."

She sticks her tongue out at him.

Dick, on the other hand, looks like he's really thinking about it. After a moment, he grins. Wide enough that it can’t mean anything but trouble.

"Who's your favorite vigilante in Gotham?"

"You are," Tim says, apparently before he can think better of it.

Steph gasps in faux-offense. "Rude."

"Hey, he calls it like he sees it." Dick waggles his eyebrows in a way that's exaggerated enough to make Steph laugh.

"Jerk," Tim mutters. Though he smiles as he says it, so he can't be too mad.

He stands up from his seat, putting the aerosol canister back on the counter.

"I think there's an extra one back there if you haven't gotten yours yet," he says.

"Nope, not yet. Thanks for not asking."

It's the tradition, of course, to only ask questions within the game itself or by specific request. Anything other than that counts as cheating, and generally results in automatic disqualification and the offender being made to pick up extra chores from Alfred.

Usually the worst ones. Like scraping bat guano off of various things in the Cave.

“Well, don’t take too long,” Tim says.

Dick doesn't make any particular effort to move out of the way as Tim walks past him, but he does glance down, his eyes tracking him as he leaves.

Is he… staring at Tim's ass?

When he looks back at Steph, he startles like he'd forgotten she was there. Then his expression turns a little guilty. It's confirmation enough that yes, he absolutely was.

Steph feels herself smirking. Because this? This gives her an idea.

This is how she’s going to finally be the one to finally beat Tim at his own game. And there's nothing he's going to be able to do about it.

Apparently her thought process is showing, since Dick raises an eyebrow at her.

"Okay…" he says, "that's a mildly terrifying expression. Do I even want to know what you're thinking?"

"Nope!"

He shakes his head. Then he goes for one of the leftover aerosol containers.

"Well, better get ready. This game isn’t going to lose itself…"

#ask games #jagn answers #gerryrigged

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demonfox38 · 2 years ago

Text

Completed - Final Fantasy IV

Okay, what would you prefer to call this? "Final Fantasy IV Easy Type"? Just "Final Fantasy II"? What's in a number, anyway?

So, my sister got married!

In all honesty, this was a point of stress for my parents and me for the last six months. Not that we had any qualms with the groom! He's solid. The issue was that the wedding was taking place in Colorado. You may have heard me mention that I live in Iowa. So, okay. Just take a flight, right? And you would be right, if your family wasn't paranoid or had any available back-up help. It was my parents, three dogs, and my ass in a van for a day one way, each way, hoping to God that some emergency didn't crop up.

I drove in a hailstorm, man. In a vehicle type that I had never driven before.

And then I had to give a speech at the wedding!

Everything went about as well as could be expected! Well, minus the COVID-19 outbreak that happened afterwards. (Yours truly did not fall ill. Yay for vaccines and a functioning immune system!) But, I had to do a lot of preparing to get to that point. Readying outfits and a speech, practicing stress reduction techniques and mindfulness, accepting what I could and could not control, staying focused on the present moment. Stuff like that. Several of the games I picked this year were selected to help that process. "Super Mario Bros." was some kind of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy session. "Resident Evil 4" was…well, we all know about what "Resident Evil 4" does to one's nerves. "Baroque" ended up being a good exercise in rolling with the punches. "Star Fox Zero" and "Star Fox 64" were last minute confidence boosters, helping me to remember what I had learned. I'm sure "Lunar 2" did something as well, but honestly, sometimes you just need a break, too.

Finally free of all obligations, I decided to spend my Memorial Day weekend in total hedonism. Given the circumstances, weddings were still on my mind. "Say," my thoughts went, "I should play a video game with a wedding in it. What do I have at home for that?"

"Final Fantasy IV" and "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" came to mind.

I decided that the first five months of my year was enough of an anxiety attack without adding "Majora's Mask" to it.

"Final Fantasy IV" chronicles the tales of Cecil Harvey, a dark knight with a troubled conscience. After witnessing and participating in multiple atrocities, he gets it in his head that Golly Jee Wilikers, maybe his king and army sucks. Along his path to redemption, he recruits (and frequently loses) multiple people to aid him in his quest to reclass himself into a better person and maybe stop the dickheads he was working for from ruining the entire planet and its moons.

Does he succeed? Err…

Well, he fails his way up, at least.

The particular version of this "Final Fantasy" that I played was the original NTSC Super Nintendo release. Which, I'm assuming you know by now, was called "Final Fantasy II." I'm guessing if you know about this game, you know about the whole clusterfuck of the naming convention behind it, so I'm going to skip the spiel. I just wanted you to know what variant I played before we got too deep into this. Because damn, does this game have multitudes.

Name shenanigans aside, "Final Fantasy IV" is very much the younger sibling of "Final Fantasy II" in terms of overall tone and progression. Both plots toss characters aside like rejected toys the first chance they get. While "IV" is kinder than "II" in terms of fatalities, it absolutely sets up its roster mutilation as the same bloody mess as its predecessor. It just doesn't have the guts to commit to its vile deeds. Spoilers, but of all the party members that appear to die at one point or another, only one stays truly dead. It's wild, considering the multitudes that come and go.

Where "IV" gets meaner is in how much Cecil is an absolute disaster of a hero. Not that he doesn't try to do the right thing or is anything less than civil about his actions. Everything he tries to do goes to shit. Magical crystals get stolen routinely. His girlfriend gets sick, then kidnapped. His best friend is brainwashed so often that the folds of his cerebrum have gone smooth. Hell, he even loses multiple child co-stars in horrific ways. Not to mention what a disaster his family is! Absolute (multiple) shipwreck(s) of a man. Sometimes, it feels like he only succeeds because he keeps getting new rides from his friends (who then, of course, end up hospitalized for the rest of the game because that's how "Final Fantasy IV" rolls.)

What nerfs this initial experience is the translation for this version of the game. Like, we all have a good laugh about Garland "knock(ing) you all down" and Ted Woosley's particular flavor of "Final Fantasy VI"'s translation. Those at least were generally grammatically correct. This one has a lot of strange, startling errors. Like, mixing up the contracted verbs don’t and wouldn't, frequent fragmented sentences, using weird "Legend of Zelda"-esque possessive patterns (like, "sword of dark force"), and so on. It's understandable, if you look at the credits for this game and what happened to its translators. Only one out of the three did translation work for more than one game, and even she pivoted to different roles after this release. It's better than something like "Samurai-Ghost", but it is still weirdly off. It may have been excessive to get a fourth translator, but man. Another set of eyes could have helped.

I saw a line that was (to paraphrase) something along the lines of "These people can summon monsters! They're known as Callers!" And something within me became anemic.

Nintendo's archaic censorship policies did nothing to help this translation, either. It's very hard to have this overwrought story about interplanetary suffering and fatalities when the translators aren't allowed to use terms like kill, death, or dead. Not to mention how weird it gets when holy becomes white and pray becomes wish. I mean, it reads better than the average TikTok censor-dodging speech, but it's still painfully noticeable.

I'm just saying. "Earthbound" got to have a Pray function not 3 years later. It makes a world of difference to be able to say what you mean. (The ESRB may be a fussy nanny, but if Nintendo's old policy was the alternative, I'll take the fussy nanny any day. Plus, it'll also tell you how newer games will scar you for life on their website! So, wee!)

Another surprisingly wonky feature of this game is its menu system. Like, you don't usually think about menus, right? You just click on things and execute functions. There's an annoying behavior to this game's X menu that didn't sit well with me. Every time you want to use an item or a spell, you would be returned to the root of the submenu in question. So, you couldn't just sit there and spam spells or potions on someone to get them back to full health as soon as possible. It's a little nitpick, but it's one of those irritants that added up for me.

The programmer here did go on to make much better menus for subsequent "Final Fantasy" games, so credit where credit is due! There was just a little growing pain to be had with this title. And really, the battle menu is pretty solid (minus an item duplication glitch, but hey! What's a "Final Fantasy" game without that?) Being able to split spells and pick targets is a nice feature! It's simple and often overlooked, but I think it should still be appreciated. You didn't have that in the first "Final Fantasy." And it also auto-corrects attacking units targeting a dead enemy, so that's also good!

I can be a positive reviewer! I swear!

Aesthetically, this game is a bit split down the middle in terms of quality. I mean, it's the earliest "Final Fantasy" game for the Super Nintendo, and a very early Super Nintendo game to boot. So, you're not exactly getting the beautiful, consistent pixel art from "Final Fantasy VI" here. It definitely looks like something that got upscaled from the Nintendo Entertainment System. However, there are still some cool sprites in the mix. The music is usually pretty good, too! The only one that threw me off was a piece titled "Another Moon." Because, hey. I get it. The moon's gonna be a weird place to go for an RPG. But, listen to that and tell me you weren't thinking of squeaking monkeys or the farty Mansion Basement theme from the Director's Cut of "Resident Evil."

And, hey—if you need a palette cleanser, "The Lunarians" isn't a bad moon piece. Occasionally, the game can handle the moon just right!

Had I played the "Final Fantasy" games in order, I think I would have found this game more challenging. Its latter half loads up on bosses that require more advanced tactics to overcome, particularly for its optional content. I suspect that if you are playing this game, it's going to be after the likes of more popular titles like "VI", "VII", and "X". A lot of those games borrow from this game's bag of tricks. But, once you see things like Reflect Magic Spam boss and Death Countdown boss, having that tossed at you isn't going to be much of a curveball.

I'm not saying you won't ever die. It's just going to be one of those things where you'll quickly see what you did wrong, reset, and knock it out of the park. Past number crunching, all you have to contend with is bastard semi-opaque walls and donking your way around hidden paths. Hell, you might even have the skills for that by now.

Do I like "Final Fantasy IV"? Yeah, in the same way I like an average Disney animated movie. It tries to have fangs from time to time, but its gnawing comes off as more endearing than threatening. It's still a generally good experience! I just wouldn't expect you to have a religious awakening playing it.

Do I think you should play the NTSC SNES variant of "Final Fantasy IV"? You absolutely can do better. You can get versions for various consoles (like the Playstation, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP), as well as on Steam. The Playstation release seems to be closest aesthetically to the original release, but I do have a fondness for the audio and pixel-crunchy Game Boy Advance release, as that one is a bit closer to "Final Fantasy VI" in appearance. The Nintendo DS version is if you're into low poly 3D models, and the Sony PSP version is for those who like to smear Vaseline into their eyeballs!

Any way you slice it, you can at least get something better to read. Assuming the Vaseline doesn't damage your vision, anyway.

#post game evaluation #final fantasy iv #please enjoy me talking too much about my personal life and this wonky screenshot

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 2 years ago

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“As a kid, I had a hard time making friends. The guitar was a universal way to communicate where I didn’t have to worry about being cool”: For Nita Strauss, the guitar has been a lifelong ally in battling anxiety and addictions

Playing guitar – and playing it live – can be hugely therapeutic. That’s certainly the case for Nita Strauss, who shares how her love for the instrument has helped her fight her demons

It’s been said that “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” (Lao Tzu). For Nita Strauss, that step took place in September 2015. Strauss is approaching eight years of sobriety from alcohol – a journey that is, in many ways, reflected on her new album, The Call of the Void. “It’s not a recovery album,” she says, “but there’s a lot of recovery messaging in it because it’s what I think about a lot.”

Last year, Strauss spent six months on the road with Demi Lovato, a move that created media headlines and, of course, heated debates in accompanying comment sections. What many do not realize, however, is the significance of that musical and personal partnership in Strauss’s recovery.

“It was an incredible experience because it was my first time on a tour that prioritized sobriety,” she says. “All the other tours I’ve been on have been respectful of people who don’t partake, but it’s still around all the time. It was such a healthy experience being on a tour that didn’t have alcohol backstage. It wasn’t a dry tour; people could go out and partake at their leisure if they wanted to, but not in the dressing rooms or areas where Demi and the band were going to be. There were a lot of sober people on that tour and a lot of people in recovery to talk to.

“Demi has been a huge ally on my journey. When I was recovering from knee surgery [in December 2022/January 2023], I had to take pain pills for a few days. Demi was the first person to reach out and ask how I was feeling, and whether I was triggered in any way or needed anything. That struck me as incredible, because she’s one of the biggest stars in the world, and she took the time to reach out to one of her band members, check in, and make sure my recovery was doing okay.”

In an interview with Soundsphere Magazine, you shared that you struggle with anxiety.

“Yes, absolutely. I am a chronic over-thinker, and it’s been very difficult to manage my own expectations of what needs to be done, especially on the road. A lot of people are depending on me for this tour to go well – my band, the crew – and I have a new album. There’s a lot of pressure on me, and for somebody who already struggles with anxiety, that added pressure is not helpful.”

How does playing guitar help you cope?

“Guitar is therapeutic. I have always been not the most social person. As a kid, I had a hard time making friends. I found that when I picked up the guitar, it was a universal way to communicate where I didn’t have to worry about being cool. I didn’t have to worry about what people were going to think. All that came later, when I started getting more well known!

“But when I first started playing, it was a healthy way to communicate and make friends. I could go out and kill it onstage and I didn’t have to worry about anything else at that moment. I could just let loose and enjoy playing.

“When I’m playing, I’m not worrying about interviews, album numbers, if an email got sent out, if a T-shirt order was placed, or any of the day-to-day things that come with being a musician that are constantly circling around in my mind. All I’m focusing on is the show and my playing and if the audience is having a good time. That, to me, is the best therapy in the world.”

You were on tour during your first year of sobriety. How important was music in getting you through those initial months?

“It was incredibly important. If I was going to make this huge lifestyle change, this sacrifice – I thought of it as a sacrifice at the time – I wanted to become my best and highest-functioning self in the process. I started working out a lot, getting more muscle, losing body fat that came from all the alcohol I was consuming. I was getting better physically, I was getting stronger mentally, and I was playing at my highest level ever at that time. I was improving in leaps and bounds because my mind was clear, my fingers were calm, there were no jitters or shakes, and no hungover, sluggish feeling, so I was firing on all cylinders.”

How soon into recovery did you notice a difference in your playing?

“Immediately. I used to think it was fun to go onstage inebriated. I treated it like a video game, like it wasn’t even real. I would get off stage, and if I made mistakes, I treated it like a joke – 'Oh my God, I was so hammered! Did you see where I slipped and fell?' Or 'I made this mistake, I totally missed this part, ha ha ha.' Looking back, my God, how unprofessional!

“It was kind of fine at the time, especially pre-Alice Cooper, touring with club bands. The audience was three sheets to the wind as well, and we all had a good time together. It was never to the point where it got me in trouble, but now, looking back, the level of disrespect for my audience, the people who paid good money to come and see me – I wish I had given them the show I give them now.”

What was your lowest point?

“When I was using drugs. I’ve been sober from drugs a lot longer than I’ve been sober from alcohol. When I was at my highest level of using, it was all day, every day, for a couple of years. That was a dark, dark time in my life. When I look back at old pictures, I see a haunted shell of who I am now, and I am very grateful to have gotten out of that relatively unscathed.

“It took me a long time to get over it because I was super-high-functioning. I was touring at a very high level, playing at a high level, going overseas with bands for the first time, and keeping this terrible secret. My band didn’t know, my boyfriend at the time didn’t know, only my friends that I used with knew. Being out of that for many years now gives me the mental clarity to realize how much it affected me at that time.”

How has recovery impacted your role as an inspiration for fans, particularly young women who play or want to play guitar, and of course fans who are also in recovery?

“I wish that people understood what a motivator it is for me to hear their stories. Every time someone comes up to me and says my story has been a part of their recovery, it gives me more strength and solidarity in my own recovery.

“It’s still not easy for me. I’m on a tour right now where I’m the only sober person and there are times… we had a hard show one night and afterward I said, 'Honestly, I really want to have a beer right now.' It would have been nice to be able to have that to relax and unwind after a hard day.

“So hearing other people’s experiences, hearing them say, 'Because you got sober on tour and you’re maintaining your sobriety on the road, I feel like I can do it too,' gives me that added motivation. I might even be able to let myself down, but I would never let those people down, and because of that, it helps me stay strong in my recovery.”

In your interview with Recovery Today, you discussed the stigmas that women in the music industry still face. There are also stigmas surrounding addiction and recovery. Would you mind addressing that?

“You are very right. Everybody’s recovery is their own, everybody’s journey is their own, no two journeys are exactly the same. Even if you are not an addict, you know somebody who is, or it has affected your life in some way.

“It’s important, if you are on this path, to give yourself grace to walk at your own pace. If there is someone in your life who is on this journey, you also have to allow them to walk this path at their own pace, because things that trigger some people might not trigger others, and things that don’t seem like a big deal to one person might be a big deal to someone else.

“So, as you navigate whatever path you’re on, make sure to give grace, kindness, and empathy to the people around you and also to yourself, because we’re all figuring it out together.”

The Call Of The Void is out now via Sumerian.

#nita strauss #2023 interviews

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a-rose-tinted-life · 1 month ago

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A Rose-Tinted Life

Episode Six: Your Dream Self, unleashing the potential within you

In the last episode, we talked about finding our aesthetics. How our aesthetics are simply a small part of becoming who we want to be.

Becoming the person we always envisioned.

Whether it’s nurturing our personal growth, developing new skills, or refining our mindsets, the journey toward becoming our dream selves is both transformative and inspiring. So take my hand and join me as we explore the many ways we can sculpt ourselves into our dream selves.

A fair warning to my readers! This process does require a lot of self-reflection and a lot of question asking. So buckle in, it’s gonna get rocky.

Before we dive into how to become our dream selves, we need to first take a look at where we are now. So ask questions like:

“Who am I?”

“Where am I at in my life?”

“What am I doing with my life?”

These questions help us reflect on where we are in our present lives. It helps us to become more aware of how our lives are going in the present moment. You see, before we go into the changes, we need to see ourselves in our most normal circumstances. Much like when renovating a house, we need to see the untouched setting before we begin to plan the renovations and repairs.

Why is this important? Self-awareness is a key component in shaping us into the best versions of ourselves for two reasons.

1. It helps us to track our progress

2. It allows us to be more aware of what our lives look like

A lot of times people are not aware of the things in their life. For example, while I was going through my self-awareness phase, I realized that I used to silently judge people before I even knew anything about them. This led to a plethora of problems. I didn’t trust people, I didn’t want to get to know people, and I didn’t want to be social. My brain was on auto-pilot telling my body “Stranger danger, retreat to a safe place!” And for many years I listened.

After this tough discovery about myself, I transitioned into step 2 of the process. Self-Actualization. I know, you’re thinking “What the heck is that?!”

Self-actualization is the realization of one’s talents, and potential, and the tendency for a person to strive to become the most they can be. It’s a monument of autonomy, authenticity, creativity, and self-acceptance. People who are self-actualized are often people with a strong sense of purpose, meaning, and strong solid values.

Now this may sound like a lot because it is a lot. I’m gonna be real with you all. This process requires some really deep thought and a long hard look into yourself as a person. It’s asking questions like:

“What are my core values?”

“What brings me satisfaction or fulfillment?”

“Do I accept myself for my flaws and strengths?”

Asking yourself these questions, having a healthy answer for them, and accepting the answers are your steps into self-actualization. Of course, you don’t have to go through this alone. It is a tough but rewarding process. In my experience going to therapy and seeking the help of a professional to walk you through this process is very helpful. I’ve had the pleasure of working with a wonderful therapist who helped me ask the tough questions and reminded me that even when I didn’t like my first answers, it would help me in the long run.

I deeply recommend going through this process of self-actualization with a strong support system in place. I love you all and I want you all to find your dream selves and accomplish all your lifelong goals. Live the life you deserve. And once you’ve started to see and envision to person you want to become, the real work begins.

From this visit to self-actualization comes my favorite part, putting it into action!

Once you’ve taken time to discover who you are and who you want to become, now comes the beautiful journey of actually molding yourself into the person you dream of seeing in the mirror.

In my experience, this is the longest step in the process of molding your dream self into reality. Because we need to ask the what-if questions. “What if my dream self…” This is the fun part where we get to customize the person we want to become and begin the steps of becoming that person.

Asking questions like:

“How does this person dress?”

“What do they do for work or a career?”

“What is their daily life like?”

Questions like these are good for two reasons.

1. They allow us to create newer and healthier habits

2. They help us create a blueprint for the life we want to live

This allows us to have a clear vision of the person at the end of the road. A defined and clear idea of who you aspire to become. This involves setting goals and breaking them down into smaller steps. And self-reflection and self-awareness are two crucial parts of this process. One must be in tune with themselves, understanding your strengths and limitations.

But consistency is the biggest key component to making your dreams a reality. Consistent action and commitment to a goal will help make it real. Practicing the habits of your dream self will make it come true, same with wardrobe, mindset, attitude, and beliefs. If your dream self believes that they can accomplish anything, you must believe that you can accomplish anything. Because I can promise you, that your dream self is waiting to be made into a reality.

That person at the end of the road, the person who is at their full potential, success, and lifestyle is practically begging to be made into reality. However, the decision is yours. You have to be able to get up every morning remind yourself of what the goal is and continue to be consistent with it. Because it won’t just happen overnight but that’s the beauty of it. Watching yourself grow and develop into your dream self is a beautiful thing. Watching the little things drift away and the new changes come into your life is a wonderful experience.

I am still on this journey and I have noticed things that I thought in high school like “I could never go to college, I’m not smart enough” turn into “Oh my God, I’m going to get my Master’s degree”.

Your future self. Your beautiful dream self is waiting for you. You just need to find it in you to reach for it, grab it tightly, and make it come true. Just as Ernesto De La Cruz from Disney’s Coco says. “Seize your moment”.

Until next time, my darlings...

Thank you so much for reading! Make sure to show your support and get updates by following my Instagram and X

Instagram: @arosetintedlife2024

X: @Arosetintedlife

#self care #self improvement #growth #self confidence #self love #habits #self awareness #self impowerment #focus

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shannonlynnin · 1 year ago

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“Is mindfulness keeping your conscious thoughts positive?”

Does working on your thought process and bringing in repressed memories to work through, mean that we can change our thinking to positive and we will be more mindful?

Reading about and listening to the lecture on defense mechanisms was not only intriguing, but quite fun. I enjoyed comparing the defense mechanisms to my own personal life (and that of my husband), it really sparked a thought that has been nagging me for days!

Do I use the reaction formation defense mechanism to protect my own ego and self esteem from the judgments and negativity of others? Reading about this defense mechanism made me question my own current state of being. After so many years of my own psychoanalysis, did I alter my destructive, repressed thinking and create a new defense mechanism within myself? Am I really the positive, cheerful person I portray outwardly and worked so hard to become? Or am I exaggerating my friendliness and empathy in order to keep people from knowing the authentic me?

I tell my son that he can look someone in the eyes, smile, and it could totally change their day for the better. I love doing this, it really gets me off when someone smiles back. However, am I doing this to be kind or am I going out of my way, projecting kindheartedness, to make other people feel good so I can feel good about myself? Is this even a bad thing?

Not all defense mechanisms are negative. Defense mechanisms are implemented when one may be in a stressful or uncomfortable situation, for example, being in public. Social anxiety can absolutely result in a reaction formation defense mechanism. Utilizing this defense mechanism myself, allows me to be in the moment, rather than stuck in my head with strange, cynical thoughts.

Another great example of a positive defense mechanism is sublimation. Taking out one's inconsistent feelings, aggression or destruction, and turning that into something upstanding is quite a mechanism.

My husband, Eric's, father left his family when he was only six years old. This affected him very much and I do believe he has trauma. Although he attended therapy, his real outlet was soccer. He worked hard, practicing everyday, giving his all and pouring his heart into the game. Eric became a remarkable soccer player eventually playing on scholarship for college, becoming the first Freshman to ever play varsity soccer at his college and becoming the first sophomore ever, and still till this day, to be a varsity team captain. He took pride in his athletic career, which got him through an extremely onerous time. It must have been very difficult when Eric’s father left his family and never came back, however, he took that anger and put it towards glory. That makes me look up to him so much. Especially since I picture myself so weak at that time in my life.

Eric and I are individually very different. Our family's values are similar because we are Jewish, and Judaism is very much a culture then a religion to us. However, our families are especially different in morals and ethics, which is most likely a huge variable in each of our coping methods and behaviors.

I am very much looking forward to diving deeper into psychoanalysis and learning the skills taught to manage stressors. Although I feel that I have come a long way in my journey, therapy is an ongoing process and I intend to use what I learn to make myself even better!

#shannonlynnin #defense mechanism #sigmund freud #mindfullness #LCMHC

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nurturingfather44 · 2 years ago

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the-dream-beyond · 2 years ago

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Masculinity and Qualities of The Feminine with Connor Beaton

Nik Tarascio

Today we're going to be hearing from one of the leading minds on men's work and masculinity. And for you men that are listening, if you're really open, stay open to it, you may have a little bit of an emotional experience on this one, it may bring up some stuff that you've been working through. And for women that are curious and say, Maybe this one isn't about me, it's really an opportunity to hear what I think a lot of us men go through and don't want to admit to ourselves. So I hope you really enjoy.

Welcome to the dream beyond. I'm your host, Nik Tarascio. I'm a CEO musician, an overall seeker of Truth, inspiration, and simply put, how to live the most fulfilling life possible. Growing up surrounded by extremely wealthy and successful people gave me unique and unfiltered perspectives of those who have seemingly made it through on the dream beyond we're letting you in on what it really takes to achieve your dreams. What happens when it turns out your destination isn't the promised land you are expecting? How to process the lessons from your past while mapping of course to true fulfillment. Let's get started.

Everybody today, I'm excited to have the founder of man talks with us. It's an international organization focused on men's wellness success and fulfillment. He's also a coach, a facilitator, a teacher, a podcast host and a speaker. And most of his teachings are based on young being young in psychology. Gestalt, there's a gestalt I never know which way to say it. Cognitive behavioral therapy, Buddhism and, and Taoist traditions, a lot of fancy words that are hard to say today. And again, just please welcome Connor Beaton. He's an incredible dude, thank you for being here with us.

Connor Beaton

Yeah, man, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here with you and to catch up and connect them. I'm excited.

Nik Tarascio

Absolutely. And it's, this is a personal one for me too. Because, you know, you and I connected over a dinner a while back, I think it was at the Mavericks group. And they're after I think I connected to sad love to get a men's coach and I worked with someone on your team. And it just really helped me navigate what's turned out to be one of the more difficult things for me to solve, which I imagine is not so unique, right? Understanding that polarity of what does it mean to be fully embodied in the masculine? What does it mean to be in relationship with the feminine? And what about those two polarities within myself? So again, just really appreciate the work you do. And normally, when I open up, I talk about kind of what was the early dream. But I think today, because of the work you do, I'd love to talk about what your early concept of being a man was, like, your early concept of what, you know, the, the goal of my masculinity, when I grow up was going to be like,

Connor Beaton

Yeah, I don't think like most guys, I don't think I really thought about it too much. Back in the day, I think it's one of those things that for most of us as men, we look at in hindsight, you know, there's kind of a reflection process that happens is we look at the, the sort of social conditioning, or the unspoken messages that we received growing up. And, for me, I grew up in northern Alberta in Canada, which for all the Americans, I always say is like the Texas of Canada, it's got lots of guns, there's a ton of oil, it's one of the biggest oil producers in the world. There's lots of big trucks, there's lots of country music, you know, there's bars called cowboys, except six months out of the year, it's minus 30. Right.

So that's where the discrepancy resides. But, you know, within that type of culture, there's a very, what I would refer to as a sort of one dimensional framework of masculinity, and what it means to be a man. And again, this, this isn't something that I was sort of aware of back then. But there was a lot of, you know, I played hockey, I played baseball, I played football, I played sort of all the sports and, and the commentary that I felt like I had to live into in my future was, be a good provider, make a lot of money become successful, do the things that sort of create the appearance of status of strength of power. And under no circumstances should you or should I show any real type of flaw or weakness. And so, you know, I did my best to try and live into that I developed a decent career, I was traveling the world I had this beautiful girlfriend. I had the toys, the motorcycle, the Mustang, although maybe that's not exactly maybe the Mustang isn't what a lot of guys want to go for.

But I liked that five liter you know, burn the tires out kind of thing. But I was also kind of searching because it it didn't feel really fully fulfilling. You know, it felt like it kind of lacked some depth. And I explored a number of different things yoga, a whole bunch of other traditions. But I think that was kind of the the framework that I thought I needed to live into that I needed to kind of build this life of success, of affluence of status of power, and that I needed to kind of do those things by hiding some of my weaknesses, how I was struggling, not really letting people know what was going on behind the scenes of my life. And I did that fairly well, until it really backfired on me. So maybe I'll just pause there, because I think I've sufficiently answered your question.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, absolutely, it does, it does very much bring to mind that I think most of us are unconscious about the things that we've taken in as the model that we're trying to build early on. And I know in your book, you open up pretty powerfully with the story of the turning point and the rock bottom moment for you. And I feel like people, you know, should pick up the book to really hear that in detail. But I'm actually curious about not your path, and maybe some of the people you work with, which is the winners, the guys that just win too much too early, and never have that moment in a parking lot where they're having to face the existential crisis. I mean, I'm in New York, right? So I see it everywhere I'm in while I'm in YPO, I'm in these networks of people that have just one too much in my mind, I'm curious to hear what happens when there's not the gift of the rock bottom on the other side of that.

Connor Beaton

Yeah, I mean, you know, I've been fortunate over the last decade that the men that I, you, mentor of mine, actually, in one of my recent weekends, pointed out, the men that I generally seem to attract are the eighth type, high performing really successful guys, you know, they're the hedge fund owners, they're the top of their game rappers, and athletes, you know, Olympic athletes, I work with some really extraordinary men. And, and I've been very fortunate to do so. And for a lot of these men, what's interesting is that they've oftentimes had a tremendous amount of success in their life that has been, not always but quite frequently burst out of challenge that they experienced early on in life, and that they didn't really know how to deal with that people didn't teach them how to carry or, or work through, whether it was, you know, witnessing their parents divorce or experiencing some form of abuse or neglect or abandonment, you know, being adopted, etc, etc, etc. and the list can just go on and on.

And what that can build within us is this incredible strength that is gritty and resilient, and can achieve and can accomplish extraordinary things. But the byproduct of that, that I've seen within a lot of men is that what, what ends up happening is that we do a couple of things. Number one, these men will oftentimes put a sense of fulfillment, depth, meaning purpose, on the other side of accomplishments. And so they start to hedge. And they'll start to hedge and say, I'm not gonna allow myself to feel happy, fulfilled, successful, in this moment, it's going to be on the other side of closing this deal, buying this company selling this company, you know, achieving this, you know, this, this big accolade within my field.

And then they get there. And because they've hedged, so much of their worth, their internal value, their internal sense of fulfillment, and confidence on the other side of it can never live up. And so what happens if they get there, there is this kind of vacancy and hollowness that shows up in this moment that they thought was going to be tremendous. And then instead of sort of pausing and saying, Okay, maybe this, this mechanism that I've built within my life isn't workable is not actually producing the internal results that I want, they keep going that sort of double down, and they produce more, and they output more, and they build bigger, they build more faster, you know, etc. Until either at least, to some sort of rock bottom, or it alienates them in a really sort of painful way, where they don't feel understood, they don't feel connected, they don't feel a deep sense of love from the people around them.

And there's this kind of loneliness that starts to emerge in their life. And they'll start to seek it in other places, they'll start to seek this attachment, or this depth, or this fulfillment, from other things, right? Traveling excessively, you know, going on hundreds of IO, Oscar retreats, and just sort of immersing themselves in this constant, never ending cycle of psychedelics, but they'll start to look for this depth somewhere outside of them in the world, because that's what we're often told that we need to do as men is that we need to explore externally for a very long time to try and find something meaningful internally.

So hopefully, I've answered that in as directed way as possible. I think, you know, the, the side effects and this, this isn't to sort of downgrade or put down what these men do because the majority of the men that I work with, they are phenomenal human beings, they you know, they have accomplish some truly remarkable things where I'm just in awe and wonder of like, Damn, how did you do that, you know, but sometimes the side effect of that is that they've had to sacrifice family, they've had to sacrifice friends, they've had to sacrifice a sense of internal worth, or meaning, or value, happiness. And so that's sort of the byproduct of what they feel like they're often missing.

You know, like, I'll give you an example of, I've been working recently with a few men that are within the music industry. And one is in one of the largest heavy metal bands and the other ones a very famous rapper, very different life's, you know, very different upbringing, very different careers. But at the core of what both of these men are dealing with, is that both of them has success, very young, you know, they hit it in their early 20s, they really started to crush it. And one is quite a bit older, you know, he's in his late 50s, early 60s, and the other one is in his 30s. And he's still trying to grapple with it. But despite the fame, despite the accolades, the accomplishments, both of them have come to work with me, because they had thought that by achieving and accomplishing that they would create some type of depth and meaning within their life.

And after winning all these awards, and selling so many records, and etc, etc, that thing that they were still hoping to feel is missing. And so that leaves us with a big question mark of like, well, why the hell does that happen? You know, why is it? Like, is it a lie that achievement and accomplishment? Is unfulfilling or unrewarding? Probably not, you know, like, there's some very real benefit and merit in achieving some great things. But there's still something missing. And so maybe I'll, I'll pause there, because I feel like I gave a good amount for you to sort of pick on and decide where we go next.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, and I mean, one, I love what you're sharing. And it's, there's so many different lenses to look through. And I think the place I go, because I believe I was probably one of those people in many ways, not at the level of like a heavy metal superstar, or rap star or something like that. But in my own world, I felt like I had justified where I was at, and when someone would try to reflect back and be someone I care about, were would reflect back on, hey, I think something's off. And I'm like, but look at all I've done, like I and I wouldn't say it that way. But my system would reject the invitation from the outside and say, No, you don't know the path I'm on you don't know my calling. And so I am wondering for people that are in that, how do we interrupt the pattern? How do we bring in that awareness? What are some of those signs that maybe were like someone's listening and saying, is that me? Or is that not me? How would I even know where I'm at?

Connor Beaton

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple different things like in the Carl Jung and his framework, you know, and I think this kind of applies across any real therapeutic modality or most spiritual modalities. But Jung said, you know, the first step in the therapeutic process in any sort of psychological training, or development or expansion, right, if we were wanting to expand ourselves as men, as leaders, in whatever capacity we're wanting to expand ourselves in, the first step is confession. So the first step is actually beginning to, to circle near the territory of admitting that maybe something's missing, missing. And that that's, that's actually quite challenging.

You know, if you're a man who built a tech company at the age of 20, or 22, and you built up this, you know, this really substantial business, you you employ hundreds of people, your the your vision, and your dream and your hard work and your ethic, has now built something that's paying for the lives of hundreds of people, and producing a product that is supporting 1000s, or 10s of 1000s, or millions, to admit that there might be something missing internally is a very hard thing to do to just to just say that out loud, you know, or even to just come into contact with the sensation physically, because it might not be a rational thought. And we in our Western culture, specifically within our within the male population, I would say within the masculine portion of our population, we over index the rational mind way too much. We give it way too much credit. We have burdened our rational minds and our logical minds with trying to solve every kind of problem under the sun.

And they're not meant to sort through emotional challenges. They're not meant to oftentimes even come to a conclusion or or create a repair within a relational challenges. So like Einstein had a great quote where he said the rash Your mind is a faithful servant. And the intuitive mind is a sacred gift. And we've created a culture that honors the servant of the rational mind is forgotten the gift of the intuitive mind of our sort of gut intelligence. And so what I usually say to most men is, you've probably felt something deep inside of you deeper within you, whether you want to say, deep within your psyche, deep within your mind, your heart, your soul, your body, whatever language you want to put to it, you felt something that's just in the background, like, there's this uneasy sensation, you know, there's this disconnection, some guys will describe it as a numbness. Some guys will describe it as a void.

Some guys will describe it as an emptiness. Some guys will describe it as a sort of discontent. But however they describe it, there's this connection to, something's missing. And so really, the first sort of step is just can you be aware of that part? And it's not that we're going looking for a problem? I want to make that very clear, right? We're not trying to like, hunt down like, am I am I fucked up? Is there something wrong with me, you know, like, that's not what we're doing. It's just can you be courageous enough and brave enough as a man to say, I felt that, you know, I have, with all the success with the millions of dollars that I've made, I have felt the void, I felt the emptiness. I felt that accolade like I remember, this is a couple of years ago, it was working with quite prominent lawyer. And he had built out this incredible, incredible business and was worth a tremendous amount of money. And we've been working together for about a year and a half.

And for a year, at a time that we've been working together, he'd been working on this big deal that was essentially going to double the revenue and the income of his business. And it was going to sort of put him at the top of his field, and yada, yada, yada. And he had been talking about how excited he was, and you know, what he was going to do with the money and private jets and all this kind of stuff. And, and I'll never forget, after it happened the day after it happened, you know, the day it happened, I got a text message. You know, I fucking did it. It's amazing. It's so cool. The next day, I get a call. And I look and I see, that's him. And I pick up my phone. And he's on the other side. And he's like, so the deals done? Uh, huh, congratulations. And I was excited in the moment yesterday that it finally got accomplished, because it's a years worth of work and effort. And I know it's big logistically.

But I don't feel anything internally. I actually feel more empty than I did before. And my response to him was, okay, great. What do you want to do about that? You know, what do you want to do about that? It's great that you're acknowledging it? Are you ready to work with it? Are you ready to talk about it, because what he started to realize was that all of this accomplishment, all of this busyness for him than this isn't everybody in general. But for him, a lot of the the extra work the extra building that, you know, the Empire that he was trying to build was in avoidance. It was an avoidance mechanism of the hollowness that he had felt internally.

And he had been running for a very long time, from certain parts of his past his childhood, his previous marriage, the way he treated his kids. And when this sort of monumental accolade came into place, he couldn't help but be struck by the internal experience that he was left with. And I think that this is the case for many of us, that when we reach our peaks, is where the truth of our life starts to emerge. And this is why I'm so fascinated by working with men who are in these positions, because it's oftentimes when we, when we hit the goal, you know, when we get the gold medal, when we achieve, you know, pulling in the venture funding, or the, you know, a round investment, or we sell the company, it's in these moments that we've been working towards, for a very long time, where the reality of our life really shows itself.

And, and sometimes it's not the reality that we're hoping for, but it's the reality that we have, and we can either continue to run from that, or we can stand and face it. And for the majority of men, they haven't seen a model of what it looks like to say, shit, this isn't what I want what I was hoping or expecting to feel. Maybe I should get some support. You know, maybe I should explore what this is. Maybe I can slow down enough to kind of make try and make sense of what some urging in me, and in my life that maybe needs to be tended to, versus this continual rise and obsession with building and expansion and you know, everything else, every other sort of word that we want to put in place for that. So those are just some examples

Nik Tarascio

What I really feel there that came up again, just as you're talking. I obviously see a lot of myself in the stories. And it was almost that the more externally successful I was, the more I felt I couldn't verbalize when I didn't have fulfillment, because it was almost like Wait, who you have everything like you have everything a person could want compared to the majority of people that have ever lived in all of existence? How dare you have a negative experience of that, you ungrateful bastard. Right, right. And so I felt like it just gets like it, almost the clamp gets tighter. And then I felt that I couldn't verbalize that to anybody else.

But it is interesting, it's, then the solution is, well, I guess I just have to make the live bigger to myself. Because at least if I can make the lie bigger to myself, I could push through. And maybe there is some truth that on the other side of the billion dollar exit, I'll finally feel like enough. But you know, again, I think that's the plight that I find, I find so interesting. And it, you know, kind of transitions to the question of, I feel like, this is the gift of the polarity of a partner. And, you know, again, for I know, for, for many men, it's a woman for, for many men, it's just a feminine, right, it's just like a feminine energy and another person, I've spent a lot of my life resenting and resisting the feminine polarity, I found it to be an inconvenience, understanding that I was living in that rational mind, right, and the idea of someone bringing in emotions and a rationality and just Well, I feel this way, why, I don't know, I just feel this way.

I'm like, you're making me crazy, it doesn't reconcile through the filter. So you know, that kind of opens up to me into for men that have struggled in being able to truly be in relationship with the feminine and not go through that hedonic cycle of it's novel. It's exciting. She thinks I'm amazing. Wait, this is not great. Gone. Next one, next one, next one, and so forth. I'd love to kind of hear more about people's journey in relation to that, or maybe even your journey and in relation to the feminine.

Connor Beaton

Yeah, we'll just, I mean, it is infuriating, sometimes where our feminine partners, so the women in our lives are bringing us their emotions, and they're saying, I feel this way. And we're like, But why, and we're trying to figure it out, rationally. I mean, that is just an infuriating cycle, you know, and so I just want to acknowledge that. And I also wanted to acknowledge what you were talking about before, which is sort of like this comparison that we do. You know, I've had all this success. And so I should be happy because I have it so much better than other people. You know, I'm so much more fortunate than other people. I've worked so much harder than other people.

And we've kind of all heard the saying, you know, Comparison is the thief, thief of joy. And that's true. But I think that comparison is also the thief of healing and wholeness, that the fulfillment that we seek, the depth that we know we're capable of creating within ourselves in our lives, is nearly impossible when we're stuck comparing ourselves to other people.

Why didn't have it as bad as John, you know, his dad did X y&z to him, or, you know, my life doesn't look as bad as Ted, because look what's happening with his wife and his kids. And so I got to be, you know, I just got to be super grateful. And so we kind of put the blinders on to our own human experience, by degrading our own human experience, through the lens of comparing it to another's and saying, Well, they have it worse. And in some ways, it's a it's a bullshit cop out mechanism in because it's the people that you're comparing yourself to our friends. You're both doing them a disservice, you sort of disrespecting them, disrespecting their experience, not understanding their experience.

And you're, you're, in some ways disassociating from your own, you know, you're getting to say, Well, mine's not so bad, or I should really be grateful for it. So I just want to put that out there. Because I think, oftentimes, what we do in order to avoid the hardship of our own life, is we compare it to another's. And, you know, in my book, The first line is a man's work begins with pain. And I wrote that specifically, because I think that how we as men relate to our own challenges, our own suffering, our own hardship, speaks volumes about who we are.

And for many of us, we haven't been taught how to deal with that part of ourselves. And so we either do two things, one, we act from it, which a lot of guys do in their relationships or you know, in their business and they become volatile and aggressive and you know, hostile and they yell and they cost us swear, fuck you, I can't believe you do that, or whatever that looks like, or we completely shut it down. And we try and stuff it deep within ourselves, which adds to the vacancy that we feel internally. So that's just a side rant. Thanks for attending my TED talk. I'll answer your other question more directly now, which is our relationship to women in the feminine. Jung had a great quote where he said, women stand at the edge of what a man knows about himself.

Women stand at the edge of a man shot or where a man shadow begins. And so in many ways, what I've talked about, and I'll share a little bit of personal experience here, but I'll also sort of just talk generally about the our relationship to women as men. What that means is that we we don't often understand women, and the feminine, and our need, our drive, our desire to try and figure them out, is the problem. It's the behavior that we need to move away from.

Because we, we as men are often very external, right? We like to look at things outside of us, figure them out, try and fix them, try and solve them, try to build them try to improve them. And we do that to the women in our lives. Right, we look at our wives, and our girlfriends, and the women that were that we're dating are like, let me try to figure you out, we try and solve your problems, let me try and fix you let me try and improve you and improve your lives. And when we do that, we're fucked immediately, because we don't actually see who that woman is.

And what she receives is, you don't understand me, you don't love me, you don't accept me, you don't embrace me fully. You're trying to alter me or improve my life or change who I am, or change my behavior, or you don't like when I'm emotional. And so when our partners get upset when the women in our lives get upset or angry at us, or sad because of something that we've done, our natural reaction as a man, if we're living in our head, in our rational mind is to say, let me solve that for you. Let me fix that for you.

And that's not what they're needing or wanting in that moment. So to sort of turn this back around our relationship to women, reveals what we don't know about ourselves as men. Okay, so what do I mean by that, because that might seem like a vague statement. I'll give you a very clear example. When I was in my 20s, I was a massive womanizer, loved women, love pursuing them love getting with them, I'd be in relationships, I mean, I lacked a lot of integrity, I would be in relationships, you know, be in a relationship with a woman and I'd be pursuing women outside of that. I like dating them, I like sleeping with them. I mean, they were really, they were kind of like my drug and distraction of choice. And the whole time that I was with them, that I was with women, I mean, I I'm married now. So I'm still with a woman.

But the whole time that I was in that kind of pursuit, one thing started to become very apparent. The more that I liked a woman, the more I felt drawn to her, the more that I wanted her in my life. The more that I felt myself, craving her validation, and craving her recognition, right her to acknowledge me, the more I wanted to succeed with her, and win with her and get it right with her. And what it was revealing within myself was that I was insecure. I was very insecure. Because I didn't have an internal framework of recognition. I didn't have compassion for myself, I didn't have a framework of being able to validate myself.

And to be honest, the way that I spoke to myself internally was borderline disgusting. You know, it was abusive. The way I talked, the way that I used to talk to myself was harsh, and demeaning, and self deprecating, self deprecating. And I would say things like, Oh, what the fuck is wrong with you? And how could you do that, and he's such a stupid piece of shit, and bla bla bla, that was the way that I spoke to myself. And so when I would get into a relationship with a woman that I really loved or cared about when I wanted her to get close to me, because I lacked this mechanism of internal compassion. And because I lacked this mechanism and the skill internally of self recognition and self validation, I began to seek that from the women that I would date, I needed them to give it to me, right?

And so we as men do different versions of this some men when they're with a woman, it will reveal exactly what it revealed for me, right, that they that they're missing validation that they're missing a sense of, of confidence that they're, you know, they're they feel sort of insecure underneath the surface, or what will be revealed is that they are deeply afraid of being loved. And so when they're around a woman, and the closer that woman gets, the more that woman wants to be with him, the more fear that will start to emerge within that man.

And he'll start to sabotage and push her away. Because he doesn't feel worthy, because he doesn't feel like he has value or because he feels on unconsciously or out of his core, like he's going to damage or harm that woman. Because he doesn't have a healthy relationship with his own feminine qualities, but his own emotions, with his own grief or sadness with his own anger with his own sense of compassion, with his own sense of self validation. And so he'll push her away actively to try and quote unquote, protect her. So I'm going to pause there, because I think I said, a good amount. And I can see that there's something present for you,

Nik Tarascio

Ya know, you landed on my story at the end there, which is, I've recently come to terms with the fact that I was a very soft, creative, cuddly loving kid. And when I was in that mode, the other kids used to kick the shit out of me, is they were like, and they literally call me a pussy, they'd be like, Oh, look at the Plessy let's go beat him up, right.

And so it was interesting to see that I actually saw my feminine qualities at times as a weakness, like that inner soft part of me that was emotional, wanted to connect, and got along with the girls, you know, it was like I was in first and second grade that way. And so I think I immediately saw feminine as weakness, stuff at down rational robot become an alpha type that models the other boys that are going around beating people up. I never became a bully in that way.

But it was more that I've only recently come to understand that I saw the feminine as weakness, the high end. So when I severed from it, I resented it. Because it was that was what got me beat up. And that is ultimately why I ended up presenting all of my partners. So it's a really interesting thing to see. You kind of hit the nail on the head. And I've only recently drawn the lines that got me there. And I imagine for a lot of people that comes from so many different places, and I was resonating with that internal voice that where does that come from? Where does that like? What are you shithead? What's wrong with you? Like, Well,

Connor Beaton

Can I can I speak to that from Oh, yeah, that might be helpful. Yeah. So we'll just this is the inner critic, what we're talking about, right that, that voice inside of our head, that's when we can give it multiple names, right. And the judge, the critic, the commentator, right, whatever feels the most aligned or real for you just use that label, right. And the label is less important than its function. The inner critic is a very interesting heart, especially within men. And for a lot of high achievers.

What I have noticed over the years is that they will oftentimes use what I call dark motivation to try and accomplish their goals. So dark motivation, another way of putting it is shame based motivation. So I'm trying to achieve in order to prove somebody wrong, those bullies, I'm going to fucking show them. So I'm going to become somebody that's so competent, and so alpha, and so successful, that it will protect me from ever experiencing that type of pain again, and that becomes our driving factor. And that can be beautiful and brilliant for a little while, right? It can really, you can accomplish some shit with that.

But eventually, the problem with dark motivation and shame based motivation, and I've seen this time and time and time again, with us as men, is that it reaches a point where it has a net negative impact on us physically meant mentally and emotionally, where it starts to become more draining than it is generative. Where the no matter how big the results are, that we're producing in our career, or in our business, or financially, or within our relationship, that we either don't believe the results that we're that we're getting, right we don't, we don't enjoy them, we're not able to celebrate them. Or we're just left with this emptiness, right. So that dark motivation is based off of shame, I don't want to feel shame.

And so I'm going to try and achieve greatness to prove somebody or something wrong, a story that I have about myself, a story that I have about business or the world, you know, trying to prove myself to my father trying to prove myself to those bullies. That's dark motivation, that shame based motivation. And eventually, that shame based motivation will start to consume us from the inside. And it will start to require that we drink more, or smoke more weed or numb out more or watch more porn or do more Coke or hire more prostitutes, right or whatever it is. And so the price that we pay for it eventually is that we can't sustain that type of shame based motivation. Why? Because we're not fucking recognizing ourselves. We're not validating our selves. So it doesn't matter how great the achievement is, we're not left with the nourishment and the sustenance that is supposed to come along with the achievement. Right, when you achieve something you are supposed to, to metabolize some kind of nourishment. psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, physically, right, you're supposed to receive something.

And if you're just producing results, and building businesses and achieving goals, out of shame, there, there's no nourishment in that eventually. And so eventually you have to, you start to eat yourself on the inside. So back to the inner critic, back to this, that maybe we can return to dark motivation if you want. We will, but this inner critic, what I've found to be true, so I'll use myself as an example. My inner dialogue was like abusive, you know, it was really, I would get super angry when I would do something wrong when I would screw up in my relationship.

When I would screw up in my career. Immediately that part was just like, I mean, it was on me it was like a tiger just waiting to pounce at any site or scent that I have done something wrong. And that would be raid on liquid the pucks wrong with you, how could you do that for proper proper, you know, it start picking me apart, and then I would feel more agitated and more aggressive. And I didn't know how to deal with that. And so I would eventually take it out on people around me, you know, I'd be more controlling at work, more controlling as as a leader, you know, I'd be harsher in my relationships and keep people at a distance. And what I started to realize when I did this work probably 1012 years ago with a with a mentor of mine, he was in his mid 70s.

And he had spent years training in Union psychology and I apprenticed with him. I was fortunate enough to spend, you know, two and a half years apprenticing with this man and learning these modalities. But he said, one simple question that really screwed me up. Because they fucked me up, it really fucked me up. He said, who does that inner critic sound? Like? Whose voice is that? And where did you learn it? And I first I was like, Well, I don't, I don't really know. And he said, Okay, well write down everything that your inner critic saying on a piece of paper. And I do this exercise for my clients all the time, because it's so impactful. I said, he said, write down all of your, all the statements, that you can remember that the inner critic says this, okay, so I write them down. If that's wrong with you, you're such a stupid piece of shit.

You know, I'm like reading these things out in the car to him. This is this is brutal to read, you know, this is brutal. Look at it. Okay, who said those things to you. And immediately, I realized that all of those comments I had heard from my stepfather, every single one of them, wow, every single one of them. And so I was carrying on this legacy of a man who had been verbally and emotionally abusive to me. And the truth that most men don't want to come into contact with is that their inner critic is a legacy of somebody in their life, who was harsh, or abusive, or so overly critical that it was damaging to them. A critical mother or a hypercritical father that they can never get anything right for.

Or, you know, in some cases, it's their voice that they created, because they weren't living up to the expectations of who they thought they needed to be for their father. Right? Some guys have this, you know, larger than life to have that they're like, Oh, my God, he's so amazing. He's so incredible. I just want to be like Him. And when they don't, they beat the show to themselves. Right? So but all of us have a legacy of where that voice came from, and getting the touch with whose legacy have I been carrying? Carrying on? You know, is it one of my parents? Is it a sibling? Is it a coach that I grew up with that was just brutal on me? You know? And do I need to continue that legacy? Or can I shifted? Can I begin to let go of that and speak to myself in a way where I can still get results without punishing myself?

And this is the last thing I'm going to say out and I'll pause. That's the type of discipline that most of us men have learned is that discipline is a punishment. That in order for me to be disciplined, or feel disciplined, I need to punish myself, because that's what we learn as young boys, right? You step in a line, you're angry, you do something wrong, right? You push back with one of your parents, you get punished. That's that's the tactic that that most young boys have experienced. And so when they get older, and they're trying to be disciplined in the routines and their habits in their mind frame in their mindset, how they do that is by trying to punish themselves. I got that wrong. Well, what should I do? I should beat the shit out of myself to make sure that I don't do it again. And again, that tactic might work in the interim, it might work to lead you to a certain place, but eventually it's going to have a net negative result.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, I mean, that's a big unlock for me. I've never, I've never held that thought that most of the ways I try to get myself to do things, is like an angry gym coach. It's unreal. And I'm like, no wonder why I fall out of habits like that when I'm like, like, for example, fitness is a really big one. For me, I want to make myself get into a physical fitness routine. Like I hear so many guys say that to me. And it's like, no, what do I don't want to do, because I'm just yelling at myself the whole time inside, like, be better, be stronger, look better naked, like what's wrong with you, you know, like, it's, you know, it's just like, wow, this is not this is not loving at all. So that's really interesting. And it does perfectly tee up. The next point, which is, again, I've guitars on my wall behind me, for those that are not seeing the video.

As a musician, one of the incredible things I've done is I thought I had to be the martyr from my heart. And so I always thought that I had to suffer and create from dark energy, so the only energy I ever knew, and as soon as I heard, like, hippie music and happy shit, and like, you know, those Lifetime movies, I was like, who makes this crap, who feels happy and then creates anyway, because at that point, I feel like I would have no motivation to do anything. And so I'm really wondering, for those of us that are often feeling like we have to suffer to create, we have to be these malcontents to make the world a better place. I'm wondering where your creation force comes from? Or as you support these artists that you're talking about? Have they been able to tap into light energy? What does that even feel like? What is it because that is one of my life goals is to truly be able to create as equally beautiful things from a place of light and love.

Connor Beaton

Yeah, well, I appreciate the question. And, you know, life, life's hard. Life is suffering. You know, if you look at the Buddhist tradition, or the Zen tradition, it talks a lot about suffering being an inevitability and a part of life. And so it's not that we want to ignore those things, I think that the tendency that some people have is to kind of spiritually bypass on the other side of this right is to just avoid suffering entirely and just light love and rainbows. And I mean, that's, that's just as false as the other end of the spectrum. But one of the things that I found to be incredibly helpful is to look at things from a generative standpoint, right?

So am I creating or wanting to build this habit, I'll give you an example. I turned 40 in November. And my goal, my mission is to be in the best shape of my life by 40. And so I built this gym in my home. And I've been working out four or five times a week. But rather than saying, I hate the way my body looks, or what's wrong with the need to go a train, or any of those other things, my mission is towards something generative, something positive, right. So rather than saying, I'm doing this, because I don't want to look like this, I'm saying I'm doing this because I want to move in this direction. Here's how I want to feel, right, I want to feel strong, I want to feel competent, I want to feel like I can do muscle ups on the rings in my basement, the gymnastics rings, right? So we move ourselves away from I am doing this, I'm trying to produce these results, because I don't want to feel this way.

And we move towards a I'm doing these things because I want to feel this way. And we start to shift our attention towards I want to feel grounded, I want to feel healthy, I want to feel positive, I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror, and enjoy the body that I see. Right. And so we start to shift our lens of focus towards away from what we don't want, and towards what we do want what we want to create. And there's some great work in positive psychology by a woman named Carol Dweck, who wrote a book called Mindset. And the book focuses on exactly what we're talking about, which is fixed versus growth mindset. A fixed mindset is essentially another term for dark motivation, right?

I'm doing this because I don't want to feel this way. I don't want my body to look like this. I want to get away from how I feel or how I look or what my bank account looks like. Versus a growth mindset or light motivation says, here's how I want to feel. Here's what I want to pursue, here's what I want to create. And here's what I want to generate. And when we can do that there is an internal psychological shift, where we're not trying to get away from something we're trying to move towards something. And for a lot of men, I've noticed that this is sometimes challenging. And maybe this is, you know, me and some of the men that I've worked with, but I think that many of us have been taught that we that we need To suffer, and we need to struggle in order to sort of prove our worth.

And, you know, you certainly will suffer and you will struggle in life that was just sort of a given. But choosing the suffering, right, doing the cold showers doing the cold plunge doing the workout, from a place of what you want to build. And what you want to create is a much more generative process that allows you to free up some space for recognition, for validation, for fulfillment for joy for reward, where you can say, Look, I'm creating and building the body that I want the routines that I want, right? So the light motivation actually requires that you recognize yourself along the way, that you recognize what you're building, what you're creating, what you're doing, who you're becoming, who you're doing it with.

And that that, in and of itself, is a part of creating this, this wonderful way of being where self recognition is sort of baked into the process.

Nik Tarascio

That makes a hell of a lot of sense. I mean, as I hear you saying it, I am thinking about the fact that is usually almost like pushing off the side of a pool, but I'm pushing off the negativity, the rejection of self versus pulling into the possibility of what can be and being really excited about that potential.

Connor Beaton

So I can I say one more thing about that? Anything, I interviewed this, I love neuroscience, like I'm kind of a geek around how the brain works and how the body works and how the nervous system works. And I, I interviewed this guy, years and years and years ago, his name was Beau lotto, and like, what an interesting name Bolado. But he's like one of the leading neuroscientists when it comes to change, and how our brains are actually wired.

And I'll never forget, we were talking about how the brain is wired. Instead, your brain is wired, as a pattern recognition machine. So your brain is literally designed to try and recognize patterns in the world and then assimilate based on a couple foundational criteria. Number one, are you safe? And number two, can you choose patterns that are going to keep you safe? Now, why is it important, because the known is safer than the unknown. So our brains are desired to are designed to keep us safe. And to avoid change. They are literally designed and wired to avoid change. Why? Because most of the time, we don't know what's on the other side of change. We don't know what's going to happen, when we lose the 10 pounds, we don't know what's going to happen, when we put the effort into building the body that we want, or whatever it is, whatever we're looking to change, right, maybe you're looking to have a deeper level of intimacy and sexual connection with your wife, your girlfriend or your partner, that's probably going to require a good amount of vulnerability, that's probably going to require a good amount of open conversations and dialogue where you talk about the type of sex or roleplays, or, you know, whatever it is that you're wanting to experience.

And we don't know our rational mind cannot predict how those conversations are going to go, how the experiences are going to go. And so what does it do, it tries to convince us to move back towards what we know, the dysfunctional relationship, the unhealthy conversations, the shitty sex that we're having, etc, it pulls us back to the known, even if the known, is abusive, is unhealthy, and is what we don't want. So we have to work sometimes against our our instinctual nature, for comfort for safety. And we have to venture into the unknown.

And this is the one thing I really want to emphasize. This change requires you as a man to choose consciously to walk into the territory of the unknown. To say, I don't know how this is going to go, I don't know how this conversation is going to go. I don't know if selling this business is gonna go well, but I know I need to let it go. I don't know what's on the other side of it. I don't know what it's going to look like for for me to let go of it. But I know intuitively I know in my gut that this is the right decision for me to make.

And when we can begin as men to choose to face the unknown each and every single day, and B and all of it and find a wonder in it. And to practice that. We actually sharpen ourselves in many ways to how we relate to the feminine, because the feminine is the unknown, the feminine as we see it is very chaotic. It's very sporadic. We don't we don't understand it. Oftentimes, we want to control it, right. We want to temper it. We want to fix it. We want to organize it and create order out of it and make it structured, right?

And so of how we practice being, I don't want to say better but more efficient, more grounded with the women in our lives more grounded in our relationships more grounded with our own feminine, is we practice choosing to accept the unknown to say, I don't know how this is going to go. But I'm open to finding out. And I don't need to spend so much of my time and effort and energy and rational bandwidth, trying to simulate every possible outcome that could potentially happen, running myself into the ground, trying to trying to figure out what's going to happen, when I can just allow it to unfold and see the data and the information that emerges out of the unknown.

Nik Tarascio

Man that is powerful. That is powerful, the idea of truly embracing the unknown, being okay with it not kicking and screaming, you know, think through, obviously, a lot of the people that I speak to are, you know, business owners, business leaders, people that own jets generally are entrepreneurs. And I see, despite the success, the amount of kicking and screaming we do, as we lean into that, like, this isn't what I wanted to have happen. And it's like missing the gift in that moment of uncertainty. Instead of seeing like, there's some gold in there. And in fact, I don't I just really saw for myself last year, the more I could sit in the chaos and the uncertainty, and just metabolize it within my body and let it come out as like a nugget of gold. I just really hold that in my heart as my invitation for myself to tap into my masculine.

And I think a lot of what you said validated what was kind of just an intuitive experience. There's so much you said, your that is magic. And I do want to turn it back to you before we wrap and I could talk to you for days, man, I feel like you just have so much wisdom to offer. I'm just grateful to have been able to watch your journey over the last couple of years. And here's, you know, you're this guy who's at the top of your game, influencing people from every corner of the world in every walk of life. You've got this, you know, going amazing family and and what do you wake up dreaming about? What's the dream beyond for you now.

Connor Beaton

You know, I think it kind of ties into what we were talking about before is that, with all of those things said, there are still a lot of unknowns in my life. And a huge part of the what I would suggest to use your language to dream beyond is for me, is to continue to, to the best of my capacity and my ability to make decisions that are going to lead me closer and closer to the type of authentic life that brings me a depth of fulfillment, and joy. And challenge that, that lights me up. Because if I can be a walking embodiment of what it looks like to be a man who is present to the hardship, to the obstacles to the the authentic expression of who he wants to be, that, to me is a deep sense of purpose.

And so I think the dream beyond is continuing to write, which I have really found to be very confronting, and very challenging, but also deeply and richly rewarding. It's spending more time in nature, you know, I have a 22 month old son, and bringing him camping, you know, and taking him out into these excursions in nature. And I think the real, the sort of big dream is to, you know, I could talk about turning man talks into the number one organization in the world for men, or I could talk about having my book be the number one for men, and all of those things are meaningful for me that, you know, I'd be lying if they if they weren't. But I think the big thing for me is, is bringing men back into contact with the strength and beauty of who they are walking them back home, into their inner kingdom within themselves.

And doing that out in nature. There's something very primal that I think that we've disconnected from as men, as we've just moved into cities. And so a lot of my work, I'm focusing more and more about bringing men back into nature and to do some of the work that we've been talking about in person in nature, you know, amongst the trees with the bears off in the distance, or the lions or wherever the hell, you know, can take men in the world. And so that's, that's the that's the big dream.

Nik Tarascio

Well, if you mean it in a literal sense, Sign me up. That sounds absolutely incredible. And I think on behalf of all men, and the women and children that interact with them, I'm just really grateful for the work that you do. And thanks for continuing to be a guide to I think something most of us have lost the way back to and you know, again, for anyone that Listening. There was so much here, it's so rich, I'm gonna have almost a hard time summarizing, but I do think the stuff that really stands out for me is the find a way to embrace the uncertainty. Really listen to that inner voice and decide if that's the voice you want speaking to you or guiding you, and if not make that change.

And ultimately, I think where we started was that idea of first acknowledging that we need some help. We need some help. And maybe, you know, maybe we are experiencing emotions that are true and correct and not trying to stuff those down and say my rational mind refuses to reconcile that, that you know, reality, just to be more compassionate, loving to ourselves, and I think women can teach us a lot in that. So I really appreciate the time today, please go check out Connors new book men's work A Practical Guide to face your darkness and self sabotage and find freedom. I'm currently diving through it right now.

And he's the one who spoke it on the audible so I appreciate the way you speak man. It's super common to hear you, you know talk with such confidence and power and courage of your own story. And again for everyone. I hope this was a really rich podcast experience and Connor thanks again for all your time.

Thank you for listening to the dream beyond. I hope that you receive whatever message or inspiration you are meant to get from today's episode. I had a great time recording it for you. If you love the show, please take 30 seconds to subscribe rate and review it. That really helps get the word out. And if you want to connect with me, you can find me at:

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#thedreambeyond #mantalks #masculinity #men #feel #life #people #women #create #fulfillment #feminine #unknown #build #big #internally #internal #relationships #world #achieve #dream #thought #speak

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michiruze · 2 years ago

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Thoughts on Slow Damage

A six-year long wait turned into a desire, and before we know it, today is the euphoric moment of the desire, realized.

I started Slow Damage expecting your usual dark and occasionally trashy but awesome Nitro+Chiral game. Like watching a grindhouse film in an arthouse theatre reserved for people who are into the genre and the subculture around it.

What I got instead is dark, unrelenting, heartbreaking, and cathartic work on the darkness of people, breaking free from chains, desires, and the captive nature of guilt.

Slow Damage is a painting where colors lights up the dark canvas.

It’s a memorable game that hopefully will go down in VN history, it’s impeccable and mesmerizing, altough still, not for everyone and not for the faint of the heart. But if you do have the heart, please give this game a go. It’s worth your time and money.....and desires. It is very wonderfully made and presented.

My main thought upon finishing Slow Damage is that this is what getting a therapy after suffering for so long in silence feels like. Confronting the hard-to-face, the uncomfortable truth, the source of your pain, speaking up about it....then work for the better. Heading towards light at the end of the tunnel.

Slow Damage is a story of suffering, but there’s always hope to end it.

And for that, it’s hard for me to call Slow Damage as the ‘usual N+C sufferfest’ because SD has a lot to say. And boy, it did.

All the darkness has a reason (Shinkoumi is NOT a wonderful place, and all the suffering is clear), and I find it hard to look away from parts I personally find normally upsetting. This game makes me keep looking at it in a mesmerizing, direct way. I can’t look away, it almost feels like I am having a euphoric session with Towa himself, trying to look into us audiences.

A common theme in this game that I consistently see is how pain and suffering affects our lives. Everyone in the game is tied to their painful pasts and the scars it did. Even whey they live normally, there’s still pain inside of their hearts. It is either remaining pain or worse, repressed pain.

All the smiles and joy are real, it’s a way to keep yourself intact in the painful world of Shinkoumi where everyone gets pain inflicted upon them. However, the sense I am feeling in Rei and Taku’s routes is that while Towa might seem to have 'moved on' from his past through his time today, he’s not actually moving on from his pain. This applies to Taku and Rei. Taku and Rei still have their pain and guilt, and Towa is running away from it.

Towa continues to live on since his life after the pain with Taku and Rei are comfortable. It’s a comfortable new world.....without resolving the pain and problems. Just forgetting it and pretend most of it didn’t happen.

[MAJOR SPOILERS ONWARDS]

Madarame’s route felt like him returning Towa to the plentiful, pleasurable, and ‘better’ past, by making Towa almost recalling his past and pain, but Madarame uses that chance to push him back into 'the good times right after your worst trauma’. Because for Madarame, Towa was at his best and most composed during those days. Why not return to those days? And throw all our opponents and obstacles into the trash?

But this still does not make Towa ‘move on’ from his pain. He just runs away to a different direction.

Even if Towa rejected Maya, he’s still unconsciously doing what Maya does....to Madarame, especially when he decided to try Euphoria session on him. It makes sense after reading Fujieda route.

Which brings us to Fujieda route, and why it’s great. Not only that they both face the darkness in order to find light, the reasons why it’s a great and highly cathartic route is:

1) Towa actually has someone in his side, and friends to help him address his past. And by that, he actually helped them to address their pasts too. Taku and Rei also faces their darkness in the process. We find light together

2) Towa acknowledges his problems, and while he initially has extreme guilt (he cant separate his art from his PARENT), he thankfully isn't consumed by it. The usage of paint thinner as fuel for fire is also apropos, as paint thinners function as erasers. Towa wished he could be erased to blankness again, but he realizes that he could just make himself better. Like deciding to paint something better on a messy work.

3) Fujieda and Towa work together to find the truth. While it hurts (VERY painful), all they can do is to respect Mei's life by living and becoming better people and supporting eachother, living the life they deserve to have

4) Both acknowledged pain and their scars. And doesn't think it never existed. Instead, they don’t see it as their sins, and unconditionally embrace eachother in their pain-riddled bodies. It just happens, and there’s nothing they can do to completely erase it. Again, all they can do is support eachother to be better.

5) Most importantly: not running away from the past and all the pain. And reclaiming those.

And all of that will bring us into the light.

There’s more to Slow Damage than that, however. The themes of acceptance, guilt over denouncing your parents, and embracing yourself are present, along with the harrowing longtime effects of trauma, written in elegant ways. Fuchii Kabura and Nitro+Chiral took their sweet time improving their craft, and it’s especially present here.

I’m glad I waited so long for Slow Damage, it felt like a tender embrace from the painful world, best described by this BGM track.

That’s all I can say about the game proper. On the artistic front, Yamada Uiro’s art is really great. This game really showed off her sheer skills and talents that she previously only shown in light novels and promo arts for Nitroplus and Nitro+Chiral games.

The character designs are still memorable even though the game has a more realistic setting. The memorable elements comes from the different features each character has and their toned bodies too. There’s something for everyone in this game.

The overall feel of the game in terms of the aesthetics is that while it is dark in the level of Togainu no Chi, it’s actually one of the more colorful games that N+C ever made. Closest comparison I can make is the works of film director Gaspar Noé, specifically his later works. The darker-toned CGs with colorful lighting evoked the same feel of Noé’s cinematographer Benoit Debie with the striking colors dimly lighting the dark.

The 3D backgrounds has improved a lot from DMMD, and overall....the production value is BIG, and you can see it right from the title screen!

As usual, the music is delight to the ears. Personally I adore Madarame’s ending themes. Very much bangers, altough I have soft spots for Rei (GOATBED!!!!! SHUUJI IS BACK!!! PROVING THE ‘GOAT’ IN GOATBED!!!!) and Taku’s themes too.

That’s all I can say about this game, really. It’s a difficult game to write about, and really needed to be experienced.

Overall, I am grateful to have stepped into the dark tunnel of Slow Damage and walking into the light with new perspectives. Slow Damage will make you see impossible colors, and how even the darkest of places can, and will be guided towards the light.

Also, this is an Inada stan account. We stan an unbothered king minding his own business!

#michiruze.txt #michi's ramblings #slow damage #nitro+chiral

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soul-wanderer · 2 years ago

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06x08//I Know A Place - weekly recap (I guess that’s a weekly thing now)

There’s a lot to unpack about this episode, so let me start off by saying that this is hands down one of the best episodes that has ever been written on this show (thanks to Leah Gonzales, who basically has a flawless track record on the show so far) and I’m here for it. I will also point out some minor points first before getting to the main parts of this episode, because those will need more writing.

- The time jump in the beginning felt a little jarring, but that’s apparently an issue the show has refused to work on for six seasons and counting, so we better accept that they simply skip major parts of storylines

- The time jump also leaves us wondering what the hell happened to Maya’s phsyical health? Guess she’s fine now? Kinda hard to believe that her only issue (physically) is her sprained ankle, but okay.

- Diane is back! (and we all love it)

- Theo got a bit of his own storyline and while it wasn’t a “big story”, I’m still glad they gave him that, because we once again saw his soft and caring and passionate character and it’s just the best thing

- Dixon being a jerk as usual but Ross doing The Right Thing and it was great. Was it unexpected after what she had told him earlier? No. Was it still incredible? Absolutely yes. The only thing spoiling this story a little was them injecting Sullivan into it once again towards the end, but at least that wasn’t downright awful this time.

- Maya and Diane: Finally. HMU did a fantastic job at making Maya look like she was feeling on the inside, and it was about time she started some proper therapy. The storytelling was really great and thoughtful and heartwrenching, even if they basically sped up months and years of trauma processing to fit it into one episode. But at the very least Diane made it clear that Maya would need regular sessions for the next few months at least, so they did not pretend Maya would be fine after one day with Diane

- random side note: it’s been discussed why Maya’s dad was so weirdly focused on her cousin. My best bet is that dude cheated on Maya’s mum and that kid has been his all along. But that’s just a bit silly thinking here, if anyone else wondered what was going on there too.

- Vic. Let’s get to Vic, okay? The woman who has been through so much in past seasons and is still so easily overlooked in her struggles, once again reaching her breaking point, but for once she does not push it away. I am really damn glad they included that scene of Vic acknlowledging that she is, in fact, absolutely not okay, and that it’s okay to share this pain with others. Also VERY important to note: Theo listened. Not only that, he also didn’t try to argue, or make this about him. He shut right up about his own issues once Vic opened up about her own feelings. He acknowledged them and was there for her. We know he is kinda awkward around feelings and using words, but goodness, did he show up with his listening and hugging skills. Ladies and gentlefolks, get yourself a partner like this, for real. Oh, and a friend like Travis, too, because that group hug was absolutely wonderful. Let’s hope they’re giving Vic some therapy too in the future, she sure as hell needs it.

- We don’t talk about the final scene, right? Okay, thanks, because that one’s wrecking me and I basically waited for a visual like this the moment Diane started talking about little Maya. I’m fine, I stg I’m fine after this.

PS: And for the love of god, can everyone in that damn station please stop trusting that Eli dude? No one ever found out why he randomly showed up at the station and selflessly offered his help, and I can’t believe the writers are trying to sell the fact that every single person on that show is dumb enough to never even question his motives. Seriously. But I’m still here for sassy Andy (”I’m literally the one who would show up”), as long as she doesn’t fall for this dude - she already has a bad enough track record in the boyfriend department as is, okay?

#Station 19 #06x08 #Maya Bishop #Vic Hughes #Theo Ruiz #I know a place #recap #everybody needs a Theo in their life

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yellowocaballero · 2 years ago

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Hi! I recently became a fan of your work, you're an amazing writer! I really enjoyed your characterizations in Listen to Your Heart (No!), especially Steven and Jake. I was wondering how you came up with your characterization of Jake, since he seemed very different from how he was portrayed in Mens Rea. Did you mostly get inspiration from the comics, or was this entirely your own? What's your process for determining how you're going to write a character? Thanks!

Hi!! Yes, he is really different! :). When I first skimmed this ask I thought you were asking about how best life Jake happened, and I was already feeling bad that my answer to that would be 'fuck if I know, things spiraled'. But actually I did put some thought into l2urh Jake. I have not read the comics because can you imagine.

best life Jake is where I began for the character. I didn't have to do that, obviously, but he was the guy I already had in my head. I picked out what about Jake I thought was purely and 100% him, instead of environmental or contextual, which isn't a lot - let's say it's 'protector', 'egotistical to hide insecurity', 'bad decision boy', 'wants to lead his own life', 'autistic'. Then I looked at the non-essential bits: a lot of best life Jake's personality and behavior were directly in reaction to Marc, so scrap all of that. Scrap the need to make himself out to be the bad guy, because that was Marc going through some shit. Almost the rest of it was due to being young and immature and not possessing a full life, so scrap that. The leftover bits were his desire for a normal life, which will be important but very deeply repressed and not acted upon for a while. So now we're already down all of best life Jake lol. He doesn't have much of an environment, but his life environment so far has given him the trait of 'hideously and eagerly violent'. Otherwise Jake's kind of a blank slate. Jake knows this. And Jake works really fucking hard to become the person he wants to become. Jake's somebody who feels pressured to become whoever the people around him need him to be. In best life he's pressured to be the 'scapegoat' and 'villain' by Marc - or, more importantly, he feels like he's being pressured to be that way lmfao. In here he feels pressured by Layla and Khonshu. Almost everything Jake does and every trait he forces himself to have is defined by being what Layla, Khonshu, and on an underlying level Marc, needs. That defines most of who he makes himself, and the 'Jake' he tries to create. This is unattainable, and he fails. And, of course, he created an idea of what Layla 'needs' in a husband without actually consulting her or determining if it was what made a healthy marriage lol. So Jake's kind of interesting to develop, 'cause the central part of him is 'will be whatever he needs to be', and then the environment controls who he decides that person is. But underneath who he 'needs to be', there is still Jake - and nobody can hide who they really are forever. So l2urh became about somebody trying very, very hard to be who they thought they needed to be, and how they failed.

What's probably most jarring to the reader is his relationship with Marc, esp considering the "Marc can't fucking handle shit so Jake takes over" thing happens in best life. The difference is that Marc asked, and that Jake had saved all of their lives just by taking on the burden of living. I thought of it as that Marc had kind of been hiding behind Jake for six years (where in best life I thought of it as Marc being unable to get out of bed). He hadn't even been ready to front again in the story (the actual healthy process to that would have been a lot of therapy), and as such he's still vulnerable and emotionally dependent on Jake. That's why his issue was that he didn't feel 'safe' - he couldn't feel safe without Jake around.

It's why Jake's way more big brother-ey and feels older. Steven, Marc, and Layla rely on him. He's taken on a lot of emotional burdens for all of them. The Jake Is Load Bearing lol. So yeah he's really different, but that's because I think of Jake as very environmental.

The question "what's my process for determining how I write a character" has an answer that would make this post way way way too long lol. I might answer that in its own separate post, if it's okay - normally I would just answer it in a few sentences here, but more fleshed out character creation advice might be helpful? IDK

#my writing #i mentioned in best life that you should view jake and stevens actions through the lens of marc #and i think i also said that in l2urh you should view marc and steven through the lens of jake #and what jake needed at that precise second #(someone who could react to the trauma and somebody who could forget it)#but it might help to view l2urh jake thru a marc lens too #cuz then you have a guy who physically #COULD NOT live #absolutely busting his ass to create a 'perfect' life #and desperately trying to forget and repress the pain that made life so difficult in the first place #but you can't do that forever.#so he doesn't lol! how fun

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nalmull · 4 years ago

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It’s Mr. Compress hour! Focusing on him again because I love him; but also with his Harima Oji’s Bloodline Reveal, we can look back at what he does with that perspective.

For now, though, because this post got way too long, let’s take a look at how he’s doing post arm loss:

*disclaimer: non-disabled person writing about disability representation. my apologies in advance for any mistake or mis-portrayal or just overstepping my position!

As far as I could tell, Mr. Compress got his arm blown off by Overhaul in early September, got fitted for a prosthetic mid-September, and was taunting Overhaul with his new arm late September.

(Shout-out to Giran, who “had a hard time finding a manufacturer [that could create a prosthetic that is capable of] delicate, elaborate movements.” But he did it, and it’s good work.

*From Databook 2.)

That’s pretty much impossible irl with our level of medicine - from hastily done google research, it takes six to eight weeks (or longer) for surgical wounds to heal after an amputation, in which then you can get fitted for a prosthetic. After that, one needs rehab/physical therapy for both managing the residential limb and learning how to use the prosthetic, which takes months, sometimes up to a year. And of course, that’s even not mentioning that current technology haven’t succeed in creating a sci-fi ‘can do anything a blood-and-flesh arm can do’ cyborg prosthetic.

So Mr. Compress’s prosthetic process is pretty much firmly in the realm of futuristic science-fiction, with luckily is what HeroAca goes with: We’ve got robots and holograms and Japan’s super fast bullet train goes even faster. This puts the story/character/concept at risk of the ableism of ‘the magic cure’, which effectively makes the character ‘no longer disabled’ and issues of disability is just dismissed or forgotten or erased to bring the character back to the non-disabled norm.

…Which is fortunately not totally the case here! Yes, Mr. Compress has a magic robot arm that looks and seems to function like a flesh arm— but Horikoshi-sensei does give thoughtfulness about the realities of having a prosthetic: As shown above, the prosthetic needs repair (Japanese text has it that it’s ‘creaking badly’), maybe even replacement. Compounding the problem is that Mr. Compress has to wait and make do until Giran shows up (and if not, he’ll have to find a new broker who can find a new prosthetist who can custom make his specifications).

Later, we see Mr. Compress examining his prosthetic arm/trying to fix it? Which is another nice touch to show that it requires maintenance. By the end of the chapter, the hand is broken off completely and stays broken for the rest of the arc, leaving Mr. Compress effectively one handed.

(In the following two chapters too, we’ll see that in the background action, he’s losing his balance a lot - something that can happen since like one just lost a chunk of weight asymmetrically.)

Significantly, I think, is that - though it’s not addressed in the text, which is a pity and a handwave - Mr. Compress, even with his relatively-high-tech prosthetic, has permanently lost half of his quirk. Before, he can compress things with either hand; now, just one. Which is huge, for someone who uses his quirk to often fight for his survival against other Villains out to kill. His battle power (?) has been reduced, as has how he incorporates his ability into his nimbleness and magician’s act. Really wish we could’ve seen the repercussions of this! Mr. Compress seems rather unfazed, even taking this in good humor - but what’s under that mask? Did he mourn that loss? Did it affect his self-esteem or self-image? Is it possible to feel phantom quirk sensations?

So there’s quite a few elements of Mr. Compress’s disability portrayal here that are too convenient and shallow. He’s easily up and about within weeks, and his feelings and new experiences are entirely glossed over. He’s a side character, but still it would’ve been nice to receive one chapter focused on him in regards to this. So far in the story, the broken prosthetic doesn’t give him much of a challenge either.

And yet Mr. Compress’s disability remains and is addressed; he’s a character who does have to deal with the experiences and consequences of losing a limb. The futuristic setting could’ve easily allowed Mr. Compress a super-arm that brings him back to the non-disabled norm and all concerns and portrayals of a life after an amputation gets tossed out the window. But Mr. Compress still goes through issues of mobility and accommodation, and his prosthetic isn’t a cure-all. (At last in the MVA arc. Post-MVA is for a whole other post. also will need another post about the other portrayal of limb loss in other characters in the story, tho.) He’s not portrayed as tragic or broken, and befitting his personality, he’s come to accept it as part of his life.

Not that the author did anything amazing or perhaps even above the bare minimum - and we don’t even know if this was intentional - but I think it’s cool that Mr. Compress’s disability is incorporated into his character, as part of him now as much as his signature mask and magic.

thanks for reading this long post. and back to liveblog, sorry for the wait!

#VillainAca #Mr. Compress #Chapter 220 #Sako Atsuhiro #nalslastworkingbraincell #ALSO: please give Mr. Compress the attention he deserves #when talking about portrayals - metaphorically or literal - of disability in HeroAca #Yes there’s stuff to be said about Deku’s quirklessness #but i think there can be that and also focus on characters with ‘actual’ non-fictional disability #Personally i’ve got a rant about Deku has a disability metaphor #oh boy do I have takes on that #but next time #TW Amputation #Disability #please stan Mr. C #for both himself and as disability rep

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homoose · 4 years ago

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Teach Me Something I Don’t Know: Part VII

Summary: Spencer’s unresolved trauma catches up with him. Reader gets her heart broken.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Category: angst, I’m so sorry guys

Warnings/Includes: brief mention of violence and details of a case; brief mention of prison, past trauma; a lil self-loathing and self-sabotaging

Word count: 3.8k

a/n: I knew that this was where this story was going from the very beginning. The dialogue is one of the first parts I had written. It still hurts. Relevant to the story: I operate with the understanding that the Jeid arc does not exist, which also means that Spencer never went to therapy in season 15. Also, huge thanks to @reidscanehand for beta-ing and just generally being my hype person!!!!

Song Recs: Shrike by Hozier; Better As a Memory by Kenny Chesney (don’t come for me if Spencer made playlists this would ABSOLUTELY be on there)

Series Masterlist

———

Spencer made his way to Emily’s office, ignoring the team’s eyes on him— varying degrees of understanding, concern, and uncertainty plain on their faces. As he reached the threshold, he paused for a second before moving into her line of sight. When he moved into the doorway, she looked up and waved him in. He closed the door behind him.

She gestured to the chair in front of her desk. Spencer hesitated for only a split second, but it was long enough for her to notice. He lowered himself into the chair and met her eyes.

She folded her hands on top of the desk. “How are you feeling?”

He drummed his fingers across his kneecaps. “I’m fine.”

It was a lie, and they both knew it. She bit back a sigh and flipped open the folder in front of her. “I’m finished with the official report. I wanted to go over it with you before I submit it to the director.” She looked at him briefly before reading out the report. “On January 9th, our team pursued a lead at the residence of suspect Andrew Hurley. We divided into teams to cover the two entrances to the home, as well as the barn behind the house.”

Spencer fidgeted slightly in his chair and rubbed the tips of his fingers together. Emily continued, “During the raid, Supervisory Special Agent Spencer Reid became separated from the team and was ambushed and disarmed by the suspect in the barn.” She paused but didn’t look at him. “The team was unaware of the altercation for some time, during which Dr. Reid employed various approved restraint methods and was ultimately forced to utilize self-defense measures to preserve his own life. Consequently, Mr. Hurley sustained serious injuries.”

She did look at him then, a steady and unrelenting gaze that had him shrinking inside himself. “However, I have determined that Dr. Reid’s actions were justified in order to maintain his own safety.” She returned her eyes to the report. “Mr. Hurley was detained and treated for his injuries at Sebastian River Medical Center, and he is expected to make a full recovery. Based on the cognitive interviews and physical evidence, a grand jury hearing is scheduled for January 25th.” She brought her hands to rest on top of the report.

“I’ll sign off on it and deliver it to the director by the end of business today.” She let out the sigh she’d been holding back. “Reid.”

He pressed his mouth into a thin line, torn between shame and vindication. “Emily.”

“What happened in that barn was unacceptable. And I need you to recognize that.” Her eyes were back on him, a leader’s gaze boring into a weak link. “You went against a direct order. You put your life in danger unnecessarily, and in the process you endangered this entire team. Furthermore, you could have cost us the ability to close this case, to put Hurley away and bring justice to his victims.”

“It won’t happen again,” he assured her.

“No, it won’t.” Her tone told him that if it did, he’d have bigger problems than a meeting in her office. “My recommendation to the director is that you transition to your next mandatory leave cycle early.”

“I can handle—”

“It’s not a request. You’re on sabbatical starting tomorrow. That’s an order, and one you’d do well to follow.” She closed the file in front of her. “We’ll see you back in the bullpen on March 7th.”

“I don’t need more time off, Emily,” Spencer snapped.

He could see her grind her teeth together at his tone, but he couldn’t seem to care enough to feel contrite. She took a deep breath in through her nose, leveling him with a pointed look. “If Simmons hadn’t broken it up, you’d have killed Hurley on the floor of that barn.”

His mind snapped back to the lifeless eyes of Hurley’s victims— eight year old boys in shallow graves. Boys who died afraid, and in pain, and crying out for their mothers. His thoughts raced to the feel of Hurley’s throat under his arm, the crack of the zygomatic under his fist. Emily was right of course. If Matt hadn’t found them in the barn and dragged him up and off of Hurley’s nearly lifeless body, Spencer would have killed him without compunction.

“Reid.” The stern edge was gone from her voice. Spencer refocused his eyes on her face, now showcasing an underlying concern that made his stomach turn. “I’m not recommending another cycle of mandatory counseling at this time, although I reserve the right to require it moving forward. But… I’m asking you to take care of yourself. You’ve been through a lot in the last two years. More than a lot.”

“I said I’m fine,” he insisted, but there was less fire behind it this time.

“And I’m not saying you aren’t,” she countered. “But I am saying that the person in that barn… that wasn’t you. That was not the Reid that I know.” Emily tilted her head and furrowed her brow. “The Reid I know uses his intellect and empathy to see angles that the rest of us miss. He depends on the strength of his mind and his unwavering compassion to diffuse conflicts without violence. He invites his friends to foreign film showings and puppet theater.”

When he didn’t budge, she let out a long breath. “I want you to take the next fifty days to find that Reid and bring him back to us.”

...

Y/N dropped into her desk chair with a huff. They’d been back from winter break for two weeks, and she already needed another vacation. But tomorrow was Friday, and then they had a long weekend. She could make it through one more day.

She closed her eyes for a long moment, tired in the way that only kindergarten teachers fresh off a long break can be. She heard the click of Anita’s shoes coming before she even entered the room, and Y/N couldn’t stop the twitch of her lips.

“Dude. How is it only Thursday?” Anita flopped down into the plush Calm Corner chair.

“This has been the longest week of my life,” Y/N agreed. “My kids were off the chain.”

“There is so much drama in middle school right now,” Anita groaned. “I can’t keep up with all the tea, and you know how I love to stay up to date on the freshest brews.” She shot Y/N a look. “Speaking of, where’s the good doctor?”

“I think they’ve had a lot going on at work,” Y/N surmised. “I haven’t seen Mrs. Jareau in over a month.”

“Well, I’m getting antsy,” Anita complained. “Thought for sure you’d be going steady by now.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help but feel a little impatient herself. If she’d known it would be this long before she’d see him again, she might have made a move when he’d volunteered. Then again, probably not. She sighed.

Her phone chimed with an email message, and she automatically swiped the screen open to read it.

Spencer Reid Re:

Are you free today? If you are, I’ll be at Soho.

...

Spencer sat at the table in the corner of the coffee shop. He sipped absentmindedly at his tea, almost gone cold. He hadn’t waited for a reply before leaving Quantico. He drove straight to the city, figuring he’d wait at Soho until he felt some semblance of calm returning to his body.

He didn’t know why he’d emailed Y/N, and he wasn’t sure he really wanted her to show up. Usually he’d talk to Penelope or maybe JJ. But he’d wanted to get as far from the BAU as possible, and he didn’t want to drag Penelope away from the colorful, safe corner of the world she’d created for herself. He didn’t want to fill it with all the tragedy she’d tried so hard to leave behind.

If Y/N did show, he was certain he could keep the conversation vague, focus on her and the classroom, ask her about her holidays. She wasn’t a profiler, didn’t know his tells well enough. She’d be none the wiser, and he’d have her warmth and presence to focus his energy on, if only for a few hours.

Every time the bell chimed, his eyes flew to the door, searching for her. He knew it was ridiculous. He’d only known her for one hundred and eleven days. Pragmatically, he knew she shouldn’t be the one he wanted to talk to. Realistically, he wasn’t planning to burden her with all of the mess of the past week, the past year, his entire life.

But in the six hundred and forty seven minutes he’d spent with her since September, he’d felt more like himself than he ever had. He was never afraid to be himself with her— the silly story voices, the ridiculous costume, the magic trick, the vulnerability about his mom. All of these pieces of himself were things he usually waited years to show people. It had taken her a matter of weeks to draw them out.

He couldn’t help but believe that if he wanted to, he could tell her everything. She’d know exactly what to say. She’d listen for as long as he could keep talking. She’d cover his shaking hands and wrap him up in the warmth of her spirit. She’d give of herself to guide him back to the person he used to be. She’d be more than willing to use her radiance to illuminate the dark so that he might have a little light again.

The bell sounded, and his eyes focused, and there she was. She was wrapped up in a puffed jacket, a bright blue scarf tied around her neck. Her nose was adorably red from the cold, and she rubbed her hands together as the door closed behind her. Her eyes found him immediately. A small smile turned up the corners of her mouth, and she gave him an enthusiastic wave. And he knew that he was right about all of it.

She approached the table, unwinding her scarf. “Hi!”

“Hi.”

Her eyes flickered over his face, and then settled on his mostly empty mug. “I’ll get you a refill, and then we’ll catch up?”

He nodded, and she headed to the counter. There had been a part of him that thought she wouldn’t come, but of course she did. For some reason, unbeknownst to him, she liked talking to him. Even among his closest friends, he was often made to feel self-conscious about his tendency to ramble, but Y/N had literally asked him to. She sought him out, asked him questions, listened intently, and remembered things he’d told her. She was kind and thoughtful and genuine. Of course she came when he called.

She returned with two mugs, carefully setting them down on the tiny table. She unzipped and removed her jacket, hanging it on the back of her chair and revealing a crew neck sweater covered in tiny astronauts and rocket ships. When she sat across from him, her hands wrapped around the mug and her eyes met his.

“Hi.”

He couldn’t stop his lips from twitching, despite the events of the day. “You said that already.”

She laughed, and he felt the weight begin to lift. “Yeah, well, I haven’t seen you in forever, so— I’m just making up for lost time.”

“Sixty one days.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s been sixty one days, eighty eight minutes, and approximately,” he looked at his watch, “fourteen seconds since we saw each other last.”

She laughed again, and his mouth completed its curve. She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I like that you’ve been counting.” She let her chin come to rest in her hand, eyes studying his face. “How are you?”

He wanted to lie, but she was looking at him so earnestly that he mumbled out, “I’m managing.”

She mirrored the way he’d looked at her across this same table nearly three months ago. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” That was a lie, too. But asking her to meet him was enough of a burden.

“Okay. Well, if you change your mind at any point, let me know.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Until then, I can just regale you with all the kindergarten stories you’ve missed while you were out saving lives.”

And regale him she did. For almost an hour, he listened to her tales of love (budding crushes were taking over recess time), loss (the class pet— a stuffed zebra— had accidentally taken a swim in the Atlantic on a vacation to Florida), and lessons learned…

“So, in case there was ever any doubt, we are now painfully aware that we shouldn’t attempt to flush our underwear.” Y/N let out an exasperated laugh.

She’d been talking to him for fifty three minutes, and his heart already felt one thousand times lighter. “I’m really glad I wasn’t there for that one.”

“I really wish that was the only poop story I had.” She shook her head. “There are a lot of things they don’t tell you in grad school. I think there’d be a global teacher shortage if they warned you about the amount of bodily fluid management involved in teaching kindergarten.”

She toyed with the edge of her empty mug. He watched the movement of her fingers.

“Do you—”

She laughed and gestured for him to speak first.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

…

They ended up in Mitchell Park. The trees were bare and the grass was brown, but he was with her, and so it was beautiful.

They’d been walking in comfortable silence, when she asked, “Did you change your mind? About talking about it.”

Spencer put his hands into his pockets. “It’s, um— it’s kind of a lot.”

She shrugged. “I’ve got time.”

“I don’t mean— I mean, it would take some time to get through it all. But it’s also— it’s a lot.”

“We don’t have to.” He could feel her eyes on him. “Do you talk to— someone about it?”

“I talked with my unit chief today,” he answered.

“Okay. But— I mean, have you ever— talked to someone. Like, a professional.”

Spencer bristled slightly. Although he knew she wasn’t passing judgement, her question exposed the reality that she thought he could use it. “I’ve had some mandated counseling over the years.”

“Obviously it’s your choice whether you talk to someone or not,” she mused. “I just— I know that I’ve benefited a lot from seeing my therapist.”

Spencer was unsure of what to do with that information. Here she was, confessing that she went to therapy— sweet, lovely Y/N. In comparison, he wasn’t sure if even daily meetings with a counselor would be enough to tame the darkness that had grown and festered inside him over the years. That sometimes threatened to swallow him whole.

For a long while, there was only the crunch of the frozen ground beneath their feet. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but there was an uncertainty about them that felt uncharacteristically heavy. He was hyper aware of her presence, and so he felt her pace slowing down before she came to a complete stop. He walked a few more paces before it became clear that she wasn’t planning to catch up.

He turned and saw that she’d taken a seat on one of the park benches. He carefully made his way to the bench, sitting beside her quietly. She didn’t look at him, but instead studied her fingernails intently. She cracked her knuckles once, twice, and then turned her body slightly toward him on the bench.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped,” she hedged carefully. “I didn’t mean to tell you what to do, or like, imply that there’s anything wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with you at all. I just—”

“It’s fine,” Spencer assured her. The way she looked at him then— like he was something fragile, delicate— made his eyes burn. He kept his voice even. “I know what you meant.”

She smiled, eyes crinkling and filled with something that felt familiar and far away all at once. “Good. I can’t have you out here thinking you’re anything less than wonderful.”

He couldn’t stop looking at her, attempting to solve the impossible cypher behind her irises. As he failed to decode it, his inability to read her blinded him to what came next. He missed the dilation of her pupils, the way her tongue darted out to wet her lips, the increase of the beats in her carotid. So when she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his, he was momentarily paralyzed.

Her lips were so soft against his slightly chapped ones, pressing with a perfectly gentle pressure. She brought her hand up to cradle his cheek, the pads of her fingers just barely ghosting the curls falling around his ear. She sighed into his mouth and pressed a little closer. He took one peaceful moment to bask in the realization of a desire he’d had for almost four months.

And then she swiped the very tentative tip of her tongue against the seam of his mouth, and his hands involuntarily wound into her hair, dragging her closer. He opened his mouth against hers to swallow her sweet little gasp. His grip on her hair tightened, and she let out the tiniest mewl, and like a switch had flipped— suddenly his mind was full of the darkness she’d spent the evening chasing away.

Y/N beneath him in the dark. Maeve in a pool of blood. His hands around Cat’s neck. His mother’s slap against his cheek. Max walking away from him. His fingers pressing the plunger on a dirty syringe. The slam of the door behind his father. Y/N calling out his name. A knife at his throat under a canopy of bones. Innumerable sets of lifeless eyes staring up at him. His life being snuffed out on the dirt floor of a shed. The clanging of metal bars and fingers ghosting over old bruises. Y/N looking at him with warm, loving eyes. The violent crack of bone underneath his fists. Y/N’s face, lovely and perfect— and then twisted in pain.

He broke away from her, releasing his hold on her hair and pushing her back into the bench. He took a second to gather himself before he dared to look at her. Her hair was tousled from his rough grip; her eyes were half-lidded and focused on him; her lips were red and kiss-bruised and turned up in a small, sweet smile.

And all at once he knew he had to hurt her, and it had to be now. Because what Cat had said about him was true. He might have escaped his mother’s illness, but he hadn’t been able to outrun the violence— and unlike her, he didn’t have the excuse of being sick. He had hurt people, and he had enjoyed it. He would have killed Hurley, and he would have slept soundly. He was no better than the men his team hunted.

Every time he thought he’d moved past it, that wickedness lurking just under the surface would grab him by the throat, choking everything else out. Emily’s directive rang in his ears. Find that Reid and bring him back to us. He knew who she was talking about. The problem was, he wasn’t sure that person still existed.

He was going to hurt Y/N eventually. Better to do it now, before things got too far.

“You’re Michael’s teacher,” he said, as evenly as possible.

Her smile faltered, and she pressed her lips together. He could still feel the phantom press of them against his own, and he was sure he’d never forget it. She cleared her throat. “You’re right, you’re totally right. I, um— I won’t be in a few months, and maybe then—”

“You don’t even know me,” he interrupted.

Now there was confusion in her eyes. That much he could read. She huffed out a small laugh. “I— I don’t think that’s entirely true.”

He looked directly at her. “Why? Because you read my bio on a university website? Because we got tea a couple times?” His voice sounded harsh, patronizing, and he hated it.

Her confusion shifted into shock, and he ignored the tug on his heart. “Are you serious?” she questioned, genuinely searching for a sign that he was joking.

“Dead serious.” He shrugged, and it felt like his bones were breaking. “You don’t really know anything about me, Y/N. If you did, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

“Where— where is this coming from?” Her voice was small, close to breaking. He lined up the last nail on the lid of the coffin.

“Maybe I gave you the wrong impression. I’ve appreciated talking to you. Volunteering in your classroom was entertaining. But I don’t— I don’t see you that way.” It was a lie, and if he didn’t have such a practiced poker face, she might have seen through it. As it was, his poker face had helped get him banned from every casino in Vegas, so he watched her as he hammered the final nail. “You’re just Michael’s kindergarten teacher.”

“Oh.” The hurt flashed across her features— the furrow of her brow, the tightening of her mouth, the storm clouds in her eyes. “Well, I— I really read this wrong, huh?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Yeah.” He put his hands into his pockets to keep himself from reaching for her, the desire to comfort her a strange juxtaposition to the pain he was intentionally inflicting on her. “I guess so.”

She opened and closed her mouth twice before taking a deep breath and nearly whispering, “Okay. Well. I’m— I’m gonna go.”

She brushed some imaginary dust from her pants and then stood. She turned to him, and he waited for her to explode— to scream and curse at him. But it didn’t come. She didn’t look at him at all. “Um— yeah. I’m gonna go.”

He didn’t say anything, and he knew she’d take his silence as indifference. But he had to keep his mouth shut, because if he didn’t, he’d beg her to stay. He’d tell her every single random piece of information he had stored in his brain. He’d tell her that he loved her from the moment he watched her help a child pick a solution from a pencil box. He’d tell her that he only ever dreamt of two things these days— her or the lives he didn’t save. He’d tell her every single one of his deepest, darkest secrets. He’d tell her that sometimes he was so afraid of himself that he could barely breathe. And if he told her all of that, she’d walk away anyway.

So instead, he watched her turn and start back up the path, hugging her arms around herself and swiping her cheek against her scarf.

When she disappeared over the slope of the path, he scrubbed his hands over his own damp face and let himself break.

———

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mandoalorian · 4 years ago

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Happiness [Maxwell Lorenzano x f!Reader]

Author’s note: Please heed warnings before you read. This is angst. There’s a little fluff and a few spicy moments, but at its core, this is a pretty angsty read. It’s a different interpretation of Maxwell, post WW84. Reblogs are so appreciated. I worked really hard on this and it’s not showing up in tags so if you could reblog it... it would literally mean the world to me :( <3

Summary: After the dreamstone debacle, Maxwell Lord loses custody of his son, his home, his job and all his wealth. He has nothing, and what was once the simple task of ‘living’, is suddenly proving to be extremely difficult. Until a beacon of light enters his life. He can only hope that you don’t find out who he really is.

Word count: 4000+

Rating: 18+

Warnings: depression/suicidal thoughts, PSTD/trauma implications, poverty, starvation, binge eating, allusions to sex, male masturbation, food and drink mention.

Masterlist

Max is usually pretty good at keeping himself to himself, but when he hears the commotion from outside his small shanty apartment, he cautiously stalks towards the front door and leans into the wood, gazing out the peephole. He spots you, struggling to unlock the door located on the far side of the hall. Your arms are filled with brown paper bags and an abundance of cardboard boxes circle around your feet. He hears you curse as you drop one of the paper bags. It rips, and groceries spill onto the floor with a clatter. He swallows thickly, feeling his tummy grumble at the sight of fresh fruit and colourful veg. Max hadn’t eaten a single meal this week.

He spends a few more seconds watching you struggle, before the guilt swarms over him and he feels like a creep. He does wonder if he should leave his apartment and help you out though, but eventually he decides on turning his heel and walks back to the torn leather sofa. He just knows he’ll be some kind of intrusion on you. If Max has learned one thing, it’s that he needs to stay away from other people. Otherwise, he’d just hurt them. Even if hurting them was the last thing he intended to do.

Still, he finds himself marvelling over you. He wants to go over and introduce himself. He thinks you’re absolutely stunning. Maybe it’s just because he hasn’t seen a woman (other than his ex-wife) in just short of a year, or maybe it’s something more genuine -- like the way you wear your hair or that glimmer in your eye. Once upon a time, Maxwell would’ve strolled on over to your apartment with the utmost confidence and charm, with the sole intention of winning you over and taking you back to his place. He wouldn’t dare do that now.

He stares at the wall clock, and watches as the minute leg ticks. It’s painfully slow. It’s 5:52pm, and Maxwell is just waiting until 6pm, because he knows at 6pm he can call his son, Alistair. If he tries calling a second earlier though, he is certain his ex-wife will throw a rage, claiming that he’s breaking court order. Maxwell had never been one to follow rules, but now, he didn’t have much of a choice. As he waits for the leg to strike 6, all he can really do is think about you. Truth be told, he hates that he’s thinking about you this much. He doesn't even know you.

But you’re so pretty. Your features are soft and delicate. Your clothes fit you perfectly and hug your body in all the right places. He can’t help but think what you sound like. He wonders if you’re from around here. He wonders why you moved into this particular neighbourhood, out of all the other neighbourhoods in rural D.C. He should go over and say hello at least. It would be the polite thing to do. He considers bringing over a bottle of wine to make a peace offering, but then he remembers all he has in his refrigerator is a stick of butter and a bottle of milk that has grown old and fermented. He assumes that you probably wouldn’t care for such housewarming gifts.

Maxwell calls Alistair as soon as the clock turns six. As always, Alistair is more than excited to speak to his dad, beaming brightly down the line. Alistair tells Maxwell about his step-father, and how he’d built a pool in their back garden for Ali and his mom. Max’s lips curl into a frown when he realises that his ex’s new husband is giving Alistair everything Max couldn’t. And once again, Maxwell feels like he has failed as a father.

For a short while, Alistair babbles about his day at school and how he got full marks on a pop quiz. Maxwell is as proud as punch. He has no doubt that success will one day find Alistair, he just hopes Alistair has an easier time handling it. Max can hear a faint yelling in the background of the phone call and eventually Alistair is interrupted.

“Oh-- mommy is calling me to eat dinner.” Alistair says softly, his voice suddenly growing oddly timid. Max’s stomach grumbles again at the mention of dinner.

“But we still have ten minutes left of our phone call.” Max replies matter-of-factly. He hopes Alistair can’t hear the disappointment in his voice. This isn’t his fault. He hears his ex yell again and Max can’t help but feel his face harden with disdain.

“I know, I’m sorry daddy, but I have to go.” The croak in Alistair’s voice is enough to break Maxwell’s heart. He wishes this could’ve been different. It should’ve been different.

Max knows he can’t argue though. It’s only futile. So he accepts the fact that Alistair has to leave the phone call early -- at least he was getting something to eat. Maxwell remembers when he was Alistair’s age. His mom always struggled to put food on the table because his dad would spend all the money on drinks at the local bar. Maxwell is just grateful his son isn’t starving.

“Okay, it’s okay,” Maxwell reassures before taking a shaky exhale. “I love y--”

But then, the line went dead. Max assumes that Alistair’s mom has ripped the phone from his hand and hung up. Sighing, Maxwell forces himself to stand up and walk on over to his bedroom. The bed is unmade and there are several piles of dirty laundry all over the floor. He jams open the sticky window and climbs onto the balcony, inhaling the cool evening air and lighting a cigarette. Smoking was a habit he’d gotten himself into when he was much younger, but he’d grown out of it when he’d hit limelight. Now though, it was growing back in to be a shameful addiction that he just couldn’t shake. It helped him stop feeling hunger, though.

As he flicks the orange lit ash over the edge of the balcony, his eyes catch on you again. You are standing on the street, talking to some guy. You’re laughing, and it looks like this mystery man’s hand is caressing your arm. It’s probably your boyfriend; Maxwell assumes, and the pang of jealousy in his chest turns into unadulterated sadness as he realises he was probably never going to find love again. He peers over the edge of the balcony once more as he takes a final drag of the cigarette, and he wonders if the jump would kill him.

Maxwell’s eyes begin to sting, and he climbs back into his bedroom, knocking his head on the window pane in the process.

He can’t sleep that night, and he tosses and turns in his three quarter sized bed. He could feel every spring in his mattress. What he would give to just sleep one more night in the soft, plush king sized bed he used to take for granted. He switched on his amber tinged bedside lamp and swatted away a moth that flew towards it. Maxwell stared at the ceiling and wondered if the damp had gotten worse. Even if it had, it wasn’t like Max had the courage to bring it up with the landlord.

He finds himself thinking about you again. He lived to see the way you smiled when you spoke to that guy, or the way your hair blew ever so slightly in the evening breeze. Max wraps his hand around his semi-hard cock and begins to jerk himself off. To nobody’s surprise though, he doesn’t finish -- the overwhelming feeling of revolt consuming him. He thinks he’s disgusting, and that nobody would ever want to touch him. He can’t even stand touching himself.

He falls asleep not long after that.

Max once had a pretty decent sleep schedule, going to bed at 10 and waking up at 6. But now he was up until the early hours of the morning, overthinking and hating himself. He wakes up three or four times a night from the same recurring nightmare. It’s a replay from the clear night of July ‘84, when he took over everyone’s TV screens. His doctor prescribed him therapy for it, which would probably help, but Maxwell just can’t afford it.

He wakes up to the sound of a bang on his front door. Max scrambles to his feet in a panic, checking the time on his alarm clock. It’s 2pm. And the person at the door could easily be his landlord, finally having enough and kicking him out. Max’s rent is two months overdue.

But it’s not his unforgiving landlord. It’s you. And you’re holding a fruit basket.

“Hey neighbour!” you smile pleasantly before introducing yourself to him. “I just moved in across the hall. I wasn’t sure what you’d like… but I figured everyone likes fruit!”

Maxwell stays quiet, standing there in complete disbelief. No one has shown him this amount of kindness in so long…

The prolonged silence makes you feel a little strange. He still hasn’t accepted the fruit basket, nor had he said anything. He was just… staring at you. It wasn’t a slimy gawk. You couldn’t quite put your finger on what his dark eyes were trying to tell you.

“—I’m sorry,” you continue eventually when he doesn’t speak, dropping the fruit basket by your side and turning away. “I uh— would you like me to get you something else?”

Maxwell’s eyes widen and he quickly shakes his head. “No!” he exclaims, opening his front door wider and taking the fruit basket from you. “I’m sorry,” he apologises. “I uh— I love fruit.”

You smile at his fluster, and you swear you notice a rosy pink blush cross his cheeks. It’s adorable.

“Oh okay, that’s good then.”

Maxwell prays you can’t hear his stomach grumble at the sight of the fresh fruit. He’s so excited to eat it all. “How can I repay you?”

You raise your eyebrows at his proposition and chuckle awkwardly. “Repay me? No no,” you laugh. “It’s just a fruit basket,”

It wasn’t just a fruit basket though. It was the only food Max had.

“I mean, you could tell me your name.”

Maxwell curses, realising he hasn’t even introduced himself. Gods— he wonders when exactly he’d lost his charm.

“Right, I’m sorry. I’m Max.” He extends his arm and offers you a handshake. You giggle, but accept.

He feels a bolt of electricity run up his arm when your fingers interlink with his, and he wonders if you can feel it too.

“Very formal Max,” you acknowledge with a smile.

Maxwell genuinely hasn’t communicated with anyone since July 1984. It’s probably about time he ditches the businessman persona, although he doesn’t realise he still uses it from time to time. Old habits die hard.

“I must say, I feel like I recognise you from somewhere.”

“No. You don’t.” Maxwell quickly snaps back and you’re afraid you struck a nerve.

There’s a longer silence and you find yourself wondering about your neighbour. He’s right in front of you and yet you can’t help but feel as though he’s some kind of enigma. Maybe it’s the crinkles in the corner of his eyes or his wry smile.

“Um…” you mumble, your gaze trailing behind him as you try and peer into his apartment. You can’t see much though. From where you stand it looks very empty… and brown. “If you weren’t busy tonight maybe you could come over and we could get to know each other. I uh-- don’t have many friends yet.” you explain shyly, nervously biting your lip.

You didn’t usually get nervous talking to new people, but there was just something about Maxwell that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. His presence made butterflies flutter in your tummy and your hands feel clammy with excitement… or maybe anticipation. He stares at you blankly before clearing his throat.

“I uh-- yeah I mean-- maybe,” Maxwell shrugs cooly. “If I’m not busy.”

Pft, busy. Max hasn’t been busy since the dreamstone debacle.

“Of course,” you nod your head and smile. “Well, you’re welcome to come on over anytime.”

And then, without thinking, Maxwell replies. “And you’re welcome to come over here anytime too.”

You feel your smile grow into a grin and you reach out, placing your hand on Max’s arm. “Okay, well, it was nice meeting you.” you bite your lip.

Max’s heart stops when you touch him, and for the first time, he doesn’t flinch away. You’re holding his bicep and… he likes it. It’s not sending him into a spur of anxiety, in fact, he feels better just for finally plucking the courage to talk to you. And now you’re touching him. You’re not repulsed or disgusted… in fact, you’re smiling. You look happy, and maybe Max is happy too. Maybe. Max doesn’t even realise the small smile that’s crept upon his lips.

“Nice meeting you too.” He swallows and you wave goodbye.

He watches you walk back into your apartment, drinking in your appearance. You were wearing jeans and a sweatshirt today. It was casual… but he liked it.

Even when he finally gets back into his apartment and slumps against his front door, he’s still smiling. This feeling is so unfamiliar.

Maxwell finds himself pondering whether or not he should visit you tonight. He so desperately wanted to see you again-- see your pretty face and sparkling eyes and that perfect smile. Maybe Max could have a friend. That would be nice.

But he quickly gets scared again. He knows immediately that you’re too good for him, and that he’ll only end up hurting you. And then he’ll be left alone again. Max doesn’t know if he can survive another heartbreak.

Once again, he lights a cigarette and sits on the balcony, and wonders if the jump will kill him.

Then he realises he suddenly doesn’t want to die. At least, not yet. He wants to see you again first.

Max doesn’t even bother finishing the cigarette. He taps away the ash and climbs back inside, stripping himself of his clothes and turning on the shower. If he was going to see you tonight, he’d at least make the effort.

The soap he uses is from Dollar Tree, and it doesn’t really have a scent. It made a change from his favourite Jo Malone pomegranate fragranced soap, that’s for sure. He gets annoyed trying to squirt out the very little remenints of his shampoo bottle. Although he doesn’t have much, he’s satisfied when he comes out of the shower. He feels clean and fresh.

Maxwell rakes through his tiny collapsing wardrobe, trying to find an outfit that will make him appear somewhat presentable. He’s probably overthinking this whole thing -- after all, it isn’t exactly a date. But he still feels the strong inclination to impress you. He so desperately wants to be liked by you.

Most of his everyday wear is stained or ripped or very aged. But then he spots the small duffel bag at the bottom of his closet and he remembers he packed some of his old business wear when he moved out of his manor and into this apartment. He hadn’t looked in the duffel bag once since moving though, afraid that seeing the clothes would unleash some kind of trauma on him.

Max crosses his legs and hesitantly unzips the black bag. Inside, he finds a few fitted shirts, a few tailored pants, and one suit jacket. He even spots a belt and two patterned ties. He’s a little upset though when he can’t find the suspenders he used to wear. They were always his favourite part of his outfit.

Maxwell can’t bring himself to dress in the whole get up, but he does pick out a white button down shirt and grey pants. He tucks the shirt in, and wraps the belt through the loops in his pants, clicking it into place. Opting to look slightly more casual, Max leaves the first two buttons of his shirt undone and rolls the sleeves up to his elbows.

And for the first time in a long time, Max likes the way he looks. He wishes he had some cologne to spray, and he could definitely do with a haircut, but this is good enough.

He doesn’t want to seem desperate, so he does wait (albeit impatiently) until 8:30pm to see you. In the meantime, he eats over half of the fruit basket. He tells himself he’ll stop after an apple and an orange, but strangely enough. He can’t. He can’t stop. It just tastes so good and he’s so hungry -- so he eats until he feels sick. He wants to lie down because he really doesn’t feel too good at all, but he’s not going to pass up this opportunity to see you for anything. He feels a little cold, so he throws on his suit jacket which is grey in colour and matches the tailored pants. Max chokes down a glass of water, straightens up his posture, and knocks on your door.

He’s not waiting for long, and he’s delighted when he sees you answer the door. Your lips are painted a ruby red colour and you’re wearing your hair differently. Not only that, but you’d changed out of your sweater and jeans, and now you’re doting a knee length flowy dress. Your feet are slipped into some fuzzy looking slippers though, and Max admires the small diamond stud earrings that you don. They really bring out the colour of your eyes.

“I was hoping you’d come.” you reveal nervously, opening the door wider and looking your neighbour up and down. He looks so incredibly handsome in his change of outfit. Max feels himself blush under your gaze and he smiles.

“I just couldn’t pass this up.” he laughs nervously.

You move out the way and gesture for him to enter your apartment. Max notes that it’s roughly the same size as his, but it’s already filled with more furniture. Judging from the plentiful cardboard boxes in every corner, you hadn’t finished unpacking either. You find yourself watching Max as he takes in your front room. You take his jacket and hang it on your coat peg which stands by your front door. You definitely do recognise him from somewhere, especially seeing him in that shirt and those pants…

You shrug off your curiosity temporarily though, and take his hand, pulling him into your kitchen. Max loves the way your hand fits so perfectly into his. He doesn’t want you to pull away. And you don’t, until you reach the refrigerator.

“I have cranberry juice, tea, coffee-- no milk though, uh…” you trail off and check the cupboards. You beam when you see the bottle of champagne that your friend had gifted you. It was to celebrate moving out. You present him with it and grin. “Would you care to have a glass with me?”

Max remembers the distinct taste of the bubbles on his lips and he nods in agreement. You don’t have any fancy glasses, let alone flutes, so you pour the pale yellow liquid into two plastic tumblers. You hand one to Max and cradle your own in both of your hands.

“You should propose a toast.” you laugh jokingly.

Luckily, Maxwell has always been able to handle being put on the spot. He only takes a few seconds to come up with something.

“To new friends.” he announces with a charming smile, and clinks his cup against yours.

Max hasn’t had a drink in a long time, so it doesn’t take long for it to reside in his system and he begins to feel a bit tipsy. It’s not bad though. Maxwell is relaxed, and he’s comfortable. You bounce off each other and make each other laugh right up until the early hours of the morning. You bring out Monopoly and you’re surprised at how good he is at it. He gives you advice on buying properties and investments and it truly sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. You wonder what he does for a living.

“I didn’t say this earlier,” Max says as you pour out the last of the champagne. The alcohol has him buzzing with confidence. “But you look breathtaking, really. That dress and those earrings and your lips…”

And you don’t know what it is, but Max just makes you feel so good. “My lips?” you repeat breathlessly, gazing into his honeyed brown eyes.

Max nods wordlessly when you climb into his lap and straddle his hips. You place the palms of your hands flat against his chest and nudge your nose against his, giggling playfully. Max feels scared -- he’d never been this close to anyone in so long, let alone a beautiful woman like yourself.

Gods, he’s so handsome too. A small piece of his hair has fallen out of place and it crosses his forehead. You’re quick to brush it out of his face with your finger, and one of your hands cup his cheek. He closes his eyes and leans into the warmth of your touch, humming in contentment. When he opens his eyes again, they’re noticeably shades darker.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks, his voice low like it had dropped a few octaves.

You nod desperately and your lips crash against his.

You don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the adrenaline but he’s an amazing kisser -- perhaps the best you’ve ever had. You roll your hips over his lap and he moans, but doesn’t break the kiss once. His large hands roam around your back and squeeze at the soft flesh of your thighs. The Monopoly game has been long discarded now, leaving only you and Max revelling in each other’s touch.

You want more. You want him. You dip your hand in between your bodies and find his belt, trying your best to undo the buckle so you can get him out of his pants. You’re certain you can feel his erection pressing against the inside of your thigh, and you’d be right in thinking he wants this too.

But what he wants the most, is to not ruin things between you both, and Max feels like that maybe this is all happening a bit too fast. He doesn’t want to reject you, and he’s afraid of hurting you, but he’s also afraid of you getting so close to him -- that you find out who he truly is, and the things he does. He doesn’t want to lose you because you make him feel so happy. For the first time in potentially years, Maxwell feels genuine happiness. He doesn’t want to fuck up, not when he’s been doing so well.

So he pulls away from you breathlessly and moves your hands away from him. He holds them though, brushing his thumbs in comforting circles against your soft skin.

“I really like you,” he smiles. “And tonight has been… great. You have no idea how much I’ve enjoyed myself. But I-- I really want to see you again. And do this again. And have a good time with you. I just don’t think we should-- you know--” Maxwell tries to explain. He feels bad for rejecting you. “It’s not that I don’t want to. Because trust me,” he sighs, closing his brown eyes. “I really really do. But--”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” you smile, fiddling with the collar of his shirt. “I understand, and honestly, I think you’re probably right. I’ve had a good time too though.”

Maxwell can’t help but beam knowing that there’s no hard feelings between you both.

“So we can do this again?” he asks hopefully.

“Yes.” you reply, pressing a chaste yet sweet kiss to his lips.

You wiggle off his lap and Maxwell stands up. “I should head back home then,” he says. “It’s late. But maybe we can do something tomorrow?”

“I’d like that a lot.” you agree.

Max gives you one final kiss and part of you wants to ask him if he’d be willing to stay the night. You shake away the temptation and tell yourself there’d be plenty more opportunities for him to stay over. Before he leaves, you see him abruptly spin around on his heel and point his index finger towards you.

And your heart drops.

You freeze.

You think you can feel your blood run cold and the colour drain out of your face.

Because in that moment, when he points his finger at you, you recognise him.

You remember him.

You know who he is.

“I almost forgot my jacket.” Max laughs, sliding past you.

You feel like you can’t move though.

This was the man who single handedly almost destroyed the entire planet.

But how -- how could it be Maxwell Lord? He was so sweet and kind and funny. How could the man you just made out with, the man you shared a bottle of champagne with -- your own neighbour…

How could it be Maxwell Lord?

How hadn’t you noticed sooner. Hell, his name was literally Max Lorenzano.

“Goodnight.” Max tells you.

You try and force yourself to say it back but no words come out. Your throat feels dry and you’re panicking.

Max doesn’t even notice though. He’s too busy beaming with happiness when he leaves.

You aren’t sure if you’re going to see him again.

When Maxwell gets back home, he can’t rid himself of the grin that’s plastered across his lips. He sits out on the balcony and lights a cigarette, but this time, when he looks at the ground beneath you, he doesn’t wonder if the jump will kill him.

His eyebrows furrow together when he notices the florist across the road, and he wonders how much a bouquet of flowers will cost him. He wants to get you something; as a thank you for giving him a good time.

He simply can’t wait to see you again.

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