#where its not just that her dad is killing gods by harming the environment

[glassamphibians]

i think rachel’s dad should have been a part of Triumvirate Holdings. just to add some more drama to the mix

#maybe his company builds all their big billionaire towers idk #it would have been a cool continuation of the pan situation #where its not just that her dad is killing gods by harming the environment #he is actively dismantling them through the emperor’s without even realizing #like he’s not One Of Them but he’s still one of their biggest financial supporters or something #idk #i don’t remember how the company works #rachel dare #toa

[bl-garbage]

to dance is to unshackle

um, okay—how else do i express this buoyant happiness that Gaya sa Pelikula has awoken inside me? i’m in complete and utter awe. i did not expect a drop of what the sixth episode has brought us. more than satisfying, it’s utterly fascinating. this is quite a lengthy post, but if you have the time, please bear with me. and since we’re already here, let’s fucking dissect the shit out of this:

right off the bat, it’s sweet how consistently written Vlad was the entire time of the show. at the start of the episode, for one, he was concerned with Karl’s disposition, saying, “anong iniisip mo (what are you thinking)?” and, later on, as we know, he pops that question again in this episode. what are you thinking? always in limbo. true, it’s considerate, yet more than that, it’s always a sign of waiting for permission. Vlad has been like this since the beginning: observant and willing to reach out, confident on the surface, yes, but always afraid of going overboard. 

that is not to say that Karl isn’t. in fact, the whole dynamics of their relationship rest on the fact that they can lean on each other and just be honest. many moments show this: Karl’s desire to shift; Vlad not getting  into the film lab and Karl knowing something was up; the entirety of Vlad’s birthday; Karl and Vlad’s reticence to open up to Anna, in contrast with how comfortable they feel with each other. in a nutshell, they’re each other’s homes. more on this later.

the part i was most frightened at with this episode was when Karl finally told his parents his desire to shift. to be honest, personally, i wouldn’t know exactly how that pressure on Karl feels, as i was able to study the degree i wanted. yet, back then, i had already known that my parents, who wholly supported me just the same, would have wanted a degree that leaned on science or engineering. that still sucked to know. Karl’s situation is much more complicated. his desire to shift to another course is to make up for lost time, a sense of hurrying before it really becomes all too late. this was a heavy lot to take in. the disappointment and anger in his father’s face when he dropped the bomb was too much to handle. Karl had expected it, yet its impact still hurled shrapnel that he was not able to dodge, sustaining him with several wounds. it would be curious to see how his parents come to terms with his confession. i am certain that a number of people have connected with Karl here.

which brings me to another point. Gaya sa Pelikula creates these characters with their own agency. it’s touted as a BL series, yes, but our two main characters’ point is actually not to fall in love — but to live, part of which is to fall in love. they have their hopes and dreams and own burdens to carry, and while falling in love takes centerstage here, we see how they can stand alone, on their own two feet. falling in love is central to their growth, but it is evident that love is not the whole point of their existence. 

speaking of which: ate judit. ah, yes, where do i even begin to explain the exquisiteness with which ate judit was written? how, after all of five episodes, it was only now did it make sense why judit was overly, unnaturally caring and protective, a mama bear that would not let anything happen to his little Vlad. now we know why: guilt.  

imagine that. being told you were the reason why your whole family went into shambles. there is much vindication in Vlad’s line of questioning, “why would you say that to a child?” (god, i’m tearing up even as i write this.) this was a pivotal scene, with a focal point on judit, the likes of whom we cannot entirely fault for not knowing any better. the fact remains that we are still in an era that fails to understand the spectrum of gender identities and the far utopia that we seek, where gender and sex would not be a damning classification anymore. and for true allies, it is in admitting that they “didn’t know then what [they] know now” that their support gains more strength. it is in confessing where they got wrong, how harmful their actions were, and in the commitment to do more, that their promise is made good.

parenthetically, can we talk about Vlad’s mom as well? have you all noticed how her voice broke when she said, “siguraduhin mong hindi ka na itatanggi niyan, ha (just make sure he won’t deny you, okay)?” was that pain, or guilt even? i wonder if we’re ever going to see her. it would be a regret not to. for so long Vlad had thought that he was the reason his father left, and that his mother was mad at his queerness. i wouldn’t want this simple call to be the resolution that the show had for him. at any rate, we have two more episodes to await, so i am not going to strike my gavel on this judgment just yet.

but whereas Vlad found his longtime coming reconciliation with his sister, Karl had no one to turn to. his call to Vlad was a cry for help. it was heartbreaking to see him like this. Karl had always put up a fake smile against any adversity that had come his way. to him, these were trivial matters that would pass, and they did so — until now. after all he was, as we would later come to know, living a script that had been prewritten before he even came to being. that explains his nonchalant demeanor toward life, the seeming discontent behind those dead eyes, and a repeated hinting that he was always yearning for so much more. at the end of the call, Karl instinctively goes to the closet - and his proverbial closet - and sees the skeletons he had hidden inside, drop in a mess. 

that it was Karl’s brother who was in the photo shook me. that past was so well thought out. things made so much sense in this episode: why Karl tried to fit in, why everything seemed so fake. why he was so discomforting to watch, even! that made sense now.  

and what do you do when everything has become a mess? the once seamless film that had been rolling without any glitches now sprawled on the floor, entangled in a hodgepodge well beyond fixing. when that happens, what do you do? well, you dance.

i have so many things to say about faux masculinity. it is a fact undisputed that in this society, gender roles are still very much pillars that we have yet to dismantle. our genders have been geared toward performativity, and our consolation is the external validation we receive through the acts of fitting in. in the process, we lose sight of what we really want. we blur the lines between what is and what should be, in favor of what society has demanded upon us. Karl took that role and lived by it religiously. yet, those things has gone haywire in this episode. more than his parents, it was to himself that Karl has finally admitted that the act can be dropped now: the fixed posture, those rehearsed lines, that painfully faux masculinity, on guard all the fucking time. all of those things were dropped.

that is not to say that Karl was faking all of it. there is no denying that Karl has been a masculine person most of the time. but the show portrayed before us a discarded femininity that Karl had been trying to bury deep inside him — one that all people who have been and who are still in the closet know by heart. the thing is, all of us have masculine and feminine sides, the expression of which vary at different levels in different situations. sadly, we have been preconditioned to believe that male persons must be masculine, and female persons must be feminine. Gaya sa Pelikula acknowledges this hegemony, and then throws it away all the same. true, Karl may very well be comfortable in his masculine expression, but his femininity must also be allowed to grow. one cannot be complete without embracing the entirety of who they are. many have died — been killed — for simply living who they are. society has long been a vicious environment. but people have also long fought for their fundamental right to perform these things, and through them, we know that things can change. that things are changing.

it is against this context that imprints more meaning, more gravity to when we finally, finally see Karl dance. in every sense, his dance was the show’s climax for me. it is, quite emphatically, freedom incarnate.

when i say i fucking bawled at this scene, you best believe it.

quite important to note: when Karl sees Vlad, he stopped abruptly, only for Vlad to signal to him, in an OK sign, that what he was doing was perfectly fine. that Karl could be effeminate all he wants, and who the hell in this earth should care? this allowance has given Karl all the needed validation he will ever need, at least, for that one night where they could bare it all. it was only the two of them, but the house has never been more crowded, because their feelings have seemingly exploded and have been overflowing in a glorious climax for all of us to witness. in this scene, Karl has unshackled the chains with which he had been bound all that time, and it was Vlad who helped him finally break the last of those chains. in this moment, there was only pure bliss.

(that the song playing here was Ride Home by ben&ben is the perfect giveaway. for non-Filipino readers who have only listened to ben&ben now, check this band out. it’s one of the best bands to have ever come out of the Philippine music industry.)

and, of course, in this waterfall of emotions, it is only perfect to time the moment of their first kiss. they have accepted each other, haven’t they? in a meaningful act (the gravity of which we will only realize in full later when Vlad tells the story of his dad), Karl rumpled Vlad’s hair, but only after Vlad had already consented to it. then, afterward, it was Vlad’s turn to ask, what are you thinking? to which Karl had this—and i know we all expected it, nevertheless—to say: i don’t want to think anymore. then they kissed.

i swear to god. i only watched this for the 92432475781 time.

the denouement was so well put, too: now everything is put back into its own place. Karl’s brother. his death. his parents’ expectations. the substitution. Vlad’s father. his parents’ expectations. the horror of realizing one’s difference. the abandonment. in these stories, it becomes more and more permissible to believe that Karl and Vlad have easily found comfort in each other. to say that they are soulmates (as the creator, juan miguel severo, told on his twitter) is not an exaggeration.

and, make no mistake: Karl and Vlad did not find each other’s embraces out of pity. no. it would be unduly harsh to view them that way. rather, they found solace in each other’s embrace and warmth, but it is still they who will muster the courage to face their own demons. the only difference is, they now have each other to find some sort of release. they are not destructively dependent on each other; instead, they help each other grow into the versions of themselves that they can be proud of.

finally, a couple of small things: look at the way Karl was inviting Vlad to lie in bed with him. that simple gesture harks us back to the early days of their dynamics: Vlad had expressed that it was okay to share a bed, but Karl was adamant that they do not. Karl had once dreamed of Vlad joining him there, and that scared him shitless. in contrast to that, now we have this: Karl himself inviting Vlad, and Vlad accepting for Karl’s wholehearted invitation. the moment this happened, there was a consummation of the expression of their love. if they had their doubts prior to this, those could not have been more obliterated now. 

needless to say, i fucking, fucking loved this. as one who has only ever written three fanfics (2gether and History 2!), all of which seemingly related to sleeping (what the fuck, do i have a sleep fetish or something), this ending to episode 6 is just the cherry on top. 

their lines by the end particularly strike me. here we have Karl who wishes to create his own stories. on the other hand is Vlad who wishes that he be in charge of the endings, too. how do they do that? who knows? but the certainty that defines their pact is that they shall do it together, unbound and free to dance to the song they have chosen of their own accord. and that simple promise, made in each other’s tight embrace under artificially warm lights amid that early january weather, with no certainty at all of what tomorrow has to bring, has made all the difference. 

in 34 minutes, Gaya sa Pelikula has, yet again, done more than we could have ever expected.

i just checked and this reached 2k words. i’m not even gonna attempt to proofread this anymore. anyway, this is all i have to say for now. i just simply cannot let go of the best episode i’ve seen in this show without expressing my own reaction to it. 

(also: i’m thinking of writing a fanfic; that is, the morning after. just a one-shot, hopefully a cute one. as usual, an introspection of these characters, and what lies ahead. hope i actually get to write it!)

thank you so much, Gaya sa Pelikula. you are proof that things do change.

#gaya sa pelikula #ian pangilinan #paolo pangilinan #juan miguel severo #fanfic ideas have been brewing inside me #char #bl series #philippines #philippine bl series

[akitohru]

The Sohma clan and its cult-like characteristics or: why and how they get away with everything they do. Why everyone stays. Why the current system held in place operates so well. I wrote this back when episode 10 came out, but I didn’t post it over here. However, with the release of Rin’s episode, I’m seeing this topic being brought up again a lot, so I wanted to post it over here too. This post will include no manga spoilers, so don’t feel the need to watch out for them.

Warning: Abuse will be heavily discussed in this post.

With the reveal that Akito is God, we find out why the zodiac are so loyal to Akito. However, the curse itself is largely a metaphorical device rather than an actual fantasy device. Even without the curse, their loyalty to Akito is still.. very realistic considering the environment they grew up in. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Sohma clan (at least, the “inside” part of the clan.) is a cult. This post will be explaining why that is and how being in a cult affects people. I will be using this handout (uucnrv.org/uucwp/wp-content/uploads/Cults-handouts.pdf) in the post as a reference.The handout defines a cult as:

A religion or sect, generally considered to be extremist or false, under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader for whom members exhibit fixed, even religious, veneration.

The zodiac worship Akito as their God. Even if they have problems with how Akito operates things, they still hold great reverence for him and don’t go against him no matter what kind of heinous things he does Ex: Not doing anything about Yuki being locked and tormented in a dark room by Akito for a majority of his young life, Akito partially blinding Hatori + ruining him and Kana’s relationship, Akito harming Tohru, and Akito pushing Rin off from what looked to be the third floor of a building.

Now, onto what the handout describes as common characteristics of cults:

One charismatic leader is the group’s sole authority on truth; only this leader decides, or has the right to approve, all policies and practices. Members are zealous, protective, and unquestioningly committed to the leader.Members regard the leader’s beliefs and practices as truth and law; the leader affirms and enforces this idea. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or punished.

Since I’ve pretty much already covered how all of these characteristics relate to Akito and the zodiac under the definition, I’ll refrain from repeating myself on certain things. You may have noticed in episode 9 that Yuki says, “He needs to know his place. Him and me both. That’s how it’s supposed to be.“ He and the others have had instilled in them ever since they were old enough to comprehend things that the way things operate in the Sohma Clan are simply just the way things are supposed  to be. That they can not defy that. That is is fate. Like Akito says to Kyo, "It’s what’s been carved into the wheel of fate for those born with a spirit.”

“The group’s leadership dictates how members should think, act, and feel. Members require the leader’s permission to change jobs, date, marry, or have children. The leader tells members where they can live and how to teach and discipline their children.”

Ex: Hatori having to get permission to marry Kana. While this is a characteristic of a cult, this also has to do with the Sohma clan’s family/household system. You can read more about that in this informative and intriguing post made by Furuba Canon here! (It warns in the post but watch out for spoilers.)

“The group uses public humiliation or punishment, debilitating work, sleep deprivation, or other practices to create group-think and to suppress individualism and doubt.”

I’ve already mentioned some examples of the type of punishment Akito exacts against the zodiac for insubordination under the definition, but another example of this would be when Akito visits the school and threatens Yuki with the “special room” he used to isolate him before because he skipped out of the New Year celebration

“The group is elitist, claiming special status for itself, its leaders, and its members.”

The zodiac are most definitely seen as special in the Sohma clan, only the “insiders” knowing of the curse. Akito, of course, is seen as the most special.

“Criticism or jokes about the leader or group are taken very seriously and likely punished.”

We see this when Kyo is fighting back against Akito in the annex, Akito responding with, “Don’t give me orders,” and becoming more aggressive after Kyo tells him not to touch him. We also see this when Tohru protects Momiji from Akito. 

Thought Reform

In the article (people.howstuffworks.com/cult.htm), “How Cults Work”, the author describes how cults manage to have so much control over people:

A destructive cult uses countless techniques to get its members to stay, commit themselves and take part in what may be harmful activities. The sum of these techniques constitutes what some people call “mind control.” It’s also known as “thought reform,” “brainwashing” and “coercive persuasion,” and it involves the systematic breakdown of a person’s sense of self… Thought reform is an umbrella term for any number of manipulative techniques used to get people to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do…most psychologists believe that cult brainwashing techniques, which are similar to techniques used in prisoner interrogation, do change a person’s thought processes

Techniques (I will only be mentioning the ones that apply to the Sohma Clan.):

1. “Isolation- Cults cut off members from the outside world (and even each other) to produce intense introspection, confusion, loss of perspective and a distorted sense of reality. The members of the cult become the person’s only social contact and feedback mechanism…

Cults may not allow unsupervised contact with the “outside world.” In this way, there is no chance for a “reality check” or validation of a new member’s concerns regarding the group.

Cults typically instill the belief that “outsiders” (non-cult members) are dangerous and wrong.”

As we first see in the “Spring Comes” episode, the Sohmas mostly all live in the big Sohma estate with no outsiders being allowed in without special permission. Even if they are allowed to attend school and go out for other reasons, they’re still pretty isolated and surrounded by people who don’t find the way things operate inside the estate odd at all, some even encouraging of it. Someone living in that type of environment all of their life will more likely than not be influenced by the people around them, twisted as those people may be.  

In a more extreme sense, we see this with how Akito isolated young Yuki and still isolates Kureno. Akito rarely allows anyone to see Kureno, keeping him by his side as much as possible, not giving him a chance to break free from his chains. The same went for Yuki. Again, Akito instilled in him that the outside world was pitch black and that no one would accept him out there, that it was dangerous to interact with people outside because they’d find him strange and weird.

2. “Induced Dependency- Cults demand absolute, unquestioning devotion, loyalty and submission. A cult member’s sense of self is systematically destroyed. Ultimately, feelings of worthlessness and “evil” become associated with independence and critical thinking, and feelings of warmth and love become associated with unquestioning submission…

Any doubts, assertiveness or remaining ties to the outside world are punished by the group through criticism, guilt and alienation. Questions and doubts are systematically “turned around” so that the doubter feels wrong, worthless, “evil” for questioning. The member is loved again when he renounces those doubts and submits to the will of the leader.”

We see this when Kyo questions why Akito allowed Tohru to live with them if he hates her so much, if he’s using her for something. In response to Kyo questioning, Akito retorts, “You’re always quick to make me the villain, huh?…You even killed your own mom! Do you think you have the right to fall in love with someone?! Do you think that’s allowed?! Kyo. Hey, Kyo. Think about it. Who’s the real villain here? Who’s the one who involved her the most?” When Kyo gives in, Akito becomes more “loving” towards him, saying, “It’s okay, I’ll go visit you in confinement. I’ll be by your side, so you won’t be alone. I love you. I actually love you so much, Kyo. Be a good boy from now on.“

Akito loves using people’s trauma against them, knows how to use it in such an awfully cruel way. In Kyo’s case, he has been told that he’s a monster his whole life even by his dad. His mother took her life and everyone blames it on him. It’s not simple to erase that guilt he feels from even though he has positive influences around him. (Ex: Kazuma, Tohru.) That’s how Akito breaks him down. Even if he knows Akito is a cruel person, it doesn’t erase the idea from his mind that he is a monster and that, despite Akito being the way he is, that he is right. Akito knows this. He manipulative and knows how to make people bend to his will.

“The leader may randomly alternate praise and love with scorn and punishment to keep the member off-balance and confused and instill immense self-doubt. The leader may offer occasional gifts and special privileges to encourage continued submission.”

We see this with how Akito tells everyone he “loves” them, but, at the same time, emotionally and physically abuses them to keep them in check. The situation with Kyo in the annex applies here too.

3. “Dread- Once complete dependence is established, the member must retain the leader’s good favor or else his life falls apart.

The leader may punish doubt or insubordination with physical or emotional trauma.”

I believed I’ve already used up all the examples I can use that won’t be spoilers, so I’ll copy the examples I used under the definition. Ex: Not doing anything about Yuki being locked and tormented in a dark room by Akito for a majority of his young life, Akito partially blinding Hatori + ruining him and Kana’s relationship, Akito harming Tohru, and Akito pushing Rin off from what looked to be the third floor of a building.

“Once all ties to the outside world have been cut, the member feels like his only family is the group, and he has nowhere else to go.

A specific example of this would be how Yuki felt when his mom gave him up to Akito. To quote him, “I thought that if she abandoned me, if she deserted me, everything would turn dark, and it would be the end to everything.”

“Access to necessities depends on the leader’s favor. The member must "behave” or he may not get food, water, social interaction or protection from the outside world.”

Again, Akito’s isolation of Kureno and Yuki applies here. There are some spoilery things I won’t mention that are very applicable here too.

To end off,

Indoctrination, or thought reform, is a long process that never really ends. Members are continually subjected to these techniques – it’s part of daily life in a cult. Some adjust well to it after a period of time, embracing their new role as “group member” and casting aside their old sense of independence. For others, it’s a perpetually stressful existence.

The zodiac were born into an extremely twisted environment. It’s pretty much all they’ve ever known. They think the way they are living is the way it is supposed to be and something that can not be changed. Akito is the head of the family and has the support of many Sohma elders/adults including most of the zodiacs’ very own parents. It is also worth noting that the Sohmas are a very rich and powerful clan (Notice how they even have a hospital under their name as shown in episode 5 of s2. That’s how Akito/the parents can get away with abusing the zodiac kids and putting them in the hospital without anyone reporting them.); if they really wanted to prevent someone from acting out against them they very easily could and could easily pay off authorities if anyone managed to report them. Another reason why real life cults are so successful is because of corrupt law enforcement who are willing to turn the other cheek if they are paid enough and deep political ties. 

So, with all that being said, you can see why it would be natural for them to feel trapped, to feel that they have no choice. Adults around them that were supposed to take care of them and protect them instead used them for their own benefit/let them be a part of such a twisted system. Abuse, childhood abuse especially, is something that can irrevocably damage a person’s mind. The effects of abuse and trauma are nothing to scoff at. Even healthy adults who’ve never been in that kind of environment can be brainwashed by a cult if they’re unlucky enough to get caught up in one.

#fruits basket

[some-jw-things]

if you dont mind explaining, what did the organisation do that it gives you such reaction? im not jw/exjw myself, im just following this blog because i wanna keep myself educated on all sorts of issues, but if you dont want to its absolutely fine

I mean Jehovahs Witnesses are blatantly a cult. That’s been explained pretty thoroughly by a lot of people.

I guess “this organization is a cult” can be hard to understand what that actually means. On a personal level, it defined my entire life. When I introduced myself to new people, the first thing I said was that I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was my entire identity. I actually think of myself back when I still believed in it as a completely different person than who I am now. I consider my old self to be dead, and so does my family.

When I told them I wanted to leave the cult, they mourned me. They cried for months. They raged and got angry. My sister refused to even look at me for days. In the span of one sentence, I lost my whole family, all of my friends, and my entire community. I was shunned, and they blamed me for abandoning them.

And I knew that would happen. They had always made it perfectly clear that love was conditional. I was told flat out— multiple times— that I would get kicked out of the house if I got disfellowshipped. My dad told me as a child that he would stop supporting me if I ever went to college, because every Witness he knows who’s ever gone has left the Truth. He also told me that the day I turned eighteen he would make me pay rent to keep living in his house unless I was preaching full time. All of that later turned out to be empty threats and a doctor told me that last part was actually illegal, but my family made sure I grew up believing it.

I was only loved so long as I followed the rules. This is standard practice for Jehovah’s Witnesses. I am lucky I got off as light as I did and wasn’t kicked out on the street. Even that only happened due to a technicality and how obviously mentally ill I was at that point.

Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theology is the reason I started self-harming. I was afab and when I was fifteen I spent a month asking why God thought women were innately lesser than men. That culminated in a big family discussion where I got anxious enough to start scratching at my lip over and over until I had a massive gash. My family watched. My mother made a token protest that I listened to for about three seconds. I walked away from that conversation with the knowledge that I needed to keep my mouth shut because certain questions were actually not allowed and a brand new bad habit.

I created an entire system for myself based on rigid discipline and punishment and the idea that any mistake meant I didn’t deserve to feel un-miserable, which is exactly the sort of mentality that this all-or-nothing religious purism breeds.

I was institutionalized in hospital psychiatric wards four times in the year after I left, and one more time about a year after that. The high school attempted to put me in foster care then, out of concern for my safety if I continued living in that environment. My mother supported the idea

The first time I remember sincerely contemplating suicide was when I was thirteen. My thoughts then were just that I figured I would never be able to hold off killing myself long enough to live to be eighteen. I felt trapped. I was specifically thinking I would never have the guts to be able to pry myself out of the Org and so I would be stuck in it forever. The JW lifestyle is miserable in a way I can’t express

I have comforted my little sister while she’s had a break down crying in the bathroom during meeting because the talk was about Armageddon and she didn’t think our dad would make it into Paradise. She had to stop attending public school because of panic attacks. She was suicidal too at one point, but our mom thought she wasn’t as bad as me and therefore was making it up for attention

Jehovah’s Witnesses by and large treat mental illness with prayer and talking to the elders. The majority of teenage girls in my congregation had severe unaddressed issues. The Society has whole articles on how sometimes the answer IS demonic possession. Their version of Paradise is a eugenics fantasy

At one point an elder comforted my family by telling them that Jehovah likely didn’t view my choice to leave as legitimate due to my mental issues. They have official articles calling all apostates “mentally diseased,” and how am I supposed to argue why that’s wrong?

The majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ teachings are bigoted and hateful. They have a cute little kids cartoon that compares the evil gays to terrorists. I was taught the mark of Cain and curse of Esau were responsible for the existence of other races. JW women are required to submit to their husbands and fathers no matter what, and divorce is a sin that will get you shunned. Trans people are forced to live as their agab, gay people have to remain celibate and never date. The elders reserve the right to out you to whoever they want, whenever they want.

There have been so many talks that have sent me running off somewhere private to cry and panic

There’s this little girl in the hall who was friends with my sister. She had needed a blood transfusion when she was a baby. Her parents had been willing to let her die, but the courts stepped in and took her away for a few days. She was given the blood transfusion, lived, and at thirteen had a crying breakdown in the middle of the hall because the talk had just said she would never make it into Paradise now. Usually though, if you’re old enough to speak for yourself, they let you die

My parents have had three bankruptcies and they mock me for saving money. They live as if the world is going to end at any moment. There’s no such thing as a future

The world has been about to end since my grandma was little. That’s a running joke. She’s lived through more changes to the Org than I’ll ever know about. My family has been ruthlessly controlled by this organization for generations. My family aren’t allowed to accept me even if they wanted to. I’ve seen this Org ruin so many people’s lives in a whole variety of ways. Three other kids I grew up with have been disfellowshipped since becoming adults. There are others who I don’t think could leave unless they literally ran away in secret

JW ideology loans itself to a certain style of parenting and that has consequences. They control every aspect of members’ lives. Behavior, dress, speech, career, free time, friends, which family you’re allowed to see, what media you can consume. The thoughts you are allowed to have. I’ve been sent into a spiraling panic before over the idea that “I shouldn’t be thinking that”

The Org barred outside ideas and all criticism. They forcibly kept me in the dark. Members are intentionally isolated from not just all outsiders, but also all outside opinions. I was raised in a way intended to make me an outcast everywhere but within the Org. I was told never to read about Jehovah’s Witnesses from any writer other than the Society itself. I was told never to listen to its critics. I was told that reading forbidden books would get me possessed by demons

The Society controlled and defined my entire life and somehow still manages to do so even after I’ve left. Every member I know has been hurt by it. I’m just the one who won’t forgive

#i feel like this doesnt explain anytthing but whatever #tw #suicide ideation #self harm #ask #ex jw #ex cult #apostate #ex jehovah’s witness #christianity #religion #exjw

[pinkvhs]

this has been a long time coming

ive detached from jack / dont watch jack anymore. i’ve poured so much into this story that involved the egos that i just....can’t let it go. so, im making ocs for the story instead. 

inspired by @lilakennedy . . . here is some info about my boys

Marvin the Magnificent➜ Marvin Lir MacKenna 

age: 27- from the 1920s

Brown wavy hair that goes to past his ears a bit

Blue eyes

Height: 5′7″

irish & welsh ( mother from wales father from ireland ) 

an illusionist / performer 

 Stage performance & regular attitude are a complete 180. Very bold on stage and confident but once he is off he is more reserved and calm

Best friends with Daniel

Knew Daniel for years, since they were around 10 years old. Extremely close bond.

Doesn’t believe in spirits but is very cautious / superstitious 

Gets powers whenever he and Daniel accidentally summon Phonus at Daniel’s Birthday/Halloween party. When it was just the two of them alone. 

He tries to attack Phonus since the monster killed Daniel 

but once he made contact with the demon, he was immediately teleported into our timeline. He took some of Phonus’s powers as a result 

He ends up getting burn marks on his arms/hands and face due to trying to physically fight Phonus when he was furious 

He has powers now, some he doesn’t know he can do yet. But his powers are: ✪= Not used often. ✦= strongest. ✧=weakest

✦ Empathic Element Manipulation ✦✪Fire Manipulation, ✦✪Necromancy, ✦Telekinesis,✦Kinetic Charging

✧✪Electricity Manipulation, ✦Magical Wall Generation, ✦Teleportation, ✧Intangibility, ✧Healing Hands, ✦✪Naturakinetic Combat

Riley finds him and helps him on his feet to find a place to stay

The two of them become close friends eventually, it takes a long time for Marv to warm up to people in this strange new environment- still tortured by that night. 

He blames himself for Daniels death every day. 

With his new unknown powers, he tries to go back in time to stop all this from happening. 

He opens up about his powers to Riley and the truth. 

Riley is beyond amazed that powers and magic exist, he tries to help Marv with his powers. 

He ends up needing to find a sort of job to stay at his home, so he tries the one thing he loved- entertaining people. With his magic, he dumbfounds audiences. 

However, once things were just looking up, his fire magic (the strongest) goes wrong.

He ends up catching a stage set on fire, causing injuries to hundreds. 

He panics. Riley tries to calm him down. But he can’t take it, he is convinced that he is destined to cause harm with these powers. 

He vanishes to a place by the sea and isolates himself, causing people to believe he died in the fire accident. 

He spends his time trying to prefect time travel and is consumed by isolation. though, he does attract wild life to him. they are very at ease with him

Refuses to use his fire magic 

One day, he comes across Viktor’s body on the shore. He takes him in quickly to his small home that he protected in case Phonus ever finds him.

He revives Viktor to come to. The stranger is a total mess and he tries to heal the man, but Viktor grabs him on reflex. So the man patches himself up

The two live together for a few months as the injuries heal up

Viktor convinces him to visit Riley again, so he does.

He teleports there and leaves a note stating that he is alive. He can’t bring himself to see Riley face to face

In the end, he tries to fight off Phonus. He fails miserably

He returns to his home, having Riley there with him. He gives Riley his powers because he doesn’t want to die and these powers go back to Phonus.

He trusts Riley with his life

Once Riley is given the powers, he passes away.

When his body is all alone peacefully at rest in the home, without any magic to protect it, Phonus finds the body

But no magic

The demon still takes the body. Using it to wake him up again and look into his mind to find out where the powers have gone

He remains a soul bounded victim to Phonus and reunites with Daniel

Both under Phonus’s control

Chase Brody➜ Noah Oliver Dodge

age: 29 - from our timeline

messy brown hair thats dyed blonde at the tips of it

brown eyes

Height: 5′9″

American

Dropped out of university and works part time at a local electronics store

loves to break things and try to fix them up again and make it totally new! 

has a passion for computers and likes to make his own computer 

he also loves film and had dreams of making a film 

a disaster cook but god help him he tries 

Father of 2 girls 

childish and fun loving 

reckless at times 

loves nature and going on walks / hikes 

met his wife in high school (been together since they were 16) 

they go to the same university, his wife studying to be a nurse 

at 18 he accidentally gets her pregnant and her parents arent the happiest about it

they get married at 19 

he becomes a stay at home dad and drops out to take care of their baby till she finishes nursing

they end up having another child once they get a small apartment together 

his daughter is friends with Viktors daughter and thats how the two families meet 

His wife actually works with Viktor and didn’t know at the time

his wife divorces him because, even though she does love him, she can’t keep working like this just to get by. she needs security and they dont have it. 

he is allowed to see his kids still but at the time it was very painful for him

he lives alone in that apartment, often calling Viktor to talk and invite him over so he doesn’t do shit he regrets 

he talks about how Viktor is so lucky to have such a wonderful life and wishes he could have that (since he doesn’t know the truth)

Viktor and Noah become very close and often have their kids over at each others houses

he hears news that Viktor is missing and becomes a mess. he is alone and doesnt know what to do. 

he tries to make it known that he is missing online, making posts and videos as much as he can to get peoples attention 

he visits the Valentin house hold and offers his wife any help thats needed, despite knowing all the turmoil they went though. he cares about the kids and doesn’t want them to worry. 

Henrik Von Schneeplestein➜ Viktor Alexis Valentin

age: 32 -from our timeline 

short grey hair

extremely pale blue eyes

pale, almost sickly skin 

Height: 6′2″

German

Doctor that specializes in internal medicine (meaning he focuses on helping adults) but also is a surgeon

Father of 3 girls

loves to bake! 

a hopeless romantic actually

he is very cold and standoff ish but once he loves you, he LOVES you

blunt to a fault still though

cares about people. more so than his own well being

extremely loyal

met his wife in university. he took an anatomy art class 

his wife helped him improve his drawing skills and the two became close

he fell for her very hard 

they get married and live in a house that they saved up for (with extra help from both of their parents)

once settled, they have their children 

his wife is a biology teacher with a minor in art teaching! 

he takes family trips whenever he can to the beach! his kids love the ocean!

he comes home one day to find his wife cheated on him- he suspected this for a while now. he found a shirt underneath the bed, thinking it was just a gift for later down the road for christmas or something. he went to fix it when a piece of paper fell out of the pocket. her phone number

he never gets mad at her. he blames himself

he thinks he isnt perfect enough

he becomes extremely distant and cold, more than before. never knowing when to bring it up

the two of them grow apart but still live together

they make sure not to worry their children though, they dont want them to think its their fault. 

he never brings up this information to Noah because he doesn’t want him to worry. 

very envious of Noah though and wish he would smack him. Noah has a wife that loves him and he wishes that Noah could wake up and see that and fix his actions. 

he does break down one night and tell Noah everything that happened

one day at the office, a man came in with a horrible neck injury. 

he typically sees people who just need some medication or the worst injury being a bite from a dog, but even that wasn’t bad. 

he rushes to take care of the stranger. once they were alone for a brief second, he gets trapped inside. 

Phonus used Daniels body in order to get to the Doctor. He attacks and possesses Viktor. 

Once Phonus is done using Viktor, he takes him to a cliff near the sea

He is snaps his neck and lets the body fall into the ocean. 

Eventually, he washes up to shore where Marvin is

he stays with marvin for months while he heals up himself, he refuses to get any magic help

once he decides to leave marvin has a hard time letting go, he is worried viktor will fall victim to phonus again 

he leaves to go home but once he reaches the steps, phonus finds him again. 

Jackieboy Man➜ Riley Lee Young

age: 23 - from our timeline 

very curly blonde hair

green eyes

skin that tans pretty easily 

the most muscular out of the lads but isnt extremely buff 

Height: 5′6″

American

Lives alone in a small apartment 

a college student, unsure what to major in but possibly wants to be a vet

LOVES animals! 

a vegetarian ! 

a pretty good cook actually! 

has a heart of gold and sees the best in most people, though he isn’t stupid. he knows there are terrible people in the world that can’t change and deserve punches to the face

he watches pets and volunteers at animal shelters!

he also babysits Viktors kids to get some money

was kicked out of his home. Viktor found out about it and bought him a small apartment to live in. (he would of offered Riley to stay but he has issues at home that he doesn’t want to subject Riley to on the daily)

he is the girls big brother figure and he loves to pay pretend with them ! 

He meets Marvin and they eventually become friends

he helps Marvin gain back confidence, giving him a place to stay, and helps him actually feel . . at home in this timeline 

when he finds out the truth that marvin is from the 1920s and has powers he cannot get over how cool it is! calling him a super hero and showing him comics that he has. he helps marvin try to get a better hold on the powers

he was around whenever the fire accident with marvins powers happen, he tries to calm marvin down but ends up alone. left to wonder what happened to his friend. 

When he has to start university up again he has to let the Valentin family know that he can’t be around as much as before but will try to help out if needed 

Viktor’s wife ends up calling Riley one day and begs him to come to the house as soon as he can for Viktor has been missing for days now

Riley puts up posters and gets the news out that Viktor is missing as much as he can around the city. 

He still goes to university but spends a lot of time in the Valentin household. Visiting on holidays and the girls birthdays. Having no news of Viktor. 

he later on gains marvins powers, his mainly being electricity and strength. 

he is set on finding phonus and fixing things for marvins sake 

Jameson Jackson➜ Daniel Edmund Thomas

age: 27 - from the 1920s

slicked short black hair

brown eyes

Height: 5′7″

British

a charming, bold, charismatic man 

an actor and musician, exceptionally good on piano

very witty and clever

lives a rather extravagant life 

very close friends with Marvin, trusts him with his life

on his 27th birthday on Halloween, he throws a party

he loves to mess around with guests and asks Marvin if they can have a a seance

they try it to entertain the guests, but nothing happens (to marvins relief) 

the party continues on till its just marvin and him by the end of the night

they try again to contact from the beyond

they succeed 

he comes face to face with the demon. an invisible hand causing him to kill himself. making Marvin watch 

he becomes Antiphonus’s personal toy 

his mind becomes warped and he loses all sense of who he used to be

he tries to fight back, but once he does, his tongue is cut out of his mouth. never to be able to voice for help again 

his body now bound to Phonus becomes a personal pin cushion. being cut open and inspected to see how far humans have come with healing themselves. to see how far a human body can handle things

being trapped with phonus he starts to believe that Marvin caused his death. he believes everything phonus tells him and is set on killing marvin 

he becomes very aware of realities all thanks to Phonus. 

Antisepticeye➜ Antiphonus

age: unknown. 

an immortal being / demon

seems to have been around for centuries 

first appears invisible, then a shadow figure, to a pitch black faceless figure that takes on more of a human shape - till finally, he appears to look like Daniel 

he is fascinated with humans, very curious and destructive 

he takes Daniel in as a host. he rests inside of Daniel’s body till he is strong enough to mimic the physical outer appearance of him

when he possesses people becomes stronger. he doesnt have full control right away, it takes him a bit of time to warm up once again to how powerful he used to be. 

he can see into his victims mind when possessing them, he knows all what Daniel knows / remembers. Daniels fame, fears, friendship. family, love- he knows it all. 

He uses this to his advantage to keep Daniel around without fighting him back- using Marvin against him

he is after the powers that he accidentally gave to Marvin on impact

he travels to the dimensions he has access to and time lines in hopes to find Marvin, taking Daniel along with no choice

he lands in our dimension and timeline to sense that his powers are close by

He ends up sabotaging Marvin’s performance with fire magic in order to kill him or capture him but it fails- he looses sight of him

While he is searching through the streets, he over hears talk about the human body. He comes across Viktors practice building and opens the door a crack. He can sense so many souls and blood in that building and gets vastly curious. He notices people injured and ill, waiting for care. He hatches an idea. 

 He returns to Daniel and possesses his body. He takes Daniel to an alley way close to the building, away from the eyes of others. He grabs the sharpest thing he can find and plunges it deep into the side of his neck and carves it out slowly and rips it out. 

He quickly makes Daniel reach the building and barges in, causing everyone to look on in horror. The nurses there rush to his aid as Phonus makes Daniel gasp and hold his neck to try to stop the bleeding. Nurses page for Viktor asap as they get Daniel to a stretcher and room fast.  Viktor arrives shortly after and is fast to help Daniel. Daniel just looks at Viktor and tries to nod. 

Once the nurses leave for a brief moment and its just him and Viktor, Phonus makes the door lock them inside.

Viktor goes to inject him with medication but Daniel reaches out and grabs Viktors arm. He say to Daniel that he knows needles are scary but you need this now, let go please. Daniel sits up and twists Viktors arm, causing Viktor to wince in pain while looking shocked. 

He grabs Daniels hand with his free one and tries to pry it away, but can't. Daniel kicks him away, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground. He gets up from the bed. The lights inside the room begin to flicker faster and faster. Electronics in the room flickering on and off, radios and tv consumed with fast stations, fluctuating volumes, and static. Viktor gets to his feet and hears all this noise and sees this horror in front of him. 

Phonus leaves Daniels body, causing Daniel's wound to disappear. Phonus stands in front of him.

He gets inside of Viktors mind to find all that he can about the human body and the amount of pain that it can handle. 

He sees in Viktors mind a young man with curly blonde hair. And for a brief moment inside of Viktors mind, he sees Marvin 

in the end he ends up taking Marvin captive but finds that the powers are gone. 

he keeps marvin around because he sees too, that he gave that blonde boy his powers

so he is on the hunt for Riley 

#.txt #smoke & mirrors #not yt related #long post #my ocs #THIS ISNT EVERY SINGLE DETAIL BUT GOD HELP ME THIS WAS HARD #I HAD TO HOLD BACK A L O T #BUT I NEEDED.....SOME OF THE IDEAS IN THERE LSDJFDAS

[semicolonthefifth]

CROSS Ch7 - La Artilleria

Jason and Charlie drove up north along the Black Road, passing by the vast stretches of open red dirt plains and the rolling horizon of endless mountains. For the past 40 minutes they have driven, speedily going down the Road as Jason kept his focus on the road, whereas Charlie looked to the scrolling environment. Thoughts ran through the young man’s head as he watched the red mountains against vibrant blue skies.

His excitement of Aurora was explicit for all to see, especially as he took in the sights beyond the Black Road. Charlie watched, with an eager grin and an ever-attentive watch. Far off he could see several villages that dotted the landscape, with small cars moving out in between them or toward the Road. The setting was largely vacant, without any other landmarks to stand out within the wasteland.

However his attention soon turns towards Jason Cross, as Charlie relaxes into his seat some more before thinking of something to say to better fill the time. Topics run through his mind, and he feels unsure of where exactly to start - until eventually settled on one and asked politely,

“Excuse me, Jason. If I may ask: how much of this world did you travel when you were part of the Crimson Crosses?”

Jason gives a quick glance over, lazily leaning back as he keeps a hand rested on the wheel. He then answers, a little interested, “Not much, to be honest. We stayed mainly in what the Deltans call Krossim - which is the stretch of open crossing through the mountains here. Up further North, past the Calberi landing station is a giant desert called Conq-Wey-Lay; then South is Taar, where the city of Moreatta is. Of course we’ve only gotten into the tips of either region, never gotten any deeper. Ain’t had no reason to.”

“So you’ve never been to Moresatta?”

“Nope. Again, no reason. I heard it’s nice, safer than life here on the Road apparently. I just don’t have the money or need to ever live in a place like that.”

“I see. You mentioned the Deltans just before; you think we’ll ever see one? Have you seen one?” Charlie seemed particularly excited about that topic, as heard in his brighter tone of voice.

Jason paused for a moment, stuck in thought before finally giving an answer. “Not really. My dad met some in his time, even befriended a couple. Still, the natives don’t much like coming close to the Road, so don’t expect to see one anytime soon.”

“Why’s that? They still have problems with the road?”

“It ain’t comfortable for them. Whole lotta craziness and badness happened for them here, especially on the Road. Been a long time since the wars, longer for us - but for them it still hurts fresh. Many have gotten over it, but the Road is not a place they want to be living near - it’s too different than what they want. In all my time in the Crosses, I’ve barely seen a Deltan walk anywhere close to the Road.”

“Speaking of the Crosses.” Charlie starts, really getting into the talk with Jason. “You mentioned your father a moment ago. Was he in the Crimson Crosses too?”

That got Jason smiling, as he was even more comfortable now while memories of his father came up. He said happily to the young passenger, “Of course! The Crimson Crosses have been a thing since about the War here. My dad served in it, his too, and so on and so forth - right down to Jeremiah Cross and his trusted cavalry. They started out as a pretty good unit working under your government, but when they saw how bad things were turning after the war, they split off and vowed to keep the people safe. They’d ride across the Road, helping villages out and overall giving everybody a gun to feel safe under. Before us my dad, Magnus Cross, probably worked his whole life doing the same thing - even teaching us to take his place when his aim weren’t any good. He kept working, even after our mom died - and he kept raising us good especially after that.”

Charlie, said with some uncertainty after that reveal, “Sorry to hear about that.”

Jason tsk’d, “It’s fine. We uh… didn’t know much about her anyways, other than she had family elsewhere in the wastes. It was when Fred and I were small, but my dad still did a fine job when she went away. He raised us to survive on our own, and in how to aim and shoot like a proper Cross should. We studied the Code that ol’ Jeremia wrote, and we’d go on missions right when Fred and I just turned about 14 years old. Did a lot of things, but most importantly we did our best to capture raiders and brought them before the law. Lotta memories.”

Charlie smiled some, casually looking back at the scrolling landscapes as he said softly, “No kidding. You know, your reports got a lot of attention back home at Tyrell. Radio stations got hold of some of the news that came from here, and they’d relay them as stories for us.”

“You uh…” Jason whispered a bit, amused and curious as he put off a toothy grin, “You saying I’m something of a celebrity back home?”

“Only to a small audience.” Charlie state matter-a-factly, causing Jason to huff out a curse. The young man then continued, “They got popular enough to prompt some collections and archives, but there’s no beating the old stuff. Still, it got me grabbing so much in order to get an idea of what it was like here. There were some favorites: the Black Road Chase; the 8-Man shootout; The Butcher of Red Peaks.”

“Ha!” Jason hollered, his grin fully restored. “The Butcher. Son-of-a-bitch ol’ Hetfield.”

“A favorite of yours too?”

“Oh, Kirk Hetfield? Yeah, a favorite between me and Fred as well. We fought on several occasions, and each time the crazed bastard came back wanting to get back at us. Every time he came around, coming in all red and blood covered and each time we came and slogged a good couple punches his way. Almost became fucking routine, the maniac. Some days we’d just wait by the property, and we’d know that somewhere he was up to his usual business, and then we’d get the call. We became so good we managed to catch him right at the act of his first kill of that very day.”

“Didn’t he carve people up for their fat and meat? We heard he was a cannibal.”

Jason frowned and was taken aback - looking absolutely insulted, “God’s sakes no! Damn assholes in Tyrell making up stories… the man wasn’t a cannibal, not in the slightest. He was just some crazed farmer who just got angry at the government one day, and thought the best way to get under their skin was to start killing farm animals. He only hurt one guy, and that was mostly in self-defence when someone caught him drawin’ and quartering a cow! Absolute fucking head-case! But, you know… he was just troubled, is all. Always under stress; had a lot of hate in his body, and he didn’t know what to do with it most days. My father tried setting him straight once - didn’t work. It wasn't until after several attempts from my brother and I did we finally get to him. I think he’s still out there, and probably way too old to do much harm.”

Charlie was completely silent afterwards, and kept staring on towards the horizon. His face was just blank - still and only ever blinking as his eyes trailed left and right for a moment or two. A long minute passes before he eventually asks,

“How do you draw and quarter a cow?”

“I’d tell ya, but I don’t want to remember. Let’s just say the farmer who owned that cow sold his entire life away for a one-way trip off the planet after that ordeal.”

“Never heard stories like that…”

“You live here long enough and you’ll see all sorts of insanity. Speaking of… we’re about close to where we’re heading.”

Jason begins to swerve onto the dirt, with the sudden shift from smooth sailing to rough riding hitting Charlie the hardest. His gaze to the then scrolling horizon gets shaken up every which way, and all the man could do was hold on for dear life. It takes a moment for him to gather his wits before he asks the million cred question, “Where are we going, exactly?”

“A place to get some answers… and some guns.” Jason replies, pointing straight ahead. Charlie squinted his eyes, getting a good look of what appeared to be… a box.

A lone vertically rectangular box, sitting calmly in the middle of nothing but dirt and the stray rock. The box, from Charlie’s best guess, stood at approximately 6 feet wide around and 12 feet tall, and was entirely constructed from concrete. It was painted in a pure white color, but that didn’t stop the layers of red dirt to add some warmth to its blocky canvas. It also looked like the occasional would-be artist also took their turn at the desert box - even from afar (and closing) - Charlie could make out the blurry, faded traces of graffiti. Aside from the pictures of middle-fingers proudly erect and smiling bullets, there was a tremendous lexicon of slurs and curses painted over each other. Layers upon layers of expletives, especially towards mothers, fathers, and their children born out of wedlock. Much of it had been scrubbed away, either naturally through time or out of the efforts of the box’s owner. Rapidly soon, Charlie could almost make out the most faded out words - and realized that Jason’s car was speeding right towards it.

Charlie nearly screamed and recoiled before Jason made a sharp swerve and came to a sudden stop right before he could hit the box. He was holding onto his seat like a cat, his fingers deep into the leather alike claws. Meanwhile, Jason casually reached into the glovebox and pulled out from it: a gaudy-looking handgun… and a claw hammer. He shoves the gun to his pocket, while keeping the hammer ready in hand.

The two men came then out from the car, though Charlie mostly crawled onto the ground - silently praying that it was there to greet him.

After a couple short breaths, Charlie slowly began to get up and weakly asked, “What was that for?”

“Oh, that?” Jason calmly asked, inspecting the hammer closely, “It’s just how we greet each other here.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” He breathlessly inquired.

“Me and Buddy. We’re good friends.” With that Jason comes over to Charlie, helping him up a bit before slowly making his way around the box.

As the pair came around, Charlie could almost make out some muffled music coming from inside the box - it sounded to be a mix of rap and a language he was unfamiliar with.

Right when Jason and Charlie came to a corner, Jason stops and points at the ground. Confused but too unsure to question what’s going on, Charlie stays where he’s at - all the while peeking out the corner to see what was at the other side.

At the ‘front’ face of the box was another wall, but with a cutout for a window. In the window were several metal bars running vertically, with the hole itself being too small to crawl inside even if there were no bars present.

Meanwhile Jason slowly rounds the corner, sticking to the walls beside the window but never sticking himself out in front of it. Holding the hammer in hand, Jason takes a couple breaths before signaling to Charlie again - this time with a finger wedged into his ear. Charlie does the same for both ears, all the while watching intensely before Jason proceeds to calmly say towards the window,

“Hey Buddy.”

For a split second a gasp is heard, then a record scratch, followed by--

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

A flurry of gunshots sound out from the window! Bullets fly as a skeletal, pale hand sticks out from the barred window and unleashes more bullets.

Charlie jumps back away, hard enough that he manages to throw his full weight against the ground. Jason flinchest, yet is otherwise appearing to be lacking in shock.

Eventually the gunshots give way to the sound of clicking, and almost immediately Jason grabs at the hand and pulls. With it comes an equally pale, skinny arm - attached to a grotesquely bony, pale man whose body is slammed against the bars. He pants wildly, his body writhing like a cockroach trying to free itself from its trapped limb. The man lets out a loud series of groans and whines, all with hissing and spitting. The creature keeps pulling, as if at any point the arm would give away completely - all the while Jason, with his hammer in hand, holds it at the ready as he struggles and yells with a mixture of happiness and fury, “Hey Buddy! Been a while hasn’t it?!”

‘Buddy’ starts to laugh (and cry) hysterically, still writhing in panic as he keeps pulling for his arm to be free. Eventually the man stops laughing and instead lets out some dry, wheezy breaths before speaking in a moist, high-pitched voice, “J-Jason?! Oh God, I didn’t think it be you, ol’ friend! J-just got a bit scared is all! Not’in bad about that, right?!”

“Scared?” Jason asks with mocking concern, “Of what?” Now why would you be scared of me when you’ve been so good up to this point. I mean, you haven’t been messing with me in any way, right? Haven’t tried a little something that would send me to a rager?”

“Honest no! Pos’tively, abs’lutely no! I didn- AAAARGH! AAAAAAAH!” Buddy then screams, as Jason starts pelting the man’s arm with the blunt end of the hammer.

“Better learn to stop fucking lying, Buddy!” Jason angrily replies, “One of these days it’s going to get you killed. Now… try again!”

“Nnnnnngh! Fuckin’!” Buddy growls and hisses, shaking fiercely from the pain. “F-F-Fine! I sorta, maybe, kinda tweaked somethin’ in that rifle a’yours back last week! I knew you were gunnin’ for a bounty up West, but I didn’t want ya killin’ one of my best buyers this month! I swears, I thought you’ve give up an’ go! Not chase ‘em over! No harm meant, honest!”

By this point Charlie had risen back up off the floor, and asks nervously, “So this is a ‘good friend’ of yours?”

Jason explains while gripping tighter at Buddy’s exposed arm, “Oh, it’s just how it is with this guy. Buddy’s just been a very bad guy and he needs to understand that setting your customer’s rifles to explode isn’t what makes for a healthy business. Now that that has been brought up…”

He turns the hammer and presses the pointed claw end against Buddy’s forearm - digging but not piercing the skin. This finally causes Buddy to drop the gun onto the floor, as his own grip weakens against Jason’s. Once it’s been dropped, Jason finally lets go of Buddy’s limb, letting the pathetic creature quickly slink back into the box. All Charlie could hear was whimpering from within the box, as Jason picks the gun from the floor and casually wipes the dirt off from it. As he cleans it, he takes a gander and comments, “Recent trade Buddy? I thought they stopped making this model about a year ago. Can’t remember how far back it’s been since I last saw one.”

Charlie slowly comes from the corner to peer into the window more, and some where he can get the full picture of what exactly was inside the box.

Inside he could see an emaciated, pale-skinned man - and behind him, walls filled to the brim with guns. A ton of guns. A whole arsenal with enough firepower to riddle a village to nothing three times over, and with enough ammo to spare afterwards once the dust was cleared. It was a mad mechanic’s wonderland dedicated to the gun, as all sorts hund and lay every possible inch. On strings and on hooks, wall to wall were firearms of varying levels of deconstruction. Rifle butts stuck out from a crate, and disassembled handguns lay across an entire surface of a table wedged and cut to fit in such tight quarters. There were several boxes of gun cleaning kits, alongside a portable welder and engraving machine. All around he could see at least 49 handguns, 20 semi-automatic rifles, 18 shotguns, 4 small machine guns, 6 heavy machine guns, and a library of ammunition ranging from those that can tear flesh like a blender, and those that’ll explode and rittle you with more holes than a grater.

The man named Buddy was another sight, but for different reasons. Looking to be in his twenties, he was a bony, hunched over man with a sickly pale complexion with very little pink in areas. His fat was practically nonexistent, and from head to two he was covered in grease and oil - making Charlie wonder how the hell Jason could’ve kept a tight hold on such a slipper vermin. His face was crooked in all sorts of ways. His nose slanted downward; his teeth were long and pointy, with deepening shades of yellow with no white in sight; his hair was greyed and as about as sickly looking as his body, with it clumping up due to the oil - made worse by the prominent bald-spot encompassing much of his cranium. Tightly strapped around his head were a set of circular goggles, which dug around his eye-sockets and had an orange-ish tint, either by design or dirty circumstance. The only attire he had on him was a set of underwear and socks, neither one Charlie could safely call clean.

Buddy panted and eventually recovered from his brush with Jason’s hammer, before replying with a scowl and a forcibly casual tone, “Y-yeah. Some b-bastard raider came ‘round and traded it in. Said he got it off some former lawman or something.”

He then casted a glare at Charlie, who promptly stepped back with a slight shock and joined closely with Jason.

Jason, meanwhile, brought the gun back to Buddy. All the while he proceeded his conversation as if the beatings he just delivered never happened, “Right, right. Look, Buddy, we’re just here for two things. Try doing us a favor and at least do one of them right, ok?”

“Hrmph!” Buddy groaned, scratching his belly with his left hand while his right was moving to grab a part far off up the shelves. It was then that Charlie could see the other visible detail of Buddy: his long and disfigured arm. It was jointed wrongly, and two areas before the wrist. It twisted and bent in ways no normal arm should, with the shoulder itself having something of a growth or hump. It acted almost independently from Buddy, with it casually grabbing things off the shelves and walls with its three digits. Aside from a thumb, the hand possessed only two fingers, with them being just as thick as the thumb. The way it squirmed and jittered almost brought Charlie to vomit.

Jason notices, proceeding then on with a late introduction. “Oh right. Charlie, this is Buddy. Buddy, this fine lad here is Charlie: he needs a gun.”

Charlie almost reflexively turns at Jason with a face of pure shock, wordlessly shouting ‘what?!’ while Buddy brings his malformed hand back down and takes a glance at the boy. Jason continues to be casual, explaining to Charlie, “Buddy here is a gunsmith, about the best one here for miles. You won’t find any other gun seller willing to sell you a good gun for a cheap price - especially when he’s playing for no side. He’s also a raging jackass who’ll just as sell you a gun as he would have it fall apart before use.”

“Not my fault it’s the winning strategy.” Buddy gleefully points out as he gives a wheezy chuckle. “Can’t let cheap buyers kill my best customers.”

“Won’t work if whoever survives your pranks decides to come back and burn you and the whole damn shop to the ground!” Jason snaps, before resuming his calmer conversation with Charlie. “Anyways, he’s your best guy for a gun out here if you don’t have a lot to spend. They’re quicker and easier to get around here than anywhere else on the Road.”

Charlie, however, brings up a point of much concern before Jason. “Jason… I have no clue where you got the impression, but I’ve never wielded a firearm. I don’t even have a license; shouldn’t I first get one before we…”

He trailed off a bit upon seeing Jason’s face, and the budding laughter he was trying his damndest to restrain. Eventually it breaks through and erupts, as Jason breathes harshly with every sharp laugh that escapes from him. Charlie gets blushed from the embarrassment before Jason calms down and explains,

“Come on man, there ain’t no license to get on Aurora! You come here, you’re just as free as any man or woman to grab a gun. Hell, there ain’t even a license for a car!”

Charlie ponders aloud, looking a bit worried, “That explains many of the things I’ve seen so far since coming here.”

“Look Charlie, just trust me. You’ll need a gun while you’re out here. I’ll give you a quick lesson once we get the chance, but for now just know I won’t be sitting you with anything too strong for ya.” Jason states, turning from Charlie to Buddy as he then starts on the trade, “So how about it? Can we get some guns?”

Buddy cracks his own neck with a twitch before leaning back and keeping away from the window. He snarls and replies, “Alright… what ya want?”

Jason lists off, “Two UR-5 Wakeman handguns, along with 3 full clips each. An extra box of rounds. One UR-7 Rangers rifle, a--”

Suddenly Buddy starts cackling, taking a sharp breath before exclaiming, “You got some balls if ya thinkin’ of making a buy like that! I know you don’t got the creds for it Jason, so don’t be asking for a rifle you can’t be affordin’!”

“I can afford a Ranger just fine, Buddy!” Jason shouts. “Every farmer and their mother’s got one!”

“Aye, but the price just went up! Sale’s been booming, and supply’s short! Unless you wanting to be as armed as every ‘Farma and his mom’, then you better come back with 850 creds!”

Jason quiets up a bit, eyes widening at the price before he tries to be a little more polite. “Listen, Buddy. I can get the money. The job I’m going on will pay me big-time, and there will be a lot of guns to bring back once I’m done. Just think of it as paying forward on an investment.”

“Fat. Fucking. Chance!” Buddy spits, “I let you off, then everyone will be coming for my neck. If you ain’t got the money for it, you ain’t getting the rifle. Simple.”

Groaning, Jason grabs the pistol he nabbed off Sid and held it over to Buddy. “What about this? This has to be good enough for a trade, right?”

Buddy leans close, eyeing it. Jason holds the pistol in such a way that the grip stays still against the rest of the gun, but a slight twitch lets off a subtle crackle that Buddy is just able to pick up. He rapidly moves back, grimacing with disgust.

“I ain’t taking that hunk of junk! You thinkin’ you can hide trash like that from me? Put that gun here, and I might blast my own nuts off! No deal!”

Jason is just about to start yelling again, even holding Sid’s gun up in the air - ready to throw it down onto the floor. Right then though Charlie interrupts, grabbing Jason’s arm before chiming in with a calm and cool, “I’ll pay for it.”

Things go quiet and calm as Jason looks down at Charlie. His ears perk, and he wonders if he heard Charlie right. The young man looks back at Jason, and as if reading his mind nods and confirms what he heard was true. He then looks at Buddy, as best he could considering the sight, and repeats,

“I’ll pay for it.”

Jason almost suggests Charlie not to do it, but Charlie remains firm and repeats his statement a third time, then adding, “If we need it, then I’m willing to pay for it.”

Charlie is quick to pull out his wallet, and sighing a bit Jason does the same. Buddy grins at them both, giving a full price for both Charlie and Jason to pay off: with the considerable amount paid off by Charlie’s creds, and the last remaining bit by Jason’s. After which Buddy pocketed every bit of it with his normal hand, while the disfigured one automatically slithered up and down the box interior to grab what was ordered. Buddy didn’t even need to look, as the arm felt every gun briefly before finding the right ones to lay at the table - this while he finishes putting the creds away and grabbing the ammunition with his normal hand. After all was collected, Buddy slid out what they bought:

2 sleek handguns with only a bit of grime on them. The guns were fully metallic, with an angular build and box-like slide and muzzle. They both looked a bit heavy.

A semi-automatic rifle, with a scope on top. It was a mix of a wooden body and metal workings, and it had an almost Old Earth Western feel with its curvature and sling. Out of all the weapons, this one was the cleanest.

Then finally the additional ammunition - enough for the job, as Jason hopes.

Jason spent several minutes inspecting each one, checking for any flaws or tamperings. Buddy watched, occasionally twitching in fright whenever Jason sharply turned the guns in any way. After some time, to both Jason and Buddy’s relief, the inspection found all guns to be in good shape - minus some dirt and oil. Jason handed a handgun to Charlie - who looked at it one moment with amazement in finally holding on is his hands for the very first time. It made his heart beat more strongly when he inspected it, and over the initial surprise came in a great weight of responsibility. He dares not to hold it in a way that would seem aggressive - keeping it pointed downward as waits on Jason to finish any remaining business.

“Last thing before we leave, Buddy.” Jason began. “We’re hunting down some gang causing trouble down the Road, and I’m sure you’ve probably sold guns to them at some point. I’m gonna need some directions to where they could be hiding, and so I hope that maybe you’ve seen something of theirs.” He reaches into his pockets, producing the patch he had gotten earlier. Holding it by the window, Buddy is able to get a good look.

After a brief examination, Buddy leans back and says with a grin. “Stone Groove Aces, eh? Bit too small a problem now, don’t ya think?”

“They’re gunning for me, Buddy. Better I deal with them while they’re making it personal.”

“Bah! Who isn’t gunnin’ for you these days Jason.” Buddy coughs, chuckling a bit to himself as he picks a disassembled pistol off a rack and starts to give it a check over. He talks as he works, saying, “Don’t like ‘em though. Bastards, all of them. Get drunk near my shop and start scaring off the good payin’ customers. Their money was alright, but they wanted me to be their sole supplier. Big balls if they thinkin’ of pulling that shit! They ain’t Tarantulas or Jackals, those bastards all new and thinkin’ they big. Heard they got plans or something, making them think they so high and big-time. Only ever met a couple at a time, but I got a good idea where they’re hidin’.”

With his deformed hand casually going under the table, he later brings up a folded piece of paper and hands it over to Jason. He adds, “They’re hiding West, near the Syore Mountains. Go South down the Road till you spot a fort, turn Westward soon as you see it over a hill. If ya’ near the archway, you’re closing in on the right spot. Keep heading towards the mountains till you find a place to walk in through - after that you can use this map here to get a better idea on where they hidin’. It’s all on you though to put in the legwork.”

Jason takes it, inspecting that as well before storing it into his pocket. He begins making his leave, with Charlie following after. On the way out Jason says aloud, “Thank you for your service Buddy. There'll be a lot of guns coming your way once this is over.”

Buddy merely waves them off, all the while grinning to himself. His deformed arm moves up and starts to slide some guns to the side - making room for some future stock.

As Jason and Charlie make their way to the car, Charlie asks worriedly of Jason. “How’re you sure you can trust that guy? He looks and sounds as shifty as you can get.”

“I don’t.” Jason answers.

Charlie gets into the car, confused. Before long Jason too gets in, explaining further,

“Either he’s lying and I come back to kick his ass again - or, he’s honest and he makes a profit off my work. Out of those two options, at the end of the day, he’d rather have the second.”

Partially satisfied, Charlie gives no response to Jason.

After Jason stores the guns safely into his car, and with everything all settled and done, Jason stars the car and turns southward - back onto the Road once more.

#original writing #original work #CROSS #KRONOS #science fiction #western #writing #story #eyeofsemicolon #the5thsemicolon #semicolonthefifth #my writing

[bluesakura007]

Undeniable - Chapter 5: The Father of the Moth Woman - Khan Noonien Singh x OC

Summary: A conversation with her parents causes Zin to reveal to them the full explanation of how much Khan means to her and why she’s defending him. 

Warning: This chapter is touching up on a little bit of angst again. 

The afternoon arrived and kicked into action some hours on from Khan’s revelation of his origins and his childhood, with which Zinalya had been spending the last few minutes ambling aimlessly around the San Francisco harbour, taking this time after the aforementioned heart to heart that he’d shared with her to clear her mind, both from her mostly latent concerns about the current situation as a whole and from the tears she had shed during their conversation. 

She had her hands on a metallic railing lining the edge of the pavement where she was standing, this edge being the one that was nearest to the smooth, visually calming surface of the waters taking up the harbour; the railing's own surface was cold to the touch right now, but this was another thing in her environment that felt calming.

Off in the distance, standing by a set of buildings as a group, were Jim, Spock and Nyota, who were all watching as Zinalya took her hands off of the railing after a few seconds and began walking again, down the pavement. She was hardly difficult to see in the crowd, thanks to her burgundy hair colour.

"It kinda makes you think..." Uhura pondered out loud.

Spock turned his head to look at her. "About what?"

"About all this she's doing: she's willing to leave behind all she's ever known, her family, her job, everything, so that she can be with the man she loves." Answered the communications officer. "It makes you think about how much it means she loves Khan."

"She also might be making a mistake driven by allowing her passionate emotions to get the better of her."

"Way to kill the mood, Spock." Kirk remarked with a small laugh.

"People can make decisions regarding feelings of love without logical or rational thought of any kind." The half Vulcan hybrid responded, sticking to the point he was trying to put across as he continued to watch Zinalya gradually walk away, off into the part of the harbour’s crowd too far away to be seen, with the other two next to him still also observing her vanish. "I am aware that, in some cases, choices made in the name of romance can be for the greater good of both people involved, but in the other instances, their feelings can impair their judgement and therefore lead them into making harmful decisions."

"I’ve got a hell of a lot of my own doubts about her going away with him too, but it’s not our business to separate them knowingly." Responded the captain. "It’s like what we all heard Zin herself say to Bones earlier: we can’t dictate who she’s allowed to have the feelings for, so that means we can’t try to keep them apart."

"And we all saw what she’ll do to anybody that tries." Commented lieutenant Uhura jokingly.

"What additionally concerns me, however, is the possibility of Khan’s way of thinking and his ideals and mindsets being transferred to her." Said Spock.

"You’re worried about him being a bad influence on Zinalya?" Queried his girlfriend, for confirmation on whether what she thought she just heard was true.

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"Now you’re starting to sound like you’re her father." Opined Jim, in the same manner as his remark a few moments ago.

"But the thing is it's like Romeo and Juliet: I'm not saying we have to be in full support of what she wants to do either, but Romeo and Juliet were two lovers who were forbidden from being together by almost everybody they knew, and in the end it caused them both to commit suicide." Nyota added. "So if we try to get involved and stop those two from being together then we could basically just end up making it worse."

"As I recall, the ultimate fate of Romeo and Juliet was additionally implied to be because of their over-eagerness in progressing their relationship and not wanting to wait to find a more suitable and less dangerous environment before commencing marriage to each other."

"Spock, remind me never to let you start writing literature." Jim put in another of his remarks to his friend.

Almost another half hour on from that moment, the half Trill in question had made it back to her apartment, where upon entering she promptly sat down in one of the armchairs that she’d made use of last night when she was still pondering on whether or not to put her plan into action. Before she did indeed obey her impulses and set everything that had taken place that day into motion. However, this time she was in an at least somewhat better mood due to her feelings of closure at having gotten it off her chest and not having to hide it anymore like she'd been doing for the last several days before this one.

Suddenly, her attention was grabbed as her communicator in her pocket chirped, which she flipped open. "Go ahead."

"It's me." There came the sound of Sulu's voice on the other end of the line. "I called to tell you that your parents have just started trying to give you a call, ma'am."

"Okay. Thanks for letting me know, I'll talk to you later." Zinalya acknowledged before then closing the device again and, begrudgingly, got up and walked into her bedroom, where there was a wall-mounted screen on which her video calls could be held. She already had the words “Oh god...” running through her head - if the opinions and controversy she'd faced from her crewmates regarding her feelings for Khan so far were bad, that of her family was bound to be a whole lot worse.

She psyched herself up for a moment and then pressed the button on the controller pad nearby which would open up the incoming video call, and there they were. Her parents. Mason Hamilton was a human who used to work as a Starfleet adjutant, with Zinalya's hazel-green eyes and short, mousy brown hair, and her mother, Siazru Tebal, was a joined Trill and the fourth host of the Tebal symbiont working as an architect's executive on Earth, and was so far the first, and only female one, out of the Tebal hosts. She had shoulder length dark dark grey hair with a burgundy tint, entirely brown eyes and, due to being fully Trill, she had a lot more of this race's distinctive spots compared to Zin.

"Hello Zinalya." Siazru greeted.

"Hi you two." She responded. Here it comes...

"We’ve heard about what you said this morning in the Khan Noonien Singh trial." Mason said after a second of working out what to say next. ...And there it is.

Their hybrid daughter allowed herself a small chuckle. "News obviously travels from pretty quickly."

Her father nodded his head, his expression turning serious and steely. "It does." He continued, "Now, my million dollar question is: what the hell were you thinking?"

"Mason." His wife hissed to him, attempting to do this discretely.

Zinalya slowly crossed her arms. "How do you mean?"

"What was going through your brain when you said that? When you decided that you were in love with a terrorist?" He spat back.

"I thought you agreed you were going to be casual and cautious about this." Siazru did a mental facepalm.

"I didn’t just decide, dad." Replied Zin. "I didn’t think about it or pre-plan how I feel, I just spoke out what was in my heart. I went with what my gut was telling me."

"You didn’t think about it? That’s even worse!" Exclaimed Mason. "So you’re willy-nilly becoming the girlfriend of a criminal?"

"I’m not going to say anything cliché like ‘the heart wants what it wants’, but I just like him, simple as that. It’s something I can’t even put in words."

"And she said she wasn’t gonna say any clichés." He snorted derisively to himself.

"This is the reason why I was hesitant to answer your call - I just knew you were going to be like this." Zinalya snapped. "I was beginning to understand a little about why some of my crewmates might be sceptical, but you not supporting my decision is a whole different ball game!"

"I don’t mind what you do in life as long as it means you’re safe and happy!" Her father yelled back. "And going off on an exile with a killer is not what qualifies as safe!"

"Oh so you’re okay with me being safe but not being happy. In fact, you know what? If the man I like is such a big problem to you then why don’t you just disown me, dad?"

"I don’t want to disown you Zinalya, I just want you to make choices that are best for your own good! You’re our daughter, which means we love you and we don’t want you to throw away your future like this!" Shouted Mason.

"I’m not throwing anything away, I’m just exchanging one future for another." She gripped the bridge of her nose with her right hand.

"For a future where you spend it all with a murderer!" He retorted, at his highest volume yet during the conversation. "Whether you like it or not, I have to get this point into your head so that I can damn well help you!"

"YOU’RE NOT HELPING ME! SCOTTY AND PAVEL ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO’VE ACTUALLY LISTENED TO ME AND ARE SUPPORTING ME IN THIS AND THEY’RE NOT MY FAMILY!" Her building anger having finally reached its ultimate boiling point, Zinalya blew up at her father without any warning, silencing him immediately and releasing her pent-up frustrations about the matter. "YOU'RE SAYING IT'S FOR THE BEST BUT IT'S NOT! APART FROM PAVEL AND SCOTTY NONE OF YOU REALLY DO CARE ABOUT HOW I FEEL! IF YOU DID THEN YOU'D UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO DO! I WANT TO BE WITH KHAN!"

Once she had finished screaming, she stopped to take a deep breath to at least calm herself down to a small degree, facing away from the image of her stunned-into-silence father and equally surprised mother as tiny tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. There was still a hint of his own annoyance at the situation on his face but for the most part, Mason was visibly regretful that he'd caused this reaction from his daughter.

Siazru gently asked another moment on, "What do you like about him, if there is anything particular? Is there anything specific that caused these feelings for him in the first place?"

Zinalya blinked several times, before turning back around again to face them and giving her answer. "He's not just some cold-blooded murderer. He has feelings of longing, and regret, and sadness, like the rest of us." She sniffed. "He said he basically only ever had a normal, happy childhood during the first four years of his life, and then after that he was treated as a lab rat for most of the rest of it. As some kind of ongoing project that needed to be improved on and tested and controlled. And when he was woken up last year, he and his friends had ran so far and so fast from the threat of being wiped out altogether, and he was manipulated by the threat of every one of them being killed for the purpose of an admiral starting a war and getting personal glory for himself. An admiral who'd forgotten what the Federation stands for and managed to manipulate Khan into believing that everybody he had left in his life had been killed. He was scared, and people lash out when they get scared enough."

"I see." Siazru nodded in understanding, while her husband bit his lip slightly in his still fresh remorse.

"When I first started having my feelings for him on the Enterprise, I was doubtful too; I was worried about what it meant for me to feel that way about a man deemed as a criminal." The youngest of their three children continued. "But then I started to find out that he's not how he seems. I've also got a theory that it's the work of destiny, and that we don't really need to understand why we like each other and the only thing we do need is to be grateful for it. In fact, let me explain this in a different way: let's say, just for argument's sake, that Khan was a moth. As in like some kind of humanoid moth-like creature called the Moth Man." Her parents both nodded, wondering where she was going with this metaphor, as she then directly addressed Mason, "Well, the thing is, dad, you're the father of the Moth Woman. What I'm trying to say is, I don't know how it happened but me and him are made for each other." A beat passed, and then she finished with, "He's gentle underneath all that stuff on the surface, and I am still very open and comfortable with Scotty and Pavel because they are still my friends, but when I'm with him I feel even more like that. Being with him sometimes makes me feel like I wanna dance or burst into song, and the way he looks at me... it's like he's looking deep into me and realising that he can trust me. He only shows it on the outside a little bit, but when Khan sees me, his eyes light up, too, like he's trying to be welcoming. So now I can either try to save him, so that we can be together somewhere, or just let him be put back into stasis forever. It's a simple question of do I dare to try or don't I, and I've decided that I do."

#khan x oc #khan #star trek into darkness #into darkness #benedict cumberbatch #khan noonien singh #star trek aos #aos #into darkness khan #star trek #khanbatch #khan singh #stid

[crossdessinghippyhubby-blog]

Deductively eliminating ego and finding myself

It may seem like I have multiple personalities haha but I think I’m figuring it out. From what I see in studies my fem side surfaces when I am under great stress as a spill over valve. Childhood trauma and unknown circumstances made my outburst “crossdress” related for many different reoccurring and various catalytic events. This reaction is undeniable and when I resist, the lash back of pent up emotions sends me in to some weird places. These weird places are not too bad depending on how you view the cross dressing community. I was never allowed to embrace these feelings, and when I did, it was sexual and in private because I was aroused and ashamed (VS is sexier than haines) what is even more confusing is I was allowed to CD for Halloween twice and a school fundraiser (my brother did it too but my dad didn’t come to mine. Which is understandable because he knew I had done it before in private. SHAME) ps. I won the pageant haha. Dating was fine because it took a while to meet a girl who was worth revealing my shame to, but I found her. Now my wife, she has been supportive. Happily ever after right? No, I was a very influential amateur theologian in my denominational circle (not much difference than a “professional”) annnnd the Bible is pretty clear about what is unclean, so I closed off the only person willing to listen because the things that peaked my curiosity were labeled sinful in a book that is cool with many atrocious acts but some how became “The Moral Standard”. So for the last three years I successfully buried my feminine side with no “relapses”, urges, and no negative side affects on my emotions. Lol. Yeah right. That’s a long time to convince yourself that you’re a helpless loser gay boi if you indulge in this mindset. Plus I toed the line as often as I could with out reaching the weird parts that made me more uncomfortable.

The actual act of CD causes no actual harm an I would have been better off telling my wife how I felt and what I wanted but that wasn’t the case. I killed this side of myself to avoid relapsing, but I had to kill my empathetic emotions to do it. Parents who don’t talk about emotion make it easy for unjustified correlations with emotion. Ie. empathy with my “feminine side”. That turned me to a nihilistic world view just to numb myself and wait til I was dead. Then came college.

I graduated highscool in 2012 and almost had the ideal conservative Christian marriage, from birth to 2019 I was all in for Jesus. Which is God. Which is the word. Which becomes prescriptive. Which if said prescriptions are followed, it can become a way to ruin relationships in a psychopathic way. Truth defined base solely on a book saying it’s true is rough. If the *Insert any holy book* says it’s true, it doesn’t make it true. That’s an argument we use on any apostate and false religions, We would DEMAND EVIDENCE. but that doesn’t apply to us. Turns out in all my years of proving evolution wrong, I never studied it. I should have been studying biology. The real issue comes with the lack of fact checking, and that leads to denominational delusion “I’m the most correct about connecting anecdotal evidence together to openly say my political views with the power and justification of the one true god”

The last year I’ve lost myself in finding myself. For the first time, me being me met the standard. What a freeing feeling.

Back to the CD stuff I guess haha. I recently brought these inner feelings back up to my wife and she has been accepting (but uncomfortable to an understandable extent) and this little bit of freedom felt amazing. Truly, I was high on not having to hide. It was the first time I’ve ever felt that connected with my wife. She knows everything. Shame is hard to shake, Id feel like my opportunities we few and fleeting and over the years I’ve picked up the habit of bingeing. This last week I have done things with my wife that I thought I would never be able to enjoy in a shameless environment and what can I say. Wow.

My ultimate fantasy is a GNO with my wife where we have a spa day, shop, and go out in our new clothes. She’s still not completely ready for something like that yet, so instead, she agreed to a couple smaller and enjoyable things. But I binge haha. I have maybe ramped up this week of getting high on dopamine for too long and with a new born baby, shes understandably tired. Physically and emotionally. My preconditioned brain processed her change of mood and uninterested to be directly related to this change, but she says that’s not the case. I feel bad because Its like bingeing a new video game. You can play it for a week straight and then the initial excitement wares off. It would make sense that the abrupt absence of her masculine man would have her upset. I’m sure her friends get mad at their husbands when they geek out on video games for hours and hours.

I was getting confused about my fem levels. My mannerisms, were uncontrollable. This was the first time I let her out of the cage. Shame is still looking at me from afar, but I’m flipping it the bird. But what was this? I had a set fantasy, a grill night with my bff and this isn’t matching it. I’m not trans, I know this to my core. I love being me. I now see this as the same reaction as a kid with their first smart phone. I have so many things I’m thankful for and enjoy as my manly self that I know I’ll be a him almost all the time. With that said, the video game addiction feeling is starting to subside, but my empathy hasn’t. I look at my painted toes and I don’t feel shame. But if they weren’t on right now I wouldn’t feel the any compulsion to paint them. Either or is whatever. It just is. I’m me and I have to take this one day at a time and continue to be honest with myself. Anyway, I’m Mark. I’m a father and a husband who was a college wrestler and works on a conservative Christian family farm. I’ll be his father for all of my life and her man that wants to be her lady of the night on special evenings from time to time til death.

I’m just trying to peel back the layers of lies I’ve been innocently told and accept myself. This is all my best effort to be candid on what it really is to be human.

Free people are free and for the first time, I’ve allowed myself to reap the full effect of being loved for who you really are.

#long reads #love poem #reality #home & lifestyle #mental help #fashion #honest thoughts #self honesty #journey #journal #athiest #atheism #chriatianity #richard dawkins #skeptic #equality #conservative logic #liberation #evidence

[assassin-writes]

The Lucky Ones / TLO Intro

genre: urban fantasy ~ angst :’)

SYNOPSIS

Zenith is the antithesis of everything The Well stands for. While it is filled to the brim with powerful magic, his very essence renders it useless. In this place filled with rejects and outsiders, he still find himself painfully different from all of them. Now, Zenith chooses to escape, and gambles his safety on his ability to blend into an unfamiliar society all while running away from his haunting past.

More under the cut:

SETTING

This world is highly influenced by the magic that exists within it, and this magic has one rule: everyone has a single power defined by a particular mental state. Because of this, the world puts great value on people being able to control themselves and, subsequently, control their abilities.

There have been great efforts made in order to help people who struggle, yet there are a few nobody has found a way to aid, at least so far. Most of them are left alone, since they may not have any powers, or they may not be harmful. But, just like before, there are a few unlucky ones, whose powers are so great it makes them a danger to themselves and everyone around them.

These people are given one last chance to show improvement at one of the Help Centers around the world. If they fail, they get thrown in The Well.

THE WELL

What is The Well? To most people, it’s a vast desert with the occasional people running around, a harsh but fair and necessary part of keeping society safe. Few people can tell you the horrors that go on down there, because nobody who ends up there can ever come back. That’s how it got its nickname.

Even fewer people know that a couple hundred years ago, The Well used to be a lush area surrounded by several fences and security. Nowadays, it’s a seemingly endless hole in the ground, thousands of miles of emptiness. The people living there tried countless times to build a society and enforce laws, but they learned all too soon that the effort of dozens can be burned to the ground in an instant by just one. As such, everyone is pretty much on their own now.

CHARACTERS

Our characters are part of two groups: those who crawled their way up from The Well (barely), and those who are yet to end up there. Some were doomed to fail from birth, while others were broken down every day to ensure that would happen. All those people have one thing in common, a last chance to prove they are better than what happened to them.

From The Well

ZENITH

noun (astronomy): the point in the sky or celestial sphere directly above an observer

Zenith’s first and last gift from his mum was being shoved into the sand when he was a baby, right before she was brutally murdered a few feet away from him. As it turned out, this was the most important lesson one could learn in the Well: hiding.

Just like how one would learn to cry for help, for soothing or for hunger, his life was a series of lessons too. He learned to run, to keep quiet, and to eat whatever he saw in front of him. And just when he was about to become an animal, he also learned how to dream. A life of pain was saved in an instant by just three words he had overheard: “outside the Well”.

From that moment forward, everything he did was to help him escape. Together with Grace, one of the few people he grew to trust, his insane daydreams started to seem like they could become reality.

Power: Zenith has a tendency to dissociate, which nullifies the powers of everyone in his vicinity.

GRACE

noun: the free and unmerited favour of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings

Grace grew up in The Well too, but further away from the walls, where few people ventured. She spent most of her time in a small group, doing their best to build a farm and eating the produce. Her life was one of the most peaceful in the Well. Unfortunately, just like everything else in the Well, it didn’t last long.

Another group of people had been eyeing them and their riches, and decided to attack. Grace and her mother managed to run away, closely followed by one of the men, who shot her mother’s leg clean off, causing her to collapse. Distraught by what had happened, Grace charged at the man, who made the mistake of underestimating her. A second later, she had shoved a knife in his chest, killing him instantly and running back to her mother, cradling her in her arms and screaming in agony. To her surprise, she watched her mother’s wound begin to close.

Her moment of happiness was cut short, however, when another man found them and his friend’s bloody corpse. That moment sealed the two women’s fates, who were forced to keep on running from the people who had now made it their life’s goal to get revenge.

Power: Grace’s power is healing someone whenever she is afraid to lose them. The catch is that she has to cause an injury of equal size to another person before being able to do so.

From the Help Center

ETHEL

Ethel’s mother died in childbirth, and her dad never quite managed to get over it. He tried to deal with the pain for his daughter’s sake, but allowed himself to indulge into occasional nostalgia. Determined to give Ethel some form of a relationship with her mum, he shared his wife’s favorite movies, listened to her music, and even signed her up to ballet. But Ethel wasn’t her mum, and she didn’t like ballet.

She tried telling her dad that she wanted to quit, but stopped when she saw the pain in his eyes, reassuring him that she actually loved it. This happened with every other activity, and soon enough what used to be an enjoyable bonding activity turned into soul-crushing guilt.

One day, while Ethel was dancing, her dad joined her in her dance. She smiled, softly, and watched as his expression went from bliss to shock as he suddenly pushed her away. Her dad managed to whisper one word with a shaky voice:

“Christa?”

Power: Ethel has a shaky sense of identity, and she frequently “borrows” other parts of someone to add to her personality. Whenever this happens to much, she starts shapeshifting into them.

JAMES/ADAM

Adam’s fate was decided before he was even born. About 20 or so years, to be exact, when a team of researchers started a project to create the first person with artificially created powers.

Adam grew up in a sterile environment, allowed to play only with the little cars and purple people his caregivers would give him. He tried to refuse, but got bored soon enough. He could only watch the zombie movies they put on, or play with the children they allowed him to, who always wore purple. He tried to stay away from everybody, but he got too lonely. Even the only freedom he ever knew manifested in a lab, where at least he was allowed to make things fly the way he wanted them to.

When he was a bit older, he was finally allowed to go and practice outside, tossing and moving bigger and bigger things. Or stopping multiple things at once, which got smaller and smaller.

When he was even older, they took him to a new place and gave him a pair of headphones. The rules were to only throw around the green cars, not the purple ones, and to stay where he was. He did what he was told, watching with excitement the pretty fire he was causing. Quickly enough, he got bored, and decided to run off to see everything better.

He sneaked around until he reached right behind one of the big cars that had tipped over, and noticed something underneath. Curious to what it was, he lifted the car slowly. Right in front of him were a dozen of people, all crushed together into a nauseating pile of gore.

By the time they found him, he was screaming and crushing everything around him. They tried to tranquilize him at first, then to shoot him, but he was more than capable of stopping bullets. He only stopped hours later, collapsing from exhaustion.

He vaguely remembers going from doctor to doctor, and them trying to get him to talk. The same people tried to give him the same toys, tried to get him to watch the same movies. Ultimately, they let him see his friends, and he struggled to resist. It didn’t last long. He gave in. And the second he did, they threatened to have them killed if he didn’t comply.

James hesitated for one second, hesitated for two, then crushed his friends’ skulls and collapsed the entire building onto everyone’s heads.

Power: James’s entire life was decided for him, and as such his power is what he wishes most: control. His abilities is telekinesis, the power to influence everything around himself.

THEME  & MEANING

This story is about the people society has all but given up on, the secrets they sweep under the rug and make themselves forget.

The irony of the title is that our characters are a couple of people whose lives have been turned upside down due to factors completely out of their control. Now, they have one last stop before they can either be redeemed in the eyes of society, or get thrown into The Well and have to fight for their lives.

However, there is another meaning that is just as important. This world’s entire foundation is comprised of thousands upon thousands of rejects, people who have failed to prove that they’re functional enough to integrate, yet our story only follows a couple of those people. Why? Because they were the ones who were powerful enough for their screams to cause trouble. Unfortunately, in this world, just like in any other, not everyone can be that loud.

#writeblr #writers of tumblr #wips #wip #fantasy #urban fantasy #angst #whump #:') #i love them i swear #tlo #the lucky ones #tlo is surprisingly hard to write bc i dont like being sad #mywork #this is #my 11th!!!!!!!!! #time rewriting/rearranging this post #bc tumblr wont #work!!!!!!!!!!!! #i genuinely hope the paragraphs are in order >:( #also i stayed up til 6am to finish those moodboards i have a problem

[thepoeticwit]

SPM: School, Parenting, Mental Health

(image credit: Lasie Slezac; Source: unsplash.com)

   For some, if not most of us Malaysians, we would have gone through the local government school system. This school system can be broken down into three levels: primary (UPSR), lower secondary (PT3) and upper secondary (SPM) excluding Form 6 (STPM) which is pretty much pre-university already. Those days in school were when memories both good and bad were made, and the gravity of stress and expectations were on your shoulders. Do you remember that? Do you remember whether your parents were strict or harsh on you just to get grades that would satisfy them? Do you remember breaking down and questioning yourself if going to school was really worth it? How about when you were looked down upon by many because you were inadequate? Have you ever feared that you would never make it out alive?

  These are the things that students today have to put up with. If you are an adult or elderly reading this, there is only a small chance that you are able to relate to the feelings above. Chances are that the circumstances and environment of the schooling system back then in the past 50 years or more were different compared to how things are as of now. The strictness of parents was present, as always. You already knew that school was worth it because back then education was the key to surpass poverty, and everything was less developed compared to now.

 It would seem that it has been deeply ingrained into the roots of the Asian culture, especially that in Malaysian families to regard strict discipline in all things especially education as a necessity in order to strive for personal greatness, honour and pride to the family name. Thus, this has been made into a cycle that goes on for generations. Some families may misinterpret this value and take it to the extremes, to the extent of abuse and violence. For instance, as I was browsing through Facebook, I saw a post made by an anonymous user on a university confession page who was deemed to be an SPM candidate.

 “Ever wonder what it’s like to be a teenage girl getting beaten by your parents? Not that slipper whacking. Being slammed to the wall, punched and slapped. Yeah, that's right. While having someone pull your hair so tightly and while you're crying wishing that you could just die that moment and end it all and that person brings you to the mirror and tells you to look at your shitty self.” She adds that she had suffered injuries such as bleeding in between her eyes, bruises, insults such as “retarded” (and other obscenities that won’t be mentioned here), broken spectacles, threats involving money, and a show of religion saying how God can see how useless she is. All this was done to her by her parents. “If God thinks beating up your daughter, constantly bullying her and wanting to make her kill herself then it is no God at all—it’s worse than a demon.”

 Having read that confession posted on that particular Facebook page, I wondered: does the local parenting culture make allowance for extremities such as this? Does parenting in Asian culture determine the methods of raising the child to be good and effective? Or does this do more harm than good, especially if the culture even allows this extreme? “It is definitely doing more harm than good,” said Grace Chan, a counsellor and Psychology lecturer at Methodist College Kuala Lumpur (MCKL). “This whole 'strict’ culture, particularly in achievement of grades is a selfish approach. Yes on one hand, parents are eager for children to succeed. But the definition of success for a lot of Asian parents are cookie-cutters; they are essentially the same. This cradle-to-grave path would likely start by achieving outstanding grades in university and to get a professional role and of course, to earn a sizable income.”

 In my own opinion, should such an instance of child abuse exist in families under the name of “discipline” and for the sake of culture, we have come to a point where change is needed in the methods of parenting in order to facilitate a healthier and more holistic growth and building of character. Otherwise, it is downright bullying and condescending upon a child-- the child has thus not failed the parents, rather it was the parents who have failed the child. Miss Suria (not her real name) a lecturer in Sociology had put it nicely, “Parents do not know what real learning is, so the only way they can measure how good the child is getting is by how good their results are”, She had also added that the strictness of parents is usually out of fear of not being able to provide for the child, and also wanting to use the child as a status symbol to improve their social standing among friends and family.

   Let’s take a look back to what we’ve observed comparing the education system then and now. As of now, there are still tiger mums and dads out there forcing strict discipline on their child; heavy pressure overwhelms students, while the students themselves barely know how to cope with it and are thus easily crushed; having been crushed and mentally worn out, students develop anxiety and depression which easily gets the better of them; they do not view school as being worth going to because they are going to get backlash for even trying to do something to learn; all in all, they would also have a low view of themselves which may (and God forbid) lead them to the point of even taking their own lives. 

“Academic success becomes more and more important to the point they don’t care about anything else, then you will get small children killing themselves,” said Miss Suria. “So we’re not talking about 18-year-olds killing themselves, we got 10 or 12-year-olds killing themselves. So, the more serious it becomes, the more earlier the effects can be seen. I personally have seen children as young as six, seven, nine-years-old who are depressed and stressed because of this ‘kiasu’ culture that we have.” Here is a general fact: 20% of adolescents (aged 13 to 18) may experience a mental health problem at any given year, making it the group that is most susceptible to mental illness. Another fact is that 10% of children and young people (aged 5 to 16) have a clinically diagnosable mental problem, yet 70% of children and adolescents who experience mental health problems have not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age.

  Just read the news: there are cases of suicide due to academic stress. The most recent case was reported on October 1, when a Form 3 student jumped to her death just mere hours before the PT3 examinations. This is only one of the many cases. How about that time three years ago when an SPM candidate hung himself in his room out of frustration of being unable to answer his Additional Mathematics paper 1 that afternoon (Nov. 25, 2015)? Again, only another of the many cases. What does this say? Would the correlation between academics, expectations, and mental health entail a causation? Rightly so, for if it were not for the extremely harsh attitude of parents toward their child (not even taking into account bullying in school, among other things) it would not have lead them to develop anxiety over the stress of grasping academic excellence for the sake of pleasing parents that are hard to please anyway. So, life is a mess, we are all screwed up, nobody loves me, I hate myself, school is not worth going to, and it is probably for the best that I leave this cruel world.

  So what shall we say about discipline? Should corporal punishment still be accepted to an extent, or completely eradicated for good? On one hand Grace Chan says, “Have no involvement of physical punishment; impact that would most affect a child in such a situation will definitely be on mental health.” Yet, on the other hand, Miss Suria says, “It’s the expectations that the parent has on the child that drives the child insane into mental illness.” She goes on to say that it is not entirely the parents fault but that parents get such an attitude from the pressures they receive from society and its expectations.

  Don’t misunderstand me. I do not condemn the discipline of our parents. Strictness is necessary where it is due, to correct and to shape our character. However, if it goes to the extent of it being overboard, abusive, merciless and unloving, then it is a grave sin to repent of. Perhaps there is a lesson to learn: we should gauge where to draw the line before strict discipline becomes abuse. Ever more rightly so, we should see children as human beings having intrinsic worth and the capability of doing whatever gift or talent they have been blessed with—we shall see past their flaws with eyes of grace and nurture them on the path they should lead. As I would go with Miss Suria’s verdict: parents need to be re-educated on what real learning is, and then they will know that it really is not about the grades.

#school #parenting #mental health #essay #article #feature article #malaysian #principles of journalism #IACT College #thepoeticwit #Train of Thought

[fear-god-shun-evil]

Who Has Wrenched My Mom From Home for 10 Years and Made Me Lose Warm Family?

By Zhou Jun, Germany

In a few days it would be Christmas Day, so the streets were full of festival atmosphere. As I was memorizing words with drooping head inside my classroom as usual, my classmate Anna who came from Philippines sat next to me and asked curiously: “Jun, will you return to China this Christmas to reunite with your family?” At her words, I was speechless, just looking at her and not knowing how to reply her.

She asked me with concern, “Jun, how are you?” I came to myself at once, smiled apologetically and replied, “I’m fine.” After a moment’s pause, I continued, “I tell you a story. Do you want to hear, Anna?” On hearing I would tell a story, my classmates, who were from Canada, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Rumania and other different countries, gathered around me, and said, “Jun, do you tell the story? We also want to hear!” Looking at their expectant eyes, I took a deep breath, and then began to tell the story.

“I was born in a blissful and happy family. From my childhood, I believed in God with my mom. She often read to me God’s words and fellowshiped with me about God’s will. Growing up under the watering of God’s words, I felt very happy. However, all of this was interrupted on account of the persecution of the CCP. Ten years ago, I was thirteen. One day during that winter, just when I came back home from school, my aunt came to my home in a fluster, caught me, and said anxiously, ‘Xiaojun, your dad has gone to the police station.’ I asked in surprise, ‘Why did he go there?’ She replied, ‘A few days ago, in order to prevent your mom from believing in God, the government people did ideological work with your dad. They asked him to report your mom’s faith in God to the police. As a result, he did go there taking all your mom’s books of God’s words as the evidence. I tried to stop him but failed. Hurry up! Go to find your mom and tell her not to come home.’ Before she finished her words, I had rushed out to find my mom. I ran fast through the streets and paths beside the paddy fields and went to the places where she had been to find her.

“On the way, I felt extremely miserable and anxious inside. In the past, my dad and mom were a loving couple and they took me under their wings and were very fond of me. Moreover, my dad supported mom in believing in God, and when brothers and sisters came to my home, he received them with her. But since he believed the rumors and slander spread by the CCP government, he who was honest and kind before had begun to strongly oppose my mom’s believing in God. To obstruct my mom, he often quarreled with her, beat her brutally, and even encouraged relatives and friends to prevent her from believing in God. What I didn’t expect was that he actually reported my mom to the police that time. Didn’t he know doing that meant my mom would be sent to prison and suffer the torture and cruel treatment? When I thought mom would be arrested by police and that I would never see her again, I felt extremely sad as if the sky had fallen and I didn’t dare to think what would happen if she was arrested.

“I searched for mom in the village, along the streets and near the paddy fields, but I didn’t find her. So I could do nothing but stand in the doorway and look around for her. I was afraid of hearing the police whistles and the worry and fear made me cry in spite of myself. In helplessness, I prayed to God, sobbing, ‘O God, today my dad went to the police station to report my mom’s belief in God, and the police are coming for arresting her. God, I’m really scared and worried that she will be arrested. God, I can only rely on You. I beg You to give me faith and power.’ After the prayer, I thought of these words of God: ‘You should know that all things in the environment around you are there by My permission, I arrange it all. See clearly and satisfy My heart in the environment I have given to you. Do not fear, Almighty God of hosts will surely be with you; He has your back and He is your shield.’ Right! Everything is in God’s sovereignty. The CCP police wanted to arrest my mom, but they couldn’t achieve it without God’s permission. With God backing me strongly from behind, what would I fear? When I thought of this, my uneasy heart gradually calmed down, and I also had courage and strength in my heart.

“Waiting for a long time, I finally saw my mom was back. I flew toward and hugged her and repeated with a trembling voice, ‘Mom, run! Run! Later, my dad will bring the police to arrest you.’ After hearing my words, she hugged me tightly, and said to me again and again in a broken voice, ‘Mom has to go. Take good care of yourself. When running into things, you need to pray to God more. We have God at our side, don’t be afraid. I’ll be okay and take care of yourself. …’ Her eyes moistened and tears also blurred my sight. Seeing my mom would leave me, I couldn’t help but run after her. As I ran with her, taking her hand, I said to her in tears, ‘Mom, mom, take care of yourself. Don’t worry about me. God will guide me. Mom …’ I kept running until we reached the roadside. I watched her receding figure, and all I could do was constantly wipe the tears from my face. How I wished to see her once more! How I wished to have her accompany me by my side all along! But I didn’t dare to say any words to detain her, as I knew if she stayed, she would be arrested and tortured by the police, and even more, her life would be in jeopardy.

“I just didn’t think that this parting is ten years.” When I spoke these words in a broken voice, Anna wrapped her arms around me, and other classmates sat around me in silence. I tried to calm myself down and hold back my tears. Then I continued telling them my experience.

“In these ten years, although I lose my mom’s companionship when growing up, God’s love has been with me all along. Besides, with the help and support of my brothers and sisters and the watering and shepherding of God’s words, I don’t feel lonely. For the sake of my living, I began to work when I was 15 and I once did every kind of the difficult and dirty work. Every Chinese New Year, when I saw other moms buy her daughters new coats, and that they cuddled up together, laughing and talking, I would gaze at them dumbly, as if I had returned to the past: At that time, my mom would prepare hot meals and clean and warm clothes for me, and also fellowship God’s words with me every day…. If the CCP government didn’t persecute and arrest us Christians, my mom and I wouldn’t be separated, and I wouldn’t suffer all these pain and harm. It was the CCP government that destroyed my happy family.

“In this decade, I always worried about my mom, and in countless nights, I dreamed she dragged me, and we kept running, and then the evil police closed in on us from all sides…. Every time I woke up from my nightmare, I would come to God and pray, for only God knew what deep sufferings I underwent, and only God could soothe my pain inside. I often thought: The national constitution expressly stipulates that citizens have freedom of religion; moreover, that we believe in God is a good thing, and we are taking the right path of life. But why does the CCP government persecute us Christians, with the result that my mom is forced to abandon our home and live in exile and that we can’t see each other?

“Later, I saw God’s words say: ‘For thousands of years this has been the land of filth, it is unbearably dirty, misery abounds, ghosts roam its every corner, tricking and deceiving, making groundless accusations, being ruthless and vicious, trampling this ghost town and leaving it littered with dead bodies; the stench of decay covers the land and pervades the air, and it is heavily guarded. Who can see the world beyond the skies? The devil tightly trusses all of man’s body, it puts out both his eyes, and seals his lips firmly shut. The king of devils has rampaged for several thousand years, right up until today, when it still keeps a close watch on the ghost town, as if it were an impenetrable palace of demons; this pack of watchdogs, meanwhile, stare with glaring eyes, deeply fearful that God will catch them unawares and wipe them all out, leaving them without a place of peace and happiness. How could the people of a ghost town such as this have ever seen God? Have they ever enjoyed the dearness and loveliness of God? What appreciation have they of the matters of the human world? Who of them can understand God’s eager will? Small wonder, then, that God incarnate remains completely hidden: In a dark society such as this, where the demons are merciless and inhumane, how could the king of devils, who kills people in the blink of an eye, tolerate the existence of a God who is lovely, kind, and also holy? How could it applaud and cheer the arrival of God? … Forefathers of the ancient? Beloved leaders? They all oppose God! Their meddling has left all beneath heaven in a state of darkness and chaos! Religious freedom? The legitimate rights and interests of citizens? They are all tricks for covering up sin!’

“China is an autocratic and atheistic country. To obtain their ambitions of permanently ruling over China, outwardly, the CCP government falsely claim that there is freedom of religion in China, but internally, they have labeled Christianity a cult and labeled the Holy Bible a cult book. They also crazily arrest us Christians everywhere, which has led to countless Christians being imprisoned, maimed and killed. The CCP truly is a satanic demon who resists and hates God. Besides, they also fabricate various rumors to slander us believers, which leads to the family members of Christians being involved—The CCP not only doesn’t allow them to attend school or work, but threatens and intimidates them. Just like my dad, after he believed the CCP’s lies and was threatened and intimidated by them, he began to use any means to prevent my mom from believing in God and reported her to the police. To escape being arrested by them, my mom had to leave our home and live in exile. Thereafter, my warm and peaceful family was broken. In these years, I have not only lost my mom’s companionship, concern and care, but suffered the discrimination and ridicule of the people around me, which has left eternal bitterness in my soul. All of these are caused by the CCP government.”

The painful memories hurt my heart, and tears trickled down my cheeks. My classmate Emera, who came from Romania, patted my shoulder gently. And Anna shook her head with an irrepressible frown, and said: “It is a lie that China believes in freedom.”

“In a blink, years passed. The CCP government’s persecution of Christians became more and more severe, so that many of them were arrested and put in prison. Because my mom was wanted by the CCP government, the police would surely find me if they followed up. So, for the sake of my safety, my brothers and sisters arranged for me to leave my hometown. But I didn’t want to do that, for I missed my mom so much, and I expected someday she would come back so that I could reunite with her. However, I knew that in China, it was very difficult for us believers to meet our family, let alone be with them.

“Before leaving, I received a letter from my mom, which said, ‘Juner, how are you? Mom is fine. Although I’m compelled to take flight outside our hometown because of the CCP’s persecution, God is with me and brothers and sisters also accompany me, so that I don’t feel lonely. God has prepared everything in abundance for me. Don’t worry about me. I have known you will leave our hometown, but wherever we are, we should come to rely on and look up to God in everything. As long as we truly depend on God, He will surely lead us to pass through this dark and difficult time. God’s words say: “You will surely, under the guidance of My light, break through the stranglehold of the forces of darkness. You will surely not, in the midst of darkness, lose the light guiding you. … You will surely be resolute and unwavering in the land of Sinim. Through the sufferings you endure, you will inherit the blessing that comes from Me, and will surely irradiate within the entire universe with My glory.” Juner, you know what? God will surely guide us to break through the stranglehold of the forces of darkness until God’s glory appears on the earth. The pain we suffer today is valuable and meaningful; it is God’s blessings and is necessary for us to gain the truth and salvation, and it is also the convincing proof of God’s victory against Satan. No matter what circumstances we encounter, we should maintain our loyalty to God, and suffer all that we should suffer to bear witness for God. This is the real love for God. You had been willful since childhood, and thus I was afraid when I wasn’t with you, you would go astray, so I could only entrust you to God, asking Him to guide, care and protect you. Thank God! You not only don’t be influenced negatively, but become sensible and obedient, and learn to cook and do housework. But more importantly, you have chosen to believe in God and perform duties in the church. I’m gratified by this. I know you are my daughter, but you belong to God even more, so I hope you can properly fulfill your duty to repay God’s love.’

“Reading that letter, I wiped my tears again and again, and offered my thanks and praise to God in my heart. Once, I was a wilful, selfish and unreasoning girl, but since my mom left me, I have learned to be independent and rely on God. The persecution and suppression of the CCP government not only doesn’t intimidate or crush me, but makes me have some discernment of their God-opposing essence, and what’s more, it also makes me truly experience God is caring me by my side.

“In retrospect, over these years, though my mom isn’t at my side, God has never left me. As I encountered difficulties, He always used brothers and sisters to help me; when I was negative and weak, His words comforted and supported me all along. Under the guidance of God’s words, I’ve known what positive and negative things are, been able to distinguish the CCP’s nature and essence of resisting God and its sinister motives, and found the correct life direction. Now, under God’s leading, I begin to pursue the truth and fulfill my duty of a creature of God, stepping onto the bright right way of human life. Thinking back to these years, I really can’t measure God’s love and keeping for me. From now on, I’m only willing to fulfill my duty well to repay God’s love for me.

“Although I have no family, God has always been with me.” After listening to me, my classmates gazed at me with approbation and admiration. At that time, I saw my teacher came toward me from behind, and I didn’t know when she started to listen to my story. And then she said to me, “Jun, through your story, we know the lies of the Chinese Communist government. In fact, they have been persecuting Christians. There is no freedom of belief in China and no freedom of human rights. We are willing to do our best to help you!”

The bell for class rang, and I turned to look out the window, thinking: It is the tenth year since I left my mom. Although I cannot reunite with her, I don’t feel lonely with God’s companionship. I only wish to do my best to pursue the truth and fulfill my duty to repay God’s love.

#believe in God #the church #pray to God