#yes i used the i am no longer mentally ill pose

[devilatelier]

i think about his KNY Au a normal amount actually

[highviewsmoved]

✽ overhaul x oc (NSFW) ✽ with the promise of a cure, a young woman uses the contents of her grandfather's will to her own advantage.

CAUTION WARNINGS: stockholm syndrome, references to illness, mental instability, emotional manipulation, unresolved sexual tension, voluntary imprisonment, voyeurism, obsession, dubious morality, masturbation. 

“A gentle hand upon a flower, causes it to bloom with love, you see. It takes a caress similar to that of a partner. It’s been a part of our family for generations, this ability.” He uses his hands to cup the sunken plant before him, slowly examining it as it blossoms upward to a renewed state.

The child blinks up at the older man, his eyes wrinkled with a faraway smile.

“But grandmother says I have a curse.”

The older man frowns, eyes downcast. “It may be, but to me, it is a gift.”

The child continues in a monotone that no one should possess at such an age. “All the flowers I touch, they come out of me, grandpa.”

The grandfather doesn’t know how else to respond, but goes and provides aid to the flowers dying from heat, the shade of brown passing over to a healthy green.

“It is a blessing, child,” he reaffirms. He is certain as the flowers that bloom from his hand that his granddaughter is special. “Always count them for yourself.”

Her grandmother lays bedridden. A restless thing that looks so close to the doors of death. Ume feels the tears spill from her eyes. It is a foreign thing to cry with meaning behind it, but it’s what she feels.

“Ume, my flower. Yuzuki left you something you must know. The Hassaikai, our business partner, can take you in. They can heal you.”

She sniffles, wiping her eyes. “Grandfather always told me it was a gift,” she coughs into her hand, an azealia appearing on her lap. Her grandmother coughs, but for a different reason.

“You’re ill, find them, show them this,” her hand is skeletal, like the gnarled twigs of a tree in winter. She nods, taking her hands. “I will, I’ll find them,” she promises.

Her grandmother heaves a shaky breath, passing quietly while the heart monitor keens a high sound, leaving her alone with the paper in hand.

Ume thinks of another time of when her grandparents were just with her moments before, still alive. Still there.

The hospital staff come bursting through, calling out to her and moving her away from the sight. She watches as they cover her grandmother’s face, they push her to the outside of the room.

Ume opens the letter, the will being precariously typed, the calligraphy neat and organized. Something her grandfather was always meticulous about.

It is written on this piece that she is property of the Boss from the Hassaikai. The newly appointed young lord of the organization.

When she returns home, doing a simple search through the calculated books her grandfather left behind. She sees the face of the older Shie Hassaikai and a photo of a young man she’s met and seen before.

A slow smile forms across her face.

Her finger tracing lines against the image of the younger man.

She finds them easily. Ume had to pull some strings. The company her family has owned had ties with the Hassaikai for many years. They developed pharmaceuticals together for people with quirks. They lobbied with one another.

It was all to keep themselves afloat.

And now she’s here. She feels an ebbing of excitement when she’s welcomed into their headquarters.

Ume sits across from the leader of the Shie Hassaikai. The young man was adorned with a plague mask. It’s a signature look for them. The massive paper is being read by the other henchman, a man by the name of Kurono.

“It reads here you are a part of the will that was granted by your grandfather, Yuzuki. The boss knew him for quite some time. And you’re fine with this?” Kurono is skeptical. He is clearly unsure of what sort of play is happening here.

She sits up a bit taller, attempting to seem much more presentable. She must play her part in this as best she can. “I am.”

The man, Chisaki Kai, one she has seen come across her family’s estate many times before. The one from the photo in her grandfather’s files. A young man who seemed quite lost when she saw him. Now looks much more hostile and methodical. He tilts his head curiously.

Mimic below makes a curious noise in the back of his throat. “You don’t think that’s a little off, miss?”

Ume smiles amiably, causing the men around him to shift uncomfortably. Her gaze was pinned on the leader. “I understand my duties entirely well, and I have been raised to meet them. Our families have had a partnership for decades. It’s to continue the union as we see it.”

Overhaul’s gloved hands she notices start rubbing against each other, she glances quickly at the motion but removes her gaze before he can notice. When she meets his eyes they’re locked on hers in a challenge. A heated fire in them, he surely must’ve seen.

“What do you gain from this, Miura? What's your endgame if you were to be kept by the Hassaikai? Is it a business alliance you wish to continue?”

Ume hearing his voice is all she wanted and she exhales shakily, heart giddily pounding. “I’m sick,” she says in a false, weepy tone. “I want to be cured and you have the capabilities to help me.”

Overhaul tenses considerably. Kurono passes a nervous glance towards his boss. Overhaul looks terse, Kurono can sense his hands twitching to rid this woman before him like an infection.

“What’re you ill with?”

Ume’s eyes glitter, the rumble coming from deep in her stomach, rising to unfurl out of her mouth. A flower upon the table. It was a shade of vibrant purple, shaped similar to that of a star with the center protruding yellow. Kurono makes a disgusted noise and Mimic reels back.

Overhaul feels his nostrils flaring at the flora before him. The belladonna, the nightshade resting against the wood of the coffee table. Ume in tears coughs into her mouth.

Disgusting, he thinks. A sickness waiting to flourish if he does not cut it out.

Ume is in a room of white. An area so pristine that she feels she will blacken it with her sight. She lays herself down on the bed as instructed and allows the men to enter with the needle. They say it’s supposed to be a prep, to see if this can really work to nullify the quirk enough to not be a bother for her any longer.

“We’ll remove the illness from you entirely, Miura,” the voice comes from the intercom belonging to Overhaul. She wants to laugh happily, she’s content with how simple it was to get herself here. They were so easily swayed. The tears leak from her eyes.

“Please," she begs. "I no longer wish to be this way.”

“Begin,” comes the buzz from the intercom and one of the men comes close towards her with the needle. The liquid is an odd shade and she forces herself to relax, the lower half of her body shaking.

When she can sense the press of the sharpened needle against her thigh she wants to pull away but she stares straight into the camera in the corner of the room, her eyes never leaving the tiny blinking dot. She knows he’s watching. He is alone and she is here with him.

“We’ll be recording you for updates on the serum we’ve injected. It’s still something roughly in the works, but there’s no reversal for it which you should already have known about—” The man before her continues to drone on about the nullifier and Ume frowns.

She feels disconnected, she’s been in this room for the last seventy-two hours and is beginning to feel restless, her mind drifting to someplace else. In her thoughts she sees Overhaul, with his face against her hand, her lips grazing his temples. She purses her lips and continues to nod as if she’s understanding. She hasn’t listened to a word.

The man coughs. “Well, we’ll leave you to yourself.”

Ume stands up quickly, reaching out. “Please, wait a moment,” her voice light and sweet.

The doctor of some sort seems rather nervous to be in her proximity, his body language on high alert. Ume notices this, thinking of how this room is on heightened surveillance.

She poses herself to be the perfect angel, a young woman in fear of the unknown. “I don’t want to be alone,” her gaze underneath the fluorescence like a sharpened jewel. The man’s entirely stumped, uncertain of what to do or say.

The blinking from the camera seems to analyze every inch of the interaction. She moves closer, her eyes watering with a pleading look. “I’m here alone and I don’t have anyone else, will you let them know that?”

The man swallows heavily, feeling the blood rush to his head, she has a mind-numbing effect on him. “Ah, yes,” he clears his throat rather loudly. “I’ll let the boss know, of course. Pardon me.”

He exits the room quickly, terrified Overhaul may have seen the odd display between them. Entirely unaware the young woman was smiling the moment he turned his back.

Overhaul sits up quickly, moving out of the observation room with a purpose. He feels overwhelmed by the sudden scene he witnessed. Ume was too vulnerable. No longer is the young woman with a horrific ailment, but now someone without it. It was gone and it could not harm her anymore.

She was as clean as that room she was in. She was a sight to behold and he watched her every waking moment bewitched by her. Seeing her with one of his men, alone and so close. It drove him to leave, it’s what’s making him go to her room to ensure the man did not linger or stay.

“Overhaul,” Kurono comes to his side, matching his quick strides. “What’s happening?” The boss doesn’t respond. Overhaul only waves him off dismissively.

Kurono stops, leaving through a different part of the headquarters, not wanting to bother him any longer. A part of him knowing full well where he’s going

Overhaul reaches her area of the base and stops outside the door. He could easily go in and see what’s happening. She’ll be there, in her room with her own personal belongings, and see her. He’s been watching her.

His first memory of Ume was back when she came to the old Hasaikai office, where the boss was in talks with Yuzuki. She was a dainty thing, with a twinkling gaze and an amicable aura about her. She seemed serene, something he was not during his early years. He remembers glancing at her, words not spoken between them, but her gaze held his. It never once left his, as if she could see right through him into the core of his head.

The memory dissipates immediately when he hears a gentle moan, he wavers. An odd feeling washes over him. Why is he here exactly? He is the one in charge and so he thrusts open the door, and he sees an image that will be seared into his memory.

Ume on her back, her hand in between her legs that are spread apart for him to see. He stands there, locked into place with the door closing with a puff of air and she looks up to see him, her hands hiding as she sits up, looking ashamed.

Her cheeks heated and a look of worry flashes across her. Overhaul hasn’t moved.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, her eyes watering and he feels a rapid emotion overcome him.

“You—” he can’t seem to get the words out. It was like he completely lost his purpose for being there in the first place.

His mind was screaming in itself.

Ume lifts herself away from the bed, her skirt covering the legs he saw moments before. She drifts to him like a phantom.

“I’m still not well, my display must’ve concerned you,” she tells him. She is now only a few feet away. Overhaul attempts to rein in his muddled thoughts.

“Clearly,” he spits. He wants to flee, he wants to tear her apart and then rebuild her back again.

Ume was a striking beauty, the mole beneath her lips. Her eyes were a shade of pink, her hair the color of mulberries. She was such a captivating individual that he seems to understand why he feels such a magnetism towards her.

It must’ve been the number of times when she has held his gaze evenly. So at odds with what he expected her to be.

Ume snares him with a hook. “You’re just as twisted,” he feels an odd anger bubble up in him at her.

“What do you know? You’re here on account of your family selling you like a business offering.”

Ume’s eyes flash. “I am here on my own volition with what was provided.”

Overhaul doubts her, she can’t be serious.

She steps closer, her lips a beautiful shape. She reminds him of a spider creating a web. “You’re a sick man yourself. You come into the room of a woman who has no way to defend herself from someone like you.”

“You’re a witch,” he hisses. He feels an emptiness in his core with this talk. He can’t understand what this is.

Ume is unsettling, he realizes. She’s not what he thought she was. “I’m not a danger to you, Kai.” The way she says his name so tenderly, like a woman in love disturbs him more than anything.

She’s suffocating. She’s a boa constrictor wrapping herself around him ready to squeeze.

The effect she has on him is vexing. “I’ve always watched you,” she tells him like a shared secret between lovers. He shakes his head. “Just like you have been watching me.”

He turns on his heel and leaves, shutting the door. Overhaul feels his pulse rising with each step he takes. The way she looks at him, the way she has him in her hands.

Overhaul feels a genuine moment of horror.

What is she?

He returns with an ultimatum. She could finally be released, with the exception of constant surveillance on her. She could return to her old life of doing what she was before.

Overhaul does not want to push her away but his mind keeps thinking of seeing her in that specific position from that day. He wants to get rid of it. He needs her gone.

“I’m still unwell,” she tells him. She watches him warily, but something in her is telling him it's a ruse.

“You’re still sick?” He asks, his hand moving to hover across her face. Overhaul feigns his own concern for her. Ume’s eyes drift downwards. Her day-to-day was a cycle. An endless myriad of nothingness except her own thoughts to please herself with. She’s been in this room for days on end and after their last moment together, she was hoping she had finally gotten through to him. Finally, the object of her attention returned. She has him all to herself.

Ume shifts closer. Overhaul looking down at her, and he does not side step or moves away. “I’m here to get better, aren’t I?”

He tilts his head curiously to her advancing. “And you are? We’ve already given you the antidote.  Don’t you want to leave here?” Ume smiles, eyes bright. She looks similar to a specific painting he’s seen in a galleria. The piece being a ghostly woman standing across the moors in a European isle.

“But you’re here. You keep me company.” He came here on a whim hoping this offer would be one that she would comply with.

Overhaul may have underestimated her, she's like a siren calling him softly from the sea, coaxing him to shore. Her words simply hold that much power.  

His lips feel dry beneath his mask and he swallows. Her gown is loose, revealing her skin below and a part of him feels he could move to coast his hand across. To be able to hear her breathing hitch, close to his ears. To be able to see that display of her legs opening. He ceases the thoughts. She’s at his mercy. He has control.

“I know what you’re doing,” he murmurs, more to himself. His mind has become a frenzy. A demented voice in his brain begging him to lay his hand upon her. One touch won’t hurt, it won’t. It would be quick, a simple thing.

Ume drifts from side to side, her hand reaching above to move a piece of his hair. Her fingers dance across his forehead. He grits his teeth, his gloved hands twitching. His mind suddenly gearing up for a tirade. It’s filthy. It’s disgusting. It feels wonderful.

“Then leave here,” she whispers. “Don’t come back.”

“You’re a vixen. You’re sick,” Overhaul emphasizes. This time he means it, but he can’t help but let himself be entranced. She’s maddening. Enticing, his mind supplies.

Ume laughs, she’s infuriatingly beautiful. “And yet you come, again and again. For me.”

Overhaul retreats, her eyes twinkling with mirth. He leaves her there, walking quickly away, his steps echoing down the halls as he moves around the labyrinth. “Overhaul, where are you going?” Kurono asks in shock, he’s never seen his boss move in such a hurry.

“To my private quarters.”

He shuts the door to his room, locking it, hurriedly taking off his jacket stripping himself of the ailment. His thoughts cause images to be projected into his mind. Seeing himself close to Ume, pressing his lips close to her breasts, and his hands placed where hers was between her thighs.

He feels tight all over, collapsing onto the ground in a mess. His breathing is all over the place as he removes his mask from the heat of it all.

Ume was dangerous.

His hands moving on their own as if she was puppeteering them herself. He imagines her there with him. She could be, his mind adds. That filthy part of himself could go in there and take her. Keep her with him all the while. It’s what she would want. It’s what he wants.

Overhaul unzips his pants, his hands grabbing his cock, feeling the girth against his palm. He imagines her there, she’s so real against him. She is stunning as her mouth presses against his dick.

Fuck.

He begins moving, pumping to get to a fast release. The image of Ume licking his shaft, her fingers dancing across his body. Her touch is absolutely vile, but it causes his heart to pound.

He fondles himself more, beginning to feel his body clench around him. This is sickening, he thinks. It’s not right. Ume is still there, the image of her never left.

Overhaul could’ve taken her into his room. Having done everything his filthy mind was displaying out for him, his pleasure exceeded all logical thoughts.

The idea of her as his alone. “Come for me again and again.” He hears her voice so close to his ear, the way she said his name. Kai. Fuck.

He’s so close.

Her pussy would be pressing against his shaft, she would be so wet, so tight. Her moans would be sensual when she continues to take him how she wants. The way it would spasm against his dick. He grabs his balls roughly at the thought.

Overhaul comes with a grunt, a desperate sound freeing itself. He shivers at the sensation of his own cum warm against his body.

A harsh breath rakes through him and he stumbles his way into the bathroom. He starts the water, the steam rising above when he takes a step in. Overhaul hisses, the water scalding against his skin.

He thought with this he could exorcise the thoughts of her, but knowing that she could be doing this too. Ume’s own fingers deep inside of her, imagining himself was something he never experienced before.

A pleasure all their own.

Ume imagines what she would do if Kai would come and stay with her. If he would be willing to let her touch him, to touch her. His large, gloved hands caressing her thighs, reaching up to grab her breasts.

She begins trailing her own fingers down to her thighs, reaching the clit, the gentle motions budding into herself.

The thoughts of Overhaul down on his knees for her, what a simple touch could do. She moans, her fingers working with a quickened pace to reach her own orgasm. A fast one to rid herself of her desire. She needed to continue her control. She was the one above him. He couldn’t kill her even if he tried.

He kept her here offering whatever possible to release her, but her devotion to him and her own cause kept her to stay in this room so he could return.

Ume puts him through a hideous pattern and it pushes her to the edge. The tightening of her abdomen is ready for her to cum and she does. She arches her back, the sensation of her quivering pussy overwhelming.

The arousal of her knowing that he’s in his room, touching himself despite his abhorrence to it. She licks her juices off of her fingers, her breath heavy as she watches the familiar red dot of the camera.

Ume’s awakened by the opening of the door, and one of the many men announcing she’s allowed free reign to wander their base. That her status was cleared, that the nullifier accomplished its effect and healed her.

She was now free.

It was another offer she realizes, to really get her to leave this place. But she’s having so much fun here, in her own little space. She wishes to be a blight.

A stain that is so deep that it leaves Overhaul a crumbling, cumming mess every time he leaves her room.

He doesn’t touch her, there is no tenderness. Just her words and his own, and a continuous cycle of touching themselves at moments she hopes are timed at the same.

She smiles at the men, a coy thing that holds so much, but does not provide them with what exactly she’s thinking.

Ume’s not done here. She’ll see this through in its entirety.

“I won’t be going,” she sits against the wall, her hair so long that she toys with one of the strands. “I want to be here.”

They seem a bit nervous about her response. Not exactly sure what the procedure for a willing asset is.

“You can leave now,” Ume says. “I won’t be asked again.” They can hear the threat in her tone, her eyes narrowing as the men shuffle out in fear of incurring her terrifying attitude.

Overhaul returns with a quickened haste. Not even bothering to knock on her door and she grins.

“You’re a wretched thing, aren’t you,” he states. His finger pointed at her. She stares at the appendage; wishing to take it deep against her throat.

“I am, but aren’t you?” She’s challenging him. Miura Ume is a shogi piece on the board. The way she calculates his every mood, her eyes gauging him. She could eat him alive. It’s nauseating.

“I could kill you,” he’s trying to convince himself it’s the only rational thing to do. She sits up, the chemise sliding down her shoulder exposing her supple skin. He yearns, a sick part of him wants to see her exposed for him.

He wants to touch her just once.

No! His mind screams. She’s foul. She’s stunning.

Ume moves her hands to hold his, he begins to tremble. He wishes he could grapple with his failing control. To get back at her. She purses her mouth against the tip of his gloved finger, tongue brushing against the leather. When she bites down she never looks away from his sight.

He makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat. Ume releases her hold on him and licks her lips. The pink of her tongue swipes the redness of her mouth. Overhaul is a mess of a man. What kind of the leader of this organization is he, that he is seduced by a single woman.

Ume lowers herself onto her knees, a wicked gleam in her eyes. She’s close to the crotch of his pants and he wants to run. So he can rid himself of these thoughts she’s causing.

“You won’t break your favorite toy,” her silky voice slithers in his ears. Her fingers feather across his thighs.  Ume’s own hands wishing to dig into him.

The light sensation causes shockwaves across his flesh. Overhaul is enraptured. What else could she possibly attempt to do. He replays the image of her mouth around his finger. A dark rumbling in his gut jolts him away, and she smiles. It breaks him away from the reverie of this siren below him.

He stands above her, he could press all five fingers deep into her neck, ceasing her diabolical wishes. “You’re heinous,” he grits out. A realization blooming in his mind that he’s lost this power play. He was already in her clutches the moment he saw her.

She owns him. Every touch, every single way he jerks himself off, the orgasms he has. It’s all for her.

He’s mortified. He feels the room is like a cage. He’s the canary in the cat’s mouth.

Ume pouts. “I could make you feel so good,” she says this as if it’s the only thing he needs.

Overhaul wants to throttle her. He wants to hike up her gown and shove his cock so far deep into her that it makes her hold onto him.

This is dangerous, his mind says. You need to clean yourself.

“You’re a plague,” he spits. “You’re just a wretched thing who wants too much.”

She laughs as if he said the funniest thing in the world. “I am, but you enjoy this just as much as I do.” Ume sits up no longer on her knees. He still towers above her.

Overhaul could end it right now. He just has to touch her. Let her rot against the floor. He’s torn, he fears she’ll reanimate on her own. His own personal karma.

“You want me on my knees for you, telling you the dirtiest things imaginable.” Her eyes were that of a feline.

She backs him against one of the corners of the room. Overhaul slides down against the wall.

He wants this to end.

Ume lowers herself to his level, her lips grazing his ear. “You want me to fuck you senseless.”

Overhaul grunts. “I don’t—“ he can’t get the words out. He’s completely losing himself. He can touch her. He can. He can’t.

Ume’s tongue prods against his neck and he nearly groans. The way it slides up to his chin. He would let her take a bite out of him. It’s what he wants.

He feels his cock hardening against his trousers.

She leans a bit away, getting a good look at him in this state. That longing look in his eye. The lust in his crotch. He’s only wearing his medical mask and she wants to tear it off of him.

“You’re spineless,” she mocks. “You can’t even help yourself or your boss.”

He snarls. “What do you know,” he fires back. “You come here like a leech wanting a cure.”

“I know more than you do,” she tells him.

“Your teasing routine ends here,” he stands. The way she moves away from him pushes him to continue backing her against her own bed.

“Is this what you want? Do you want me to fuck you senseless? Or do you just want my finger in your cunt?” Overhaul feels a recharge in his power. He could finally see her resolve falter.

“I do,” Ume flushes, looking away from him. A gentle admittance. “I want all of it.”

The room is silent, save for the labored breaths from Overhaul and the quiet words from Ume echoing.

They look at each other for a long moment.

Overhaul makes the move first. He presses his lips harshly against her mouth.

She makes a noise but tries to remove the mask he’s kissing her through.

He rips it off and his hands lift her gown as she lays back against the bed.

Her legs wrapping themselves around his waist pulling him to her. Her touch causes him to groan. Overhaul feels his head swimming. She’s delicious. The way her lips form around his, her tongue gliding against his own.

He refuses to lay his hand on her, that part of him with his clear disdain for touch still scratching in his mind. It tells him to stop. To cease.

She’s a drug. Her moans are intoxicating. Her lips drag against his cheek and she suckles his neck.

“I want you,” she presses into him, reaching to unbuckle his pants. Ume grabs his cock through the fabric. No, she’s filthy.

“Fuck,” he exhales. She’s pliant against him.

“Touch me, Kai,” she moans, her legs tight around him. His hips are close to hers. His hands are still balled into tight fists.

“Just one finger,” she prods. “Make me cum.”

He snarls. Overhaul bites her shoulder and she yelps. “I’m not touching you.”

She laughs against his lips. “Your loss.”

They continue like this, lost in the sensation of each other's lips. His hips thrust into hers and she groans a needy sound.

She unbuckles his pants, freeing his cock. He feels dizzy. Ume guides him towards her wet entrance.

“Fuck me,” she moans. Overhaul gnashes his teeth together, his balled-up fists feeling like an anchor.

He’s imagined this so many times. This exact image, her voice right at his ear.

“Please, Kai,” her voice calls again.

Overhaul grunts, thrusting into her. Ume’s cries were delightful. “Oh, Kai.”

He doesn’t move for a moment, and she hugs him tightly to herself, caging him in her arms.

She looks elated, something he hasn’t seen in her expressions. Her controlled, manipulative faces have only been used against him. At this moment she looks genuinely content.

His fists begin to uncurl. Just one touch to wipe the way her tendrils are covering a bit of her face.

A loud knock stops them from going any further, startling them both.

“Overhaul!” A panicked voice comes. “There’s a plan of attack from the heroes.”

Overhaul and Ume look at each other for a long moment. “Put your clothes on.”

He pulls out of her. The feeling of it winding them both up. He would let his men take care of it. He could finish here, before going out there to fight. No. He stumbles away from her. He doesn’t have time to clean himself and he shudders.

Ume is unnervingly complacent through it. Once he readjusts himself, setting his mask on.

She’s back to being fully clothed, her eyes blankly staring ahead.

“I’ll be back,” he says. His head dips, to get her to look at him. Her bright eyes stare into his. “I’ll finish this.”

Ume releases a laugh. “You won’t.”

Overhaul stands at his full height, eyes narrowing. “I will,” he promises.

He shuts the door leaving her alone.

Ume's trademark grin returning.

She walks back to her bed, curling into herself as she waits.

It’s been hours and there’s a breach in her room.

A team of heroes enters and there's a multitude of voices.

“Someone’s in here!”

“It’s a woman! We need a medic!”

They come in a cluster, checking her, and Ume’s tears come falling forth. Her character this time is a hysterical woman who was wrongly experimented on.

“We’ll get you out of here, miss. What’s your name?”

She is inconsolable as she gives them a name, a fallacious one. “Yumi, my name is Yumi. Please, I want to go home.”

The heroes escort her out with a blanket over her shoulders. She looks around the base and it is destroyed. The walls are crumbling. Nothing looks the way it did when she first arrived.

Ume tries to hide her grin. A beautiful downfall that Kai went through, she thinks.

So pretty.

The trip to Tartarus was a vicious one. The seawater lapped against the tides of the boat. The young charge, in connection with the Hero Commission, shields himself from the onslaught of the rain.

“Fujita! We’re almost to the island.”

Agent Fujita, one of Ume’s many disguises only clad in a suit and raincoat, nods affirmatively. “Good.”

The man calls for the steering of the boat to the dock, the entire vessel moving onwards and the agent does not budge. She stays with the breeze against her face, whipping her face as the boat’s sound alerts the officers on Tartarus of an arrival.

The ship is stopped against the steel dock as they rein in the anchor, wrapping the sails against each other as the young escort jogs to her.

“We’ve arrived. Please go this way to the base.”

Ume follows down the ramps. The clanking of the steel-toed boots beneath her into a rhythm.

“Private Personnel coming through please.”

“Identification is needed for passing into Tartarus.”

“I have it,” Ume says, her fingers handing over the passes and a note from the Hero Commission granting the access.

“Agents Gentaro and Fujita?” The man in the dark outfit is splashed by the nearby tide. “Dammit, alright. That’s fine. If they know you’re here. We’ll send them word you’ve arrived.”

Gentaro steps forward. “We won’t be here long, it’s a quick interview with one of the prisoners.”

“It’ll be a fast one,” Ume adds.

One of the other guards snickers. “As long as you both don’t try to break these monsters out.”

Ume smiles a familiar grin that halts the guard's laugh. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

The massive gates open forward walking into the long corridors of Tartarus.

“This place is bright,” Gentaro hisses. Ume doesn’t react, only blinking in response.

“The criminal you’re about to meet is infamous, you know? He’s pretty vile, kept a woman and a child, using them for test subjects.”

Ume’s new voice has a low tone. “I’ve seen quite a bit in my heyday, Gentaro.”

He snorts. “Alright, alright. Gotcha, well, I’ll tell the guards you’re ready to see him.”

The room they entered was accessed only through a fingerprint scanner, which Gentaro uses. Ume walks in, standing across a reinforced glass, waiting for them to bring him in.

Ume feels her heart rate pick up. It’s been months on end since the disbandment of the Hassakai, since their separation.

Ume was taken in with the heroes, saved by them. Or so they think. But Ume returns as Agent Fujita now.

She hid her identity, easily enough with a modifying bullet she received from the underground which gave her a new quirk.

It was the ability to change the face, so one does not recognize her immediately as the woman who was captured. Ume had many ties, connections her grandfather left behind; she was able to put them to good use. She used them all to give her this gift before her.

To be able to see him again.

Chisaki Kai enters, completely wrapped in a straight jacket, pushed forth on some sort of mechanism that was strapping him in.

“Agent Fujita, Prisoner 23554 is here. Chisaki Kai, Overhaul, reporting in.” The bleeping over the intercom disperses and she is granted some privacy when the guards leave. They had nothing to worry about since Overhaul could not wield his quirk nor did they know that Ume didn’t even have one.

She smiles.

He looks pathetic, still facing downward, refusing to look up. His hair is overgrown. He has tired eyes, stubble coming in and she wishes to grab his face and rub her lips against the roughness of his chin.

“Kai,” she calls softly. Her voice is the sound of honey dripping from the corners; like it was seeping through the glass. He shifts, raising his head slowly. When he comes to, his eyes widen in shock. “You,” he swallows roughly. His throat feels dry.

She coos, walking closer to the glass, her hands resting on the counter. “Kai, my destroyed, beloved,” she grins all white teeth and red lips. Overhaul quakes, feeling overcome with the oddest emotion. Is he excited? Is he terrified? It’s a rush of cold pouring through his veins. He feels the familiar ache of the loss of his arms, wishing to thrash in his restraints, but the poisonous woman is here and she still speaks.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Ume says in that deceptive tone of hers. It sounds as if she were in awe, but her eyes. Her gaze is so dark that he imagines himself devoured by her.

The reversal of the situation. The way he had her for months on end, trapped in his own area. He should’ve had the upper hand to take back his own control of her relying on him and the odd web of seduction they found themselves in.

Before he was free, he could’ve left her to her own devices. He should’ve killed her when he had the chance, but she stands before him on the other side of the glass. This time, she is where he once was. Now she could continue to see him, the vicious cycle continuing. He wants to yell, scream out to the guards. The rush of blood goes to two places, his head and to his dick.

“You’re here,” he says. She laughs lightly, nodding. Ume was a wretched woman for this. A parasite burrowing her way into his flesh, never coming out. He wants to heave. Her constant advances were intoxicating, they cursed his life. He loathes his own weakness for not denying her. He couldn’t have. He was so close. He aches for her.

She tsks, her fingernail scraping against the glass. The sound high pitched and torturous to his ears. He gasps, not knowing how to make her stop.

Ume presses her lips too close against the mirror, the shape of her lipstick leaves a mark there. He clenches his teeth tightly together so he doesn’t groan.

She leans back, admiring her handiwork. Him on the other side, just how she always wanted to see him. Overhaul, the methodical, locked away in a small room just as she was. He was her likeness.

Ume’s voice points out the obvious, but he can’t bear to think of it, he doesn’t want to hear it.

“Kai,” she says, observing him as if she’s viewing a virus through the lens of a microscope. His head hits against the steel of the odd-standing chair that he’s restrained in. “You look ill.”

The contamination has already made its home in him. In her. He can’t escape it. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he’s wheeled away back to his cell. Once the resounding click of the door encloses him in. He can feel her still there with him, the moaning in his ear returning and the tears are hot against his face.

Your loss, her voice returning from that time. Replaying itself over and over.

[heroeslogic-moved]

psychology + mental health deep dive !

general mental health related trigger warnings apply.  feel free to include more or exclude those facts / test results that take too much time or don’t apply, you can check out this list for more personality-related quizzes to include!

QUICK FACTS ,

diagnoses: adhd, generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar ii ( diagnosed upon entry to SHIELD academy during mandated therapy), c-ptsd (diagnosed after infinity war)

triggers: bars/alcohol in large quantities/people being openly drunk around her, being degraded

positive coping skills: developed plenty of hobbies to cope (drawing, music, baking), working out

negative coping skills: running away from home, substance use (weed), self isolation, recklessness and adrenaline seeking behaviors, sex

attachment style: anxious

love language: quality time, physical touch & words of affirmation

myers briggs / mbti: infp

HISTORY EXPLORATION ,

are their diagnoses formal ( via a doctor, therapist, etc. ) or informal ( self diagnosis, a hunch, unrealized, etc. ) formal, she was diagnosed when she joined SHIELD when they required her to attend therapy upon joining the delinquent program.

have they ever been treated / medicated? alice has been prescribed anti-depressants, but she also does a lot of self medicating with caffeine. (and she used to use weed to self medicate)

have they ever been hospitalized or treated on an inpatient basis? no.

how old were they when they first started experiencing / realizing symptoms? it was after her mom died, so around the age of eleven or twelve. her mom’s death and the abuse alice got at home afterwards were really the catalysts for her symptoms presenting themselves.

do they have a family history of mental illness? yes, alice’s father was an addict. however any further diagnosis is unknown.

how was mental health handled / discussed in the family? wasn’t discussed.

what are their thoughts on mental health / their diagnosis? honestly she doesn’t think about the actual diagnosis often. as for mental health, alice is a big proponent of taking care of one’s self even if she doesn’t always follow her own advice.

in what ways has their diagnosis shaped their life or experiences? she’s happy there’s a name for what she has, even when she’s miserable or can’t control the things she wishes she could. she’s not crazy, she’s not a failure, she’s not broken. there’s a name for it. other people have it too.

SYMPTOMS: note that all of the below are, on their own, normative and typical aspects of human functioning. they become “symptoms” when they last longer than “normal” or when they pose a significant impact on someone’s life / functioning.

BOLD  all that are present,  ITALICIZE  those that are resolved or in the history.

depression.    anxiety.    panic attacks.    dissociation.    derealization.    depersonalization.    suicidal ideation.    self harm.    homicidal ideation.    psychosis.    auditory hallucinations.    visual hallucinations.    delusions.    mania.    hypomania.    racing thoughts.    hyperactivity.    attention difficulty.    flashbacks.    nightmares.    hyperarousal.    hypoarousal.    hypersexuality.    hyposexuality.    psychopathy.   risky behavior.    catatonia.    somatic / bodily concerns.    mutism.    phobia.    agoraphobia.    hoarding.    obsessions.    compulsions.    body dysmorphia.    hair picking.    skin picking.     amnesia.    illness anxiety / hypochondria.    sensory loss.    speech difficulty.    comprehension difficulty.    communication difficulty.    tics.    defiant behavior.    irritable mood.    vindictiveness.     aggression.    pyromania.    kleptomania.    paranoia.    attention seeking.   narcissism.    avoidance.    dependency.    pica.    rumination.    food restriction.    food binging.    purging.    soiling the bed.    insomnia.    fatigue.    sexual dysfunction.    delirium.    developmental delays.

explanations / elaborations on any of the above symptoms:

i have nothing else to add rn because i am so tired but if i come up with anything later i solemnly swear to make a post about it and link it here.

tagged by: not lia but ily lia @seesgood​

tagging: VIEWERS LIKE YOU!

[longitudinalwaveme]

Arkham Files: The Top

Hugo Strange: From the patient files of Dr. Hugo Strange, director of Arkham Asylum. Patient: Roscoe Dillon, also known as the Top. Patient suffers from Bipolar Disorder, type one, and is on the autism spectrum. Session One. Good day, Mr. Dillon. 

The Top: I am not autistic, Doctor Hugo Strange.

Hugo Strange: Mr. Dillon, the psychologist at Iron Heights has tested you for the condition multiple times, and the results are always consistent with your being on the autism spectrum. What’s more, the psychological tests we gave to you upon your arrival to Arkham Asylum also suggest that you are, indeed, autistic. 

The Top: I do not care what that quack at Iron Heights says, Doctor Hugo Strange. I am not intellectually subnormal. 

Hugo Strange: Mr. Dillon, being on the autism spectrum has nothing to do with your level of intelligence. It simply means that you have difficulty in understanding social cues. 

The Top: In my experience, it is the world that has trouble understanding me, not the other way around. I do not understand why everyone believes that I am odd because I enjoy educating them about tops. Tops are fascinating; certainly much more so than sports or beer or whatever else it is that so-called “normal” people enjoy. 

Hugo Strange: Tops? 

The Top: Yes, tops. You know, Doctor Hugo Strange, the basic principles involved in the spinning of a top are also those used in gyroscopes, guided missile systems, and the gyro stabilizers in ocean liners. Tops are amazing! 

Hugo Strange: Tops? 

The Top: Yes, Doctor Hugo Strange. Tops! 

Hugo Strange: Tops? As in, the children’s toy? 

The Top: Is there something wrong with your hearing, Doctor Hugo Strange? 

Hugo Strange: Do you mean to tell me that, in calling yourself the Top, you are not making a claim as to your superiority, but rather making a reference to a toy? 

The Top: Actually, Doctor Hugo Strange, I am doing both. I am both a living top and at the top of my profession. My costume has stripes on it so that I may better emulate a top when I spin. 

Hugo Strange: Your costume is intended to make you look like a giant top? 

The Top: It is, Doctor Hugo Strange. Why? 

Hugo Strange: Well, that certainly explains its...unusual appearance. 

The Top: (Offended) My costume is no more unusual than that of the Trickster or the Mirror Master, Doctor Hugo Strange. 

Hugo Strange: I didn’t say that it was, Mr. Dillon. 

The Top: Good. (Pause) Now, Doctor Hugo Strange, would you care to explain why I was transported to an institution a thousand miles away from my base of operations upon my most recent arrest? 

Hugo Strange: I wish I knew myself, Mr. Dillon. The workings of the judicial system as it regards the costumed population never cease to bewilder me. However, I must say that I am glad to have you here, Mr. Dillon. You are clearly mentally ill, and Iron Heights clearly has made no progress in treating your condition. 

The Top: I am not mentally ill, Doctor Hugo Strange! 

Hugo Strange: Mr. Dillon, mental illness is not a sign of a moral or intellectual deficit. It simply means that your brain has become diseased, just as any other part of your body might. 

The Top: Nevertheless, I maintain that I am not mentally ill, Doctor Hugo Strange. 

Doctor Strange: According to your record, when you first became the Top, you threatened to blow up half the world with a, quote, “atomic grenade”  if all the governments of the world did not acknowledge you as the ruler of the world within ten hours. You did this while under the belief that you would somehow be safe on the other side of the planet should the bomb go off. Mr. Dillon, can you spot the flaw in this plan? You are obviously an intelligent man. 

The Top: Of course I can, Doctor Hugo Strange. If half the planet was blown up, the entire planet would have been devastated. Even if I was on the other side of the planet from the epicenter of the explosion, I likely still would have been killed.

Hugo Strange: (Shocked) Wait...you actually built an atomic grenade with the power to blow up half the world? 

The Top: Of course. I am a genius, Doctor Hugo Strange. 

Hugo Strange: You built an atomic grenade that could spin around like a top and possessed the capacity to blow up half the world? 

The Top: You have a dreadful habit of repeating yourself, Doctor Hugo Strange. But yes, I did. 

Hugo Strange: Then all those other tops your record claims you invented actually worked as well? And you actually made a giant top-shaped satellite that you launched into orbit? 

The Top: I am supposed to have a mood disorder, not a psychotic disorder, Dr. Hugo Strange. 

Hugo Strange: Well, yes, but severe bouts of mania and depression are known to sometimes bring on psychotic symptoms. I had thought that your claims of having successfully invented such an improbable array of top-shaped weapons were the result of delusions brought on by one of your mood episodes. 

The Top: No. The quack at Iron Heights says that I was having a manic episode during my attempt to become ruler of the Earth, and that that is why I did not realize the flaws in my plan. They allege that I was having “mood-congruent delusions of grandeur and invulnerability”, but at no point did they accuse me of outright hallucinating. Surely that is in the report, Doctor Hugo Strange. 

Hugo Strange: (Annoyed, but not with the Top) While I do not fully agree with your assertions that the psychologist at Iron Heights is a quack, Mr. Dillon, I must admit that they are distinctly lacking in some key areas-such as specifying which of your behaviors and claims were the results of a mood episode and which were not. Knowing that you have had at least five manic episodes and at least three depressive episodes is worthwhile knowledge, but without adequate context, how do they expect me to know what behaviors are a sign that you are no longer in a healthy state of mind? 

The Top: Three depressive episodes, Doctor Hugo Strange? As far as I am aware, the quack has only had me hospitalized for depression twice. 

Hugo Strange: That is because the first listed depressive episode was an attempted suicide at the age of 17, which would have been before you ever went to prison. 

The Top: Oh. Yes, that did...that did happen, Doctor Hugo Strange. It was how I learned that taking a dozen different types of pills is not the most efficient way in which to kill oneself. 

Hugo Strange: (Alarmed, but making an effort to remain calm) You aren’t planning to make another attempt, are you? The Top: No, no. I have far too much to live for-and besides, my fianceé would never forgive me if I killed myself, Doctor Hugo Strange. 

Hugo Strange: Your fianceé?

The Top: Yes. Her name is Lisa Snart, although you, Doctor Hugo Strange, are likely more familiar with her nom de guerre: the Golden Glider. 

Hugo Strange: So, another one of the Rogues? 

The Top: Yes. I met her while posing as an ice skating coach, and we have been deeply in love ever since, Doctor Hugo Strange. 

Hugo Strange: I see. How long have the two of you been romantically linked? 

The Top: About seven years now, Doctor Hugo Strange. 

Hugo Strange: In other words, the relationship began shortly after your second attempted suicide? 

The Top: I admit I was in a rather dark place at that point in my life, Doctor Hugo Strange. My beloved was responsible for helping to pull me out of it. 

Hugo Strange: (Concerned) And what would happen if she died, or broke off your relationship? 

The Top: That will not happen, Doctor Hugo Strange. 

Hugo Strange: But if it did? 

The Top: (Agitated) I… I don’t know. She...she’s the only person who ever really loved me, Doctor Hugo Strange. The only one. 

Hugo Strange: I’m concerned that you seem to be placing your mental stability and overall self-esteem so heavily on one relationship, Mr. Dillon. That cannot be healthy, for either one of you. (Pause) I know you don’t believe yourself to be mentally ill, but for Lisa’s sake, if nothing else, I really do think that it is urgent that we continue these sessions. 

The Top: I would never do anything to hurt Lisa, Doctor Hugo Strange. Never! 

Hugo Strange: In an earlier manic episode, you threatened to blow up half the world. That would have included your beloved Lisa, would it not? 

The Top: I had not yet met Lisa when I came up with that scheme. If I had known her, I never would have endangered her in such a way, Doctor Hugo Strange.

Hugo Strange: Maybe so, but that incident serves to prove that your judgement is compromised when you are in the midst of a manic episode. While I believe that you would never intentionally hurt Lisa, should you have another manic episode, you might cause harm to her without realizing it. 

The Top: I...I suppose you may have a point, Doctor Hugo Strange. I will take your suggestion into consideration. I certainly do not wish to accidentally harm Lisa. 

Hugo Strange: I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Dillon. (Pause) You are a metahuman, correct? 

The Top: Do you think I am wearing this collar because it is fashionable, Doctor Hugo Strange? 

Hugo Strange: A metahuman power dampener. Well, I suppose that answers that question. What powers do you possess, Mr. Dillon? 

The Top: I have the ability to spin at superhuman speeds, I am telekinetic, and I have a limited degree of telepathy, Doctor Hugo Strange. I cannot read or outright control minds, but I can induce vertigo and push people into doing things that they otherwise might not be inclined to do. 

Hugo Strange: I see. So, Mr. Dillon, what prompted you to put on a costume, call yourself the Top, and use your intellect and your not inconsiderable array of powers to commit crimes? 

The Top: My father always told me that I needed to be a success; get on top of the world. I had to prove that I wasn’t the failure that everyone thought I was...and I did. No one laughs at Roscoe Dillon anymore, Doctor Hugo Strange.

Hugo Strange: Yes, yes...but why do it in a silly costume and with gimmicked tops? 

The Top: I thought we already went over this. It’s because I like tops. They are fascinating. (Pause) Do you want to hear about my collection, Doctor Hugo Strange? There’s so much you could learn from it. 

Hugo Strange: Perhaps some other time, Mr. Dillon. (Pause) And the Flash had nothing to do with your decision to put on the costume? 

The Top: The Flash? You insult me, Doctor Hugo Strange. Why would I ever be inspired to do anything by someone like him? 

Hugo Strange: Isn’t he your enemy? 

The Top: Only because he constantly stands in the way of my achieving greatness. If he left me alone, I would not fight him….but as it is, he’s made things rather personal. 

Hugo Strange: So the reason you have continued to commit crimes is in order to get revenge on the Flash? 

The Top: Really, Doctor Hugo Strange, you must get your hearing problems checked out. I do not commit crimes to get revenge on the Flash. I commit crimes to make myself wealthy and to get revenge on the world. It rejected me; branded me as a freak. I simply rejected it in turn. 

Hugo Strange: And has your life of crime made you happy, Mr. Dillon? 

The Top: Not yet...but I am afraid, Doctor Hugo Strange, that it does not matter whether being a criminal makes me happy or not. It’s the only life that will ever accept someone like me. I learned that lesson long ago. 

Hugo Strange: I stand by my initial assessment of you, Mr. Dillon. You need help. I just hope you will permit me to provide it. 

[musical-chick-13]

And Theon bc I love him

WHAT A COINCIDENCE I LOVE HIM TOO (this answer is gonna be a combination of books and show)

Send me a character and I’ll tell you the following:

• Did they live up to their potential? / In what ways was their potential unachieved?

-I would say yes. The only negative I have about his general arc is his death (which, see below). But Theon from the very beginning was, though not a particularly nice person, still relatable. Feeling othered, wanting to be accepted by an immediate environment that doesn’t accept you, isolated from and ostracized by your family, and the tension that comes between serving the different types of familial relationships in your life. Theon has no idea who he is, tossed aside by his blood family for not growing up with them and being “soft,” aka sort-of moral and having emotions that aren’t selfish rage or smugness (which, yep, that second part is a mood, see: my entire childhood and how no one wanted to be around an “emotional” “soft” child). And from there, he spirals out of control in a way that, while certainly not admirable by any stretch of the imagination, is still understandable in the context of the narrative and his characterization. And from there, after going through hell and quite literally losing himself (even to the point of straight-up denying rescue), he builds himself back up gradually, to the point where he expressed extreme regret for what he’s done, helps an innocent woman escape a truly horrifying situation, acknowledges that his family is generally garbage, and (in-show b/c again books aren’t finished), helping to restore his sister to power, rescuing her after his PTSD relapses while confronting Euron, and ultimately opting to protect the Starks come hell or high water in order to genuinely atone for what he’s done. He is no longer conflicted because he wants to do the right thing, and that right thing is defending the kingdom from the White Walkers and making sure Sansa and Bran are safe. And it’s no longer about fulfilling a duty or finding a family to fill the void. Because now he has found himself. I will contend that Theon has one of the best, most nuanced, most organic redemption arcs of all time. I will forever be grateful that I got to see that piece of storytelling unfold.

Although, I would love to know what he thought of Dany. A missed opportunity, that.

• How they negatively and positively affected the story.

-Positive: His arc of identity and finding where your loyalties lie ties into the overall theme of “How do you find yourself in a world where goodness, authenticity, and honesty are often punished and increasingly rare?” And it proves that governmental politics aren’t the only defining factors in decisions: familial politics can be just as difficult and dangerous, which adds yet another rich, complicated layer to the overall story. He has a genuine, honest-to-Drowned-God redemption arc, which is...not really present anywhere else in the story (no, Jaime is not on a Redemption Quest, I will die on this hill). But I think the biggest draw of Theon’s presence is that it deconstructs the whole “Character Revenge Fantasy” idea. He does bad things. We want him to be punished. But not like that. No one deserves that. How far is too far? What does retribution really look like? Given how easily that idea can be abused and go off the rails, is retribution even something to strive for? What is the point of using extreme violence/torture/mutilation/breaking someone’s psyche when it doesn’t really accomplish anything? Isn’t atonement and genuine justice a better option? It certainly was for Theon. He could only piece himself back together and do anything meaningful once he was out of his abusive environment. All of these are imporant questions that are posed by his existence in the narrative.

-Negative: Idk if I have much to say here. My biggest problem is his death (see below), but that’s not really a negative story effect so much as...being disappointing and narratively irrelevant. I gotta say, his introduction via his sister was...really weird. I genuinely have no idea why GRRM wrote that. It never came up again or had any kind of narrative ramifications and kind of cast a strange, uncomfortable light on his relationship with Asha/Yara for the remainder of the story. I can ignore and enjoy their later relationship it if I don’t think about it too hard, though, so I guess I’ll chalk it up to GRRM having a Bad Idea.

• What my favorite arc for them is.

-All of it?? Theon’s journey is kind of...one big arc, which is why I think it works so well. He has this overarching redemption plot which spans the entire series and informs every decision he makes (for good or for bad, depending on where in the aforementioned journey he is). The redemption arc isn’t bogged down with side plots or other pieces of narrative clutter, meaning it has time to grow and, thus, be gradual and realistic. If I had to choose a specific point, it’s probably when he tries to reintegrate back into society via supporting Yara. Gaining the Iron Islands’ support for her ruling, spiriting away with Euron’s fleet, and ultimately rescuing his sister after her capture. He can’t just go back into society. He’s scared. He has really bad PTSD. But he recognizes that putting his home in good hands is something bigger than just him because it’s Yara’s home, too. I just...I really love family relationships, y’all.

• What I think of their ending.

-I’m not really sure how I feel about this one. I get that the series is GrimDark™ and that people who make the right choice and fight for good die all the time, but Theon dying just felt...wrong. To me.

And, like...I get it. It makes sense to parallel his original descent into villainy (cemented by executing those two boys and pretending they were Bran and Rickon) with him dying to protect Bran himself. It ties into the whole very common trope of completing a full redemption arc by committing a completely selfless act at great personal cost. It’s kind of like the whole Missy thing in Doctor Who (which...hoo boy, that post is coming, make no mistake), where selfishness is directly opposed by making the ultimate sacrifice with no motivation for personal gain. And the fact that the last words he ever heard were “You’re a good man?” I cannot even begin to describe how much that makes me sob. But...honestly, I’m really tired of this idea that redemption has to end in death in order to be achieved or “complete.” I think it’s much more poignant to have a redeemed character live to help build a better world. Because what’s the point of telling people to be better if the “reward” is death? No one’s going to want to reform themselves if they think that’ll be the result.

I think the thing that Bugs Me™ the most is that Theon never really got to have a moment of peace when he was alive. Sansa gained the North’s love and at least had a secure childhood. Ned and Cat were happily married for years. Arya had parents who loved her and a good relationship with Jon. Jon fell in love with Ygritte and found his Night Watch Bros, and Robb (in show verse) had some very happy moments with Talisa. Davos put great stock in what he considered fulfilling friendships with Stannis and Shireen; Brienne was treated respectfully by Renly, Catelyn, and Sansa; Missandei and Grey Worm had each other and their friendship with Dany, who herself had many personal successes in her quest for the Iron Throne and saw the death of her abusive brother. Cersei even had moments with Jaime (who himself had several notable military victories and at least some time with Myrcella, as well as being gladly and deeply in love, however dysfunctional that love was), times when she successfully fought off enemies (including her dad), and some sweet moments with Tommen, as well as a huge victory via blown-up sept at the end of season 6. Theon was treated as a second-class family member by the Starks his whole life by being “traded” to them as a condition of war resolution AS A BABY, is immediately disparaged and mistreated by his immediate family when he tries to return to them, makes terrible decisions that almost cost him his conscience completely, is brutally tortured by Ramsay, is on the run with his sister from Euron almost immediately after, and has a PTSD attack that ultimatly results in him having to launch a rescue mission. And then he fights ice zombies. And then he dies. He never really...got to be happy at all? There was never any kind of “win” for him. Not even survival. The narrative couldn’t even give him that.

TLDR: Theon’s death seemed less shock-value-y than others (like, for example, Shireen or Missandei or, heck, Melisandre even), and it isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It’s narratively-informed and it makes sense as an emotional through-line, but, ultimately, Redemption Cemented By Selfless Death is a tired trope, and I honestly thought this story (which...you know...serves as a deconstruction of common fantasy tropes/book tropes in general) was better than that.

• When I wish they had died. / If I think they should’ve died.

-So here’s where we get personal™ kids.

So, it’s no secret that I am...severely mentally ill. I’ve talked about expression/presentation of mental illness in regard to Cersei a lot on this blog, and how that (as paradoxical as it may seem) helped bring a sense of comfort and emotional resonance to me. Theon, post-Ramsay, has, I think, a very clear case of PTSD. Theon is one of the few characters I’ve seen where his mental illness isn’t the cause of the bad, violent, dangerous choices he makes. It only takes root after he has made the decision and conscious effort to better himself, and it, rather than demonizing him, serve to humanize him. His trauma didn’t define him. And although a PTSD attack led to him unintentionally losing Yara to Euron’s capture, he makes every effort to rescue her, a goal he does end up achieving. It is so rare I get to see a character who goes through these things, successfully fight them and come out with positive qualities at the end. Like...switching topics a bit here, Jaime going back to King’s Landing to (try to) escape and ultimately die with Cersei made sense to me because, as Jaime says, he is a hateful man. He never made much of an honest effort to be anything else. And he never truly wanted to be good; he just wanted to be liked. He wanted to adopt some personality that would make him feel less disconnected from the rest of the world. But Theon...genuinely feels remorse for everything he’s done. He makes a concerted effort to do everything in his power to improve the lives of people he believes are good and deserve to be safe. So, just...killing him off in a Completely Selfless Sacrifice (like...you know how a lot of mentally ill people put themselves through suffering-like OCD rituals, bottling feelings, self-harm, even suicide-in a misplaced attempt to “help” or “protect other people”) seemed antithetical to everything we saw of his arc.

Ultimately, with such a humanizing, empathetic portrayal of trauma and mental health struggles, seeing Theon be killed off just...pissed me off. I am so tired of seeing mentally ill characters die. I really want to believe that I can live through and thrive in spite of the things that afflict me, and I get example after example of characters not being allowed to do that. It feels awful, quite frankly. And it makes hope that much harder. 

I also just feel like...there was nothing the story gained from his death? I get the thematic parallels as mentioned earlier, but it didn’t really move the story forward in any significant way. It didn’t motivate other characters to do anything, it had no political ramifications, it didn’t serve to contribute to any kind of happy ending or commentary on society, it just...was sad. Again, I thought this story was better than that.

[didanawisgi]

The chicken-and-egg problem (which came first?)

“I am reading a report (i.e.,https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/03/health/unvaccinated-variant-factories/index.html) citing some comments of smart and knowledgeable professors and I am just thinking ‘OMG, how can one make statements that blunt and be a professor?’ Clearly, these guys have little understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of this virus as revealed by the current pandemic; they seem to ignore the huge impact of immune selection pressure on convergent evolution of mutations and selective adaptation of the virus to the massively rising antibody titers against spike (S) protein. If they would understand the dynamics and landscape of the evolving mutations as clearly outlined by molecular epidemiologists, they would have no choice but to conclude that the observed shift in natural selection forces is driven by mass vaccination.

I would strongly advise these professors to read my critical opinion article on ‘Why is the ongoing mass vaccination experiment driving a rapid evolutionary response of SARS-CoV-2?’, which I recently posted and which should remain available for consultation on my website. As can be concluded from my comments following below, the statements made by these professors are not backed by any scientific rationale and contradict the most recent observations from phylogenetics-based natural selection analysis. It’s unfortunate that laymen can no longer rely on big names and titles but ought to question the credibility of professors and experts who don’t provide sound scientific evidence for the cheap one-liners they are spreading. Is this because some of them have now become more of bureaucrats than real experts or because they’re having serious conflicts of interests or both? I don’t know. Anyway, people now need to exert greater scrutiny over the messages the established scientific elite is trying to convey – with massive help of MSM - to the broader public. Of course, this also applies to the analysis shared by scientists like me and others who disagree with the mantras and dogmas the public is currently bombarded with. That’s why we need a transparent scientific debate, open to the public, where different opinions can be articulated, discussed and challenged. As long as the stakeholders of these campaigns, and especially the advising experts supporting those, refuse to engage in such a debate, their interpretations and simplistic one-liners should be treated with extreme caution. Their statements become even more suspicious as they don’t seem to feel the need to systematically test both healthy vaccinees and non-vaccinated individuals for shedding of variants and to characterize the virus shed (as this would unambiguously inform about the type of host environment that promotes natural selection of evolving variants!).

As already mentioned on multiple occasions, molecular epidemiologist have shown that population-level S protein-directed immune pressure is now driving the propagation of variants that are increasingly evolving mutations enabling resistance to S-specific antibodies (as now massively induced by the ongoing vaccination campaigns). As more infectious variants bind to the cellular Ace-2 receptor with enhanced binding strength, the Ace-2 receptor more readily outcompetes S-specific antibodies for binding to these variants. Consequently, these variants gain a competitive advantage when replicating in individuals who exert strong S-directed immune pressure on the virus (i.e., in vaccinees!), especially upon incorporating additional mutations (within the RBD) that prevent direct binding of S-specific vaccinal antibodies. Variants that are increasingly resistant to S-specific antibodies (e.g., delta and delta plus variant) can only adapt to the population provided the S-directed immune pressure is widespread in the population. This is, of course, the case if larger parts of the population get vaccinated and when vaccinees can easily transmit the variant due to relaxation of infection prevention measures. In principle, non-vaccinated individuals who are in good physical and mental health can deal with all variants, provided the infectious viral pressure does not exceed a certain threshold. This is because their innate antibodies have relatively lower affinity for the virus. However, breeding of more infectious and more anti-S antibody-resistant variants in vaccinees will inevitably enhance viral replication and transmissibility in vaccinees, thereby raising the infectious pressure and increasing the likelihood for non-vaccinated subjects to become re-infected while their natural/ innate antibodies (Abs) are being suppressed by short-lived S-specific Abs (elicited as a result from previous asymptomatic infection). So, ‘yes’, some non-vaccinated people will become susceptible to the disease and then contribute to further propagation of these variants. It’s important to note, however, that this is a result and not the source of the enhanced evolution of the virus. So, not the non-vaccinated individuals but the vaccinees are now responsible for driving Sars-CoV-2 evolutionary dynamics. It’s also important to note that non-vaccinated people will not contribute to natural selection as they will either eliminate the virus (thanks to their innate antibodies in synergy with natural killer cells) or become susceptible to Covid-19 disease due to suppression of their innate immune defense. Short-term shedding of low concentrations of viral variants by asymptomatically infected, non-vaccinated people is a direct consequence of shifting natural immune selection forces that are increasingly coming into play as a result of mass vaccination. This will ultimately put the vaccinees in much worse shape than the non-vaccinated as the latter will still be able to rely on their innate Abs.

So, non-vaccinated people are not to be considered factories of variants as there is no evidence whatsoever that they transmit more virus or shed for a longer time than asymptomatically infected vaccinees. As explained in the above-mentioned article, non-vaccinated people are not responsible for selecting immune escape variants and enabling adaptation of increasingly anti-S Ab-resistant variants. Vaccinees, however, are to be seen as the breeding ground and ‘pilot plants’ for these variants.

Let’s now comment on a few of these blunt statements:

“Unvaccinated people do more than merely risk their own health. They're also a risk to everyone if they become infected with coronavirus, infectious disease specialists say”

Comment: Not true. Unvaccinated people have the more reliable protection as they can deal with all Sars-CoV-2 variants. Their protection is merely threatened by the enhanced circulation of more infectious variants, the adaptation and spread of which is promoted by those who exert strong (but suboptimal!) immune selection pressure, i.e., vaccinees. To the extent that non-vaccinated people further adhere to infection prevention measures and -not at least - avoid close contact with vaccinees, the likelihood for them to become seriously ill remains reasonably low (but clearly higher as during the first 10 months of the pandemic where no variants were circulating). This particularly applies to children and youngsters in good health. As viral transmission by asymptomatically infected, non-vaccinated individuals is low and short-lived, they do not constitute a ‘factory’ of variants that poses a substantial risk to others.

“That's because the only source of new coronavirus variants is the body of an infected person.”

Comment: Vaccinees get infected all the time. They cannot contain the variants as shown in a multitude of publications and breakthrough reports. They are not only a source of asymptomatic transmission but even a breeding ground for steadily evolving immune escape variants.

"Unvaccinated people are potential variant factories," Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told CNN Friday.

Comment: This doesn’t make any scientific sense. See above. They should show us the data and perform a comparative analysis on vaccinees compared to non-vaccinated individuals. They should show us which group is evolving more problematic variants, the vaccinees or the non-vaccinated.

"The more unvaccinated people there are, the more opportunities for the virus to multiply," Schaffner said. "When it does, it mutates, and it could throw off a variant mutation that is even more serious down the road."

Comment: This is the ludicrous mantra of the WHO (see my previously mentioned article). What makes immune escape variants problematic is when they get selected and can subsequently adapt to the population. S-directed immune escape variants are preferably selected in vaccinees and the higher the vaccination coverage rate, the more rapidly and easily they will adapt to the population and become dominant.

Conclusion: The statements of these professors are not based on sound scientific grounds and ignore the basic principles of natural selection forces that are driving viral evolutionary dynamics. Instead, they’re based on simplistic mantras that can easily be conveyed to the broader public but do not match at all the molecular analysis of naturally selected mutations that are currently seen by genomic epidemiologists to be evolving under rising population-level immunity towards antibodies directed at S protein. The latter happens to be the target of the vaccines….So, don’t they think mass vaccination may help a bit to raise this selective immune pressure?

Again, we call for solidarity and not discrimination. All people deserve a treatment that can ultimately protect them from severe disease and long Covid. We do not want to end up with a society where some professors or, for that matter, any government agency, are holding people responsible for decisions they have to make based on their best understanding of never-ending contradictory messages. At this stage, science and common sense dictate that people should be treated at an early stage of clinical signs and symptoms. An ‘infection and treatment’ approach is not only very safe but it likely enables naturally protective immune mechanisms in both vaccinated and non-vaccinated people (even if they did not contract the disease in the past!). It may not prevent subsequent infection and mild disease but it should clearly protect against severe disease by virtue of priming of CoV-specific cytotoxic T cells (just as much as immunity acquired upon recovery from natural disease does). If treatment is only initiated when early signs and symptoms manifest, children and youngsters in good health will still be given the opportunity to eliminate the virus naturally at an early stage of infection by virtue of their innate antibodies.”

[fernsandsunflowers]

Your knowledge of Harry Potter is like a rotten apple with worms in it!

Expressive! thanks for voicing your opinion.

I really hope this is in regard to the Snape post (x) I made years and years ago and has resurfaced recently and not JKR is a terf and can fuck off this planet please and thank you posts I’ve reblogged. 

If it’s about Snape, I’ve seen most of the comments, I haven’t taken the time to read it all but general opinion seems to be two-sided there are those who agree whole-heartedly with my post, and those who do not. Most in the do not agree category has pointed out that heroism is not a competition. This is absolutely right, the story itself should have taught me that long ago, like when little Neville stood up to the trio in book 1. I apologize, sincerely, for comparing their acts of bravery. They both did amazing things and I hope, if it ever comes down to it, god forbid, I find in myself the same strength and bravery. The post itself was poorly worded. My goal was to ask that we show the same love and respect to Lupin as we do for Snape. That clearly didn’t come across, instead I got carried away and had written a post that ended up elevating Lupin’s acts of bravery while putting down Snape’s. Regardless of their background they both did heroic things and in the end gave their lives to save others. These acts of bravery deserve to be honoured and respected.

However, I stand by my statement that Lupin is the better man. I have seen a lot of comments that admit to Snape’s wrongs but use the excuse of unprocessed childhood trauma and mental illness. I will not accept this ‘white man’ excuse.  I will admit, again, here that Sirius, James and Remus were wrong to have bullied Snape. Sirius, in fact, was still a bit of a dick after he returned from Azkaban. But why can we excuse Snape’s faults as the product of childhood and later life trauma but not Sirius’? Why do you continue to condemn Sirius for his bullying while at Hogwarts but make up excuses for Snape’s reprehensible behaviour towards his students?

Yes there were no systems in place for Snape to process his trauma (he did have one positive influence, Lily, but this was clearly not enough), that is a grievous institutional error. This exists in our world and is something that needs to be rectified immediately, in every country. There were no systems in place for Harry, Neville, Remus, Sirius and Regulus to process theirs either. In Regulus’ case he didn’t have the benefit of a positive environment too. But your argument is that everyone processes differently. My argument is that, Snape’s trauma doesn’t negate his negative actions in the same way that Voldemort’s trauma doesn’t negate his. If you are excusing Snape for being complicit in the murder of so many muggles and muggleborns because he was abused as a child and grew up in poverty, then you must also excuse Voldemort for murdering people based on his trauma from growing up in a shit-hole orphanage, in poverty and being hated and rejected by his father. I genuinely don’t know if Snape has killed anyone before Dumbledore, I vaguely remember a scene in the Prince’s Tale chapter where Dumbledore says something along the lines, you must have done it before? and Snape implying that he has not. I don’t have my book with me or I would check. It does not matter, aiding and abetting is still a crime. Why do we say ACAB? Complicit is still guilty.

I have no patience or place in my heart for anyone that chooses to join the side of racists and fascists, knowing full well what it meant. That’s what he did. You cannot deny that Snape was extremely capable of critical thought and was intelligent enough to see plainly what Voldemort rising to power meant to his supposed love. Or to thousands of innocent people. But he joined anyway, for power. Do you think I will be forgiven by my friends, or even you all, if I actively supported Trump, or ISIS, or an example from my own country (Sri Lanka), the extremist ‘Buddhist’ organisation called BBS that stands against Tamil and Muslim people (I put Buddhist in quotation marks as people who believe these ideologies are no longer Buddhist), or even my own father in his anti-muslim stance? He had Lily, who he loved, yet still joined an organisation that was murdering her people and posed a fatal threat to her as well. I do not have patience for that and I will not be shamed for it. If you’ve chosen to forgive Snape for willingly joining the wizard equivalent of Nazi’s and Neo-Nazi’s then fine, that’s your prerogative. I have chosen to forgive James, Sirius and Remus for bullying Snape when they were kids. That’s my prerogative. If you’ve chosen to forgive Snape for bullying children under his care to the point of terror and psychological trauma, because he himself had experienced trauma, I guess that’s your right as well (though I admit it infuriates me). 

Also because I’m on a roll now, I will not stand to be asked to care about and include Peter Pettigrew in anything related to the Marauders. I understand that he was a part of the Marauders and I understand he was afraid for his life. Amongst the countless things I don’t have patience for, is disloyalty. The fidelius charm cannot be forced out of you, or bewitched, or tortured out. It must be shared willingly. Peter was already working for Voldemort since before he was made secret keeper. The Order knew there was a spy in their midst. Systematic racism within the wizarding world led them to believe that Remus was the Spy. Sirius was probably the first to believe it. Peter obviously felt some regret over it, but eventually divulged the information to Voldemort the first chance he got. I cannot and will not forgive that. If Peter was really a good person and was afraid for his life or for the life of his parents, or whatever, he would not have run back and actively looked for and revived Voldemort after he was ousted. He could have just left the country and hidden somewhere else where he would probably not have been recognised. He had an ounce of regret over James’ death that led to his own death, but in the theme of this post, it doesn’t negate his crimes. 

To better help you understand why I am against Snape but support several others who have done wrong in their lives here’s an example. Someone who joined the Death Eaters willingly that I do forgive is Regulus Black. I believe he didn’t know any better, he grew up in a household where the only voices and opinions he heard was that of his racist af parents who applauded Voldemort. The impact of this influence is reflected in the way that Kreacher responds to muggleborns and their allies. This is an intelligent species to whom blood status of wizards should not matter. In the same way that countries colonized by Europeans that should not have anything against black communities are racist towards them. Because all they’ve heard about Black People comes from our colonizers - also, the power of representation comes up here, after gaining independence, the racist concepts that European colonization left against ourselves, other poc’s and black people were reaffirmed by the negative stereotypes presented in white media, which unfortunately is broadcast worldwide. But that’s a whole other can of worms. Kreacher is later taught, and experiences differently. He begins to show respect to Hermione and fights against Voldemort - the man his masters supported so thoroughly. I forgive Kreacher too for the part he played in Sirius’ death, here is someone who’s trauma and upbringing really does excuse their actions. He comes to understand that he made a mistake, learns and changes. Regulus wanted to make his parents proud, they supported Voldemort. Sirius, I don’t believe, helped Regulus understand any differently and rebuffed and berated him for parroting their parents views (this is never the right thing to do), thereby pushing him away.

We of course also know that Regulus had a kind and understanding nature, this shows in the way he treated Kreacher. He joined the Death Eaters when he left Hogwarts thinking he was doing the right thing. And immediately realised his parents had been wrong to support Voldemort, he tried to leave and couldn’t. In the end he actively tried to bring down Voldemort and his movement. As soon as he gained some substantial information on Voldemort he acted, giving his life to do so. Snape remained with the Death Eaters even as they killed countless muggles and muggleborns. He reported to Voldemort the prophecy he heard - if Regulus had been in Snape’s place here what do you think he would have done? reported to Voldemort? No, he would have kept it to himself, or taken the opportunity even to tell Dumbledore he would like to join their side. Snape, on the other hand, would have seen to it that Voldemort succeeded in ending this threat if it weren’t for one thing: Lily. This is NOT a redeeming quality. 

Do you understand what it is I’m trying to explain? I’m not as eloquent as most of you here, so I’m sorry if I’m botching this up. Snape’s childhood should not have stopped him from seeing what Voldemort was doing. It should have been enough that he had Lily, a ‘mudblood’, to show him that Voldemort targeting muggleborn’s and muggles was wrong. Regulus had no one he loved who was a muggleborn. Neither did Kreacher. Sirius didn’t either but learned before he met Lily or any muggleborns that Voldemort’s and his parents views were wrong. So did so many others. Shit, even a lot of you must have been taught racism and unlearned it later when you were exposed to the truth. I know I had to as a child. Harry Potter played a key role in my own unlearning. Snape, knowing all this, joined Voldemort. That is why I do not support or forgive him. He continued to stay in Voldemort’s employ, rising in rank to the point of being accepted into Voldemort’s inner circle and being granted the Dark Mark. May be he was uncomfortable, but this did not stop him from following orders and committing crimes against humanity. He only stopped when the one muggleborn he thought was actually OK was being hunted by Voldemort. 

Some of you have said in the comments that Snape was working against Voldemort since before the prophecy and threat on Lily. Where do you get this idea? Please tell me I genuinely want to know how you know this. Because in the Half Blood Prince, Trelawney’s drunken rant let’s Harry know that it was Snape who had heard the prophecy and told Voldemort about it. When confronted, Dumbledore tells Harry,

 ‘Professor Snape made a terrible mistake, he was still in Lord Voldemort’s employ on the night he heard the first half of Professor Trelawney’s prophecy, naturally, he hastened to tell his master what he had heard for it concerned his master most deeply. But he did not know, he had no possibly way of knowing which boy Voldemort would hunt from then onward or that the parents he would destroy in his murderous quest were people that Professor Snape knew. That they were your mother and father.’ 

- HBP, Chapter 25: the Seer Overheard. 

Harry goes on to laugh at this statement referring to Snape’s hate of his father. Dumbledore responds to this with, 

‘you have no idea of the remorse Professor Snape felt when he realised how Lord Voldemort had interpreted the prophecy, Harry. 

It’s pretty easy to read between the lines here. Snape only turned from Voldemort’s side when he realised that Voldemort had interpreted the prophecy to mean Lily and James’ son, meaning Voldemort now posed an undeniably direct threat to Lily herself. If I can go a little further here, I believe Dumbledore’s empathy towards Snape stems from the part he himself played in helping Grindelwald’s plans for world domination and his own attempts to reconcile with his guilt over the matter. For me, this choosing to turn only when Lily was threatened does not redeem him because he either did not understand or care for the damage he was inflicting to others. If he had not been in love with Lily, he would have just let it happen and continued supporting Voldemort, how is that right? ‘It is the thought that counts’, this thought doesn’t sit right with me. 

He never tried to redeem himself for joining Voldemort, only the part he played in Lily’s death. In my eyes he acted out of guilt, he was sorry for Lily’s death but not for joining a side that murdered thousands of innocent lives. He later chastised anyone who used the word Mudblood in his (private) presence but I interpret this as a reaction to the word reminding him of his and Lily’s fallout. I don’t believe it had anything to do with him actually understanding the damage behind its use. In death, he may have felt he redeemed himself, and Harry apparently felt the same. Washing his hands of Lily’s blood may have been enough for him, Dumbledore, Harry and you but it is not for me. His actions in later life did not, in my opinion, redeem him from willingly joining Voldemort and bullying children. 

I apologize for comparing Lupin’s and Snape’s acts of bravery that was unreasonable. Snape’s actions certainly led to the downfall of Voldemort he acted heroically, but for me, he did not redeem himself entirely. It’s as simple as that. I respect that some of you believe he did. That’s fine. But please don’t gloss over the fact that he did work for Voldemort of his own free will, any negative influence he had that led him to believe that muggles and muggleborns deserved to be killed, dominated and enslaved (which is what Voldemort stood for) should have been countered by knowing Lily.

I love the complex character that he is, but I do not agree with his actions in early life, or the motivation behind his actions in later life. And that’s allowed so please stop breathing down my neck. 

If this was about JKR being a terf, then maybe this will help: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/trevor-support-center/a-guide-to-being-an-ally-to-transgender-and-nonbinary-youth/ 

Sorry this was meant to be short but I am physically incapable of keeping things short. This is also the last post I will ever make with regard to my feelings on Snape because well, I’ve been doing it for years and I don’t really care anymore. You do you. 

[dapperdasha]

statement of tumblr user dapperdasha, regarding her headaches. (this is just vent writing in the style of a statement oops) cw for unhealthy thinking patterns about chronic pain, mild body horror, doubting sanity, minor hallucinations both related to migraines and not  statement begins.

It is in my head. It burns behind my eyes and stuffs too many teeth into my jaw and pinches at my spine. And I cannot do anything for it but to eat, to drink, to sleep. It forces me away from my friends, from my brother, from things I love doing. The pain mocks me with its kindness. So considerate, tending to be worst when I'm at least on my way home, never striking fully during an emergency, but laughing the whole time, its nails just far enough removed from my neck for me to almost forget the endless maze of pain, pain that returns only once I’ve convinced myself I must have been exaggerating its severity. I am trapped in my body with my pain and my pain is screaming at me, no matter how much I listen, screaming. I cannot scream. I try not to cry. It makes it hurt more. I sit with my discomfort, do anything that might help 5%, fall asleep, and do it again.

It has been hurting to stand for more than a few minutes lately, I think. I can never seem to tell if it’s always been like this. The pain isn’t real, has no reason to be real, yet it consumes me in its impossible twisting. I am tired of hurting. I try not to mind the pain too much. I know this isn’t normal. This isn’t right. But maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I can get a massage tomorrow. Maybe that will hold off the burning knives in my neck, the way it feels like gentle acid kisses down my back, and the maze of all-consuming pain from my muscles being two sizes too small for my skull. It feels like I am pulling my brain out when I move my eyes.

 Sometimes, it feels like I have no eyes, or someone else’s, like my eye sockets were never made to fit them. I will close my eyes and see flashes and colors that don’t exist and patterns and it is too bright, always too bright. I walk on wobbly legs and cannot find words and I hear laughter, each peal sinking into my neck and sending electricity down my spine, sending my more and more off balance as if it was a physical force spinning me around, rather than a migraine aura. I cannot notice much except the pain and the knotted yarn of conciousness when it gets this bad.

But at the moment, it isn’t that bad, which means my mind is free to notice the way my shoulders burn, muscles embedded with shards of ice forming patterns I cannot comprehend. My arms are heavy, joints grinding like there is sand caught between bones. My jaw creaks and pops and locks itself, and beneath the skin of my neck, my tendons feel stretched thin. The pain has a blunt, familiar burn, as if IV medication is pushing its way through each vein in my trapezoids. I try to sit up straight, convincing myself to hold out hope that it will remove the vice-grip my shoulders have on themselves. My spine elongates and my head lifts, muscles shifting against each other, like the rub of sandpaper twice removed. My vertebrae don’t seem to fit, my skull too heavy, shoulderblades misaligned like a drawer off its track. I tremble ever so slightly the longer I hold the pose of normality, my lungs struggling to breathe so far from my ribs, and muscle fibres burn red-hot, pain radiating and catching and spreading until tears spring to my eyes, as much from shame for feeling the pain as the pain itself. I slump again, scapula tugging at my muscles, knee spasming again, empty of energy. Pain radiates out from my shoulderblades to the rhythm of a laugh.

Everyone aches sometimes, don’t they?

It isn’t the flu, the doctor said (I knew it wasn’t. If it is a virus, I have been infected for a long time). Try to avoid stress, exercise, just give it time, she said. I can’t help but think she was listening more to the note on my chart reading strong family history of mental illness than she was to me. The laughter down my back made me too dizzy to bring up the strange auras - times the endless patterns and colors of a migraine resolve into a single, solid yellow door inside my eyelids, the times I’ve lifted a heave hand to brush curls that are not mine out of my eyes. No need to give them even more reason to think it’s just my mental health going to shit.  Some things can’t be fixed with a pill, and I know my symptoms are all so vague that a diagnosis is a matter of catching smoke with no fire. There’s nothing wrong with me that can be seen. Maybe I am making it up. Maybe I’m thinking about it too much. I keep going; what else can I do? Yes, it hurts. But does it really hurt this badly? My back has always hurt, everyone’s backs hurt. I’m just whining. I’m exaggerating, true, when I say that my shoulder blades feel serrated, tearing into my muscles with every move I make, but it is still true. I try not to move them.

 It will be better at home, I used to tell myself during endless days at school. It will be better when I don’t have to press my weight against a metal seat, fire in my back, hold my head at an angle my spine begs me not to as I strain my eyes to type on a chromebook, assignments that mean nothing but for their being assigned. In reality, no arrangement of pillows and heat packs manages to let my muscles relax. I fall asleep with a crick in my neck and wake up to laughter echoing in my skull  and shoulders so tense I mistake muscles for bone. I spend hours massaging my neck, taking fire and neon and rubber bands about to snap and too-slowly lulling it down to numb prickles and background pain. My vertebrae still feel as if they are stacked in the wrong order, but it is infinitely better than muscles that scream with taut static, my spine feel a match against the sandpaper of my muscles whenever I turn my head.  It takes days to get back to normal amounts of tension, the kind of ache that seems normal and doesn’t threaten to send me spiralling into a migraine, but 15 minutes of craning my neck or one brightly-colored image is all my body needs to start tearing at itself. If I wish to write, or lie on my side, or look at something that is not the ceiling, my neck starts a low simmer of hissing warning. I don’t want it to start again, so I surrender. I would rather avoid the things that make me love life than live like this, I sometimes think. I do my best to make things I care about, and keep an ear out for the rumble of thunder and the smell of a storm, ready to drop everything and lie down, hoping I caught it soon enough. Hoping I won’t have to send a third email in a row postpoing, hoping the wrongness will fade and sharp fingers will retract.

For now, I can write this, hoping someone will read it and understand that this isn’t normal, I don’t think. I don’t know. I can throw descriptions down in the hope that you can hear me, hoping my words are more than the screams of my brain as it throbs, hoping I can keep my fingers from going numb and veering off.

I do not wish for a cure, anymore. I just want a day with no pain in my body. One day. I wish it didn't come back so quickly. I wish a lot of things, though. Why would this wish be any different from the others? Maybe I will follow the twirling spikes behind my eyes. Sink into it. The colors are so loud. Everything is laughing. My neck is painted in ultraviolet and magenta and I feel pre-migraine tension screeching down my neck. My body is laughing. I want to know why. I’m sobbing, or laughing, or both, and my shoulder hurts and I close my eyes and wait for the door.  statement ends.

[loki-fanfic-whore]

Consumed ch.1

Loki tries to help the newest Avenger with her control over her powers and her self-esteem

Taglist: @drakesfiance

Warnings: negative thoughts and head space, a lot of self doubt, anger issues, possible triggers, possible sexual situations

Chapter 1: Breathe

You could feel your thighs trembling. The fabric growing wet from your sweat. Languished panting fell from your pink lips and flustered face.

"Ah-Loki-we need to stop p-please." The way his name rolled from your tongue caused your core to tighten. Long slender fingers wrapped around your waist hoisting you up higher in the air.

"Hold it! Feel how shaky your muscles are? You are growing so strong." He spoke softly teasing you as he let go of your waist, your full weight on your toes and hands again as you stayed in the arched back bend. Your long hair enveloping your huffing face.

Loki walked to the table in the room and turned the music to the next song, chill slow music courses through the air as you cry out collapsing onto your mat. You could feel your muscles tingling at how long you had held the agonizing pose.

Loki chuckled and pulled the curtains open, flooding the room in light. You had stayed a crumpled mess on the floor. Letting your dark hair curtain your shamed face. You could hear his fluid movement through the room until you felt his hand brush the hair from your face.

"Honestly, little flame, how will you be able to keep up with the stamina of a God if you cannot even keep yourself up?" He teased cruelly as his green eyes drank in the sight of your pink cheeks and ragged panting. Your own eyes dilating at the musky smell of him.

"I do quite well in combat thank you. And I assure you my stamina is no concern of yours. I simply asked you to help me become limber and agile. As to keep me from becoming too clumsy on the field." You retorted sitting up. You swept your hair up into a high bun, but felt a few missed pieces falling back against your cheek and down your back. You pulled your top off to expose your chest, enveloped in a dark black sports bra and lightly sheened in sweat. You had always been heavier, but you had tried to embrace your curves after years of fighting it. You knew your limits and knew they were higher than many your size. You giggled softly as Loki blushed for a fraction of a second and looked away clearing his throat.

"What is wrong 'my prince'? Do you suddenly see something not to your liking?" You teased back before standing and stretching. You used your shirt to wipe the sweat from your forehead before continuing the stretches.

"Of course not. You are simply different than the women of Asgard. You seem....healthier..." he flustered for just a moment and you realized he was referring to your weight. You had caught him selecting his words carefully as to not offend you.

"Oh my God! Loki did you just call me fat?!" You feigned anger as you threw your sweaty shirt at him. He stood and looked at you angrily.

"How dare you put words into my mouth! You are a mortal and I am a God! I will not have it!" He started as he approached you menacingly. You rolled your eyes as he began acting childlishly.

"I think we have trained enough, since you want to act that way. Good night 'my prince'." You spoke curtly just as he got close enough to touch you, you turned and quickly left the room. You knew if you had stayed it would have ended up with the two of you fighting or fucking.

You had never actually fucked him before but the sexual tension between the two of you was so palpable you couldn't see how he hadn't just taken you by now. You refused to make the first move since this God was known for having a silver tongue.

You made your way quickly to your room and closed the door. You stripped the rest of your clothes off and made your way to the bathroom starting a shower. You looked at your body in the mirror as the water heated. You had rolls and stretch marks, scars and bruises, your nipples pierced and a tattoo of wisps and lines down one of your hips. The pattern was a symetrical mandala and helped to calm you, but all your mind went back to was Loki's remark that you weren't like asgardian women...you could only imagine large perky breasts and smooth skin in varying paleness...small waists and large child bearing hips...all of these women throwing themselves at the god... your heart sank as you tore yourself apart mentally. You stepped into the shower and scrubbed the day away, you had just finished washing your long dark hair when the alarms blared and you sighed. Quickly jumping out and toweling yourself you headed half naked into the living room.

"Whoa! Hey Embers, can you like not be completely fucking naked here for our brief?" Tony spoke as he waved a clinking scotch glass in his hands. You flipped him off and sighed.

"Yes because we all know I decided today was the day I would grace you with my delicious flesh." You half spat back.

"Sister Ember! My brother and I would greatly enjoy that view!" Thor roared in laughter at his own joke as he clapped Loki on the back hard enough to cause him to snarl. You had decided not to give Loki the pleasure of meeting his eyes drinking in the sight of you more than half naked.

"Is this important enough for me to stay here or can I go put on underwear at least?" You found yourself impatiently tapping your hand on your folded arms. You could feel stray water dripping down your various body parts.

"For fucks sake go get dressed! I can't have everyone focusing on their blood rushing from their heads because-!" You didn't wait any longer you quickly moved down the hall and back to your room. You stripped the towel off and grabbed your clothes. Black, all you ever wore was black due to your abilities. After donning panties and a bra you quickly pulled on black pants and a tanktop. You decided to leave your hair a watery mess around your face.

As you walked back you could hear Fury scolding the group and briefing them at the same time.

"These motherfuckers aren't very smart, but the issue is they have so many they will overpower you. I need you all to go in, get the fucking box, and get out. Stealth is key, so be fucking quiet!" He stood straight as you returned and stood silently listening.

"That's all. Get dressed and go. Dismissed." He spoke loudly as he pushed past you and out of the room.

You looked to the shocked room and raised an eyebrow.

"What?" You asked as Natasha swallowed silently.

"Uh-...well we need to go...and you...you need to-" she began but was stalling looking for anyone to help.

"Sister Ember!" Thor piped in, there was that fucking nickname Tony gave you...itll never leave apparently.

"You are to stay here with Loki and watch him while we go retrieve a box!" Thor grinned oafishly as you looked to the trickster God who refused to look up.

"Why must I stay?" You found yourself becoming defensive.

"Well...for one you are explosive... two you arent... quite adept at extreme cardio." Tony chose his words carefully and you scoffed, you could feel the heat beginning in your fingertips and climbing up your arms. Looking down you could see the black webbing up your pale skin.

"What the fuck is with all of you!? I know I am fat!" You cried the black was traveling faster now. It was in your bloodstream boiling you alive. The black had covered your hands and wrists and was quickly consuming your arms, you were sure your feet and calves were black as well.

Tony stood and moved towards you followed by Thor and clint.

"Please try to relax, I am sure Tony didn't mean it that way!" Natasha called out, but all you could feel was the extreme heat radiating off of you.

"Reindeer Games, we could really use your frosty powers." Tony called out as he tried to take your hand only to have you wrench your hand out of his.

"Don't touch me! I know you all look down on me! I can't control this! I can't help what happens! I don't look pretty or skinny or anything like any of you!" You were shrieking now, the black was consuming your ribcage, and had traveled up the side of your face, your eyes were dilated and becoming more and more black,soon you wouldnt be able to hold back.

A freezing cold hand clasped onto the back of your neck and gently held you snapping you back to reality as you gasped and shivered. You couldn't see who it was but by the widened eyes of the others you knew it was Loki in his Jotun form. You felt the heat beginning to cool as he enveloped you in a hug from behind.

"Shhhh, just breathe little flame. no one thinks ill of you. Tony is a twat. I,for one, think you are beautiful." You could hear his hushed tones and even if he was lying you knew him to be the God of lies. Slowly the others backed away as the blackness on your skin receded. Loki pulled you backwards down the hall and into your room. He released you and sat you on the bed.

"Why on midgard would you think that way about yourself?" He asked gently as he also turned back to a pale cream color. You kept your eyes trained on the floor.

" all my life...I've been ran, trained and pushed harder than any other due to my size....never for benefit...it was always out of malice to break me...to try to show me what I cannot do...you heard Tony...even you said I wasnt like your asgardians." You felt yourself begin to crumble in the depth of the reality. Loki took your face into his hands and shushed your mind with his seidr.

"I said no such thing little flame. I said you weren't like them. That is a compliment to you. The women from my home are not as beautiful as you." You let out a small sigh as you felt his thumb brush your cheek. You were crying again, your emotions running freely now. You were always like this after an outburst. Volatile is what everyone had called you. A liability.

"Stop it darling. I can hear you putting yourself down. Dont think like that." He spoke gently as he made you stare up into his green eyes.

"Just focus on your breathing and listen to me. You are still so young and need to just become aware of your abilities. In time I have no doubt you will be stronger than any of us, myself included." He smiled and released your face.

"...thank you 'my prince'... even if you are silver tongued." You spoke hoarsely. Loki sighed and paused looking at the door, his back to you.

"Rest little flame...you need to sleep after such an ordeal." and with that left the room.

You tossed and turned trying hard to sleep only to finally drift into a nightmare.

Fire, ash and embers fell from the sky raining all around you as you shivered. You were a small child, possibly 10 maybe younger. Your house had burned down leaving you in the snow shivering with your arms clasped around yourself. You could see him...the monster...the man who forced his imprint onto you. Who made you who you are. His body was covered in an inky black substance that dripped and oozed from his skin and mouth. Everywhere it toucbed began to catch fire and burn away. While trembling in numbness and fear you watched as his arms reached out and plucked you from the snow. You screamed and kicked as the black ink flowed onto your flesh like liquid, but it wasnt on your flesh...it was under it...you felt boiling heat consuming you as you screamed and kicked. The man's dripping black eyes shined in the burning carcass of the house.

"Let it consume you child. Let it have all of you." His voice was smooth and deep but only made you fight harder. You could feel the black ink splatter your face from him speaking.

Your eyes shot open as you sat up groggily. Your head was pounding and you could smell smoke. Jumping from the bed you ran down the hall

"Loki!" You screamed as you looked for the source of the smoke.

"What?! What is it?" Loki turned to look at you as you stood panting in the kitchen. He was standing holding the toaster angrily, smoke billowing from it. You felt the tightness in your chest ease as laughter escaped you. Relaxed laughter flooded the air as you watched Loki turn back to the toaster and curse it. You could feel the tension slip away almost fully as you pushed the God out of the kitchen and threw the now ruined toaster away. You made food for the two of you and sat a plate infront of the sulking Loki.

"I made you steak and potatoes....I figured you'd enjoy it more than burnt toast." You snickered as he scowled at you. You smiled as Loki pouted but still ate every bite of food. You found the silence kind of relaxing as your mind wondered.

How were the rest of the team doing? When would they be back? You felt your mind reaching darker depths. You remembered your dream and it got you thinking about your parents.

"Little flame?" Loki spoke gently sitting properly. He had an empty plate infront of him, but had no intention of leaving the table. Your pet name being uttered snapped you back to reality causing your eyes to flick to his.

"Hmm?" You half purred.

"...Tell me what is weighing so heavily upon you? What is consuming you?" He spoke softly but his stare deep and almost primal.

There was that word again...consume...

Loki swallowed saliva as black flashed through your veins quickly, just barely visible under your skin. If he had blinked at the right time he would have missed it.

"What is consuming me?" You repeat as you feel a hot flash travel up your body.

"I-I don't know what it is...I...I lost my parents and I was just a child and a man-or-erm a thing that looked like a man tied me up. He flooded me with...this." you held your hand up which was numb, your fingertips black which faded downward on your hand into your creamy skin.

Loki looked deep in thought for a moment.

"May I try something little flame?" He spoke casually as he gently scooted away from the table.

"Let us go to the training room...I need to be sure you will be willing and alright." He spoke calmly but you could feel your own heartbeat pick up. The inky black feeling in your veins. You pushed yourself from the table and followed him into the training room. He closed the blinds which left only the white artificial light cascading down on you.

"Trust me little flame." He spoke gently as he moved quickly towards you and began circling you. Your heart beat was throbbing in your ears now. You felt bile in your throat.

Loki's eyes flashed a deep green and he spoke again filling the deafening silence.

"I need you to strip down...."

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

Pokémon Black: The Novel - Chapter 6 (Amber’s Secrets)

Prologue and more info

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Pokémon Black: The Novel on FFN

Pokémon Black: The Novel on AO3

Pokémon Retold the series on AO3

---------------------------- WARNING: Discussion of mental illness/mention of suicide. Strong language.

Hil spent the next morning following the day training in the Dreamyard in the hostel at Striaton City’s Pokémon Center. Cheren and Bianca had already left an hour or so before, but Hil was only just sitting up in his bed. He had crashed in his day clothes and his hoodie clung to his frame in a cold sweat. He grimaced and pulled it off, flinging it to the floor. The rest of his clothes felt even worse against his skin. He walked over to his bag and rifled through it until he found another set of clothes—a plain white shirt, a pair of jeans that was probably several sizes too small, as well as undergarments—and tossed them on the bed. He then readied some various kinds of pokémon kibble he had bought from the store the prior evening and let his pokémon free, allowing them to roam the room and eat while he continued to get ready.

After a shower, he put on those fresh clothes, and took his daily clothes down to the public laundry room. After feeding the machine some cash and setting a timer for when it would be done, he returned to his room and flopped ungraciously on the bed. Noodle immediately jumped up onto the bed and curled up on his chest. Hil snorted and gently ran a hand down his back before scooting the Snivy off him gently.

“Okay, everyone,” Hil cleared his throat as he sat up, “I got a question.”

Noodle rested his head in Hil’s lap and looked up at him patiently. Roadie, Lucky, Crest, and his newest party member—a Munna named Sleepy he caught later in the evening following the incident in the Dreamyard with Team Plasma—followed suit. Roadie and Lucky sat on their haunches with their ears pricked; Crest partially climbed up Hil’s left leg. Sleepy, on the other hand, opted to merely glance in his direction from where she hovered a few feet away.

“You all understood that way better than I expected you to,” Hil mumbled. “Well, anyway… Uh, I’m gonna feel stupid explaining this,” he laughed. “So, there’s this thing, called the gym challenge.”

Nobody’s expression changed. Of course, Hil thought irritably at himself.

“Uh… to explain, um… Well, you see, you know what we were doing yesterday, training at the Dreamyard? It’s kinda like that, but the opponents are a lot stronger, and you usually gotta fight a few in a row without a break.” He waved his hands animatedly as he spoke and looked like he was performing the world’s worst game of charades. “And if you beat all eight of these gyms, there’s even more powerful pokémon you can battle, the Elite Four. And after that, the champion. It’s called the Pokémon League. But… it’s not required. And you don’t have to finish it if you start.”

Hil blinked as the awkward stares only felt like they grew more intense. Roadie began to chew on his leg a little before turning his attention back to Hil.

“So… I guess my question is, do you guys want to do that?” He pet Noodle on the head and smiled as Noodle trilled cutely under his touch. “I just… Noodle, that battle against N… you got really hurt and the opponents out there are only gonna get way harder. I don’t want to put you guys through pain like that if you don’t want to.”

Noodle abruptly pulled himself free of Hil’s grasp and hopped to the floor, adopting an attacking stance, his tail raised high and head lowered slightly. He shot some vines from his shoulders and gently tapped Lucky on the forehead. She jumped spastically, all of her violet fur puffing out, and then looked back at Noodle cautiously. Noodle gave a little encouraging hop and hiss, and then Lucky made a similar pose back, her fur smoothing out once again.

Roadie, Crest, and Sleepy even joined in on the mock fight. At least until Sleepy began to issue a sing-song sound that made everyone feel a little drowsy. Hil quickly called her name and asked her to please stop, and to his surprise, she did. Everyone then turned their attention back to Hil, and began to excitedly bounce around his feet. It was Noodle who rushed toward the door to the room and scratched at the door lightly, his eyes downturned in something of a pout.

“Okay, so am I right to take that as a yes, you guys want to take on the gym challenge?” Hil questioned with a raised brow. He honestly hadn’t expected them to understand him so clearly, or be so eager. Everyone gave an eager bounce in response to his question, Lucky landing in his lap and rolling over to show her belly to him. He had figured out yesterday it was a bad idea to take her invitation to pet it, but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless. “Alright then. Gym challenge it is. Gotta wait for my clothes, though. Sorry, Noodle,” he laughed as the Snivy hissed and stalked back over to him from the doorway.

 -----------------

Your Discussion with Vince

Vince

 why  did you text me just to tell me that youre pissed at me, youre always pissed  at me

 Me

 Well since you cant be fucked to pick up  the phone

Vince

 Maybe  Id pick it up more often if you wouldn’t be such a bitch

  Me

 strong words, big boy, mr. bug trainer

Vince

 What  do you want amber

  Me

 You had better call tonight. Hil’s going  to be here. You need to talk to him.

Vince

 I  will talk to him

 You  know I will

 It’s  you I don’t want to talk to

  Me

 Real mature Vincent

 That had been how all of Amber’s discussions with Vince had gone in the months leading up to his accident. They could have filled books with the myriad angry text messages sent back and forth, both too isolated from the rest of the world to find anyone else to confide in or take their stresses out on, and both fed up with and wounded by the other. It was such a tragic and brutal ending to a closeness Amber had hoped would last a lifetime as they had once vowed.

She had found herself scrolling through the texts again after a few failed attempts at reaching Hil through the Xtransceiver. It was so lonely without him at home anymore and she couldn’t shake the feeling he was ignoring her calls on purpose. She could understand why, but that didn’t make it hurt or upset her any less. She missed him. She missed them both.

She had met Vince on her own travels through Unova. He had been charming and goofy, taking joy in making her laugh. He was a much better trainer than she and helped her traverse Unova that much more easily. She had never really enjoyed the gym challenge that much and as such, had appreciated his help. He mowed through the gyms easily and it seemed nothing could stop him. Nothing could stop them. Each day was a new adventure and they always were on the move.

Vince never beat the champion, but he always would manage to beat at least one or two of the Elite Four. All that gave him pause from ambitiously pursuing his goal of displacing Champion Alder was finding out Amber was pregnant just a couple of years after they had met. He had been thrilled at the news, had doted on her endlessly, and used much of the cash he had amassed over his victories as a trainer to purchase their little home in Nuvema Town. They had decided jointly the quieter town would be perfect to settle down in. Amber had been especially happy to discover two other women in the town were also expecting—Shea Goode and Britney Achron, now better known as the mothers of Bianca and Cheren respectively.

Everything had seemed to be going so well. But that was where the record started skipping. No longer able to travel long distances due to needing to help Amber, Vince could no longer battle the tough opponents that gave him the cashflow he was used to. He took up odd jobs nearby—the Poké Mart in Accumula Town and Striaton City, a lab assistant in Nuvema, an assistant nurse at the Pokémon Center—but he’d always end up losing them in the end. He had a wanderlust that needed to be sated and the longer he sat still, the more he struggled. She had tried to be understanding at first and Vince had insisted he could handle it to help her and his son, but his actions never backed up his words. She had never been able to understand why he couldn’t just be happy with his homely life and settle in.

Despite their difficulties over the course of Hil’s younger years, up until he was about eleven, they managed to keep it mostly under wraps. Vince was still his boisterous self around his son, joking and having a good time, still managed to make ends meet. As Hil grew older, Vince realized he could travel farther distances since Amber didn’t need as much help, and so he did. He went on several week-long excursions deep into Unova’s heartland. Unlike when he was younger, however, he found battling exhausting and no longer as profitable as it had once been for him. He lost frequently and cut into their finances rather than gaining anything. Amber had been shocked and furious to discover that. In retrospect, he probably had just been out of practice… it had been years…

Oh, how she would have given anything to go back and change that scathing reaction. She was certain it had been what drove him to find a gym to train under. He had decided on Burgh in Castelia City since it was relatively nearby, and Burgh seemed to have himself better together than the Striaton City triplets or Lenora. It had been strenuous to get used to him being away for an entire week at a time, but she had been able to accept it on the condition that he came home over weekends.

After the first year, however, Vince had lamented he was making no progress at Burgh’s gym and he was still in the same class as some of the newest of trainers to the gym. Amber had blamed the fact it was a Bug-type gym. “You just can’t win with Bug-types,” she insisted. But Vince had just brushed her off.

“If that were the case, how is there a whole gym for them? One of Sinnoh’s Elite Four trains Bug-types. Bug-types aren’t bad. I’m bad,” Vince had groaned.

“Well, with that attitude…” Amber had mused.

“I’m going to start staying there most weekends.” Vince had spat that out quickly, as if ripping off a band-aid. That had been the precursor for the next two and a half years. Amber fought him on that tooth and nail. He wanted to stay at Castelia City constantly and send home money by mail to them, insisting he needed the time to focus and get better, and he could be far more of an inspiration to Hil if he wasn’t constantly flailing between jobs. Amber had taken her stance that him staying in Castelia would drive him insane due to his love for travel, and not only that, but he would neglect Amber and Hil both by doing so. Their arguing got them nowhere and Vince had upped and left in the middle of a Sunday night. Usually he didn’t leave to head to Castelia until Monday morning. He didn’t come back the next weekend.

That was when the calls began. No matter who initiated the calls, they always went the same. Amber would beg him to come home for the weekend. Vince would insist he couldn’t. The only thing that ever changed was how badly Amber reacted to him saying he couldn’t. At first, she had been openly upset and vulnerable with him, expressing her rawest feelings about it. That hadn’t worked. So later, she tried anger. She dug into him with a viciously sharp tongue. All that did was earn her self-deprecating comments.

“I’m sorry I can’t be enough for you,” he would shoot at her through the phone, his voice quivering and tense with emotion. “I don’t want to come home, this mess that I am, to you and Hil, okay? Just let me do this, Amber.”

“You’re only a mess because you won’t fucking come home!” Amber had snarled. “Just admit it. You don’t care.”

“That is not true!” Vince would practically wail. “Look, I’ve—”

“What, got to go?” Amber had sneered. “That’s right, Vince, run away. Find somewhere else to be. That’s all your good for.”

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s all I am good for! You happy now?” Vince had spat. She could tell he was crying now. It didn’t stop her.

“I’m sure Hil would love to hear all about that,” she had growled.

“Don’t you dare bring him up into this!” Vince had hissed. She could still tell he was sobbing, but between gasps for air to support his strangled lungs, he radiated rage. “This is not something that involves him, Amber! This is between you and me! He is the best thing that ever happened to either one of us, don’t go messing with him just because you hate me!”

“Why? Don’t want him to know just how awful of a father you really are?” She had latched onto his anxieties and sank her fangs in. Her heart had always pounded wildly whenever she said such nasty things to him. They had felt necessary at the time—a kick in the rear to get him to see sense—but no matter how often she did it… he never did. After a while, she came to despise him for that. Why couldn’t he have just… listened to her for once? What was wrong with him?

That was just the thing, though, wasn’t it? She had torn him down, worn away all his defenses; she had truly been his downfall. She still had no idea what she should have done differently, but she knew she should have done something different… and then the threats started. Another conversation came to mind from across that accursed Xtransceiver. At least they never used the video feature. They had both learned that was an accident waiting to happen with how hot their tempers could run.

“Oh, great, you’re calling me to bitch me out again,” he had sighed, “what do you want, Amber?”

“Hil’s birthday is this Saturday.”

“You know I’ll be there for that. I don’t know why you felt you had to call and remind me.” That was true. Vince had never missed anything important for Hil.

“I don’t know, you’re never fucking here otherwise!” Amber had practically shrieked into the phone. She didn’t know what she had been expecting from that remark, she had just been frustrated and wanted to get to him. She heard clattering from the other end of the line and muffled words.

“Fucking, you made me drop the Xtransceiver, Amber! It’s expensive!” he whined in a hoarse tone. She recalled thinking it was strange his voice was so raspy. Now, she knew it to mean he had likely been crying for quite some time prior to her call. “You keep saying that, you keep saying I’m never there, and I do my best! I am doing my best! I am doing what I think will help us in the long run! Maybe I just shouldn’t try if it’s never going to get better, huh? Maybe I should just go and blow my brains out, huh? Would that make you happy, Amber? Would that do something for you?”

“Vincent, don’t fucking start,” Amber had growled, “It’s not funny and you wouldn’t do it, anyway. Oh, what would Hil think if you did?” she had asked darkly. She had never believed him for an instant and had again merely taken the opportunity to rake into him.

“Shut up about him!” Vince had fiercely screamed from the other end. It had then been her turn to nearly drop her Xtransceiver. The power in his voice had surprised her. She had shakily held the phone back up to her ear. “Everything I am doing is to try to make life better for him! He is the best part of me and my life! You don’t get to just use him as a pawn in your arguments! How dare you use him like that! He’s your son, too! Can’t you respect him, even if you can’t respect me? Leave him out of it!”

“…You’re delusional, and I’m tired of talking to you, Vince. You don’t make any sense,” she had answered, exasperated, tired of hearing his voice. She had all but blotted out his words, having not wanted to listen to him.

“You’ve got no problem forcing me to listen to you but when I talk to you, I get nothing,” Vince had whimpered. “Goodbye, Amber.” He had hung up with a decisive click.

That had been their last conversation. Amber had decided she simply didn’t care about him anymore enough to keep him talking and had tried to use Hil as leverage in her argument to get him to shut up. It had worked, even if she had gotten an earful prior to him hanging up. She had slept easily that night, like a baby, curled up in her soft bed, weighted comforter warming her up to her shoulders… She wouldn’t discover until noon the next day that Vince had spent that night in a cold, tiled bathroom floor in a pool of his own blood.

Amber set the Xtransciever down and felt the sadness pulling her down like chains. She made her way into the kitchen and thumbed a lock hanging from a small drawer at the very end of the countertops. She used her other hand to retrieve keys from her pocket and she shifted them until she found a thin silver key that unlocked the drawer. Sitting inside was a set of three crinkled, lined papers, scrawled in rushed, ragged handwriting she knew belonged to Vince. One of them was stained a light pink on the very bottom right corner.

They had addressed Hil and Hil only. She had never given them to her son. She had read through them and the train of thought was all over the place, but mostly, the letter was a massive apology. Vince had spent it apologizing for failing to do better, telling Hil that he had been a lesser man, and he hoped Hil would do better than he had. Part of her kept the notes hidden from Hil for the strong language and the fact they spoke of concepts Hil, at fourteen, wouldn’t understand. Another part of her kept them hidden for fear of Hil hating her if he knew the truth… Not to mention, since the notes blathered on and on about Hil himself, she knew how Hil would take them. He would take them as proof he was to blame for his father’s death if he had been so prevalent on Vince’s mind moments before he took his life.

Since most of her and Vince’s arguments were over the phone, Hil never got to hear his father’s side of the story. He had always sympathized with her prior to Vince’s accident, but even so, hadn’t hated Vince by any means. She had enjoyed that strenuous relationship. She didn’t want Hil disliking either one of them… admittedly, she took selfish pride in Hil’s sympathy. Perhaps Vince had been right about her, and she did drag Hil into their squabbles…

She had spent the time following Vince’s accident trying to be there for Hil, trying to appease him and do whatever she felt was necessary to make him happy. But she couldn’t deny that Vince was always on her mind and she knew somehow, her efforts were only serving to push Hil away. She had resigned herself to accepting Hil’s distancing, but she never stopped trying, and obsessively checked behind him to make sure there was no threat of him doing the same. Thankfully, guns were incredibly rare in the Unova region, but that didn’t stop her paranoia from driving her to rifle through Hil’s room from top to bottom. That had also brought about conflict between them.

It had been a mess, if she was entirely honest. All of it. So much glass had shattered, and she still was finding shards lodged in her feet as time went on. Would they ever escape this part of their lives? Or was this just how life was from now on out? Was this her punishment for being so callous and cold toward Vince?

She gave a resigned sigh and picked up the notes in the drawer, clutching them close to her chest. It was a punishment she’d willingly serve, seeing how she had been his angel of death.

[migleefulmoments]

I'm a psych major - i seriously believe that the CC fandom is a cult - the hate they send is cult like mentality, they have something seriously wrong with them. Like mentally. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them got arrested for harassment of C or D or their partners.

Come off anon and chat with me...there is a lot to unpack and I won’t do it publicly.  

There is definite some mental health issues for in that fandom. I too keep wondering how far they will push it.  If not them, will some follower of theirs do something stupid because they are emboldened by the rhetoric that the ccc leaders spew? 

Whether the anons are real or the leaders of the ccc are sending anons to themselves-or it’s a combination of both- is unclear to me, what I do know is that the answers they are giving are consistently and purposefully misleading and often outright lies. 

Two recent examples of their outrageous lies; 

1. ANON::

“...have u seen naya say on the podcast that C was actually upset about santana's rant to kurt in that episode... because it was so real? it really makes u think that there was for sure one writer thay really did have it out for chris...

ajw720 answered:

That rant was 100% directed at C and it was divined by RM.  He is raging with jealousy towards C, he has everything, looks, talent, creativity, and D.  And things completely feel apart when RM realized C was genuine competition.  You realize Blainofsky was punishment to CC for acting out that past summer? He literally broke up the fan favorite couple on the show during the last season for revenge. And he despises C in particular. And that rant was not aimed at K/urt. It was aimed at C.  And I am glad N/aya commented on it, I can’t imagine how she felt being used on that manner.

FACT CHECK: 

Had she spent 2 minutes Googling this she would have realized that fact Brad Falchuk-not Ryan Murphy- wrote Jagged Little Tapestry thus invalidating her entire theory.

Everything she said about Ryan Murphy in this paragraph is simply her fantasy. Ryan is a very successful and powerful Hollywood writer, producer, and director. He is also gay and married with young children and Is a powerful LGBQT advocate.  His youngest son waged a 2-year battle with Neuroblastoma from 2016-2018. Neuroblastoma is a vicious form of childhood cancer that requires intense treatment. I used to be an pediatric oncology/bone marrow transplant nurse and this cancer and treatment is no joke. 

Ryan Murphy is very creative- he created and wrote episodes of Glee, 911, and  Nip/Tuck, AHS, ACS, and the upcoming The Politician. Check out his IMDB (X).  

He has won numerous awards and nurtured a lot of queer content including Pose which hired both LGBTQ actors and staff making it highly unlikely that he would closet a gay actor. 

She suggested Ryan is jealous of Chris because of his “looks” and  his relationship with Darren. There is nothing to suggest that Ryan is unhappy in his married, his attracted to much younger or is attracted to Chris and/ Darren.  Ryan called his husband, “His rock” in 2018 when talking about their son’s illness.  

Abby ignores  Ryan’s real life story, instead because it doesn’t fit her fanfiction character profile she created for Ryan.     

2. ANON: 

“....is it a known fact to the whole fandom that f/etusm/iarren is M/ia ?” (X)

chrisdarebashfulsmiles answered:

Hi, you know, i think (my opinion) that m/iarrens are ignoring purposely this fact. Like.. they have seen everything happening or showed here and decided to say “hey, you know? i don’t care”. Like they do with everything that is not part of the “D is straight” tale.

Let’s say that most of us have an idea about who the minions are (if they exists and i think i can tell you that maybe one is a real person)… but it’s irrelevant. 

The account still exists because, and believe me i don’t know how this is possible, the stans who follow that account are more “m/ia stans” (the ones that bother us on our blogs and in blogs dedicated to hate and mock us) than “D stans.  Let me tell you one thing: i speak with a good bunch of “m/iarren” that are D stans and we are on the same page, we worry for D. No talk of bullshit with them. Most of them understood that something wasn’t ok and they left their fandom, without becoming part of the cc one. Others are still here but more subtle and still respectful.

And I see why: because they want to understand what is wrong.

Anyway: D’s team gives her stuff, and this is one of the problem.

FACT CHECK:

In truth, there are very few “Mia stans” and a lot of “Darren stans”.  The CCCers refuse to listen to what their anons actually say. Instead they pigeon-hole people into categories based on their own needs and they need us to be unreasonable and obsessed with Mia rather than Darren for their self-righteous antics to work.   

Nobody that I am aware of is purposefully ignoring credible evidence that Darren is gay. None of us are looking at the “evidence “ and saying “hey, we don’t care”.  The fact is that very few people care if Darren is gay or straight and the “evidence” is nonsense. I have yet to year one thing that sounds credible. Anyone else? 

I did a very rudimentary look her claim that “The account still exists because, and believe me i don’t know how this is possible, the stans who follow that account are more “m/ia stans” than “D Stans”.  I sampled 280 Fetu/sMiarr/en followers: 

The vast majority were private accounts aka we cannot say why they are interested in the account.

4 or 0.1% called themselves Mi/arrens

10 or 3.5% listed Kl/aine or Gle/e in their profile

15 or 5.3% listen Darre/n or posted photos of him alone

1 or 0.03% was a Guns ‘N Hoses page DING DING DING we found the Mia Stan.   

Darren’s team gives her stuff? What exactly would Darren’s team need to give her? She is his wife. She goes everywhere with him. they own a home and bar together. 

Chrisdarebashfulsmiles had a rare moment of honestly when she said “Believe me I don’t know how this is possible”.  The truth is. it isn’t possible. it’s all made up.

Abby stuck her nose in to the conversation with this wisdom: 

ajw720

And a lot of the stans who refuse to accept it, need M because she is the only thing that makes d straight. And they know as soon as they start to question, they have to face reality

Um, no Abs, Mia is not the only thing that makes Darren straight. 

Darren is straight because he is a man who is sexually attracted to women....the very definition of “straight”.  

Darren has identified as straight for 9 years. 

Your confusion around his sexual orientation is simply your refusal to respect his word because you believe you know more than he does about his own feelings-however that isn’t a valid argument.    

His marriage to Mia is a personal decision to build a life with the woman he loves and has been in a relationship with for 9 years or so.

Let’s look at Darren’s own words over the years:  

2011 'Glee' Star Darren Criss Comes Out—As A Straight Guy!(X)

"I think it's more empowering to everybody, including myself, if I'm articulate about identifying myself as a straight male playing a gay character," the actor says in the Hollywood issue of Out magazine. "Ultimately, that's more powerful for both communities."

When Criss first got the role of Blaine, he admits that he wanted to deflect questions about his sexual orientation, giving reporters answers like, "It doesn't matter if I'm gay or straight." But he decided that it was better if he was just honest and straightforward. Besides, he explains, he owes a huge part of his identity to gay role models. 

2011 “Glee Star Darren Criss Dishes on Kissing Lea Michele & Losing Out To Cory Monteith (X)

I’ve been pretty overt about the fact that I am straight,” Darren told Billy and Kit. “I think it’s an important thing to be explicit about — not for my own sexuality, but just as a general statement that I am comfortable with my sexuality and very comfortable with the fact that I’m playing a strong gay character.”

I’ve been pretty overt about the fact that I am straight,” Darren told Billy and Kit. “I think it’s an important thing to be explicit about — not for my own sexuality, but just as a general statement that I am comfortable with my sexuality and very comfortable with the fact that I’m playing a strong gay character.”

2013 Cosmo Guy” Darren Criss On Glee’s New Chapter   (X)

Q: You're not gay; you just play gay on TV. Do you ever feel the need to assert your heterosexuality?

A: No. I know who I am. I feel bad for guys who have to flex their muscles. But hey, if that's the way to make yourself feel comfortable as a man—as long as it isn't antagonizing anybody—go for it. I'm okay with your getting a Miata to feel like a dude; just don't be a dick about it.

Darren Criss Will No Longer Play Gay Characters (X)

Darren Criss has decided that he will no longer play gay characters. Why? Because he doesn’t want to be a straight actor taking potential roles from actors who actually identify as gay, he said in a recent interview with Bustle.

“There are certain [queer] roles that I’ll see that are just wonderful,” he explained. “But I want to make sure I won’t be another straight boy taking a gay man’s role.”

2018 Darren Criss on Playing Serial Killer Andrew Cunanan in ACS: Versace and Passing as White  (X)

You’ve also played a lot of gay and queer characters. Has playing these parts informed how you think about your sexuality or gender? That’s a great question. God, we need like an hour. Sure, yes. Absolutely. It definitely has. I think being queer in general evokes more self-questioning than somebody who’s cisgender straight, because you really have to explore a lot of things about yourself that are meeting resistance on conventional social levels. So you have to go, “Okay, cool. Is this really how I feel?” There are questions that arise within yourself that doesn’t have to happen if you live in a hetero-normative universe. So in that sense, I think the journey of questioning oneself, which everybody does anyway — and should do— I admire that narrative. Even though I am not gay myself, or queer, I am a storyteller, and I love and appreciate the strength of character it takes for someone to get through that, whether it was difficult or not. I’ve been very blessed in my career with being allowed in the gay community. Again, as a cisgendered straight dude, that’s not lost on me. I don’t take that for granted. It’s been such a huge part of my life, even pre-Glee. I come from San Francisco doing theater, man. Like, I was raised by gay men. Not literally at home, but you know, as a young kid doing theater, my friends were these men and women in their 20s, driving me home and getting me dinner. These were my adult figures in my life, so unconsciously I’ve always had such affection for the life, whatever that means. So I guess inhabiting a gay voice is important to me because it’s a voice that I find inspiring. 

These are just two of the many lies the cc fandom tell their followers in order to manipulate them into believing the fantasies that means much to them.  

[funforall-1980-blog]

Combating Fatigue Being Tired All the Time Is NOT Normal

Do you feel tired constantly?

Is it accurate to say that you are continually depleted?

Do you experience the ill effects of outrageous tiredness and weariness?

Do you need a caffeinated drink or a shock of espresso to get past the evening?

Perpetual weakness isn't ordinary, and as a rule, you can identify the hidden guilty parties that prevent you from having enduring, continued vitality.

Endless Fatigue Syndrome

It appears as though everybody is worn out today. We are headed to work quicker and longer all while not getting enough rest, feeling focused, and settling on poor nourishment decisions.

Even under the least favorable conditions, extraordinary weariness shows as incessant weakness disorder (CFS), which happens when somebody feels tired more often than not, and that exhaustion has waited longer than a half year.

Indeed, even with legitimate rest, in the event that you have perpetual exhaustion disorder, despite everything you feel unnecessary tiredness. You have extreme trouble performing physical and mental exercises, and when you do, side effects like muscle shortcoming; cerebral pains; mental weakness; joint torment, and fever just deteriorate.

Interminable exhaustion disorder can keep going for quite a long time. Specialists stay puzzled about what causes this condition, and there are no tests to authoritatively analyze endless weariness disorder. To make matters additionally confounding, perpetual weariness is a side effect of numerous sicknesses.

Side effects of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Specialists have limited a portion of the triggers for constant weariness disorder. Everybody is extraordinary, however, and may encounter side effects of constant weakness disorder in an unexpected way, yet the Centers for Disease Control and specialists characterize endless exhaustion disorder as having at any rate four of the accompanying physical side effects for at any rate a half year:

Post-exertional disquietude (an enormous vitality crash that would just be minor in non-CFS sufferers)

Unrefreshing rest

Debilitated memory or focus

Muscle torment

Polyarthralgia (joint torment however without irritation)

Sore throat

Delicate lymph hubs

Migraines

Interminable weakness disorder must be analyzed when different infections have been discounted, yet that is the issue: You may experience exhaustion as an indication of other wellbeing conditions.But energy pills can solve this problem .

What Causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

Why constant exhaustion disorder happens is vague and complex. Specialists infer that diseases, similar to pneumonia and bronchitis, and other resistant insufficiencies are identified with endless weakness disorder. Sorrow, torment, and rest aggravations oftentimes happen with ceaseless weariness disorder.

On the off chance that you speculate interminable exhaustion disorder, you should discover a medicinal services expert who can adopt a comprehensive strategy to your wellbeing and reveal basic medical problems and way of life factors that may add to your weariness.

Tragically, patients once in a while feel disappointed that they haven't had the option to find solutions from their specialists or by asking Google. They may see side effects like constant weakness as "in their mind" or they need inspiration or resolution.

Step by step instructions to Combat Fatigue

1. Dispose of sugar and handled or bundled sustenances.

Eat a piece of candy and your vitality will typically dive before long. Sugar and other refined starches give you somewhat shot of vitality, however at an immense cost: Those glucose spikes crash rapidly, leaving you feeling depleted. In the event that disposing of sugar totally is excessively testing, step by step exchange it for lower-sugar sustenances, similar to berries, to progress off sugar. Eat nuts rather than chips or treats.

Low-sugar berries

2. Lessen or dispense with caffeine and liquor.

That evening espresso may give you a brief lift, however on the off chance that you process caffeine ineffectively or use caffeine as a support for things like awful rest, espresso can destroy your vitality. Liquor can as well. It might quiet your nerves for a brief timeframe, however may leave you depleted or rationally foggy a couple of hours after the fact.

3. Get 7 – 9 hours of rest daily.

The National Sleep Foundation prescribes grown-ups get seven to nine hours of rest for every night. A few inquiries you can pose to yourself to check whether you are not dozing enough include: Does it set aside me a long effort to nod off? Do I get up regularly or am I anxious? Do I feel languid when driving? Do I need caffeine to get past the day? Answer, "yes," to any of these demonstrates you may not be getting enough quality rest.

4. Exercise.

Investing hours at the exercise center isn't benefiting your unending weariness levels in any way – recall overexercising can be a guilty party of interminable exhaustion disorder. The best method to exercise and build your vitality is through the high-force interim preparing (HIIT). These short, serious "blasts" give you a full exercise in brief period.

5. Discover approaches to unwind and reset your brain.

For certain individuals, taking 20 minutes during the evening to reflect can be sufficient to energize. Possibly yoga or profound breathing is your thing. Whatever you do, discover time to unwind and reset your psyche.

Endless exhaustion can hinder your wellbeing and bliss, and there is nobody measure fits-all arrangement. A chiropractor may help address any obstruction in your spine that may add to exhaustion, just as assistance deal with the manifestations of unending weariness disorder. While it might require some investment, and some conduct transforms, you can recover your vitality and recover your wellbeing and prosperity.

[parttimestorier]

Interview with d Marie Licea

Recently, I had a chance to talk with d Marie Licea, developer of Us Lovely Corpses, about the creative process behind this fascinating “surreal-horror-romance” visual novel. Us Lovely Corpses is a VN I considered reviewing for this blog when I read it, but I struggled to write a review that would be interesting and accessible—explaining the parts that most impressed and resonated with me would mean spoiling it completely. But I encourage anyone who can handle some disturbing content in service of a great story and heartfelt message to try it out. This interview will start with some more general questions, and it includes a warning farther down before any spoilers for Us Lovely Corpses appear.

Question: Did you always plan for the story of Us Lovely Corpses to be a visual novel, or did you consider other mediums as well?

Answer: In its earliest stages, Us Lovely Corpses was actually planned as a comic! I came up with the original idea somewhere around 2014-2015—it was going to be about 10 pages, and would just cover the scene that ended up being the game's finale. Alex and Marisol (who weren't named yet) were very different—they were much younger, Alex wasn't really "a witch," and Marisol was originally a boy!

I sat on the idea a while, and the longer I did so the more I wanted to explore the history of these characters, which made for a longer and more unwieldy comic. Then in 2015, when I started learning about visual novels, it hit me that the concept could work really well in that format, especially when the "exploration" element came in.

Q: Were there any particular visual novels that influenced you?

A: Yes! The reason why I started getting into visual novels specifically in 2015 was that because that was the year We Know The Devil came out!

We Know The Devil totally shifted my viewpoint as to what a visual novel could be—no diss to dating sims, but before WKTD, I, like most people, just saw VNs as dating sims and occasionally something like the When They Cry series.

WKTD totally changed that for me—a short, incredibly contained story that also managed to be about so, so much, in a surreal, horror-inspired atmosphere . . . it really blew me away! Not only was it the game that got me into visual novels, but you can definitely see a lot of its influence on Us Lovely Corpses.

Besides WKTD, there was also Her Tears Were My Light, a fairly minimalist love story that used the "rewind" function in Ren’Py as part of the story. Utilizing mechanics as part of the narrative was a really cool idea to me that also ended up in ULC. (side note: I met and hired Alex Huang to do the music for Us Lovely Corpses because I loved the soundtrack for HTWML so much!)

Finally, I was really into the original Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) trilogy when I was younger, and the evidence gathering segments were a big part of those games. I originally envisioned the "rose clipping" segments of ULC like those parts, where you'd have to select each rose before cutting it, but sadly that was a little too complex for me at the time, and I eventually decided to go for something more simple in order to complete the game. But that initial idea was a big part of what made me try Us Lovely Corpses as a game, so it ended up still being a big influence in the end!

Q: Besides technical things like those mechanics and the exploration element, do you find that you have a different style of writing in visual novels as opposed to the stories you've done in other formats, like twine and comics?

A: I'm not sure if this is always the case for visual novels, but I find I have to format my writing differently when writing for VNs—specifically, in length of sentences and paragraphs. I've found my writing worked a lot better in Us Lovely Corpses the more I broke everything up into smaller fragments—larger ones or paragraphs didn't work as well, which can be a problem for me because my writing can tend to get a bit wordy!

This has to do a lot with the pacing of visual novels and how the player/reader is a big part of that. Control over pacing is a big part of why visual novels appeal to me, but you also have to think differently to get the best result.

Technical stuff aside, I found that, at least for ULC, my actual writing style remained pretty much the same. I think this has the benefit of making the writing in Us Lovely Corpses seem unique, but has the disadvantage of posing a problem for a certain something I didn't see coming at all: Let’s Players!

A few people have made videos of their playthroughs of Us Lovely Corpses, which is incredibly exciting, but when I watch them, I can't help but feel bad for them because they always read everything out loud . . . which means, with my somewhat wordy style, they have to do a LOT of talking!

I haven't actually gotten complaints about this or anything, but I still hope people who make videos of their playthroughs of ULC keep some water nearby!

Note: the next part of the interview contains spoilers for Us Lovely Corpses, as well as discussion of mental illness.

Q: As the story progresses, it becomes explicitly clear that the “monster” is Marisol’s bipolar disorder. Did you ever think about leaving the metaphor more ambiguous, and if so, what made you decide to be so direct instead?

A: I'd say if the "monster" was one specific thing, it would her Ocular Rosaceae, as it's the one specific thing that gives a physical form to Marisol's thoughts and unhealthy behaviors. But even that, in a way, is not taking into account her bipolar disorder and depression, her jealousy towards Alex, her self-loathing and introversion . . . "the monster" is all of those things, because at its core, the monster is mental illness. And mental illness is never just one thing, but many things and factors interacting at once to create something much bigger than a single diagnosis.

All that said, it's not incorrect to say that Marisol's bipolar disorder is the monster; it's just more accurate to say it’s part of Marisol's monster. Back when ULC was still a comic, I wasn't going to talk about specific diagnoses, but as the story grew I realized I wanted to talk more explicitly about mental illness. I don't exactly remember where the idea came about, but early on in the writing process I got that idea in my head of Alex finding that fake corpse and finding that doctor's diagnosis. In retrospect, it was a really, really weird scene, especially as it comes right off the heels of realizing what you thought was a dead body was just a weird joke, but I do like what it represents—in the middle of this surreal trip into a house filled with talking flowers, the story suddenly halts as you soak in this very blunt reminder that, magic aside, this is a world that is representative of the real world. Marisol may have a magical disease and be best friends with a witch, but she's a very real girl, so to speak.

So that harsh reminder is part of why I wanted to be so direct. I guess the other part would be that I just wanted to make no bones about it. Some things you want to leave up to interpretation, and some things you don't. From the very, very beginning the story was always about mental illness, so it just felt right to me to be upfront about it.

Q: One thing I noticed that I thought showed a lot of attention to detail in ULC was that in one of the rooms you explore there are two famous paintings that both have connections to suicide (Millais’s Ophelia and van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows). Are there any other little symbolic details like that you added to the story that some readers might have missed?

A: Ah, I'm glad you caught that! If I had stuck with the more Ace Attorney style of gameplay I would have liked to put more small details like that in. As it stands, the big example is probably pretty obvious—Alex's notes about each rose are fairly close to the standard "flower language" of different rose colors in real life. The fact that yellow roses can mean "jealousy" or "friendship" depending on what source you use actually ended up working very well with the story.

The last names of Alex and Marisol are probably pretty obvious: de Rosa ("of the Rose") and Flores ("Flowers"). Something that's probably less apparent is Marisol, a name that originally comes from a contraction of "Maria de La Soledad" ("Our Lady Of Solitude"), one of the titles given to the Virgin Mary.

Q: Was the flower language the reason you used roses rather than any other flower, or were there other inspirations for that as well?

A: There were a number of reasons! One being that Revolutionary Girl Utena was a big influence on my style and particularly on several parts of the game. There's also the whole dichotomy with roses/thorns. And there's also the simple fact that I have fun drawing roses!

Q: For my last question, are you working on any other visual novels right now?

A: I am as a matter of fact! I'm working on a visual novel set in Japan about some high school kids who explore a strange house. It's still in fairly early stages, but I think if I give it my all I will actually have a demo ready in time for Halloween, which would be great!

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing that demo—even more so after learning about all of the serious thought d Marie Licea puts into the details and themes of her work. If you’re as excited as I am about updates on her upcoming projects, you can follow her on itch.io or twitter, and considering supporting her patreon. Thanks for reading!

[anaseski]

How my gut health was the direct cause of depression and anxiety

Most of you who have been following me for a while know I took a break from Social Media between August – November last year.  I promised I would share my story, what I experienced and how I overcame it, so here it is!

This is actually very difficult for me to share.  I’ve contemplated deleting this blog post numerous times and I’ve held onto it for months debating on whether or not I should even post it!  I do believe its an important message to share and I’m hoping by doing so it helps anyone else suffering from depression and anxiety that they are not alone and it’s something you can totally overcome without the use of antidepressants!

This is my story…

I’m generally a happy person and you will always find me smiling.  I tend to be extroverted, but I admit sometimes it’s exhausting (so I’m not sure if that makes me a closet introvert?!)  But I’m a confident person and in my career I’m highly driven (typical type A personality) and have always been able to balance the stress of work and my everyday life very well.  Until there was a time I couldn’t.  

First off, I want to preface this with this was my experience and I’m writing this from my point of view.  I did things that worked for me, but may not work for others.  This post is meant to help you disseminate if there are similarities between what I experienced  and what you could be experiencing or have experienced.

So why is gut health so important and how is it tied to depression and anxiety anyway?

Most people don’t realize that 80% of your immune system is found in your gut and your gut health has a direct link to your mental health!   Your gut has trillions of microbes that work to keep your body in harmony.  When your gut balance is thrown off or compromised, it can cause havoc to your body both physically and mentally.  Eg. Nutritional deficiencies, hormonal imbalance, inflammation conditions and yes, depression and anxiety.  

Last summer I started have serious gut health issues and it took me over 3 months to figure out what was causing it.  Throughout this discovering process, I suffered from severe anxiety, to the point I was having full blown panic attacks.  And I’m talking about every day, all day long to the point it was waking me out of my sleep. Now, I’m a logical person, I knew there was no reason to panic but I couldn’t control it no matter how hard I tried. If anyone has suffered from panic attacks knows, it’s hard to cope.  I felt like I was drowning and couldn’t come up for air.  I could no longer function normally anymore and it got to the point I could barely get out of bed in the morning.  

And the shocking part was all of that was tied to the bacteria in my gut being unbalanced.

So what causes the bacteria in your gut to go unbalanced?  It could be a variety of things, from chronic illness, to a bacterial infection, to a major life altering stressful event, to food poisoning, to something simple like taking antibiotics or just picking up a foreign bacteria while travelling.   What happens is the bad bacteria start to multiple (by living off, you got it!  bad process foods – i.e. sugar!)  and it slowly takes over your good bacteria.  By time you start to feel the effects of this it’s usually in the form of anxiety, depression, digestive issues or nausea (like IBS).  

So how did I overcome the depression and anxiety? I first focused on re- balancing my gut bacteria. The moment I got this under control, the panic attacks slowed down, the anxiety subsided, and the depression slowly dissipated.  It didn’t happen overnight, but within a few months I was able to get back to my normal life.  

Here was my journey to healing (without taking medication/antidepressants):

1.  I was relentless in my endeavor to overcome what I was feeling!  I refused to accept this as a ‘new normal’.  First thing I did was pushed for my doctor to get to the root cause, I didn’t accept their diagnosis at face value, and if I wasn’t happy with the results, I went for a second opinion.  I didn’t take medications without understanding the side effects. For example, acid blockers were prescribed to me however they cause heart palpitations which in turn triggered my panic attacks.  So be relentless!

2.  I found a Gastrologist who understood gut health and helped me get to the root cause of my gut health issues.  Remember depression and anxiety are just symptoms of an underlying issue!

3.  I eliminated sugar immediately.  Anyone who has followed me for a while knows I do periodic sugar detoxes.  I am trying to gear myself to get to a point that I can eliminate processed sugar completely from my diet because it really feeds the bad bacteria in your gut and causes all sorts of problems (you can see a previous blog post on the effects processed sugar has on your body)

4.  I took probiotics daily!  Even though I was already taking probiotics when all this started, the type of probiotics I was using wasn’t the right base formula for me.  After seeing a 2nd Gastrologist he helped me understand that I was using ‘foreign’ good bacteria which only die off after a couple of weeks. I ended up switching to a probiotics that contain Lactobacillus and Acidophilus which help build up your natural colony of good bacteria.

5.  I drank organic chicken bone broth multiple times a day.  Bone broth has natural properties that improve digestive and gut issues like unbalanced or leaky gut.  It contains collagen and gelatin that are rich in amino acids which help reduce inflammation.  

6.  I gave up caffeine!  This was a hard one, but I pretty much had to avoid any foods that raised my heart rate.

7.  I drank herbal teas.  Ginger, ginger and more ginger!  It was my savior!  At least for the hour or two after I drank that tea, I was able to feel somewhat calm and it allowed me to eat small quantities of food.  

8.  I started to do yoga every day. I’m an avid runner and because I was so weak, I couldn’t run, and I started to lose muscle very quickly!  I started doing Yoga, which helped with breathing and blood flow and allowed my body to relax and it really helped subside the panic attacks. There are actually poses that help with different ailments, so I focused on poses that helped with my gut issues and anxiety.

9. This was a hard one, but I talked to someone.  I’ll be honest, I felt helpless at times, frustrated beyond belief and quite honestly just sad that I couldn’t get this under control quickly.  Sharing doesn’t add to the burden, it truly lessens it so please share and talk to someone, family/friends or a health care professional when you are experiencing any form of anxiety or depression!

10.  I started reading books, for me this helped not focus on my anxiety.  Bottom line is find a hobby that works for you to help get your mind off what you are feeling.

11.  I ate foods that didn’t cause digestive problems.  I basically limited my diet to soup broth, plain white rice, bananas and a lot of herbal tea.  I did take B12 and iron supplements, along with magnesium oil and vitamin D.  All of these help to ensure you are still absorbing nutrients, which is super important when you are trying to heal your gut!

12.  Instead of antibiotics, I tried oil of oregano pills, which have natural antibiotic properties that helps kill bad bacteria.  These did help me but I will caution they were still pretty strong and they did upset my stomach so make sure you take them with food.

Well there you have it!  It’s a long list but after a few months I was able to get back to my normal self and I’m happy to say I did it naturally, without taking antidepressants!  

I hope in sharing this, it helps anyone who may be experiencing anxiety and depression or who is suffering from panic attacks to look into their gut health and push to get to the root of what’s causing it.  You are not alone, it can happen to anyone!  I’m happy to answer any questions you may have about my experience!

Thank you for allowing me to share my journey!

Sincerely,

Andria

Keep smiling :) 

[aboriginalnewswire]

Trigger warning for sexual abuse, stalking, rape, domestic violence and large-scale attacks by hate groups. Last Thursday, I criticized the Linux community for continuing to support and center a leader with a years-long, documented history of unrepentant abusive behavior, someone who has actively and systematically nurtured a hostile, homogeneous technical community, and someone who has long actively chased people from marginalized groups out of open source. The retaliation has been terrifying. On Friday night, the home addresses of every member of my immediate family were posted online. I have received literally thousands of harassing, abusive, threatening and violent messages across at least half a dozen separate sites. People speaking up in support of me had their home addresses posted online as well, sometimes within minutes, creating a climate of fear that has functionally isolated me from most community support. I have received slurs of every variety, death and rape threats, and violent and threatening images. They have gone after my business and my family's livelihoods with slander, intimidation and attempts to cut off financial support, and tried to hack into various of my accounts and systems. They have left pages and pages of stomach-turning comments on the front of every internet community I am a part of and that influences my professional community and peers. As I was reeling from my family being doxxed and taking steps to ensure everyone’s safety, the tech press was giving a massive platform to an ex-partner - someone I dated for four months more than 3 years ago - who has, after I dumped him, terrorized, threatened and abused me for years, and continues to do so. This is a person who is a known liar, abuser and manipulator, with a long history of stalking, hacking and terrorizing women, who is now being treated as an authoritative character witness on one of his long-term victims - for the sole purpose of destroying my company, discrediting my work, and terrorizing me into silence. This is a person who has hacked nude photos of me and sent them to my employers - yes, bosses, executive team and investors. (I barely left my house for two weeks after and to this day cannot recall a time being more scared, depressed and humiliated). Details of my private sex life - provided by my ex - are now all over the internet and have been used to justify my abuse, incite more of it, and slut and kink-shame me. Valleywag -- less than a day after stealing stories from me, plagiarizing content from my Twitter, publishing my comments without permission or compensation, and refusing to properly acknowledge my work and job title -- has used its platform to replicate this terrorism and domestic violence to an even larger audience. Nevermind that their original articles had already incited harassment against me (they were posted over and over to the anonymous hate boards that attacked my family); their most recent article on me is an act of pure and spiteful violence following my critiques of their behavior. The past few days have been terrifying, and my heart is broken. This is abuse. This is domestic violence. This is harassment. This is terrorism. While many are eager to claim that I am actually being abused because I'm crazy, a liar, a fraud, a troll, a hypocrite, a neo-Nazi, a whore, because I've had kinky sex, because I dated an abuser, because I'm mean to men on Twitter, because I swear a lot, because I'm a "blogger" that contributes nothing to the field: I am being targeted because of my work speaking up against tech culture. My work is what has made me a target, but it is nonetheless ironically (or maybe predictably) being erased in a frothing media-frenzy to portray me as a useless, insane "PR girl", a hysterical slut with a social media account, and to generate page views from my pain. (I'm posting this on Pastebin because unlike most of the tech press, I refuse to use this abuse as a machine for eyeballs and ad dollars.) In case you’re not familiar with my work, let me tell you about it. A few years ago, I started blogging independently about tech culture, giving talks about it, and organizing resistance efforts on social media. In that period, I produced several books-worth of essays that deconstructed in detail harmful elements of tech culture, discussed useful modes of intervention and resistance, and called out collective complicity in oppression across the industry... including my own complicity. I also began using my Twitter account to talk about my experiences with misogyny in tech, call out inequality and advocate for change - and yes, I use swear words on Twitter dot com, and you will handle it because you’re not a fucking three year old. (I might take your cookies and smash your fucking Xbox anyway, though.) I did this in my spare time until late in 2013, when I started working full-time on Model View Culture, which launched in January '14. In the past year, Model View Culture has produced a body of tech and cultural criticism the size of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We have published over 150 authors. Our publication consistently stands against discrimination, abuse and oppression in the tech industry. We have covered sexual abuse and assault, social media activism and abuse, the surveillance complex, engineering mythology, open source community, accessibility, hiring discrimination, mental illness and disability, consent in product design, workplace abuse, the VC industrial complex, suicide, white liberalism, police violence, codes of conduct, team dysfunctions, and systemic discrimination, violence and inequality at every stage of the technology pipeline. We publish and pay a large and diverse groups of writers speaking to their experiences, to their beliefs and to their sense of justice, to their demands for a better tech industry. We challenge racism & white supremacy, sexism and misogyny, transphobia, ableism, classism and other forms of institutionalized oppression rampant in tech. I believe we have produced more critical content from diverse voices than any other tech media. Model View Culture is not perfect. It is not a panacea. It is not done, or complete. It is one year old, just getting started, and there is so much more for us to do. But we have been an influential, if small, part of the growing attempts to call out and dismantle fundamental problems in the tech community. This work is what people are desperate to stop, by any means including trying to get my family killed by SWATing, trying to convince me to kill myself, terrorizing my supporters, stalking me (I have had multiple men stalk me for 6-14 months at a time), hacking my computers and accounts, "exposing" my sex life, cutting off my funding, belittling and erasing my writing, plagiarizing my content, sending constant rape and death threats, and ceaselessly holding me up for abuse to hate groups. This has been my life for almost two years. I'm sad to say that part of you starts to get used to it. But I also want to tell you about what it does to me and other victims of these attacks. Because of my work, I can no longer make public appearances, speak at events or have anyone know where I am or what I'm doing. I can't have friends over to my house because no one can know where I live. My social life consists only of a few close friends who I feel I can trust. Many of them also undergo the same shit I do - other people don’t understand and find it too stressful to be around. I am traumatized by what is now years of active stalking and abuse; abuse committed by tech workers and unaffiliated individuals, by anonymous harassers and influential figures in tech, and by media both in tech and mainstream. My sex life is fodder for 8chan and corrupt journalists trying to destroy my company because it is competition and it poses a threat to their press-release factories, funded by startups and venture capitalists and uncritically reproducing their propaganda. I receive anywhere between dozens and thousands of harassing messages each week. Anything bad that happens to me is considered “normal” and “expected”, and any reason to expose me to abuse is sufficient. People say I am a "professional victim", suggesting I am somehow profiting off my work, but I am now unemployable in the field I once loved and make a fraction of what I used to make as a tech worker. I spend an enormous amount of money and time securing my safety. It is no longer safe for me to do media appearances as media abuses me, demeans me, violates my boundaries, steals my content and holds me up for abuse, offering no support or protection: every article has resulted in more stalkers and harassment. I am frequently cut off from support because people who support me are afraid to be targeted as well. That's just my everyday. Then there's these recent attacks. Frankly, I am devastated, depressed, vulnerable, non-functional, anxious, paranoid and isolated. I’ve visibly lost weight since last Thursday. My heart hurts and my body aches. I feel humiliated, exploited, and am in physical pain. I'm frightened for myself, my family, my friends, and people in my community who have supported me. I am trying to keep working but honestly, it is incredibly difficult. I had a lot of plans for Model View Culture in the beginning of this year, and unfortunately most of them are going to be delayed by at least weeks as I try to put my self-esteem and sense of safety back together, take the needed steps to protect myself, family and community, and process these feelings of fear, anxiety, trauma and anger. It's devastating to admit the toll this has taken on me, to accept that it is having such a significant impact on my work. I fear that people won’t want to write for Model View Culture anymore because doing this work is actually dangerous. As is, we have to publish far too many articles anonymously, because people fear losing their jobs and their safety for speaking out and telling their stories. I am asking myself how I can actually continue like this and run a company under these conditions. No other tech press is operating under this level of violence and terrorism, and we don’t have corporate money or VC funding to help us defend against it. It’s intimidating. I ask Model View Culture readers and community to be patient during this time. The truth of the matter is that as much as people want abuse victims to be fearless, to come out on top, to not be stopped: at some point, this is simply not realistic. That said, I'm not stopping, I am not going away, and I will continue, even if it happens a little slower or a little later than I planned. Changing tech is my life's work. I'm only 28, so you'll probably have to deal with it for at least the next few decades. This is a set-back for my health and my ability to work, but I'm here for the long-term. I am sad that my new normal is, well, this. But so be it. To everyone who has supported me in this time: Thank you so much. I haven't been able to respond to so many of you because it hasn't been safe to, but I appreciate and value your belief and faith in me. To everyone else: Go fuck yourself. Some specific “fucks yous” go out to: The Linux community, I hope you realize how fucking toxic and broken your “community” is after standing by silently as me and my entire family were terrorized after I criticized Linus Torvalds. I think you are cowardly and spineless and I stand behind everything I said. I also think you need to seriously look at the clear ties the Linux community has to 8chan and GamerGate which led many of the attacks on me. Andrew Auernheimer aka a blast of trash from my past: you started whining and crying the day I dumped your ass and you haven’t stopped since. May the ouroboros eat YOU, easily mistaken for a snake, and may you spend the rest of your days as you have to date - pathetic, prospectless, alone and heartbroken, ever-pining over women who hate your guts and clinging to any last scrap of fast-fading relevance. Milo Yiannopoulos, a failure of a human being but tremendous success as an opportunistic sell-out scumbag who has spent months digging up details on my sex life and leading harassment campaigns against me. Valleywag, particularly Valleywag editor Dan Lyons -- a white man who is 26 years older then me and uses my sex life for clickbait while citing Yiannopolous and Weev as a credible source in order to take me down. Also Jason Calacanis, who has supported my long term stalker Loren Feldman and is basically a shitstain of a human being who we should kick out of tech forever. Vivek Wadhwa, who is building his career off women in tech yet is transparently a misogynistic asshole who has used this opportunity to get back at me for criticizing his profiteering and patriarchal brand of "allyship." Also Elizabeth Spiers who continues to refuse to get the FUCK away from me after MONTHS of me asking to be left in peace. Get the fuck over me and move on with your life as a has-been. You are literally 10 years older than me, yet are relentlessly picking on a young woman with an up-and-coming media career like you once had. You look jealous and petty, and your ongoing obsession with me is creepy as fuck. In the remainder of this post, I am addressing my community. I realize that following my tweets can be difficult and not very coherent, especially as I have navigated the emotional roller coaster of the weekend. My anxiety is through the roof and I haven’t gotten much sleep. While I don't think I should have to explain and rehash my sex life, analyze terrorism against me at length, and somehow summon words out of a fog of anxiety, fear and depression, I want to get my views on the record. They have been dismissed, erased, deemed irrelevant, misconstrued, twisted and deployed against me. So here they are, FROM ME. They have made it too scary to defend me, so I defend myself: I, unequivocally, support ourselves and stand behind us. Lol. OK for real. I wanted to start by discussing my past sexual history. Since we are already so deep into my sex life - released non-consensually and with the sole aim of terrorizing me - let's talk about it. Over three years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to Andrew Auernheimer aka Weev. I had no idea who he was prior to this friend telling me about him and introducing me. I was not involved in the infosec community (still aren’t), was fairly new to tech, and arrived in Silicon Valley years after his most high-profile attacks on other women in tech. As many of you have conveniently forgotten, (even those of you who wrote them!), articles about him painted him as a charismatic, counter-culture hacker taking on powerful and corrupt systems - someone who expressed a number of "controversial" (i.e. sexist, racist and homophobic) views, but these were glossed over as satire and mischief. I was happy to do the same, something which I deeply regret and deeply apologize for. The industry was, as it always has been and remains, enamored and worshipping of the "edgy" young white male hacker who ostensibly reflects a challenge to the status-quo, but in actuality just re-creates those systems under the guise of liberalism, satire and "mischief" aka misogynistic and racist terrorism. Frankly, I was also enamored. At the time, I was really early in my career, didn't give much of a shit about social justice, didn't particularly understand how fucked up the industry was, and was laboring under the profound delusion that my career success meant some kind of feminism. I think I was starting to undergo some type of political realization or awakening and was in some clumsy and inept way reaching out for an alternative framework, a tech “counter culture”. Of course, the "alternative" framework I discovered was some abusive piece of shit who would crawl into my life, use me for money and housing, and then spend years after punishing me for it. Typical. I am also not the only victim of his predatory and exploitative behavior towards his partners and ex-partners. At the time, I was in a bad place (which he gleefully exploited) and frankly looking for some strings-free fun and (unhealthy) emotional support. A good time seemed like having a completely doomed relationship with a notorious, emotionally co-dependent bad boy that I could fuck for a few hours and call daddy in a hotel room, then leave after giving him $40 out of the ATM because he had no money (stemming from a blanket refusal to work, preferring to just take money from women who feel sorry for his miserable existence). It worked for me at the time, it satisfied something I was looking for, and it made my life feel edgy and exciting, even though I know recognize it as a a huge mistake and deeply regret it. But, it happened. To all the people berating me for making poor dating choices in my mid-20s, many who haven't seen their mid-twenties in ten to twenty years: Guess what, assholes. Mistakes. Were. Made. Can you really tell me that you haven't fucked the wrong people? Maybe ones of the dudes I fucked was worse than your partners, but I've always been an overachiever. Like I have previously stated: At least I fucked weev in shame and private unlike the EFF, TechCrunch, the NY Times and all the rest of your favs. To be honest, dating men who are emotionally and physically abusive has been something of a pattern for me, due to the fact that I have disproportionately fallen into these relationships as a former abuse victim AND due to the fact that so many men are abusive, predatory, manipulative and lying scum. Fuck them, and misandry forever. In response to Andrew's allegations that I am a racist, hate-filled neo-Nazi who shared his views, that I am simply a troll or performance artist: I do not, and have never shared Andrew's views, and he didn't teach me shit. Most of our relationship consisted of fucking in potentially disturbing and unhealthy ways, talking about his upcoming trial, sharing photos of red pandas, me bitching about work, watching My Little Pony (i know, i know) and him trying to get as much money out of me as he could. I smoked a bunch of weed, he drank and we ate lots of takeout. As far as his trolling techniques, they seem to consist primarily of convincing people who can actually code to do things for him, then taking the credit for them, so I wasn't really interested in acquiring these “skills” even if I did have a naive fascination with what I then saw as his "innocent" pranks and how they functioned. While it wasn't a big part of our brief-lived (four month) relationship, he often made comments that were racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, misogynist and transphobic. I alternated between being like "hahahaha", “satiring” back to him (including making similar comments), and telling him to knock it the fuck off. In private conversations he assured me that he was just a performance artist, that it was satire and trolling, and that he was actually a feminist (lol). He was always laughing when he said really horrible things. Like the anti-intellectual, self-centered, callous, cavalier and "edgy" white liberal that I fancied myself (And was) at the time, I laughed too and played along. As much as there is lots of feigned outrage from white people about it, this discourse was frankly not much different than that I saw and still see constantly in the tech workplace and at events, online and in the community. Tech prides itself on being "not overtly -ist" when it actually is, despite almost everyone’s vehement protestations. For those who attempt to distance themselves from the racism, sexism, and transphobia of the industry by congratulating themselves that we don’t "say those things": you are full of shit. The tech industry is chock full NOT ONLY of "subtle" issues that let us continue to feel like good people because we don't use slurs, but actual constant and overt abuse, discrimination, and violence - often under the guises of "irony" and "satire”. And I have absolutely participated in it. People demand to know why I won't "defend" myself from the "charges" made by my ex. Yes, they contain a number of outright lies and inventions as well as self-serving exaggerations, distortions and manipulations. Frankly, I’m not going to indulge this circus by refuting and responding point-by-point to the details of an abusive relationship I had years ago. As to the overall tone of the allegations, basically that I used to be an oppressive asshole who held much different values than I do now... well I don't feel a need to "defend" or "deny" that because the truth is, I had for years and years of my past been whole-heartedly complicit in the systems of inequality and discrimination that plague our field. I thought that if I made six figures and did well in my career, acted like "one of the boys” aka white male patriarchs, or played along with them, and was as vulgar, violent, self-centered and cut-throat as the "successful" white men around me, that was "feminism." I gave a shit about my own advancement but for many years didn't really give a shit about anyone else's advancement. I didn't recognize my role in the tech industry as a privileged white woman, and didn't do much of the internal and external work required to divest from those systems. As I started my political awakening, I was primarily concerned with the advancement of white women like myself and didn't give much thought to broader systemic issues, or how I was complicit in the oppression of other groups. My attitudes, beliefs and behavior were 100% born of my alignment with white capitalist patriarchy, and I benefitted enormously (And still do) from it even as it has abused me. Here are two categories of things that are both true. 1. I am queer, mentally ill and a woman. I have been through a lot of hard stuff because of those things. I went through some Carrie-style shit when I came out in middle school. I have had an anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder since I was a kid. Some of my first "real" sexual experiences included being molested and a victim of statutory rape. Later in my life, I've been raped at knife point and dragged across the floor thinking I would die that night. I've been punched in the face by my "lovers". I showed up to my first real job interview with a barely concealed black eye and bruised ribs. I've finished school while I screamed bloody murder into an apartment complex at night pleading for help from anyone who heard. As a working professional I've been sexually harassed, verbally and physically intimidated by managers, underpaid, overworked, denied promotions, humiliated, and subjected to hostile work environment after hostile work environment. I've been threatened with revenge porn by multiple exes, and coerced into doing things I think are unethical by people in positions of power over me. I've had hacked nude photos sent to my bosses and investors. I've been stalked over the course of months and years, been slandered and abused by media, and disowned by my industry for being a woman who spoke up. I am one of the most visible women in tech - not as a respected and valued member of our industry, but as a target. I live in constant fear of the tech community and am terrorized on a regular basis. I am held up for all to see, a public example of what they will do to you if you speak out - and it seems “anything goes” more and more each day as organized hate groups grow in numbers and strength while the tech community grows in apathy. 2. I am a cis white woman who has uncritically profited from white supremacy, cissexism, ableism, classism and other forms of oppression. My success, visibility, and achievements are fundamentally built on the oppression of others, and I spent years not giving a fuck, lending any semblance of a hand, acknowledging my role, or working to dismantle the systems I've been part of. Most of my privileges in life happen as a direct result of a white supremacist capitalist system, and I too long stayed silent and comfortable. From an essay I published in autumn 2013 on my personal blog, called "Finding Out You’re a Sexist, Misogynistic, Homophobic, Classist, Racist Asshole and Hypocrite": "I can only cringe and hate myself when I think of all the times I have totally fucked up and became part of the very problems I hate. Yes, I have slut-shamed, body-policed, name-called, bad-joked, appropriated, derailed, co-opted, silenced, objectified, stereotyped, trivialized, slurred, punished, isolated, insulted, benefited, and stayed silent with the worst of them. A highlight reel of my life profiting uncritically and even participating in the systems of misogyny, classism, racism, cis-normativity and homophobia that oppress my friends, my family, my fellow humans would not endear anyone to me, least of all myself. It fees horrible to talk about. But I am because we all must realize how complete, how intersecting, how deeply fucked up the system is, and the role we play in it. It’s easy to become invested in an image of ourselves as good human beings, without blame or participation in the oppression of other people. Sometimes we even imagine ourselves as a helper to them, a healer, an ally, without even thinking it through." I have made many sexist, racist, transphobic and homophobic comments that were abusive and violent in my life. I have consistently failed to stand against discrimination that affected other people. I've often prioritized my own needs and success above that of more marginalized people. For years, I made no effort to use my privilege and power to help others. I have *literally fucked a neo-Nazi and harbored him with money, emotional support and yeah, kinky sex.* My internalized misogyny and the racism I have reproduced affected real relationships and hurt real people. Because I have had access to white, cis, class and educational privilege, I have been able to protect myself, get amazing health and mental health care, and attain economic security that many suffering the same and much, much worse do not have access to. In the workplace, I got the perks of diversity in tech efforts while more marginalized people were left behind, and I didn't say shit. I benefited and continue to benefit enormously from white supremacy in the tech industry, able to amass financial resources to start my own company and escape the day-to-day grind of the abusive tech workforce, which is not an option for so many. All of the above things are true. As a cis white woman I have both abused and been abused, been a victim of violence and someone who commits violence, been punished by the system and also benefited extensively from it. I refuse to run around insisting that I'm not an oppressive asshole instead of actually doing the work of dismantling the system - inside me and outside me. I heal myself, and I also work to ease, destroy and amend for the pain and oppression I have inflicted on others, that I participate in, benefit from, and bear responsibility for taking down. I also want readers to note that the "redemption" narrative that people are looking for me to manifest here is hugely problematic, centering white people's feelings and experiences, our personal growth over dismantling oppressive systems, and our need to feel like we are "good people." As I've written in the past, I don't believe that "good person" as a framework to approaching systemic inequalities is useful. I don’t think I am a good or bad person. I am a person who has done good things and bad things, and I try to do more good things as I grow. I don't wish to offer excuses for my past. I cannot undo it, nor change it. I remain complicit in and benefit from many systems of oppression, I still have an enormous amount of work to do to divest of my own investment in the system and how I enable it to continue, and I have a life-time of work to do against it, work that I try to do each day. This is work that the tech industry needs to partake in. I invite you to get out of my sex life and to join me doing it.

[theblowsyouveinventedandblamed]

Part One: Ableism

TW for: abuse, ableism

So. Some of you may have seen posts about me that were written by my ex-boyfriend/datemate, Ezri (tumblr user @regal-roman and @panpunksexual).

The first post (https://regal-roman.tumblr.com/post/170845546062/he-was-abusive-i-know-he-couldnt-help-that-he)

[Transcript: He was abusive. I know he couldn’t help that he had mental illness, just like I can’t help that I do.

But his illness hurt other people. His illness hurt me all the time. But no matter how many times I asked, he would never get treatment so he wouldn’t hurt me anymore.

I am not ableist. I don’t believe that I’m better than him because I don’t have the illness he has. I wouldn’t mind him having his illness at all if he weren’t hurting other people.

If you are hurting other people because of your mental illness, it is your responsibility to get treatment so you no longer harm others. Victims should not have to accept abuse just because the perpetrators were mentally ill.]

To begin with, the “illness” they are talking about? Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID]. According to the DSM-5 [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, Fifth Edition] DID is diagnosed through five criteria. For efficiency’s sake we will only be focusing on the first criteria (criteria A) which is detailed as followed: “A. Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states, which may be described in some cultures as an experience of possession. The disruption of marked discontinuity in sense of self and sense of agency, accompanied by related alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning. These signs and symptoms may be observed by others or reported by the individual.” [Information taken from: http://traumadissociation.com/dissociativeidentitydisorder#dsm5, further reading can be done at: https://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/dissociative-identity-disorder/dissociative-identity-disorder-did-dsm-5-criteria/]

The line “distinct personality states” is of significance here. Alters (also known as headmates or system members) are separate from the core/original. They are different people occupying the same space. Yes, there are alters known as fragments or shards that are not “complete” personalities, however out of a system of eleven only two of our members are fragments (Anya, a trauma holder and Frank, a protector, neither of whom can front independently). The other nine members of our system are fully formed and act independently of each other. For the purpose of this explanation we will however, not discuss certain members of our system for various reasons, largely because they never directly interacted with Ezri. They are as follows: Nina (a four to six year old child alter), Lucien (a 600 year old vampire priest), Harley (a fictive of Harley Quinn) as well as our fragments Frank (a fictive of Frank Castle, the Punisher) and Anya (a fictive of Anya from the 100). The alters that are important to our narrative are: Lucille (protector), L337 (protector), Gl!!tch/Glitch (protector), Luna (protector/headspace manager), AJAX (protector-ish) and ting (core).

I began my three-month altercation with Ezri on October 18th, 2017. They had known that I had DID and at first their general attitude about it was positive, even before we had begun dating.

[Transcript:

panpunksexual 09/27/2017 This is gonna sound dorky but the way I view you being a system is literally “well that means more friends”]

They continued to ask questions about it, claiming that they had a “pretty good understanding of it. The best I could get without being a system myself”

[Transcript: 

panpunksexual 10/24/2017 Did you ever think people wouldn’t want to date you because you’re a system? 

newt on a newt 10/24/2017 yeppp 

panpunksexual 10/24/2017 When I was first learning about it, I never thought it was weird and I still don’t. I was really curious about it, but I didn’t want to ask a bunch of questions and seem like [I] had a creepy fascination with it 

newt on a newt 10/24/2017 questions r good dw 

panpunksexual 10/24/2017 I think I have a pretty good understanding of it now. The best I can get without being a system myself I’m a pretty optimistic person, so I view it as just having more friends, even though I’m only dating you and not any of the others]

To continue with their claims about me, we come across the line “…his illness hurt other people.” No example of “other people” are given (likely because none can be found). My DID has never hurt anyone directly. My alters (predominantly L337, Gl!!tch and AJAX) have been rude or cruel to Ezri, which they should be held accountable for (even though they were simply attempting to defend me or themselves) and AJAX had previously caused me (and only me) physical harm but he is the only alter that has caused physical harm to anyone. Ezri continues with “But no matter how many times I asked, he would never get treatment so he wouldn’t hurt me anymore.” This is simply untrue, although the ‘treatment’ I am in may not be what he wanted.

If we look at this article by Natasha Tracy “DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER (DID) TREATMENT” [found here: https://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/dissociative-identity-disorder/dissociative-identity-disorder-did-treatment-challenging/] a list of treatment options and goals are provided. Treatment options are:

[Transcript: Dissociative Identity Disorder Treatment Types

Dissociative identity disorder is primarily treated with psychotherapy of various types. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the following are DID therapy types:

Psychotherapy – often thought of as “talk therapy.” This DID therapy encourages communication of conflicts and insight into problems.

Cognitive therapy – involves changing dysfunctional thought patterns.

Family therapy – helps to educate the family about the disorder, recognize its presence as well as work through issues that have developed in the family because of dissociative identity disorder.

Creative therapies such as art or music therapy – allows the patient to explore thoughts, feelings and memories in a safe and creative way.]

Treatment goals are as follows:

[Transcript: Dissociative Identity Disorder Treatment Goals

There are many dissociative identity disorder treatment goals. The goals of DID treatment include ensuring the safety of the patient, symptom relief as well as:

“Reconnecting” all existing DID alters into one, well-functioning identity

Allowing the person to safely express and process painful memories

Developing new and healthy coping skills

Restoring functionality

Improving relationships]

We are in therapy and have been for the past two years, seeing a therapist weekly (Wednesday’s at 5:30) which has been beneficial to us and helped us with symptom relief, safety (AJAX no longer poses a threat to me), processing trauma, developing functionality and improving relationships. The only area that we do not, have not, and will not ‘work on’ is integration. Integration is the 'reconnection’ of alters and is not a healthy or tenable option for us and would cause us more harm than good at this point in our lives. Our therapist, a trained medical professional, agrees. Ezri, who is a teenager and not a trained medical professional, decided otherwise and considered it the only acceptable form of treatment and only valid form of treatment. Please note that the only reason they say I should get treatment (which I have been in for two years) is for their benefit, not mine, not anyone else’s. Just theirs.

The third paragraph states “I am not ableist. I don’t believe that I’m better than him because I don’t have the illness he has. I wouldn’t mind him having his illness at all if he weren’t hurting other people.” He begins saying that he is “not ableist” despite the numerous derogatory remarks he has made towards me and my system members about DID, frequently calling them less than human or not real, saying that he is “how things should be” and that we are not normal or less than human.

(Please note, during this conversation Lucille is fronting.)

[Transcript:

newt on a newt 12/11/2017 DID is caused by childhood trauma that is so severe that a child’s brain cannot handle it, causing the mind to splinter and break, forming a completely separate personality. 

panpunksexual 12/11/2017 Yes I know that. But Tyler thinks that you are all real people when you’re not  You’re just in his head. It’s all in his head 

newt on a newt 12/11/2017 “It’s all in his head” much in the same way you are in your own head. 

panpunksexual 12/11/2017 Yeah, but I’m only one person. That’s how things should be. And I don’t like getting worried one of you will make me cut myself again 

[Tyler’s note: no-one encouraged/told/made him self-harm, they told him not to. This is guilt-tripping.] 

Or that one day Tyler will disappear and not come back 

Nobody thinks about how all this makes me feel]

[Transcript:

panpunksexual 12/11/2017 If you’re not the original then you’re not real either]

(Note, the alter fronting here is Gl!!tch/Glitch, who has several typing quirks which I will transcribe as an original version and as a readable version) 

[Transcript: 

newt on a newt 12/12/2017 s0 y0u sxx l337 as lxss than human? [so you see L337 as less than human?] 

panpunksexual 12/12/2017 Yeah]

Ezri clearly seems to view DID/being a system as something that is unnatural and wrong, something to be “fixed” even when it is important to my survival. Their actions and words indicate and are proof of their ableism, which they are not exempt from just because they aren’t neurotypical. Having BPD/BD does not mean he cannot be prejudiced against other people.

“I wouldn’t mind him having his illness at all if he wasn’t hurting other people.” As said before, my DID hurt no one but Ezri and even then it was only a few people acting in defense of me, more comparable to your best friends telling someone who is hurting you to go fuck themself that to being hurt by an illness. “Other people” were not being hurt as anyone who is close to me can attest. They are attempting to use unnamed and made-up “other people” to back up their ungrounded accusations.

I agree with their final paragraph, however 'treatment’ should not just be for other people. Mentally ill people deserve therapy and help for themselves, they deserve to get better and feel loved and accepted. And yes, victims do not have to accept abuse simply because the perpetrators are mentally ill which is why I am no longer excusing Ezri’s actions.

Therefore, we will be presenting all of our evidence against the false accusations that Ezri has made on their blog (shown at the top). This evidence will be separated across multiple posts, and a masterpost will be made.