Yes, she has a minor obsession with finally being safe and feeling safe and secure around someone else. Yes, she would literally rather eat her own tongue than ever admit to this. She contains dualities.

I said I was writing a novel to someone

and they were like "oh that's good! Writings a good way to process what you've been through" and hoo boy right then did it slam home that to a medical professional it would seem I got health problem related trauma out the wazoo

No offense bro, but why are you always so protective of Cloud? No disrespect to you or anything but I've heard quite a bit of different opinions and theories on Cloud myself and I do agree with the people who say that he takes Tifa for granted. Going through trauma in the past is not really an excuse for his behavior. He also does act like he's the only one who has suffered in his life. Do you have other reason to defend him other than the fact that you "relate" to him? Just wondering.

Sorry for the late reply, my life has basically left no room for hobbies these past months. Your question is hard to reply to because I am not sure what you mean when you say I am protective of him. I guess you mean I defend his actions? Specifically in ACC? Firstly let me state that there is a difference between being a good character and being a nice character, there is also a difference between agreeing with someones actions, or just understanding them. Personally, I never really liked Cloud, especially not when I was younger. A lot of my defense of Cloud doesn't come from me personally liking him, but from me thinking he's a good character. I also think Snape is a good character, but I don't like his actions, and I don't defend them, although I still understand them to a certain degree. I should also say that as I started to understand Clouds character more, I also started liking HIM a bit more, although I still don't like the things he did, and would very likely not be friends with him. But I do understand why he did what he did and cannot be too critical of him because of that. You've probably heard that before you judge someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That's great advice, if you want to judge someone, you should imagine what it would be like to be them, however, I've noticed that too often when people try to walk a mile in someone elses shoes, they refuse to take their own shoes off first. They don't think "what would it be like to be him", they think "what would I do in that position". But Cloud is not you, and you cannot judge him by how you would act, you've not gone through the same things he has, your thought patterns aren't the same etc. This matters because too often I see people judging Clouds actions in ACC, and establishing his motivations by saying things that boil down to "If I were in his position, I would only do those actions if I loved Aerith/didn't love Tifa/whatever". But they're not Cloud, and they're not understanding how Cloud thinks, and that it's different from how THEY think. But like you said, I do see some recognizable elements of myself in Cloud, which is why I do understand his actions, and why I feel relatively certain in defending them, because I see them coming from a good place. It's common for me to react to things in a way that others find counter-intuitive. Let me give you an example, my brother once was mad at me because I had not told him my girlfriend of several years and I had broken up while I did tell a random stranger at the pub. He said that he felt like he wasn't important to me if I told a random stranger but not him. The truth was the exact opposite, I love my brother, and could not bear to face him for some reason, as I told him: "if not caring enough was the problem, then I wouldn't have told a random stranger". I see people exhibit that same lack of understanding when discussing Clouds actions, where they feel like his actions must be the sign of him just being a bad person, or not caring. But ask yourself what is more likely, that Square-enix wants their hero to be a bad person, or that you simply are misunderstanding the character? I understand why people don't get Cloud, Cloud suffers from obvious mental health issues, and mental health issues simply are not something that the general public understands, even today. Not only that, but Cloud went through the most insane series of traumatic events anyone could ever imagine. He had an alien parasite in him, saw his entire town murdered before his eyes, then saw Zack murdered in front of his eyes, then saw Aerith murdered in front of his eyes, and just when he started living a peaceful life he is forced to watch his child succumb to sickness in front of his eyes, and then he finds he himself is dying. All this on the psyche of a man who had had a fear of failure ever since he was a child, spent most of his life essentially in war, and had a severe identity crisis as well. Do you think you can honestly judge him by going "that's not what I would have done"? Would that not be incredibly

presumptuous? Have you suffered from depression as a result of severe post-war PTSD and a lifelong feeling of inadequacy combined with a fear of failure and the belief that many of your loved ones died because you failed and were inadequate? Because that's the context in which you have to view Cloud when watching Advent Children. Saying "Going through trauma in the past is not really an excuse for his behavior" is just incredibly short-sighted, your behavior is determined by who you are, and who you are is determined by what you go through in the past. You can't expect a broken child to become a well-adjusted adult when being a well-adjusted adult is the result of having a normal childhood.

I also don't want to cause offense, but this really is a mindset you should change, because this mindset is one of the most pervasive and damaging ones in our society, it's the one that probably bothers me most when I hear it because it makes zero sense. It's like breaking a robots self-repair unit, and then being angry at it on the grounds that the self-repair unit should have fixed it. It's also very insensitive in general, it's the equivalent of saying "why are you depressed, just stop being depressed", people don't choose to be depressed, people don't choose to have a fear of failure. People don't choose their emotions, they're just there. They can be influenced by behavior over time, sure, but behavior is equally influenced by who you are and your emotions, which, as mentioned before, is determined for a large part by your past. People don't just "snap out of it". They fight and fight and fight, and sometimes they win and break out of the spiral, and sometimes they lose and it breaks them.

FFVII, and especially Advent children, is all about that struggle, and during those struggles you will have high-points, and low-points. FFVII shows all of those. It shows Cloud trying, it shows Cloud wanting, it shows Cloud failing, but it also, ultimately, shows Cloud prevailing. Judging Cloud for not breaking out of the spiral by the time of Advent children, when he was mentally only barely 18 years old, and when he started at the worst place anyone could ever imagine, is just not reasonable. It's the modern day equivalent of "let them eat cake", something that can only be said from the place of privilege of not knowing what the struggles of the people you're critiquing are actually like. So having that out of the way, lets look at Clouds actions from the perspective of Cloud. Cloud is a young boy, and he's in love with the girl next door, he wants to get her to notice him. One day said girl walks up a mountain and he follows, she falls off a bridge and ends in a coma. Cloud followed her because he's in love with her, and he gets the blame from the adults. Cloud internalizes this, and its important to imagine what this must be like for a child, to have the adults all tell him it's his fault that the person he loves ended up hurt. "your fault", "your fault". Afterwards Cloud starts thinking Tifa hates him and starts acting out. I think this is a good moment to point out btw that this child has no father figure. This is the start of his feelings of failure and inadequacy, he blames himself for not being able to protect Tifa, failure number 1, he thinks that if he were strong, he'd be able to protect her, he thinks that if he were like Sephiroth, then even Tifa would have to notice him. Now until this time Cloud is not an asshole, he's a bit of a rebellious kid yes, but notice that he's not a bad kid as much as he's a kid who wants to protect someone, has no direction, and is acting out. So Cloud thinks he's not good enough, but he leaves town confident that he'll become good enough, and even makes a promise to Tifa. All this follows logically from what we know about Cloud, and tells us a lot about how deeply seated these feelings are. Becoming Soldier wasn't a small thing, not some small passion project that he just came up with one day, it's the result of the things that happened in his childhood and he left everything behind make it so. He told the girl he loved, he promised, he boasted. And then he failed. Failure number 2. He comes back to Nibleheim and can't bear to look Tifa in the eye and admit that he couldn't do it, that he's a failure. His entire life so far has revolved around this and he wasn't good enough. So here we have Cloud, not in a great mindset, thinking he's a failure, and what happens? His entire town is murdered by the person he admired, someone he worked with. His Mother is killed, and Tifa, the girl he PROMISED to protect, gets slashed open so badly that apparently she needed to have her ribcage reinforced with metal. I think we can all agree that this by itself would be enough to potentially scar a person for life. (Cloud, not Tifa XD) So what's next for the boy who left town in order to become a hero? Well, he gets captured and experimented on for 4 years, during which his mind and sense of identity is bombarded with memories and knowledge of the lifestream in the form of mako, muddying up his thoughts. Cloud already had a weak sense of self as a result of his childhood, it's why he failed to enter Soldier and now this distaste for who he is makes him extra susceptible to Jenovas influence. The next thing Cloud sees, (he didn't consciously experience the 4 years of mind-fuckery) is his best friend getting killed trying to protect him, because Cloud wasn't strong enough. Failure #3. At this point, in Clouds mind the list of people dead because he could not protect them, because he's a failure, include his mother, his entire town, his best friend, and as far as he knows, the girl he loves. This is his life. His mind is broken, he hates himself, he doesn't want to be himself,

he has a mind-altering parasite inside of him trying to adjust his identity and Clouds just goes "I reject this reality and constitute my own". And why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't he want to live in a fantasy world where he wasn't a failure, where he made it into soldier, where he was cool and successful and not a disappointing failure? Zack tells him to be his living legacy and Cloud goes with it, then he runs into Tifa, Jenova adjusts Cloud further based on Tifas memories of them and rejoined with the girl for whom he joined Soldier Cloud is unconsciously all too willing to play the part. FFVII starts and it doesn't take long for the cracks in his fake persona to show, he meets Aerith, and becomes her bodyguard. He gets to be the hero he always wanted to be. But then, even as "Cloud strife, soldier first class", Cloud is still a failure, the plate still drops, killing thousands, he gives Sephiroth the black materia, he beats up Aerith, and ultimately, fails to save her as well. Tifa was the First Failure, and Aerith was the Final Failure. Even as a soldier, Cloud still couldn't save anyone, he loses even more faith in himself, he doesn't know who he is, he doesn't trust himself, and then when he also loses Tifas trust in who he is, he just breaks and gives over to Jenova/Sephiroth. Even Hojo calls him a failure. Cloud feels like a nobody. Now mentally weakened, under the influence of jenova cells, he gives Sephiroth the black materia AGAIN, and meteor is summoned. Another entry on the long list of moments Cloud can look back on in shame later on in life. He falls into the lifestream and again his psyche is under attack. We know what happens afterwards, Tifa finds him, cares for him, and saves him through his feelings for her. Cloud realizes who he is, realizes he's weak, and goes after Sephiroth without lying to himself. In the end he defeats Sephiroth mentally and is supposedly rid of his direct influence.

But that doesn't mean that this mentally 17 year old is now fine, we should remember these events when analyzing ACC. Cloud has been in constant fighting/war/peril ever since he left home as a child, and is now a traumatized 17 year old in a 21 year olds body. Novels and other materials give us an insight into how Cloud thinks during these times, and how he thinks about himself. We hear him say that he's going to live because that's the only way he can atone for his sins. He talks about wanting to change, and about believing he can change because he now has Tifa. He's a man (boy) who just exited war, and wants to be positive, but is still clearly blaming himself. We see that this initially goes well, we are told that Cloud experiences peace and happiness that he's never experienced before. We're also told about the things that make it go badly, when he has to deliver flowers to the ancient city for instance. While Cloud regained the sense of who he was the belief that he wasn't good enough, that he was a failure, was never solved, if anything it was put on hold until he got his memories back, and now he is forced to deal with it.

While he is no longer directly manipulated by Sephiroth he's still suffering from PTSD and, most notably, survivors guilt. He blames himself for the deaths of Zack and Aerith in particular, and starts visiting the church. Now most people might think it's natural to avoid places that make you feel bad about yourself, but that's not how a depressed person thinks, Cloud thinks he deserves to feel badly he WANTS to punish himself, he WANTS to feel bad. He's ashamed of the moments where he's carefree and laughing with Tifa. Why should he get to be happy when Aerith and Zack are dead because of him? He shouldn't be happy, he should be in pain, he should remember them, not doing so would be an insult to their memories, he must never forget how he failed them! That's how Cloud is thinking. We know of course that this is non-sense, Aerith and Zack wouldn't want this, if anything it's this mindset that is tarnishing the memories of Aerith and Zack, but that's not how a mentally unwell person thinks. Cloud wants to atone, and thinks he finds salvation in Denzel, whom he finds at Aeriths church. He thinks that by saving this life, he can, in some way, make up for all the death he caused. Tifa has a similar belief when she finds out Denzels parents died in the plate crash. And when Denzel joins the family, and Cloud has path towards redemption in his mind, things start getting better again. Because this is the cause of the problems Cloud is having in ACC. When Nojima says:

first off, there’s the premise that things won’t go well between Tifa and Cloud, and that even without Geostigma or Sephiroth this might be the same

This is the conflict he's talking about, he's not saying "Tifa and Cloud are incompatible, it has nothing to do with Sephiroth", he's saying "if Sephiroth didn't show up during Advent children, Cloud and Tifa would still be having problems because Cloud is going through survivors guilt."

But the good times don't last, Denzel has Geostigma and Cloud cannot find a cure, Denzel....is going to die. Cloud, has failed again. Not only that, but Cloud catches Geostigma....Cloud is going to die. And THIS is why Cloud leaves in Advent children. And you have to look at this as Cloud. Cloud said he was going to live to atone for his sins, but instead he's going to die. He won't atone for his sins, even worse, he's going to leave Tifa and Marlene behind. He failed again. He couldn't protect Denzel, he potentially brought an infectious disease into their house as well. Literally all Cloud can think about is that literally everything he's ever tried has ended in failure, everyone he's ever tried to protect, he's failed at. Do you understand how easy it would be for a person like this to fall into the trap of thinking "I deserve to die", "I don't want Tifa and Marlene to see me die", "Tifa and Marlene are better off without me anyway", "they'd be happier if I weren't here". Etc. Now we know this is nonsense, but come on, how many instances have you heard of depressed people genuinely believing that their loved ones would be happier and better off if they just didn't exist? However, throughout the movie, Zack, Tifa, and Aerith, all confront Cloud, and urge him to not give up. Cloud eventually does try again, and ultimately finds redemption not by being stuck in the past, but by letting the past rest and be beautiful (a lesson Cleriths unfortunately never learned). "I never blamed you you know, not once" "I want to be forgiven. By who?" "Isn't it about time you did the forgiving?" In the end, Cloud moves on, and therefore, so do Zack and Aerith. Aerith and Zack walk into the light, Cloud plants flowers on Zacks grave, and lets Zacks buster sword rest in Aeriths church, now no longer rusting, but shining. Instead of the past being a negative reminder, Cloud lets the past be beautiful. Cloud was doing Aerith and Zack a disservice by remembering them the way he did, because it was ruining his life, it wasn't a good thing, but it did come from a good place, from a good man whose ashamed of not being good enough. Yes, it harmed Tifa, people going through these things often do hurt those around them, but it's not because they're bad people, or even weak, but because people are imperfect and Cloud has gone through hell, both internally, and externally. Are his actions really that weird or deplorable? "He didn't even go save the kids!" Yes, he's hesitant about saving the kids, why shouldn't he be? Everyone Cloud tried to protect or save, ended up maimed or worse, or as Cloud puts it: "I can't even save myself". "He left Tifa alone!" Yes, he thinks he's going to waste away and die, can you blame him for not wanting to put Tifa through that and for thinking she'd be better off without him? "He drinks!" Wouldn't you?! Who wouldn't want to forget that stuff? But in the end, He's only gone for about a week, he never intended to harm Tifa, he never physically harmed Tifa or cheated on her, his entire life revolved around wanting to be better for Tifa and blaming himself when he wasn't good enough, how is it reasonable to say this man takes Tifa for granted when the fact that he thinks he has to BE BETTER in order to be worthy of being with her has been a constant throughout his entire life and story? He DOESN'T take Tifa for granted, that's why he's beating himself up, that's why he leaves, not because he thinks he's better than her, or that he'll always have her, or that she'll follow him like a dog, or something like that. But because of the opposite, because he thinks HE is not good enough, that SHE would be better of without him. Saying Cloud takes Tifa for granted, is honestly, simply, wrong. It's 180 degrees the opposite of what is happening in FFVII, the biggest constant in Clouds life, is that he doesn't take Tifa for granted, and I don't understand how anyone could argue otherwise.

Nobody asked but here’s some Winters Family headcanons for my Ethan Lives AU:

> Ethan has had a lifelong bee sting allergy that, for unknown reasons, remained after his megamycete infection. He’s super pissed about the fact that he’s still allergic. (”I can reattach limbs but I might still need an epipen if I get stung by a bee? That’s BULLSHIT”)

> This does evolve into him finding some humor in his infection by complaining about all the minor inconveniences he still has to deal with despite being able to re-attach limbs (for example: crying while chopping strong onions, the pain of getting hand sanitizer in a paper cut, random back pain).

> He eventually gets a prosthetic to replace his lost left hand.  Yes, he will pop off his prosthetic and pass it off to people who ask for a hand. It took Chris three separate times to learn that he has to directly ask for what he needs help with, otherwise Ethan is going to keep doing it.

> Speaking of, while Ethan has elected to forgive and move on for all the mistakes made in both Europe and Dulvey, he’s a bit slower to get back into the same groove with Chris. It’s less the secrets and more the persistent mental image of Chris shooting “Mia” that’s the roadblock. Even knowing it was Miranda in disguise didn’t help, because she still looked like his wife, and it triggered his old “losing Mia” trauma from six years previous. He’s able to move past it, but it’s a process (there’s a lot of therapy involved).

> Mia’s medicine regime isn’t just for psychological conditions. She’s also on medication for a tremor in her hands that developed after her infection was cured, likely caused by the fungal growth in her brain. It is well-managed with medication, but she’s still careful when holding Rose or handling anything dangerous.

> She also still has gaps in her memory after Dulvey. The memories of everything that happened before the ship crash were the first to come back (which is part of what allowed her to give information to the BSAA), but the memories of what happened during her years in the Baker house have been slowest to return (understandably).

> She and Ethan 100% get marriage counseling after Europe (for reasons that will be explored in fanfic along with the obvious ones). The good news is by now, there are several counselors who have worked with anti-bioterrorism unit members and outbreak survivors, so the weird shit they have to work through isn’t that weird comparatively.

> Rose develops some bad separation anxiety post-Europe and has verbal language delays. They end up teaching her sign to help her communicate, which has the nice added benefit of making her bilingual.

> While she has no vivid memories of what happened in Europe, the megamycete hivemind gave her a broad strokes idea of what happened (along with some information about Dulvey that seeped through). Her biggest takeaway is that Ethan would do anything for her and will always keep her safe. Between that and a slight but obvious “psychic” bond between her and Ethan as a result of their shared infection, she trusts him more than pretty much anyone.

> Ethan starts working from home once he’s ready to work again. Rose doesn’t actually know what he does (it’s just remote tech work, nothing that would interest a kid), so the few times she’s been asked she just tells people her daddy kills monsters. Ethan has been able to turn this around by passing it off as “computer viruses, she means computer viruses.”

5 Fantasy Book Recommendations with WLW relationships!

Here are five of my favorite books which have FF centered pairings! Thought I would share them so you guys can expand your TBR’s with some sapphic goodness :) They’re not arranged in any particular order because they’re all equally enjoyable for me. I hope this post might help you in any way and I might do another one but for contemporary reads instead soon so stay tuned   

1. Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon Link to book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29774026-the-priory-of-the-orange-tree

Synopsis: 

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic. Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel. Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

--> The book is written in multiple perspectives, switching between Ead, Tane and Niclays. I found the story extremely engrossing and the FF couple was just a really nice added bonus! Seriously though, Ead and Sabran’s relationship was fairly slow burn but extremely rewarding to read. Would recommend this wholeheartedly to those who enjoy fantasy and dragons. Did I mention DRAGONS? 

2. Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan Link to book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34433755-girls-of-paper-and-fire

Synopsis:  Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It's the highest honor they could hope for...and the most demeaning. This year, there's a ninth. And instead of paper, she's made of fire. In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards for an unknown fate still haunts her. Now, the guards are back and this time it's Lei they're after -- the girl with the golden eyes whose rumored beauty has piqued the king's interest. Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei and eight other girls learns the skills and charm that befit a king's consort. There, she does the unthinkable -- she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens her world's entire way of life. Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide how far she's willing to go for justice and revenge.  --> Girls of Paper and Fire is a great example of how YA fantasy books should be. The story felt original and the diversity is great too. The characters here are interesting to read about and this was again, another book which I wanted to read on and on just to know what was going to happen. Lei, a girl who like several others were chosen to become the King’s personal concubines. Yes, there are certain parts that might be uncomfortable to read about (rape, sexual assault, abuse) but I think the topic was mostly handled well by the author. It was really nice to read about how the two unlikely concubines of the King slowly find themselves attracted to each other and how their relationship develops with the main plot. The third book from the series will be released on 2021 and I can’t wait to see how the author ties everything up!  3. Breaking Legacies by Zoe Reed Link to book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30242712-breaking-legacies

Synopsis:  In a land impoverished by a war that started before she was born, Kiena has provided for her mother and brother by becoming one of the best hunters in the kingdom. But when a lifelong friend with connections recommends her to the king to track down a runaway princess, her life gets turned upside down. Finding the princess is easy. Deciding what to do in a conflicting mess of politics and emotions… not so much.  --> Now, I know the synopsis does not do a whole lot of justice for the book but trust me, this is one that you want to read. Without going into much details, this was a very fun adventure-ish read where you follow Kiena, the main character of the book, who is asked to look for the princess of the kingdom who ran off to god-knows-where. From blue orbs to finding long lost friends of her father to falling in love with the princess, there’s something that’s always holding your attention. 4. Crier’s War by Nina Varela  Link to book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41951626-crier-s-war

Synopsis:  Impossible love between two girls —one human, one Made. A love that could birth a revolution. After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, Designed to be the playthings of royals, took over the estates of their owners and bent the human race to their will. Now, Ayla, a human servant rising the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging the death of her family… by killing the Sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. Crier, who was Made to be beautiful, to be flawless. And to take over the work of her father. Crier had been preparing to do just that—to inherit her father’s rule over the land. But that was before she was betrothed to Scyre Kinok, who seems to have a thousand secrets. That was before she discovered her father isn’t as benevolent as she thought. That was before she met Ayla. Set in a richly-imagined fantasy world, Nina Varela’s debut novel is a sweepingly romantic tale of love, loss and revenge, that challenges what it really means to be human. --> A stunning fantasy//science-fiction debut which hooked me from the start. The romance aspect was done well but I enjoyed the world building that the author did with this and I found myself curious about how the system worked. This is basically an enemies-to-lovers trope type of romance which progressed nicely although it’s not completely resolved as it ended in quite a cliff hanger, though the next book will be releasing on September!  5. Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust  Link to book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51182650-girl-serpent-thorn

Synopsis:  There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story. As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time. Below in the dungeon is a demon who holds knowledge that she craves, the answer to her freedom. And above is a young man who isn’t afraid of her, whose eyes linger not with fear, but with an understanding of who she is beneath the poison. Soraya thought she knew her place in the world, but when her choices lead to consequences she never imagined, she begins to question who she is and who she is becoming...human or demon. Princess or monster. --> Another enemies-to-lovers fantasy to sooth your gay heart! Here’s a fairy-tale like YA which has a bisexual, person of colour protagonist! In short words, it’s about how a girl who is cursed causing her to be unable to touch anyone without killing them and her journey to saving her brother and ultimately, finding herself. 

*Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.

Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee, and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming.

For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your kids to Disneyland makes you: proud. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.

What the trauma has shown us, though, cannot be unseen. A carless Los Angeles has clear blue skies as pollution has simply stopped. In a quiet New York, you can hear the birds chirp in the middle of Madison Avenue. Coyotes have been spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the postcard images of what the world might be like if we could find a way to have a less deadly daily effect on the planet. What’s not fit for a postcard are the other scenes we have witnessed: a health care system that cannot provide basic protective equipment for its frontline; small businesses — and very large ones — that do not have enough cash to pay their rent or workers, sending over 16 million people to seek unemployment benefits; a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives.

The cat is out of the bag. We, as a nation, have deeply disturbing problems. You’re right. That’s not news. They are problems we ignore every day, not because we’re terrible people or because we don’t care about fixing them, but because we don’t have time. Sorry, we have other shit to do. The plain truth is that no matter our ethnicity, religion, gender, political party (the list goes on), nor even our socioeconomic status, as Americans we share this: We are busy. We’re out and about hustling to make our own lives work. We have goals to meet and meetings to attend and mortgages to pay — all while the phone is ringing and the laptop is pinging. And when we get home, Crate and Barrel and Louis Vuitton and Andy Cohen make us feel just good enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. It is very easy to close your eyes to a problem when you barely have enough time to close them to sleep. The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too.

Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and J. Crew and Gwyneth Paltrow to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte with two pumps of syrup, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not ruinous. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people — and most anything in life — there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin.

And so the onslaught is coming. Get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels. And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the one effort that’s even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw. The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake. The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole. The numbers were not that high; the press is lying. You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote. Not in America. You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update. You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street. You didn’t see inequality. You didn’t see indifference. You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.

But you did. You are not crazy, my friends. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 (Don’t say I never gave you anything) and then it will be so big that it will be bigly. And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big White House — inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer in Chief. Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming.

From one citizen to another, I beg of you: Take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all. We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, 10, 50 years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.

We can do that on a personal scale in our homes, in how we choose to spend our family time on nights and weekends, what we watch, what we listen to, what we eat, and what we choose to spend our dollars on and where. We can do it locally in our communities, in what organizations we support, what truths we tell, and what events we attend. And we can do it nationally in our government, in which leaders we vote in and to whom we give power. If we want cleaner air, we can make it happen. If we want to protect our doctors and nurses from the next virus — and protect all Americans — we can make it happen. If we want our neighbors and friends to earn a dignified income, we can make that happen. If we want millions of kids to be able to eat if suddenly their school is closed, we can make that happen. And, yes, if we just want to live a simpler life, we can make that happen, too. But only if we resist the massive gaslighting that is about to come. It’s on its way. Look out.

https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0

200 dialogue prompts siinra/sunny, A18 ("i'm pregnant") and C45 ("when's the last time you slept")?

[prompts from here]

okay anon i just wanna tell you u made my day with this ask because i don’t really feel like anyone cares about my ocs but i’m gonna cry brb

have this very short ficlet in honor of you. CW for angst in general, pregnancy, abortion mention and well parental trauma because wow surprise! having a child when you’re constantly haunted by the memories of your shitty parents is fun /j

(also, can asari even have unplanned children? are there brain condoms for when you have mind sex????)

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

There’s silence for a moment after she utters those two words. It lingers in the air uncomfortably, making it clear neither of them knows what to say. They’ve had difficult conversations before. They’ve fought and argued about issues that surfaced when they were both angry and then apologized, realizing that they would always be flawed beings who would make mistakes. It’s in their nature.

But this time it isn’t about rent, or making ends meet, or their pasts, or whatever usually causes a quarrel between them.

“I’m pregnant.”

It’s about bringing a life into the world. 

Siinra is there, leaning against one of the kitchen countertops, pupils averting his gaze and hand resting on her belly and dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep.

“How far along?”

“Two months,” she mutters, and suddenly, the severity of the situation dawns on her.

They’re going to have a damn child, a child that they hadn’t planned on having or even conceiving, and the thought of them being parents is somehow terrifying. That thing inside her is alive and in less of a year it will have become its own person. She just can’t imagine the idea of giving birth to her own blood. (The concept of going into labor itself scares her too. It mentally exhausts her just to think about spending hours in pain, pushing a screaming baby out of her body.)

“I can… take care of it, if necessary,” Siinra blurts out, almost regretting it instantly. “But—“

She was unplanned, too. Her parents weren’t ready—nor willing—to take care of her and it only resulted in a terrible childhood; an absent father and an emotionally volatile mother. No child should have to go through that. No child of her, who didn’t ask to be put into this crazed galaxy.

That kid isn’t even born and she’s already worrying about it, thinking about what would happen if any of their enemies found out. Both of their jobs are dangerous enough. She has certainly crossed some people with enough power, madness or influence to be significant threats. People who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt a child if it meant getting to her.

Oh, Goddess. It makes her feel sick.

“But?”

And guilty. This should never have happened. 

What if Sunshine isn’t just up to it? What if he just leaves? He probably doesn’t want a daughter, anyways. It makes her think of her own father, who just regarded her as a mistake and only came to visit when his guilt consumed him. Sunny will do that, too. Yes. She’s sure of it. She’s burdened him. A wave of nausea sweeps over her and she covers her mouth when she realizes she’s about to vomit the Blast-Ohs she had for breakfast.

She zones out for a moment and the next thing she knows is the touch of familiar arms holding her and her face tucked into the crook of his neck. Sunshine looks down at her with those dark eyes and concern on his face and she feels like she’s about to cry. 

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he says, and even if he sounds unsure, she believes him. A scarred hand cups her cheek. “Hey. When’s the last time you slept?”

Oh, yeah. There's insomnia, too. She doesn't know if it's hormones, nausea, anxiety, or the three at the same time that have caused her to spend the last two nights in front of a screen, watching documentaries and hoping she would fall asleep eventually. But every time she closed her eyes, the questions appeared again. How will you tell him, Siinra? How will you tell your boyfriend that he’s about to be a father and you don’t even know if he wants a kid or not?

“Two days ago, I think,” she replies.

“Two days ago?”

Siinra nods, ashamed of her poor habits and health, and just leans into him. “Look, I don’t even know if— if you want this kid, Dernin.” She calls him by his real first name, the one he only uses with those closest to him. “I’ve just— Been thinking a lot. About it. I don’t want to suddenly get you into this mess.”

“I understand,” he replies, uncertainty on his face and eyes half-shut. He doesn’t look thrilled about it, and she gets it. It’s almost a lifelong commitment for him, who will probably spend his remaining twenty years trying to raise a child (and maybe failing) if they go ahead with this. Salarians live fast and die relatively young. 

Siinra lost a parent at twenty. She doesn’t want her daughter to go through the same.

“Get some rest,” he tells her, stroking the back of her head. “Both for you and the baby.”

“The baby? Does that mean—”

“We’ll figure this out. I promise you.”

She lets out a sigh of relief. 

Yeah. They will.

My parents met in AA. They consider every day they don’t drink to be a success. But I look deeper and wonder, what caused them to drink? They’re both open about how they were abused as children. Neither of them have thoroughly worked through their trauma, other than AA meetings. They both had other addictions even when they stopped drinking. They basically “white knuckled” their way through life until they could vent at AA meetings. They took me to a couple meetings as a child and told me to never start drinking or I wouldn’t be able to stop. The more I read about the things wrong with AA, the more I understand my parents and how they raised us. My dad was a “counselor” in AA, which is horrifying.

“People with alcohol problems also suffer from higher-than-normal rates of mental-health issues, and research has shown that treating depression and anxiety with medication can reduce drinking. But AA is not equipped to address these issues—it is a support group whose leaders lack professional training—and some meetings are more accepting than others of the idea that members may need therapy and/or medication in addition to the group’s help.

The founder of AA based its principles on the beliefs of the evangelical Oxford Group, which taught that people were sinners who, through confession and God’s help, could right their paths.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/

“Any certified professional in the field of addiction treatment can tell you that heavy drinking or drug use is most often times a signal of an undiagnosed mental health issue such as depression or anxiety. There is rarely, if ever, any talk about mental health in the rooms of AA. Therefore, someone who is self-medicating their depression with alcohol and who attends AA will be told that they have a ‘disease, for which there is no known cure’ and that the only solution is for them to attend meetings for the rest of their life.” https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/survivingmentalhealthstigma/2013/02/one-step-forward-twelve-steps-back

“Alcoholics Anonymous, Circular Reasoning, and Group Think

Alcoholics can engage in a dangerous form of group think. There is this ‘us and them’ mentality, and members are encouraged to think of themselves as this special group with special problems. This feeling of having a unique set of problems can border on the ridiculous – I’ve heard people in Alcoholics Anonymous suffering from the common cold who talk as if they have some type of special alcoholic’s cold.

Those who follow the AA program can feel threatened by any type of criticism, and they sometimes seem more interested in defending AA than in helping alcoholics. I can’t remember ever meeting even one member of that group who was willing to suggest any other option than the meetings. This is all made to seem acceptable by using some fancy circular reasoning – if you are an alcoholic your only real hope is AA, but if you manage to get sober without AA you were never a real alcoholic to begin with.” http://paulgarrigan.com/dangers-of-alcoholics-anonymous/

“Deprogramming From AA—When a Fellowship Resembles a Cult

Some report having been coerced into going off their psychiatric medications, against their doctors’ advice. Others became frustrated with the lack of scientific evidence behind AA’s program. Others still are angry that any inquiry into other options is not only discouraged, but sometimes actively punished—by exclusion from social events, public humiliation at meetings, and constant reminders of the AA saying that to leave the program can only result in “jails, institutions and death.”

Many feel that they replaced their addiction to a substance with an addiction to the program.

Another issue that departing 12-step members report as concerning is suddenly dealing with all the issues that drove them to substance use in the first place, but weren’t adequately addressed in the program. People with a history of trauma, in particular, can find that the onslaught of pain and memories—repressed while they were told in AA that “alcoholism,” was the root of all their problems—can be almost unbearable.

“I would venture to say three-quarters, if not more, of the people in AA are suffering from depression or anxiety or survivors of trauma, and were using alcohol to self-medicate,” said Rachel Bernstein. “So then you have people who are derailed from a more direct and relevant path to dealing with their particular issues, and instead they are told that alcohol is the only source of their problem.”

Regarding the nature of “sharing” in meetings, Bernstein said, “Within 12-step groups, there are people who can defend against the social pressures, and others who can’t. They don’t want anyone to be unhappy with them so they’ll say what they need to say, they’ll make commitments, they’ll ‘admit’ things about themselves even if they aren’t true.”

“They’ll do that in a room full of people who are not mental health professionals and do not know how to hold onto that information in a safe way or help you heal,” she continued.

Within AA, she experienced sexual abuse from her sponsor and men her sponsor insisted she date. She was told that the sexual abuse she endured as a child and the rape she experienced as an adult were her fault.

Even more frightening, Alice said, is that she looked and even believed she was happy during this time. “Upon hearing that I had a negative experience in AA, people that knew me during that 10-year period might be shocked. ‘But she seemed so happy,’ they might say… ‘How could she say that?’”

“My answer to this,” she continued, “is that yes, I was very happy–in fact, I was euphoric at times when I went to AA. This was because I was suppressing all of the emotions and things that AA told me would lead me to drink: anger, sadness, grief, critical thinking, negative thoughts, my intelligence. This led me to have a kind of false gratefulness, happiness and peace that only lasted for so long.”

Both Rachel Bernstein and Monica Richardson give concrete advice on how a person thinking of leaving AA or any 12-step program, and wishing to deprogram, should proceed.

Bernstein advises:

1. Learn about methods of control and manipulative tactics. Bring a checklist to your next meeting and check off the techniques as you see them. You’ll be able to see for yourself if this group is treating you respectfully and being open about its intentions, or if it’s using manipulation to not only keep you there but make you feel like you have no choice but to stay. Here is a checklist of tactics to look out for:

* You are taught that the teachings and techniques are perfect. So if they are not working as intended, it’s because you are not following them the right way, or trying hard enough.

* The organization defines you, tells you what you are, who you are, and how to see yourself.

* Questioning or doubting the teachings is wrong and seen as an issue/problem of yours instead of your fundamental right.

* The organization is a closed system, and any issues you have with it have to stay in-house; there is no outside and/or objective governing body to bring your concerns to.

* Dependency is built into the system by making you feel that you cannot trust yourself on your own, and left to your own devices you would always make the wrong decision and your life would spiral downward.

* You never graduate. You are never done. Your participation and adherence to the teachings are expected to be lifelong.

* You are made to feel these are the only people you can trust in your life, and those outside the group are not able to support and ensure the path you should be on.

* The influence technique of “scarcity” is used by conveying the message that this group is the only group in the world that can give you what you need.

* It has its own social norms and lingo that are different from those in the outside community, so you feel more understood by those in the group and more a part of the world of the group, and this can separate you from those in the outside community.

* The group has one system it provides. No other systems or philosophies are integrated. So, whatever the system is designed to address is the only thing that’s addressed, and other potentially primary issues are ignored. Part of the “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” idea, this can cause people to be misdiagnosed and to be derailed from getting help they may need with their true underlying issues.” https://filtermag.org/deprogramming-from-aa-when-a-fellowship-resembles-a-cult/

“And so, the AA accusation that alcoholics are people unable to recognize their wrongdoings and character defects sounded familiar to me. The “fellowship” had the same symptoms as a narcissist! And, once again, I was defenseless. A narcissist is never wrong, just as if you relapse in AA it is your fault, never AA's fault. Narcissists see everyone as their mirror, and if you agree with them all is well. If you disagree, you are an enemy. The AA members I met became instantly defensive whenever I criticized AA. They were like my mother!

If I asked questions, I was told "You think you know it all, but your own best thinking got you here." Hearing that I was powerless and that without AA I would die sounded very familiar to me. AA rules by the same fear and confusion abusers like my mother and my rapist use to keep their victims under control.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/addiction-in-society/201405/woman-fights-aa-alcoholics-anonymous-narcissist?amp

“AA was part of a Protestant evangelical group for the first several years of its existence, and its 12-step program is blatantly religious by any reasonable definition of the word. AA is supportive — as long as you parrot its party line. It’s nonjudgmental–again, as long as you parrot the party line. AA is not purely voluntary; over a million Americans per year are coerced into attending it via court orders and employee assistance programs, as a condition of avoiding jail or keeping their jobs; and many of AA’s promoters insist that AA doesn’t promote itself, even as they do exactly that. As for AA members being “better than well,” attend any meeting and judge for yourself. And AA does have serious negative aspects, both for its members and those merely exposed to it.” https://seesharppress.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/alcoholics-anonymous-does-more-harm-than-good/

Reading these things provides more context for why my family operated like a cult, headed by my narcissist mother and antisocial father. My mother went from being raised Catholic to AA.. both engaging in abuse, mind control, victim blaming and excessive confession of wrong doing/shame. This gives me a lot of insight into her patterns of black and white thinking, scapegoating, suppression, and abuse of power. It makes sense now why I was shamed/vilified for speaking out against the groupthink. Emotional abuse wasn’t an exception to the rule, emotional abuse was the way of life.

Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting*

by Julio Vincent Gambuto

*Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.

Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming.

For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your family on a Royal Caribbean cruise makes you: special. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.

What the trauma has shown us, though, cannot be unseen. A carless Los Angeles has clear blue skies as pollution has simply stopped. In a quiet New York, you can hear the birds chirp in the middle of Madison Avenue. Coyotes have been spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the postcard images of what the world might be like if we could find a way to have a less deadly daily effect on the planet. What’s not fit for a postcard are the other scenes we have witnessed: a health care system that cannot provide basic protective equipment for its frontline; small businesses — and very large ones — that do not have enough cash to pay their rent or workers, sending over 16 million people to seek unemployment benefits; a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives.

The cat is out of the bag. We, as a nation, have deeply disturbing problems. You’re right. That’s not news. They are problems we ignore every day, not because we’re terrible people or because we don’t care about fixing them, but because we don’t have time. Sorry, we have other shit to do. The plain truth is that no matter our ethnicity, religion, gender, political party (the list goes on), nor even our socioeconomic status, as Americans we share this: We are busy. We’re out and about hustling to make our own lives work. We have goals to meet and meetings to attend and mortgages to pay — all while the phone is ringing and the laptop is pinging. And when we get home, Crate and Barrel and Louis Vuitton and Andy Cohen make us feel just good enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. It is very easy to close your eyes to a problem when you barely have enough time to close them to sleep. The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too.

Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and H&M and Wal-Mart to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte or sip a Diet Coke, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not without purpose. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people — and most anything in life — there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted, and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin. We have got to do better and find a way to a responsible free market.

Until then, get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels. And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the one effort that’s even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw. The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake. The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole. The numbers were not that high; the press is lying. You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote. Not in America. You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update. You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street. You didn’t see inequality. You didn’t see indifference. You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.

But you did. You are not crazy, my friends. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 (Don’t say I never gave you anything) and then it will be so big that it will be bigly. And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big White House — inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer in Chief. Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming. _________________________________________________________ Continue To Full Piece At Medium

Hi, I hope you're well! I just want to start off by thanking you for all the wonderful fics you have blessed me with!

I just finished Red vs. Black and was hoping you wouldn't mind answering some questions I have. As someone who risks his own life to save others, how does Liam justify being with someone he knows has killed innocent people? It'd be one thing if Zayn had only killed those directly involved with what happened to his family, but he's killed innocent civilians over minor inconveniences (such as the teenagers in the convertible). Does Zayn still think he is justified in doing so? Does he ever feel guilty about it? If not, how would Liam and Zayn be compatible if their moral compasses are so different?

Also, did Zayn's father ever make his way to the UK? Or was that just a lie he told Zayn to comfort him? Does Zayn ever find his family, especially his younger sister?

I know it's a lot, but I'd really love to hear your answers if you want to give them! Again thank you for all of your wonderful works!

So sorry it’s taken me this long to reply, but I didn’t forget!

To start I’d like to thank you for clicking, and finishing, Red vs. Black.  It isn’t the shortest of fics, nor is it the most delicate - to put it lightly.  For the latter alone, thank you.

These are such poignant, important questions.  Ones that are nearly word for word what I asked myself while planning the ending.

                         SPOILERS FOR ALL OF RED VS. BLACK

1)  How does Liam stay with Zayn after learning of all his senseless killings?

Honestly, I questioned this the most when feeling out the concept.  As a fic writer it’s expected of me to write not only a romance, but also a happy ending.  Of course fics exist that do neither, but they’re very rare and not exactly well-loved.  And truthfully, a massive point that I wanted to get across - and which in effect answers this question - is that despite people’s pasts, they cannot overcome them without being given the opportunity.  100%.  No ands, ifs, or buts.  For a prisoner to assimilate back into society and not go back to their old ways, they need to be trusted with a job.  With a salary (no matter how small), they need to trust themselves to be able to not buy anything that may contribute to poor habits: drugs, alcohol, weapons, gambling, a means of transport that will give them the ability to visit bad influences (more of a psychological thing, but still).  A lot of prisoners are never given this opportunity (especially in the United States), and therefore fall back into their old ways, which are more often than not coping mechanisms to deal with the fact that they can’t fit into society as easily as privileged people to begin with; it’s a terrible cycle.  However, there are plenty of success stories of those that truly wish to change and are lucky enough to stumble upon an employer or mentor or sponsor of some sort that hands them an inkling of hope/trust that they use to fight their way back up.  The fic is fantasy, and while Zayn’s story is rooted in real world PTSD, I think the prisoner analogy is easy for us to envision and therefore, understand why Liam acts the way he does.  I also made it a point in the last scene when they’re talking things out to have Liam voice his contingency: if Zayn so much as spits at anyone, he’s done for.  That’s to say, he’s not wiping his slate clean just yet.

2)  Does Zayn still feel his useless killings were justified?

I’m going to answer assuming that you’re referring to the time after the fic ends.

Looking back at his actions is something that would be inevitable when he starts therapy, and this is a perfect example of one of the questions his therapist would ask.  You may not like my answer, but as an author I find it imperative that I speak of my characters realistically and to keep them true, not how I want them to act.  That said, yes, Zayn would still find justification in why he’s done what he’s done.

There are a few instances in the story where this is actually explained.  Take the scene in the bar with fancy mixologists.  Zayn begins to get aggravated over the people in the room simply because they’re ignorant to the feeling of significant pain.  There’s also the scene where he’s back home in Cheshire and Harry straight out tells him, he may be furious at the unfairness of the world, but he needs to learn how to come to terms with it.  It’s not going to change.  This right here is what a therapist would work with him to do, and also why I had Harry be the one to bring this up in the story - he is one.

I know it sounds incredibly foreign to the average person, but trust me when I say that people struggling with anger problems founded in (un)fairness, exist.  I’ve spoken with professionals about it.  Add on crippling childhood PTSD and a villain like Zayn can definitely be born.  It’s why treatment is needed, and why the answer is ‘yes’ in the beginning of Zayn’s journey to peace.  When his answer switches over to ‘no’, that’s when it’ll be outwardly apparent that he’s beating his ailment.  Unfortunately, for many, the inner battle with mental health is lifelong; the answer ‘no’ will never turn solid.

3)  Does Zayn feel guilty about the above?

Again, there are a couple times when I write Zayn to literally mention how he feels zero guilt.  However, if you really really pay attention you’ll notice that these instances aren’t villain related.

For example, meeting Liam’s parents:

After handing his father and Zayn each their tea, Liam looks between them suspiciously. "Leaving the two of you in a room together was a bad idea."

"Don't know what you're on about," Geoff replies innocently. "We were just talking about cars, weren't we Zayn?" Even with all eyes on him, the pressure of lying doesn't get to Zayn. It never does.

"Yeah," he agrees, bringing his drink up to his lips carefully, "cars."

Or, after Zayn walks out from the comedy club:

"It takes a lot of courage to get up there and do something like that, don't you think?"

"Not really."

Liam looks to the side, hoping that he can interpret more from Zayn's answers by seeing the expressions that go with their frankness. "So if I signed you up, you would do it?"

"Why would I want to make a room full of strangers laugh?" Zayn retorts, his right eye scrunching up in distaste, like it's a mannerism of his provoked by moronic questions. "I don't have a superiority complex." Liam thinks he might, but. "I know I'm better than those people, no mediocracy to cover up here."

So we’ve got those, but then we’ve also got this massive character point:

Right as the last of the snake's body emerges, Zayn snaps his fingers, triggering heavy hip-hop music to flow through his headphones and drown out the man's blood curdling cry.

If he could permanently damage people who deserved it, not always because they did something to Zayn, but because he liked to play god and throw them a massive curveball like life had done to him, then why shouldn't he? So long as he pulls his soundproof headphones off the little robot on the inside of his right arm to avoid listening to the pain his choice brutality caused, there's no valid reason he shouldn't take advantage of the gift he was given.

From where he's sitting, he probably won't be able to hear anything, but he fastens the equipment over his ears just in case.

All at once, the atmospheric sounds of central London, mixed with the terrified screams of those in the burning building beneath them, hit Zayn at full force. The sensory overload alone would normally be enough to piss him off, but tack on his protection from audible trauma being taken and being spoken to while in villain mode, and he's seeing red as deep as the pits of hell he knows he's destined for.

I wrote Zayn’s headphone usage as a way to alert that the reader that he does, in fact, feel villain-related guilt.  He can’t act on his anger without them on.  He’ll have his victims screams stuck in his head, and he’d never be able to handle that a.k.a. there’s zero satisfaction from their literal pain.  Think about that and it’ll answer your follow-up question.

4)  What happened to Zayn’s family?

Zayn’s father meant what he said - he’d do whatever he needed to reunite his family.  That wasn’t a falsity at all.  The problem is money.  And politics, but let’s start with the issue of money.  It took Yaser nine years to save up the amount he paid to have Zayn and Waliyha smuggled across the border.  The whole concept of smuggling is that it’s a cheaper option than the legal one.  So if we look at this, you can see how long it would take him to save for three adult visa fees, three adult plane tickets, and enough to stay afloat for a month or so when they get to England.  Now add in the politics of the early 2000s and the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.  We know that Yaser fixed air conditioners for a living.  No person with that average of a background is going to have an easy time immigrating anywhere.  Even so, would it really take him over 18 years?  While it’s plausible, perhaps a man with such determination would find another way.  Or...was that unnecessary because he was fed lies?

Think about it.  After several weeks and no word from his children, don’t you think he’d cause a riot?  He’s the type to drive over to Badar’s house and demand his relatives get in contact with him to find out what’s going on.  But, given the flashback Zayn has, it’s obvious that Badar never planned on accompanying any of the children to the UK, and if that’s the case, he clearly couldn’t return to Quetta.  I imagine a fully rehearsed story was told to all of the children’s parents about how they were killed somewhere along the way.

As for Waliyha, her whereabouts were told to my gang over on Patreon a while ago.  In short, yes, she’s still alive and I plan on pitching the book’s sequel to publishers as a graphic novel series revolved around her location.  Louis’ dark web bot finally found a hint as to where that might be, so Zayn and Liam go on a journey across Europe to find her.  Each issue would (probably) take place in a new city and involve both fighting a single bad guy.

Just a quick reminder to anyone who reads this, Red vs. Black and all involved characters are my intellectual property and cannot be replicated, manipulated, or stolen.

Again, thank you for your question and time!  I know my fics aren’t short and take a huge time commitment to finish.  If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to send them my way!  I’m super busy writing the next story and doing critical work, but I promise I’ll get around to it.

Wyoming: Bill to ban female genital mutilation (FGM) passes despite pushback by radical trans activists

We repeat: this is an immigration problem. If we didn’t import people from third world countries who mutilate women, we wouldn’t need laws to protect against them.

A Wyoming bill to ban Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was nearly defeated by fierce opposition from trans activists, on the grounds that it would outlaw genital surgery on minors for the purposes of so-called "gender reassignment."

House Bill 127 – Prohibition of female genital mutilation was brought by conservative Representative Dan Laursen. It criminalizes the cultural practice of FGM, which affects some refugees and immigrants from Africa and the Middle East imported to the United States, as aggravated assault and battery.

The bill defines FGM as the partial or complete removal of the clitoris, sewing the vaginal opening to be permanently closed, and other harmful procedures. According to the World Health Organization, over 200 million women globally have been made to suffer from this human rights violation.

In addition to the criminal provisions, the bill allows victims to bring civil claims against their mutilators for years after the commission of the crime. It also instigates a state-wide education campaign. This protects an estimated 400-600 girls in Wyoming by law, and who now have a remedy for this barbarism.

It's so frustrating that we are literally put a side for others.

— hibo wardere (@HiboWardere) June 9, 2020

Hibo Wardere, anti-FGM campaigner and survivor, had a message for the trans activists who would have stopped the bill, leaving girls in Wyoming at risk of this deeply traumatic form of violence. She said trans activists who conflate FGM with so-called gender reassignment surgery were "disrespecting our trauma, taking over our trauma, which you shouldn't be."

"FGM is about a child being held down, against their will, and their genitals are mutilated... Stop diluting these two issues."

Initially, the bill to criminalize this atrocity against girls soared through the Wyoming house. The cause of protecting girls and women from FGM has widespread bipartisan backing among lawmakers. Ethically, it is a no-brainer, an easy issue for everyone to unite against. More than 30 states have already outlawed FGM.

This didn't deter the trans activists, however, who are hardly known for their compassion or strong moral compass. With the tunnel-vision and moral selfishness so characteristic of their movement, they are happy to support and sustain the most extreme form of discrimination against girls—with extreme lifelong physical and mental health consequences–in order to retain plastic surgeons' entitlement to profit from removing children's healthy reproductive organs, and homophobic parents' option to have a potentially lesbian girl's body altered to make her look more like a straight boy.

With so many vested interests, and with the gender lobby having such deep pockets thanks to billionaires with inherited wealth, legislating with regard to transgender medical "care" is a highly contested issue. The exemption clause in the bill dealing with "gender reassignment surgery" drove a wedge between various political groups that otherwise agree on wanting to end the violation of women's rights that is FGM.

The contested exemption clause specified that a medical procedure would not be caught by the criminal law “if the person on whom it is performed is over eighteen (18) years of age and requests and consents to the procedure.” Adult male transexuals could continue to have their bodies surgically altered if they wish. What the trans activists objected to was the fact that such surgeries would be considered FGM if performed upon a girl—a human female—under the age of 18.

Although Hibo Wardere rightly objects to the conflation of African and Middle Eastern FGM with American and European gender reassignment surgery for adults of both sexes, there are undoubtedly parallels between the two cultural practices which might make separate legislation challenging to parse in practice, when the physical outcomes can be indistinguishable.

There are, of course, differences. One is a brutal assault, the other a highly managed process involving medical technology. One is performed in a non-sterile room with crude instruments of torture and no anesthetic, the other in an operating theatre under anesthetic. In one, the assault is sprung upon the unknowing girl, and is only possible if the violators restrain the child by force. In the other, well-meaning adults manufacture consent to the procedure by way of a medical pathway.  In one, the woman ends up with severe lifelong health problems requiring medical intervention, greatly aggravated if a man makes her pregnant. In the other, the woman will be unable to have a baby because her sexual organs have been re-sculpted, or removed entirely.

One is criminalized in many countries, e.g. in the UK, where it was outlawed in 1985 but only successfully prosecuted for the first time in 2019. The other is criminalized in some countries, e.g. Thailand, which was a GRS tourist destination for sixteen year olds like the male child of the founder of pediatric transitioning lobby group Mermaids, before that country imposed a ban. The mother engaged in acts which would be criminal, had she been an African or Middle Eastern woman taking her child abroad for FGM.

In one, there is no pretense of consent. The atrocity is inflicted on a completely unwilling, terrified girl who is tortured and made to suffer appallingly. In the other, the adults who supposedly care for her collude in the manufacturing of informed consent to lifelong sterilization, bone loss, heart problems and cognitive deficits. The atrocity is inflicted on her in a medical setting, while she believes they are acting in her long-term best interests.

Yes, the two phenomena are different by degrees, and should not be conflated. But, from a legal perspective, how do you ban one without doing a grave disservice to the girls who are left with no recourse when they realize what has been done to them?

One of the bill's sponsors, Senator Affie Ellis (R-Cheyenne), said she would withdraw her name if trans 'rights' were up for debate as part of the process. “For that very narrow reason [of ending FGM] I signed on to this bill,” she said. Ellis did finally vote in favour of the bill.

...

Note: an earlier version of this article said that the bill had not passed, but it has passed the Wyoming legislature and will be enacted July 1, 2020.

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

PS: Wyoming you say, but there are no Muslims in Wyoming.

Wrong, they are invading Wyoming just as they are every other state in America. Here are just a few of our Wyoming posts in recent years before the sharia police went into action.

Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting* You are not crazy, my friends Julio Vincent Gambuto Julio Vincent Gambuto Follow Apr 10 · 9 min read

Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.

*Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.

Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee, and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming.

For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your kids to Disneyland makes you: proud. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.

What the trauma has shown us, though, cannot be unseen. A carless Los Angeles has clear blue skies as pollution has simply stopped. In a quiet New York, you can hear the birds chirp in the middle of Madison Avenue. Coyotes have been spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the postcard images of what the world might be like if we could find a way to have a less deadly daily effect on the planet. What’s not fit for a postcard are the other scenes we have witnessed: a health care system that cannot provide basic protective equipment for its frontline; small businesses — and very large ones — that do not have enough cash to pay their rent or workers, sending over 16 million people to seek unemployment benefits; a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives.

The cat is out of the bag. We, as a nation, have deeply disturbing problems. You’re right. That’s not news. They are problems we ignore every day, not because we’re terrible people or because we don’t care about fixing them, but because we don’t have time. Sorry, we have other shit to do. The plain truth is that no matter our ethnicity, religion, gender, political party (the list goes on), nor even our socioeconomic status, as Americans we share this: We are busy. We’re out and about hustling to make our own lives work. We have goals to meet and meetings to attend and mortgages to pay — all while the phone is ringing and the laptop is pinging. And when we get home, Crate and Barrel and Louis Vuitton and Andy Cohen make us feel just good enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. It is very easy to close your eyes to a problem when you barely have enough time to close them to sleep. The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too.

Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and H&M and Wal-Mart to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte or sip a Diet Coke, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not ruinous. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people — and most anything in life — there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted, and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin.

And so the onslaught is coming. Get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels. And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the one effort that’s even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw. The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake. The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole. The numbers were not that high; the press is lying. You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote. Not in America. You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update. You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street. You didn’t see inequality. You didn’t see indifference. You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.

But you did. You are not crazy, my friends. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 (Don’t say I never gave you anything) and then it will be so big that it will be bigly. And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big White House — inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer in Chief. Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming.

From one citizen to another, I beg of you: Take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all. We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, 10, 50 years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.

We can do that on a personal scale in our homes, in how we choose to spend our family time on nights and weekends, what we watch, what we listen to, what we eat, and what we choose to spend our dollars on and where. We can do it locally in our communities, in what organizations we support, what truths we tell, and what events we attend. And we can do it nationally in our government, in which leaders we vote in and to whom we give power. If we want cleaner air, we can make it happen. If we want to protect our doctors and nurses from the next virus — and protect all Americans — we can make it happen. If we want our neighbors and friends to earn a dignified income, we can make that happen. If we want millions of kids to be able to eat if suddenly their school is closed, we can make that happen. And, yes, if we just want to live a simpler life, we can make that happen, too. But only if we resist the massive gaslighting that is about to come. It’s on its way. Look out.

—

Note: The author and Medium have made minor tweaks since initial publication.

Adult Onset, Ann-Marie MacDonald

Rating: Great Read Genre: Realism, Literary Representation: -Lesbian protagonist -Lebanese protagonist -Protagonist with anxiety/panic disorder Trigger warnings: Infant death, Stillbirth (explicit), Child abuse, Child sexual abuse (not in scene), Homophobia, Misogyny, Biphobia, Animal death, Internalized racism, Reclaimed D-slur

Note: Not YA; somewhat sexual but not explicit

Transitioning into reading more adult fiction than YA in your early twenties is often unpleasant.  Disturbing topics make a happy home in adult fiction, and they don’t always announce themselves in the book jacket.  (Adult Onset’s book jacket even describes the novel as “hilarious” - a fact which is hilarious in itself. Are adults okay?) The disturbing topics aren’t bad in and of themselves.  Adult readers of these difficult literary novels can sometimes resonate with the battle between ugliness and meaning, finding catharsis in the trenches.  Some readers may even find an unpolished aspect of themselves reflected in the novel, their relationship to the book becoming a form of literary therapy. The books that save lives are rarely the easiest reads.  By the same token, undertaking a difficult literary novel can put a bitter taste in your mouth. Sometimes that moment of catharsis isn’t worth the taste.

I found myself waffling over my opinion about Adult Onset.  On the one hand, it’s about the generational gift of abuse from mother to daughter, and the ugliness of that abuse is not safely contained within a “bad guy” the reader can despise, but in sympathetic characters.  It’s an uncomfortable book with a subject matter that isn’t going to appeal to the escapist reader, that’s for sure.  On the other hand, as we get older, many of us develop more tolerance for morally gray characters as we discover that we are morally gray ourselves; it can even be refreshing to read about someone with our same flaws - flaws bad enough we might hesitate to speak about them - treated not as evil, but human.  Reading Adult Onset, I felt myself straddling that line.  Yes, Adult Onset was an uncomfortable, unhappy read.  But at the same time, I saw glimpses of myself in the main character’s serious anger and anxiety.  While I’m not a mother in my mid-forties struggling to manage a suburban household, anyone who has had to grapple with mental illness or abuse will feel kinship to Mary Rose.

Adult Onset is one of those books that can’t be measured by plot. The narrative is urged forward by the compulsion of symmetry, not linear time, and so the story takes a beautiful, mirrored shape, rather than the parabola of a plot arc.  The central character, who is the line across which the shape of the story is reflected, is Mary Rose (“Mister” for short), a lesbian mother of two who used to write YA novels, but who has since traded roles with her wife in favor of home-making, giving her wife a chance to follow her career as a theater director.  Mary Rose has untreated anxiety that causes her to catastrophize everything in her life.  She has untreated anger that causes her to yell and throw things in front of her kids.  She is kind of a dick, to use the most accurate term, which causes her to ask her wife, “If she got the flowers?” when Mary Rose never sent any flowers (but feels like she might be in trouble if she doesn’t make some claim at a redeeming quality).  Mary Rose is also the heir to two generations of abuse.  Her maternal grandfather married a twelve year old child.  Her mother hit her and her brother (her elder sister had a different experience). Both parents rejected her in the most severe way when she came out as a lesbian in her twenties.  She has chronic pain from childhood bone cysts, a pain which leads her down the rabbit hole of memory as she tries to find some closure on a childhood that her aging parents don’t fully remember anymore.  

Adult Onset is a good book.  It’s a beautiful piece of art.  The structure of the novel is inspired, leaving one more than satisfied with the symmetrical beauty of it all.  The narrative about Mary Rose is inter-cut with glimpses from Mary Rose’s mother’s perspective, showing the reader not an old woman with memory loss, but the young mother struggling with postpartum depression she once was.  We also receive the perspective of the main character from Mary Rose’s popular YA book series, a young girl whose magical adventures were unwittingly inspired by Mary Rose’s trauma.  These snapshots of other points of view are unannounced, and even confusing at first - but therein lies their value.  Mary Rose’s identity bleeds into her mother and her main character, and the structure of the novel itself illustrates that.

Adult Onset is a good book.  It takes Mary Rose’s flaws, holds them before the reader, and says: motherhood is not easy, and you’re not a bad person for floundering. It explores where the line is, that makes a person irredeemable.  Mary Rose almost hits her toddler, and she thinks with horror - what if there is an alternate universe where she really did?  She thinks about her own life in those terms, considering that while she is the Mary Rose who was abused by her parents, perhaps there is an alternate Mary Rose who wasn’t.  She loves and defends her parents as if they didn’t pass her trauma down to her, as if she were the lucky Mary Rose - yet she still contends with the unhappy result. She asks herself: if her parents don’t even remember her childhood anymore, are they still the parents who did and said the things that hurt her?

Adult Onset is a good book, but it is also a book that very artfully dances around a concerning issue with its theme.  Herein lies the problem: Adult Onset gives itself an almost impossible task, that of fixing Mary Rose’s unhappy life into a somewhat happy ending.  Mary Rose almost hit her toddler, her marriage is on the rocks because she keeps yelling at her wife, and she refuses therapy to the bitter end.  The reader won’t be satisfied with the realism of the book if Mary Rose changes too much for the better, nor will the reader be satisfied with an unhappy ending.  In the end, Mary Rose doesn’t really change, so much as realize she can ask for help.  She asks a friend to come over and stay with her for a couple of days while her wife is out of town, and she has an all-day play-date with a mom from her son’s preschool - a mom who Mary Rose has always believed is perfect, but who whispers to Mary Rose, “You saved my life today.”  Mary Rose could have said the same thing, a fun little turn of the tables with the positive message that there is no perfect mother.  Women suffer far too much unaddressed misery, desperation, and shame (with dire consequences), but there is solace and reprieve in one another’s support. This one play-date, and the lesson therein, is the cathartic moment of the novel.

Yet one play-date carries a heavy burden, if it is to be the cathartic moment of a novel about abuse, infant mortality, anger, anxiety, lesbianism, and motherhood.  On reflection, a reader might be more horrified than satisfied, that a play-date is the only help Mary Rose is to receive. Perhaps MacDonald would agree, because after this play-date from heaven, Mary Rose’s life magically falls into place in all sorts of ways.  She’s the mom who has it together now, offering organic pretzels to the lesser mothers who forgot to pack a snack for the park.  She even makes peace with a memory of her father’s homophobia, satisfied by how far he’s come in the twenty years since.  Her wife, who hasn’t wanted sex over the course of the novel, suddenly changes her mind when she finds some lingerie that Mary Rose bought for herself (even though she didn’t even really want it). Mary Rose’s experience of gender is what some readers might call dysphoric, but Mary Rose herself calls “internalized misogyny.”  She feels like it’s wrong of her to be uncomfortable with womanhood, so when her wife tells Mary Rose to wear the lingerie to bed, reminding her with exasperation that “I’m attracted to women,” Mary Rose falls in line.  What a tidy ending! Motherhood? Resolved. Relationship with parents? Resolved. Sex life? Resolved. Complicated lifelong relationship to gender? Resolved.

This was the real key to my discomfort with the ending of the novel.  The message seems to be: if you’re about to self-destruct (taking your children down with you)... just get with the program.  At your breaking point? Just ask your friend to come over with spaghetti.  Just set up a play-date.  Just perform motherhood better.  Just perform womanhood better.  How sad is it, that this was all the book could give Mary Rose? If the theme of your novel is also the Nike slogan, it’s not as radical an outlook on life as one might think.

The weak ending aside, there are only a few such cracks in the perfect veneer of Adult Onset.  The Gen X humor is off-putting (What’s up with Facebook, ladies, am I right?), and Mary Rose obnoxiously discredits her wife’s bisexuality, saying “She refuses to call herself a lesbian.”  She still uses the word “transgendered,” too, which even word processors auto-correct these days.  And yet, for all its flaws, Adult Onset is a good book.  If you have anger and have ever been a hair's breadth away from hitting a child in your care - and let’s face it, this is the unspoken shame for many, many mothers - it’s a book that will make you feel seen, and understood.  The mothers that have hit their children in a moment - or months, or years - of weakness are seen too, in Mary Rose’s mother, who is neither torn down nor excused, but simply put to the page.

Adult Onset is a good book, yes, but do I recommend it?  Not to everyone.  It’s a frustrating book.  It covers topics that may be triggering. It’s a book that can, and probably will, ruin your day (Gen X humor just isn’t enough to cut the despair, folks).  On the other hand, it offers an underlying message that not every book can give you: Even if you didn’t solve the problem, even if you’re just barely hanging on by a toxic “Just do it!” attitude, there is grace for you.

For more from Ann-Marie MacDonald, visit her website here.

The temple at Landfall, by Jane Fletcher

"Lynn is an imprinter, one chosen by the Goddess to receive her greatest gift, that of creating new life. So why does she feel like a prisoner in the Temple?

When Lynn learns that she is to be relocated to the temple at Landfall, the arduous journey seems more like a gift--her last chance to see something of the outside world. She does not anticipate the dangers and temptations she will encounter along the way, nor does she expect Lieutenant Kim Ramon, an officer in the squadron of Rangers assigned to protect her. Despite all prohibitions forbidding it, attraction grows between the two women.

Against them stand the powerful religious Sisterhood and their holy warriors--the Temple Guards. In a world ruled by the Church, what chance is there that Lynn can escape?"

Actually this world is female-only and everybody is a lesbian, so it's not as if it is ruled by the Catholic church or something, as the blurb seems to imply. And I don't think that catholicism could be so closely replicated in a society where only one sex exists, but I digress.

The romance between the protagonists was fine, I liked it even when I think they fell for each other rather quickly. I believe it from Lynn's perspective because she had been secluded in a temple since she was like 10, only surrounded by elderly women or priestess that were covered up to their eyes and rarely spoke to her, but from Kim's side... No. Maybe seeing more of the journey to Landfall from her perspective would have helped matters. Some of Lynn's quotes were very relatable and good (I believe I have posted some here) and her pain at thinking that she would not ever be able to be with Kim was almost palpable. The romantic and steamy scenes were sexy and well-written, and they felt organic given the circumstances.

I loved how the priestesess constantly jeopardised each other's ascent to power, it was very realistic and a nice detail to the story. It is one of the strongest parts of the worldbuilding to be honest, since it demonstrated that powerful religious women were a force to be reckoned with in-world (at least until a certain point in the story that made me want to slam my head against a table).

The writing was similar to that of Shadow of the knife, but lacked a depth and maturity that SOTK had and that made it such a punch in the face memorable story to me.

Lynn was a good protagonist, very defined by her nostalgic memories of life outside the temple. Which was fine, but she didn't seem to care a lot about anything except nature. I found it very unbelievable that she wasn't more weirded out by the journey given how she was leading a life of reclusion and suddenly she was on a trip with guards and people all around her. She focused a lot on how good it felt to be out of the temple, but what about the people? Isn't being surrounded by people weird after you spent your life in the temple? She never cared about anyone on there so it's pretty safe to say she never had any friends, which brings me to my next point: for someone who had lived such a poor social life she was very stable, not socially starved to the point of being easily manipulable, full of panic towards social interactions or other things that social isolation tends to cause. She mentions wanting to have sex desperately, but that's about it. I'm not buying that. She was nice and I liked how she took responsibility for her actions, but I wish we knew more about her. After reading the book, I still don't feel like I know her that much.

Kim was alright, but her past was boring. Very typical. Seriously, authors, stop killing families. There are other ways to give lifelong trauma to the protagonists. I hated how her character lived through so much and managed to stay so static during all the story. Like hell all this happens to somebody and they stay completely unmoved throughout the whole thing. I don't believe the whole "This is because Kim is very mature, also her past is already solved bc she killed the bandits that killed her fam in the past" that the book tries to sell me. Why would you play up this conflict if it was already solved? I don't care that this is a romance book, it is just lazy to just have all the character development outside of the story. And then of course Kim has solved everything but the part about her trauma that makes her afraid to have a girlfriend, because you know, we needed something to spicy up their relationship. I won't go into detail but they had better ways of having a conflict between the two that didn't rely on getting past traumas that were already solved. One of them being that the foundation of everything they believed in was a lie. It would have been so much more interesting to have that as the main conflict of their relationship!

The action scenes were very well-written, but they lacked something that would have made them truly epic. And that would have been to have a real sense of danger; the problem with the story is that we know the Rangers are amazing and could kick everyone's ass in seconds because they are just that tough, so we don't worry about them dying at all, really. That made the action scenes really lackluster sometimes, almost as if they were only stage decoration for the romance. Which is fine, but the book was so focused on them and they were such an important part of the story that it didn't feel right. It is a shame, because some scenes were really well-written and had a lot of potential to be intense and memorable, and to define the characters or give them some good development. All of the elements necessary were there but then it simply didn't happen. It was beyond frustrating; the characters learned a lot of new stuff and faced loads of dangerous situations but they didn't change at all, which I found unrealistic taking into account they just found out the foundation of everything they believed in was a lie. They all just go like "Oh well that makes sense, I don't believe in this thing anymore despite still having some sensibilities that come from this thing", there might be people who act like this, no doubt, but twelve or more different women? No way.

The plot had a lot of things going on that never reached their full potential, and I think it would have benefited from being kept simpler, especially when this was the author's first book. I just went to check goodreads in order to paste the blurb in the book to the begging of my review, and somebody said "I felt like we should have spent more time in Petersmine watching the characters fall in love, and definitely more time in the temple at Landfall! It's what the book is named after" and I agree. As I said, this book wanted to tackle too many things. If the author really felt like she had to tackle all those topics at once she should have prioritized and spent more time in the central conflicts, while playing the others out in a more subtle manner.

This was her first book so I feel like I should be more forgiving, but I still have to vent about it. I will always be eternally grateful to Jane Fletcher for giving us the Celaeno Series, because it is amazing. How many fantasy/sci-fi series where all the characters are exclusively female and lesbian do we have? What she did was incredible and groundbreaking, but the first book was obviously her first one. I hear there are great things coming in the next one, and I have noticed that the author has gotten way better at writing/worldbuilding since this book was published, so I believe in her.

The explanation the author gave about why the sisters "hide" the true history to the public was not good nor believable. "Nobody reads those books anymore, so they don't know what really happened" really? What the hell? Are you telling me that not even one woman from the temple has taken the time to read one of the books from their library? This doesn't make the Temple look sympathetic, it makes them look beyond stupid. Humans are curious by nature, like hell nobody has even skim-read one of their books. This is something I disliked and that got me tired from this book: every woman that had any ties to religion (temple guards, sisters, etc.) was mortally stupid and ended up either dead or in a bad place. This lack of nuance bothered me: I dislike religion as much as the next person, but this was just too sloppy. Religious people are not stupid; some are stupid, yes, and some do/say stupid things because of religion or because they are plain bigots, but come on, the majority of them don't expect their god/goddess to do things for them that are within their control (like packing their suitcases). Also, does the author think that religious people can't conspire to hide shady things? Lol.

And I don't believe that this world has only one religion. Somebody could interpret the texts of the Elder-Ones way differently and come up with another religion. The author only made one because she wanted it to parallel christianity (the religion she wanted to criticize) and fair enough, but it makes for poor lore. Even christianity has several branches that interpret the bible differently or practice their faith in a different way, and I just don't believe that 1) nobody bothered to read the Elder-Ones texts ever and 2) nobody had a different interpretation and started a different faith, or at least a civil war.

Another thing that disappointed me was how incompetent the guards were. I liked it in the first bit, because the guards that escorted Lynn were from a provincial city and only used to face people, not mountain beasts. That was pretty nice and realistic, but in the second arc there was no excuse for the seasoned temple guards in Landfall to be as incompetent as they were. How the hell has the Temple survived for that long and gained so much power when everybody within its walls is either mortally stupid or terrible at her job?

In the other books both the Rangers and the Militia have their fair share of competent and incompetent women in them, but when it comes to the Temple everyone is just useless, stupid or evil. I'm not having it.

If you have read the book, you will remember that scene with a nice, truly devoted, grandma-like sister that the author wrote to prove that "there are also nice people within the church", which is basically the cliché that pull all books that poorly criticize religion. To any writer reading this: stop using this cliché, I beg you. Do a nuanced criticism of religion instead.

I did like how the sisters reacted to Lynn's and Kim's relationship, that was very well done. Especially the part where they tried so hard to distort Kim's feelings and character to make her look like a bad person on Lynn's eyes. I also loved the little details about Gina's village, the culture that was starting to form around it and the militia/rangers/temple guards dynamic and rivalries, they were very believable and good at rounding up the worldbuilding.

I can't believe what the author pulled at the end of the book. Really, more than 70 pages in the PDF version from Peter McKay's diary, a character that had minimal involvement in the story. I was very uninterested, even if his diary was kind of interesting. Couldn't she have put parts of his diary in little chunks at the begging of every chapter? It would have made the info dump much more bearable. I might comment on it in another post because there is a lot of lore/things I would like to discuss and I still haven't finished it yet.

I recommend this book if you like stories like Romeo and Juliet but set in a lesbian sci-fi universe, and where the characters fight against society.

I don’t wanna share them & give them attention so I blocked. But I’ll address it anyway.

We got an ask saying “Imagine being a system and demonizing people with NPD”.

I only have one thing to say to you & the people like you:

Imagine fakeclaiming a system & demonizing them for talking about their lifelong trauma & trying to understand its source. How wild. (/heavy snark & sarcasm)

We are trying to make people aware of abuse & trauma. & yes, NPD was a big part of our abuse/trauma. We know it's a disorder & handle it as gently as we can. We know narcissists are people. G*d forbid we also talk about how their behaviour & coping mechanisms (not their soul) is/are toxic, abusive, & harmful to others (/sarcasm).

We're aware some narcissists want to, can, & do heal. We're aware there are people who used to be narcissists who aren't anymore. But we still deserve to talk about our trauma & how narcissists affected us.

So if you come on our page, anonymously or not, & you attack us, fakeclaim us, etc. simply for talking about the abuse that made us become a system (even if in includes a disorder that is also caused by trauma)....we will block you. We may even report you if you're harsh enough.

We have already been fakeclaimed, attacked, & abused by several narcissists, ex friends & family alike. We have already been gaslit. And we aren't letting anyone else do it to us.

So don't waste your time.

We will continue to talk. People benefit from our aid to cope with their trauma & contextualize their experiences. Every time they do someone crawls into our anonymous asks to attack us...almost as if you don't want people to know that behaviour is abusive, because the more people know better the less can get abused.

If you don't like us talking about narcissism, just block us & leave.

We won't stop. We're too stubborn for that. The more you try, the more we fight. All you're doing is enflaming our passion. Survivors (system & singlet alike) need to know those behaviours are abusive, & that they aren't evil for getting abused & talking about their trauma. The more you attack us for talking about it, the louder we'll get. You can't win.

You can’t silence us forever. We’ve been silenced for too many years already.

Survivors of narcissistic abuse, you are safe here. You can talk about your trauma. You can call their behaviour abusive. You did deserve better. And we’ll love you through your healing journey. You can heal from this, even as narcissists & their allies try to silence you & make it more difficult. You are powerful. We hear you, & we believe you.

The last battles are always the hardest. Abusers get desperate when they see you accepting you deserve better. But keep fighting. You can win, & you will.

You can try to silence us. You can try to shame us into silence. But we aren’t weak & we won’t stop. And I won’t stand by while you attack my system for being bold enough to talk about our abuse. We deserve to heal, & we always deserved better.

Survivors deserve more compassion. Narcissists have enough excuses without your “help”; it’s time survivors are able to heal.

~Wrath

(anger/love holder, persecutor-protector; he/they/it/etc. (any but she/her))

Mobile Friendly Muse Bio: Ava

AVA ANDERSON

Verse: The Only Girl

A verse where Ava is the younger sister to Connor, Carter, and Niles in their main human verse

Birth Name: Ava May Oursler Name: Ava Anderson Species: Human Date of birth: July 22nd Height: 5ft 1in Relatives:

Three older brothers (Connor, Carter, Niles)

Adoptive Father (Hank Anderson)

Biological Mother (Laura Oursler, deceased)

Biological Father (John Oursler, deceased)

Icons: Yes Face Claim: Autumn Reeser Background: tw for car crash, death.

Born the fourth child and only girl to the Oursler family, Ava grew up with three older brothers that were five and seven years older than her. She sadly didn’t have long with the family as it was before tragedy struck. Ava was only two years old when the family was in a horrific car accident. While she and her brothers were injured but survived, her parents did not survive the crash.

She sustained the worse injures out of the children and almost did not survive. After extensive emergency surgery, the toddler was placed in intensive care to recover. In a medically induced coma, she remained unaware of her or her family’s fate. Even if she was aware she was too young to understand how life was about to drastically change forever.

Hank Anderson found himself at the pediatrics ward mere hours after the crash. A case about someone driving while high on Red Ice and striking a car with a family had led him there. But his assignment on the case would also change his life forever.

Hank couldn’t get those children off his mind. The chances of the siblings being kept together were rather low, they already lost their parents and now they were going to lose each other. He’s seen similar before. It was always heartbreaking. But there was nothing he could do, could he?

After talking it over with his wife the Lieutenant and his wife decided to try to see if they could be the ones to foster them, all four of them. After some work and proper paperwork, everything was worked out and just in time for the boys to be discharged from the hospital. Hank visited Ava’s bedside every day as she slowly recovered and eventually she was able to come home as well.

  The Anderson home would be the only home Ava would ever remember and know due to how young she was when she was taken in. Eventually, the Andersons officially adopted the children in their care, giving them a new permanent and loving home together.

As a toddler, Ava needed several stitches due to hurting her head when she tripped and fell down the stairs. The scar, along with the scars from the car crash would be ones she carried with her for the rest of her life.

  At just five years old her family suffered another tragedy as Hank’s wife passed away unexpectedly leaving the man to raise the children on his own.  

Throughout her childhood, she was often babysat by her older brothers as they were older enough to help out when Hank had to work late. She found her place in the family as the ‘baby’ but always set out to prove that she could hold her own with the best of them. Her age and gender didn’t hold her back.

   Like her brothers, her childhood within the Anderson home was mostly uneventful and average and that was okay. The home was full of love and support and that was all that was needed, especially after the deaths and hospitalizations the young family had faced.

Other than getting into some trouble as a middle schooler Ava was otherwise a respectful and quiet preteen and teenager. She kept to herself and focused on her studies and books.

Soon enough it came time for her to figure out what she was going to do in her adult life. Her brothers, already grown and in the mists of their training and studies were all headstrong and ready to take on careers similar to their father’s.

   She always knew law enforcement or any type of legal career wasn’t for her. Ava also knew she couldn’t handle the blood and suffering that paramedics, nurses, and doctors had to see. But she wanted a challenging productive job where she could do some type of good. Where would her path take her?  

Fire fighting was an interesting option that she thought over greatly but it never felt quite right. She wanted to put to use her lifelong love for asking questions. Finally, she found the right answer. An investigator of sorts. She was going to work at looking at the causes of fires and help stop arsonists, among other duties such as fire prevention. It was perfect. It just felt right.

Currently, in her 20s Ava is still getting her footing in her chosen profession as a fire expert but is working hard and has had a successful career that sometimes crossed paths with her brothers or father even if she worked for a private company rather than the fire or police departments or even just the city.

With androids deviating, and androids slowly getting their place in society, sadly Ava has seen more fires and investigations. It seems fire was a good way to vent one’s anger for both humans and androids. On the brighter side, that meant her job crossed paths with her brothers and father who work on deviant related crimes.

AVA OURSLER

Verse: The Only Child

A verse where Ava is human and an only child (default is no relation to Connor, Carter, Niles or Hank but all kinds of relationships are on the table)

Birth Name: Ava May Oursler Species: Human Date of birth: July 22nd Height: 5ft 1in Relatives:

Biological Mother (Laura Oursler)

Biological Father (John Oursler)

Icons: Yes Face Claim: Autumn Reeser

Background:

Ava’s parents always wanted a large family, to raise several children. Their hopes were high as twins ran in both their families. After years of trying the got wonderful news, they were going to have a baby. Their dreams were well on their way to becoming true.

   Ava was born to John and Laura Oursler on July 22nd much to her parent’s joy. But also dismay. Due to heavy bleeding and trauma, Laura almost died and while she was saved she was left unable to bear any more children. They were heartbroken but thankful for what they had. Their family was small but there was going to be full of so much love.

   As a toddler, Ava was often spoiled due to being her parent’s only child, a miracle survivor at that. Everything was fine for the most part other than an incident where she tripped and busted her head open resulting in her needing stitches and a scar that would follow her for the rest of her life. She never minded the faint line across her forehead.

  Very early on as a young child it was obvious that typical schooling was not for her. She did not do well with being told what to do nor did she enjoy following guidelines and deadlines.

   As she grew older her grades improved but her focus did not. She rather be out in the woods or reading a book than sit in one place calculating algebraic equations. But she was very clearly smart and a hard worker. She just chooses to do things on her own time.

Her childhood overall was average and not very noteworthy. She had a stable loving home, went to school, had pets and friends, liked to play and eat snacks, etc.   As a teenager, she finally focused more on her studies and began to try to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. She also took up a part-time job as a cashier to earn some extra spending money.

  Ava always knew she wanted to help others in some way and put her inquisitive brain to work but didn’t know for certain what career she wanted to get into. The typical helpful careers one might think of (doctor, police, paramedics, etc) just didn’t feel right for one reason or another. They just weren’t her. So what was she going to do? Eventually, she found something that seemed to fit.

    Currently, she is working for a private investigation company working to investigate the causes of fires, help prevent them, and promote community safety against fire and even carbon monoxide. She looks into where fires originated, the cause of fires, survey the damage after a fire, surveys the risk of fire to prevent fires, and works with both the police and fire departments in assisting with public safety and arson investigations.