#i did my own research in the form of several years of college on this topic. and it didnt tell me that. squints.

[proteusolm]

I wish there was a way to phrase a request for a source to back up what someone is saying which makes it absolutely clear that I am genuinely asking and want to read more about it. I feel like it always comes off as a passive-aggressive way to imply that they're talking out of their ass.

Sometimes I read something online about a topic I consider myself knowledgeable on that I don't immediately recognize as true, and I want to read where the person got the information to either learn a new thing that surprises me or figure out where that inaccurate perspective might be coming from, you know? Not as a backhanded online argument tactic.

#that said if someone replies 'google it' or 'do your own research' i do then assume they made it all up #i did my own research in the form of several years of college on this topic. and it didnt tell me that. squints. #i have had some great informative conversations with experts online through asking them for more info when they say something surprising #so it does work out sometimes

[jeon-s-sins]

Middle of the Night | Part One

Synopsis : In the world you lived in, humans were not the only inhabitants of Earth. For years, you had fantasized about your homeroom teacher without knowing his true nature. At night, you thought and dreamed only of him, unaware of the weight of your actions. What will happen when you finally discover what he is?

Incubus : An incubus is an evil spirit or demon who appears in the masculine form to sexually prey on sleeping women during the night. An incubus is what the stories from ancient myths and folklore also characterize as an entity that could impregnate women or even kill people while they were sleeping.

Word count : 5.9 k

n.a : English is not my first language, so it’s possible that there are some mistakes that I missed while proofreading.

Index │☕️

It was early August. You were about to start your last year of college after five damn years. You were both excited and not so excited. On the one hand, you were excited to graduate and enter the working world. On the other hand, you were a bit nostalgic. You would never have the opportunity to set foot in a school again. When you attend your children's parents and teachers meetings, you will, if you ever have any. Which is not a priority in your life right now.

The last year of the university also means a lot of stress and workload. As an International Business student, your senior year included a six-month internship abroad. So you have already started researching and sending applications to different companies abroad. Your destinations: Bali, Malta, and the Maldives. For this last year, you wanted to make it big. Go to a dream destination. So far, you have not received a positive response from any company. At the same time, August had come and gone, so most of them would be closing for vacation if they weren't already.

So, preferring to forget everything you'll have to do at the beginning of the school year, you decided to focus on the present. You are in a relatively quiet place, far from the city center and all that goes with it. Your parents owned a cottage near a lake. Every summer, you meet there to spend some time together. The rest of the year, you lived on campus. You had a dorm room that you shared with a girl who had become a good friend of yours over the past five years.

Unfortunately, the family reunion was coming to an end. Tonight, your brothers returned to their respective homes. Your parents were also returning to work, but would stay until the next day.

"YN, set the table, please."

Your mother, a great and renowned chef, had asked you or yelled at you from the kitchen. You were lazy to get up from the couch, but you did it anyway to avoid your mother's wrath. This lunch will be your last family meal. The next one probably won't be until after the holidays. And even then, it's not sure.

"Did you hear? There was another attack last night." Your father said as he sat down after pouring himself a red wine.

The last few days had not been easy. Many bad things had happened, shattering the tranquility of the population. A group seemed to have decided to attack the people for no reason, just for fun. Who would do such a thing? Only crazy people would do such a thing.

"This time, a young she-wolf was the victim of their cruelty. Her body was found dumped near a river. Stripped of everything she had, including her clothes." As if to emphasize your father's words, the news reporter had begun to speak on the subject.

This young girl, a werewolf, had been reported missing two days before her body was found. She had been the victim of several waves of physical and sexual abuse before she was stabbed about twenty times. It appears that the fifteenth was fatal.

It had been seven generations since the truth had been revealed to the world. Humans were not the only ones living on Earth. Among them were all the creatures that had been legends until then. We are talking about vampires, werewolves, angels and demons, elves, goblins, and many other fantastic and supernatural beings. Besides, there were some supernatural beings in your class as well. Despite their nature and stereotypes, they were not harmful to all of this; on the contrary.

Vampires were often characterized as immortal, merciless, and bloodthirsty. But this was far from the truth. In reality, they fed on blood, but were not all insane. Most of them were civilized, sometimes even more so than humans. In fact, your roommate was a vampire. There was a little bit of everything in your class: werewolves, vampires, nymphs, elves, and muses.

There was even a rumor that your homeroom teacher was a demon, and not just any demon. An incubus. An incubus is a demon that appears at night to sexually assault its victims while they sleep. They are also said to suffocate their victims because of their weight.

Whether this is true or not, you don't know. You have never met one or had the opportunity to fool around with one. At least, that's what you thought until today.

Lying on your bed, you exchanged messages with your roommate Chung-Ae. So far, everything has been going well. The conversations often varied. Sometimes you talk about your day. Other times you got into crazy games, but you never imagined that Chung-Ae would drop such a bomb in your face.

< By the way, do you know what I discovered? Or at least what they told me?]

[No, but I guess I won't wait long for you to tell me. >

< Do you know how conservative the man is about his private life?]

[I would like to say that everyone is. >

< I know, but I don't know if you remember the day we had an integration day].

[I remember it very well. That was the day we found out that Mr. Jeon wasn't human >

< Right!]

[Yes. So what? >

< After several years, we finally found out what he is.]

In fact, you've never wondered more about the true nature of your homeroom teacher. For months, the curious student that you are had tried to guess who he was, but the answer was always negative. You had even given up hope of finding out, so you decided to give up and move on. The fact that Chung-Ae announced a supposed discovery to you piqued your curiosity.

< It seems that Mr. Jeon is a demon].

They were speechless. You didn't think that Mr. Jeon was a demon. Sure, he was unbearably attractive, but it was confirmed that the thought never crossed your mind.

< But not just any demon. An incubus.]

Damn. This just gets better and better.

Since freshman year, Mr. Jeon has been your homeroom teacher. Once a semester, you would meet with him to discuss your studies and progress. You could also ask him questions. Every time you met him, you felt a strong attraction to him. It was as if something invisible was pulling you toward him. You almost succumbed to temptation and jumped into his arms more than once. You didn't care about the consequences. But you also felt a certain reluctance on his part. You were sure that you were not the only one who felt this attraction, not just physically.

At the same time, how could you not fall for your teacher's charm? He was quite a man - a demon at that. His body was strong, and his arms were three times as long as yours. Not to mention his thighs, my God. Thick and muscular, so much so that his pants didn't let them go unnoticed. His buttocks were bulging and plump, like peaches. The shirts he wore during class shaped his arms and pecs. Sometimes his pecs would squeeze his shirt so tightly that the buttons threatened to pop off at any moment. It drove you crazy. You couldn't concentrate during those lessons. You prayed that the buttons would fall off by themselves so that you could see his mounts.

Mr. Jeon's face was like a marble sculpture. His pink lips were enticing, and the scar on his cheek made him even more attractive. His cinnamon eyes were enchanting. Every time your eyes met, you were lost in them without regret. Even once, you seemed to see a slight smile on the corner of his lips when you came to after getting lost in his eyes. But it was short-lived, and he returned to his posture so quickly that you thought you had imagined it all.

You spent the rest of the evening researching the Incubi. You wanted to know more about these dark but fascinating beings. Not only that, you made many exciting discoveries, but you knew that people could say whatever they wanted on the Internet, especially on blogs. So you only considered the information frequently appearing on various blogs and websites. This meant it was more likely to be a relevant and current fact or knowledge. You also read some testimonies of people who decided to share their sexual experiences with incubi and succubi - the female version of incubi.

From what you read, these demons were called sex demons for a reason. A night with them was a guaranteed night of madness. But one thing you noticed was that in none of these testimonies did anyone talk about feeling crushed by the incubus that visited them. This was a good sign and proof that, once again, you should not believe everything you read and see on the Internet.

Some witnesses had even admitted that incubi and succubi could attach themselves to mortals. It was something rare but still possible. Something almost impossible but still existing, the experts in fantastic and supernatural creatures, made a rather exciting discovery. To understand their findings, we must go back to the time of the revelation of the existence of these beings.

Before coming to the human world and trying to have relations with them, incubi and succubi had tried it with each other. As a result, the pleasure and the end result were not the same. They were unable to produce babies and ensure the continuity of their existence. In addition, both male and female parties are dominant by nature, so during intimate moments, neither wants to give up their place as dominant to their partner and thus become dominant. Seeing that nothing was being done, they decided to try their luck with humans, which was successful. Not only were they able to maintain their dominant status, but they were also able to ensure the future of their species. The succubus automatically produced succubus babies and incubus babies, while the humans could have incubus and succubus babies or human babies.

It was also possible for a human to become an incubus or succubus, but not vice versa. No one knew how this was possible, not even the specialists. Only incubi and succubi see the secret. Not many people change their nature, but sometimes some people do.

Some websites explain how to summon your incubus or succubus. It was also pointed out that he didn't have to do anything occasionally and that they would appear on their own when they felt your call and desire. You wondered if Mr. Jeon felt your urge for him at that moment. At this thought, you blushed on your bed in the dark.

Deciding it was time for bed, you looked at the clock before turning off your laptop. 2 h 55. Almost three in the morning. They say it's nearly time for the devil and the demons. Not wanting to think about it too much to avoid nightmares, you had turned off your computer before placing it on your bedside table. You were careful not to drop it during the night and then went to bed.

It had been a few years - about three years - since you'd had sex with a partner, and it was taking its toll. You were more stressed and nervous. Nothing made you feel better, and you were sexually frustrated. Still, the one-night stand wasn't really your thing. You also weren't a very romantic person. If you had the opportunity to sleep with someone, you would be frustrated that the person wasn't Mr. Jeon, but you wouldn't say no. In fact, at this point, you'd be stepping out of your comfort zone lest you lose your mind and sanity.

Finally, as you lay on your bed, you got a crazy urge to masturbate. So, without thinking, you take out the petroleum jelly in your drawer, which is more discreet than a typical tube of lubricant, in case your mother or a family member searches your drawer. When you got up, you went straight to your private bathroom. You opened the cabinet where you kept your towels, cosmetics, and bath products and took out a white plastic box with flowers. As you opened the box, you took out another small white box with the same numbers as the big one. Inside were some of your favorite little companions.

There was your precious little butterfly clitoral stimulator that you had in black. The part that stayed out was a clitoral massager. While attached to it was another vibrator. The part that was left out was a slight butterfly shape. This part was used to stimulate the outer interest of the clit. The part that went into the pussy was shaped like a penis, six centimeters long and twenty-seven millimeters in diameter. While the outer part massaged the clit, the glans massaged the G-spot. They were pretty happy with this little device. It was relatively quiet and discreet. Practical when you go to hotels or your parents' houses for parties or vacations. It was also waterproof, so you could use it in the shower or bath, but a little extra was that it came with a bit of remote control that allowed you to control the nine different vibration intensities. So far, you have not exceeded intensity number six, which was not bad.

Then there was your second baby in the box. A vibrator in the shape of a rose, red. It had two functions. In the center of the rose was a hole that allowed the function of sucking. While on the other side, a classic vibrator allowed me to stick it in the pussy. The suction mode was a nipple and/or clit stimulator. We could make a choice.

Like the previous one, it was waterproof, silent, and rechargeable with a USB cable. It was made of silicone and had ten vibration frequencies and five suction modes. It was one hundred and ninety-eight millimeters high and thirty-five millimeters wide. They had this little gem for two months and were not disappointed.

Then the last of the family. This time it was just a slight pink color. Unlike its big red sister, there was no hole in the center of this little jewel, only a tiny tongue. It might have been small, but it was still powerful, with nine different levels of tongue vibrations that could make you see stars.

But for tonight, your choice was quickly made. Since Chung-Ae told you about Mr. Jeon, your body has been on fire, and your brain has been replaying many not-so-Catholic scenarios with your teacher. Unlike your classmates or the women in your college, your attraction to Mr. Jeon wasn't just physical; far from it. It was also about his personality. He was calm and collected. He was patient with his students, including you. His goal was to push his students to be their best. He was also close to his students, always willing to help them. He was passionate about his work.

The more you thought about him, the more your body burned. You were almost feverish. So, without wasting more time, you grabbed your butterfly clitoris stimulator, and the red rose for a sucking effect. Thank God your three precious babies are quiet. You couldn't forget that your parents were still home and their room was down the hall.

Back on your bed, you reached for your nightstand to get some petroleum jelly. You had finally gotten rid of all the tissue that covered your body and prevented you from accessing your private parts.

Brushing your clit and slit with Vaseline to lubricate them well, you had done the same with the stimulator on the inner and outer regions. Before you lay on your back and finally started to relieve yourself and let your fantasies take over, you inserted the clit stimulator into your pussy. Like a dick, you had gently pushed the glans of the part going into you, careful to let it slide in and out as the length stretched you. You sighed as you felt every millimeter of the stimulator slide into you, creating a good feeling of pleasure.

It had been a while since you had used it, playing with the youngest of the family. How could you miss this little miracle? Even though it wasn't turned on, you felt pleasure as it slid into you. Picking up the small remote control of the stimulant, you press the first button to turn it on before pressing the second button, just below the previous one. Immediately, you felt movement and a little pressure on your external and internal clitoris, also known as the G-spot. The intensity was not the craziest, but you all felt pleasure. This rhythm is perfect when there are two of you, and the other wants to torture his partner, making him want more than anything else.

Besides, your mind was already starting to produce scenes with you and your favorite teacher. Mr. Jeon. This man-made everyone addicted to him without even touching them. To fully immerse yourself in the illusion your mind was projecting, you had to be more comfortable before closing your eyes. The images in your mind were crystal clear. You might have believed it was all real if you hadn't known it was all a mirage. A reality you wouldn't mind.

You saw Mr. Jeon standing in front of you with his shirt off. You could finally see his body without any barrier hiding the magnificent view of his body. Only his lower body seemed covered by black sports pants that fit him well in all parts. All without exception. Seeing the shape of his cock pressed against the fabric of his pants, you were sure he wasn't wearing any underwear. The thought alone was enough to make you salivate. The way he stood in front of you, legs slightly apart, showed how much his family jewels must have weighed.

The look in his eyes burned your skin every time he paid attention to you. The room was dark, but the window was open, and the breeze came in, caressing parts of your body you were not used to feeling.

The only light source was the moon's faint rays, causing a silvery glow on the floor, part of the wall, and one side of your teacher's face.

A thread of light was also on your body, illuminating the most essential and intimate part of you. Neither of you broke the peaceful silence, although it was full of sexual tension.

Your teacher was delighted with the sight before him. You lay naked on your bed, your body trembling with desire for him and his cock.

The trickle of light that caressed your skin didn't let you see much, but he didn't care because the part that interested him more came to the fore. You had spread your legs wide, allowing him to see your pussy unhindered. Your wetness flowed from your slit and slid gently down your butt hole. Your clit was swollen with the excitement of seeing the man who haunted your nights and thoughts, even when you were awake. When you noticed that your teacher had his eyes fixed on your womanhood, your pussy clenched in anticipation of the man's cock - supposedly a lust demon - standing at the foot of your bed.

He didn't do anything. As he looked at you, you felt pleasure in your pussy and inside. You couldn't stand the weight of his dark, lustful gaze on you. You were about to lose your mind. He had to do something. Your desire for him only increased. You wanted to get up and jump on him once and for all. You needed to feel his hands on your skin. Furthermore, you wanted to feel his lips on yours. His writing is around your neck, putting gentle pressure on it, slightly cutting off the oxygen in your system, making you lose your mind.

"Please." It was the only thing you felt able to say in the state you were in.

You'd seen a smile form on his lips - as if his pants had magically disappeared. He was naked in all his glory. Adonis had nothing on. Mr. Jeon looked as if he had been carved from the finest marble in the world. His skin was flawless, and he didn't have a single hair on his chest, which made his skin look smooth. His caramel color drove you crazy. You wanted to taste it, to bite into it. Mark him as yours and no one else's.

He crawled onto the bed and approached you. He was standing over you, but he didn't touch you. All you could feel was the warmth of his body against yours and his musky, masculine scent caressing your nose. Enough to make you lose your mind even more. Holding on to his inactivity, you lifted your hand from the mattress to place your palm against his cheek. You moved his face closer to yours. Your teacher thwarted your plans when he grabbed your wrist and pinned it to the mattress above your head.

"No." Her voice was deep and husky, perfect for setting your body on fire even more. "Just be patient, you little bitch." He'd whispered, his lips caressing yours as he spoke to you. "You'll get what you deserve. In time. For now, let me enjoy you as you should." Then he sealed your lips. His other free hand was immediately on your womanhood.

Mr. Jeon wasted no time in getting to the point.

He began to move down your body until he reached the desired area. Jeon could see that your clit and lower lips were swollen with excitement. Sniffing your pussy, he loved the smell that came from that area. It wasn't the smell that all humans smelled, but as an incubus, he was given something more. Something more attractive, perfect for him. But that smell also pointed to something else he had been searching for, for a long time.

"Finally. I've got you." Without giving you time to understand what he was saying, he had fallen full mouth on your pussy. His expert tongue had gone straight to your slit to taste your nectar. And you were creamy, just the way he liked it. Feeling the touch of his tongue on your pussy, you let out a not-so-discreet moan as your hand came to rest on the top of his head, grabbing his hair. Jeon had moaned against your intimacy, making his mouth vibrate and increasing your pleasure.

He had no mercy. He devoured you greedily, as if he'd been deprived of you for a long time. "Mr. Jeon." You tried to moan quietly to not wake your parents, but it was mission impossible. This man was driving you crazy. Jeon doubled his intensity in response, alternating wildly between your clit and slit, getting you wet simultaneously. He licked, sucked, and penetrated you with his tongue. Your pelvis kept moving, and Jeon tried to hold it to the mattress, but you kept moving in pleasure, making him grunt increasingly, his mouth still glued to your privates.

You weren't far from climaxing. But you didn't want to come with Mr. Jeon's tongue around you. You tried to go around his cock. To feel it deep inside you while he was beating you fervently. "No." You protested just before you came.

"Patience, baby. I'm not done with you yet." You were relieved. You didn't want it to end so soon. Not to mention you hadn't had a chance to taste it yet. "Come on, my tongue, baby. I got you." His hands moved under your thighs, which were raised, to get a better grip on you before he doubled his licks.

"Mr. Jeon." You had surrendered to pleasure. Your body shook all over. Mr. Jeon continued his licking and sucking even though you were sensitive. With your hand still gripping your teacher's hair, you tried to push his head away, but he didn't move a muscle. "Way too much."

You'd pleaded, but he'd continued anyway. He collected all the wetness dripping from your slit, swallowing it as if it were the only thing he was allowed to drink from, and it had been too long since he had been deprived of it.

When Mr. Jeon felt that he had lapped you up, he raised his head and looked straight into your eyes. His eyes were dark and full of desire. As he got down on his knees in front of you, between your legs, you saw his hard cock. Long and thick. At that moment, you wondered if you could take it inside you. Your doubts were short-lived as your teacher fell over you, pressing your lips together in a lazy, searing kiss. His tongue had found an unhindered refuge in your mouth. You could taste yourself on it. Strangely, you didn't mind.

Your body had arched against his as you felt your slit invaded by his long fingers. Followed by another, then another. With three fingers inside you, you felt complete. Mr. Jeon was excited to see your reaction. He loved the way your body responded to his. His cock trembled as it touched your walls, tightening and swallowing his fingers even more. "Fuck." He'd said as he broke your kiss.

Feeling you sufficiently spread and ready to receive him, he had removed his fingers from your lower cavity before taking them into his mouth and sucking his fingers. He didn't want to waste any of your juices. It was far too precious to him. When he had nothing left on his fingers, he took his cock in his hand before pumping it. Your buttocks that had roamed over your lover's body had ended their trajectories on his well-rounded, plump, and firm buttocks. One of them had positioned between your two bodies before pushing his hand. Once there was nothing between you and her member, you'd taken it in your hand. "Oh yeah."

His head tilted back as you pumped his member with your hand. To make it better for Mr. Jeon, you'd stopped all movement before running your hand over your pussy, catching the wetness that leaked out before running it over his glans, lubricating it. "Fuck." Your hand slid over his hardened member with greater ease. As you moved your hand back and forth over his cock, you tightened your grip around it a little. "Just like that, baby. Keep going." His voice was hoarse as he encouraged you to continue.

Your teacher rested his face on your neck, then let your wet kisses fall on that area. One of your weaknesses was kissing the neck. Whether during intimate moments - like now - or just an innocent kiss. And if the neck kiss was accompanied by a hug from behind, that was the holy grail for you. You loved the feeling of arms wrapped protectively around your waist as your back was pressed against your partner's chest. It made you feel protected.

Your teacher juggled kisses on your shoulder and neck. Sometimes he'd move up to your earlobe and nibble on it. "Baby, don't stop." He begged you, and you loved the control he gave you over him. It wasn't easy for an incubus - if he ever was one - not to have the upper hand in the situation. That Mr. Jeon let you have the upper hand right now proved that he had some confidence and ease with you.

Your movements on Mr. Jeon's cock caused the tip of his glans to brush against your clit, giving you pleasure as well. You continued to pump him, but this time you weren't satisfied with just grazing the clit, but took advantage of the fact that you were in control to push the tip of his glans into your slit as well. "You like playing with my cock, don't you?" He had whispered in your ear in a deep, husky voice, sending a million shivers down your body. "You like to torture yourself by pushing my glans into you." You didn't answer, too busy pumping him and teasing the entrance to your privates. You wiggled your pelvis every time the tip of his penis made contact with your tunnel, increasing your pleasure.

Although he had allowed you to be in control until now, Mr. Jeon felt it was high time he took the reins back. So he took advantage of the moment when you titillated your slit by thrusting the tip of his glans into you to move your hand away from his length and thrust into you. Not expecting this from him, you let out a cry of pleasure. "Did you think I would always let you be in control?" You were no longer able to answer him. He was hammering fast and hard inside you. "Did you think I would let you use my cock to pleasure yourself, you little minx?"

Mr. Jeon grabbed your leg before placing it on his shoulder. "You were wrong." His hand had found its way around your neck as he pounded into you. You wanted to hold on to him, but didn't get the chance. Mr. Jeon again pinned your hands above your head as he continued his movements. "You wanted to torture both of us. Now suffer the consequences, baby." You started to whimper helplessly.

You were out of control. You knew you had a good chance of waking your parents, but you didn't care if you got caught right now. All you cared about was the pleasure your teacher was giving you.

His movements became wilder. He fucked you as hard as you loved. "Take me like the good girl you are." His grip had tightened a little.

Inside, you could feel his cock twitching, signaling that he was at the same stage as you, not far from your climax. "Mr. Jeon," he had kissed you on the mouth, cutting you off. "I know, baby. I can feel it." Your prey closed around your teacher's cock, choking him, making his hip movements harder and harder.

Finding it harder to keep your moans at a discreet volume, you'd found a way to keep yourself from waking the whole house.

Concentrating on running after your climaxes, your teacher had been surprised to feel your teeth sink into his shoulder, making him hiss and grunt. The pain of your bite mixed with his pleasure, causing him to convulse on top of you, emptying his balls into your pussy. Your partner's grunts, combined with his movements, were the cause of your orgasm.

The walls of your pussy clung to Mr. Jeon's cock, giving him tenfold pleasure. But he didn't stop moving his pelvis. He tried to make you feel it to the end without missing anything. As for Mr. Jeon, he was satisfied. You had bitten him. Even if the skin was not pierced, in his world, when two lovers bite each other during the act, it is a sign of ambivalence between violence and affection. The eternal duality between Eros, love, and Thanatos, death. It stimulates the wild and primitive side of each of the living. Mainly when these bites occur during the intimate moment between two beings - human, demon, or other - the most exciting places are the collarbone, the neck, the lips, the thighs, the buttocks, the breasts, and finally, the wrists. But it also meant that the other belonged to us.

"Wow." You didn't have enough words to describe how breathtaking it was. So much so that your legs still shook, and you had trouble regulating your breathing. Mr. Jeon was quite a man. He had everything to please everyone, women and men alike. Tonight, you had seen the duality Mr. Jeon had in him. In the eyes of everyone, he was a brilliant, talented, and dedicated man. He helped everyone who needed it. But once inside the four walls, this man was a demon. He knew how to put aside his dominant side to let his partner enjoy the power. The power to give pleasure to the other.

But he knew when to take control and dominate his partner. He wasn't rough, but firm and confident in his movements and words. His words were enough to make you lose your mind. And his voice. God, his voice. Hoarse and deep, just the way you liked it. When he spoke, your stomach would twist in all directions from the desire he was arousing in you, making you wet your pants. How often had you left his class with your panties soaked from excitement? It had happened so many times that you had lost count. Just thinking about it made you want a second round.

When you turned your head to look at Mr. Jeon, who was still lying on the mattress next to you, you saw him looking at you with that damned smile. You didn't have to speak for Jeon to understand what you wanted. Your body and your eyes betrayed you.

Positioned on his side facing you, still in Adam's outfit, your teacher had moved his face to yours before kissing your lips softly. "Soon, baby." His lips had brushed yours before they pulled away. When you opened your eyes again - you didn't even realize you'd closed them - you saw her figure slowly disappear. A pang of sadness and disappointment washed over you as you watched him slowly disappear. And yet, a sweet smile remained on his lips, showing his buck teeth. A smile you loved so much.

"No!" At the same time, your eyes opened, and you abruptly sat down on your bed. A wave of frustration washed over you as you came to your senses and realized that everything you had experienced with Mr. Jeon was just a dream. A damned plan, but it seemed natural. You didn't understand anything. You didn't even remember falling asleep. When you looked at the side of the bed where Mr. Jeon was lying, you saw your sex toys and the bottle of Vaseline.

When did you take it off?

You couldn't remember anything except the dream with your teacher. Your skin seemed to remember as well. You could still feel Mr. Jeon's touch on your skin. His hand had been all over your body. His lips had dominated yours, and you could feel that too. Your intimacy was still sore, remembering Mr. Jeon's abuse.

Everything was very confusing. But it was already very late - or relatively very early. It was seven o'clock in the morning, but you felt like you hadn't slept at all. Your body was crying out for rest, so you listened. You decided to postpone your little investigation. As soon as your head made contact with the pillow, your eyes closed, and you returned to dreamland.

Lying on his back in bed, Mr. Jeon stared at the ceiling of his room and smiled stupidly. He had finally found what he was looking for. Jeon was determined not to let it out of his sight again. Now he was sure that he had found the right person. For years, he had had doubts, but not anymore.

You were the one he had been looking for, for so many years. And it was only a matter of time before he claimed you and made you his forever.

n.a : I hope you enjoy this short story as much as I do. To make sure you don't miss the progress of the chapters as well as their release, don't forget to check out the Working on and Updates section, where you'll find not only updates on "Middle of the Night", but also other stories and "One Shots" that you'll probably enjoy as well. Also, don't forget to check out the Masterlist, you'll probably find something for you among my other stories in progress and those to come.

If you enjoyed the chapter, please consider buying me a Coffee.

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#middle of the night #jk smut #teacher/student #demons #jk demon #jungkook x reader #yaya #jeon s sins #jk incubus

[thunderheadfred]

It’s my birthday so as a gift to myself I’m listing all my personal growth from the last few months

Lost 50+ pounds, well on my way to shedding 100+. Did this very simply with zero self-hatred or shame. Intermittent fasting and sugar elimination were pretty much the only requirements. Took time to adjust and a willingness to cook more, but that was the only struggle. In addition to the weight loss, my inflammatory and immune problems have been greatly improved. Chronic fatigue is still with me, but isn’t dictating every second of my day, and I hope CFS continues to diminish as I get healthier. Resources I used are now helping my dad reverse pre-diabetes, which is the cherry on top.

Went through perhaps the worst existential crisis of my entire life (and boy howdy, I’m well-rehearsed) and didn’t die. Didn’t die so hard I actually woke up from decades of numbness and changed my entire life almost overnight. This “instant” change was enabled by several years of work via intensive outpatient, group therapy, 1-on-1 therapy, medication, and deep interior work I’ve done on my neurochemistry and mental health. It feels like foundations were laid for me to finally take a huge forward step into hope and change. I finally let God back in, and have felt vulnerable, humbled, and vibrantly alive in a way I haven’t experienced since childhood.

Started re-exploring my own spiritual health, perhaps the most difficult and intense part of this transformation. Deeply personal, difficult to find words. No labels for it. See re-enrolling in college, below. Much to learn. Adjacent to this, have encouraged Catholic husband to join an inter-faith climate group, which he did. His parish church now looks likely to form their own climate support group in addition.

Re-enrolled in college for fall 2023. Built a 3-year interdisciplinary plan to graduate with a major in Dakota Language and American Indian studies, with minors in sustainable agriculture, art history, and art.

Became involved in local politics; I’ve personally met my senator and congressperson and thanked them for their work. They know me by name and I will continue to keep up with legislation on local and federal levels, vote in every election, and advocate for policies I believe in.

Started educating myself on the policies that have shaped our current situation. This is often overwhelming, and I remind myself constantly to do it in stages, to not burn myself out or get lost in anger and hopelessness. Nevertheless, it must be done. In particular, I’m finding Robert Reich’s free YouTube course invaluable for this, though it has made me cry several times. Labor movements are taking off across the country and this gives me immense hope that I’m far from the only one sharing in this experience. Millions of us are waking up to our own democratic power, and we can change things together, one step at a time.

Also started researching absolutely everything about reducing my personal carbon footprint, increasing self-sufficiency, and having at least some baseline readiness for disaster scenarios, a process that continues. Immediately stopped eating beef and pork (and most meat, actually), stopped purchasing things online and from big box stores (whenever feasible) and started walking to our local grocery co-op several times a week.

Encouraged husband to get involved in our HOA, a goal he’s had since we moved but was unable to make good on because of his work schedule (now blessedly changed) - we will soon be making a concentrated effort to meet all of our neighbors, initiate neighborhood gatherings, and encourage green initiatives in our immediate community.

Joined the local arm of 350.org. Have already done tabling and multiple advocacy campaigns. Husband is on the clean transportation team, focused on bringing electric school buses to schools. I’m on the food systems team, currently working on expanding our state’s farmer’s market SNAP program so more people have access to affordable local produce.

Expanded my patio garden to several raised planters full of herbs that I’ve been regularly using. A few things didn’t work out, but I’m learning what thrives in that location and have grown the most delicious tomatoes I’ve ever eaten, with basically zero effort. Working on a plan to build a small deer-proof Three Sisters food garden in our limited backyard space.

Started my basement cannabis grow tent, have two plants thriving and bringing me joy when I talk to them every day and tell them what lovely ladies they are.

Converted all our household power draw to sustainable wind (this took all of one phone call to our utility provider) and in a few days we will have meters installed on both our hot water tank and our air conditioner, so those are cycled during peak hours for even less energy consumption.

Started fishing together with one of my oldest childhood friends and my dad. Went from zero outdoors experience to learning how to hook minnows without flinching and hold a beautiful emerald-green bass in my hands. An amazing experience that will continue through the season.

#good job me #keep it up you sexy beast

[cardcaptorsakura96]

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes-Chapter 24

Fandom: Supergirl

Characters: Kara Danvers, Clark Kent, Samantha Arias, Lena Luthor, Lillian Luthor, Ruby Arias, Oliver Queen, John Stewart, Diana Prince, Bruce Wayne, Barry Allen, J'onn J'onnz, Alfred Pennyworth, Lois Lane, Cat Grant, Lucy Lane, Damian Wayne, Felicity Smoak, Streaky the Supercat, Martha Kent, Selina Kyle, Talia Al Ghul, Lucius Fox, Maggie Sawyer, Alex Danvers, Jason Todd, Otis Graves, Lex Luthor

Summary: What if superheroes had to pay a property damage tax every time they had a fight in the city?

Lillian sighed as she watched the clock at Noonan’s gradually tick away the time. She felt a sudden squeeze of her hand. She looked to the seat next to her at the restaurant to see Martha smiling back at her. 

“Everything is going to be okay. The worst that can happen is that Amanda won’t tell us anything and send us on our way.”

Lillian gave her a soft smile. She reached down and kissed Martha’s hand and said, “I’m more concerned that she will rat us out to Lex more so anything else.”

Martha raised an eyebrow and asked, “Is that why you suggested meeting at Noonan’s instead of the office?”

Lillian sighed and said, “Lex is lax with watching over me, but you can never be too careful. Both Amanda and I frequent this restaurant enough that it wouldn’t be unusual for us to bump into each other and have a few words.”

Martha looked at Lillian baffled and asked, “Wait? You guys see each other here often?”

Lillian leaned back in her chair and said, “Yes. Amanda and I are usually around here late morning or early afternoon. However, we tend to avoid each other.” Lillian shook her head and sighed. She continued, “Amanda and I used to be best friends in college. We came up with the idea of Cadmus during our senior year as a capstone project. We thought that there should not only be an organization that studies the extraterrestrial lifeforms that were already on Earth but also learn how to coexist with each other. I focused more on the business side of things whereas Amanda worked towards networking and getting funding. Everything went well until Zod came into the picture several years ago.”

Martha winced and said, “I hate that name with a passion.”

“You are not alone in that sentiment. It reshaped Amanda’s perception of aliens as a whole. She viewed every one of them as a threat and that they needed to be removed from Earth. Lex provided her with options to achieve that and in return, she provided him funding to support his research efforts on the subject. I objected to all of this, but she still pushed me out. Fortunately, enough people from Cadmus didn’t like Amanda’s new direction and decided to come with me as I formed my own company.”

“If you think she has so much hatred against aliens, why do you think she would talk to us.”

Lillian leaned her head back and stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully. 

“There have been rumors of Leviathan changing direction for a while now. They have always been anti-alien, but their choices in political candidates have been interesting to say to least.”

Martha looked at her quizzically and asked, “How so?”

“Well, the candidates they have supported so far are pro-alien rights and making reforms to help aliens become citizens. It is a complete 180. Lex wasn’t willing to cooperate with their changes so he was cut off. Amanda has used funding from Leviathan in the past. I am curious to see if she followed the road Lex took in regards to them, or if she fell in line to their new policy. If she did, we may be able to get something out of her.”

Martha nodded and said, “I like that particular theory. Hopefully, it doesn’t take that long to get information out of her. I have so much to do to prepare for tonight.” 

Lillian smirked and asked, “Worried about meeting the children I see?”

Martha pouted which caused Lillian to smile. She loved teasing Martha just a tiny bit. 

Lillian caressed Martha’s face and said, “You don’t have to worry. Sam, Lena, and Ruby will adore you as much as I do.”

Martha looked down while twiddling her thumbs and said, “Well, Lena has kind of avoided me with everything with Clark. I just worried that she might…”

Lillian kissed Martha’s hand which caused her to blush.

“Lena is more than okay with everything. All three girls are happy that I have put myself back out there.”

Martha smiled and said, “Still, I want to make a good impression and make sure that everything goes smoothly.”

Lillian smiled and said, “It will darling. I am just as eager to meet Kara. I have never seen Lena this happy before. It is like she is floating on cloud nine everyday.”

Martha chuckled and said, “I am not surprised. Kara is a bundle of sunshine that will brighten anyone’s day. I just wished that some of that would rub off on Clark. He used to be so optimistic, but now….”

Lillian squeezed Martha’s hand and said, “Hopefully this stuff with Lex will give us insight into Clark. I don’t have any proof, but I am willing to bet money that Lex has something to do with Clark’s behavioral changes.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he did,” said a woman’s voice. 

Lillian and Martha nearly jumped out of their seats. They turned to see a black woman of medium build and short black hair staring at them. She had on a blue business suit. Lillian quickly change her expression to surprise to passive. 

The woman smirked and said, “You are losing your touch Lillian. It is nice to see that I can still take you by surprise.” 

The woman pulled up a chair and sat down with them. 

Lillian sighed and said, “It is nice to see you too, Amanda.”

Amanda smirked while she turned towards Martha and said, “I am assuming that since you brought Superman’s mother that you are wondering about if Lex had anything in store for him.”

Martha looked at her startled and asked, “How….”

Amanda chuckled and said, “Lex wasn’t very subtle about his infatuation with your son.”

Martha glared at the woman while gripping the table until her knuckles went white. 

Martha growled, “Yet you help a mad man hurt my son over and over again.”

Amanda sighed  while leaning back in her chair and said, “Would you believe me if I told you it was never my attention that he got hurt?”

Martha scoffed and said, “Don’t insult my intelligence.”

Amanda chuckled and said, “Well, I did want your son neutralized after the events with Zod.”

Martha winced at that statement. 

Amanda sighed and said, “And before you say anything, I realized that your son was being controlled by Zod. However, that fight between them caused over 200 people to die. Most had the nuance of separating Superman from that. He was drugged after all. However, your son isn’t normal. What if he is drugged or mind controlled again? Who is there to stop him. The Justice League was barely able to contain him the last time. We need measures in place for if that were to occur.”

Read the rest on AO3

#dc comics #dc universe #supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #supercorp #kara danvers x lena luthor #clark kent #superman #samantha arias #dc comics fanfiction #dccomics fanfic #supergirl fanfiction #supergirl fanfic #supergirl au #supercorp fanfiction #supercorp fanfic #fanficiton #fanfic #superheroes #lillian luthor #bruce wayne #oliver queen #diana prince #john stewart #barry allen #j'onn j'onzz #lois lane #alfred pennyworth #Ruby Arias

[donnerpartyofone]

When I was a kid, I desperately craved contact with the other world. I was naturally interested in all things spooky and mysterious, but more importantly, I found the world I lived in drab, suffocating, painful, and embarrassing. I certainly had serious problems with depression from a very early age, but it's fair to suggest that maybe my childhood obsession with suicide was partially inspired by the idea that if I died, I would go somewhere better, somewhere more beautiful and interesting. Because I was so disposed, I collected an unfortunate roster of destructive friends who were happy to exploit my eagerness to believe in such things. From grade school all the way through high school (by which time I really should have been savvier but OH WELL), I always seemed to know someone who dominated my life by claiming that they had some kind of connection to the other world--typically in the form of channeling paranormal entities who, oftener than not, got me to do all sorts of things I didn't want to do, that were really bad for me, just because my happiness seemed so dependent on my faith that these things could be real.

I don't like to talk about that stuff in detail (so don't ask), but it did something to my worldview beyond just making me distrust other people. I guess I'd call myself a skeptic now, but not in the sense of being atheistic; it's more that I feel a need to separate the chaff from the wheat, to conscientiously reject everything that justifies suspicion, so that only true mysteries remain, untainted by bad company. Now that I'm more or less writing full time, I find that all of my projects have to do with the madness of faith, the ineffable quality of subjective reality, and predators who exploit the virtue of open-mindedness.

I do believe that a lot of what we call "hauntings" come from people. I find it relatively easy to swallow the proposal that poltergeitic activity and psychokinesis are one and the same symptom of, say, a troubled child full of energy with nowhere to put it; in fact, I saw evidence of this once, around an especially disturbed "friend". But speaking less literally, I also think that a haunted atmosphere grows up around convergences of troubled people. Even if a team of professionals from the Rhine Research Center wouldn't be able to detect anything untoward, the sense of being haunted would be no less real for the people involved.

For several years between college and my marriage, I lived in a little new fab Brooklyn duplex with two old classmates. Yet somehow, it was only several years later, after I moved out, that I started to hear that our apartment was haunted. I don't know how I could have missed this, and I strongly suspected that some new, shared perception of theirs had been retrofitted onto our past. I couldn't imagine how anyone could perceive any form of subtle energy in that place, with our landlords downstairs having raging parties three days a week, their roosters crowing four or five hours a day, and the mice noisily chewing up the insides of the building every night. I basically rolled my eyes at the idea, especially because of the person who first told me.

One of my ex-roommates, T, who still lived in the place, met my fiance and I out one night to introduce his new boyfriend. The boyfriend was too young, acted even younger, and when he wasn't telling exaggerated-sounding stories about himself, he cued T to tell stories about him instead. He particularly insisted that T explain that the apartment was haunted. What followed were elaborate stories of appliances turning on and off on their own, objects flying across rooms, locked doors swinging open, and footprints appearing in the protective salt circle around their bed. The boyfriend insisted that T show a photo of the salt, in which strange sigils supposedly manifested overnight. The photo displayed what looked like the word "FAG" rising to the top of a bowl of alphabet soup. My fiance and I were utterly mortified.

At least two other people who lived in that place substantiated the claim that it was wildly, spectacularly haunted, although it bothered me that this had never come up during any of the years we all cohabitated. However, that's not to say that it wasn't an exceedingly dark environment. During that time, T had two long term boyfriends who were delusional, controlling and violent; I brought in my own psychotic abuser, who made all of our lives hell; another roommate brought a woman with whom he would share a doomed marriage, who loudly criticized him in front of us for embarrassing symptoms of severe depression; we briefly housed a couple we almost never saw, but who we could hear shouting and throwing things; and, in truth, we were all functioning alcoholics at that time. Those were not good days, and whatever you think "energy" is, together we created and bathed in quite a lot of bad energy. I barely got out with my sanity intact, after which T picked an incredibly nasty and protracted fight with me over a litany of things I had supposedly done and said throughout the last 15 years. To me, it was meaningful that this only happened after I escaped, even though I had tried repeatedly to have a constructive conversation with him while I was still there; it was like being in the grip of the Amityville house or the Overlook, a possessing entity that doesn't want to let you leave.

There's only one incident that sticks in my mind as evidence of something more than psychological disturbance. One night I brought home a copy of the great french exploitation movie DON'T DELIVER US FROM EVIL, about a pair of sociopathic teens who go on a satanic, ultimately suicidal rampage. As I gazed on the final image of the two girls burning, I said, my god, B really needs to see this, and made a note of it. B was a friend of a friend with whom I had grown enormously close, a dark, turbulent person, highly cultured, and a certified genius. A few hours after T and I went to sleep, we were awoken by a frantic pounding on the front door; B's best friend was there to report that she had committed suicide. We stayed up all night talking. In the morning, I perversely chose to go all the way to work in order to tell my boss that I couldn't come in that day; I just didn't think I could do it over the phone. But, as T and I stepped outside, we were shocked by the sight of a huge, rusted black hearse parked in front of our house. It seemed to belong to the derelict car lot across the street, but for us, it may as well have fallen out of the sky. Later that day, B's friends gathered at our apartment to talk and plan. And, as we were sitting there, the building behind ours suddenly exploded into a raging inferno.

None of those things have to be more than coincidences, but together, they hold such meaning for me that I don't think it's worth arguing about their true identity. Above all else, they are defined by what I feel I experienced: something from the other world. I don't need to worry about the collective madness of my friends, or my own vulnerability to certain unfalsifiable notions. I know where I was, at least in those 24 hours. I was in a haunted house.

[casspurrjoybell-17]

HEART'S BLOOD - CHAPTER 22

*Warning: Adult Content*

In the end, the phone-store clerk managed to talk Julian Hart out a good portion of his savings before he leaves and he’s glad Detective Dane Hunter had not come along. 

The sales spiel was confusing enough without him breathing down his neck. 

Retreating to the safety of his car, Julian turns on his shiny new devise and finds a message from Grace, asking him to visit the library when he had a chance. 

He had nothing else planned, so he heads across town. 

The library is busier this time and Julian has to wait several minutes while Grace helps some high school kids with research material. 

When they leave, she waves him over and pushes a stack of papers towards him. 

Julian’s best friend jumps in eagerly and without preamble.

“Okay. So this is what I found. Skin-walkers are typically male witches and they use their witchcraft to gain power and wealth. They use body parts in their spells and potions, especially to make poisons. They are said to be able to make this one kind of poison that so powerful, a single touch with something with the poison on it, will paralyze you.”

Grace shows Julian a photocopy of a page from the book with a detail description of this belief.

“For some reasons, they really like twins,” she goes on. 

“Something about them being ‘interesting’ and having some sort of special properties, at least in certain lineages. In some of the more darker versions of the legends, it’s said that one becomes a witch by completing a certain ritual, usual involving the murder of a family member, typically a sibling. Also, if you injure a skin-walker while they are in animal form, the injury will show up in the same spot on them when they are a person.”

“Anything about people with special abilities?” Julian says, flipping through a stack of print-outs and photocopies.

“Just that bit about the twins. I guess that doesn’t help much though, does it?” Grace says, frowning.

“Actually...” Julian hesitates. 

He wants to tell her about meeting the twin of the first victim but he has a strict policy about on client confidentiality and while he’d really like to hash things out with his best friend, he doesn’t want to break his own rules so easily. 

“It actually really helpful. Thank you, Grace.”

“Anytime baby-doll,  Hey, lets get lunch soon. There is a new bar-b-que place I want to try. We could do a double date. You and your man and me and my girl.”

“Wait. You have a new girlfriend? Since when?” Julian asks, as he leans over the counter and Grace leans towards him, grinning.

“Since last week,” she informs him, wrinkling her nose and squinting. 

She has the sort of face that makes any expression look cute. 

If Julian did that, people would wonder what’s wrong with him.

“How long have you been going out?” Julian queries, knowing Grace expects the full drill.

“Not long. A month or so.”

“What’s her name?”

“Chloe.”

“Okay. So what’s Chloe like?”

Her eyes light up with a sparkle that makes Julian so happy for her.

“She pretty, fun, a little shy... but once you get to know her, she’s a real wild card. I never know what crazy thing she’ll want to do next. Here I’ll show you.”

Grace reaches behind the desk and pulls out her phone, scrolling through her pictures and then turning it towards her best friend. 

Julian feels his smile slip. 

Grace is right... Chloe is very pretty. 

She also looks very familiar, though the young psychic doesn’t know her. 

She has pale skin, fiery-red hair and vivid blue eyes.

 Ian Foley doesn’t have a sister, so Julian guesses, Chloe must be a cousin. 

The young psychic only hopes she doesn’t see Chloe Foley’s name on the list of shifters that Ian had promised to put together for Dane. 

“What?” Grace asks, her own expression dimming, as she registers Julian’s failure to make googly eyes over her conquest.

“Nothing,” he stammers, recovering.

 “She just looks like someone I use to know. In college.”

It’s not a total lie. 

There was a red-haired girl from his dorm, freshman year, that made his life a living hell, with her one-woman crusade to save his soul. 

But Grace gives Julian a look that says she’s not buying his bull-shit.

“No. Really, Grace. She’s beautiful,” Julian says, giving his beat friend a genuine smile. 

He can see how happy Grace is and he can only hope that Chloe Foley is everything she deserves.

“You bet she is,” Grace says, taking back her phone. She leans closer to Julian and whispers in his ear. 

“And she’s got the sweetest little...”

“Oh. Okay. I’m... ah... gonna go now...” Julian says, pushing himself away from the counter, before his ears are polluted by whatever she was going to describe. 

“Thanks again for the research. We’ll do lunch sometime soon, Okay? I promise.”

Grace laughs as Julian retreats. 

One of her favourite games is to make her best friend blush and the young man has long since learned that his only defence is to run away. 

Outside, Julian takes a deep breath and looks down at his brand-new phone in his hand. He has been putting this off all morning. 

He might as well get it over with. Mrs Hart, Julian’s mother, answers on the second ring.

“Julian, What’s wrong?” she asks, sounding stressed and out of breath.

‘Great start.’ 

She has only said three words and Julian is already rolling his eyes.

“Nothing’s wrong, Mum. Can’t I just call to say hi?”

“You can,” she says, impatiently. 

“But you never do. It’s not my birthday or a holiday and you only call for these two reasons. Otherwise, you want something or something horrible has happened. So which is it?”

It’s both actually but he is not going to tell her that. 

He can’t imagine she’d react well to the news, that he’s being hunted by a serial-killer or that one of his friends is dead and the other missing and ‘probably’ dead. 

Or for that matter that he’s sleeping with a werewolf. 

She’s barely come to the terms with the fact that he is gay. 

Suppressing a sigh, Julian decides to at least make an attempt at pleasantries before dragging up old wounds from the past.

“Everything's fine, Mom. Hows L.A.?” Julian asks. 

She tells him. 

It’s sounds awful to Julian but she seems to like it as much as she always has. 

He walks back and forward across the park in front of the library, as she talks about her yoga classes, her diet and her latest ‘acting gig’. 

It’s an advertisement for a walk-in bath tub for seniors but she makes it sound like it’s a glamourous soft porn and Julian is glad he hasn’t had lunch yet. 

When she has finally run out of stream, she turns the question back to Julian.

“And how is dear old Spring Lakes? Seen any bears recently?”

She likes to gloat Julian about living ‘in the sticks’ as she calls it.’ 

“Yep and I saw a wolf too,” he tells his mother.

“Oh. Really? I read about that somewhere They say wolves are coming down from Yellowstone National Park and now...”

Julian cut her off before she started to give him an inaccurate description and highly embellished summary of some article she had read somewhere.

“Actually, Mum. I called because I wanted to talk about Dad.”

There is silence on the other end of the line and Julian waits. 

It’s anyone’s guess how she will react.

“What about him?”

Her voice sounds different to Julian, smaller and quieter than before and unfamiliar feeling constricts his heart. 

He is not used to feeling sorry for his mother.

 Mrs Hart is a strong and independent woman and the last thing she needs is anybody’s pity. 

At the same time, Julian never really thought about what she had lost when her husband had left. 

By all accounts, they had been madly in love until Julian’s father had gone, well mad.

“I want to know what happen when... when her started to get sick. And after that, too.I want to know what happened... and how he died. And anything you remember about George Foley from back the, too.”

Julian holds his breath and waits.

“Why, Julian? Why now?” she says, sounding tired and a little sad. But at least, she didn’t get angry.

“It’s important to me, Mum. That’s all I can say.”

After another long pause, she sighs

“This isn’t something I’m prepared to talk about over the phone, Julian. Not when I have Pilates on the beach in five minutes. Can I call you back later tonight? Maybe after I’ve had a glass of wine, or six.”

“Yeah. That’s fine,” Julian tells her. 

“I’m sorry to spring this on you. I just... I just need to know. Okay?”

“You’re doing okay, Julian? Aren’t you?” she asks and Julian hears something like motherly concern in her voice.

 “I mean... you’re not having any... trouble, are you?”

Is he mentally stable? Is what she is asking him. Who is, these days?

“I’m fine, Mom. Really. I’m just...” Julian is struck by an idea. 

“I’m seeing a new doctor and she wants to know more about my family history. That’s all.”

“Of course. That makes sense,”she says, obviously relieved. 

“Tell you what, I’ll call you tonight after eight. Okay, Sugar-plum?”

Julian grits his teeth at her nickname for him.

“Sure, Mom. Talk to you later.”

Julian ends the call with his mother with a mix of relief and dread. 

On one hand he had asked and she had agreed. 

On the other hand he is going to have to talk to his mother again, twice in one day. 

Julian stops at the sandwich shop for lunch and texts Dane asking him to call. 

Taking his turkey sandwich and swiss cheese panini out to the sidewalk patio, he had barely sat down when his cell-phone rings. 

He wipes the cheese grease from his face before answering his brand new phone.

“Julian. What’s wrong?” Dane asks.

“Jeez. Why is that the first thing anyone asks me when ever I call.”

“Maybe, because you are a trouble magnet. So what’s wrong?”

Julian shakes his head but smiles.

“I might have another angle for you. I had a new client yesterday and she turned out to be the sister of the first murder victim. The twin sister. My librarian friend, Claire, dug up some information that suggests skin-walkers, maybe shifters in general, value twins for some reason. You might want to check if the other victim had a twin. I don’t think Bertha did, she never mentioned one anyway. Any gifted folk that come as a matching set might be given an extra warning, just to be safe.”

Identical, or fraternal as well? Dane asked, using his ‘cop doing an interview’ voice, so Julian knows he’s taking him serious.

“I don’t know. It just said twins.”

“Thanks, Julian. I’ll look into it. Hey...” Dane adds, his tone shifting into a warmer hue. 

“I’m almost caught up here. I can get off early if you want.”

Before he can stop himself Julian says...

“I’d rather that we got off together but whatever works for you.”

There is silence and for a moment Julian thinks he’s overstepped. But Dane answers...

“I’ll see you in an hour and then you are going to pay. On second thought make that an hour and five. If I leave the office like this my colleagues will never let me live it down.”

Julian chuckles.

“Why? Is something up?”

“Julian...”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll see you later.”

Ending the phone call to Dane, Julian takes the rest of his sandwich to do and drives home. 

Two hours later and he is pissed. 

He got home took a shower and brushed his teeth. 

He planned dinner and put a bottle of wine in the fridge to chill and overall he was a hundred percent ready for action. 

He can’t blame Dane, really. He has a very important job. 

Peoples lives are at stake. 

People’s lives have been lost and he’s working to bring the person responsible to justice. 

He can hardly hold it against him, if he puts his work before a guy, he hardly knows.

 Maybe the tip he had given him had payed off. 

Maybe he has been helpful to him. 

Julian refrains from texting Dane, except for once, to ask the handsome detective he is longing for, if he is alright. 

Dane answers with a immediate ‘Yes, held up with something’ and Julian lets it rest with that. 

By the time night falls, Julian is no longer in the mood for ‘fun’. 

An uncomfortable conversation with his mother looms imminently and despite his rationalizations, Dane’s failure to appear has left Julian lonely and doubtful. 

They’ve only know each other for a short time. 

Dane said he loved him but how may hapless fools have fallen foul of those words since time began. 

Finally at a quarter to seven, a knock at the door rouses Julian from his dour thoughts. 

It isn’t locked and Julian expects Dane to just let himself in, so he goes to open it with some trepidation. 

It’s not Dane. 

Instead, a woman stands on his doorstep. 

She’s tall and blond and gorgeously beautiful. 

Her red lips curve in a sadistic smile as her eyes skim over Julian from head to toe and then back up again..

“So. You are what has Dane so distracted. I’m disappointed. I expected something more...” she says, shrugging a slim white shoulder. 

“Just something... more, I suppose.”

“Huh? And who are you?” Julian asks, trying to seem unimpressed but coming off more confused and her smile disappears.

“My name is Selene Mortaine. And I am Dane Hunter’s one and only true mate.”

[hazedxhealing]

i am now super curious why you thought you were a system, what brought you to believe you were a system, and why you stopped believing you were a system. do you still experience "system-esque" experiences but consider them singlet experiences now?

also my comment about you sounding like a detrans individual is like a comparison of apples to oranges, similar in my brain although obviously different in other ways. just because you were mistaken about your plural experiences does not mean that everyone else is, which is similar (not equal or the exact same, but similar) to some detrans people assuming everyone else is actually not trans and was deluded / misinformed.

and i will seethe, because it's frustrating to see singlets spread judgemental nonsense when the science doesn't conclusively say shit. the science doesn't say "there's definitely no way to experience multiple people in the brain without trauma", it says that the disorder labeled DID is the primary way they see it and treat it, since IT'S A DISORDER. if its not a disorder for someone, why would DISORDER specialists CARE? most research of systemhood (that isn't "aww look at this sad person who was hurt so so bad and cannot function :(( they need to become Whole again <3 i hope they become Normal and One Being instead of being InSaNe") is still in its 'childhood'. just like... a lot of science relating to the brain, imo.

anyway i will block you after you respond to this ask, it's just annoying to see singlets in syscourse. you cannot speak for us. you do not speak for the system community unless you ARE a system or are a professional that is trustworthy and fact checked to not be an ableist shitbag.

I’m going to preface this, again, with how I’ve done my own extensive almost decade long independent research, where I dug up literal studies, done by medical professionals, and cross referenced that with the multiple versions of the DSM-5 and psych textbooks I was studying. I then took that information, complied a list of questions, and asked my own psychiatrist these questions after my appointments off record, and cross referenced that with what information I’d already had. And then I took all of that multiple years worth of research I’d done and took it to my best friend who is a LITERAL CERTIFIED PSYCH WHO WENT TO COLLEGE FOR IT, and we cross referenced all of that with her own textbooks and DSM-5 variations.

I’ve done enough research to know what I’m talking about. I’ve gotten enough confirmation from medical professionals to know what I’m talking about. Science, and psychology, say that the only way to be plural outside of cultural differences is severe and repetitive childhood trauma. There is no other way to break the psyche down enough to cause fragmentation of one’s personality.

I thought I was a system for multiple different reasons, one being I fit the criteria including severe repeated childhood trauma as well as a few other factors that can be comorbid with other disorders.

I would have to completely trauma dump to explain where the line between what I thought it was and what it actually was happened.

But for a good bit of my formative years I’d had these symptoms, and lived my life as a system. Flash forward to being with my ex husband, who WAS FAKING DID HIMSELF, who had me brainwashed, who Munchhausen by proxy-ed me multiple times before, was using the same logic endos have and willing alters to appear. He was MAKING alter, the same way endos do, and even with his own, he used them as a crutch to abuse me.

So, I went to my - again, medically certified - psych best friend, and was like, hey (insert big long text about how my plural experience seems fucky and I’m kinda confused) and she came back with (insert long message about how it’s not DID, it’s BPD and my ex husband definitely forced the DID dx on me but I didn’t know it was forced into me because, again, brainwashed, MCBP)

I have enough of an experience with how DID does and doesn’t worth, I have enough of my own experience, plus watching my ex husband faking, plus multiple medical professionals confirming the research I’d done, plus the research itself, to have a leg in this conversation.

If you don’t like that I am advocating for people to STOP FAKING SERIOUS AND DEBILITATING MENTAL ILLNESS then that is a you problem, not a me problem. If you would rather people continue to make it harder for you to be taken seriously, or to be treated in times like medical abuse, or make it even harder to be evaluated because of the culture around DIDOSDD they are laying down, then go for it but I’m not going to continue to let people use a disorder caused by the most horrific childhood experiences for clout.

#anti endo #anti endogenic #endos dni #syscourse #endos aren't real #tw syscourse #endos shut the fuck up challenge (impossible) #did is a disorder #fake disorder cringe #did research #stop faking did you clowns #(still advocating) #(no longer questioning)

[sublimeobservationarcade]

Important Shit They Didn’t Teach Me At School

Education is, as we all know, a vital component in our lives. They do not call them our formative years for nothing. Yet, there are many things, those in charge of teaching, do not include in our learnings. The state or a particular religious organisation are most usually involved in defining the taught curriculum. Somehow, I find, there is always important shit they didn’t teach me at school. Stuff that they left out for reasons unbeknown to me but of which I am now willing to speculate upon. I have extended my research beyond just my own school days to include the experiences of others from different eras.

My School Education About Aboriginal Australia

In Australia, we are currently about to vote in a referendum about changing the Constitution to recognise First Nations people and to give them a voice to parliament in an advisory role. This has proven to be contentious with those unwilling to grant such recognition calling it divisive. These lively debates in the media have caused me to ponder upon my own education about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. I remember some pretty general historical stuff delivered from the colonising European’s perspective. Although, we had stopped calling them ‘savages’ by this time in the 1970’s the view was fairly bleak. Aborigines were painted as the race time forgot and their future, outside of assimilation, seemed questionable.

They Didn’t Teach Me About Genocide & Massacres In Australia

I did not learn at school that many native groups were massacred by both settlers and a native frontier police force. I did not learn that mass poisonings were pretty common, where settlers would add arsenic or strychnine to flour given to Aboriginal groups on their land or a water hole would be poisoned. The local Indigenous children, women, and men would die in agony from these crimes against humanity. Indeed, there was a complete absence of such truth telling in my secondary education at school. I canvassed my daughter on this same topic, as she grew up in Queensland where this behaviour by settlers was more prevalent in 19C Australia. Her secondary schooling was done by a Christian College on the Sunshine Coast in 2017-2021. My daughter has no recollection of such shocking historical facts being imparted to her in Australian history classes. Indeed, Aborigines played little part in this Christian based curriculum at all, according to her very recent recall on the matter. Teaching & Whitewashing In Australia I spoke with several acquaintances and friends from different age groups, some older and some younger, about these matters. I asked them to spend some time reviewing these things and to get back to me when convenient. None of them could recollect being taught about these heinous crimes being committed. Yes, references to massacres by gunfire were sketchily mentioned by a few teachers but these were usually pretty thin on details given. Whitewashing our colonial past would not be a too strong categorisation of this policy enacted by our education departments and those of the independent schools. The upshot is that Australians do not know the true extent of what happened to First Nations people during colonisation in the 18C, 19C, and even into the early 20C.

Killing For Country: A White Agenda David Marr, the respected journalist and writer, has recently published Killing For Country. This is an account of his forebears, who were involved in the Native Frontier Police, an official force tasked with killing native blacks. Marr estimates that they may have conservatively killed some 40, 000 First Nations people. “David Marr was shocked to discover forebears who served with the brutal Native Police in the bloodiest years on the frontier. Killing for Country is the result – a soul-searching Australian history. This is a richly detailed saga of politics and power in the colonial world – of land seized, fortunes made and lost, and the violence let loose as squatters and their allies fought for possession of the country – a war still unresolved in today's Australia. "This book is more than a personal reckoning with Marr's forebears and their crimes. It is an account of an Australian war fought here in our own country, with names, dates, crimes, body counts and the ghastly, remorseless views of the 'settlers'. Thank you, David."—Marcia Langton” - (https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/killing-country)

What you get in modern Australia is a populace largely unaware of the true extent of the genocide that went on to establish a white Australia in a land that had been Aboriginal for around 70, 000 years. This is a direct result of the important shit they didn’t teach me at school. It spurs one to ponder what else was missing from my state run education? Australia, through its less than honest account of its colonial past, has sought to minimise and normalise its treatment of First Nations people. Former PM, John Howard, would not say sorry, as a strategic position in defence of how Australian governments dealt with their Indigenous population. “It all happened a long time ago,” is the common refrain from those unwilling to acknowledge the sins of the past. Well, actually it was not all that long ago in the time frame of history, more generally. Modern Australia is a very young country. Killings were still happening around a hundred years ago. Aboriginal deaths in custody are still occurring at an alarming rate today. The genocide continues in some form or another. “The frontier wars were a series of violent conflicts between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While conflicts and skirmishes continued between European land holders and Traditional Owners, the military instrument of the Queensland Government was the Native Police. The Native Police was a body of Aboriginal troopers that operated under the command of white officers on the Queensland frontier from 1849 to the 1920s. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men were often forcefully recruited from communities—already diminished due to colonisation—that were normally a great distance from the region in which they were to work. They were offered low pay, along with rations, firearms, a uniform and a horse. Many deserted.” - (https://www.qld.gov.au/recreation/arts/heritage/archives/collection/war/frontier-wars) You cannot mass murder a bunch of people and just move on. There are ramifications and consequences of such appalling behaviour long felt. Truth telling is the next stage in the Uluru Statement from the Heart process. If you do not know the real history of your country and community – you do not know yourself.

Was White Australia Born Out Of Biological Warfare? There is credible speculation that the huge volume of mass Aboriginal deaths via disease around Port Jackson in the early years of British colonisation was due to small pox infection and was no accident. The first fleet were carrying vials of small pox in their cargo, according to the journals of Captain Watkin Tench. Plus, this form of biological warfare had been used on American Indians by the British. There were marines aboard who had been involved in those actions. The fleet were heavily outnumbered by the natives, running low on ammunition, and getting desperate for provisions to arrive. The military were, also, unhappy with the overly humanitarian leadership of Governor Arthur Philip in relation to dealing with the natives. “In the 18th century, the use of smallpox by British forces was not unprecedented.  This tactic was promoted by Major Robert Donkin and used by General Jeffrey Amherst in 1763, when smallpox-laden blankets and a handkerchief were distributed to Native Americans from Fort Pitt near the Great Lakes.  An outbreak of smallpox in Sydney in 1789 killed thousands of Aborigines and weakened resistance to white settlement. Chris Warren argues that the pandemic was no accident, but rather a deliberate act of biological warfare against Australia’s first inhabitants. In April 1789, a sudden, unusual, epidemic of smallpox was reported amongst the Port Jackson Aboriginal tribes who were actively resisting settlers from the First Fleet.  This outbreak may have killed over 90 per cent of nearby native families and maybe three quarters or half of those between the Hawkesbury River and Port Hacking.  It also killed an unknown number at Jervis Bay and west of the Blue Mountains.” - (https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/ockhamsrazor/was-sydneys-smallpox-outbreak-an-act-of-biological-warfare/5395050)

The denial of these terrible truths about the birth of white Australia is apparent in the loud No Vote campaign. The awful Sky News Australia, with its tabloid style opinion based journalism (if you can call it journalism), bleats its badly informed and racist message across the airwaves. The Murdoch media empire makes its money from exploiting the likes and dislikes of the dominant white cohort. It appeals to their fears by dog whistling up bogus issues like Aboriginals taking their homes and money. Downward envy is their house speciality. This appalling family has been at the epicentre of the Australian media landscape for decades. The descendants of European invaders and in some cases murderers are thin skinned and sensitive to any perceived slights upon their family name or character. Saying sorry is a bridge too far for many of these folk. Modern Australia Must Embrace Truth Telling To Know Itself Modern Australia wants its children and citizens to refer to a particular interpretation of our history. It does not want the populace to consider the brutal realities of its colonial past. Indeed, for much of the brief history of white Australia the thinking was that Aborigines would die out and be assimilated into the larger pool of a national identity. Unfortunately for the social planners and their political masters this has not happened. Stubbornly, First Nations identities have stuck around despite the institutional racism over centuries. Indeed, generations of Indigenous Australians are taking great heart in their particular identities. Now, they want Constitutional recognition and a voice to parliament advising on those issues directly affecting them. The No Vote campaign is running messages of assimilation with bumper stickers saying, “One Voice, One Mob, One Nation.” This is a denial of Aboriginal culture and a call for Australian homogeneity. This is a campaign based on ignorance from a white population which has been cosseted and protected from the truth. If anything solid has come out of this referendum, whatever the result, it has been a refocusing on First Nations people in Australia. Perhaps, learning about what really occurred during the invasion and colonisation of this land. Maybe, deepening the understanding of the situation now and then. Honest relationships are never built on brushing over the past. Truth telling and treaty are coming.

Returning to the theme of this article, the important shit they didn’t teach me at school, a society is controlled by what they know and don’t know. This is why education is so important and why we had the history wars back in the 1990’s. The denial of the dark past is just as important as the abuse and injustice that goes on today. It forms of a framework for current reality. “If you don’t know, vote No.” This sums it up because, most of us don’t know and that has been by design. Yes, I hate to say that it is a conspiracy, because there are so many misguided conspiracists out there in the biosphere, but the manipulation of history is always so. Those in power make every effort to control the version of history promulgated within a nation for very good reasons. Culture is moulded out of those voices emerging from history, which are enhanced and amplified according to the wishes of those in power today. The ANZAC myth is the loudest one playing in modern Australia. This heroic story of gallant defeat has become the foundational myth defining our character. White Australia marching to the rescue of the mother country a long way from home. ANZAC day, since John Howard’s time has been amped up unceasingly to become a state religious festival. The nation unifies around this narrative of courage under fire. Murdering Aborigines fades into an uncertain misty past in comparison to the fine upstanding state sanctioned memories of the ANZACS.

Vote Yes in the referendum on 14th October 2023 for a better, braver future for Australia. Compassion makes for bigger hearts and better human beings. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom. ©WordsForWeb Read the full article

#AborigianlAustralia #Australia #colonialism #DavidMarr #education #FirstNations #genocide #history #IndigenousAustralians #massacres #moralfailure #nativepolice #politics #Voicereferendum

[kringelorde]

I wish people talked more about what bipolar will do to you cognitively. yeah, ofc, there’s the obvious impairment to overall function bc you’re oscillating between being off the shits, lethargic and unable to do anything, and feeling you like you need to crawl out of your own body at random intervals that you absolutely cannot plan around. on top of that, though? there’s the neurodegenerative aspect.

even with unipolar major depression, there’s this phenomenon where being severely depressed can mimic mild/early forms of dementia. the memory lapses, the fogginess, the inability to really understand what’s going on around you, not being able to process information. it’s reversible... but the degree depends on how severe it was and how quickly you got on top of it.

there’s a similar kind of cognitive fall off with schizophrenia after the disorder manifests but there’s also a plateau, more or less, bc it isn’t a cycling or episodic disorder (although, obviously, there’ll be ebbs and flows in terms of how intense the symptoms are; there just isn’t the on-off, all or nothing, seesawing pattern). schizophrenics also often exhibit issues with cognitive development/function before first onset.

with bipolar? more or less, you start off with whatever cognitive development/function would be deemed normal for you otherwise. nothing aberrant. and then you get hit with the first episode and oops, there it goes.

there have been observations that suggest that cognitive functioning becomes worse and worse with each episode. that’s manic/hypomanic/mixed and depressed, any time you are not considered euthymic. it’s also been suggested that it may even accelerate over time. a lot of this has been shown in gray matter and brain density.

it pisses me off that there’s little to no research into this. hell, it’s been known about for longer, I think, with schizophrenia and I don’t think there’s too much being done there either. I had two years of extremely severe, rapid cycling, SSRI-agitated bipolar ii episodes at the very least and may have just had two years of low grade depressive episodes (depending on if I continue showing more stable patterns of functioning off zoloft that I did while on it for 6 years).

it is so frustrating to feel myself having difficulties with shit that legitimately wasn’t even a problem until this stupid piece of shit disorder showed up. I feel like I am far more incapable of things like synthesizing research, processing new information quickly, cohesive analysis, right now than I was when I came into college. obviously, not being medicated for ADHD consistently for the last year is also a component of it but I’m not terribly optimistic about this being some sudden 180 when I’m on my brutally high dose of adderall (bc it doesn’t really work for me teehee <3 but I can’t afford to try newer gen meds that don’t have generics <33) consistently day after day.

guh.

and hey, if you didn’t know that bipolar may very well cause neurodegeneration and were either waffling on getting checked for it or actually taking meds, now you know.

#spext: menthol illness #I hit my brain with a rock I hit my brain with a rock I hitta my brain with a bigga rock I hit my brain with a ROCK tschhhh

[independentartistbuzz]

Welcome to the 21st! Debut Stunning New Release “Dyatlov Pass”

Dyatlov Pass is an 8 - song historical concept album by Welcome to the 21st! about the mysterious fate of eight college - age students and their guide who died while on a winter trek in the USSR's Ural Mountains in February 1959. The students were found over time after they disappeared, with varying injuries, and no one knows exactly what happened. It remains an open inquiry to this day. The theories as to what happened include an avalanche, a military test gone awry, and some even believe a malevolent supernatural intervention. 

Find the album via:

Spotify:  

https://open.spotify.com/track/1FDd01jGcNDRapbPGmmwKp?si=bdd6b8da5a92492b

Bandcamp:  https://welcometothe21stband.bandcamp.com/track/warning-light

The album follows the 20 - something nature travelers from meeting up before they left ( Hang on to Yourself - Song 1 ), to the early part of their voyage through a peaceful winter environment ( Sing to the Moon - Song 4 ), with hints of warnings along the way ( Warning Signs - Song 3 ). The middle of the album tracks the group’s eventual demise near a frozen mountain pass ( Dyaltov Pass - Song 5 and Lost but Found - Song 6 ), to the search and recovery teams that looked for them ( Boots in the Rain - Song 7 ) and who have sought for years to determine what actually happened ( Misleading Clues - Song 8 ). Band Info: The album was written and conceived of by Bob Blumenfeld (Guitars, from Texas, US) and Touanda (Vocals, from Manchester, UK), who met online through AirGigs. The rest of the instrumentation was mainly performed by, and mixed and produced by , John Dufilho a multi - instrumentalist, drummer, and long - time established indie music producer from Dallas, Texas. Bob’s other bands include The Disappearing Act and Lowdog. John is best known for his work with his band Deathray Davies.

Robert Blumenfeld of the band shares:"A few years ago, my good friend and former bandmate, Mark Mendel, gave me a nonfiction book about the Incident at Dyatlov Pass, a Soviet-era Russia unsolved mystery.  If you haven’t heard of this, which most Americans haven’t, in February 1959, a group of eight students and their guide went missing on a winter trek through the Ural mountains. Search and rescue teams later found their empty tent pitched on a mountain side, sliced open, and a few frozen bodies, without shoes, laying some distance away.   It took several months to find all the bodies and it has taken over 60 years to piece together what might have gone wrong.   No one knows exactly what happened, and the forensic evidence discovered afterwards, for a lack of a better description, is really weird and creepy.  

I originally thought I might write a book or play about the Dyatlov mystery, but as much as I think one day I’ll write about history, it turns out I am better at songwriting than being an author.   In 2018, I was commuting back and forth between El Paso, where I worked, and the Dallas area, where I had moved with my wife.   I had more time to write songs that year, my brother Dan had just built a baritone guitar for me, and that guitar inspired a slew of new songs.   One of those songs just came to me, fairly fully formed for me, with lyrics – and the song “Dyatlov Pass” was born.

The idea for a “concept album” came a bit later, during Covid.  I wanted to keep developing new material during the early days of the “lockdown”  and reached out to Touanda, who I met on an online song-writing platform, about helping me write the song “Lost But Found” about the students who never made it back from their trek back in 1959.    I sent Touanda the rough mix of the song and the idea, and she did her own research on the subject and turned a draft of the song right around in a day or two, giving us the song Lost But Found.    Two songs down, and the idea of a historical concept album was on its way.  

So, the inspiration for the album is- besides me being a history buff - the true story of the Mystery of Dyatlov Pass.   The album is arranged as a chronology of the ill-fated trip, starting with the group of 20s-something boys and girls meeting up, eating and drinking around a campfire before they left (Hang on to Yourself).   The album midpoint is the last night of the trip for the trekkers, with them being lost but found afterwards.   The last two songs take the point of view of the search and recovery teams that spent months to find all the bodies and years trying to figure out what happened to them.

The third member of the band that put this album together is John Dufilho, a multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer in Dallas.  John took the rough mixes Touanda and I were working on and turned them into full arrangements, giving us the opportunity to complete our Dyatlov Pass project."

[angelart67]

This is a subject, that just has my brain on fire. First of all, if it hadn't been for them creating the stupid virus, in the first place, I believe I may not have lost my husband last year. Yes I do still consider him to be murdered, if you follow it through, he could have easily gotten through his illness, the same as he had many many times in the past, except for this last time, COVID-19 stole any chances, of his immune system, to be able to handle the other things he was going through medically.

I promised Danny, before I lost him, I will never again ever take any vaccine offered to me by the United States of America. I don't care if it's a flu shot I don't care if it's a pneumonia shot I don't care if it's a covid shot, they can shoot it all into their own ass. I have a medical degree, I got top grades in college. I know what I am talking about when I say it is impossible to safely pass any vaccine without seven to 14 years of research to see what it does over a complete time in a person's life, because things don't always happen immediately after a vaccine and they know that. So right now it hasn't even been the minimum time of 7 years since they came out with the stupid vaccine. People all over the world have died and have horrible side effects from this vaccine even several different companies versions of the vaccine, and still for some reason we have people just flocking to the drug stores to get shot. I have but one explanation...

COMPLETE STUPIDITY !!!

I hate to think about anybody else out there going through what I have gone through, but I'm telling you now if you lost your spouse that you'd been with for a couple of decades, due directly to the stupid virus they deliberately created, I believe YOU TOO would feel very different as well... I no longer trust the medical field AT ALL & being in poor health myself, I can assure you that is a VERY SCARY thought.

Doctors & Hospitals are ALSO taking it upon themselves to take ANY OPPORTUNITY AVAILABLE to get this vaccine into people, like when you may be in the hospital for some completely other treatment or surgery, when a person is unable to say yes or no to it, like it's ROUTINE, & YES, I DO KNOW someone this happened to, they were even told about it after they'd received the vaccine, while under anesthetic.

Ohhhh it was a mistake??? We thought you signed permission for it? Or did someone COERCE a signature, on some form, while the patient I know, was half in and half out of it? And this person was on their own, with only an approved ride to take them home after their procedure, so therefore nobody to speak for them on their behalf. And now this beautiful lady has to live with these horrible side effects that she is having, from having been given this vaccine that she did not approve. Yes this is very troublesome to me, I can only suggest to others who feel the same way I do, to double your efforts to protect yourself if you are in this type of situation. Go sign a paper now in front of a notary and keep it with your important papers. Stating that you wish to never receive this vaccine under any circumstances. Then you will have something in your possession to show that you never intended to take it in case this happens to you. I wish everybody who has read this the best of protection from Father God, God is the only person I trust anymore, with what's best for my human body. And yes I find that really sad since I chose a medical profession years ago... 🙏💜😇

[prettyheung]

this is love | k.ys

⇾ pairing : kang yeosang x reader

⇾ summary : a guardian angel, or a devil in disguise? silly you, of course the devil wouldn’t appear to you with his horns and a little trident screaming to you that he is the epitome of all evil. no, he made himself known to you as your lovely, soft-spoken classmate who wanted nothing but the best for you.

⇾ wc : 2.5k

⇾ genre/warnings : college!au, yandere!au, stalking, blood, knife, killing(gory-ish description?), manipulation, gaslighting

“I’m getting so sick of this!” You huffed, plopping next to him as you shook your drenched notes indignantly. “I’m gonna find that bastard who’s been doing this. This is due in 3 hours. I’m going to fail the class.”

Yeosang pursed his lips, averting his gaze from the stack of paper to your flushed face. “How many times this month?”

“Five, and it’s just the second week,” Groaning, you tossed it to the side, shutting your eyes in hopes that you were hallucinating. “I swear when I find out who has been doing this, I’ll- I’ll kill him myself.”

He looked at you disapprovingly, setting his phone aside. “What about your assignment then? Isn’t that going to be graded?”

You nodded, dejected. There was no way you can finish the paper in a few hours. You took 2 days to complete everything, now the stack of your hard work sat miserably at the foot of the student lounge’s sofa, drowning in a nasty mixture of coffee and glue.

It was someone with an agenda against you, seeing that they go out of their way to do all this. Obviously, it was no simple accident, everything was on purpose. It had started several months ago, around the time you enrolled on college. You couldn’t think of anyone who would hate you that much, it was the first year for your degree and you doubt you had angered anyone this much already.

They would rip your class notes, dirty your assignments and remove handed-in work from the lecturers’ desk. No matter what you did to counter, nothing helped. You tried to write notes on your laptop instead and kept a careful guard over it, only to have it stolen when you left it in your car. It was returned promptly, but all your school documents are deleted. You attempted to send in your work personally to the lecturers, only to have them email you late at night that your reports were missing from their stack of student work. Even reporting it to the faculty didn’t help. There were very few security cameras around the campus, considering it was rather small. And none of them had caught anyone in the act of terrorizing you.

It wasn’t a surprise that you were beginning to lose sleep and appetite over all the incidents. Saying that you were losing your mind is an understatement.

As if it wasn’t frustrating enough, there was someone stealing things from your locker too. Small stuff like lip balm, earrings, perfume. All gone.

You narrowed it down to your own absent-mindedness, maybe you had misplaced them but when things like your undergarments and other personal items (unwashed pillowcases had you so perplexed) started to vanish from your dorm room, there was only one plausible explanation.

There was somebody stalking you, and they aren’t very fond of you.

You didn’t tell anyone about the conclusion you reached. It sounded fine in your head, but when you spoke it aloud, it was silly.

“You want me to help? I handed mine in already, but you can use my research papers.” Yeosang offered, raising his eyebrows in question.

“Really?” You didn’t want to sound too hopeful, you had been relying too much on him recently. From asking him to pick you up to class because someone punctured your tyres to him lending you his notes and answers to worksheets, you couldn’t thank him enough. At least in this miserable hellhole of college with demons hellbent on making these the worst years of your life, there was one saving grace in the form of your classmate.

“You should do something about…this,” Yeosang spoke suddenly. You looked up from your desk, dazed, your mind still on about the assignment.

“That… person. The one who’s been wrecking your stuff lately,” There was a slight frown on his face, “You should do something about him.”

“I know, I don’t want to bother you further too,” You sighed. “I can’t think of anything else. I’ve reported it, changed the locks to my room so many times, I even changed my timetable! That bastard knows too much.”

Yeosang was silent, eyes narrowed as he continued typing on his phone. He stole a few glances at you; your face was gaunt and pale, lips chapped from worried chews and hair tangled in knots because you simply were too tired and overwhelmed to look after yourself. Having destroyed lecture notes meant you have to study them again—which also means that you have double the work to catch up on with missing work.

“You’re not bothering me. I like helping you.” He muttered.

You stared at him again, but he didn’t want to meet your eyes. “I-Thank you. Seriously, it would’ve been worse without you.” You admitted softly.

You resumed writing your report, unaware of the hopeful glint in his gaze as he sneaked several longing looks at you.

+

The soft knock on your door in the early morning was not what you were expecting to wake up to. Your hazy eyes caught the big red digits on the wall—0316. Sluggish, you made your way out of your bed, glancing at your roommate to see if she had awoken from the knocks.

Before you unlocked your door, you stopped dead in your tracks.

What if it was the person who had been doing all this to you? They know where you stay right?

Should you even answer it at this time?

You shuddered, from the cold or from the realisation that this could be the moment of revelation, you weren’t sure yourself.

The knocks continued, in that slow steady rhythm that involuntarily twisted your spine. You hesitantly twisted the knob, muttering a soft prayer under your breath, hoping to God that this—

It was Yeosang. You exhaled in relief.

“Hey.” He smiled, the moonlight from the corridor windows didn’t do his handsome features justice. They accentuated his cheekbones too much, round eyes dark with repressed excitement, lips stained red. Your spine contorted; a knee-jerk reaction that never happened before.

You blinked at him, truly taking in your friend’s appearance for the first time since meeting him. It wasn’t those romcom moments of falling in love, where the girl begins to see the boy in a different light, one where they have been friends and suddenly she notices how attractive he was. You wished it was though.

No, it was the fact that his white dress shirt was splattered with large spots of crimson, even his hands and nails had bits of skin on them. It was the fact that he was holding a bloody wrench, and it was the fact that he was oddly calm when any average person would be on the ground in hysterics.

“Hey,” He repeated, stepping closer to you. You tried to shut the door, but his foot wedged itself in the opening before it could fully close.

“Yeosang.” The lump in your throat wouldn’t go away. “Why are you here?”

You wished you never opened the door.

“I’ve got something to show you,” He flashed you one of his million-dollar smiles—the one that always made your knees soft, but now made your head spin with nausea instead. “Consider it a gift, a little treat for the things you’ve gone through.”

You turned to look at your roommate, still sleeping like a log. She is a light sleeper usually, why isn’t she waking up?

“Are you coming?” Yeosang asked, his foot pushing the door further open.

“Y-yeah, I just-,” You gave the door a heavy shove. “Let me change, I can’t possibly go out with these.”

Come on, come on. Shut the door and call the cops.

“There’s no need. You look perfectly fine.”

“Let me tell my roommate then, that I’m going somewhere. In case she wakes up and-,”

Yeosang scoffed. “There’s no need. She’s not even alive.”

The gasp escaped your mouth before you could stop yourself. You took another peek at her motionless body.

You squinted at her, desperately hoping to see the steady rise and fall of her chest, the defining sign that she was truly not dead like Yeosang had claimed.

She’s dead.

Your head whipped back to face him, fingers fluttering like leaves.

“Did you do this?” Your voice quivered, not as bold as you wanted it to be. “Kang Yeosang did you do this?”

He didn’t respond, his black boots shoving the brittle wooden door enough for you to lose your balance.

Yeosang trod in, comfortable as if he was in his very own room. You crawled backwards, not daring to meet his intense gaze.

“You’re coming?”

There wasn’t a choice, was there?

+

For the amount of time you had been friends, you never knew he lived alone. You assumed he roomed at the campus dorm, like every other broke college student. When you reached the rather expensive looking condominium well away from your college, your chest constricted in panic.

How much money could a student have, to be able to afford a place like that?

He was composed, the typical Yeosang you’re familiar with. The only thing that is remotely him at the minute. You wouldn’t say you were buddy-buddy with the blood-stained Yeosang.

There were so many thoughts running through your head at the moment; questions, assumptions. Questions, questions and questions. The ones that only he could provide an answer to but—

Not a word was exchanged throughout the ride to his place, and he didn’t once glance at you too.

You were beginning to wonder if this was all a very elaborated, messed-up fever dream.

“You’re okay?”

You caught a quick glimpse of the wrench on his lap and swiftly nodded.

“Let’s go then,” He gestured for you to unbuckle your seatbelt, cold fingers immediately wrapping themselves around your wrists once you were out of the car. “Can’t take too long.”

He mumbled the last bit and chuckled at his own comment. You swore it went something like ‘or he would bleed out.’, but you didn’t want to believe it. Everything that happened tonight felt like a drug-induced experience anyways.

“Why are you bringing me to your place?” Your guts churned sourly, frail legs forcing you to lean on his sturdier frame. The grinding sound from the elevator cables was amplified in the dead silence, broken by the shrill chime of the bell.

15th floor. Too high to jump out of any windows, huh.

“We’re here,” He announced, a casual grin playing on his lips. “You first.” Yeosang pressed into you, hands finding their way on the wall till they clicked the lights on.

If only you could admire the interior of the apartment, but the tied-up man in the middle of the living room was taking up the most of your attention. He wheezed in anguish when he saw you, frenzied with desperation as he writhed closer to you.

“Pl-please save me! Please save me! Please!” He cried, coughing to ease the snot and blood clogged in the windpipe.

You flinched instinctively, squeezing against Yeosang’s front. He snaked an arm around your shoulder, pulling you behind him as he kicked the other man in the chest.

“Dirty freak,” Yeosang spat, nails digging into that man’s scalp as he yanked his head up by the hair. “Don’t you owe someone an apology?”

You shuffled closer, eyebrows furrowed. “What apology?” You asked carefully, eyes darting from Yeosang’s back to the man’s terrified face.

Yeosang shook his head, scoffing in disbelief.

“This guy right here,” He dragged the wrench gently up his cheek, “This guy right here is that bastard you want to kill.” The man shivered, pleading gaze triggering the goosebumps to rise on your skin.

Your eyes widened. “Kill? M-me? The one I want to kill?”

He raised his eyebrows, lips pursed into a pout as he nodded. “That was what you said this morning. You said if you ever caught that bastard who was tormenting you through these months, you’d kill him yourself.”

You laughed in disbelief, confused and horrified as you put two by two together.

Yeosang locked up a typical school bully, so you could kill him? An offhand comment that nobody would take seriously, you thought people joke around like that.

“No,” You screwed your eyes shut, racking your brain for a simple way to explain to your dear friend that, no, you do not want to murder the person who made your semester shit. Sure, you were a little mad but not to this extent. Your heart hammered painfully in your chest, fear and confusion were never a good mix.

“Yeosang, it was a joke. I don’t want to kill him.”

The man began thanking you, kneeling and bowing in hysterics.

Yeosang didn’t look too pleased. “What do you mean?”

You shrugged shakily, “Look, we can just report him to the school. That thing I said in the morning, I didn’t- I didn’t mean it like that.”

“All this for nothing then?” Yeosang jeered at you, expression bitter and cold. “Months and months of-,” He huffed humourlessly, dry and mean as he delivered another ill-sounding kick to the man’s ribs.

You watched powerlessly as Yeosang continued kicking the man, you could stop him but you didn’t want to. As much as you hated to admit it, you were afraid. So, so scared of the man you thought you knew, but clearly didn’t.

And maybe your impression of your friend could be salvaged if you had not noticed your pillowcase, the one that went missing from your room a month ago. It was undeniably yours, you could recognise the knitted pattern anywhere.

What was it doing in Yeosang’s house?

And maybe you should shut your mouth before you say anything damaging again, but—

“Yeosang.”

He stopped, panting and hopeful as he turned towards you. “You changed your mind?”

“N-no. Yeosang-,” You tried again. “What is my pillowcase doing on your couch?”

He stopped short, now fully facing you.

“And I thought I was careful enough,” He gave one last menacing kick to the curled up body, smug as he shifted closer to you.

“Why is it on your couch?” Tears threatened to spill and you swore you would rather drink battery acid than cry in front of him again. “Tell me. Why is it there?”

 “Yeah, alright,” Yeosang sighed in defeat. “I was the one who paid him to do all this.”

You blinked. “What?”

“You never wanted me to help you in anything. How else am I supposed to get closer to you? I paid this bastard,” Yeosang nodded at the unmoving man, “I paid him to do all that to you, so I can help you instead. Like right now, I’m helping you kill him.”

“What?” You repeated, dizzy with shock. “You did this to me?”

He frowned. “No, not me. He did this to you.”

“I trusted you.” You hissed, shoving him away. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Don’t cuss at me.”

“Fuck off, you’re the bastard here! What the fuck is wrong with you?” You backed towards the door. “You should be locked up.”

“If you’re not doing it, then I’ll do it for you.”

He swung the wrench down heavy on the man’s skull, his last words being a pain-stricken shriek.

You couldn’t even process, you had no time to even say anything.

Blood sprayed across his face, Yeosang never looked more like a stranger.

“Of course, you should do it yourself next time. But no worries, you’re never a bother. I like helping you.”

#yandere ateez #yandere ateez x reader #yandere kpop #yandere yeosang #yandere yeosang x reader #yeosang x reader #tw yandere #tw stalking #tw killing #tw murder #yandere #yandere x reader

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I love your long posts which make for great reading and I wish you could do more because you’ve got such a range of astonishing interests. I’m hoping because you’ve served in the military you would have studied military thinkers. Do you think the Art of War by Sun Tzu is way overrated by everyone? I studied him a bit for my masters but I still couldn’t get my head around him. Interested to know your thoughts. Thanks!

“To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear." - Sun Tzu's Art of War, Chapter IV - Tactical Disposition, Clause 10.

Sounds cool, doesn’t it?

But what the hell does this quote really mean? Do you know what it means? Can anyone else tell me?

Look, I enjoy a good Sun Tzu quote as the next person. Only recently I was exchanging thoughts with a fellow blogger whose studying Thucydides, Clausewitz, and Kissinger for an advanced course at the US Naval War College. Even he prefers Sun Tzu over Clausewitz. I can see why too. If you can make sense of chapter one of Clausewitz’s tome On War you deserve a Nobel Prize.

Unlike my very learned fellow blogger, there are lot of folk who don’t know Sun Tzu at all. They can quote him, but almost certainly out of context. As someone who partly grew up in the Far East and even learned Chinese and Japanese (a pitiful but functional degree of fluency) I’m embarrassed (not hard since I’m English) when I hear other Western compatriots romanticise and elevate Eastern icons to mythic status that the Chinese themselves have never done.

I am even more bemused than embarrassed after having hung up my military uniform for ‘civvy’ corporate clothing at how badly abused Sun Tzu’s book is in the corporate world. In my workplace I grit my teeth at corporate high flyers who mistake a balance sheet for a real battlefield by quoting Sun Tzu out of their arse, and then as self-styled ‘corporate warriors’ work themselves up in a lather of testosterone induced self-importance to crush their corporate enemies into the dust.

This is why the The Art of War by Sun Tzu has invited a jaundiced eye roll. And rightly so. I can see why many view Sun Tzu as over-rated because many easily impressed people go all woo woo over anything ancient and Eastern.

It’s become a familiar trope to say the art of ‘strategy’ as a science began 2,500 years ago with the writing of The Art of War. I would dispute this. Not that the writing of Art of War was the earliest written but whether I would call it a manual of strategy per se - more on this below in my answer.  However you rate or overrate the Art of War it’s important to have perspective and remember this book is written in 512 BC. Other than the bible and some religious books, there are not many books that can survived thousands of years and still remains a steady bestseller and enjoys a wide influence in military academies and army staff colleges today and even as far into board rooms.

The question behind your question is just as interesting to me: why did Sun Tzu and his Art of War gain such traction in the West?

Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) wrote the original text of The Art of War shortly before 510 BC. During most of the past two thousand years, the common people in China were forbidden to read Sun Tzu's text. However, the text was preserved by China's nobility for over 2,500 years. The Chinese nobility preserved the text of The Art of War, known in Chinese as Bing-fa, even despite the famous book-burning by the first Emperor of Chi around 200 BC. The text was treasured and passed down by the Empire’s various rulers. Unfortunately, it was preserved in a variety of forms. A "complete" Chinese language version of the text wasn't available until the 1970s. Before that, there were a number of conflicting, fragmentary versions in different parts of China, passed down through 125 generations of duplication.

Indeed at the beginning of the twentieth century, there were two main textual traditions in circulation, known as the (Complete Specialist Focus) and (Military Bible) versions. There were also perhaps a dozen minor versions and both derived and unrelated works also entitled Bing-fa. Of course, every group considered (and still considers) its version the only accurate one.

When I last visited China before the Covid pandemic for work reason, I had time off to go to a couple of museums that housed the fruits of a number of archeological digs uncovering the tombs of the ancient rulers of China in which sections of Sun Tzu’s works were found. These finds have verified the historical existence of the text and the historical accuracy of various sections. I understand new finds are still being made.

The first complete, consistent Chinese version was created in Taipei in the 1970s. It was titled The Complete Version of Sun Tzu’s Art of War." It was created by the National Defence Research Investigation Office, which was a branch of Taiwan's defence department. This version compared the main textual traditions to each other and to archeological finds and compiled the most complete version possible.

This work was completed in Taiwan rather than mainland China for a number of reasons. Mainland China was still in the throws of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, which actively suppressed the study of traditional works such as Sun Tzu. The mainland had also moved to a reformed character set, while Taiwan still used the traditional character set in which the text was written. Only today is the study of Sun Tzu in mainland China growing, interestingly enough, through the translation of Sun Tzu into contemporary Mandarin. Based on the archeological sources we have today, we are reasonably certain of the historical accuracy of this compiled version that is the basis of what most people use today.

Surprisingly, the Art of War only came to light in the West around the 18th Century.  

Historians believe it was first formally introduced in Europe in 1772 by the French Jesuit Joseph-Marie Amiot. It was translated at the time by the title “The thirteen articles of Sun-Tse”. Joseph-Marie Amiot (1718-1793) was not just a Jesuit priest but also an astronomer and French historian, as well as fervent missionary in China. He was one of the last survivors of the Jesuit Mission in China (he died in Beijing).

Many of the historical problems with understanding Sun Tzu's work can be trace back to its first Western translation in French. A Jesuit missionary, Father Amiot, first brought The Art of War to the West, translating it into French in 1782. Unfortunately, this translation started the tradition of mistranslating Sun Tzu's work, starting with the title, The Art of War (Art de la guerre).

This title, copied the title of a popular work by Machiavelli (a criminally underrated writer on military strategy), but it didn't reflect Sun Tzu's Bing-fa, which would be better translated as "competitive methods."

We cannot say what effect being translated by a Jesuit priest had upon the text. It was unavoidable that the work's translation reflected the military prejudices of the time era when war was both popular and Christian. It was also unavoidable that most future translations would reflect some of the first translation's prejudices. However, war was on the verge of becoming much less Christian in the West since this time was the era of the French Revolution (1789).

The work might well of slipped into obscurity after its initial publication, but it was discovered by a minor French military officer. After studying it, this officer rose to the head of the revolutionary French army in a surprising series of victories. The legend is that Napoleon used the work as the key to his victories in conquering all of Europe. It is said that he carried the little work with him everywhere but kept its contents secret (which would be very much in keeping with Sun Tzu's theories).

However, Napoleon must have started believing his own reviews instead of sticking with his study of Sun Tzu. His defeat at Waterloo was clearly a case of fighting on a battleground that the enemy, Wellington, knew best. Wellington’s trick at Waterloo was hiding his forces by having them lie down in the slight hollows of this hilly land. This is exactly the type of tactic Sun Tzu warns against in his discussion of terrain tactics.

After Napolean, Sun Tzu's theories made their way into western military philosophy. Many of his ideas are reflected in the ideas of work of Carl von Clausewitz. who defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war."

The first English translation of The Art of War is less than a hundred years old. Captain E. F. Calthrop published the first English translation in 1905. Lionel Giles, an assistant curator at the British Museum and a well-known sinologist and translator, attacked this early translation, and he published his own version in 1910. It soon began to be read alongside Clausewitz’s 8 volumes of turgid German military prose.

It wasn’t long before military thinkers were ditching Clausewitz for Sun Tzu because no one could get past Chapter One of Clausewitz’s On War. The “Clausewitz is dead, long live Sun Tzu” school was first championed by the influential British military theorist B.H. Liddell Hart in the 1920s.  Basil Henry Liddell Hart (1895-1970) was a captain in the British Army. He was a very influential military theorist and historian, and author of several books such as The Future of War (1925) and Strategy (1954). Having witnessed first-hand the mechanised onslaught of the Great War, Liddell Hart sought a philosophy of warfare based in the prudent use of technology, psychology and deception - and the avoidance of the 'total war' catastrophes of preceding decades.

The main idea of Liddell Hart is to bring the set of principles of warfare in a so-called ‘indirect approach’ to the enemy. His advocacy in his scholarly work of an ‘indirect strategy’ over direct, frontal operations, was a reaction to the high casualties of the Western Front in the First World War. But his ideas were not simply about physically outmanoeuvring an opponent. Instead he pushed for a psychological scheme: to strike from unexpected directions, to generate strategic dissonance, and to induce paralysis. Hart’s well-known thoughts are “Only short-sighted soldiers underestimate the importance of psychological factors in time of war”, “Originality is the most important from all military virtues”, and “The principles of war could shortly be condensed in a single word: concentration”. 

Liddell Hart believed that distilling historical insights of strategy and operations would offer the chance to avoid the costly disasters of modern war and ensure a more cost-effective route to success. He imagined technological solutions in the form of air power and mechanised land forces outflanking and shocking an enemy at the tactical level. This would be complemented by taking indirect strategic ‘ways’. Like his contemporary J.F.C. Fuller, Liddell Hart considered concentrations of air and armoured forces driving deep into enemy territory to destroy their ‘nervous system’. The psychological aspects of this were central, since acquiring an advantage demanded moves that were unexpected, with precise attacks at the most vulnerable points. As the most influential military writer of the modern age, revered and reviled by three generations of strategists, armchair and armipotent, his controversial theories of armed attack laid the foundation of the famed German Blitzkrieg.

Hart’s championing of Sun Tzu’s work as articulated through his own works got a new lease of life as the world gingerly settled into the ice bath of the Cold War. The rise of Communist China, against all the odds having defeated the well disciplined nationalist armies of Chian kai-Shek, was a wake up call for the West. There was a general befuddlement among western military analysts to explain the secret of Maoist success. There was an intellectual inquest in the 1950s and 1960s for some way to explain (and, it was hoped, learn to counter) Maoist military doctrine. Sun Tzu was seen as one of the historical and cultural sources of some particularly Chinese or Asian way of war, and his work made its way into Western discussions of counterinsurgency and asymmetric warfare.

Into the breach - and with fortuitous timing - appeared a new translation of The Art of War that was to become the defining translation right down to our day. Liddel Hart provided the foreword to Samuel Griffth’s 1963 translated copy of the Art of War. It was to quickly become a key text in US war colleges and this version is still to this day favoured by most of these institutions. We also studied Griffith’s translation at Sandhurst alongside Liddell Hart’s ideas.

There is no question that Griffith’s translation has become the standard go to translation to this day in military circles - that is until James Clavell’s more populist and looser translation came along in the 1980s. One can see why. Griffith’s translation provided a number of historical Chinese commentaries on the text. It should also be noted that Griffith’s strengths was his immense experience in the military and knowledge of military history as a brigadier general in the U.S. Marine Corps.

However, this was also his version's greatest flaw. Like many other critics I have the impression that Griffith did not really believe or understand all of Sun Tzu. Indeed he would often explain away Sun Tzu's direct statements without making it clear that this was his commentary and not what Sun Tzu wrote. The other main criticism and this one is stylistic and therefore just my opinion, Griffith was also not much of a writer. By our standards today, much of Griffith’s language can seem awkward and dated.

Looking back it feels ironic of the US military were wrapping their heads around Sun Tzu as way to get inside the Chinese communist mind (of Mao the military strategist especially). Unknown to them Mao had desperately tried everything to get hold of a copy of the Art of War from the Chinese Nationalists. Cambridge historian and doyenne of intelligence history, Christopher Andrew in his book The Secret World: A History of Intelligence, wrote that the theory that Sun Tzu’s The Art of War was critical to mastering contemporary warfare is propagated through the use of a tantalising anecdote: “During the civil war between Communists and the Kuomintang regime [Mao Zedong] sent aides into enemy territory to find a copy of it.” The ancient text, ostensibly, was of such vital importance that Mao was willing to risk men’s lives to obtain it, while Chiang Kai-shek vowed to protect it all costs. It’s a questionable anecdote at best as there are no historical evidence of it.

We can say that the notion that Sun Tzu’s slim treatise is considered both potent and slightly dangerous - providing the master key to unlocking victory in war through the ages - is a compelling myth that refuses to die. Mao most likely never ordered a clandestine operation to pilfer the text, nor did Chiang Kai-shek give any thought to shielding its contents from prying eyes. Both men certainly read it long before the start of their civil war, both most likely had ready access to it during the conflict, and neither man won or lost based on adherence or divergence from its teachings. But undoubtedly it set the hearts of Western military theorists aflutter in trying to unlock the secrets of Eastern military thought.

Sun Tzu and his ideas in a reincarnated form took hold of the wider public imagination in the 1980s. The 1980s was synonymous with Japan. With the perceived rise of Japan as a global economic power and the changes in post-Mao China, there was a Western (meaning American) search for more explanations. What was the secret of Asia’s rise? How were Japan and China ‘doing’ this?

In Western business circles it was for a time trendy to read it because of the perception that it was part of what made Japanese businesses so successful during the 70s and 80s. Management gurus and other corporate consultants certainly latched on to it and touted it as a way for Western businesses to re-orient their entire management and business philosophy. I don’t know if that ever actually was the case in Japan - my father who worked in both China and Japan in the corporate world at a very senior level said it wasn’t - but what is true is that in the West as the Japanese economy languished into the lost decade of the 90s so too did interest in Japanese business practices, and thus Sun Tzu.

The idea that The Art of War was a kind of how-to guide to ‘strategy’  was made especially popular by Hollywood in the 1980s. Oliver Stone’s iconic film ‘Wall Street’ seemed to typify the ‘greed is good’ New York capitalist scene of the 80s and 90s. Hollywood mirror imaged the rise of the corporate raiders and junk bond kings like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. Hollywood sent thousands of American businessmen off to read Sun Tzu to look for ‘leadership secrets’. This is part of a general Western fascination with ‘timeless Asian wisdom’, the American idea that ‘the mysterious East’ is possessed of secret knowledge. American and European businessmen were enamoured of the idea that “a battle is won or lost before it ever begins”, a saying that reinforced traditional American business attitudes about a winning mentality and a ‘can-do’ spirit being two keys to success.

Because Japan and China were trendy in the 1980s and 1990s it also influenced Western popular culture, not just fashion (think Kenzo) but also comic books (manga) and anime. In this Eastern friendly climate it led a number of popular fiction authors to release their ‘own’ versions of the work to capitalise on its newfound popularity. These versions were more about the pop culture of the era than Sun Tzu. Unfortunately, though popular, none of these versions took advantage of the work completed in Taiwan creating a definitive version of Sun Tzu's text by this time. These versions were based either on old English translations (the Calthorp and Giles versions) or incomplete Chinese sources. However, all of these versions remain popular today, despite their questionable sources and poor quality of translation.

In 1983, James Clavell updated The Art of War translation of Lionel Giles and published it in a very popular version. This started a very common practice in English translation: creating a ‘new’ version from other English translations instead of going back to the original source. Authors today continue to follow this practice, which only perpetuates and exaggerates the problems with early translations.

Thomas Cleary, another well-known author, did his own The Art of War translation with historical commentary in 1988. Again, his name recognition did much to increase awareness of Sun Tzu, even if his work did nothing to improve the general quality of the translation.

Looking back the whole Sun Tzu as a business model fetish in the 1980-90s was really pretty silly, rather like 80s shoulder pads. Of course, there are some similarities in leadership regardless of profession, but the basic goals and working environments of war and of business are so wildly different that applying Sun Tzu to business is superficial at best.

So to me the problem is not that Sun Tzu is ‘overrated’ per se, the problem is that every half baked author out there try to apply its principles to every problems that mankind have. The Art of War, as the title suggest, is not The Art of Managing your Business, the Art of Winning in Competition against your classmates, The Art of picking up Women, The Art of Living Life to the fullest. It is, and only is, The Art of War. It is ‘overrated’ only if you expect it to answer every problems in your life.

The Art of War is not the word of God. It is a war manual advocating common sense with pithy aphorisms - and a very good one.

It’s not that I think the Art of War is over-rated it’s that the more common problem is that many people vastly under-rate Sun Tzu. By misreading Sun Tzu thoughts and ideas, I believe many are in effect under-rating the problems which Sun Tzu is addressing, namely war, or the continuum of conflict resolution where divergence in interests of multiple parties extends to the possible use of lethal force on a massive scale. A lot of people trivialise this problem with idiocies like “what if someone threw a war and nobody came” (clue, they would win, then hunt down and enslave or kill everyone too foolish to contest the issue, as has happened countless times in human history) or “ban war” (said ban apparently enforced by throwing flowers at soldiers).

Understanding that war is a very real and intractable problem is necessary to fully appreciate the genius of Sun Tzu’s work, especially where it avoids fixed and easily definable tactics specific to the Warring States period and instead illustrates timeless concepts of out-thinking the enemy at every level of conflict. That the text is still mostly readily applicable or at least reasonably insightful after thousands of years is a testament to the inability of humans to push warfare beyond the fundamental aspects of conflicting interests and continuum of forcible resolution Sun Tzu addresses.

Still, the particular translation matters far less than having an appreciation that, in war, you have an active opponent who is trying to out-think and counter any moves you make, and having an appreciation of non-dualistic philosophical reasoning more characteristic of Chinese classics generally. The classic symbol of Yin-Yang (and a number of derivative versions) illustrates apparent dualism as being a part of a deeper structural unity which does not permit a fixed division into separate parts.

Hence the difficulty of applying the principles of the Art of War to artificial ideas of “winning/losing” (or war/peace, right/wrong, us/them) as categorical absolutes rather than negotiated possibilities in a continuum of desirability/costs. And it is very difficult, no one should sugar coat that. Humans sort and construct their perceptions of reality by appeal to such gross simplifications. Binary logic is an immensely powerful tool in many areas because it leverages the ability to simplify complexity and then build valid inferences based on fixed premises. But at some point you have to go beyond that to have a more fluid response to reality as it is. Which Sun Tzu does for the reality of war.

I would recommend anyone to read it. At the end of the day it’s a book of highly general aphorisms that effectively synopsise the essential insights that apply to all kinds of human conflicts. Turning an enemy's flank has the exact same effect in 2500 B.C. and in 2000 C.E. and it has the same effect in the boardroom, or public market as it does on the battlefield. Deception and intelligence are still used in exactly the same way, whether conquering foreign lands, or stealing market share from a competitor. It's a book about common sense; but common sense must seem profound to those who have none.

Overall, I think Sun Tzu’s Art of War is a worthy read and not overrated because in our society of over educated achievers, common sense is in as short of supply as it has ever been; if this book can provide the meaningful framework for educating very bright people in down to earth common sense, that can only be a good thing.

The value of the book then is to drive home the fact that, in human conflict, there really is Nothing New Under the Sun (Tzu).

Pardon the pun and thanks for your question.

#question #ask #sun tzu #military history #book #philosophy #china #culture #the art of war #war #military #warfare #strategy #society #literature #america #britain #japan

[bestiesenpai]

Timorous - Itadori Yuji

I love hybrid au’s for the fact that I can google deep dive animal research for hours lol and speaking of research I went with a bunny, breed being a French lop with speckles. also this is a college au my guys, gender neutral reader! 6k words

A bit of a size difference thing here? Itadori is a tiger and tigers are bigger than rabbits...so I made him bigger and by that logic he’s bigger than you...tiger big rabbit small...I hope that makes sense lol and both reader and itadori are adorably skittish in this :) at least I think it’s adorable

To say Itadori had a problem would be both an understatement and an over exaggeration, depending on who you asked. Megumi said he was blowing things out of proportion while Nobara agreed that this dilemma he had was probably the biggest problem of their generation.

He had a crush on you, a rabbit hybrid. A soft, wonderful little thing with long ears and cute speckles all around your body. And it wouldn’t be such a problem if not for the painful fact of who Itadori was: a tiger hybrid. A predator nearly directly above you, much larger and stronger than you could ever hope to be.

He laid eyes on you during your first year of university, back in a prerequisite class for the major both of you had chosen. Seeing you walk in surrounded by other rabbits and sitting at the front of the class, he could barely take his eyes off you and when you said your name, he committed it to memory.

Everything about you was perfect, everything Itadori could ask for in a partner and more, but he knew there wasn’t any hope out there that he could approach you, at least not alone and especially not in your first year. So he waited patiently, almost too patiently, for the right opportunity to talk to you.

He waited so long it was now almost the end of your second year.

“Alright everyone, I’d like you to think about who you want to pair up with for this project and report back to me by the end of the week. Anyone that doesn’t have a partner by then will be paired up.” The professor announced at the end of class, closing up the textbook you’d been pouring over for an hour. This was the perfect opportunity for Itadori to get close to you.

Lingering in the classroom, Itadori packed up his things slowly and watched as the usual people you were with left class while you hung around to ask the professor a question. Holding his breath, Itadori walked out of the classroom at the same time as you.

You didn’t look in his direction at all, keeping your head down and ears framing your face. Itadori could smell the subtle unease rolling off you in waves and it disheartened him enough that he watched you walk away.

“H-hey (Y/N)!” Mustering up the courage to say your name, Itadori rushed over to your disappearing form. Looking over your shoulder, your eyes went wide seeing Itadori running toward you.

“What uh, what can I help you with?” This was the first time you were speaking to him and your voice was trembling. Your fingers were pulsing from how hard you were holding onto the strap of your bag, and you only briefly made eye contact with him.

“I was wondering…” Itadori’s tail twitched nervously and a lump began to form in his throat the longer he looked at you. You were just so cute it physically hurt him and all Itadori wanted to do was bundle you in his arms and nuzzle your fuzzy ears.

“I was wondering if you want to be partners for that project in class?” Seeing you flinch when he raised his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, Itadori winced and tucked both hands behind his back.

“Uhm…” Worrying your lip, you took a look up and down the halls. There was a decent amount of people milling about, giving you a little more peace of mind. Even though Itadori was an arms length away he still took up a large portion in your field of vision.

“Y-you don’t have to give me an answer right now!” Putting both hands up in surrender, Itadori gasped as you stumbled back, clearly frightened by the sudden movement and his long claws. “Sorry! Sorry, I’m so sorry!”

Now he really felt bad. He scared you bad enough that you were pressed against the wall behind you, slightly crouched like you were ready to run away. Taking a generous step back, Itadori once again tucked his hands behind his back, idly grabbing onto the base of his tail as well.

“Can I give you an answer later?” You whispered, slowly coming to a full stand again.

“Of course! We actually have a few classes together later, so you can tell me then if you want.”

“Okay…”

“Itadori! M-my name is Itadori!” Blushing lightly as he told you his name, he watched you think it over.

“Okay Itadori.” Nodding curtly, you pressed your lips into a thin line and started to shuffle down the hall. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Bye!” Waving at your retreating form, Itadori felt a trickle of hope. Even if you didn’t say yes to being his partner, at least now you knew his name.

“Excuse me, Itadori?” Two classes later and you approached his desk, keeping a fair distance away.

“Yes?” Looking at you with hearts in his eyes, Itadori sent you a beaming smile with all his sharp teeth on display.

“Why do you want to be my partner?” The question was unexpected, at least for him, and his smile fell.

“Well I- I just thought it’d be nice?” Panicking as he saw confusion flash across your face, Itadori sat up a little straighter in his chair. “N-nice to get to know my fellow classmates! We’re in the same major, so why not get more acquainted?” Stretching his mouth into a tense smile, Itadori let out a breath the same time you did.

“That’s actually a relief. I thought you wanted to be my partner to make me do all the work.” He visibly watched your shoulders relax, the unease in your stance somewhat gone.

“No, never! I would never do that to you! In fact, I’ll do all the work if you want me to! Just say the word, (Y/N)!” Bolting up from his chair, Itadori slammed his hands on his desk. It was probably a good thing you weren’t close to him, you didn’t flinch as hard at his sudden movements.

“We can work on it together.” Laughing under your breath, Itadori’s chest tightened up at seeing a soft smile grace your face.

“So you’ll be my partner? For the project?” Nearly running around the room when you nodded, Itadori forced himself to take a deep breath instead. “That’s great!” His tail swayed happily from side to side, and Itadori had a silly smile on his face as he looked at you.

“So uh, I’m going to take my seat now.” You said slowly, unnerved by his unmoving smile. “But we should meet up later? To discuss what we’ll do for the project.”

“Good idea!” Ripping a piece of paper out of the corner of his notebook, Itadori scribbled his phone number down and held it out to you. “Text me anytime, I’ll answer!”

“Good to know.” Chuckling softly, you took the paper and Itadori swore he would never forget the way your fingers brushed against his. With one last final goodbye muttered under your breath you went to your seat.

Itadori watched you for the rest of class, just waiting to see you take out your phone and text him. He hadn’t seen you do anything with the paper he gave you except tuck it away into your pocket.

Keeping his phone clutched in his hand for the rest of the day, Itadori experienced the highest of highs whenever he got a notification, and then the lowest of lows when it turned out not to be you.

At seven pm, just after eating dinner, Itadori finally received the message he’d been waiting for all along.

(Unknown number): Hello, Itadori? It’s (Y/N) :)

(Itadori): HI HELLO HOW ARE YOU

He immediately cringed after sending the message. What kind of person replied like that to someone they’d just met?

(Y/N): I’m good lol I was wondering when you were free to meet up? I don’t have any classes tomorrow if you’re free

(Itadori): yes yes I’m free whenever tomorrow!

(Y/N): that’s great, how about we meet at the north library at 1?

(Itadori): I’ll be there!!

Itadori could hardly close his eyes let alone calm down enough to go to sleep that night. Much to the chagrin of his roommate Megumi, Itadori got up several times during the night to pace around the room and rummage through his closet to choose the perfect outfit.

He was nearly late meeting up with you, having properly gone to sleep just before 4am and sleeping through his alarm. Stumbling through his room, Itadori just barely remembered to grab his bag before he sprinted out of the room and to the library.

“(Y/N)!” Screaming your name as he got closer, he caught a lot of stares from people and from you.

“Did you run all the way here?” You asked, looking over his breathless, sweaty body nearly collapsing.

“Were you waiting long? I’m sorry I was late!” Fumbling to grab his phone, the time read 1:10pm.

“No, it’s okay, don’t worry about it!” Your cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. Not only had he ran all the way here just to meet you, but he had made quite a scene while doing it. You were eager to get inside and away from all the people passing you by and looking curiously between the two of you.

“Let's...let’s go inside…” Itadori panted, light headed from the run but still making his way to open the door for you. Slumping into the first available seat at the first table he saw, Itadori let his dry, narrowed eyes look over you.

It was a warm spring day and you’d chosen the cutest outfit, one that showed off the speckles on your ears and skin. Itadori always liked them, likening them to his own tiger stripes on his ears and tail. He wanted to compare markings with you, trace a line with the dots on your body and learn more about them.

“Have you had a chance to go over the list of topics our professor gave? A few others have already chosen their topics, so we have to cross some out.” Pulling out the assignment, you showed Itadori the ones you’d crossed off and the ones you marked having interest in. Even your handwriting had Itadori wanting to coo at you.

“Whatever you pick is fine.” He replied dumbly, staring at the way you’d written your name on the top of your paper.

“You should have some say in what we choose!” You pushed back, slightly shaking your head.

“No, whatever you want is fine, I swear.” Looking up at you with rosy cheeks and a dry mouth, Itadori watched the gears turn in your head before you looked away and back to the paper.

“If you say so.” Shrugging your shoulders, you looked over the list more seriously before circling a topic and showing it back to him. “Is this one fine?”

“It’s perfect.” Just like you, Itadori almost said. Pulling out his laptop, Itadori put it between the two of you. “We can start researching and making a rough draft, I was actually looking some stuff up last night about the different topics.”

Not using a private browser last night was Itadori’s first mistake. His second mistake was opening Google with you right next to him, where you saw exactly what he’d been looking up during his sleepless night.

French lops, French lops with speckles, French lop ears, how do bunnies get speckles, what do rabbit hybrids like to do for fun, rabbit hybrid favorite food, favorite things to give rabbit hybrids, how to befriend rabbit hybrids, can prey and predator hybrids be friends, what to do if you’re a predator that has a crush on a rabbit hybrid-

Letting out an indistinguishable noise from the back of his throat, Itadori slammed his laptop closed. His face was bright red, not that you could see much of it because he had slammed his face into the table in shame.

Your soft giggle was immediately picked up by him, and Itadori nearly melted from the chair and onto the floor, dissolving into a puddle of nothing but embarrassment and regret. He thought about switching classes or switching majors entirely, anything to save him from having to face you again after this.

“All of my spots grew in by the time I was five, in case you were still curious, Itadori.” He actually was, almost more than he was last night. The internet had given him answers, but just as many questions he still wanted to ask you.

“Really?” Smooshing his cheek against the table, Itadori turned to look at you. You didn’t seem phased at all from what you’d seen, not if the small smile on your face was anything to go by.

“Mhmm.” Opening up his computer again, you took a brief glance at some of the questions he’d looked up. “And I’m assuming from your research you learned I’m a strict herbivore? My favorite type of food is fruit, mangoes and melons especially.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Still hanging his head low, Itadori pulled himself up from the table. He had wanted to get to know you more naturally, not have you find his obsessive search history.

“I want to! And It seems like you want to know, too!” Gesturing to the screen, you giggled when he hit his forehead against the table again. Patting him on the back for a few seconds revitalised him, the fact that you initiated physical contact enough to have him sitting straight in his chair again.

“I do, a lot! I’m really curious about-” Meeting your eyes for a second, Itadori screwed his eyes shut and forced the next words out of his mouth. “I’m really curious about you, (Y/N). I really want to get to know you more.” Nobara and Megumi were going to be so proud of him for finally saying those words to you. He’d been lamenting about wanting to befriend you for nearly two years, it was time to act on that desire.

“You can ask me any question, Itadori.” A soft warmth settled over your face and you tilted your head forward, blocking out your view of the world with your ears. Truth be told, you’d never had a predator show such genuine interest in you before, and it had your heart bumping hard against your ribs.

“My first question is: can we be friends, (Y/N)?” There wasn’t a doubt in Itadori’s mind that you hadn’t seen the last question he looked up, about having a crush on you. He almost wanted to address it, wanted to get his confession out of the way. But it wasn’t the right time or place, and there wasn’t a doubt in Itadori’s mind that if he confessed to you right now you wouldn’t reject him.

“What did your search say about that one? Is it possible for us to be friends?”

“100% possible.” Itadori said with no hesitation.

“Then yes, we can totally be friends.” There was a brief pause between the two of you, one filled by your nervous laughter and Itadori’s relieved sigh.

“Alright then friend, let’s get started on this project.”

Itadori tried his best to focus on the project, he really did. He typed up everything you said, bookmarked everything you wanted and even went back and forth between the stacks to get the books you needed for the project. But his mind was wrapped up in the new title of your relationship, and the greed he felt deep inside himself to make it something more romantic.

By the time you left the library it was well past five pm and the sun was already beginning to dip behind the campus buildings and to the horizon. Helping you clean and pack up, Itadori was astounded at the amount of time that passed; it barely felt like an hour had gone by.

“Man, I’m starving!” Itadori exclaimed as you left the library, throwing his head back and inhaling the fresh air.

“Me too.” You agreed, fatigued from all the work you’d just done and still needed to do.

“You wanna head to the dining hall together?”

“Sure.” Following his lead, you walked through campus. You still kept your distance from Itadori, not quite able to shed how nervous being around him made you, but with time he hoped it would come to pass. Someday, Itadori hoped to hold your hand in his.

Sitting down at a quiet table together, Itadori wasn’t sure how to make conversation with you now. At the library it was easy, there was the project he could talk about and keep a conversation going with that. But here, he was drawing blanks.

“So Itadori, what-”

“Yuji!” Just as you’d started to speak, the familiar voice of Nobara cut in all the way from across the dining hall. Both of you turned to see Nobara waltzing in with a big grin on her face and Megumi trailing after her.

“Oh god.” This was the one time he didn’t want his friends to come and sit with him. But there they were, already collecting food and coming to sit down at the table.

“Found you!” Nobara giggled behind her hand, her own tiger ears relaxing flat against her head.

“Yup, you did.” Speaking behind tight lips, Itadori took a glance at you. Megumi had taken the seat next to you and he easily dwarfed your smaller body. All of them did, it almost looked like you were a child among adults.

“Nice to see you again, (Y/N).” Making sure his large fluffy wolf tail wasn’t brushing against you, Megumi gave you a polite nod and you returned it.

“W-what?! You two know each other?” In all the time Itadori has been crying over you, he never knew of Megumi's connection to you.

“Yeah, Tsumiki and (Y/N) are roommates.”

“Really?” Itadori gasped loudly, exaggeratedly turning his back to you.

“Mhmm!” Picking up your utensils, you began to eat. “Having a wolf as a roommate was kind of scary at the beginning, but we get along great now!”

Itadori was floored. Positively flabbergasted. He could have gotten to know you this whole time by using the excuse of being Megumi’s roommate and best friend as a reason to drop by and ‘check in’ on Tsumiki and see you by extension.

Sending a sharp, pointed look to Megumi, Itadori began to eat in a huff. He would have to grill his friend later on why the connection was never brought up.

“Have you two been here long?” Nobara asked, tapping her long claws against the table.

“No, we just got here.” Your voice only sounded a little meek when you replied, only able to meet Nobara’s intense gaze for a moment before looking down at your plate again.

“Yeah, we just came from the library. We’re partners on a class project.” Mumbling childishly, Itadori snorted at the surprised looks on his friends faces.

“You are?” Nobara almost gasped. “Who asked who?”

“I asked.” Itadori raised his hand.

“And you agreed, (Y/N)? Just like that?”

“Well, not really.” Giggling softly behind your hand, you took a glance at Itadori. “I told him I’d think about it first. I know we’re all in university now and should be adults, but I still get so scared around predators, I needed to weigh my options.”

“Did Yuji say he’d do all the work?” Megumi chimed in.

“He did! It was pretty funny, I thought the desk was going to fall over.”

“Sounds like Yuji.” Snorting, Megumi gave Itadori a look before eating his food.

“Hold on, I still got a couple questions.” Rapidly tapping the table, Nobara flicked her fingers between you and Itadori.

“Can’t they wait until we’re done?” Itadori already had food stuffed in his mouth, his cheeks were bulging out quite a bit. You had also started to eat the mountain of vegetables on your plate.

“Alright, fine.” Heaving a sigh, Nobara grabbed the juice she’d gotten. “But don’t think I’ll forget!”

It was a blessing that Nobara ended up forgetting that she wanted to grill you and Itadori because there would have been no avoiding all the awkward questions she was sure to ask. As your meal progressed, she got onto the topic of beauty products for tiger hybrids and that was all that occupied her mind for a good while.

“(Y/N).” Catching you by the elbow as you walked out of the dining hall almost an hour and a half later, Itadori looked up at the dark sky. “Let me walk you to your dorm.”

“You don’t have to, I wouldn’t want you to go out of your way! Nobara and I can walk back together, we live in the same dorm.”

“Ha well, uh actually…” Scratching the back of her head, Nobara grabbed onto Megumi's sleeve. “Actually, Megumi and I are going to go to a…” Swatting him on the back, Nobara fell silent.

“My father sent Tsumiki and I some more things and I promised to give Nobara some old books.”

“Yup, books! Exactly! So you two walk together and we’ll see you later!” Grabbing onto the back of Megumi’s shirt, Nobara sprinted away, her orange and black tail the last thing you saw before she turned the corner.

“Let’s go, (Y/N).” Itadori tugged on your sleeve gently, bringing your focus back to him. Walking side by side, the night time didn’t seem as scary compared to if you had been alone. You generally tried to avoid being out alone at night, but with Itadori it felt like the sun was still high in the sky.

“Are you cold?” Itadori broke the silence that had settled over you.

“Huh?”

“You just shivered.” Right as he said that, another gust of wind went through the air and blew your ears back, making a strong shiver go up your spine. “Here.” Itadori was already taking off his thick hoodie and pushing it into your arms.

“But you’ll be cold!” Looking at the long sleeve he had on underneath, surely it couldn’t be enough to keep him warm.

“Nonsense, I’ll be fine. Put it on.” It was a miracle that Itadori hadn’t fallen onto the ground from how lightheaded he was. He had given you his hoodie in the spur of the moment and now his actions were catching up to him.

“Okay.” Giving him one last look, you put it on. Swimming in fabric and with the scent of Itadori all around you, it was truly a sight to behold. “How do I look?” You chuckled, trying to adjust the giant hoodie onto your body.

“You look good.” There was a high lilt to the end of his sentence, and Itadori slapped a hand over his face and turned his back to you. If he looked any longer, he would pass out from how cute you looked.

“Thanks Itadori, it’s really warm!”

“N-no problem.” He seriously couldn’t look at you, and seeing your sweater paws out of the corner of his eye had him tripping over his own feet. Thankfully and tragically, the walk to your dorm wasn’t too long, so Itadori didn’t have to deal with it for too long.

“Thanks for walking me back.” Giving him a smile, you began to take off the hoodie.

“K-keep it, keep it on.” Planting his hands on your shoulders, Itadori looked down at you. “I have a million, so just keep that one.” The mixture of your scent and his that was wafting up to his nose was going to be ingrained into his mind forever.

“Wow Itadori, you’re so nice! We should have become friends way sooner!” Patting him on the arm, you shuffled closer to the front door. “Text me when you get back to your dorm, okay?”

“I will!” Waving at you until you went inside, Itadori let out a breath he’d been holding in. The feel good chemicals in his brain were all flooding in at once; the day had gone from good, to great to perfect. Seeing you in his hoodie was one of the things Itadori had wanted for so long it hurt, and now that goal was finally reached.

His happiness turned to adrenaline, making his hands shake and body tremble from how excited he was to see you tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. He was so excited for the future that he ran all the way back to his dorm, letting out cheers and excited screams as he went.

(Itadori): made it to my dorm :)

(Y/N): have a good night!

(Itadori): you too! See you tomorrow!

Clutching his phone to his chest, Itadori threw open the door to his room and immediately made eye contact with Megumi.

“You!”

“Now let me explain-”

“Save it, wolfy! Tell me all about your relationship with (Y/N)!”

As days turned into weeks, Itadori noticed a subtle change in your demeanor around him. You slowly started to walk closer to him, sometimes close enough to occasionally brush shoulders. The fear that was so pungent before was now gone, only replaced with some unease whenever Itadori threw his hands around too much or chewed with his mouth open. All in all, Itadori felt like you could call him a true friend.

And what did friends do? Invite each other to parties of course! Being so personable and easy to get along with, it was only natural that Itadori got invited to a lot of events around campus, and he wanted you to join him.

Which is how you found yourself at probably the biggest party of the season, people pouring out of the doors and spilling into the yard around the university house chosen for this night.

“I’ve never been here before.” You mumbled to Itadori as you approached the house, flanked by Nobara and Megumi. Sure you’d been to parties before, but none this size.

“That’s okay, just stick by me!” Over the past few weeks the level of physical contact in your relationship with Itadori had risen high enough that he was able to put an arm around your shoulder and pull you a bit closer to him.

“Yeah (Y/N) we’ll make sure you have a good time!” Nobara chimed in, her words just a bit slurred. She had pregamed on the way to the party, the flask she kept offering you tucked snugly against her hip.

“Let’s find Maki and the others.” Fushiguro was the first to step into the house and take the lead on where to go. Pushing through the crowds of people for you, Itadori made sure you stayed close by his side.

Meeting up with Maki and a few other upperclassmen, you felt safe among the group. There was a plastic cup in your hand mixed with god knows what, the music was loud and overbearing, but you had been welcomed into the fray with open arms. No one looked twice at your floppy ears and tense body, they just launched into conversation like you’d always been there.

“G-gotta go bathroom.” Your words were slurring more than you expected after finishing your second cup of horribly mixed liquor. Standing away from the wall you’d been leaning against, the world was spinning.

“Need help?” Itadori held onto your elbow tightly, helping keep you stable.

“No.” Shaking your head slowly, you pushed him away. “I got this.”

“(Y/N), lemme show you where the bathroom is! I’ve been here like a million times!” Swooping in between you two, Nobara took confidently drunk steps with you under her arm.

“M’kay!” Giggling, you gave Itadori a wave and stumbled away with her.

“I’ll stay out here and keep guard!” She announced to not only you but to the people around you as well. Throwing open the door, you gave her a big thumbs up before slamming it closed and locking it.

Doing your business as quickly as possible, when you opened the door, Nobara was gone. You could hear her voice echoing throughout the house and when you turned a corner she was at the dining table playing beer pong and losing horribly.

Looking up and down the hall, you were at a loss at what to do. You didn’t remember the right way back to the group and Nobara was too ensconced in the drinking game she was a part of to be of any help.

Dragging your feet down the hall, you ended up at the front of the house, a far cry from where you wanted to be. There were so many people pushing past you to go deeper into the house, or yelling for others to come to them, some of them didn’t seem to care when they bumped you against the wall or nudged you a little too hard.

“Hey little bunny, you look a little lost.” You could smell the fox hybrid before you could see him appear before your eyes, cornering you against the wall as another wave of people walked by.

“I- no, I’m fine.” The lie was evident in your voice and he caught it right away.

“You sure? A little thing like you shouldn’t be all alone.” His voice was condescending, mocking you in plain sight. His soft red fur gleamed under the light of the house and while you would probably admire it from afar, now wasn’t the time.

Nodding instead of speaking, you looked down the hallway again. Surely someone would come looking for you and Nobara.

“Who’re you looking for, bunny? I could help you find them.” Leaning more into your space, the unnamed fox gave you a once over, flashing his teeth once he met your eyes. “Or maybe you were looking for me?”

“No.” The alcohol in your body was making it difficult to string together more than a few words or thoughts in your head, but you knew one thing for sure: you didn’t want to be around this guy anymore. The party was overwhelming enough as it was and adding him into the mix, a predator directly above you, was only making it worse.

“Aw, no need to be shy! All your dreams have come true!” Chuckling to himself, he grabbed onto your wrist. “Let’s go get you a drink, I’ll introduce you to some friends.”

“No.” You said a little louder, but he just ignored you. Trying to get your wrist free wasn’t working either and you quickly found yourself being dragged away from the wall. Digging your heels into the ground, you kept looking for a familiar flash of pink hair. “Itadori!” You shouted, voice mixing with the others in the air and hopefully travelling to the person it was intended for.

“You’re lookin’ for Itadori? Why, I know him! He’s my best friend, I’ll take you to him!” The fox hybrid sent you a sleazy grin, running his free hand through his hair.

“(Y/N).” A familiar heavy hand landed on your shoulder, preventing you from going anywhere.

“Who the hell are you?” The two men shared a sneer, sizing each other up. Finally getting your wrist free, you attached yourself to Itadori’s side.

“I’m their boyfriend. Now get lost.” Wrapping an arm around you, Itadori gave one last glare to the other man before turning and walking away. Getting you to the kitchen, he quickly got you a glass of water. “Drink this.”

“Thanks.” Downing it immediately, the growing tension in your body subsided just from having Itadori next to you.

“If anyone else gives you trouble, tell them I’m your boyfriend. I’m in sports clubs with a lot of the people here, they’ll know who I am.”

“Thanks.” Repeating yourself like a fool, you were overcome with sudden emotion and hugged Itadori. Burrowing your face into his chest, you muttered thanks over and over.

“S’no problem.” He grunted. Itadori was glad you couldn’t see the bright blush on his face right now; he’d only dreamed about hugging you almost every second of the day. Hugging you back, he let his hand come up and stroke your ears and your fur was just as soft as he imagined it to be.

For the rest of the night, Itadori was like your second shadow. He made sure you didn’t drink anymore alcohol, filling you up with water and snacks until you were as sober as he was. He also introduced himself as your boyfriend whenever the need arose, like constantly shouting ‘boyfriend coming through’ as he pushed through crowds for you.

“I hope you had fun, (Y/N).” Itadori said at the end of the night with Nobara passed out drunk being carried on his back.

“I did!” It was nice to meet some upperclassmen, a couple you learned were in your major as well. Fushiguro was walking with them a few feet in front of you, talking animatedly to them.

“That’s good. I was worried that the whole ‘boyfriend’ thing was making you uncomfortable.” A bashful blush coated Itadori’s face as he gave you a sideways glance. Your own cheeks got warmer as well.

“I uh, I kind of liked it.” You said quietly, hoping that he wouldn’t catch it.

“You did?” Of course he heard it. Stopping in his tracks, Itadori’s mouth hung open slightly. Biting his lip, Itadori checked to make sure Nobara was truly out before speaking again. “Well then, can we maybe make it official?”

Maybe it was the lingering energy from the party that was giving him the confidence to ask or maybe Itadori had finally lost it, either way there was no backtracking from what he had just said. Taking your lack of immediate answer as skepticism, Itadori quickly spoke up again.

“If you want, I can take you out on a proper date first! Truthfully I already have everything planned in my head, I’ve wanted to take you out on a date for a while now. B-but you don’t have to if you don’t want to! I just- I want you to give us a chance, but don’t feel pressured to say yes!”

His face was completely flushed, adrenaline pumping through his body. Whether you said yes or no, Itadori was just glad to have finally gotten it off his chest.

“I want to go on a date with you too.” You smiled gently at Itadori, playing with your fingers nervously. “I just have one question.”

“Yes?”

“Did you also Google best first dates to take a rabbit hybrid on?”

“(Y/N)!” Laughing breathlessly, Itadori felt the tension in his body release.

“It’s a fair question!” Laughing along with him, you started to walk down the street again.

“For your information, no I didn’t look that up.” A comfortable silence settled over you as the laughter died down. As soon as Itadori could get a second alone with you, he would. There was actually a lot to discuss for the date that he’d been planning since the first year of university.

“Mmmm…” Nobara groaned and both of you looked at her curiously.

“Nobara? Are you awake?” You asked, brushing the hair from her forehead.

“Kiss...kiss each other.” Her words just barely made sense and Itadori nearly dropped her once he made sense of what she’d said.

“Go back to sleep!” He shouted, nudging her with his shoulder. The blush that had managed to subdue itself was now back tenfold.

“We’ll kiss each other later, Nobara.” You added, fixing her hair and letting her relax onto Itadori again.

“Promise?” She sighed.

“Promise?” Itadori echoed.

“Yeah, I promise.”

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen fluff #itadori yuji #yuji itadori x reader #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jujutsu kaisen scenarios #hybrid au

[morihaus]

Folklore

Two apprentices make their way to the shore of the Isle of the Wise, basket and blanket in tow, already chattering away with one another. Although the College of the Sapiarchs has a reputation its rigorous and cutthroat academic atmosphere, even its most studious pupils are encouraged to take reprieves from their works, if not for their own benefit then for the benefit of the hardworking staff, those who have earned their own breaks from instructing and professing, as well as those who have important duties and research of their own to attend to.

Runalenwe and Pannolaire each possess their own cutthroat reputations, so it is with some surprise that their peers observe them taking these personal allowances of unstructured time not to get a leg up on their competition, but to get out from the halls of learning and into the natural splendor of the wild. They always take their breaks together, ostensibly to keep an eye on their most spirited and contentious academic rival, but also in the spirit of camaraderie; even as they have butted heads over their decades-long apprenticeships, they have found themselves rather transfixed on one another, interested, entertained, some might even say 'enamored.' It's true that they might consider themselves lovers, but they were not young or carefree, rather their love was ennobling and constructive, a means to an end- they would say- and all the fun they have along the way is merely incidental.

Runalenwe reaches what she considers a good place to rest, a nice shady spot under a tree, waves lapping at the shore before them. She unfurls the bright sheet they've brought at, inviting Pannolaire to take her seat before her, to which the other woman smiles and sets herself down very prim and proper. As Runalenwe joins her, she sets their woven basket down beside them, and continues on with their line of dialogue.

"Quite the ambitious project, a catalogue of Tamriel's famed magical artifacts," Pannolaire says. "Was her 12-page dissertation on the Flask of Lillandril not enough?" Her dark crest of brown hair seems to shimmer with life in the sun's light, as does the dress of decorative feathers and scales that she's donned instead of her apprentice's garb. Her companion thinks she cuts a figure rather like a bird of paradise, head held high against her collar of colorful plumage.

"Oh, I'd be fascinated to hear how many she can turn up." Runalenwe replies as she gets comfortable, propping herself up with an elbow against the blanket. "The research will be interesting- and her reports are always wonderfully detailed to be sure. The problem is by just 20 years time, I'm sure we'll be made aware of several new artifacts, or new qualities to the ones we already know, and all her work will be made obsolete. That's the problem with such presumptuous 'catalogues', better to channel your focus on just one thing. She clearly wishes she could be Sapiarch of just about every discipline!" She laughs, a few strands of her curly straw-colored hair swinging free of her top-bun. It's a noble laugh, haughty and mocking, yet it touches Pannolaire just the same as the warm bubbling laugh that came out of her honestly, most often when they were alone.

Pannolaire unpacks the food she'd brought, laying out the small spread as they continue to speak. Rolls of bread, fresh fruit, aged wine, and shellfish. "Which single artifact would you focus on?" Pannolaire glances up as she hands her a warm roll. "Some destructive staff? A weather worker?"

She chuckles, taking a small bite and clearing her mouth before responding. "Oh, Pannolaire, I've more interests than just shocking the daylights out of things! It's funny you should ask, actually."

"It is?" Pannolaire says.

"Yes, and I'll tell you why." Runalenwe grins.

Pannolaire smiles as well, cracking into a shellfish with practiced grace. "Please do."

"You are, I'm sure, familiar with the Ring of Phynaster? Artifact created by the ascended Aldmeri sorcerer Phynaster, great explorer and adventurer, a hero of the High King Aurthelel's court?" Pannolaire nods, not speaking for modesty as she samples some fruit. "It provides the wearer with protection against magics and poisons- it's popularly believed to have been created to facilitate in Phynaster's daring yet dangerous lifestyle, and even to have aided in his mythical long stride. But this story has been confused with time- it is misunderstood by so many of the scholars of Tamriel, those who forget that Phynaster was once one of us, a mortal, with mortal wants, mortal acquaintances."

Pannolaire watches Runalenwe as she orates, every word uttered with such a poise to belie rehearsal, and yet her character is so spontaneous, like an arc of lightning from a hand, or the first crackle of thunder. These qualities make her quite the speaker to spectate, and so she hangs on her every word.

"Phynaster himself was quite a cautious sort- his stride wasn't simply long, it was measured, well-conceived through careful calculation. His safety and longevity was more or less the product of a wise and careful mind. He did not forge his famed ring for his own sake, but for the sake of a lover." Runalenwe's lips curve into even more of a satisfied smile, the kind that tells Pannolaire she's hanging knowledge over her head right now, a coy mocking gesture. She shoots her a look as though to say 'don't leave me in suspense', and the other apprentice continues on. "A certain firebrand, another mage of Aurthelel's court, the oldest and most venerable court of Alinor, composed of only the most respected ancestors; Phynaster, Syrabane, Ruilil, Peregrine- even noble Trinimac brushed shoulders with her and counted her as his peer, as well as his comrade in arms. She was Eeartora the Tempest, queen of the skies, her words commanded storms and her spells sundered coral citadels to the depths of the sea, all to be forgotten as her own legend grew. It was she who caught the first Alinor Sunbird and brought it, unscathed, to the feet of King Aurthelel, and it was she who first mounted a great gryphon and rode it, as Welkynar, into battle."

Her audience of one helps herself to some shellfish as the other sings the praises of this noble and venerated ancestor. Runalenwe considers herself a woman of action, but Pannolaire finds her waxing lyrical on the matters of magic, of magicians, and most anything having to do with her noble clan of wizards. "That certainly sounds like the type of woman who could benefit from such a ring." Pannolaire remarks, smiling and discarding the now emptied remains of her morsel, golden eyes locked on her companion.

"Indeed!" Runalenwe agrees heartily, laughing softly to herself. "And that is what he must have thought, for with her in mind he endeavored to create the powerful artifact that we know today. She was its first holder, and she would go on to bequeath it to her descendants, before ascending to join with her lover in Aetherius..." Her smile lingers, Pannolaire can feel the purposeful pause she is taking and raises a hand to her lips as she chuckles for her lover's theatrics. "Eeartora's line would follow in her wake, living as war mages, welkynars, and studious heroes of their eras. What's more," She raises her chin proudly at this, the rays of sunlight giving a glow to her tan skin. "Her line leads directly to yours truly."

"Ah, I see... no wonder you were going out of your way to flatter her to such a degree." Pannolaire remarks, smirking behind her gloved hand.

Runalenwe scoffs, but smiles. "I can't be shamed for honoring my ancestors, can I?" And with that, she reaches down and helps herself to some fruit, satisfied with her piece.

Her lover gives her a moment's rest, then says something with no other goal than to prod at her ego. "I'm not sure I believe you. I mean, such a famed and legendary ancestor- I've known whole hosts of wizards who give her worship."

Runalenwe, true to form, almost chokes on her apple. "You don't believe me!?" She asks with raised brows, somewhat aware of the game they now play, somewhat genuinely scandalized.

"I'm not sure if I believe you." She corrects her.

"I'll have you know there are extensive genealogical records in my family's tomb!"

Again, Pannolaire laughs behind her hand, and her lover's eyes trace the glimpse of her lips. "Well then, you must take me there on our next sabbatical."

This time, Runalenwe's laugh is brash and untempered, her grin wrinkles her freckled face and her shoulders bob up and down. "Sabbatical! Oh, how rich- what are we, twelfth years???"

Pannolaire laughs along with her, laying beside her, sharing this bright and tranquil day all to themselves. Their hearts are light- they race when they stack their projects up against one another's, when they give presentations knowing that the other is watching, whenever they hold formal dialogue with their peers and mentors watching. How odd it is that their hearts race now, alone together, wearing no uniform and beheld to no observation, no assessment, free to be as they are. Runalenwe's hand finds its place in Pannolaire's, and after an interlude of silence and pecking at their meal, one speaks back up.

"...I'm no good with enchanting, but," Pannolaire says, dark lids drooping as her eyes wander out to sea. "I'm a fool for such romantic gestures... I would love to make you something, something just for you." With these words she shuffles up against Runalenwe's side, leaning against the other woman.

Runalenwe raises her arm to wrap around Pannolaire's waist, pulling her closer still. She leans in to press her head against the other's. "How sweet." Her forehead lies against her temple, her lips hover about her ear as she speaks softly. "What would you make for me, Pann?"

Pannolaire thinks on her skill sets, shifting about with a small bubble of nervousness. She lets herself fall closer against Runalenwe's soft embrace, letting out a long sigh. "A book on etiquette, perhaps."

The other woman chuckles. "I'm classically trained, love."

"In Aldmeri, sure. But would you know how to say 'good day' to a Nord?" Pannolaire retorts.

She laughs again, and for lack of a response presses her lips against her cheek. Pannolaire laughs too, forgetting the lunch they'd packed and shifting about to bury her face in the crook of her lover's neck, leaving a couple of black marks where she plants her kisses. Arms wrapped around her, Runalenwe replies. "Do they have those- good days- in that frigid country of theirs? Honestly, I'd be shocked if they see the sun."

Pannolaire pulls away only to smile and laugh at her peer. "Of course they see the sun!" The two chuckle on that point for a moment, before she settles in once again. "Well, actually, there is an interesting phenomenon that occurs at extreme northern latitudes- sunless days- they only happen at select parts of the year though..."

Runalenwe, content to hold her lover's body as she goes into a long tangent about novel astronomical phenomena and the Nordic holidays that coincide with them, closes her eyes and smiles. Her hand slowly traces Pannolaire's side, gentle and unobtrusive, as not to distract her from her speech.

She easily goes on for nearly half an hour, and it's only Runalenwe's reminder of the cooling food that makes her take pause, before the two resume their dialogue. They continue on like this until the sun dips down, embraced by the sea.

#tesfest21 #mori writing #oc: pannolaire #oc: runalenwe

[ladyyatexel]

I Went On A Manga Binge

So you don't have to

For those of you who have wisely avoided the shreds of it I've left around the blog thus-far, I had some weird notion to go re-experience Yu-Gi-Oh uuuuuh a week ago? We'll go with that. Time is meaningless.

I'd been able to read a good portion of the early manga at the end of highschool, and somewhere in my stacks and stacks of paper is fanart from this dark time, so you know I cared. I also still own a Dark Magician action figure somehow, so. I'd also watched a large portion of the anime with my brother because it had been laced with some kind of crack and we couldn't look away? I remember when we both were just like shit, wait, don't change the channel, I can't stop looking at it. And the next thing we knew we were waiting for new episodes and I was doing research on the Japanese original because I was that kid.

Anyway, unnecessary backstory out of the way, here are some... let's call them Observations and Consequences of having read somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 chapters (and growing) of a manga primarily hinged on card games from a spectrum of sources ranging from boringly lawful to sketchy as fuck.

Surprise actual character that develops in typical shounen fashion being Jounouchi. My limited experiences with the 4Kids dub and only early manga had not painted him in a particularly good light. I don't know if episodes were being aired out of order or if I had just missed the ones that established that he was making shit up as he was going along, but Wow I liked him a lot more going through the manga than I ever did watching the (dubbed, heavily edited and censored and thrown into a slurry machine) anime. I'd managed to come out with the impression that he was just as reasonably experienced with the game as Yugi back in the day. Wild.

I'm now reading every single comic-style post on Tumblr backwards.

Striking inverse to first point, wow, I don't like Seto Kaiba. Though he gets points for his general philosophy of the future, and the line I read in my sketchy online combo of scans and scanlations in which he said, "If God is in your way, you run him down," was Metal As Fuck. I somewhat shame-facedly admit to enjoying him a lot more as an Abridged Series character. (I watched Abridged as it came out back in the day! The experience of watching the anime with my brother had been so fresh that I got all the in jokes about the way things were edited and dubbed, it was great. Series remains influential part of my life to this day, which is hella weird.)

I almost understand how Duel Monsters works now. I don't want this.

That said, wow a lot of the decisions made in the anime made everything a lot more ridiculous than the admittedly already ridiculous original. I got the distinct feeling in the manga that the Duelist Kingdom stuff we were seeing was designed to be used and exploited in ways that don't make sense in an actual cardgame just played on a table like a normal person and this was part of testing everyone to think higher, differently. Maybe this is obvious to everyone already, I don't know. I had always liked that it was very, 'Not so fast, I'm going to blow up the moon to change the tides,' but I'm not really sure the anime gave enough explanation that this was an extra layer added to things for that event? You can see people actively getting used to it in the books, and people who aren't considering the real or 3D nature of it getting owned, but my memory of anime version is everyone just like, 'oh, shucks, fuck me, I forgot to consider the phase of the moon before i played this card, can't believe I forgot.' No one calls Yugi on any of this stuff because it's valid play in that situation. Plus Yami Yugi had mad trickster energy in the beginning and it suited him to think of ways to do things inside these little simulation boxes the way it suited him to set perverts on fire. I imagine the real card game trying to emulate this element as something that would be to its detriment, but I neither know nor particular care haha

Ryou Bakura.

Really, though. I think he became kind of casualty of 'wow, we have a lot of characters who really aren't able to do anything in this story anymore,' despite the fact that his whole inner life could have been as interesting as Yugi's. I always like thinking about the possibilities of stories in which main character falls into magical world and is given magical item and told they're the hero and then they find out they've been the bad guy the whole time. The first several volumes of manga were about the quiet weirdo kid that no one talked to who was always blacking out and turning into a fucked up version of himsef because he was so attached to his ancient Egyptian jewelry, so like, Bakura could have much the same shit going on. I want to know what's happening with him so much. He clearly doesn't love being possessed, but he's also so drawn to the ring. Despite it having stabbed him at least twice and him knowing it's a danger to him and his friends, he keeps being pulled back into it. You see so much more of him being like, 'Oooh, a creepy thing, I love that! :D' in the manga than ever in the anime, which I'm all about. Also more blood. I'm very about that as well. Though my memory of the anime also made it look very much like normal regular daily Bakura was just a weird facade in places before he ever would have been. I think that was it trying to compensate for what people didn't see from the Toei anime, but okay whatever, that I love everything about this guy is not news, I don't need to talk about Bakura excessively here, I'm pretty sure that's gonna show up on my blog by itself

On a related note though, damn, more of these people need to talk to each other. Can we have some existential crisis support clubs or something. Can we get like some apologies or something? "I respect you as a duelist." "Cool, but you literally built a tower designed to specifically assassinate me and my friends? You were supposed to get Better after I retaliated by putting you in a coma, but you kinda didn't." "Why would the coma have made it better" "I just told you it didn't" ---- "Sorry I went along with the plan of your evil parasite stabbing you, misled you, and then also jumped in and took up some real estate in your head too." "I understand, I also have an evil thing inside me that does things while I'm blacked out." "...no, I was conscious for all of that." "Oh." "..." "..." "..." "Do you like Ouija Boards?" "sure okay" ETC. Like damn we are reading shounen manga because no one is talking extensively about their feelings here and I'm tapping my foot angrily.

Holy shit there are so many mythologies happening at once. The ancient family guarding the Egyptian Pharaoh has a surname that's a Mesopotamian goddess. None of the god cards make any Egyptian sense except Ra, and just like. Baaarrrrely. Somewhere either Evil Ring Bakura or Mar/lik makes a reference to cremation and spirits being taken to heaven with smoke which several things, but definitely not Ancient Egyptian. Marik/Malik meanwhile is clearly trying to head Arabic, along with Rishid, but then, hey, our sister is just Isis. Goddess McGoddess. Sometimes they're the same goddess! Her name could be Isis Isis or Ishtar Ishtar. Meanwhile, all the obviously 'occult because Christians think it is freaky' stuff. ~ancient egyptian pentagrams~~~This isn't a complaint, I guess so much as a 'Wow, I can kind of see the cultural spot the author was coming from and where he was aiming' kind of thing.

Wonder where things would have gone if the card games had not been latched onto the way they were.

Managed to forget how gross the pre-cardgames stuff was on the sexual harassment front. I'm glad there was a sort of explanation of everyone drifting away from being dick heads and that that decision was made. It got way more comfortable to read after no one was bringing Yugi p*rn on VHS.

Yugi looks better with a nose, glad we got that upgrade.

Interesting to watch the series style shift as it goes away from being horror to being over the top cardgames and friendship (with blood!). The first picture of Mokuba is fucking Jarring. Also noticed that the nicer a character is, the less their teeth are defined.

Glad manga did not go as completely off the fucking the rails about Marik's face. I never got as far as seeing him back in the day because college occurred, but I remember seeing pictures and stuff and being like, "what in the Fuck happened to that dude, I think the house style has collapsed in on itself"

Things the author Really Likes: motorcycles, belts, SHOES, holy shit the shoes. These are some of the most lovingly rendered sneakers I've ever seen. All the detail on his characters goes straight to their feet and then it's stretched upward until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in 3000 years of trauma and bake face down in a crumb coat of scattered mythology. Remove when you roll two zeros.

Where the fuck am I going to put the extremely large omnibus volumes of this comic I purchased in order to balance out how much I would be reading for free on the internet. I should have grasped that a three in one edition would be Thick and yet somehow I was still :O when it arrived. Have I strategically purchased volumes that contain my favorite parts, maybe, what's it to you will i eventually get the whole thing because incomplete book series gnaw on my soul? yes

Wish the transition from "I've murdered several people in delightfully karmic ways" to "all you need is friendship in your heart and cards in your hand" Yami Yugi/Pharaoh had been discussed more/transitioned better. Buddy, where did you get this approved for television high horse? Please go back to strangling people with yo-yos or at least tell me why you stopped.

I still can't tell anything that looks like a big robotic monster apart from any other big robotic monster. My dude, I can't tell cars apart, all these monsters look the same.

Yami Yugi fascinated me way more in highschool? Maybe because it was still super early and the anime was like 'we need to torture you about his origins WeEkLy. Now I'm just like 'wait hold on, can we go back to Bakura and Marik for a minute, there's some extreme unpacking to do here?' Those two are paying so much more in baggage fees here my guy wow

Violently uninterested in any of the spinoff media

#yugioh #yu gi oh #ygo #there you go i can't imagine any other way you would decide was necessary to tag this #perhaps now that i have thrown this up i can #something #i don't know how i was going to finish that sentence #shut up lady