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engie-ivy · 3 years

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Remus is the uptight, swotty Prefect who's always getting the popular and beloved troublemakers Black and Potter in detention. Remus doesn't care what people say of him, and he absolutely doesn't care about Black's blinding smile.

A Book By Its Cover

Remus pulls his jumper closer around himself against the draught in the large, empty halls. The corridor is dimly lit and he hears nothing but the sound of his own footsteps. Everything is quiet. Too quite.

A loud clang suddenly sounds from behind one of the tapestries. Remus almost smiles to himself. Bingo. In a swift motion, he pulls away the tapestry.

Startled, Black whirls around. He’s surrounded by what appear to be paint cans and rope. His shock only last a moment, though.

“Lupin!” He exclaims, a beaming smile appearing on his face. “What a pleasant surprise!”

Remus crosses his arms over his chest. He makes an effort to keep a firm expression on his face, to show he’s not affected by Black’s notorious, blinding smile, like everyone else is. “Only pleasant if you like detention. And as for a surprise, I am a Prefect. I am supposed to be here making my rounds. So what are you doing here?”

“Preparing a prank,” Black says simply.

Remus doesn’t know whether he should be insulted Black doesn’t seem to take his authority very seriously, or glad that he doesn’t insult his intelligence by coming up with an excuse.

“Right,” Remus says, before taking out his notebook and pen. “Out of bed after curfew and engaging in illegal activity,” he scribbles down. “And where’s Potter?”

“Aw, am I not enough for you, Lupin?” Black pouts.

“I figured you could use some company in detention,” Remus replies smoothly.

Black clicks his tongue. “So thoughtful.”

“If you’re here setting up some prank, then it’s a given Potter is setting up that prank somewhere else in the school as well. So, where is he?”

Black shakes his head. “For you’re own good, Lupin, you don’t wanna put James in detention right now. People won’t be too pleased with you if the school’s football star misses the upcoming match against Slytherin thanks to you.”

“So thoughtful,” Remus repeats Black’s words, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “But please, don’t concern yourself over me. I’ve never cared what others think of me, and I don’t plan on starting now. And you basically just admitted Potter is currently doing something that would warrant me giving him detention, so you might as well tell me where he is.”

Black sighs. “This is why people call you uptight.”

Remus’ expression hardens. “If people care so much, they should be mad at Potter for risking the football match in the first place by playing some stupid prank.”

Black gasps dramatically and clutches his chest. “Stupid? Our pranks are not stupid! They’re works of art! Jumping out of a cake on miss McGonagall’s birthday? Hilarious! Making a zip line to go from one floor to the other? Brilliant! Filling the gym with stray cats, many of whom were eventually adopted? Genius! People love our pranks. They make people laugh and bring some excitement in their lives. Much needed excitement, because let’s face it, school is boring. Sitting there, listening to old people tell you things you already know.”

“For you maybe,” Remus mutters.

Black scoffs. “Don’t pretend you’re not one of the smartest people in our class, Lupin.”

Remus just glares harder at Black, to show that no, he doesn’t care that Sirius Black, whom people are always falling over themselves for to get even a bit of his attention, has apparently noticed Remus’ academic achievements. No, he doesn’t care at all.

“Even the teachers love our pranks,” Black continues. “They put some life into this place!”

“We’ll see what miss McGonagall has to say about it when I report you tomorrow,” Remus says calmly. “I’ll go finish my rounds, and when I get back, you better have cleaned up this mess.”

As he turns around to leave, Black suddenly grabs his wrist. “Join us!”

“Wha...” Remus turns back, and his traitorous stomach flutters at how close Black is suddenly standing.

“Join us for one prank,” Black says.

Remus blinks at him. “Why in earth would I do that?”

“Because it’s fun! And honestly, Lupin, to me you always look like you can use a bit of fun.”

That catches Remus off guard. It’s true. Between struggling to get top marks, doing everything he can for extra credit, making sure he has a spotless record, excelling at his Prefect duties, and worrying about his sick mother, lately he often feels like just throwing his hands in the air and say ‘screw it all!’, and just do something crazy, something dumb or irresponsible. But he definitely never wanted for Black to notice that.

“Come on, Lupin,” Black says, as Remus stays silent. “Be part of the fun for once, instead of putting a damper on it.”

“Your childish pranks aren’t my idea of fun,” Remus bites back, feeling himself getting defensive.

Black just grins. “You won’t know that unless you join us for just one prank!”

“Why would you even want me to join you?” Many people would be lining up to be a part of one of Black and Potter’s infamous pranks. It’s beyond Remus why Black would ask that one stuffy guy who puts them in detention almost every week.

“Because I like you,” Black shrugs. “I like how hard you work for everything and how you don’t care what anyone thinks of you. And I think you secretly have a talent for it,” he adds with a wink, that absolutely does not make Remus’ knees go weak. “I bet you have a wicked side to you underneath all that swotty stuff.”

“But I’m a Prefect!” Remus argues. “I’m supposed to discipline rule-breakers, not break them myself!”

Black rolls his eyes. “You shouldn’t take that job so serious.”

This rubs Remus the wrong way. “Not everyone can afford to treat everything in life as a joke,” he says coolly.

Black folds his arms over his chest and stares. “A fancy title and a badge and suddenly you’re better than us?”

“It’s nothing like that!”

Black huffs. “Then why is that bogus job so important to you?”

“Because some of us can’t afford to have even one note on their record if they ever want to get anywhere in life!” Remus snaps. “Because some of us need perfect scores and every bit of extra credit they can get if they want universities not to immediately bin their applications! Because some of us don’t have a last name they can flaunt, a daddy who can make a phone call, a mommy who can throw some money around, and suddenly you’re top of the list! Because some of us can’t just look at their rich parents and rely on them to always give them everything they want!”

The change in Black is instant. He takes a step back, and instead of his usual easy smile and bright eyes sparkling with mischief, his face becomes an ice-cold mask. “Fuck you, Lupin,” he hisses. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

He pushes past Remus as he storms off, leaving him behind feeling very confused. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Yes, the system is unfair and Black is privileged, but Remus supposes that isn’t really Black’s fault. He knows Black isn’t actually a bad person. His heart is in the right place, and he’s usually kind, only ever mean to people who, quite frankly, deserve it.

Remus just wishes Black would stop with those bloody pranks.

Remus just wishes Black would continue with those bloody pranks.

Or do anything really that makes him seem more like his old self. Remus never thought he’d miss that loud, barking laugh, that infuriating smirk, those lame puns so much.

Ever since everyone returned from Christmas break, Black has completely withdrawn. He hardly talks to anyone, he just sits silently, his eyes staring off in the distance and his expression blank. Potter is always by his side, softly talking to him or just throwing him worried glances.

Since then, it has been the talk of the school, and even in the papers and on the news: Sirius Black has been removed from his parents’ custody. It was a messy affair, the police has even been involved. Black’s father was arrested on grounds of child abuse. Apparently, Orion Black, the noble and well-respected patriarch of the prestigious Black family, has a habit of beating his son. It must’ve been going on for a while, but over the break it escalated. People just can’t get over how Sirius Black’s life wasn’t as perfect as it always seemed to be.

Remus feels bad for Black, and especially feels like an idiot, having said the things he said. He knows he owes Black an apology. It has been a couple of weeks since the break ended, and the apology is beginning to be long overdue. Though he also knows that Black has probably not been waiting for an apology from the uptight twat that always gets him detention.

Maybe it’s more to ease his own consciousness that he hesitantly approaches the table where Black is sitting. Potter glares at him the moment he sees him, and half gets out of his seat, probably to tell him to piss off, and rightfully so. However, after a quick glance at Black’s face, who’s looking up at Remus, he sits back down, as if he sees something on his friend’s face that makes him chance his mind.

“Bla- Sirius,” Remus says, realising a tad late that Sirius might nor want to be reminded of his family name right now. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out. “I said some shitty things to you, and I shouldn’t have. You were right, I didn’t know anything about you.”

“It’s okay,” Sirius says softly. “You had good reason to be angry, it’s a rather fucked up system. And you didn’t know. Didn’t know that I would’ve gladly given up all that privilege to just have parents who... who love me...”

Sirius’ voice falters and he trails off. Potter is staring at him wide-eyed, and also Remus is surprised. He knows Sirius hasn’t talked about it to anyone, and he feels almost guilty he’s saying it to him of all people. He’s also surprised at the overwhelming urge he has to pull Sirius into a hug, hold him and tell him they never deserved him anyway. He has to leave before he does anything stupid.

“I should go,” Remus says quickly. “If there’s ever anything I can do...”

As he turns around to leave, Black suddenly grabs his wrist. “Join us!”

Remus turns back to look at him.

“Join us for one prank.”

“Why would you want me to join you?” Remus asks, much like the first time.

“Because I like you,” Sirius replies, much like the first time, only where he had then sounded nonchalant and slightly amused, he now sounds pleading and vulnerable.

“Yeah,” Remus says hoarsely, because his Prefect duties suddenly don’t seem so important compared to helping Sirius come back to his old self. “Yeah, I’ll join you for one prank.”

And then the most amazing thing happens: for the first time in weeks, Sirius Black smiles. It’s only a small smile, but the room already seems a bit brighter. In a moment of vivid clarity, Remus knows that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to make that boy smile.

#my tumblr writing #wolfstar #wolfstar fanfiction #wolfstar fic #marauders #marauders fanfiction #marauders fic #sirius black #remus lupin #remus x sirius #james potter #boarding school au #prefect remus lupin

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grimoire-of-seven · 4 years

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hello lovely!!! i’ve been having just an awful time at school, so i was wondering if u could do a hc of one of the demon boys comforting the mc when they’re overwhelmed?? it would make my day thank uuu xoxo

PROMPT: “I’m here for You”

Rating: SFW || Barbatos’ Warning: Vague main story plot spoilers at Beelzebub’s headcanon.

Words: 300-600

Characters: Demon Boys + MC / Gender-Neutral Reader

Notes: I suppose, what I got after writing this prompt is that no matter what, you deserve to take a break every once in a while despite your mind telling otherwise. I hope you’ll enjoy this!~

Lucifer

Letting your shoes walk you around the House of Lamentation for some fresh air or change of scenery, your bedroom, a place where your bones could rest, became more like a pressure cooker with piles of your homework, additional projects and materials to read occupying your desk that it became obvious that shutting yourself in could not do any good.

With your fingers fidgeting, your worries came like waves clashing to the shore without any rock to interfere, the conversation with your favored professor was a subject that was hard to dismiss and with the exams fast approaching…

Perhaps the fireplace by the common room would be settling.

Or a nice distraction that is..

“Is something the matter, dear?”

Like a feline jerking from a sudden touch or caress of its owner, you clumsily tried to composed yourself, looking to your rear as to who might have spoken, seeing only a prominent string pulled to his chin.

“Oh. It’s just you, Lucifer. Thought I was having some paranormal experience for a sec.”

“Paranormal?”

“Well.. your outfit seems to blend in with the sofa.”

Watching him place his hand close to his chest, an invitation escaped through his lips, asking you to sit beside him with your body just seemingly comply with it, tired should you think about it further.

“You are pursing your lips once more, human. It is like you do not have any lips anymore.”

“I don’t!”

“And your fingers are back in fidgeting again. You only do both of those things when you are upset and in terrible discomfort.”

Silence.

Sensing how this might have been a private matter, with your lips tightly shut and eyes that are so unsure where to look, the Avatar of Pride himself knew too well how it must feel with other people insist on meddling with your own business. Offering you the cup of tea he had brewed himself for, he spoke in a gentle manner, a contrary when hearing him shout his brother’s name; “You could always tell me what is bothering you, dear. However, should it be something personal and intimate, you could always have a nice cup of tea to think it with and I would not insist on the subject. We could just silently stare by the fire and be distracted together.”

Self-consciously trying to compose yourself as you took the offer, it took courage for you to take hold of his hand, making the conversation into a confession;

“Well.. it is just about my academic performance…”

What supposed to feel awkward and perhaps humiliating, none of those surfaced with the light-bringer listening intently, much so that it felt good to be able to find someone to talk to and release what had been oppressed for only your mind to argue with.

More so, to share it with a nice warm chamomile tea.

.. And it is just all overwhelming.”

“I understand,” the Avatar of Pride remarked, as he poured more tea to your cup, followed by a string of advice that brought enlightenment to your studies. Perhaps, to a demon who is prompt to every work, his advice would really help.

“Say,” inching closer; “If it is fine with you, I could accompany you until you feel like returning to your room. Perhaps I could escort you then.”

“Would you not have agendas to attend?”

“Nonsense.” He chuckled.

“I would like to accompany you for once. It seems my brothers have been taking too much of your time and with this opportunity, I would not want to miss spending more time with you.”

Mammon

“Hey! Ya ready?”

Bursting through the door like your room is his too, as he makes a race to the bed to your side, it is obvious that your great Mammoney is really on the mood for trouble.

“You could go ahead, Mammon… I don’t think I am in the mood…”

“Go ahead? But I only count myself in ‘cause ya agreed.”

Pursing your lips, they were only duplicated by the white-haired boy’s brows, now all stitched together.

“What’s wrong?”

Turning to meet his gaze, this little gesture made the Avatar of Greed’s cheeks crimson red, this intimate space between you was something he was so waiting to capture alone. Something that he could perhaps thank God for?

Or Diavolo?

Or Lucifer.. Definitely Lucifer..

With every one of them banned from using D.D.D., it seems they just went on with their business and they didn’t even bother pestering their little human.

And what’s a great Mammon got to do in this situation?

- Not waste the opportunity.

“Nothing..”

“Nothing?” Sitting up as he took a good look of you, it was obvious that you were not well. He may be what his brothers call stupid but he isn’t that stupid now. “What is it?”

“Just a bunch of schoolwork. They’re just getting on my nerves.”

Erecting from the soft mattress you and he just shared for a few seconds to get a sense of his surroundings, there were several open books sitting by your desk. One look and he knew exactly what it meant.

And that is your room is turning into Satan’s room with all the clutter there is on one side of the room.

Truth be told, he had been in that situation. Stuck on an academic project or an exam to pass and he knew just the right solution to get it out of their exchange student’s peabrain.

Or as everyone else calls it, a break.

“You could just… leave me here and tell me if the prank went right… Sorry about this…” you said so with your head already planning how to manage the time to get all your work done, making a walk already to the desk to reread your notes from the day’s lecture to get a grasp once more on what to do.

And obviously, the Avatar of Greed didn’t take this as a hint to leave.

“Well…” Mammon went on contemplating, “I did not like making fun of Lucifer anyway.”

Lies.

“I always get the short end of the stick with him anyways. It’s all fun and games until you could hear that cry for my name at the end. And that’s when you’ll know, I screwed up.”

“How about this,” the demon schemed, “We go shopping! Huh? Ain’t that fun while not necessarily trying to think about how much we’re gonna spend?”

“Lucifer would not like this..”

“Who cares if he doesn’t. I already got my credit card thanks to you anyways.”

Unable to suppress a smile since you already knew how this would end to both of you, mostly him, getting in trouble, it was that smile that made him more convinced to take you out of the room.

“Whaddya say? Are you in?”

“You.. are going to spoil me? With your credit card?”

“Well.. as long as I don’t get tempted at buying something.”

Knowing how that would be difficult to the literal embodiment of Greed, you could not help but feel sorry and laugh at the same time to this moment.

“What if Lucifer decides to tie you up upside down again?”

“I got you to untie me up again.”

Ha!

“Don’t count on your chances.”

Taking the first step out of the door, you could only hear what seems to be a cry of desperation trying to catch up with you.

“Hey, human! Just what do you mean by that?”

Leviathan

Leviathan: Hey, you okay?

Leviathan: We’re supposed to meet a while ago to check if my package from Akuzon has arrived.

Leviathan: You still there?

….

…

Leviathan: Hey normie! Come into my room. Quick!

Why?

Leviathan: I have something to show you. Just hurry!

Leviathan: I’ll be here waiting for you.

And that was how you were hoisted from your room and off to the otaku’s. With your previous class just overwhelmingly taking too much of your energy, it could have been easy to dismiss the text and decline… but it is obvious that he wants to spend some time with you and it sure was convincing enough to get you walking from the hallway to his room.

And here you are, knocking thrice to his door.

“Took you quite a while.” He remarked, seemingly letting your tardiness pass as you dragged yourself inside, something the Avatar of Envy himself noticed.

“Are you okay?”

Were you always that easy to read?

“Just had a bad day.”

“I got something for you.”

With your eyes recognizing the green gem by the monitor of his sleek computer set, the said headline or icon of the game continued rotating until it went to the title screen. It has been quite a while since you have last played it, reminiscing the random shenanigans you ought to do at your saved file, your reaction somehow observed by the other entity in the room; “Have you ever played Sims before?”

“Only at an internet café..”

With his eyes somehow judging you closely, it was all shrugged off as he invited you to take a seat beside his gaming chair, hugging his Ruri-chan body pillow as he gave the controls to you;

“How about we make a new game and create our Sims? Game?”

Letting the visual cues guide you in properly making a household like a spark did an idea popped up and sure enough, this would take your mind off from worrying, at least, while the loading screen is out in the way;

“How about we design each other’s sims?”

“Eh?!”

Completely disagreeing to the idea, his cheeks only got more flustered, making him snuggle his face by the pillow in retreat; “Each other’s sims? But I could design my own Sims. How about we just go straight in designing our house instead?.”

It is too bad for him you got the controls. Selecting the sex “male” by the top corner, you began customizing the sims by removing every article of clothing to get a better picture of what you are working with.

“That’s unnecessary!” Exclaimed the blushing demon to your right but his cries were all ignored as you went through the categories, truly immersed in making the most accurate Leviathan sims yet!

“You have those striking sun-like eyes…” Squinting by the monitor as the zoom were not enough, every click and scroll to the menu, you would take a good look at him before returning to the monitor; “…and that stunning hair swept to your right. And your jawline just beautiful like that…”

“I think that just looks like me already, normie! Let’s move one!”

“And then your nose is a perfectly pointy and lips just thin yet striking…”

“Hey, I said that’s enough! Let’s design our house already!”

It has already come into conclusion to Leviathan that there is no getting through you. Not when you are engrossed and unbothered to his plea of taking the controls back as he somehow just keep on getting these remarks about him that all sounded like a compliment.

From his hair to his eyes… From his nose to his lips…

It is too much for an otaku to take in.

“And done!” Happily concluding your creation where you almost forgot naming it “Levia-chan”, turning to your right, you could just see the Avatar of Envy covering his crimson red cheeks with his hands that are accentuated with a blue-colored nail polish.

“I almost forgot about the nail polish! Wait!”

Just as you were to turn, he used the wheels of his chair to push you aside, sending you at the farthest left of the screen, giving him the full reins to the mouse, envious already to make you flustered just as he was;

“And now it’s my turn, normie.”

Satan

Knock knock knock

“I will bethere in a second!”

Knock knock knock

“Who isthere knocking so late this evening?”

Knock knock knock

“I swear,Mammon, if you are here to borrow money, forget abou—“

“Oh..human..”

Perhapscalling out for the Avatar of Wrath’s help after dinner is not a good idea..

“I did notrealize it’s already that late.. I could just come back tomorrow.”

Trying notto get on his worse side considering there is no Lucifer or any of the brothersto interfere, your heels were already inching farther from the door, biddingyour goodbye already with a smile when;

“It is justfine. You already caught my attention, after all.” His remark making you pausefrom moving away; “What is it?”

But then again.. is your concernsomething to make him allot more time with you? He seems already bothered whenyou were knocking the door.

“It’sjust.. nothing..”

“Nothing?”With his brows knitted to one another, it is a definite statement to say, hewould not be letting go of the subject;

“If it isnothing, you would have not knocked on my door thrice.”

There is nopoint denying it, no?

“It is justthat…”

“Yes?”

“I find thelesson a while ago…

“Human..”

His handsoon came across to your shoulders, his face closer;

“Whateverit is that is bothering you, you could say it to me.”

All right..

“I justfind the lesson a while ago.. quite difficult to comprehend..”

Gesturingyou to come in, perhaps it is only to your senses as to how awkward was itwatching Satan disappear on his clutter of books, only hearing his footstepsand the door shutting on its own. Seconds that soon turned to a minute, it wasunnerving how still it was, making you resort to a conversation;

“Is thereanything I could help you with?”

Followed bya series of footsteps, his head soon popped up along with several books on hisarm, carried like an infant to its mother.

“No need. Ifound what I need. Just that this room, needs organizing at the weekends.”

You couldfeel your fingers fidgeting, knowing not how to continue the talk but withapologies muttered under your breath;

“There isno need to apologize. I am most glad that I could help you.” Looking up, therewas nothing more but a genuine smile painted on his lips, something you werenot accustomed to but something you are comfortable with.

“How aboutwe discuss the lesson at your room? Mine might not provide the proper studyarea, to say the least.”

Was that a little joke added in?

“I could alwayshelp you sort your books if you want!” Offering the deal, for once, Wrathhimself cooled down and just fine.

“Deal.”

Asmodeus

“If it isnot our little human.~”

With thedemon approaching you by your seat at the dining, shopping bags occupying bothof his hands, your head could only take a quick look before declining once moreon your arms.

“What areyou sulking about? You know how that is a big no-no for getting a beautifulface like me.~”

“Not really helping, Asmodeus…”

Pouting hislips, you could hear the chair being pulled as he soon sat down, his shoppingbag all over by the table like how their meals were at the House of Lamentation.

“Are youfrustrated?”

“No. I’mhappy.”

Trying notto make this seem more of a topic considering how petty you think the case was,the Avatar of Lust did not take his eyes away from you, observing every movethe muscles in your face makes.

“Iunderstand. You do not want to talk about it then my lips are sealed.”

That was easy.

“But yougot to let me use your hands, please?”

Your hands?

“Morespecifically your fingers, sweetie.~”

Your fingers? Sweetie?

What isAsmodeus up to?

“What areyou gonna do?”

Looking athim search the largest paperbag, his hands were soon holding tons of nailpolishes, lining them all up on the hard surface as he kept on digging anddigging to the bag and out for your eyes to see, all so diverse and unique onits own.

There weremattes, gels, chromes, metallic, glitters, and pearls that are of differenthues, each one of them screaming to be tested out and was that little category orgroup by the farthest end of the line.. holographic?

“Likingwhat you see? I got them on a sale and the saleslady was happy to help me carrymy cart.~”

“I do notwant my soft skin and beautiful body pushing and doing any physical activityaside fro—“

“Asmo…”

“Right!”Flipping his hair, you definitely had a clearer vision of how his eyes areenamored to his newest collection that pray tell, still has a space on hisroom.

“Anyways.. Icould not test them all out to you, that would take us years but..”

Here it is!For whatever reason, his excitement was contagious as you scanned the wholeline of nail polish. Something you could not afford but could experience it nowwith the Narcissus.

“Which onedo you prefer? You only got to pick three.~”

You will definitely need more thanthree.

Beelzebub

Down went another cup of strawberry-filled yogurt.

With your room a dumpster of books and lecture notes, the kitchen became your little paradise. It has been an hour since you sat down and it is becoming more and more discouraging to do any work despite your brain stressing enough to do move on and start ahead.

It had been like this for a couple of days already. Wasting the whole day then contemplating and scolding yourself for not doing anything related to academics that eating became a form of coping up with the stress. If only things could be simpler then maybe…

GROOOOOoooWWLLL

“Did Lucifer put you again on patrol to the fridge?”

Looking at your blinky box, the Avatar of Gluttony himself is rather prompt to his tummy schedule; 6 o’clock in the evening.

“Nope.. Help yourself.”

Like a giant going in for a snack, you could hear containers and bottles clinking and shifting as Beel started rummaging, closing the door with his feet as both hands were occupied with containers labeled with his name.

“Wow.. you’re going to eat all of that?” Honestly, by now, this amount of food should not come as a surprise anymore. Especially after you witnessed him devour a whole buffet Barbatos prepared during their retreat at Diavolo’s.

“Nope.”

Huh?

“I figured you would want some too. Eating yogurt is not really going to make a cut.”

Laying down two mugs, two plates, two dainty spoons, and a butterknife, it is difficult not to think about what would you be eating that would require a knife.

“What do you have on the menu, Beel?”

“Well…” he soon began opening every lid known to mankind, overwhelming what seems to be a little breakfast table by the kitchen; “We got a cheesecake, red velvet cake, some chocolate-chip muffins, vanilla ice cream, and a chocolate drink to go along with it.”

That is more than what your tummy could bargain for.

“Belphegor and I used to bond like this whenever he is conflicted too.. And since you are now part of our family, you could always talk to me if something bothers you.”

Beel..

Perhaps talking it out rather than letting it grow within would not hurt a fly or Beelzebub’s appetite as he just munched and munched while listening intently. You could tell he has his attention to your story as he would nod and would look at you to see if you are eating as well. And you are definitely getting a slice of the cheesecake with a scoop of the cold dessert on top; He might have said something along with the chomp but it was hard to fathom with bits and pieces of food intervening and crumbs already escaping the inevitable in his mouth.

“Thank you, Beel.”

Watching how he could not wipe the titbits off near his lips, it became quite an eyesore that your hand went subconsciously searching for your handkerchief before leaning in, your face several inches from him;

“W-what are you doing, human?”

And with the napkin guided with your index finger, you wiped away what was intruding by the demon’s lips, meeting its doom instead at a cloth.

“Thanking you. I am all stuff and I feel better now, because of you.”

Genuinely smiling for the first time in days, what you said ended with a hug and you could not help but notice how his body got warmer but his arms stiffer too.

Belphegor

“Taking anap always helps, human.”

Tempted tooblige, even just for fifteen minutes to refresh yourself from being stressedby the day’s lectures, it was something you regarded to as a waste of timeconsidering how reality defies expectations. One minute you plan to only take arest for fifteen minutes and you would open your eyes to see you have beensleeping for an hour or two.

It does nothelp as well if you would just lie down either. Planning to only lie down forfive minutes only to extend it if the minute hand would go to six minutes.

“I do notthink so, Belphie.”

Feeling themattress pushed down, you could sense him taking a seat beside you, looking atyour distraught features with his drowsiness leaving the conversation, even forjust a moment.

“Why not?”

“Well..taking a short nap only makes it worse for me..”

“How come?”

“Well,”heaving out a sigh, it somehow brought to your knowledge how tired andexhausted you are from all the learning and lectures you have to remember..flashbacks of how those three hours of lecture became much more of a torture astime progresses slowly..

“It’s justthat.. instead of working and rereading the lectures for next week’s testdespite almost drowsing off by the last hour, I am wasting it on taking abreak.”

Facing theother side of the bed, your mind wants you to take a stand and resume onstudying, your body declined such proposition and soon, came in another insidebattle.

Having aninternal dilemma, it took you quite a while to sense a rather stronger forcepushing down the mattress, sensing it as your position went wobbly before itall came to a halt, with the Avatar of Sloth himself sitting nearly beside you,feet dangling on the floor.

“But what’sthe sense of working if you are under stress?”

Under stress..

“Wouldn’tthat only affect the quality of your work or how you would perform at least?”

You havenot thought of that..

It wasalways a race with time.. but what about that aspect?

“I..”

“How aboutyou take a nap and I’ll wake you up?”

The Avatar of Sloth… waking you up?The embodiment of sleep and 5-minutes snoozes, waking you up?

“Hey! Don’tlook at me like I’ll let you down. I’ll wake you up, I swear.”

Seeing himtrying his best to make himself the suitable alarm clock, in retreat did youlie down, unable to suppress a giggle, or even a snort by how soft hisreactions were;

“Hey, cutthat out! If you won’t stop and sleep, I’ll sing Kumbaya out loud.”

And thatwas your queue for your eyes to shut tight.

#obey me game #obey me shall we date #obey me #obey me headcanons #anon ask #lucifer #mammon #leviathan #satan #asmodeus #beelzebub #belphegor #mod shin-seul

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pinkhairedlily · 3 years

Text

Judgment needed, not judgment deserved

Chapter 7 of The Spring He Came Back | 7 of 12

The academy tribunal was rarely used. When it was opened to the public, it only meant that the students and professors violated the stringent protocols of the academy. Public trial also implied public shaming, a more surefire way to ruin an academic reputation. The regular admission students filled the big room, hushed voices growing along with the shuffling of feet.

It took a while before Hitsugaya to reach the front benches where Soul members were supposed to sit. He almost froze when his eyes met the wavering gaze of Momo. They both said hurtful words, but hers were more painful. She was standing beside Aizen who was still smiling behind the podium. Hitsugaya eventually found Rangiku, Rukia, and Renji sitting behind Urahara and Byakuya.

Unohana stepped forward, her figure commanded the fall of heavy silence in the room. Academy supervisors readied their hands on laptops for real time transcription. “Aizen Sousuke, senior faculty and Soul member, and Hinamori Momo, top student of regular class A, you are facing charges for plagiarism, fraud, and embezzlement. I, Unohana Retsu, will oversee your public trial today. Please acknowledge your audience.”

“What a beautiful day,” Aizen only replied. Hitsugaya can barely keep his irritation under control because while he was keeping that smile on his face, his research assistant was far from pretending to be happy. It didn’t slip his eyes that the professor lightly tapped Momo’s shoulder in a pretend assurance.

“You’re such a liar, Sousuke,” Urahara Kisuke said aloud. Unohana glared at him with her smiling eyes.

“Dr. Urahara, please do not speak unless we acknowledge you. Please respect the rules of our academy.”

“Oh right, I was on sabbatical leave. Many things happened huh? Like you stealing my work?” It was clear Urahara was prodding Aizen on, but the latter only kept smiling without even recognizing his statements. Byakuya placed a hand on Urahara’s shoulder, willing him to calm down in front of such a large crowd.

“Dr. Aizen, please answer in affirmative if you have written the studies published in the following journals….” Unohana listed the titles, all of which Momo assisted in. “Are you aware that your programming method, experiment design, and control treatment parameters were similar with Dr. Urahara Kisuke’s work?”

“I was promptly assisted by my great assistant, Hinamori Momo, in conjuring those designs. It was due to her hard work under my guidance that we were able to come up with such results,” Aizen deftly defended himself. For a minute, Hitsugaya thought he wouldn’t genuinely hurt Momo.

“You submitted a patent application to your design, calling it the Aizen Theorem.”

“That is right, again thanks to the bright idea of my trusted partner, Momo.” The casual use of her nickname didn’t escape Hitsugaya’s ears or the blush that crept on her cheeks.

“Fuck you.” He muttered under his breath. He knew where this was going.

“Are you saying Hinamori Momo is the root of all your charges?”

“I didn’t say anything like that, Dr. Unohana.”

“You are implying it is.”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself? Isn’t it the reason why she’s here?” Aizen placed his hand behind Momo’s back and urged her to come at the front, thereby shifting the blame to her.

“She’s not credited for his works, not one.” Hitsugaya tried telling Byakuya. Rukia held him back, her eyes telling him not to interfere.

“Y-yes, it was me.” Momo’s voice was shaking, her eyes can barely look at Unohana. She was still probably angry at Hitsugaya, but her teary gaze wandered to look for him in the sea of indictors. When their eyes met, she conveyed her worry and fears. For Aizen or for herself, he’ll never know.

“Hinamori Momo, did you also know that Dr. Aizen forged his reference papers?”

“That’s not true, Dr. Unohana.” Aizen laughed this off as if it wasn’t a heavy violation.

That easygoing nature was lost on Momo, however. She cannot answer. She was frozen in spot, silently screaming help across Hitsugaya who was also powerless against the hold of his other friends.

“Hinamori Momo, were you involved in preparing budgets for your projects?”

“Y-yes, Dr. Unohana.” Momo’s voice was a desperate plea for help. Aizen, despite being the lead charge in the studies mentioned, looked like he was having the time of his life. He has his model scapegoat, after all. An enamored, naïve research assistant who could take the fall.

“So were you aware that these studies were declared under the academy’s jurisdictions, but the investors’ money were being funneled directly into Dr. Aizen’s personal banks?”

Hinamori, again, failed to answer.

“She has nothing to do with this.” Hitsugaya gritted his teeth.

“If she wasn’t remotely involved, shouldn’t it be simple to say no?” Byakuya asked him in all seriousness. Emotions do not hold metric in their system, but emotions are heavy tolls in Momo’s.

“I…don’t know,” Momo muttered under her breath.

“These are hilarious charges, Unohana.” Aizen dropped the doctor designation. “You don’t even have evidence on us.” His face was truly sure that he was out of the woods.

“Sorry, Toshi,” his mentor told him before standing up with Byakuya. The two of them walked towards Unohana and gave her a black notebook, a folder, and several documents. Hitsugaya’s face fell flat, and cold sweat started kicking in. He was the only one who knew where they were stored.

“These are Urahara Kisuke’s field notes, your forged references, and budget documents – we managed to gather them from Hinamori’s house. We received a call from one of the investors, wondering why no one apart from you was collaborating with them. An internal team investigated your office but found nothing.” Unohana looked directly at Momo, but she was staring at Hitsugaya. “An informant tipped us where to find them.”

Momo - wide-eyed and filled with bitter tears of betrayal. If he could hear her silent screams, it would be a ringing why, and he couldn’t give an answer. He never disclosed the location of the notebook or talked about the references with anyone. He never shared his messy, confused thoughts or his turmoil in her decisions. He endured his pain alone so why would he weaponize it to get back to her? Why would he when he loves her?

“Convenient, isn’t it?” Aizen asked dryly. The smile was nowhere to be seen, only a grim countenance.

“A third-party laboratory analyzed these documents, Aizen.” Unohana also dropped the honorific. Damn the damned. “They did cross-comparisons of your handwriting and Urahara’s. They were significantly different, as well as from the hundreds of designs and blueprints we found. University references have unique watermarks in hard copies which yours didn’t have. The budget documents we sent over to the investors. You should know by now they pulled out of our town’s development.”

“Plead guilty now, Sousuke.” Urahara antagonized him further.

If his wounded gaze could convey his sincerest thoughts to her, she wouldn’t have probably done the next thing.

“It was all me, Dr. Unohana.” Momo raised her hand. Her eyes were brimming with tears but she dared not blink. “I fed Dr. Aizen the notebook, the documents, and I suggested he source out personal funds from the academy investment. It was all me. Please don’t give him a sentence. Please punish me instead.”

“Momo, no.” Hitsugaya was scrambling to stand up. Three pairs of strong arms held him down to his seat, three faces all similarly pained.

There was a clear power imbalance between the mentor and the research assistant which Hitsugaya’s group and the senior faculty knew, but Aizen played this to his advantage.

“Why don’t you put it to a vote?” a student called out.

“Dr. Aizen wouldn’t do such thing.” “He is so kind to us.” “He’s so intelligent he doesn’t even need that.” “He will never use a student that way.” “The audacity of that peasant to feed him lies? Sickening. She deserves to be banished.”

Bit by bit, the whispers grew into a full-blown uproar. This was the flaw of the public tribunal, a flaw that Aizen turned into an opportunity. The board members of the academy called Unohana to the side and delivered their judgment.

“Hinamori Momo, starting today, you are expelled from the academy.”

It was a judgment needed, but not the judgment deserved. Because Hinamori Momo was a girl from an unknown background with no strong backing. Because she was a student while Aizen came from a family with a high pedigree. Because she dedicated her life to a man who emotionally manipulated her. Because she was too trusting, too naïve, too easily swayed. Because she has emotions. Because she was Momo.

She was ushered out by some administrators, her eyes glued to the ground. They were soon followed by shuffling of feet and disgruntled students heaving sighs of relief from the ordeal. When all of that has come to pass, it was Aizen’s turn to go.

“Such a drag, huh?” Aizen mentioned to no one in particular. “Hoping you could catch me?”

“I am advising you to transfer,” Unohana hasn’t backed down. “That was what the board wanted.”

“Ahead of you, Retsu. That’s exactly my next step.” Aizen stopped beside the bench where Hitsugaya’s group still stood waiting. “Though it was unfortunate to let go of Momo. How sweet that girl was, so willing and so hardworking, to the point that she left her grandma alone to work.”

If blood could boil, Hitsugaya’s veins could have popped, drowning Aizen with his heated rage.

“Too bad that her best friend outed her, huh? If only she was more careful of who she associated with.”

A punch landed on Aizen face and then several more. Hitsugaya was but thirteen but his fists saw older days on the streets. After all, he was a peasant and a peasant always fought back. The fucker was the one who tipped the investigators, making Momo think it was Hitsugaya. He probably could have bought them himself. He capitalized on Hitsugaya and Momo’s relationship to drive a rift and completely separate himself from the problem. The fucker was a master emotional manipulator.

A flurry of robes forcefully grabbed Hitsugaya away from a smirking Aizen. “Fucking liar.”

“Hitsugaya Toushiro!” Byakuya rarely raised his voice, but the intensity of his warning stiffened Hitsugaya.

Aizen walked out of the classroom, seemingly unruffled as if he didn’t have a bruised eye or a cut lip. It took all of Hitsugaya’s energy not to go after him and put more damages in.

“Still the same MO,” Urahara said. “Best be careful around him, Toshi.”

“You know you need to be reprimanded for this, Hitsugaya.” Unohana said. “But I won’t because you’re one of our best.”

---------------------

The secret hideout and their silent reprieve – it became his escape. He couldn’t go to Momo to comfort her. From her understanding, he betrayed her. So he wallowed in self-pity, in helplessness, in his weakness. It wasn’t enough that he was like this. He skipped all his classes, didn’t do his experiments, and avoided the well-meaning questions of his friends. He picked fights, especially with regulars. They kept on calling Momo names, painting her to be the manipulator that put Aizen in such a complicated position when it was the other way around.

The opportunity came when Byakuya called him to his office. Urahara was there too. It was probably about his behavior.

“You can’t protect your friend like this,” his mentor told him. “Not when Sousuke still roams the academic field like a vulture.”

“We need to permanently excommunicate him,” Byakuya concurred. “We can only do that if we catch him red-handed alone, with no one to pass the blame on. He has done this exact operation in previous schools, but his networks run deep.”

“And he just appears to his next victim school like a mushroom.” Urahara poured Hitsugaya tea, and his heart throbbed in pain because Momo used to do that. “With a clean slate. So bigger higher-ups must be involved, funneling research and development funds into shady accounts yada yada.”

“What exactly do you want me to do?” Hitsugaya asked his mentors.

“You’re still a kid, Toshi.” Urahara ruffled his silver hair and his mind jolted back to a memory of a daffodil flower crown, Momo’s smile, and that last hug. “You can’t go around picking fights for her sake. It’s a lost cause. She’s shunned by the community.”

“You can’t continue associating yourself with her, Hitsugaya,” Byakuya added. “Because that will be an added burden. You’ll only rise from this. But when you do and you choose to remain here, she will not be rid of those comments. Considering your history, she’ll be accused again of feeding you plagiarized notes, helping you with fraud, and embezzling funds.”

“No one can protect her from those. She has no friends left,” Hitsugaya interjected. In no world will he leave Momo alone. He can’t see past the reasons given by his teachers. “She only has….me.” The doubt was in the open before he could open his lips. Not after the public tribunal. She made the decision that he wasn’t on her side.

Urahara took away the already cold tea in his hands and smiled at him through his long fringes. “Or you could go abroad, become the best, catch Aizen red-handed, and clear her name. Sounds good, right? Come with me again, my intern.”

---------------------

Snow marked the start of winter. Hitsugaya waited beside Urahara on the platform outside of town, the train arriving at their station any time soon. He made his goodbyes to Rukia, Renji, and Rangiku, all three asking silently whether it was okay to tell Momo. He shook his head in defiance, not wanting to trouble her further.

When the train arrived, he almost hesitated. At the very least, he wanted to see her again and Baba and share a watermelon for the last time. The doors opened and Urahara signaled to go inside quickly.

Please mind your distance. The doors are closing soon. The doors are closing soon.

The doors finally closed and Hitsugaya leaned on the side, tears pooling in his eyes. It was goodbye. The wheels started to keep pace and the slow fall of white snow turned into a flurry. As the train left the station, he caught a glimpse of loose black hair dancing with the wind. Maybe he just imagined it.

NEXT CHAPTER | 8 OF 12 | BREATHING IS A FOREIGN TASK

#hitsuhina #hitsugaya toshiro #toshiro hitsugaya #hitsugaya #hinamori momo #momo hinamori #aizen sousuke #aizen #unohana #byakuya #bleach couples #bleach #anime #fanfiction #fanfic #anime fanfic #matsumoto rangiku #kuchiki rukia #abarai renji

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hyucksong · 5 years

Text

princess.| lee donghyuck

summary: you get what you want, when you want. you follow your own rules, no one else’s. are you a prissy rich bitch? maybe. does lee donghyuck, the resident bad boy with a spirit for trouble, make you want to ruin your high class reputation for his lips? maybe.

warnings: cussing and a spoiled kid who yes is spoiled but has also done some stuff herself

word count: 3.8k

You rested on your back, your Chanel shades blocking your eyes from the harsh sun, and the copious amount of sunblock SPF 100 slathered on you protecting your fragile skin from early skin cancer. Your whole body felt warm in your Balmain limited edition swim suit keeping your decency. You got it at an event, where you received it as a special gift, since your mother was a world famous super model, and your father a critically acclaimed actor.

Some said the fame got to your head, but you were always too busy adjusting your Gucci sun hat to really care. Besides, you already knew that. You were indeed, filthy rich. Unimaginably so. But as a successful academic and model, you though you should deserve some credit. You couldn’t pay to have brains like yours, and you couldn’t pay for the natural talent you had for the camera. You had your own title, separate from your mom and dad, and you knew your worth.

Your daddy didn’t pay your way into Stanford -- your brain did. The traits that came with success were ones you welcomed with open arms; assertiveness, intelligence, charisma, etc. Were you prissy? Yes. Were you a bitch? Hell yes. And you loved it. The thorny wall of harsh words and judging stares served as protection from people who were friends for fame. This way, only good people made their way into your friend group. You enjoyed your little clique, they came from all walks of life.

“Mmm, the sun is getting a little hot, don’t you think so, Swary?” You asked, opening your eyes to look at your Pomeranian, who was nestled in the shade drinking some water under the umbrella. At the call of her name, she barked, before going back to her beauty sleep. You smiled to yourself, before setting your sunglasses back in place and going back into your resting position.

That was, until an annoying shadow blacked the warm rays, and dropped the temperature by a few degrees. You sighed, not even opening your eyes.

“Please leave, I’m on vacation, no autographs.” A deep chuckle resonated from the person, causing you to peep one eye open at them. Before your eyes was a cute boy, dressed in a white sleeveless shirt that was tucked into black distressed jeans, with what looked like checkerboard vans. You rolled your eyes, closing your eye again. “Cute. Now leave.” But the warmth didn’t return, instead you still felt the judging eyes of the boy.

“Swary? What type of name is that?” You sat up, annoyed, ripping off your Chanel sunglasses with a noise of irritation. “It’s short for something else.”

He rose a brow teasingly. “For what?”

“Swarovski.” You ignored the laugh that followed after the fact, knowing that he’d laugh before you even said it. “Wow, you’re such a prissy bitch, huh.” An annoyed huff left your lips before you sat back in your seat.

“Leave me alone, Donghyuck. Why are you here anyways? Don’t you bother my enough at school?” You looked over at him mockingly, watching as he scooted a beach chair from another umbrella. “Can’t stop following me? Are you a stalker or something?” He laughed, his laugh stirring your heart.

“I’ve got better things to do than to stalk you, Princess.” You turned away, your ears blushing red. “Don’t call me that.” He ignored your pleas and looked around the beach, his eyes content.

“Man, Malibu really is beautiful.” You hummed in agreement, starting to relax a bit in his presence. You knew Donghyuck from Stanford. He majored in Classics and minored in Comparative Literature, while you majored in History and minored in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality studies. You two didn’t really see each other often outside from the library, until you discovered your close friend Renjun in the Archaeology major was best friends with him. From then on, you two saw each other almost every other day, and he never failed to tease you.

“It would be more beautiful if you left.” You added, keeping your nose and dignity high. He turned onto his side, looking straight at you. “But then you’d have nothing to stare at, Princess.” You turned your head away from him and scoffed. “I wasn’t staring at you, Lee Donghyuck.”

“You’re right, you were drooling over me.” He chimed, laughing at your irritated expression. “Was not. Now can you get you and your atrocious outfit away from me? To a different state, preferably?”

“What? Not enough Vergucci or something? Not expensive enough for your tastes, hm?”

“You mean Versace, right? Are you really that dumb that you don’t know one of the biggest names in the fashion industry?” He rolled his eyes, getting up from his seat to sit on yours, you laying down and him sitting next to you with his arms resting on his knees. “Why should I care? I’m not into fashion, anyway.”

You shuffled in your seat to give him more space, “Maybe if you upped your fashion game instead of dressing like a typical American fuckboy, you’d actually get girls.”

“You sure it’s not the skipping class and weed that keeps then from me?” He jokes, moving to lay down next to you. You laugh quietly. “That too.”

It’s silent for a few minutes, the feeling of his bare arms draped above your head and the heat he exuded filling your thoughts. Donghyuck was your typical bad boy with a golden heart. It annoyed you how he fit so perfectly into a stereotype, but then again, so did you.

You were always confused by him, too. You’d think he was interested in you one day, with his flirtatious comments and overly-touchy and lingering fingers, but the next day his arm would be draped over a different girl. He was a player, and you were smart enough to not get mixed in with him. Besides, you had a reputation to keep up. No rich bitch could date a run-of-the-mill bad boy. Even if you wanted to.

But you knew all that was waiting for you was a broken heart and unstable relationship, so why bother? You were no different from other girls to him. But that didn’t mean you didn’t have the tiniest sliver of hope that maybe he was just doing it to get your attention, but you weren’t about to be the typical girl who thought she ‘could fix him’.

You weren’t perfect, and neither did you have any of the patience it would take to keep Donghyuck behaved. However, a part of you didn’t care about keeping him behaved; a part of you just wanted his touch and his lips against yours, but the rest of you that didn’t want to get heartbroken knew better, and so you kept your wall up in front of him.

“Why are you here in Malibu, anyway?” You turn your head towards him, not expecting his face to already be looking at yours. You don’t flinch, though, your eyes still staring bravely against his. A smirk finds its way onto his heart shaped lips, something you thought was way too powerful for him to posses, and he keep his stare on you. “Parents picked this place for vacation as a gift for staying in school this year.” You shrugged, “That’s not really an accomplishment, you know.” He shrugged back at you, his gaze leaving yours to look out into the blue ocean before him.

“Guess we both are stupid rich.” You don’t comment.

The party your parents decided to throw at the beach house was smaller than usual. It consisted of an armful of ‘close’ famous friends, including the Lee family. When you walked in the front door in a silk summer dress with your dog by your side, the last thing you expected was to come face-to-face with a shirtless Donghyuck.

The smirk on his face told you that he expected you to be flustered, but you were around half-naked men all the time, so honestly, he didn’t faze you. He was good-looking, but his body just didn’t compare to the male supermodels of the world, but then again, you never were attracted to those bodies.

The slight squish of his tummy made you feel warm, for some odd reason. You brushed it off and concluded it was just his alarmingly ugly black crocs.

“Wow, so bad boy. Love the crocs.” You say, brushing past him to go to your room. “I know, they’ve got skulls on them.” He adds, turning to follow after you up the stairs. You laugh and turn to look at him, curious.

“Are you going to follow me all the way up?”

“Is that an invitation?” He quips. You scoff, “You wish.”

“Damn right. Wanna grant it tonight?” You find it best to ignore the comment and continue on your way to your room, letting him trail behind you like a lost puppy.

You close the door behind you softly, sighing as soon as the noise from all around the house goes quiet due to the sound-proof room. Hyuck sits on the bed, resting his weight on the back of his hands with a cute grin on his face. The childishness that he exudes almost makes you blush, but you fight back the feeling. Who knows how many girl have seen that smile.

“So what’re we gonna do?” He pulls his knees up to his chin, kicking off his crocs and you flinch as his dirty feet touch your satin covers. “Well first off, we’re going to get your stank ass feet off my good Eastern Accent bedding.” He doesn’t listen, instead looking up at you with unwavering eyes. You give him a look before going around your room to put things back in their place, the cleaning lady having rearranged things from their normal place. After a few minutes of the silence, you decided to spare him another glance.

His eyes were still watching you, but there was a haze over them, like he wasn’t really thinking. This time, it made you blush. You wondered what he could be thinking about to be so lost in thought, staring at you nonetheless.

“What’re you looking at me for?” You shift, your head going back to straightening your textbooks. This seems to knock him out of his daze, and his characteristic smirk comes back, much to your dismay. “I was just admiring the beautiful curves of your body, princess.”

“Again with that name, Donghyuck.”

“What? I can’t call my princess what she is?” You begin to grow fed up by his empty words, you never understood how he threw them around so easily. The fact that he probably said those exact words to some other girl made your stomach twist in sadness. Th fact that he probably called other girls princess hurt you more than it really should.

“Stop meaninglessly flirting with me, Lee Donghyuck.” You spat, glaring at him. His brows shot up, the playful look on his face disappearing from before. “W-What?” He stuttered out, sitting up straight, his feet no longer rubbing themselves on your expensive sheets.

“I said;” you walked towards him, “Stop saying empty words.” His silence pushed you to keep talking. “I don’t know if you know this, Donghyuck. But I have feelings. Just because I’m rich and can buy out a whole Gucci store doesn’t mean I can’t fucking hurt. Your empty words hurt me more than anything. ‘You’re so beautiful, Princess,’ ‘Is that an invitation’, ‘I was just admiring you’ --I’m sick of hearing them if you’re just saying them to get some sick reaction out of me. If that’s all you want -- you’ve got it. Can you leave, now?” Your lungs rise up and down quickly, your heartbeat sounding throughout your skull, the vibrations reaching the ends of your toes as your bullet-like words hit the boy sitting across from your hurt gaze. Why did you have to get mad now? Why couldn’t you have gotten mad at him somewhere that would enable you to walk away? You can’t walk away in your own home.

He looks at you like an art connoisseur examining a new ice sculpture -- acting like the faintest gush of breath could shatter the delicacies of the piece. “Princess, I --”

“I said stop calling me that.” The voice that left you sounded like a cry, like a hurt animal mewling out for help. Donghyuck felt his facade of confidence break a little as he reached out towards you, only to see you step back away from his touch. “Princess...” His wavering voice broke, the whole situation stressing it out. One moment you were playfully quipping back at him, the next you were standing in the corner, your eyes coated with a sheen layer of water. He wondered if that meant you were suffering for a long time, to be able to snap like that.

“Please, what’s wrong, Princess?” He stood up, his bare feet padding gently on the wooden floor.

“Stop! You don’t understand, do you?” You accused, tilting your head at him in disbelief. “You don’t understand what it’s like to have someone give you such heartwarming words and then show up the next hour with a girl on his arm, whispering into their ear as if they were the love of his life, do you?”

Donghyuck stared into your eyes. The realization hitting him that it was him who was making you act this way. It was him who was making you insecure and confused. His loving words and unloving actions. His flirty eyes and disloyal hands.

But before his first words could leave his mouth, a firm knock on that door caught your attention. You mustered your strongest voice before calling out, “Yes?”

“Do you want the Champagne, M’am?” The clear voice of the housekeeper caused you to cuss under your breath as you hit your shoulder against Donghyuck’s, making your way to the door swiftly. You swung it open and snatched the bottle from her hands, not before her eyes noticed your disheveled and teary-eyed figure.

“M’am, are you oka --”

“Oh, fuck off.” You sneered, hating the vulnerable state she caught you in. In a burst of self-protection, you slammed the door in her face. You wasted no time twisting off the safety seal on the cap and flicking the cap off, placing the bottle between your lips and chugging down the burning liquid.

“P-princess --” You held your finger out to stop him, not quite done with the bottle. “Y/n!” He yelled, snatching the bottle from your hands before you could go through the whole thing. The bottle parted from your lips with a loud ‘pop’, making you choke a little at the sudden action. You wiped your mouth and pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Don’t take this away from me, too.”

He set the bottle down and grabbed you by the shoulders, hoping to talk to you before the alcohol caught your consciousness. “What did I take away from you?” His voice was desperate, his eyes searching yours for the truth.

“My heart.” Was all you said before pushing him out of the way to the bottle again, this time not letting it go until you were done with the whole thing. His hands didn’t even try to stop you as your legs tripped over one another, his mind too preoccupied with your previous words to watch your drunk figure stumble towards your bed.

As you began to whine and whimper in your pillow, Donghyuck thought it was his cue to leave the room. He needed to think things through. The second you heard the door shut, the knob clicking, your whining stopped. Instead, the reality that you were in fact just another fun toy to play with sunk into you, causing salty tears to cascade down your face into the pricey fluff of your pillow.

Donghyuck’s lack of response to your emotion-driven words meant that he just didn’t feet the same way, to you at least. So that night, you called up the housekeeper again with a wish for another bottle of champagne. Maybe it would take your mind off of things. But no amount of drunk giggling with your friends over skype could heal the aching wound of your torn heart.

For a moment, you wished that hearts were something you could buy -- you’d make sure to buy the most expensive one. Maybe it would come with a lifetime warranty.

The chirping of the song birds in the morning made you groan, their annoying tunes making you want to rip your ears off rather than sing along. Maybe it was your slight hangover or maybe it was your intense heartbreak the previous night that made you so grumpy.

Sitting up, you looked in the mirror on the vanity across from your bed, and you almost laughed. The tangled rats nest that was supposed to be hair, the purple eye bags, the swollen face from crying -- it all seemed funny to you; that you were like this because of some playboy.

Instead of dwelling on it, you shrugged off the thought, hoping that not paying attention to it would save you some heartache.

But when you opened the door to your bathroom across the hall and there was the man himself standing in front of you, you knew it was inevitable. His light chestnut hair was sticking up in the back, you could see from the mirror, and his eyes were heavy. His face look moisturized and his breath smelled minty, so you could tell he had just woken up too.

Your eyes shifted downwards and you moved past him, ignoring his sound of surprise, pushing him out the door and closing it in his face before he could protest aloud. Of course he just had to be up and using your bathroom.

“Y/n.” The muffled voice traveled through the door, the next action a soft but repeating knock. This happened several times, but you simply continued to do your skincare routine and wash up. “Y/n, seriously -- let me talk to you.” He grumbled.

Swinging open the door, you curtly nodded at him and attempted to slide away from his attention, but his hand caught your bicep smoothly, dragging you into you room despite your complaints and the judging looks of the housekeeper down the hall.

The door closing behind you caused you to start to sweat, not liking Donghyuck’s confrontational personality. He made to move to talk, instead only crossing his arms in front of the door and giving you a pointed look that made you shift from foot to foot.

“So?”

“So what?”

He rubbed his face in frustration, before taking a deep breath and connecting gazes again. “So do you remember what you said last night?” Silence overcame the room as you contemplated lying.

“N-No?” You cringed, giving him a hopeful look. “Yeah, bullshit.” He laughed. “I know you remember confessing your love to me.”

“I did not confess my love for you.”

“Yes you did! You said I took your heart!” You shook your head, “Why did you leave if you thought I confessed to you? You left the room without saying anything --”

“I wanted you to say those words to me when you weren’t drinking a whole bottle of champagne.” He loomed over you, bending down a little to be closer to you. “Admit it, princess, you love me.”

You ran a hand through your hair, flinching backwards at his close face. “And? Yeah, I like you. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t mean I’m going to date you, Donghyuck.” His expression saddened, crossing his arms. “And why not?”

“Because I know you. You flirt with anything that has two legs -- you just see me as an easy target.” His eyes widened in shock, an exasperated look breaching his face. “Did those Chanel sunglasses leave you visually impaired? Do you not see me standing in front of you, asking you to be my princess?”

“Hyuck --”

He cut you off, continuing, “I’m talking with you, not with some other girl on the beach. I’m calling you princess -- no one else.”

“Hyuck, let me talk --”

“I wanted to hear your answer sober so that I knew you felt the same way, so that I knew it wasn’t the two thousand dollar champagne speaking.”

“Lee Donghyuck!” You yelled, laughing from irritation. “I can’t trust you, that’s why! One minute you’re giving me positive signals and the next your off with your eyes on another girl -- how can I trust your words? You are known for being a playboy.”

“Is that what you think of me?” His dark pupils were darting back and forth across your face, trying to read you like a book. You moved closer, the space between you two shrinking. “What am I supposed to think?”

The room was quiet, the only sound the song birds outside your window coupled with the cawing of sea birds, helping the atmosphere seem less tense. “What if I promised I’d never do it again?” He whispered, his focus trained on your lips. His breath fanned over your mouth, and you fought the urge to kiss him.

“How can I know you won’t betray me?” Your voice came out strained from fighting the urge to just let him take you in his arms.

His hands lifted up to your face and he cupped your cheek to keep your gaze on him, while his other hand slid around your waist in a way that made you feel safe. “You have to trust me.”

That word scared you, trust. To put your faith in someone blindly, especially ins someone like Lee Donhyuck who was known for trouble and for giving out kisses to any pretty stranger with enticing eyes -- but you also wanted to trust him. You wanted to believe that he wouldn’t hurt you, you wanted to believe that his words were filled with promise and truth.The only way to truly find out if he was lying or not was to take the leap.

Maybe it was his breath on your face, maybe it was how the corner of his heart-shaped lips quirked up at your red cheeks and hesitation, maybe there was a trace of the alcohol from last night still flowing in your system; but you gave in.

His lips met yours with a smile etched on them, it felt so sincere and genuine that you pushed back with just as much passion. His hands felt like they belonged on your waist with his fingers digging into your sides, and your arms felt like they were at home resting on his broad shoulders.

When you pulled away, you looked into his eyes and noticed a mischievous bu happy glint in them, and you knew it would be a long road ahead of you, but as long as you were with Donghyuck, you had trust that you’d be just fine.

You wouldn’t refund his messy love for anything.

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merinnan · 4 years

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DMBJ Explore with the Note Ep 1

Explore with the Note (S2), Ep 1!

We begin with the counts:

Season 2 Xiaoge Rescue Count: 0

Season 2 Wu Xie Swoon Count: 0

Cumulative Xiaoge Rescue Count: 10 for Wu Xie, 15 for protagonists, 16 for everyone

Cumulative Wu Xie Swoon Count: 6

- I like these title credits. The music is nice

- Having read the books in question this time, I can look at scenes in the title credits & go "I know where that's from!"

- So we start with mysterious people in a mysterious tomb and...one just cut another guys throat. Okay then.

- So he's just casually ganking them one by one and no-one seems to be noticing before they're the next victim

- Oh, it was a nightmare

- Wu Xie, this is what you get for falling asleep on top of old books like that

- Oh, this isn't picking up from S1

- They cast such a different Sanshu! It's so weird how much older this one looks

- Much less dapper, too, in terms of his wardrobe

- Sanshu had some very dapper outfits in S1, esp when at home

- This Sanshu is like...an ugly t-shirt and a blingy neckchain

- Oh, another nightmare

- Ugh, these subtitles They're subbing 'Sanshu' as 'Uncle San'

- Whyyyyyyy

- Oh, somehow I only just realised that the murderer in Wu Xie's first nightmare was Sanshu

- Ah well. I can live with bad subs. I'll just mock them.

- OH

- HELLO

- He didn't look like much when he was wearing clothes, but suddenly topless and covered with sweat it seems there is something to that body after all

- FML

- That close up on his neck as he swallowed was entirely unnecessary

- WU XIE

- There are glasses right there!

- But tbh, after those nightmares, I don't blame him for wanting a drink of something strong

- Look, much as I appreciate a sweaty, shirtless Wu Xie, he's been up and wandering around long enough now that the sweat should have dried instead of still trickling down his skin.

- It's weird how little things like that can throw me

- This is throwing us into things very quickly given this is 40 episodes long

- But sure, let's get along to the docks so we can start the sea adventure!

- Did...did he bring one of his throw cushions with him?

- Hmmm, I don't think driving at that speed while having flashbacks to nightmares and what appear to be childhood memories is a good idea, Wu Xie

- That is a really pretty ocean view road

- THE TOP OF THE STAIRS ARE NOT A PARKING SPOT, WU XIE

- I am guessing that this is A-Ning approaching on the speedboat

- Why is she called Sanshu 'Sanshu' as well?

- Hm, so Sanshu and Qiu Dekao are friends. Explains Sanshu's reaction in S1.

- I'm sure we'll find out why Sanshu approached them for help

- Wu Xie has packed super lightly if that little backpack is all he has with him

- This is...I'm assuming this is Pangzi?

- Judging from how happy he and Wu Xie are to see each other

- They're more open about being tomb raiders in this one than they were in S1

- Ah, there we are. Yes, it's definitely Pangzi.

- lol, she was listening to them the whole time, was she?

- Oh hi, Consultant Zhang! I know who you are!

- It amuses me how he won't let go of Wu Xie's hand

- Wouldn't be using this as an excuse to do so, would we?

- Why would you have the passengers up on deck in this storm this instead of in their cabin, out of the way?

- It's a bit too late to try going around the storm when you're in the middle of it, A-Ning

- Wu Xie almost gets washed overboard, because of course he does

- Oh fuck it, there's no point being coy about this, is there?

- We all know who Consultant Zhang is

- So! Xiaoge Rescue Count: 1 for Wu Xie

- NOW you tell them to get inside the cabin

- Don't sound so pleased about the prospect of imminent death, Pangzi

- Aww, I like how 'Consultant Zhang' is just grabbing Wu Xie, trying to make sure he gets safely to the cabins

- Yeah, you deserved that for being a dumbass, Panzi

- Mmm, ghost ship, ominous

- What were you trying to shoot, Pangzi? You couldn't hit those hands without hitting A-Ning

- And of course Wu Xie is all ready to jump overboard and swim across to the ghost ship to get A-Ning

- Because he's Wu Xie

- 'Consultant Zhang' to the rescue tying the boats together, and Pangzi making sure the rope doesn't get cut while Wu Xie goes over there

- Wu Xie, leaping onto the rope like that was dangerously unnecessary when you could have walked like three steps to where it was tied and climbed onto it from there

- SOMEONE looking very concerned, AS HE SHOULD BE

- YOU KNOW WHAT WU XIE IS LIKE, 'CONSULTANT ZHANG'!

- Those spooky hands are ridiculously strong

- Ouch, that's a hard fall even without having fallen through broken decking

- He saved you because he's Wu Xie, A-Ning

- You should know this

- It's not the first time he's done it

- Random convenient items in the cupboard

- Almost like it's an RPG videogame

- Oooh, it's Chen Wenjin's notebook

- Ah, the evil spooky hands are back

- So this is what a sea monkey looks like

- Yeah, you're not getting up those stairs any time soon, Wu Xie

- Especially not with an unconscious A-Ning and a creepy sea monster hunting you

- And THAT got the sea monkey's attention

- Xiaoge Rescue Count: 1 for just Wu Xie, 1 for the protagonists, 2 for everyone

- Since in this instance he's rescuing A-Ning as well

- Honestly, idk how Wu Xie didn't figure out here who 'Consultant Zhang' is, given that entrance & those moves

- Like hell an aging academic moves like that

- I suppose the gun throws him off

- Also the whole look & voice

- BUT STILL

- AH-HAH

- YES

- HE'S SEEING IT

- It's too dark and fast to get a proper screenshot, unfortunately

- BUT HE'S SEEING IT

- There, a better one

- And sea monkey has fled, for it knows it's no match for Xiaoge

- XIAOGE!

- USING WU XIE AS A STEPSTOOL LIKE THAT

- Wu Xie looked so shocked - And then that eyeroll and shaking his head as Xiaoge leans down and offers his hand to pull him up

- Oh, ship being gone is not a good thing

- Pangzi, what did you do?

- At least those stairs are still solid enough to take Wu Xie's weight

- And back on the non-evil ship

- That thing on the back of A-Ning's neck is even more disgusting that it was described in the book

- Wu Xie is so forgiving. He's such a good boy.

- Now he has the proof that a Zhang Qiling was there

- That was a really cute little flashback

- There's the photo

- Another adorable flashback

- This greenscreen is obvious enough to be annoying, but not so bad that I can mock it

- Oh, and that's the end of it

- That seemed to go really fast

- Probably because I didn't have a cute, shirtless Xiaoge to screenshot every few minutes

So, at the end of Episode 1 Season 2

Xiaoge Rescue Count: 1 for Wu Xie, 1 for protagonists, 2 for everyone

Season 2 Wu Xie Swoon Count: 0

Cumulative Xiaoge Rescue Count: 11 for Wu Xie, 16 for protagonists, 18 for everyone

Cumulative Wu Xie Swoon Count: 6

#alicia watches dmbj #dmbj #daomu biji #explore with the note #xiaoge rescue count #wu xie swoon count #wu xie #xiaoge #zhang qiling #wang pangzi #iron triangle

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xf-2 · 5 years

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Tetsuhide Yamaoka, Australia-Japan Community Network July 4, 2019 11:19 pmfujioka nobukatsu, graduate project, Kent Gilbert, miki dezaki, shunichi fujiki, shusenjo, sophia university, the main battle ground of the comfort women issues, tony marano

On June 15, five people who appeared in a documentary called “Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue” (Tofu Films) sued the director and the production company for the film, bringing the battleground from the big screen to the courtroom.

Graduate Project Gone Awry

Kent Gilbert, Tony Marano, Nobukatsu Fujioka, Shunichi Fujiki and Yumiko Yamamoto filed charges against a young man who called himself Miki Dezaki for using footage of them in a commercial film without their consent.

The story goes that in 2016, Miki Dezaki approached several people for interviews on the comfort women Issue as part of his graduation project at Sophia University. For that purpose, Dezaki secured the consent of several people, including the five people involved in the case.

After his graduate school project, he apparently proceeded to do more filming, add music and further edits, making it into a commercial film shown publicly for the first time on October 7, 2018.

The plaintiffs have charged that the consent they gave was for Dezaki’s non-commercial graduation project and not for any other purpose, including a commercial film. The charges further accused Dezaki of uploading footage of Marano to Youtube without his consent.

The plaintiffs have sued to stop the film from showing. In addition, they have sought damages of ¥ 5,000,000 JPY ($ 46,420 USD) to Kent Gilbert and Tony Marano, and ¥ 1,000,000 JPY (¥ 9,284 USD) for each of the other three people.

How it Started

Let’s take a step back to 2016, when Miki Dezaki approached several well-known conservative opinion leaders, introducing himself as a graduate student of Sophia University. He asked for interviews with them in order to make a documentary film focused on the comfort women issue. He said the project was to complete his master’s degree.

One of Dezaki’s emails said, “As I researched, I found the comfort women issue was more complex than I had read in the Western liberal media. In researching, I found there was little evidence that the women were coerced to become comfort women, and that the lives of the comfort women were not as bad as some activists or experts would argue. I have to admit that I had believed the media reports, but now I have doubts…. As a graduate student, I have an ethical obligation to conduct interviews with you with respect and fairness. Also, since this is academic research, there are certain academic standards and conditions which must be met, so it will not be biased journalism.”

He approached Kent Gilbert, Yoshiko Sakurai, Nobukatsu Fujioka, Mio Sugita, Yumiko Yamamoto, Tony Marano (also known as the “Texas Daddy”), Shunichi Fujiki (Texas Daddy Japan secretariat), among others.

All of them took Dezaki at his word and expected he would make a fair and neutral documentary film as promised. On that basis, they agreed to interviews with him.

The Product Is Not What Was Promised

Time passed. On March 27, 2019, I headed for a small theater in Shibuya, where I had heard that a preview of the film would be screened. By then, I had also heard that all of the above-mentioned people Dezaki interviewed regretted cooperating with him on the film, which, contrary to their expectations, turned out to be another propaganda film about the comfort women.

I wondered what went wrong. The film was supposed to be a fair debate between those who claim the comfort women were sex slaves and those who say they were not.

Advanced information on the film indicated that advocates of the “comfort women are sex slaves” view who appear would include Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Etsuro Totsuka, Hirofumi Hayashi, Koichi Nakano, and Takashi Uemura.

Mihyang Yun, a representative of The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, and Park Yu-ha, a professor at Sejong University in Seoul who wrote The Comfort Women of the Empire (2013, in South Korea, now banned) and was prosecuted for it in South Korea, were also said to make an appearance in the film. I wanted to see the film for myself to learn what was actually said.

The title of the film was Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue (Independent, 2019). The credits said it was written and directed by Miki Dezaki, who was billed as a Japanese American YouTuber in a leaflet on the movie. The flyer promised that the movie would be “Surprisingly thrilling!!!! This is the most aggressive documentary film today.”

As I watched, speakers appeared one after another making various claims. But was it “surprisingly thrilling,” as Dezaki’s flyer had promised? No, and the reason was clear: this film was far from fair.

Dezaki Set the Tone

The film’s tone made it clear that Dezaki was not neutral at all. Rather, he stood by those who claimed comfort women were sex slaves. While saying he would explore the issue from a neutral position, he started by expressing disdain for the views of those who said comfort women were not sex slaves, calling them “revisionists” and “denialists” right from the beginning.

His tone was very rude to those who cooperated from the opposition side. It raised questions about his motives, and I could not help but suspect that his email promises to those whose views he disdained were simply a trap to induce them to appear in the film.

Another point that caught my attention was that Dezaki avoided interviewing the most prominent scholars on the comfort women issue when their views did not fit with his conclusion.

Since Dezaki included in the film’s debate interviews with Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi, experts who have long been proponents of the sex slave story, he should have interviewed scholars with comparable qualifications on the other side, such as Ikuhiko Hata and Tsutomu Nishioka. This failure alone demonstrates the lack of balance in his work.

I was able to ask Dezaki in person about this point on April 4 at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, where a preview of the film and an interview were held. He answered like this: “As for Nishioka, I saw his views on the internet. I thought he was not adding much more than others say and did not contact him.”

Then did the film offer any meaningful argument at all?

Were Comfort Women Coercively Recruited?

At one point, the film showed a 2007 clip of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe answering questions in the Diet. He said: “There were no such cases as government authorities intruding into private houses and forcibly taking women away. There was no coercion.”

Then Totsuka Etsuro appeared for the purpose of criticizing Abe. He was the lawyer who coined the word “sex slave” and spread it in the United Nations. He said: “Abe claims that the women were not coerced because they were not forcibly taken away against their will and tied with ropes. But, legally speaking, ‘coercive’ means ‘against their will.’ Then, ‘being deceived’ is categorized into ‘coerced’ because it is ‘against their will.’ Most Korean women at that time were deceived.”

In other words, since there was no coercion and there were no reported cases of forcible removal of women in the Korean Peninsula under the Japanese governance, he expanded the definition to include the feeling of “being deceived.”

Gilbert and Fujiki said: “The women were recruited mainly by Korean dealers. There would have been cases in which women were deceived by the [private] dealers.”

Mio Sugita added, “Newspapers at that time reported on many cases in which malicious dealers were arrested by the Japanese police.”

In the film, though, Hayashi Hirofumi refuted them, saying, “Reports in newspapers at that time had nothing to do with the coercive recruitment of comfort women. Certainly, the police arrested malicious dealers who deceived women and prostituted them. But the police overlooked dealers who were requested to do so by the military.”

I wish Hayashi had explained his statement by providing specific evidence in the film. How could the police distinguish malicious dealers from those who had received a request from the military?

I had heard of such claims before, but they were found to be groundless. If the police had been so discriminatory, it would have been very difficult to maintain security.

Who Called Them Sex Slaves?

Next, those who believe the comfort women were not sex slaves spoke in the movie, showing that the comfort women were well paid. They were able to save and/or send their money to their families. When their contract came to an end, they were free to go home. They enjoyed shopping. They went to sporting events and parties with Japanese soldiers. They were far from sex slaves.

But the advocates of the sex slave viewpoint counter the argument by claiming that, according to international law today, they were slaves.

Sex slave advocate Yoshiaki Yoshimi’s claim was particularly interesting. He refuted the argument that the comfort women had time for recreation with a convoluted reference to American Negro slaves, saying: “I think their daily lives were so hopeless that they couldn’t live without such recreation. For example, American Negro slaves gathered and had concerts or dance parties on Saturdays and Sundays. They also went hunting. They were so hopeless that slave owners had to allow them to do so to survive.”

He and other sex slave advocates failed to mention, however, that some Japanese soldiers fell in love with comfort women and married them, and that there were former comfort women who cherished the memory of Japanese soldiers who were their former lovers. The advocates of the sex slave argument in the film instead appear to want simply to disgrace Japanese by all means.

Kohki Abe, a member of the faculty of international studies at Meiji Gakuin, appeared next in the film. He claims that, based on international law, the comfort women are defined as sex slaves.

He said: “Slavery is a situation in which someone is utterly under the control of another. Even if the comfort women were able to earn lots of money and go out for pleasure, they were under another’s control and had to get permission to do so. Therefore, they were slaves.”

If that’s true, then it sounds like today’s ordinary salaried workers are all slaves!

If he wanted to make a claim based on international law, the claim should be either “It is technically possible to define them as slaves according to international law,” or “All prostitutes throughout history, not only the wartime comfort women of Japanese military, are defined as sex slaves according to international law.”

Nippon Kaigi (The Japan Conference)

This film was so long that I started feeling tired. Then, unexpectedly, the words “Japan Conference” suddenly appeared on the screen and woke me up. The Japan Conference has nothing to do with the comfort women.

Setsu Kobayashi, professor emeritus at Keio University and a constitutional scholar, began to talk. According to him, the Japan Conference has the power to influence the Abe administration as it intends to revive the constitution of the empire of Japan to return the country to an era where basic human rights are denied. And, in his view, Yoshiko Sakurai is leading their campaign.

He continued guessing, “The Japan Conference is supported by Shinto shrines, including the Yasukuni Shrine. Sakurai Yoshiko probably has an office for free within the shrine’s grounds.”

He then came to a very strange conclusion: “The Japan Conference’s doctrine of getting back to the pre-war Japan is terrifying. But I am determined to fight against it even if I get murdered in the battle.”

What a delusion! The Japan Conference and Yoshiko Sakurai have never expressed the slightest intention to revive the constitution of the empire of Japan.

And I have very good news for Kobayashi. His name is seldom mentioned around the Japan Conference. There is no one who has a reason to kill him. He is 120% safe.

I asked the Japan Conference whether or not Dezaki made a request to interview them while making the film. The answer was no. The Japan Conference also released a statement denying Dezaki’s accusation.

After all, The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue is a video made by a YouTuber who cheated the people who were willing to help him with his supposed graduation thesis. Instead, he hid his true intentions of promoting a conspiracy theory which he never verified.

All Dezaki has successfully achieved is to deepen the conflict and distrust between people who have different opinions on the comfort women issue.

Author: Tetsuhide Yamaoka

#special reports

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iamfitzwilliamdarcy · 6 years

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Title: The Haunting Blessing of Wayne Manor Summary: Tim is convinced a demon has moved into the Wayne Manor; Jason decides it's past time Wayne Manor is blessed. (Set in Catie's Fr. Todd AU) (ao3)

It’s @catie-does-things ‘s birthday today!! Happy birthday Catie!!!!! The Manor seems like an excessively Massive place to bless but Fr. Todd’s gonna Do It Anyway!!! Hope you enjoy and have a great birthday :D (as a sn: this is based entirely on house blessings that my college chaplain did for us...but the last one of those was 3 years ago; also semi-based on a story from one of my chaplains that it’s also been about 3 years since I’ve heard...I think most of it is pretty Accurate to how Life Works tho)

“I think there’s a demon in the Mansion,” Tim says, and Jason doesn’t look up from the Halloween lesson notes he’s preparing for the elementary and middle-schoolers at the school Dominic’s been assigned to.

“You can’t keep calling Damian that,” he says absently, starring a place he thinks can reword.

“You’re the one who started it,” Tim says sullenly. Jason looks up when he shifts in his chair, and frowns. Tim’s face is twisted and serious, and though he clutches the mug of coffee Jason’s made for him, he hasn’t taken a sip of it at all. He looks tired, not strictly unusual, but pale also.

Jason snaps his notebook shut and gives Tim his full attention. “I was just there last week for dinner,” he prompts. “Nobody mentioned anything abnormal.”

“Bruce thinks I’m being suspicious,” Tim admits, and Jason can tell that stings. “I think Dick is starting to come around, but he didn’t believe me at first either--” just a hint of bitterness, bygones of Dick’s Batman days--”and who the hell knows what Damian thinks. Cass agrees though,” he adds as if that’s all that matters. The two of them, through thick and thin.

“Have you been spending the night at the Mansion?” Jason asks, surprised. Since moving back in with Cass, he’d figured Tim, who had a bad habit of withdrawal, had been keeping mostly to himself. He made sure to keep his appointments, like his weekly coffee or brunch get together with Jason, but, when not patrolling, stayed holed up in his apartment.

It’s part of why Bruce approves the living arrangements--someone’s keeping an eye on him.

Tim shrugs. “Late patrols, working a case, Cass is in Hong Kong. Anyway,” he adds pointedly, like that’s not the point, “the point is, there’s something. It started in my old room and I think it’s moved to the sitting room.”

“Unhelpful,” Jason says. “There’s a million sitting rooms.”

Tim eyes him. “The only sitting room that matters. You know.”

Jason laughs. He does know, it’s essentially Tim’s sitting room at this point, though Jason favors it too when he comes to visit--it has the best natural light in the Manor, great for naps for someone like Tim, who, cat-like, seeks out sunny spots of solitude.

Tim still looks troubled though, and Jason sighs. “I’ll talk with the pastor,” he says. “And I’ll come by and bless the Manor.” He pauses, thoughtful, and adds, “That’d be a good thing to do anyway.”

“You think sprinkling some water will work?” Tim asks skeptically.

“Hey, you came to me,” Jason reminds him.

Tim chews on his lip. “How long?”

“Probably tomorrow,” Jason says. He’s torn--ordinarily he’d suggest confession for the sacramental graces, but only Bruce and Dick had ever been baptized Catholic (and Jason’s not even sure about Dick). Tim, neglected in more ways than one, has never been exposed much to religion outside of an academic context at all. And Damian...well he’s a special case.

Instead, Jason impulsively he reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a Rosary. He drops it gently into Tim’s cupped hand, saying, “Here, take this.”

Tim stares down at it. “I don’t know what to do with it,” he admits.

Jason bites down on the suggestion that he ask Bruce--Tim would take it as a dismissal, even if Jason definitely doesn’t mean it that way. Instead, he starts, “The big bead is the Our Father, and then the next ones are the Hail Marys, see it’s a decade, and after ten Hail Marys comes the Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer.” He goes over each prayer with Tim, who is absorbing it all, and then sends him off with a reminder that Bruce, though rusty, knows all the prayers if Tim forgets.

Tim gives him a glare, knowing what Jason is half-suggesting, but he says, “Thanks,” softly and is on his way.

Jason comes by the Manor the next day, armed with a prayer book and holy water. The pastor has been called away for a hospital visit, and Dominic is on retreat with his middle schoolers, so Jason is left by himself.

Damian sniffs haughtily when he sees Jason. “I expected more tools for Drake’s exorcism,” he says.

“I’m not an exorcist,” Jason reminds him. It’s a conversation he’s had frequently with his brothers, who, after discovering the diocese exorcist is kept secret, have decided, firmly, that it must be Jason. “And no one would perform an exorcism here,” he adds for good measure.

Damian grumbles something and leaves just as Bruce comes into the foyer to greet Jason. Jason returns his hug, but eyes him disapprovingly. “You should know better than to dismiss Tim like that,” he says softly. “Especially over a spiritual matter. You’re not a skeptic.”

Bruce’s brow furrows, but he accepts the scolding.

“Okay,” Jason amends. “You’re a detective, so you question, but you’ve seen too much to doubt the reality of a demon.”

“That’s fair,” Bruce agrees.

Jason waits a beat, and then adds, “And he’s the one who always believed you were alive. He found you.”

Bruce nods in acknowledgement. “Tim and I have already talked,” he says. There’s an implication Bruce apologized, and Jason is glad. He’s getting better at that. Jason’s always a little surprised when Bruce just listens to him these days.

Bruce’s mouth slants down, not quite a frown. “I’ve been worried about him, but I think seeing you yesterday helped. He seems...almost excited about the blessing. Intrigued.”

Jason’s lips quirk up. “He’ll be disappointed. This isn’t an exorcism, as I keep telling Damian.”

Bruce laughs a little. “Cassie will be back from Hong Kong soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a call from them to come bless the apartment.”

Jason shrugs. “I should’ve done it ages ago.”

“Well come in,” Bruce says, gesturing, but Jason says, “I think it’d be best to be thorough and start here.”

Bruce nods. “I’ll get Tim,” he says. “And round up the others.”

“Other than Damian?” Jason asks, and Bruce shrugs. “Dick has been in and out.”

He returns with Tim, no Dick or Damian, but he’s also brought along Alfred, who offers Jason a pat on the shoulder and water bottle; Jason accepts both gratefully.

Tim still looks pale, but he grins at Jason, who says, “We’ll lets get started. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…”

They work their way methodically through the Manor, Jason finding prayer passages for rooms he didn’t even know still existed. (He realizes it’s a mansion but why does there have to be a ballroom? He mentally says an extra prayer there, thinking of children subjected to boredom at galas while adults hunt for iniquity in the name of charity; he says an extra prayer in the library as well because the smart asses of this house, himself included, could use some actual Wisdom sometimes). Damian joins them somewhere along the way, lurking behind them and acting disinterested, even though he’s definitely listening.

They pick up Dick along the way, too. Jason focuses on the prayers and the blessings, but it doesn’t escape his notice that Dick slips an arm around Tim and whispers something in his ear that makes Tim smile, even as he shushes him. He even crosses himself a few times, right to left, and Jason files that away because did he know Dick was raised Orthodox? (Eastern Rite, maybe? He definitely didn’t know.)

When they reach the sitting room, Tim flinches. There is a drastic drop in temperature, and even Jason shivers. It’s not like Tim to be afraid, though, and he takes a few steps into the room after Jason, whispers, “It’s in here.”

Jason nods, and flips his book to pray the sitting room prayers, and, when done, sprinkles the holy water, three times, In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Then he’s done with that, and they continue. It’s a while before the whole Mansion is blessed, and Bruce even lets him bless the Cave, where he finally concludes, blessing his entire family, In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

When he’s done, he takes a long drink of water from the bottle Alfred’s provided. He’s taken sips throughout the blessing, but the blessing has still left him thirst. He wants to catch Dick, gently suggest to him that Tim might still be harboring some hurt from Dick’s time as Batman, but before he can, Dick drags Tim off to the computer, and Bruce, brow furrowing suspiciously, follows him. Perhaps Dick realizes that, or maybe he just feels guilty about being dismissive of Tim initially. Jason doesn’t give his older brother enough credit, sometimes, but he does resolve to bring it up, along with Dick’s religious background, next time Dick stops by the rectory.

Alfred retreats too, to finish dinner, a pointed look at Jason that tells him he’s staying and will be returning with food for Dominic and his pastor. Jason smiles back, but before he realizes it, he’s alone with Damian, who, with arms crossed tightly against his chest, dog firmly at his side, clearly wants to talk. Jason waits.

“Could my grandfather--,” Damian starts, not looking at Jason.

“Maybe a curse or something,” Jason answers, shrugging. “It’s not unheard of. But,” he adds, gently, “the Manor is very old. There’s a lot of trauma here, too. I couldn’t say for sure where it may have come from.”

He pauses, frowning at the boy, and then ventures, “You know your grandfather isn’t actually a demon, don’t you? He’s a man who’s prolonged his life artificially.”

“No,” Damian corrects. “The Lazarus Pit--,”

“I don’t mean through modern medication or anything like that,” Jason interrupts gently. “I just mean we’re not supposed to live that long. Death is natural. Immortality is not; he’s cheating death. It doesn’t matter what he calls himself, it doesn’t change the nature of what he is, and that’s a man and a mortal.”

“And a coward?” Damian asks, and Jason’s mouth twists. Whatever Damian might say, Ra’s Al Ghul is still his family.

“That’s not for me to decide,” he says quietly, finally. “But I would caution anyone about fearing death of the flesh more than death of the soul.”

Damian hums, then says, clipped, “Thank you, Todd,” and Jason breathes a sigh of relief that this conversation has gone better than the one they’d had last month regarding animals’ souls and whether or not they go to heaven.

Jason stays for dinner, and, as predicted, is plied with numerous tupperwares of food for him for the week and for Fr. Dominic and Fr. Paul, his pastor.

“The parishioners will think you don’t appreciate them,” he teases Alfred, as he accepts. Alfred sniffs a little and says that that is hardly his intent, but he returns Jason’s kiss on the cheek with a fond hand pat, and several more slices of bread.

Jason says his goodbyes, and Tim hops up, ostensibly to help him carry the tupperware to his car. When they’re outside, though, Tim says, earnestly, “Thanks for believing me, Jay.”

Jason catches his hand and squeezes it. “If it doesn’t go away, you know where to find me. We have a process.”

Tim’s eyes glint mischievously as he shakes his head and mutters “Catholics.”

“Hey,” Jason says, lightly, “if you’re jealous, it’s not too late to join us.”

Tim snorts, but when Jason tells him to bow his head, he does. Jason gives him another blessing. After he’s finished the Sign of the Cross, Jason snags Tim around the neck and rubs his knuckles against his hair.

“Hey!” Tim protests, batting at Jason’s hands and trying to wriggle away from the unexpected nougie attack. “I was trying to be reverent!”

“Aren’t we all, kid,” Jason laughs, releasing him. He gives him a little push towards the Manor. “Go get some sleep, Tim, you look like death.”

“Memento Mori,” Tim quips solemnly, rubbing at his head. He flashes Jason a grin, though, and heads back inside.

Jason stands for a minute beside his car, looking up at the Manor and the grounds sprawling behind it. It’s dark and imposing at night, but Jason knows the depth of warmth and love inside. It wells up inside him now, too, and says a little prayer of Thanksgiving, before returning home to the rectory.

#Jason Todd #Tim Drake #batfam #fanfic tag #my fic #Fr. Todd Au #Damian Wayne #Bruce Wayne #Dick Grayson

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academicsapphic · 7 years

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University can be extremely hard on your mental health, especially if you already struggled with mental illness beforehand. Like I’ve shared before, my depression and anxiety hit an all-time high? low? I don’t know which to call it but it got to the point I didn’t think I was going to make it. I did make it, however, and here are the things I hope will help you avoid going through what I did. Of course, I’m not a professional and I can’t speak for everyone, so I want to emphasize that these are things that I personally struggled with and that this is advice I would have given to myself in these circumstances.

Incorporate organization into your life. If you’re already an organized person, keep with it. College is a ton of work and you’ll have to keep track of a lot of things. I don’t know about you, but personally, when I know I have a lot of tasks to finish but I can’t remember how many or when they’re due and everything is just on my desk in a messy pile, I get very overwhelmed to the point of feeling suffocated, then I shut down and do nothing. Have a planner, bullet journal, or app of some sort to keep track of all your assignments. Plan when you’re going to work on them. Break assignments down into smaller tasks to make them seem less intimidating. PAY ATTENTION TO DUE DATES. It can be very easy to get things confused and lose track of it all; you want to prevent this from happening.

Drill it into your mind that in college, NO ONE cares what you do. This is mainly addressing the social anxiety side of things, which I struggle with pretty badly. When I first arrived at university, I was excited that no one knew who I was; it was a completely fresh start. It only took a couple of weeks before I felt that everyone had formed some type of negative opinion about me. It got to the point where I felt so self conscious on the way to class that I wasn’t even able to walk correctly without consciously thinking “okay, right foot, left foot”. Keep in mind that on a college campus, there’s thousands of people, and none of them are paying attention to you. No one cares what you eat, what you wear, or if you trip. Take comfort in the fact that you’ll probably never see these people more than once anyway. Everyone is just there to get a degree and do their own thing; as long as you’re a nice person, do what you want and try not to worry about what other people think of you.

Find a support system. University can be very lonely if you don’t have anyone to talk to, or if the only people around you are people who don’t understand what you’re going through and offer you unwarranted neurotypical advice like “drink more water” and “just think positive”. It really helps to have someone there who you can vent to about your problems and who can validate your experiences. All of my friends struggle with mental illness in some way like I do, so we can all understand each other and talk to each other about these things. Whether it’s your friends, your parents, or even people on the internet, having someone there to support you can make it feel like you aren’t carrying the load all alone, because you are never alone, even when you feel like you are. (Of course, I do recommend seeking professional help for the long run and the bigger, more serious issues, this is just for your everyday, more general things)

Don’t push yourself too hard. When you get to university, you may think of it as a continuation of high school in the sense of having to do a lot of things to distinguish yourself from others or to feel accomplished. You might want to join every club, take every class you can, make plans every night, and that is not a great idea. Only participate in extra-curriculars you actually have an interest in and genuinely enjoy; otherwise, you’re just wasting your time. I very highly recommend against taking the maximum number of credit hours you’re allowed to take, especially as a first-year, unless for some reason you absolutely have to. At Vandy, the limit is 18 hours/6 classes, and that’s a lot. If you find that you have made too many commitments, you don’t have to stick with them just because. The whole idea of “never be a quitter, always finish what you started” can be very detrimental to your mental health. If you push yourself too hard, you could end up with a lot of anxiety that could come to a head in a breakdown which is never good. Drop a class or a club if you just don’t have the time or energy to continue it anymore. You’re not a quitter; you’re taking care of yourself, which is the most important thing you could ever do.

Sometimes you just need a break. Don’t be afraid to take a mental health day every once in a while. If you were physically sick with the flu or a migraine, you wouldn’t go to class, so why would you go to class if you’re a having a really bad depression episode or anxiety day? When your mental illness is flaring up, you’re not going to be productive anyway, so it’s not going to benefit you to force yourself to go to class. In my experience, and many of my friends experiences, professors can be understanding if you have some personal things going on. Just try to be honest with them, if you can, instead of just going AWOL with no explanation. When you have so much going on in addition to trying to keep your brain in check, bad days are inevitable. It’ll benefit you more to just ride it out and give yourself the time to recuperate than it would be to try to ignore and push through it, because then it’ll just come back ten times harder. Somedays you wake up and just can’t get out of bed. Take the day to focus on yourself so you can come through it better than before.

Please seek help when you need it, as soon as you need it. The mental health aspect of college is often avoided in the media as a topic of conversation. Vanderbilt proudly touts it’s second year winning the title of “Happiest Students in the Nation”, which I and a lot of my fellow classmates think is bullshit, because it is. No one is happy all the time, and you can’t measure happiness. It’s dangerous to advertise this because it could deter a student struggling with depression to seek the help they need as they believe that no one else is going through the same thing and there is no one to help them. I can promise you that whatever you’re going through, there are a lot of other people going through it, too. University is unbelievably stressful and can do a number on even those who have previously never had a problem with their mental health. If you start to feel overwhelmed, I encourage you to seek out counseling or whatever type of resources your school has available to you. Even just talking to someone once can help you a lot. If you already see a therapist/psychiatrist, try to keep seeing them when you start school, and if you’re moving away to school, try to find someone new before you get there. I thought about going to the PCC for a long time, and people told me that I should, but I just kept putting it off until I reached an extreme low. I like to think that I never would have had to hit that low if I had sought out help as soon as I knew I needed it. It can be nerve-wracking, so try to find a friend who will go with you, or call on the phone first before going in person. There’s a lot going on in university, but your health always comes first, no question. You won’t be able to succeed academically in the long run if you’re not your best self.

Understand that university is not the end-all, be-all. One of the main symptoms of anxiety is catastrophic thinking; you always assume the worst is going to happen, and the smallest things feel apocalyptic in nature. During my entire second semester, when I was on academic probation with really low grades in my classes, it constantly felt like my world was ending. I mean I spent every second of every day worrying about flunking out of school, and I genuinely thought I was going to die. A strategy I’ve learned in therapy is to tackle these thoughts; my therapist would ask, “okay, so if you do fail this test, what is going to happen? if you do fail out of class, what is going to happen? are you going to get hurt? are you going to die?” and of course, the answer was no. It helped me a lot to realize that even if I did fail all my classes and fail out of school, what was the worst that could happen? I wouldn’t die, my life wouldn’t be over, I was going to be fine. Of course, getting kicked out of uni would suck, but ultimately, I would survive. Plenty of people leave uni or never go to uni, and they ended up okay. Since anxiety always brings up the worst case scenario, which to a uni student would be failing out of school, address that scenario and realize it’s not the end of everything. And once you realize that, and then realize that the worse case scenario is extremely unlikely, every other possibility suddenly seems less daunting. It takes a lot to get kicked out of school; one failing grade, even three semesters of probation won’t get you removed (at least not here). If you get a bad grade on an exam, or even fail a class, you don’t have to automatically feel like your life is over. If your mental health causes you long-term struggles with school, your uni will work with you; see if you can take an approved underload (which is a number of credit hours less than the required minimum) or take a leave of absence. Neither of these things mean you’re a failure. Some people just have a different path than others. Maybe you’ll realize that university just wasn’t for you, and that is okay.

Mental health is a much bigger issue in university than it seems. Yes, your grades are important, but your well-being is infinitely more so. Please always remember to take care of yourself, keep things in perspective, and seek help when you need it. If you need advice or someone to lend an ear, my inbox is always open.

This was the last post idea I had lined up for this series, so if you have any topics you would like to see me give advice on, please please let me know! I did think about making a post of all my most embarrassing freshman year moments which I think could be hilarious, so I might do that. In the meantime, check out my previous university advice series posts if you haven’t already!

Application Process

Choosing/Changing Majors

Orientation Week/Move-In/First Day of Classes

Roommate Living

Classes and Schoolwork

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hey-angelle · 4 years

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On the Film: “Bar Boys” by Kip Oebanda

Sometimes in life, you have to choose whether you want to keep going or to stop.

[ NOTE: These are my personal thoughts while I was watching Kip Oebanda’s film entitled “Bar Boys” on YouTube. Safe to say I was very emotional when I was writing this. I hope you enjoy and that this doesn’t change your view of me as much! ]

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of suicide.

Word Count: 2752 words

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Past 9PM. March 23, 2020. Day 9 of the Quarantine. Out of the blue, I decided to watch Kip Oebanda’s film, “Bar Boys” on YouTube. Honestly, the first time I heard the title, the notion of grimy pubs with strobe lights came to mind. I thought the film would be about workers in a bar trying to keep themselves afloat. And of course, I was wrong. The film was about a group of friends who wanted to go to law school. I, for a fact, once had the thought of going to law school and become a lawyer someday, after I graduate accountancy. Yes, I wanted to become a CPA Lawyer when I was in junior high school. I even wanted to graduate with Latin honors… I remember asking my mom how I can graduate with honors in college, and to which, she replies: “Mag-aral ka lang nang mabuti. Kaya mo yun!” (“Study hard! I know you can do it!”) Oh, if only the little 10th grade Angelle knew. Come senior high school, I already started questioning if I really wanted to take up accountancy. Law school then was out of my mind. I ended up taking up accountancy during my first year as a college student. Safe to say, it was hell. I remember getting a letter from the College of Accountancy telling me that I am qualified for admission due to my academic performance. If I recall correctly, only a few were able to receive such letter. I took that as my motivation to not quit; I rationalized: “Pinili ako ng college na ‘to. Papatunayan kong deserving ako na pinili niya ako.” (“This college chose me. I’m going to prove that I am worthy of being chosen.”).

Now, Carlo Aquino’s role spoke out to me during the entire movie. He’s surrounded by well-enough friends who are smart and actually know what they are doing: that even if they don’t exert that much effort, they pass. Yes, I was like Erik Vicencio – the not-so smart guy who has to exert more than 100% but still ends up failing. I also had my parents, who served as my motivation in trying to finish my program; like Erik’s parents, they work hard to send me to college. They are approaching their senior years and I cannot recall the amount of times they’ve told me “tumatanda na kami” (“we’re not getting any younger”) which reminds me that I should not slack off so I can provide for them when they’re in their senior years. Nonetheless, they were supportive of me, and like Erik’s father, they kept telling me to keep fighting… to keep going no matter what. But every time a quiz gets handed back to me and I see failing grades, I feel so ashamed and frustrated. I mean, how dare I get failing marks when my parents work so hard to make sure I am comfortable in my studies? They weren’t even granted such luxury when they studied yet they were able to finish and look where they are now. So, how dare I fail, right? I kept telling myself that all this would pay off someday, that I’d be rich and be able to give my parents the life they deserve. But as the weeks and months passed by, I felt drained… like I didn’t want to fight anymore. I was thinking that maybe this battle just wasn’t for me. Maybe I should just shift programs already, else I’m just jeopardizing my entire future if I push any further. However, I pushed these feelings aside and continued the battle. Finals came for the second semester. Grades were out. And for the first time in my life, I’ve gotten a failing mark. No, this was not just a failing mark on a quiz, but a grade of 5.0. I had no one else to blame but me. I blamed myself for my lapses and shortcomings. That maybe I should’ve tried harder. Maybe I shouldn’t have fallen asleep while reviewing. I failed and it was all because of me. When Erik failed Mr. Cruz’ class, he wanted to redeem himself and would do anything just to pass. I felt the same way too, if only teachers would give out extra credit tasks from where I came from… but they don’t. Even as our grades were released, we had no time for consultation with our professors since it was already the break. And so, I told my parents about this failing grade of mine. Needless to say, their reaction was not quite what I was expecting. I only had my dad with me during this time, since my mom was abroad, enjoying her Europe trip. It was also during this time that I had made the final decision to shift. No, I wasn’t shifting because I had a failing grade. I was shifting because I felt like I deserved more, and I wanted to be doing something I love; me failing was only my “breaking point” or “trigger” since I’ve already had thoughts of shifting prior to second semester. There was this scene where Erik’s now paralyzed dad told him to do things for himself, not for them or for anyone else. Again, this resonated with me because the moment I decided to do things for myself, I made a life-changing decision… and that was to shift programs. That part where Erik’s dad also tells him that he’d do anything to fund his studies takes me back to that time when my mom called me all the way from Europe to comfort me – that she’s okay with me failing and losing the chance to graduate with Latin honors (in our university, it is a policy that once you’ve gotten a grade of 5.0 in any subject, you are barred from graduating with Latin honors). She even told me to stop thinking so much and I knew that was her motherly instincts working, because during our week of final exams, she was already in Europe and during those times (and a few weeks prior to that), I’ve been having recurring thoughts of committing suicide. Just thoughts, not concrete plans on how I’d execute it. I began to withdraw from my friends. I felt like extreme shit and that I was a worthless, good for nothing, and mediocre accounting student. My mind was all over the place. It’s a miracle how I still managed to do good in some of my exams. This is why when I was watching the movie, I’d get anxious every time something bad happens to Erik. I kept thinking, “Hala, paano kapag nagpakamatay siya?” (“Oh no! What if he commits suicide?”) because when I was in his situation, I’d get thoughts of wanting to end my life. Thankfully, he never does. And thankfully, I never did. It actually took everything in me not to break down and cry while my mom was talking to me on the phone because one, it would be embarrassing to cry at my dad’s faculty room and have his colleagues see me, and two, I wanted to remain strong for my mom, whose voice was now slowly starting to break. I told her about my decision to shift and she told me she’s fine with it and that she and my dad would continue to work just so they can help me with my studies, even if I decide to take up my masterals… as long as I stay and continue to fight. Up to this day, I still hold that phone call conversation close to my heart. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how my parents were so doting and caring during those times. I remember how my dad used to ask me if I wanted to come with him when he goes out just so I don’t stay at home and begin to overthink things again. Also, a few weeks back, I had been joking with my mom to get me a pair of sneakers from the Harry Potter Vans Collection, and on the weekend when she came home, she and my dad immediately bought me a pair just to console me (even if deep down I knew I wasn’t deserving of such expensive gift). I then realized how privileged I am to have them, and I will not take advantage of this. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am now.

Now, let me also talk about how the friendship between Erik, Chris, and Torran struck a nerve in me. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I kept having these thoughts of wanting to end my life since I felt like everything I’ve been doing and will be doing is already pointless. In their senior year, when the three were nearing graduation, Erik has failed a class and will be delayed in graduating. However, despite them breaking out into a fight, Chris and Torran still managed to find a way to make Erik pass. Eventually, he does and is now able to graduate. During those dark times of mine, my friends were there to help me stay afloat. Their mere presence alone was enough, and like Chris and Torran, they did something that I would never forget. It was the last day of the final exams and as I’ve mentioned in an earlier paragraph, I’ve been withdrawing from my friends during those times; what they did was that they surprised me with a compilation of letters that they’ve gathered from my other friends. All these letters were words of encouragement; some were even from people I wasn’t close with, which really touched my heart. Somehow, this ignited the almost dying fire within me. I’m reminded that I am not alone in this battle because I have my friends. Honestly, the amount of support I’ve gotten from my friends in general during those trying times never fails to bring tears to my eyes every time. There’s this scene in the movie where Justice Hernandez (played by Odette Khan) tells Erik that his friends and even her – someone who finds it hard to actually believe in people – has put so much trust and belief in Erik: that he can overcome whatever trials he may come to face… and all that he needs to do now is to believe in himself; this scene reminded me of how many people have my back, no matter what happens, I just need to put some faith in myself. To give myself credit for all the things that I’ve accomplished and are set to accomplish, no matter how big or small.

However, there were also dark sides to this friendship. In the movie, Kean plays the role of their barkada who fails the law school entrance exam and took up modelling instead, his dream career. Somehow, I now see myself in him. As a previous accounting student, I can’t help but feel out of place among my accounting friends. Every time we meet up, all they’d do is talk about their accounting professors, their accounting subjects, law, tax, and the like. While me, being the Behavioral Science major now, cannot contribute anything to the topic except the occasional nod and smile. Like Kean’s character, I used to be a part of the “main” group of characters, now, I am just a side character in the narrative. He even gets to the point where he complains about not being able to see the three anymore because all they do is study. And yes, I’ve done something similar. In fact, there was a time where I got upset and disappointed because every time I ask my friends if we could meet just for a little while to eat, they’d say something along the lines of: “hala, may quiz kasi kami eh.” (“Oh no! We have a quiz!”), or “Sorry, busy kami eh. Rami pinapagawa.” (“Sorry, we’re busy. We have a lot to do.”), or maybe “Quiz week namin eh. Next time na lang.” (“It’s our quiz week. Maybe next time.”). Even our schedules don’t seem to fit in. You know what I’ve realized with this? It’s sad how the people you’ve wanted to reach success with is no longer in the process with you. This might seem selfish at first glance but let me explain it: see, as a first-year accounting student, I’ve expected that I’d be spending the rest of my 4 years with them, to share and relate with their struggles, failures, and victories. But seeing as I’m no longer an accounting student, I can no longer relate to whatever calvary they’re facing. Yes, I can still ask how they’re doing but it’s different when you actually know and have gone through their struggle because then it would give you a better vantage point to what they’re feeling. In Filipino, nararanasan mo mismo yung mga paghihirap nila kaya mas maiintindihan mo. The mere fact alone that I can no longer relate to their talk about accounting signifies that the only thing I can do for them now is to ask how they are doing, how they are holding up so far, etc. without actually getting the whole picture because I haven’t gone through what they’ve experienced. Alam niyo yun? Iba kasi yung feeling na nakaka-relate ka sa paghihirap ng isang tao kasi ikaw mismo, may ganung experience. Yes, I can make new friends in my new program but for some reason, it’s hard because everyone else seems to already have their friend groups and I don’t want to just force myself onto them like that. There’s nothing that can compare to the friendships you’ve already built and felt at home with; having to leave so suddenly absolutely sucks. But fuck it, as long as we’re still together towards the end, then I’ll take what I can get. I don’t want to be the friend who imposes as well. Towards the end of the movie, when all four of them are finally successful in their careers, I long to experience the same with my friends.

Of course, even as a Behavioral Science student who, frankly, at this point is not even sure if she wants to become a human resource manager, a psychologist or a psychiatrist, or even take up law after graduating (in short: I’m confused and undecided), I take into heart what Justice Hernandez has said to the graduating class: “Buhay, Kalayaan, at Pag-asa ang nakataya sa bawat batas at artikulong binabasa niyo o hindi niyo binabasa.” In the event that I want to pursue the psychologist/psychiatrist field in the near future, it is very important to me to pay attention to whatever is being taught to us in class and to read whatever is asked of us. Working in the said field would mean that lives and the well-being of people are at stake, and as a practitioner I’d only want the best for them. More so if I ever decide to become a lawyer (which I highly doubt! I can hardly survive being an accounting student and after seeing the film, I don’t think I’m ready, let alone cut-out for such demanding pursuits). I remember during the first few days of class, some of my classmates were talking about authors of various accounting books (e.g. “Gamit mo ba libro ni Valix?”, “Sabi nila maganda raw yung libro ni Valix eh, kaya yun binili ko.”) and I was like “Who on Earth is this Valix guy?” only to find out that he, indeed, was a renowned author of various books in the accounting field. There was a similar scene in Bar Boys, when Torran photocopied various readings and Erik was surprised by the volume of the photocopies… and those were just for one reading. I don’t know if he actually felt disheartened afterwards because when I saw my classmates reading books before classes even started made me say: “Shit. Maybe I am in the wrong program.” because I was not full of vigor and interest in actually learning the subject.

Maybe one day, when I am already successful in the future, I’ll rewatch the film and reread this write-up, only to smile to myself and be proud that I never gave up. To the Angelle reading this five years from now, I hope you’re happy with what you are doing.

I’m sorry if this little ramble of mine has went beyond the scope of the film. It has just incited in me these feelings I’ve kept suppressed for so long and it was time to let them all out.

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“It doesn't matter where you start, it only matters how you end.”

“So, do you fight, or do you quit?”

#misc #movie #bar boys #kip oebanda #thoughts #filipino films

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stopkingobama · 7 years

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Inside the Soros-backed "Alt Left" terrorist movement

Click here to deport George Soros! —

Image credit: World Economic Forum Photo by Sebastian DerungsCC by SA 2.0

When writing this piece, a quote kept rattling around in the back of my head. It was the title of the opening chapter of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 feminist manifesto: The Problem That Has No Name. Apologies in advance, for appropriating and altering three of the quotes I find most meaningful from that chapter, for my own purposes here:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals…

Even so, most liberals still did not know that this problem was real. But those who had faced it honestly knew that all the media dismissals, the academic justifications, the intellectualized double speak and the manufactured outrage were somehow drowning the problem in unreality…

How can any person see the whole truth within the bounds of one’s own life? How can she believe that voice inside herself, when it denies the conventional, accepted truths by which she has been living? And yet the liberals I have talked to, who are finally listening to that inner voice, seem in some incredible way to be groping through to a truth that has defied the media.”

The Alt-Left Is Real

There is an effort underfoot, in the media and in academia, to declare the Alt-Left a myth, to sweep it back under the rug, to reduce it, in effect, back to being a sickness not spoken of, a problem that has no name. I have had well-meaning friends tell me I should not use the term Alt-Left (or any of its synonyms: Regressive Left, CTRL-Left, SJWism) because they are ‘pejoratives’ used only by the right to attack the left.

In my experience, this is not true. Like canaries in the coal mine, liberals who do not (or no longer) subscribe to the Alt-Left ideology have been sounding the alarm about this creeping plague of repressive groupthink for quite a while now. I believe this attempt to dissuade our use of the term Alt-Left is purposeful (even if not consciously recognized by individuals who are doing it) — for how can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?

When asked to define Alt-Left, I would describe it as a leftist but illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics (much like the Alt-Right), and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth.

It masquerades as a form of liberalism, but it has more in common with authoritarianism than its true believers can (or want to?) admit. It claims to speak for the marginalized, but it either ignores or attempts to hatefully shame members of marginalized groups who do not subscribe to the ideology.

It is not simply Antifa; it is the ideology that undergirds Antifa, and it has swallowed much of BLM and intersectional third wave feminism. It wishes to swallow the whole of the left, the country, the world. It is rooted in nihilism, resentfulness, and arrogance, though it presents itself as being rooted in equality, justice, and morality. It favors collectivism over individualism, statism over liberty, forced equality of outcome over freedom.

Now…imagine if I had to say that mouthful every time I wished to talk about the Alt-Left because I bought into the notion that to give it a name it would be insulting to fellow liberals. No, to speak of it by name is to out it for what it is and to reduce some of its power.

What’s in a Name?

I can’t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn’t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is.

In his video, Rubin offers that it doesn’t matter which term we use, what’s important is that we are allowed to identify the problem. “Whatever name you use for this well-meaning yet painfully misguided set of ideas is largely irrelevant. We needed this phrase to identify this backward ideology which puts groups before people. And sometimes you need a label to get people to understand an idea.”

Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also made the following observation last year:

Today’s active, organized left is no longer liberal. A liberal will always prioritize free speech over offense. This behavior, censorship on the organized left, post factual behavior, violence being seen as an option and prioritizing group identity over individual rights. That isn’t liberal.”

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:

youtube

Yet another reasonable liberal, Tim Pool, points out that one of the few things Politico gets right about the Alt-Left is that it is a term used by centrist liberals. Pool says, “Yes, I use the term Alt-Left because I want to make sure everybody knows when I say I’m left-leaning, I’m not the kind of person that’s gonna go out and punch somebody in the face or take away their rights because I think mine are more important.”

I’m also a liberal who’s been using the term Alt-Left since I first learned to trust that voice within myself, that voice that denies the conventional, accepted Alt-Left “truths” by which I had been living.

The first time I used it in a public piece of writing was back in May while attempting to articulate my transformation in belief systems in an essay called On Leaving the SJW Cult and Finding Myself. The essay itself was a long time coming. I started to wake up to the creeping authoritarianism and endless internal hypocrisies of the accepted Alt-Left ideology over a year ago. But leaving behind a belief system to which you’ve subscribed for twenty years is a bit like razing your house to the ground and rebuilding from the ground up.

Suddenly you are starting with nothing; everything you thought you knew is suspect. It takes a long time to evaluate each previously held belief and try to discern which ones hold substance. Where before my house had foolishly been built on the shifting sands of postmodernism, this time I want to ensure that, as Dr. Jordan Peterson might say, my house is built on rock.

It makes me think of George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” my first introduction to the concept of framing. Lackoff said “Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world….Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have — the long-term concepts that structure how we think — is instantiated in the synapses of our brains…If a strongly held frame doesn’t fit the facts, the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept.”

I devoured this book when a young SJW. It helped me understand how people could vote Republican and why my right-wing Aunt didn’t seem to be swayed to my point of view no matter how many facts I threw at her. What I didn’t think too much about was how this human tendency is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right.

The Frog and the Pot

I am of the opinion that a lot of well-meaning people have become converts to the Alt-Left ideology without even realizing it. Like the parable of the slow boiling frog, if you had told me at the beginning that one day I’d be expected to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend censorship and violence in response to speech, I would have leaped from the pot.

Instead, I was conditioned to accept as gospel each new tenet of SJWism over a period of twenty years. I believed in the essential goodness of the ideology, and in my own essential goodness in preaching it. When facts about the direction it was taking me made themselves known to me, I rejected them because they did not fit the frame. As the ideology became more noticeably toxic, hypocritical, and authoritarian, so too did the tactics of the true believers. Whether in academia, in the media, at Google, or online — the message is clear: dare to step out of line or express an independent thought, and a mob of zealous SJW zombies will come for you. The fear of losing one’s job, status, friends or personal safety is a strong motivator in forcing reasonable people to remain silent.

I have received a lot of positive feedback about the sentiments expressed in my writing about SJWism from people all over the political spectrum. Most meaningful to me of these might be the messages I get from fellow liberals who are going through the same realization, confusion, and fear.

In addition to the public responses you can read yourself, I have received private messages from people in academia, journalism, and entertainment — many of them liberals — expressing that the piece resonated with them and that they were afraid to share it (or presumably in some cases, to express themselves about anything at all). Excerpts from a handful of these are below:

I honestly was scared to tweet that…that’s how bad things have gotten. I’ve nearly lost work…The world has gone mad.”

“I have definitely taken notice of so many of my friends on the left going to a dark place.”

“It is totally wild. These people are my friends — my community….They’re so angry.”

“…your piece on the social justice cult affected me more than words can say. After being called ‘violent’…because I used a word that someone decided was offensive…I had a bit of an existential crisis about my life and self-worth. Thus, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit… I remain committed to the idea that privilege exists and it should be combated through both self-reflection and system action. I also am a proud liberal, and that hasn’t lessened. That said, I can’t get behind the individual scapegoating, shouting and intimidation in the name of fighting hate, or defining sharing a point of view as “educating” and “labor.” Ultimately, the world needs more compassion….I’m trying to get there on talking and writing about some of this a little more publicly, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet (also, the fact that I’m on the academic job market makes me a bit hesitant).”

“I saw your posts and they were refreshing. I hate politics but free speech is so important to me….but then I remember I work in TV and Music and I can’t say anything that’s going to make me lose my job. It’s crazy what’s going on right now.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m one of those people who greatly appreciates your voice on social media, but am too afraid of the thought police to voice my support.”

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the Alt-Left doesn’t exist, why are so many liberals and centrists afraid of expressing themselves? Why are so many people self-censoring for their own sense of safety? I was fascinated by the James Damore story, not because I have an opinion on the legality of his dismissal, but because his online stoning and subsequent firing confirmed for me what I already suspected: Google, like most of the tech space, the entertainment space, the academic space and the media space has become a panopticon of Alt-Left groupthink, self-censorship, and fear.

I know this fear intimately. As I started waking up to the illiberal nature of the growing Alt-Left ideology, I held my tongue for a long time out of fear of losing job opportunities, the safety of anonymity, and friends. After all, I built my career, and by proxy a lot of my friendships, from this SJW frame. I don’t judge anyone for subscribing to this ideology out of misplaced idealism and a desire to do good; I did for twenty years. Likewise, I don’t judge anyone who is currently waking up from it but is constrained by fear. As I tell folks who write me about it: I don’t know the exact way to get over it. I suspect it’s different for every person. But trust me when I tell you, it is so liberating on the other side.

For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading this far. I believe a part of you is struggling to wake up if you stuck it out this long. I encourage you to start listening to that small voice inside yourself, the one that tells you when something doesn’t seem quite right or reasonable, no matter if it’s accepted by all of your peers.

Take a look at who was really at the Free Speech Rally in Boston for starters. This, for example, is Shiva Ayyadurai. You may decide you don’t like him because he’s conservative, but to call him a “white supremacist” is a dangerous Alt-Left falsehood.

Take the time to listen to Will Johnson and Joey Gibson, two of the organizers of the Patriot Prayer Rally in SF this past weekend. Their rally was canceled after successful media (and political) attempts to smear them as “white supremacists” caused subsequent threats of violence from the Alt-Left. Ask yourself if it’s not odd that so many so-called liberals are now smearing people of color with whom they don’t agree as “white supremacists” (Charles Barkley is apparently one now too, so Johnson, Gibson, and Ayyadurai are not alone).

Then ask yourself if these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these students, or these students, or these students, or these students are really fighting fascism, or if they are acting as footsoldiers (some witting, some unwitting) for a pro-censorship and pro-violence ideology. These facts may not fit your frame, but — do the actions depicted here reflect your liberal values?

I read a C.S. Lewis quote some time ago, that has stuck with me during my transformation in thought. Perhaps it will stick with you:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Keri Smith

Keri is Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

#George Soros

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americanlibertypac · 7 years

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Inside the Soros-backed "Alt Left" terrorist movement

Click here to deport George Soros! —

Image credit: World Economic Forum Photo by Sebastian DerungsCC by SA 2.0

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals…

The Alt-Left Is Real

What’s in a Name?

I can’t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn’t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is.

Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also made the following observation last year:

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:

youtube

The Frog and the Pot

I honestly was scared to tweet that…that’s how bad things have gotten. I’ve nearly lost work…The world has gone mad.”

“I have definitely taken notice of so many of my friends on the left going to a dark place.”

“It is totally wild. These people are my friends — my community….They’re so angry.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m one of those people who greatly appreciates your voice on social media, but am too afraid of the thought police to voice my support.”

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

I read a C.S. Lewis quote some time ago, that has stuck with me during my transformation in thought. Perhaps it will stick with you:

Keri Smith

Keri is Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

#George Soros

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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How I’m Thinking of Ending Things Book and Film Differences Make For Perfect Complements

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Charlie’s Kaufman’s filmic interpretation of Iain Reid’s celebrated novel I’m Thinking Of Ending Things has arrived on Netflix and it’s a complicated, beautiful, confusing work – certainly unless you watch it twice. The book and the film sit wonderfully together, both broadly the same narrative but both leaning into different strands and elements, with the movie picking up half-hinted at threads from the book. They both work, but in different ways.

If you were wondering whether you should read the book first or watch the film, the answer is read the book. Not because it’s necessarily better – the two are different beasts – but because reading the book could enhance your enjoyment of the film, while watching the film first may well dilute your enjoyment of the book. And there’s a reason for that…

Here’s our breakdown of where the two diverge.

Spoilers for I’m Thinking Of Ending Things – both book and film – to follow.

The Genre

If you can, you must read the book first because the book is a horror/thriller. If you already know the ending of the book it just isn’t anywhere near as scary – and approached cold for the first time, this is a really unsettling read.

The film has horror elements but it has more in common with Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York – a beautiful, existential lament – a tragedy with elements of horror, thriller and mystery that encourages the viewer to understand what they are watching much earlier. It’s not so much of a ‘twist’ as a slow reveal.

Having already read the book might remove some of the mystery elements but the film is so evocative and sad and there’s still loads to be gained even if you know the deal from the off.

The Plot

Broadly speaking it’s the same. An unnamed female narrator is on a trip with her boyfriend Jake to visit his parents but she is having doubts about the relationship. The voiceover from the start of the film is exactly how the book begins, and the book talks a lot about thought. How once a thought is there, it sticks, and how only thought is really ‘truth’ – that you can fake actions but not thoughts.

The two drive to the farmhouse whilst discussing various philosophical and existential ideas along the way. She relates their meet-cute – they’re at a pub quiz, his team name is Brezhnev’s Eyebrows, he uses the words ‘ipseity’ and ‘cruciverbalist’ – which she doesn’t understand.

They have an uncomfortable and awkward dinner with the parents, and the narrator finds a picture that looks like her, some disturbing paintings in the basement (more on this later) and has awkward individual conversations with both parents.

They leave, go to an ice cream shop (but in the book they get frozen lemonade – much is made of the narrator’s lactose intolerances), then head to the school where he disposes of the cups, returns to the car, the two start making out but Jake says he sees a man watching him. He gets out to give the guy a piece of his mind and then disappears into the school.

The narrator eventually follows, spies the janitor, and tries to find Jake in the school. The finer details of the plot diverge at this point (again, more later) but it is revealed that Jake, the narrator and the janitor are all the same person and Jake kills himself.

Movies

I’m Thinking Of Ending Things Ending Explained

By Rosie Fletcher

Movies

I’m Thinking of Ending Things Review: Charlie Kaufman Does Existential Horror

By Rosie Fletcher

The Phone Calls

In the book and the film the narrator receives incessant phone calls which she doesn’t want to pick up. In the book we are told these calls are coming from her own number. It’s harder, of course, to get that fact across in the movie, when the narrator is nameless so instead in the movie they come from names like Louisa and Yvonne – Louisa is a name that Jake’s parents have called her, and Yvonne is the name of the character in the romcom that the janitor watches and later borrows the storyline from.

This means on a rewatch you understand the calls are coming from herself – or rather the janitor – but they don’t have the same level of creepiness as in the book. In the film, at the start where we see the person who turns out to be the janitor muttering in his apartment, what he is saying is what she hears on the answer phone.

The message is this:

“There is only one question to resolve. I’m scared. I feel a little crazy. I’m not lucid. The assumptions are right. I can feel my fear growing. Now is the time for the answer. Just one question. One question to answer.”

In the book these calls are constant, have been going on for a while, and are really menacing. The voice is described as man’s, middle aged or older, with a feminine element to it. She says she hasn’t told Jake about the calls which often come in the middle of the night, around 3.00am and at times she will wake to find she has had 12 missed calls.

Things get creepier still. Eventually there’s an extra element of the message. The voice adds:

“Now I’m going to say something that will upset you: I know what you look like. I know your feet and hands and your skin. I know your head and your hair and your heart. You shouldn’t bite your nails.”

The narrator freaks the hell out and resolves to answer the next time the man calls to confront him. So she does. She screams:

“Why are you calling me? How did you get my number? You can’t keep doing this,” and then “This is about you. I can’t help you!”.

And the voice replies:

“But you called me.”

Brrrrrr

The calls are of course Jake’s suicidal thoughts plaguing him.

The Title

Though at first glance the title means the same thing in both the book and the film, there’s a detail in the book that’s less obvious in the film.

We begin with that phrase – in the narrator’s voice – and we understand it refers to her ending the relationship with Jake. By the end of the film, and the book, we realise that in fact it’s the narrator/Jake/the janitor thinking of ending their life.

But the ominous phone calls which are very present in the book (more than the film) hammer home this idea of ‘the question’ – “One question to answer.” as the message concludes.

What is that question then? The book teases several possibles – there’s the remembered scene with Mrs Veal, a woman who would come to the house to collect bacon fat (it’s all so very unsettling), asking the young narrator (but Jake of course) “are you good or bad?” Could this be the one question?

And of course the central question could also be ‘should I kill myself?’. But the book gives us one last gut punch answer, which is also referenced in the movie. There’s a poster in the school corridor which reads “Dancing The Night Away. Tickets at $10. What are you waiting for?”

Then in the book there are four pages of just that phrase ‘What are you waiting for?’

The exchange then becomes:

I’m thinking of ending things.

What are you waiting for?

The Structure

While the main narrative of the two is the same, the book has an added structural element. Though the main body of the text is written in first person, told by the narrator, between each chapter is inserted a snippet of a conversation. This is presented in italics and these voices are very clearly not the narrator. The conversations gradually tell the story of a man who has killed himself in the school, he’s found in a closet and had locked up the school from the inside.

We learn he was a very lonely, isolated man who was highly intelligent and worked as a school custodian (janitor), who had become almost non verbal, who had no wife and kids and whose parents were long dead. He had been working at a school for 30 years after a failed academic career of some sort. He had been exhibiting strange behaviour and developed a rash on his arms and neck. We come to understand that the chat is probably between people who work at the school – the person who hired him is one of them.

We learn that he had bad hearing, lactose intolerance, and was very uncomfortable around people, taking his breaks sitting outside the school in his truck. The voices speculate that despite his high level of intelligence he probably took this job because he wouldn’t have to interact with anyone. They muse that for someone who wants to be alone, taking a job in a school where you are surrounded by people is probably a kind of self-torture. Finally we understand that a journal or a long piece of writing belonging to Jake has been found with the body, it’s a story of sorts. And of course, at the very end we understand that this story (minus the conversation sections) is the book we have just been reading – encouraging us to go back and read again with new eyes.

The film doesn’t include this element, however it takes pains to give us this detail about the janitor in other ways which actually inform major chunks of the movie. While in the book there’s only the subtlest nods to the parents’ mortality during the dinner – with the fact that they died years ago confirmed by the intercut conversation – in the film it all plays out there and then. We see his folks throughout the ages, his mum when Jake was just a boy, to her becoming fragile and barely able to feed herself and finally laid out as if dead, while his father often talks of her in the past tense.

Jake and the Narrator

The book is told from the narrator’s point of view and our picture of who Jake is as a character is told through her eyes. Until of course you realise that the reader’s sense of who the narrator is, is in fact coming through the grown up Jake’s eyes. In short: we think the narrator is telling us about Jake, but actually Jake is telling us about the narrator (telling us about Jake…)

The film, though, takes a slightly different approach and it’s a credit to Jessie Buckley in particular that she is able to make the narrator feel like a real person with whom we can empathise despite actually being a cypher. The book leans hard into the horror elements so our relationship with the narrator in the book and the film is different. In the book we are afraid for her, more and more as things get weirder and weirder until she finds herself in the school, discovers the doors have been locked behind her and hides for several hours, pursued, she thinks by the janitor. It’s only at the very end that we understand they are all one and the same.

In the film she’s a more mutable character. She changes from exuberant, passionate, and sharp, to argumentative and then of course there’s the poem she recites for Jake and her Pauline Kael transformation, none of which happen in the book.

Rather than visceral horror then, Kaufman’s movie seems to want to get further into who Jake is so rather than blindly stumbling terrified towards the finale, we gradually grow to see what’s going on. The pop culture references – Kael, David Foster Wallace, Oklahoma!, the poem, the speech from A Beautiful Mind at the end – are all Kaufman and not from the book. He’s exploring from where a man like Jake would take his reference points for his final fantasy.

In the book our sense of Jake is slightly different. Jake is tall and slim and we get the sense he’s rather handsome in a slightly odd way. At the start we find him quite charming and we’re not sure why the narrator would want to end things with him, it seems like they’re good together, though as the book progresses that falls away. In the book Jake has a job in a lab, and it’s he who has to work in the morning, though his parents hint to the narrator that he’d actually lost that job.

In the movie though, Jake, as played by Jesse Plemons, is awkward and a little unsettling almost from the off. Though the Plemons version of Jake is still a construct of the janitor this Jake is less the funny, charming conversationalist we meet in the book and more hewn to what the real Jake was like at that age – frustrated and plagued with self loathing.

In the dance sequence in the school we do get a glimpse of idealised Jake in a happy relationship with the idealized narrator until the evil janitor comes along and ruins it by killing off the good version of Jake.

Changing Clothes

“When Jake’s mom returns to the table she is wearing a different dress. No one else seems to notice. Maybe she does this all the time? Changing outfits for dessert? It’s a subtle change. The same style of dress but a different color. Like a computer glitch caused a small distortion to the dress.”

Kaufman has taken this paragraph and run with it. In the book this is just another odd unsettling detail which occurs during the meal. In Kaufman’s film though the clothes are the first key indicator of what’s going on, the audience’s best shot of going on the journey with Kaufman. It’s great for creating atmosphere too.

The Paintings

In both the book and film the narrator sneaks into the basement alone, where Jake is afraid to go and finds a series of paintings. In the film these are emulations of prints stuck to the walls of the basement painted by someone else. These are the same paintings that earlier the narrator has shown (on her phone) to Jake’s parents presented as her work – it’s thematically similar to the poem she recites claiming it as her own – the poem is called “Bonedog” and it’s by Eva H.D from the book Rotten Perfect Mouth which we see in Jake’s room – her morphing into Pauline Kael (there’s a book of Kael’s work in his room too) and Jake’s final speech, from A Beautiful Mind.

In the book however, the paintings are much stranger. These depict the basement itself and in each one there is a tall figure with long fingernails and a blank face, and a child. The figure sometimes has horns, sometimes breasts, sometimes a penis, sometimes both. The basement, we are told, can only be locked from the inside.

This is very much open to interpretation but the basement locked from the inside full of terrifying imagery seems metaphorical for Jake’s mind and the dark thoughts he lives with. Later we learn he has locked up the school from the inside when he takes his own life.

The Ice Cream Shop

The scene at the ice cream shop is similar in both book and film though there are small differences. In the book it’s a Dairy Queen but they couldn’t get the rights to use this in the film so it becomes a ‘Tulsey Town’. In the book the narrator – and so, Jake – is lactose intolerant so they order frozen lemonade rather than ice cream.

In both, the girl with the rash on her arms says she is frightened for the narrator – given that all the characters are in Jake’s mind, she is just another facet of him. In the film the girl talks about a certain hardness that comes with being pretty and compliments the narrator saying she doesn’t have this. It’s Jake, musing on his experiences with women, imagining that the girl he met in the bar that time, embodied as the narrator, wouldn’t be like those girls.

The dumpster of ice cream cups in the film doesn’t appear in the book. It’s a great scary moment but it’s also an indicator that he has taken this journey many times before and has played this endgame in his mind over and over.

The book reveals at the end that what we have been reading – minus the conversations between chapters – is the story Jake has written, his long-form suicide note, and that we should read it again with fresh eyes.

The film translates this idea from book to film format. It’s almost as if the book is what a writer’s suicide note would look like – a literary novel that becomes a publishing sensation – and the film is what a filmmaker’s suicide note would look like, packed with a selection of his favorite art, poetry, film, musical, and literary references.

The Ending

In the film, after the dance sequence which ends with the dance version of the janitor murdering the dance version of Jake, we see Jake and the narrator standing over the dance Jake’s corpse, and the two part ways. The janitor cleans the mess left by the dance, puts away his mop and buckets in his office and heads out to his truck. Here he finally breaks down. Instead of driving home he sits shivering and crying in the freezing cold. Eventually he removes his clothes, and has a vision of the Tulsey Town ice cream clown jingle.

Then the animated pig comes to take him to deliver his final speech from A Beautiful Mind, plus to sing Oklahoma!’s A Lonely Room. We finally fade down to an icy blue which fades up on the janitor’s truck completely submerged in snow, presumably with the janitor inside dead from hypothermia.

It’s actually a rather gentler ending than the one in the book.

In the book the terrified narrator comes into the school and finds the doors have been chained behind her, she runs through halls and corridors searching for Jake, finds herself in the art room where there’s red paint everywhere eventually retreating to the janitor’s room where we gradually understand that Jake, narrator and janitor are all one. The ‘janitor’ hands the ‘narrator’ a wire coat hanger which ‘she’ straightens and plunges into ‘her’ neck repeatedly and bleeds out from within a cupboard leaving the pages of the story that we have just read beside the body.

While the film is sad, beautiful, wistful the book is pretty devastating and decidedly bleak. Both work. Both sit side by side as perfect companion pieces, each complementing the other as one more meta narrative, allowing the reader/viewer to choose which version of Jake’s end of life fantasy they want to go with.

The post How I’m Thinking of Ending Things Book and Film Differences Make For Perfect Complements appeared first on Den of Geek.

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biofunmy · 5 years

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If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?

The glaciers are melting, the coral reefs are dying, Miami Beach is slowly going under.

Quick, says a voice in your head, go see them before they disappear! You are evil, says another voice. For you are hastening their destruction.

To a lot of people who like to travel, these are morally bewildering times. Something that seemed like pure escape and adventure has become double-edged, harmful, the epitome of selfish consumption. Going someplace far away, we now know, is the biggest single action a private citizen can take to worsen climate change. One seat on a flight from New York to Los Angeles effectively adds months worth of human-generated carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

And yet we fly more and more.

The number of airline passengers worldwide has more than doubled since 2003, and unlike with some other pollution sources, there’s not a ton that can be done right now to make flying significantly greener — electrified jets are not coming to an airport near you anytime soon.

Still, we wonder: How much is that one vacation really hurting anyone, or anything?

It is hard to think about climate change in relation to our own behavior. We are small, our effects are microscopically incremental and we mean no harm. The effects of climate change are inconceivably enormous and awful — and for the most part still unrealized. You can’t see the face of the unnamed future person whose coastal village you will have helped submerge.

But it turns out there are ways to quantify your impact on the planet, at least roughly. In 2016, two climatologists published a paper in the prestigious journal Science showing a direct relationship between carbon emissions and the melting of Arctic sea ice.

Each additional metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent — your share of the emissions on a cross-country flight one-way from New York to Los Angeles — shrinks the summer sea ice cover by 3 square meters, or 32 square feet, the authors, Dirk Notz and Julienne Stroeve, found.

In February, my family of three flew from New York to Miami for what seemed like a pretty modest winter vacation. An online carbon calculator tells me that our seats generated the equivalent of 2.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Throw in another quarter-ton for the 600 miles of driving we squeezed in and a bit for the snorkeling trip and the heated pool at the funky trailer-park Airbnb, and the bill comes to about 90 square feet of Arctic ice, an area about the size of a pickup truck.

When I did that calculation, I pictured myself standing on a pickup-truck-sized sheet of ice as it broke apart and plunged me into frigid waters. A polar bear glared hungrily at me.

Calculating the harm

And what of my vacation’s impact on my fellow man? Actually, academics have attempted to calculate that, too. Philosophers, not climatologists. But still.

In 2005, a Dartmouth professor, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, wrote in a journal article provocatively titled “It’s Not my Fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral Obligations” that he was under no moral obligation to refrain from taking a gas-guzzling S.U.V. for a Sunday afternoon joy ride if he felt like doing so.

“No storms or floods or droughts or heat waves can be traced to my individual act of driving,” he wrote. Conversely, “If I refrain from driving for fun on this one Sunday, there is no individual who will be helped in the least.”

Other philosophers questioned his reasoning.

Professor John Nolt of the University of Tennessee took a stab at measuring the damage done by one average American’s lifetime emissions. (The average American generates about 16 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent a year, more than triple the global average.)

Noting that carbon stays in the atmosphere for centuries, at least, and that a United Nations panel found in 2007 that climate change is “likely to adversely affect hundreds of millions of people through increased coastal flooding, reductions in water supplies, increased malnutrition and increased health impacts” in the next 100 years, Professor Nolt did a lot of division and multiplication and arrived at a stark conclusion:

“The average American causes through his/her greenhouse gas emissions the serious suffering and/or deaths of two future people.”

Then Avram Hiller of Portland State University used Professor Nolt’s approach to derive the impact of Professor Sinnott-Armstrong’s hypothetical 25-mile ride.

“At a ratio of one life’s causal activities per one life’s detrimental effects, it causes the equivalent of a quarter of a day’s severe harm,” he wrote.

“In other words, going for a Sunday drive has the expected effect of ruining someone’s afternoon.”

Multiply that joy ride by a three-person Florida vacation and you’ve ruined someone’s month. Something to ponder while soaking up UV-drenched rays on a tropical beach.

Ships? Even worse

There are alternatives to flying, of course. Perhaps a cruise? After all, there’s more ocean than there’s been in thousands of years. With the Northwest Passage now mostly ice-free in the summer, new vistas have opened. One cruise company runs polar bear tours to check out “the Arctic’s ‘poster boy.’”

Perhaps not. Bryan Comer, a researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation, a nonprofit research group, told me that even the most efficient cruise ships emit 3 to 4 times more carbon dioxide per passenger-mile than a jet.

And that’s just greenhouse gas. Last year, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the air onboard cruise ships was many times dirtier than the air nearby onshore.

“Some of the particulate counts were comparable to or worse than a bad day in some of the world’s most polluted cities like Beijing and Santiago,” said Kendra Ulrich of Stand.earth, the advocacy group that commissioned the study.

While most cruise ships run on highly polluting heavy fuel oil, many have begun using “scrubbers” to remove toxic sulfur oxides from their exhaust. But the scrubbers discharge these and other pollutants into the ocean instead, and they’ve been banned by seven countries and several U.S. states.

A spokeswoman for Cruise Lines International Association, a trade group, said that the scrubbers comply with the new 2020 standards for air and water quality set by the International Maritime Organization, a U.N. agency. The spokeswoman, Megan King, added that it was not fair to compare emissions from ships and jets because a jet is just a transportation vehicle while a cruise ship is a floating resort and amusement park.

There’s always driving, which is less carbon intensive than flying, especially if there are multiple passengers. But “less” is relative, and most long trips are out of practical driving range anyway.

Considering carbon offsets

Maybe there is a justification out there somewhere: Personal decisions alone won’t stop global warming — that will take policy changes by governments on a worldwide scale. Tourism creates millions of jobs in places starved for economic development. Carbon offsets can effectively cancel out our footprint, can’t they?

Carbon offsets do seem to offer the most direct way to assuage traveler’s guilt. In theory, they magically expiate your sins. You give a broker some money (not a lot of money either — carbon offsets can be bought for $10 per metric ton). They give it to someone to plant trees, or capture the methane from a landfill or a cattle operation, or help build a wind farm, or subsidize clean cookstoves for people in the developing world who cook on open fires. All these things help cut greenhouse gas.

But nothing is that simple in practice. Carbon-offset people talk about concerns with things called additionality, leakage and permanence.

Additionality: How do you know the utility would not have built the wind farm but for the money you gave them?

Permanence: How do you know the timber company that planted those trees won’t just cut them down in a few years?

Leakage: How do you know the landowner you just paid not to cut down an acre of rain forest won’t use the money to buy a different acre and clear that?

While certifying organizations go to great lengths to verify carbon offset projects, verification has limits.

“Whether someone would have planted trees anyway, or taken some other action like building a housing development, is ultimately unknowable and something you have to construct,” said Peter Miller, a policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council and a board member of the Climate Action Reserve, the country’s biggest carbon offset registry. “It’s an endless debate.”

Some carbon offsets are surer bets than others. “With methane capture,” Mr. Miller said, “once you capture that methane and you burn it — you’re done. It’s not in the atmosphere, it’s not going in the atmosphere. You’ve got a credit that’s achieved and you’ve avoided those emissions forever.”

Not flying at all would be better, Mr. Miller said, “but the reality is that there’s lots of folks that are going to do what they’re going to do.” For them, offsets are a lot better than nothing.

But some climate experts call offsets a cop-out.

“It’s like paying someone else to diet for you,” said Alice Larkin of the University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, who has not flown since 2008.

She said that while governments do need to take tough action, they derive their courage to do so from the conduct of citizens. “In my idea, people move first,” she said.

Offsets, she said, encourage a break-even mind-set when what’s needed to avert disaster is to slash fossil-fuel consumption immediately.

Her colleague Kevin Anderson says that when you buy a ticket you’re not buying just a seat on a plane. You’re telling the aviation industry to run more flights, build more jets, expand more airports.

“Offsetting, on all scales, weakens present-day drivers for change and reduces innovation towards a lower-carbon future,” Professor Anderson wrote in 2012. Lately, a grassroots anti-flying movement has been gathering momentum in Europe, particularly Scandinavia.

But the world still beckons

I’d like to be able to tell you that knowing what I’ve learned reporting this piece, I have sworn off long-distance travel.

But actually this summer, we’re going to Greece, with a stopover in Paris. Carbon footprint of plane tickets: 10.6 metric tons, enough to melt a small-apartment-sized piece of the Arctic.

We committed to going months ago, but I suspect we would make the same choice today. We’re going because last year we canceled vacation to come home and watch our dog die. We’re going because the New York City public high school application process was an ordeal.

Mostly we’re going because of things we saw last time we were there. The tiny beach at the base of the towering cliff. The playground where the little children played past midnight while their parents and grandparents sat chatting. Chubby partridges pecking around the ruined temple of Poseidon.

Before we go, we will buy enough offsets to capture the annual methane emanations of a dozen cows — that’s several times what is needed to balance out the carbon effects of our flights. May they help keep a polar bear afloat.

Andy Newman is a Metro reporter for The New York Times.

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Why Sean Spicer Shouldn’t Be Fired For Hitler Comments

Bringing up Hitler is almost always a bad move, which Sean Spicer learned the hard way when he made poorly worded statements that Hitler did not use chemical weapons the same way President Bashar al-Assad is doing in Syria. Instead of dropping gas on people with airplanes, Spicer said, Hitler brought people into Holocaust centers, by which he presumably meant concentration camps. A more seasoned spokesperson or a Chuck Klosterman fan would have known to avoid talking about Hitler altogether.

In his excellent book about villains, I Wear The Black Hat, Klosterman described the inherent dilemma of saying anything about Hitler, noting that even his Jewish friends who insisted that Hitler be in his book also warned him that, [p]eople will go crazy if you write about Hitler. It doesnt matter what your argument is. Klosterman theorized that the only safe thing to do was to write the sentence Hitler was evil over and over again, and he was probably right. So Spicer, should not have been surprised when his bumbling remarks about an extremely sensitive subject led to justifiable outrage.

To his credit, Spicer did the right thingapologizing for his comments sincerely and profusely, and explaining that trying to compare Assad and Hilter was a mistake he will not make again. But for some, Spicers apology was not enough. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said that Spicer must be fired for downplaying the horror of the Holocaust. Charles P. Pierce wrote in an Esquire column titled Fire This Man that Spicers statement ought to be a career-killer. And though Pelosi and Pierce would be right to call for the firing if Spicers misstatements were what he actually believed, they are wrong to do so in this instance.

More importantly, by demanding yet another firing of yet another person who speaks for a living based on a poorly-worded statement, Pelosi, Pierce, and others are not helping their own cause. One of the primary reasons voters gravitated toward Donald Trump was as a backlash to political correctness. Trying to foster a country in which anyone can lose their job for making a dumb statement is not going to win those voters back. Its time for those who fuel the perpetual outrage machine to learn this lesson.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, says foolish, poorly worded, or insensitive things from time to time. Beloved liberal Joe Biden said that as a candidate, Barack Obama was the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. After bowling a 129, the ever careful Obama said he bowled like it was the Special Olympics, or something. The more people speak, the more foolish things they are going to say. Its a direct correlation.

For most of American history, isolated misstatements or insensitive comments like Bidens, Obamas, or even Spicers were forgiven as long as the speaker apologized. Joe Biden was not kicked off Obamas ticket for his remarks. George W. Bush made enough verbal mistakes to fill a page-a-day calendar, but was also able to make it through two full terms as President. But in the past decade our collective intolerance, yes, intolerance for such comments has dwindled, especially from many people on the political left.

In 2012 HBOs show Girls faced frequent criticism from media outlets for being racist for no other reason than the fact that its four main characters were white women. In 2015 Colin Cowherd was taken off the air at ESPN while during a conversation about the intelligence of baseball players, he made the factually accurate statement that, The Dominican Republic has not been known in my lifetime as having world-class academic abilities. Shortly after the 2016 election, there was a glut of articles on websites like Slate implying that nearly all Trump supporters were racists or misogynists.

In 2017, it seems like a week rarely goes by without a politician, comedian, sportscaster, or corporation making headlines with a few ill-conceived words and getting fired, boycotted, or shunned as a consequence. And while there is no doubt that the people who are outraged sincerely believe their venom is justified, those same people fail to realize that they are alienating huge chunks of Americans, including fellow liberals. The perpetual outrage machine is both widening political divisions and preventing worthwhile, sincere discussions on critical subjects in the social justice arena.

Spicers comments about the Holocaust were admittedly worse than Cowherds about baseball players or HBOs casting of Girls, but that is beside the point. Most people do not want to live in a country where you can apologize when you make a foolish statement, but still lose your job anyway. Republicans and Democrats alike do not want political opponents to call for their partys representative to step down every time that representative makes a gaffe. Trump voters who may have genuine concerns about transgender individuals or innocently held opinions about the Black Lives Matter movement will be reluctant to voice them if they are afraid of being villainized for doing so. The perpetual outrage machine is not getting the kind of results we want.

So though Im no fan of Sean Spicer, I find myself in the awkward position of arguing that he should not lose his job over the remarks he made today. If Nancy Pelosi wants to start a campaign to fire Spicer for his consistent lies and half-truths, Id be a supporter. But the man should not lose his job for some poorly chosen words that he sincerely apologized for; not because there is anything special about Sean Spicer, but because nobody should lose their job for that.