#women suddenly taking to the seas en masse

[namisweatheria]

@laurenbudoren #this this this this #it's why it's so hard to genderbend nami in my opinion

THAT'S WHAT INSPIRED ME TO WRITE THIS POST, LOL. The original intro was like "I love Girl Piece and reinterpreting characters in ways that explore their relationships to gender and expression, and the world and people around them, but-"

To me there just is no Boy Nami. There just isn't! You can't do it! Well I mean you could absolutely do trans boy Nami who still cares deeply about misogyny and girls and doesn't see his gender as something that separates him from his experiences of misogyny and girlhood, you could do that. And it could be pretty cool. But a cis boy? No way no how.

One Piece is pretty tough series to do a total genderbend with in the first place because of how wide-reaching the story is and how fleshed out the world is, and how misogyny and gender norms seem to function the exact same. I think if you just genderbent the youngest generation, that could work, but you'd also have to explain somehow the way that Pirating became a female-dominated profession basically overnight.

I do think that Womanhood and Girlhood play a significant role in the characterization of basically every main female character, which is at times a sexist caricature and other times a thoughtful portrayal of the behavioral consequences of being a woman or girl in a patriarchal world. The way Oda skips around between deeply offensive and strikingly resonant is old news but I really never get over it. So baffling. So frustrating. Unfortunately, sometimes, really funny.

Anyways, genderbends can be really fun exercises but I feel like there's soooo much to explore gender-wise in canon already. Every member of the East Blue crew has a very interesting relationship with gender!!

I feel like we don't discuss Nami's relationship with gender enough. Her entire character is so deeply informed by being a girl in a male-dominated pirate world and it's so interesting and so worth talking about.

The background creepiness of Bad pirate crews, which are most of them, how they tend to not have any female crew members at all, how they beckon any pretty young woman around to come play with them and join them. It's real bad. It's also like, a totally 2 dimensional portrayal of evil that is reserved for the most background of background characters.

However I think their ubiquity says a lot about how piracy is meant to be perceived by the public in One Piece, and is one of the strongest indicators of how prevalent misogyny is in-world.

It's very normal in One Piece for regular island inhabitants to have never met a Different class of pirate in their life. There's no reason for them to withhold judgement that maybe these pirates won't be like every crew that attacked before, and to wait and judge them by their actions. I mean frankly that would be irrationally weak self-preservation.

There are people who live peacefully under the flags of Yonkos who protect them, and feel loyalty and gratitude to them for it, but that seems to only be thing with very big name pirates. The East Blue, being the weakest and least populated, has no such plethora of powerful people and resulting turf wars.

So. Nami. Is very clearly implied to have never met any Different pirates before. I'm thinking about what that means. About how every group of pirates she stole from were creepy, dangerous men. How she started going out stealing when she was still a young child. How she didn't have a mother anymore to guide her or comfort her. How Arlong would grab her chin inappropriately, talk about her as a "human female", as property, and god knows what else.

How all the men in Arlong's crew treated her patronizingly, pretending they're all friends, teasing her and playing at respect when really not a single one of them ever stuck up for her or hesitated to accuse her of betrayal. Who were always ready to kill her if she refused to cooperate. Who grabbed her and intimidated her when they felt like it.

That's what she had to come back to after a close call with stealing from other predatory men, instead of the relief of home there was a dark, cramped room filled with endless hours of misery and isolation and blood. Where any one of her captors could barge in and demand new maps, work faster, where did you go, you took too long again this time. Endless threats and incursions.

I'm thinking about that her fight scene in Alabasta, where she tumbles and rips off her cape and uses it to catch her enemy's spikes, before leaping to her feet and running out the back door, all in one moment. How it makes her enemy reconsider her and think, "so the girl's not a total novice at fighting after all." What that implies about her experiences as a young thief. The times she wasn't fast or clever enough and had to fight and claw her way out. Why she always carried a staff and a knife. Why she was the only one before Chopper who had any medical knowledge or experience.

You know she was stitching herself up. And the weapons, how do you think she learned to use those? If any of the Arlong Pirates helped her it wasn't out of kindness and it wasn't gentle.

Then I think about Nojiko, and Bellemere's memory, and the only softness in a hard life. How easily Nami connects to every young woman experiencing hardship that she meets. How completely she dismisses the struggles of men unless they mean something to her and are going through something terrible. The way that Nami only has sympathy for women and children is easily noticeable in-text, but it's also something confirmed in those words by the author. And it's clearly because of the life she lived, the men who had all the power and only abused it, who saw her as nothing but a girl to take advantage of, without anyone aside from her sister clearly knowing and caring about any of it.

Nami clearly isn't bitter, she doesn't think the world owes her recompense, on the contrary she knows she is far from the only person in the world to suffer the things she has suffered. She is endlessly reaching out and kind, but only to those that she isn't sure would get help without her. Certainly, before Luffy, Usopp, and Zoro, no man ever reached out a hand to her without an ulterior motive.

I think when she sees a girl in trouble, a girl biting her lip to hold in a scream of grief, a girl running in the woods away from a monster, a girl captured by pirates, she sees someone who no one is coming for. Who no one will stick up for. A person without allies in world against her. Whether it's actually true in this case or not, she runs straight for that girl anyways every single time.

[maggiec70]

The Fictional Take on Jean-Claude

As I've said before, fiction often presents the opportunity to write really nest things and in an engaging way that non-fiction, especially the historical type, rarely allows. So here is yet another scene from the Longest-Running WIP, this one about Jean-Claude, and what Jean-Boy thinks of this entire mess for which he was responsible:

Mariana sat opposite Jean in a small paneled study tucked away at the rear of the house. The two south-facing windows stood open, midmorning sunlight falling across the country pine table, a faint breeze stirring the edges of papers spread out in front of him. While she went to Mass, Jean spent his Sunday mornings with account books and other documents. She knew how little his extravagant properties in Paris and Saint-Germain-en-Laye meant to him, and he cared nothing about their management. He’d bought them both at Louise’s insistence and the emperor’s decree, as he’d often reminded her. Yet his acres, vineyards, farms, and other properties here mattered very much. She had felt his deep-rooted attachment from the first day she’d come to Lectoure and walked into this house. For a long, peaceful moment broken only by the scratching of his pen and a dove cooing on the window ledge, she pictured Louise living luxuriously in Paris. In contrast, she and Jean lived here in simple bucolic harmony. A perfect dream—she and the seigneur of this lovely hill town, the lord of a small realm who didn’t care if he got dirt on his hands and his breeches and who could—and did—pick grapes with the best of his tenant farmers.

“I waited for you before having coffee,” Jean said, and her sweet fantasy popped like champagne bubbles. “How was Mass?”

“Spiritually refreshing, as always. You should go,” Mariana replied and rose to fetch the coffee. She returned a few moments later and set a tray on one end of the table, away from the inkpot and the account books. “I saw a young boy, perhaps a year or two older than Augie, after Mass,” she said, pouring the coffee from an earthenware pot and sliding a cup over to Jean. “He must live in that house across from the cathedral, the one with the three iron balls over the gate. He was playing with an enormous fluffy white dog in the courtyard.”

Jean set his cup aside, untouched, and gazed out the window. His face was suddenly as featureless as a frozen plain scoured by a cruel winter wind. “Nothing unusual about that. There are plenty of children from one end of town to the other. Plenty of dogs, too.” He spoke to the windows, not to her, and his tone was flat.

Mariana swallowed half her coffee and leaned forward, the cup cradled in her hands. “This boy looked so much like you that I stopped where I was and stared at him. He saw me and grinned back, as you sometimes do, with a little wave more like a salute. Who is he? Do you know him?”

Jean stood in a single fluid motion and strode to the windows, his back to her. The silence spun out, no longer peaceful but heavy with something she couldn’t identify. Dread, perhaps, or anger, even fear. She could almost see a dark aura settle around him despite the bright summer sun, and leaned back in her chair, coffee forgotten, everything forgotten. He turned from the windows and crossed to the door, shutting it so hard with his fist that the wood rattled in its solid frame. Dragging a chair around, he sat opposite her, very close, almost touching. She didn’t move, waiting for whatever he chose to tell her, the chill of unease growing in her breast.

“We won’t speak of this again, ever. Do you understand?”

She gazed back at him. The blank expression and flat, unemotional tone had gone. Now his eyes were dark, as stormy as the Irish Sea when she had crossed it eight years ago. The lines on his face cut deep and stark, his voice harsh. Suddenly she wanted her coffee, but the cup was out of reach, and she dared not move.

“I understand.” Her voice was no more than a dry whisper, the best she could manage.

“I told you once that Polette, my first wife, was a flirt and liked anyone in a uniform. Do you remember?”

“I remember.”

“She married me because of my rank, the amount of gold braid on my uniform, and because I told her a good story. She told good stories too, and so did her mother, as it turned out. Afterward, all Polette wanted was money, status, and a big house, the biggest in town. Our marriage was already in ruins when I met you. I told you that, but not in any detail. It didn’t improve later that summer, when she insisted on coming to Lombardy—” Her gasp interrupted him, but only for a second or so. “She got nothing from me then, Mariana, other than some jewelry and a gown or two to wear to Bonaparte’s festivities at Mombello. Nothing—do you understand that?”

When she nodded, past the ability to speak, he continued. “It ended in Egypt, or rather because of the Egyptian campaign. We didn’t get much news in the desert, but we got enough. Some member of Bonaparte’s family cheerfully wrote him of his wife’s presumed infidelity, and my brother Bernard wrote me that Polette had given birth. Bernard was cagy about the date, but he swore it wasn’t my child, that she’d been carrying on with someone even before I’d left. Several nights later, Bonaparte drank too much wine—he rarely did, then or now—and told me women were worthless, faithless sluts, and we both would do well to cut ourselves loose the moment we returned to France.”

Jean glanced away from her to the earthenware pot beside their abandoned cups, and reached for it. He poured quickly, his hand steady, and slid her cup toward her. He did not touch his. “This isn’t Bonaparte’s story, though. It’s mine. By the time I reached Toulon in October, I was outraged, and I hated Polette, truly despised her. I’d gotten another letter from Bernard, this one telling me my mother had died. He wrote that she’d been distraught over the erroneous report that I’d been killed at Saint-Jean d’Acre, and very upset with Polette’s behavior. So I went straight to Paris with Bonaparte and left the matter of the divorce to Bernard and Dominique Montbrun, an attorney here I’d known all my life. Montbrun was a snake, utterly ruthless and doubtless unethical, but he succeeded, and that’s all I cared about. He beat Polette down at every turn, playing on her naiveté, producing witnesses who swore they’d seen her at one time or another with every male in town over the age of sixteen. No one would believe a thing she said, even when she fought back and told the truth.”

He stopped and picked up his cup, draining it in two quick gulps. Mariana was surprised he didn’t choke. When he set the empty cup down, his hand shook badly. She didn’t move and didn’t speak. It was not the time to say anything. That much was evident in his eyes, still stormy, but something else hovered there too, something she didn’t recognize. Hands clasped in her lap, tighter now, she waited for him to tell her the rest of what was already a sordid story.

“I divorced her for adultery. That was easy, and I never regretted it for a moment. I still don’t, although I often wonder if the divorce was even legal. But I never took the final, separate action that would have declared her child a bastard, deprived him of my name, and any rights to whatever I owned or would own. Montbrun hounded me about that, so did Bernard and everyone else I knew. I didn’t listen to them, and I didn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.”

She understood in a flash of painful clarity why he had not taken that final legal step. And now she recognized what had been swirling and growing stronger in his eyes—guilt, and shame. She clenched her hands tighter still and said nothing.

“Polette had traveled to Toulon before I left for Egypt, not because I wanted to see her but because she was her usual willful self. So there she was, saying she wanted to see me, be with me, before I left for what she described as the ends of the earth. I suppose the empty-headed daughter of a minor bank official from Perpignan did think Egypt was the end of the world.” He looked down, but there was nothing to see but their knees nearly touching and the tips of their shoes touching. Her nails, clipped short, dug into her palms, and every finger ached. She had no idea how she managed to breathe quietly, steadily, while at the same time, her heart lurched from side to side, and her mind raced in frantic circles.

“I slept with her, Mariana, somewhere north of Toulon, in a nondescript posthouse I don’t recall to this day. And not just once. I admit that to you now just as I admitted it to myself then. Yes, I could count. For selfish purposes, for wounded Gascon pride, for whatever pointless reasons you can imagine, I refused to acknowledge that child publicly because I hated his mother so much that I wanted to get rid of her at any cost. Because I knew the real possibility—the real probability—that the child was mine, I couldn’t sever that last legal tie. Now it’s too late.”

She forced herself to tamp down the emotions roiling up and clamoring to spill out in a loud and messy pile in her lap or his. She breathed steadily, certain that her nostrils were flaring like Odysseus’s did after a hard gallop, and struggled to keep her face calm, expressionless. Surely he could see what must be flashing in her eyes. If he did, he should run from it.

“Polette remarried a year or so later to a respectable and prosperous man who treats them both well. Jean-Claude has a step-father, two step-sisters, a step-brother, and a mother who dotes on him. He’s happy and cared for. He always has been, I believe.”

Mariana stood so quickly that her wooden chair rocked on its back legs and crashed to the floor. Stepping around it, she moved to the windows, where the warm breeze cooled the heat rising from her breast and up her neck to her cheeks. She unclenched her hands and flexed her fingers, not caring that her breath came in short, audible puffs.

“I was afraid you’d be upset—”

“Upset? Oh, yes, upset, and furious,” she replied, whirling around to face him. “Not for the reasons you think, you and your stupid male pride. I’m not angry because you had sex with your wife after you’d made all sorts of promises to me. I’m infuriated because you allowed Bonaparte to influence you—again—and poison your mind. You never stopped to think for yourself. You didn’t weigh what your brother said or what your lawyer did and come to your own conclusions. You let other people make intensely personal decisions for you. Worse, you never thought about how your dreadfully cavalier actions might affect other people, especially that little boy. That’s what makes me so furious with you. Sweet Mother of God, has Louise ever seen him?”

“She doesn’t know about Jean-Claude, and she’s never seen him.”

“That’s something to be grateful for, I suppose.” Mariana remained by the window, thumbs hooked in her sash. Even from this distance, she saw that shame was writ large on his face and was glad. She had many things she wanted to say, all of them sharp and hurtful, and none of them serving any useful purpose.

“How do you think Louise would handle a challenge to your estate from this young boy if anything happened to you?”

“I’d hate to think of what she’d do to protect Augie and the boys, even little Joséphine, from anyone challenging what she believes belongs to them and to her. She’d be lethal, like a lioness with new cubs.”

“So, Jean, because of your pride and pigheadedness, six children and two women may well find themselves in an impossible legal situation at some point. Of course, you won’t be around to see what a disaster you’ve created. Did this never occur to you? It’s not as if they would be squabbling over a ten-acre vineyard, either. People unused to wealth, status, and possessions often lose their reason when those things become part of a vast inheritance.” She picked up the chair and collapsed onto it, hands on her knees, and concentrated on catching her breath from the last outburst before beginning the next. Judging from Jean’s expression, she would have ample time to recover. Beneath the guilt and shame, a slight glint of hope swam to the surface of his eyes. She had seen this before, not often, but enough to know he wanted her to make it right and patch up—or clean up—whatever mess he’d made of something. Not this time, though, and not the way he wanted.

“I can’t help you with this. It’s a matter for lawyers, a roomful of them. It’s also up to you, and only you, to decide if you will acknowledge him as your son, perhaps not in the legal sense, but in the most elemental, personal way. But it might be too late now for even that.” She rubbed her forehead, over her right eye, where a headache had taken hold. “What would you do, Jean, if I had your child, unlikely as that may be?”

“Take care of you and of the child. You know I would, so why ask?”

She stood, her anger spiking along with the persistent throbbing in her temple. “Polette might have thought you’d do the same for her and Jean-Claude. She was wrong, as it turned out. I asked because we’ve spent the past half-hour discussing a child you didn’t take care of. You’ll do it, now, though, by all the saints, you will! Somewhere in these books and papers you care so much about is a tidy inheritance for Jean-Claude. You probably can’t touch what the emperor’s given you, and it wouldn’t be fair to Louise and Augie. But these lands and properties are yours to give. So do it, and do it now. I want to see what you’ve drawn up, ready for a lawyer’s finishing touches, when I get back. I will choose the lawyer for this task, however. No more unethical snakes.”

“Where are you going?”

“To light a candle for your son and an even bigger one for you.”

[ffii-book]

FFII Labyrinth of Nightmares, Part 1: Prelude to a Nightmare, Chapter 7

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That afternoon the world suddenly changed. Princess Hilda of Fynn had just finished eating lunch with her newly wedded husband Scott. The King and Queen of Kashuan and Scott's younger brother Gordon, who was set to inherit the Kashuan throne, were preparing their return trip home.  It started with a dark cloud covering the sky over the remote country of Palamecia. It gradually grew, becoming like a gigantic beast wriggling in the dark.

"Is it raining in Palamecia? Looks like it will rain here too." Scott put down his cup of tea, gazing adoringly at Hilda. The look of a husband had settled well over his face.

"Well then, Sorap has been cancelled. I was looking forward to it." Hilda looked down at the vast Sorap court bitterly.

Sorap was a ball game, with elements of martial arts, played by the nobles of Fynn.

"You are a master of Sorap, darling. Perhaps this rain is a blessing, so..." Scott started to say, and then glanced away bashfully.

"What is it, Scott?"

"I called you 'darling'."

"You called me what?" Hilda grinned with the impish delight of a teenage girl.

"I'm worried about the rain. My father and mother must return to Kashuan, but somehow I'm more concerned because you won't get to play Sorap."

"Oh please!"

The two of them laughed together at their own private joke.

There was nothing more happier than this moment, and all of God's blessings seemed to be reserved only for the happiness of this one couple. However, on the other side of happiness, demons steadily crept up. That same demonic energy that had overtaken both Elma and Leon the night before.

Hilda and Scott's laughter tapered off, and they were surprised to find the dark clouds that had originated over Palamecia had spread to cover their own heads. It didn't rain; the light had simply vanished in an instant from a country that had been full of peace. Scott, who had only just become Prince of this country, immediately sensed it was in crisis — and not just for the country, but for the entire world.

At that moment Palamecia surged in arms against the entire world.

Palamecia was not a country that established or maintained diplomatic relations with other countries. It was not blessed with an abundance of resources like Mysidia, and did not have a historical or cultural importance like Fynn and Kashuan. Its origin was bathed in violence and bloodshed. It had been a wild frontier, with many different bands of nomads wandering throughout the land. At one point in the distant past a mounted nomadic tribe wandered away from the craggy mountainous terrain of Salamand, seeking to get away from Salamand's own political unrest. This tribe unified the others living in the Palamecian frontier, and seeking to settle their own conflicts first, eschewed relations with any other countries. Only a few merchants from Altair were permitted to come and go freely.

Kings of the past from other countries, such as Fynn and Kashuan, attempted to parlay and open lines of diplomacy with Palamecia, but all were rebuffed and never received a reply. Over the centuries Palamecia faded from the minds of the world, and was nearly forgotten.

An Altair merchant had returned recently with tidings from Palamecia; their king had died of mysterious circumstances and the crown prince, Mateus, had ascended the throne. This piece of information did not, at the time, pique the interest of any of the other countries’ kings.

Palamecia had been biding its time, using its obscurity and privacy to hide the way it had been building up its national power. The attack that had been launched en masse was unexpected and unable to be countered by any other military force. While the dark clouds covered the world, Palamecian forces, which had been hiding in cells throughout the world, simultaneously rose in revolt.

Everything had been done with magic. Fynn, the kingdom of history and tradition, fell in just ten days. The great and beautiful Mysidia was ravaged, its lands reverted back to veritable wasteland such as was imagined at the time of the world's birth. Many people and animals died, and survival of the fittest became the rule of law.

The war slowed, and the world's seven separate countries became one desolate large one, with only the vibrant Palamecian flag flying over all.

It had only been thirty days since the Beltane Festival and the hearts of the young men and women burned with intensity. Maria hadn't seen Leon since the night of the festival, and she had lost both her mother and her father during the war.

"I have nothing left to lose," Maria muttered. She had spent days openly weeping and her eyes had no more tears left. Firion and Guy had waited patiently at her side until she had stopped crying, and was able to speak again. "That's right. I have nothing now."

Firion gazed at Maria staring emptily into the distance. "Something has been stolen. But there is something that can't ever be taken away."

"Huh?"

Firion told her it was hatred. Leon was his brother, and Maria's parents were his parents too. He had only been seven when he had become an orphan in the country of Salamand. Maria's father, who had been hunting in the area at the time, had picked Firion up and taken him in. He had only been a year apart from Leon in age, and had quarreled with him often, but it was the arguments of expected of brothers. All three of them had been raised by their mother and father as if they were blood related.

"You're right,  Firion." Maria acknowledged. At that moment it occurred to her that it felt like it had been a long time since she had said Firion's name out loud. 'I need to rely on him the way I relied on Leon,' she thought to herself. 'Otherwise, I'll expose my own weakness, and I won't be able to withstand life in this wasteland if I treat him as anything but a brother.'

"Maria." Firion looked at Maria with his normal calmly stoic expression as he handed her a large package. It was wrapped in a beautifully dyed cloth that was unique to the country of Mysidia. Maria knew immediately what it was without removing the wrapping.

"You went and got this for me?" She held in her hands Leon's bow. Though Leon had been opposed to Maria learning archery, he had promised to give her his bow after she had gone through the ceremony officially recognizing her as an adult after Maria had badgered him about it. She understood the significance of Firion presenting this to her now.

"You need to thank Guy. He's the one who went back to the house to get it; it was nearly destroyed in the fire."

Guy smiled a little awkwardly.

Maria had a sudden vision of Guy braving the fires of a burning house to retrieve this heirloom for her. "Thank you, Guy," she told him.

"Princess Hilda of Fynn has escaped into the country of Deist," Firion said. "I heard she is recruiting reinforcements and preparing a counterattack."

"Princess Hilda is alive?" Maria asked.

Firion gave a small nod, averting her gaze. "Her husband Prince Scott, His Majesty the King of Fynn, and the Queen are all gone..."

Maria felt the sting of grief pierce her heart momentarily, but did not allow herself to dwell on it for long. She felt the determination in Firion's eyes and said "Let's go meet Princess Hilda."

"That's the plan," Firion replied.

A low wind blew in from the Altair sea. The three of them stood outside the ruins of what had been their family home. Thirty days ago it had been destroyed, and while the last of the embers and the stench of its destruction had long since died away, the three that remained felt bereft and unsatisfied.

"Life's like that, huh?" Maria said, the wind making her nostalgic as she looked over the land where she had been born and raised.

"What do you mean?" Firion questioned.

"A loved one loses their life, and we bury them in the ground. They don't have a voice, and they aren't smiling. They don't see me. At first I'm sad and confused. But maybe..." Maria paused, breathing in the wind. She continued with a small smile. "But to get over that sadness, maybe I need to start getting used to being unaffected. I have the memories of that person talking with me, laughing and smiling with me, but that was really someone else. The person that we've buried has always been dead, haven't they? Life exists just to take away from you, isn't it?"

"Maria!" Firion watched as the wind played with Maria's hair, causing it to flutter playfully about her face. Firion thought to himself that he should say something, but cursed himself as he could think of nothing he could say.

"It's okay Firion. Really." Maria had seen the light of the sun and smiled brightly. She realized it had been more than thirty days since she had seen the sunshine.

"Let's go," Firion said, attempting to bring focus back to their little rag-tag group and began to walk.

"Hey Firion." Maria walked by his side, peering up at his face.

"What is it?"

"Spec-, the speckled Tanian. I wonder if it's alive?"

"I have no idea."

"I hope it's alive." Maria said. "I hope it's alive! Don't you too, Firion?"

Firion tried so hard to smile. He wanted to, just to encourage Maria even if it was just a little. But no matter how hard he tried, no smile would surface.

The strong light of the sun enveloped the three young people. Across the Mysidian countryside, the light continued to grow brighter with each moment.

[stuffminusthings]

Cooke City is a Nightmare.

There will come a point, Captain Throttlecock, when your lactic acid shocked forearms will unexpectedly shiver just a bit while hoisting a first drink at the Miner's Saloon in Cooke City, Fucking, Montana. Elevation's lack of oxygen makes this mistakenly feel like triumph, or manliness, or maybe just a little bit of your mojo that left when Becky did. Sure, you hit 12'o' clock summiting over Daisy Pass, and the only casualty you suffered was a pulled muscle from clenched butt cheeks. You've got so much track speed you can pow turn on roads. To top off the excitement, you drove your sled right to the front door of the god damn bar. Cooke City is a proving ground. You're here, but you're not conquering.

Swimming in a sea of Gore Tex, surfing on solar panels, silently swishing your way skyward to summits. Sweat summons success. Or so you think, you silly skier. Sure, soulfully stomping skin tracks from your sprinter-based living situation is serious, sorta. Social Media made you do it. The sledders same spasm happens while snapping a selfie of suffering in the Miner's Saloon.

That little twitch isn't a sign of success, rather it's the first way your body is telling you that it's time to go home, because Cooke City, Fucking, Montana, is fucking terrible.

It doesn't matter how you got here, you started making mistakes as soon as you entered the park, during the day time. Yellowstone National Park's primary four legged attraction is the bison. Thanks to roads crisscrossing their natural habitat, they seem limitless in the park. These enormous, lumbering beasts aren't dangerous because of their size, or their tendency to be on the roadways. They're dangerous because Iphones make it hard to steer while braking and brakes are applied often. It's nobody's fault, the earliest human graphic representations of anything are bison and buffalo. It's as human as sin to make a buffalo picture. So drive Yellowstone at night, when the bison take on an important property. They become nearly invisible, and therefore less likely to cause Eileen Jenson with a twitchy foot from Arkansas to suddenly slam on the brakes. Sure the shiny silver dollar eyed motherfuckers are more active at night, popping out of bushes en masse at close range in a horrifying stampede-styled Frogger game, but they're still less dangerous than Eileen and that eight-sled trailer isn't stopping any faster than the doobie-passing #vanlife 'rs when a rare “sleeping buffalo” shows up in range of the viewfinder.

There are two options for lodging in Cooke City, Fucking, Montana, and they only disappoint.

All those bloggers telling you to live in the dump are either already living in the dump, or have never stayed. For starters, you'll probably finding yourself waking up to Madonna's Greatest Hits every morning because a leather jacket wearing pirate is already camped there and doesn't care if your sprinter isn't soundproof. Only one-in-five pee spots in every sled trailer parking spot is human, the rest belonging to the free form pack of local dogs that all rip harder than you do. And it's a dump. And in the spring, there are bears.

But let's say that your 42-sled mega trailer from Calgary doesn't include sleeping accommodations so you and you're 44 other friends all rent out rooms at one of the many fine hotels. You'd be all set to live out your perfect Post Apocalyptic Snowmobile roll out into the great wild unknown would be perfect except for the fact that there is a group of twenty something dirt bags who managed to claw there way out of the dump partying in the parking lot making a mockery of every last grim look of determination you have while changing a belt out 45 minutes from now. They're crowded around an ever growing pile of empty booze bottles because they know something you don't.

The skiing or sledding in Cooke City, Fucking, Montana is either too dangerous, or already fucked.

When the snow is “good” it's impossible to find anything that hasn't been hit already by people that actually know what they're doing. If you're a sledder, some asshole skier is likely to drop in above your high-marks. If you're a skier, every single run out is carved up with sled tracks. No matter how serious you are, the leather-jacket-wearing miscreants living in the dump are doing it better, and waking up later.

You'd be able to tell if you could check your social media, but you pretty much need to be a pro to get the wifi passwords, and there's no service otherwise. Your best bet for entertainment is to watch confused vision questers with eyes glued to their GPSs buck their cars wildly on snowmobile ruts while attempting to drive to Red Lodge.

Which brings your twitchy, weak forearms to the Miner's Saloon where your hand-spun, reservoir-tipped crown of confusion really begins to shine.

The four girls at the left of the bar next to the jukebox will be the only women in the bar. They do all the things you wish girls in Owatonna, Minnesota do. And here they are, in your mecca. But here's the thing, they all know you're sitting there getting drunk enough to talk to them. It doesn't help that you've always dreamed of meeting a girl like this. To her, you're the exact same person who was here last week. If you were to stay here passed this coming Sunday you'd be forced to fight a carbon copy of yourself for the right to exist in the same universe. Sure your dad always wanted his ashes spread on Lulu pass, but the snow is starting to turn black, and quite frankly, you're glossy-eyed memories are sootier than your 2-stroke on the snowscape.

Go Home.

It's 10 Fucking Thirty and the bartender can't stand stand a 6'th hour of your big-group-plastic-cup-cheersing, bro-hugging, bad song playing bull shit. He can't serve anyone because he's too busy skipping the next song on a jukebox where metal music has already been removed. No, you can't stay, and no, Can I Kick It? did not just start playing inside of the doors you are being pushed out of.

Don't look up to see the stars bouncing light off the peaks where someone has already shot a time lapse and expect anything but a dizzy feeling, because even the stars in Cooke City, Fucking, Montana, are terrible.

[periculum-problems-blog]

[Chapter 1: Pride.]

Standing in a sea of green grass were six individuals, three women, three men.

Their clothing as white as the six moons that hung above, their skin was tanned, their hair a bright blonde and their bodies were identical to each other in a few other ways.

Their arms were steel, their eyes were a chilling white, and it seemed that light emanated from their gaze.

They stood in line, side by side. 

With the chirp of a single bird, they began to aimlessly walk in line.

But they came to a halt, as the ground before them split open and twisted, like a body suffering its final twitches before the spirit would exit.

An amalgamation of corpses, twisting steel and fire screamed from within the soil, only to be buried by it. 

From its grave came a plant, which grew and grew and grew, spanning miles in all directions.

Branches upon branches hooking together to form a long wall that stretched not only into the horizon, but into the sky as well. 

Between the thorny, seemingly alive twisted and tortured vines were bits of gold, held tightly in place by the vegetation.

Without hesitation, the men and women plunged their hands toward the gold, their metal hands being torn apart to reveal the flesh underneath, then the muscle. 

Their screams were silent, yet you could see their bodies being ripped apart from the outside as the vines dug into their flesh, pulling them closer.

The plants pulled apart the ‘Humans’ revealing their metal bones, spilling their electronic guts against the ground before pulling them en mass into their greenery, never to be seen again.

---

Waking up from the horrid dream, the woman sluggishly moved to her mirrored dresser and stared at her self in Uniform.

She moved a hand to her face, only to be stopped by the pain she felt in both of her arms.

“Sister Ailbe?” Came a soft knock at the one-way glass door.

The voice outside was equally soft, yet somehow robotic, false.

The owner of the voice walked into the room, accidentally hitting Ailbe on the side of her head with the door, smashing her temple and blurring her vision.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Sorry!”

I only came to tell you Mass is in Fifty minutes. Sorry.”

The door closed abruptly, with the unseen woman running away, most likely out of embarrassment. 

Ailbe, dazed and confused, stumbled toward her mirror and squinted.

Ailbe took in heavy breaths, trying to focus on her face. 

It was blurred, but her dull grey eyes were the most in-focus thing she saw, aside from the rest of her robe-clad body.

With a shake of her head and a sharp inhale out of pain, Ailbe put on her protective mask and moved toward Mass.

Although the unseen woman said it would be fifty minutes till Mass, the halls heading down to the Chapel were already crowded. With thousands upon thousands of Adepts forming lines from their dorms to hear the word of the Preacher whom was selected for the day.

Maneuvering down the gilded, yet cramped Hall, she managed to spot the Preacher’s glowing armor.

But there was something about the glow that hurt her deeply, perhaps she was sick.

“Brothers and Sisters!” Spoke the Preacher, his voice thunderous.

Her brain felt as if it was being beaten by a drum now, her eyes felt as if they were being ripped from her skull while the red life that flowed within her veins now coated the exterior of her eyes. 

“I see many young pupils, many young men and women whom are still thirsty for the word of the Men and Women whom have created this SANCTUARY! Which one of you still needs to Wake?” 

Her eyes, once grey and dull, had become blood red, her pupils becoming pure white.

She tried her best to look at the Preacher, hoping he would somehow help her through this sickness.

“I SEE ONE OF YOU! IN THE CROWD RIGHT NOW! Wake up, Child! Wake up and take your place!”

The tears in her eyes were a slimy green, it ran down her face-mask and then hit the floor.

The white marble became a charred concrete, the people around her, clad in brilliant white and wearing their silver mask were really sickly, weak people whose bodies were hooked to devices, sucking away their life bit by bit.

Their hands were vascular and night-black from ash.

She looked at her feet, she wore no shoes. She wore rags, her youth kept her body in shape, but just barely.

The Preacher, he still wore his brilliant whites and beautiful armor, but he was a pompous, fat man, not a Warrior.

“No, no, no, no, no, no.” She repeated to herself.

She did not wish to see the husk of her reality, twisting and screaming before her. She clasped her hands around her bleeding face and cried out, slamming her shoulder into the metal wall to her left.

“Do you hear something?”

“Where’d Sister Ailbe go?”

“Who?”

“--Sister Ailbe? I’ve never met a Sister Ailbe.”

Their voices, while soft and mentally absent, stung like knives in a gaping wound to her. 

“Now Brothers and Sisters! To work! To please the gods above, whom watch our every move!”

They moved in mass, including Ailbe whom was driven toward the Preacher, only to be pulled by the tide of people going to their work.

The clacks of metal chains, the whir of their mechanical prisons adjusting with a hiss to their ever-shifting weight in chorus was beginning to drive her mad after only a few seconds.

There--she saw it.

Where she worked.

It was no Holy garden, it was a mine. 

Workers for hundreds of miles, thousands of ill looking, near-corpses working their fingers to the bone. Some of them digging at the black rock with their bare fingers, giddily singing songs to the gods whom founded this world for them.

Ailbe recalled the tales of the demons, those whom were said to be made within the walls of Port Pride--she realized what she had become, and she cried.

She wailed, she stomped her feet and smashed her head against the chest of a Knight, whom stood still as a stone.

“What did I do wrong?!” She shouted out, her voice muffled by the mask. But even if she could shout through it, her voice would be drowned in all the singing, and the smashing of bone and steel against rock.

She found a corner and slowly sat down, the heavy cage-suit around her causing her to fall onto her rear with a clank.

She looked to her hands, calloused, bloody and black as night, like everyone else.

She looked to her hair, messy and charred.

She moved her legs out, to look at her dress. Fire-retardant rags, is what they were, with a number displaying whom she was in someone’s careless eyes.

“I’m--a number.” She thought aloud.

“Just--a number.” 

She put her hands onto her face to cry, stopping with a flinch once she looked down at the mask on her face.

She tapped around, looking for a release to it. 

There was none, she began to freak out, among other things, and began to claw at it, cutting her skin with her chipped fingernails.

“Why am I sweating? It’s so cold out here...”

“I’m just--just--so happy being here! I--I could...BURST!”

“Shut up!” She shouted, only to have her voice muted by the mask she so desperately was trying to claw off of her now bleeding face.

“Do you smell it too? The Ginger? So sweet...Why is my mouth bleeding?”

“Shut up and Help me!”

The ground quaked, from a distance, a booming voice shouted.

“INTRUDER!” 

And with it, came a collapse in the cave, and a rise of lava.

Ailbe sat there, staring at the flames as they engulfed the workers whom still sung their songs, not noticing that the cages around their bodies did little to protect them from the heat, and the hungry lava.

The sound of liquids boiling, the terrifying smell of roasting flesh and the visuals of so many steel-encased bodies lying upon the floors, only to be dragged away by the suddenly appearing hulking men in black, or the lava below their very feet terrified the Newly-Awoken woman.

One of the men in Black paused, looking to Ailbe and her bleeding face.

“Foul Spirit!” He shouted, dropping the body he was carrying to go after her.

“N--I’ve done nothing wrong! Please!”

“You DARE come into this Sanctum?! Out into the fields with you!”

He grabbed a hold of the near-corpse by her head, dragging her toward a thick door. Pulling it open with a huff, the man in Black armor stared her down with his glowing orange eyes, with several grunts, he pulled the wires from her, tore the suit off of her flesh.

“Go die with the rest of the demons!”

He shouted, tossing her out screaming into the corpse filled river.

With a crash and a splash, she lay there, gasping as she felt the cool embrace of the blood soaked river before passing out from pain.

Hours passed, and she found herself being carried down stream along with a few dozen corpses.

She--was ready to die, prepared for it, even.

She stared at the Six moons above, and hummed a tale she heard from her mother about the six gods whom made Port Pride...

With a clunk, her head met a corpse’s foot.

A large log attached to a make-shift pulley stopped her passage.

Ailbe raised her frail, barely functioning limbs to get out of the water, clawing her way onto the grass but failing, only managing to get her arms and neck out of the water.

In the distance, quiet thumps came.

Giants, so they seemed to be, but in reality, it was simply a group of men and women on curved stilts, slowly making their way through the forest toward the river.

Her head met the grass, in hopes that she might fool them into believing she was but a corpse.

One of them whispered, slowly lowering in height as he walked toward the woman in the blood river.

The hiss of the stilts was audible now, but it became louder, as did the footsteps.

The man crouched, placing his leather-encased hand onto the woman’s chin, raising her head so that he may look into her eyes.

His eyes, like hers, were surrounded by red, with his pupils being a bright white.

“Child.” Spoke a tired, honest and heartwarming voice.

“Do you still sleep?” The voice was that of an elderly man, his body clasped in a clock of feathers, and his face obscured by a helm resembling an eagle.

The woman opened her mouth, only capable of letting out a sound like that of a bloody gargle from underneath the mask.

“Shhhh, save your strength...you managed to hear me. I will take you to your True Home.”

He grabbed a hold of her, hoisting her out of the water with a single hand.

In his right hand, he held his staff tightly, before securing it in a sheath on his belt.

Pulling her close to his chest, he wrapped her in his cloak and carried her with both his hands hand, like cradling  baby.

“White Moon, watch for more.” The old man whispered, taking slow steps out toward the Trees, and the gargantuan mountains behind them.