I have a DP x DC AU brainworm about Danny and Tim being long lost siblings (twins or otherwise).

Because both of them have faced evil future versions of themselves who've almost ended the world in some way through altering time. If Clockwork had been watching Danny's world-ending timelines, then who's to say he wouldn't keep tabs on Tim's as well?

Imagine that the brothers had to be temporarily separated at a young age to ensure a peaceful future. Danny had to be in Amity Park to gain his ghost powers and become the new Ghost King. Meanwhile, Tim had to stay in Gothem to become the new Robin, something he'd have been less likely to do if Danny stayed in his life.

However, their separation was only supposed to be temporary. What if both Dan and Future Tim were from futures where they never reunited as teens? Heck, what if both of them were from the SAME future?

The Nasty Burger explosion happened, Danny killed Vlad and absorbed his soul, and became Dan. Dan grew too powerful for the GIW to handle anymore, so the government tried reaching out to the Justice League. But oops! Future Tim already killed off and tore down that whole organization, meaning the world no longer had it's protectors to stop this new foe.

Though they were strangers, the future brothers unwittingly collaborated in sealing the world's fate.

Back to the present, the Observants wanted Clockwork to get rid of Danny and also Tim before that timeline came to pass. What they didn't understand was Clockwork's plan.

See, the Infinite Realms needed a new monarch to replace Pariah Dark, but not just anyone would do. In timelines outside of Dan's future, the U.S government would've started a war with the Infinite Realms anyway. One that would guarantee Earth's destruction and offset the balance of other realms near it.

The war is set to start in Amity Park, but the information blackout is preventing it's citizens from getting outside help. Mid-to-late teen Danny can't bring down the Anti Ecto Acts alone. He'd be struggling to keep the Realms beings from invading his home as it is. And the government's iron grip on the city makes it nearly impossible for news to get out to the masses.

Danny being the brother of a vigilante detective across the country is another story.

Batman's mentorship would give Tim the training needed to eventually track down his lost sibling. And through Red Robin's connections to the Justice League, Danny could get help overturning the Anti Ecto Acts while he keeps declarations of war at bay on his end. Danny and Tim's combined efforts could be what's keeping the world at peace instead of ending it.

Long story short: Clockwork kills two birds with one stone by uniting a pair of long lost brothers through the prevention of an interdimensional war.

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of the first five episodes of Disney+’s Loki, & maybe the finale. Maybe.

EXCLUSIVE: “I have learned, at this point, having said goodbye to the character more than twice, two and a half times maybe, to make no assumptions,” says Loki’s Tom Hiddleston as the hours tick away to the finale of the Disney+ series drops early on Wednesday morning. “We’ll see where the ride goes now,” the Marvel alum adds.

As always with almost any project from the Kevin Feige run studio, that ride could continue, at least in some form or another. Certainly, the June 9 ‘Glorious Purpose’ premiere of the Michael Waldron penned and Kate Herron directed Loki proved to be the Disney+ and the MCU’s biggest small screen success so far. Also with any Marvel project, past Emmy winner Hiddleston was elusive on what could be coming next, be it in the Loki finale, another season or another appearance in the movies as the MCU shifts into its next phrase.

One thing is clear, after a decade playing the God of Mischief, Hiddleston still has a lot of Loki on the brain, in the best way.Leading towards the finale, I chatted with a UK-based Hiddleston about returning to play Loki and the search for who or what controls the seemingly all knowing, all powerful Time Variance Authority. The Night Manager star also spoke about filming during the coronavirus pandemic, working with Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Richard E. Grant, and Sophia Di Martino, who portrays variant and soulmate Sylvie, and his upcoming AppleTV+ series The Essex Serpent with Claire Danes.

DEADLINE: There’s a great line in this season’s penultimate episode where your Loki and Sylvie are stunned at watch Richard E. Grant’s Classic Loki recreate Asgard to distract Alioth and you say “I think we’re stronger than we realize.” There seems to be a great resonance in the line that there’s a whole lot of Loki coming in the finale and probably more …

HIDDLESTON: I suppose it resonates with the theme that we all wanted to highlight about purpose and about meaning. Loki’s someone who’s probably been deluded by the idea that he’s burdened with glorious purpose, and that perhaps that purpose has been revealed to be fraudulent or meaningless, and maybe his self-image or the role that he has condemned himself to play is redundant.

His experiences through this story have shown him that there are actually more opportunities available to him, and you know, it speaks to this idea, like, can we change? Can we evolve, and in that evolution, is there room to grow? You know, so, I think the stronger than we realize I think is Loki finally understanding that, really, by caring for other people, that maybe there’s power in that, and I found that very touching, and the whole thing is an extraordinary dream.

DEADLINE: Speaking of an extraordinary dream, you have been playing Loki for a decade now, since the first Thor movie, We know you are going to do some voice work in the animated What If…? series, but how has it been having this series directly centering on him, in all his variants, so to speak?

HIDDLESTON: You know Dominic, I have enjoyed it so much, because I felt it was a gift and a privilege to be invited to come and sit at the table and think about what the show might be. Also, I suppose so many of the things that I’ve discovered about Loki as a character in the comics and a character in the Norse myths, in the canon, aspects that I’ve always thought were interesting, and understandably, there hasn’t been time or space in the movies to explore them.

DEADLINE: In terms of who he is?

HIDDLESTON: Those aspects of him have been externalized and embedded into this new story about identity itself and about integrating the disparate fragment of the many selves that he is or perhaps the many selves that we are. You know, we contain multitudes. Loki certainly contains multitudes. We have met many of those multitudes, including Alligator Loki (laughs).

DEADLINE: Sounds like you’re not done with those multitudes yet. From your POV, from conversations with Kevin (Feige) is there more that you see for the character as the MCU heads into its next stages?

HIDDLESTON: Well, I certainly don’t have Kevin’s brain or encyclopedic knowledge or capacity for invention. I’ve been on the ride for a while, and it’s been the most extraordinary journey, and to have lived through different iterations, different phases of the MCU, and I’m so grateful that I’m still here, and it’s been amazing to watch. I feel that the MCU is even more expansive, is even braver, more inclusive than it’s ever been.

DEADLINE: How so?

HIDDLESTON: I think the stories are getting really exciting. Not that they weren’t before, but I think they understand that the investment of the audience is very deep, and they don’t take it for granted for a second. So, yeah, I suppose the perspective I have on how Loki might affect the ongoing course of the MCU is this idea of the multiverse. People have already understood it when Miss Minutes is introducing Loki to the TVA. She talks about the multiverse and the war and that the sacred timeline, which is reality as we know it.

DEADLINE: It opens up the aperture certainly for new stories from all opportunities, doesn’t it?

HIDDLESTON: It raises questions of, well, maybe there are other parallel or alternate universes. Maybe there are other realities, and the possibilities there are endless. I feel that at the end of episode five, Loki and Sylvie are close to discovering the answers to the questions that they have of who is behind the TVA and that, somehow, this will provoke even more curiosity about…

DEADLINE: …Because in the Marvel Universe, answering one set of questions always leads to another set of questions, in many ways.

HIDDLESTON: Right. Yeah. Yeah, and I know that there are lots of, you know, interesting titles of movies that’ve been announced, which kind of hint at where it might be going.

DEADLINE: One of those that hasn’t been officially announced, but is rumored is a Season 2 for Loki, in gear under the temporary title of Architect on call sheets and the like …

HIDDLESTON: Well, yes, maybe, as I say, all the kind of multiple alternate realities are …it’s taken me 10 years to get a handle on this sort of mono timeline. The idea that this might be a multiverse is actually beyond my knowledge of physics.

DEADLINE: Well, I doubt that, but let me ask, and no spoilers for the finale or further, but if Kevin, Marvel, Disney asked you to do more Loki, are you game?

HIDDLESTON: (laughs) I have learned, at this point, having said goodbye to the character more than twice, two and a half times maybe, to make no assumptions. So, I’m also aware that I’m only playing him because of the audience, really. So, it’s not up to me. But I do love playing him, and every time, I seem to find new, interesting things about him. So, yeah, I’m a temporary passenger on Loki’s journey, but we’ll see. We’ll see where the ride goes now.

DEADLINE: On the ride, as the finale looms, there’s a ton of fan speculation out there and so much that people have hooked on to from the show. So, as the man at the center of it, what was your favorite part of Loki the series?

HIDDLESTON: That there was meaning in the making of it.That we crossed the finish line in the middle of a global pandemic and could create something, and more than ever, I felt really grateful for being able to do this job. I think in this there are some of those questions that we were all asking ourselves in the last 18 months in the show, you know, what do our lives mean?📷I love taking Loki in new directions. I love the contributions of my fellow actors, of Owen Wilson and Sophia Di Martino and Richard E. Grant and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Wunmi Masaku, they all brought so much to the table, and I’ll always remember that. You know, I’ll always remember just being in Atlanta with all of them and making our bonkers show. Yeah.

DEADLINE: Making your bonkers show in Atlanta as the world, as America was still in the heat of the pandemic. What was that like, because you were in production and then everything stopped and then you came back, right?

HIDDLESTON: I mean, people have used this word a lot, but it really was unprecedented. I think we did six weeks of filming before the hiatus, and then the production was suspended for four or five months, and we came back. At first, it was unfamiliar because we had to make adjustments, but the thing I remember most of all, quite honestly, is the diligence and resilience and spirit of our cast and crew.

DEADLINE: Really?

HIDDLESTON: Yes, and it remains extremely special for me, this project, for that reason.For me, it just demonstrated the character of these amazing people. It took a huge amount of planning and care and looking after each other. By that, I mean, being in the bubble. So, for many of us, the only other human beings we saw, really, were each other. So, we came to work, and we became a team, and the circumstances fostered this extraordinary team spirit, and so the memory of making it is really my incredible and deep respect and affection for my fellow filmmakers. People like Trish Stanard, our line producer. Richard Graves, our first AD. Kristina Peterson, our second AD. Autumn Durald, DP. Kevin Wright, our supervising producer, and so many others making sure everyone could stay safe and look after each other.It’s really…I find it…it’s very moving, and it’s remarkable, and I just want to salute them all because I couldn’t have done any of it without them.

DEADLINE: In that vein, you have just come off filming The Essex Serpent with Claire Danes for AppleTV+. Very different from Loki, and yet also a tale of what is real and who we are. Is that what attracted you to it on some level?

HIDDLESTON: I read it and immediately connected to it. Read the screenplay, the adaptation. It’s based on a novel by Sarah Perry, which was published in 2016 and is set at the end of the 19th century. It’s an extraordinary story about uncertainty and about our deepest fears and how sometimes our fears can distort our imaginings and how our minds can lie to us. About how we have to guard against that, and Perry sets it in this extraordinary time with a beautiful leading character of Cora Seaborne, played by Claire. Anna Symon adopted it.

There’s this community on the east coast of England who believe that an ancient beast has been awakened by an earthquake and that it’s dislodged all these fossils. But perhaps, it has also dislodged this ancient underwater monster, which has been used to explain certain unusual phenomena. This was in the era when Darwin had just been published a few decades before and people are starting to think, this Charles Darwin, he’s onto something. Still, fear spreads very quickly, and it’s a very fascinating time where science and faith are in conflict.

DEADLINE: When you describe it like that it sounds very Loki indeed.

HIDDLESTON: Maybe the themes are very Loki. Maybe that’s where they join up, but I’m playing a 19th century vicar who is trying to contain his community. You feel very destabilized by all these rumors. So, yeah, to go from Loki to a vicar was definitely new, a new territory.

DEADLINE: Literally and figuratively?

HIDDLESTON: Well, it’s my first significant time in Essex, where we filmed, which I feel embarrassed about. I’ve been to Essex before, but I’ve never been to the very, very eastern, most eastern coast of Essex. It’s the Blackwater Estuary, which then feeds into the River Thames, and it’s a very ancient part of England. It’s so marshy, it’s where in Great Expectations, that’s where Pip meets Magwitch for the first time. It’s all foggy and muddy and marshy and quite atmospheric and a perfect place to set a story about of uncertainty and fear and gothic romance. Clio Barnard directed it, and working with her has been amazing.

DEADLINE: You know, it occurs to me that of all the main Marvel characters, Loki has been such a constant, yet so ethereal in so many ways too. Is it jarring for you to jump back into the role with all the uncertainty it brings?

HIDDLESTON: You know, I’ve always seen it as sort of an extraordinary and surprising constant in my life for a decade. But, I don’t take it for granted because I don’t often…you know, it may end. It has actually ended, and those endings have been conclusive. I really thought a couple of years ago, after I made Avengers: Infinity War, you know, we all know what happens in that scene, and I thought, that’s it.I thought it’s over, and I was really proud to have been part of it. I was grateful for my time, but I thought that, my work would go off in a different direction. So, the idea that I got to come back and have another go was a complete delight, it truly was.

‘Loki’s Tom Hiddleston Teases Marvel Series Finale, What It All Means & Is There More Of The God Of Mischief To Come?

By Dominic Patten | Deadline

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of the first five episodes of Disney+’s Loki, & maybe the finale. Maybe.

EXCLUSIVE: “I have learned, at this point, having said goodbye to the character more than twice, two and a half times maybe, to make no assumptions,” says Loki’s Tom Hiddleston as the hours tick away to the finale of the Disney+ series drops early on Wednesday morning. “We’ll see where the ride goes now,” the Marvel alum adds. As always with almost any project from the Kevin Feige run studio, that ride could continue, at least in some form or another. Certainly, the June 9 ‘Glorious Purpose’ premiere of the Michael Waldron penned and Kate Herron directed Loki proved to be the Disney+ and the MCU’s biggest small screen success so far. Also with any Marvel project, past Emmy winner Hiddleston was elusive on what could be coming next, be it in the Loki finale, another season or another appearance in the movies as the MCU shifts into its next phrase.

One thing is clear, after a decade playing the God of Mischief, Hiddleston still has a lot of Loki on the brain, in the best way.

Leading towards the finale, I chatted with a UK-based Hiddleston about returning to play Loki and the search for who or what controls the seemingly all knowing, all powerful Time Variance Authority. The Night Manager star also spoke about filming during the coronavirus pandemic, working with Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Richard E. Grant, and Sophia Di Martino, who portrays variant and soulmate Sylvie, and his upcoming AppleTV+ series The Essex Serpent with Claire Danes.

DEADLINE: There’s a great line in this season’s penultimate episode where your Loki and Sylvie are stunned at watch Richard E. Grant’s Classic Loki recreate Asgard to distract Alioth and you say “I think we’re stronger than we realize.” There seems to be a great resonance in the line that there’s a whole lot of Loki coming in the finale and probably more …

HIDDLESTON: I suppose it resonates with the theme that we all wanted to highlight about purpose and about meaning. Loki’s someone who’s probably been deluded by the idea that he’s burdened with glorious purpose, and that perhaps that purpose has been revealed to be fraudulent or meaningless, and maybe his self-image or the role that he has condemned himself to play is redundant.

His experiences through this story have shown him that there are actually more opportunities available to him, and you know, it speaks to this idea, like, can we change? Can we evolve, and in that evolution, is there room to grow? You know, so, I think the stronger than we realize I think is Loki finally understanding that, really, by caring for other people, that maybe there’s power in that, and I found that very touching, and the whole thing is an extraordinary dream.

DEADLINE: Speaking of an extraordinary dream, you have been playing Loki for a decade now, since the first Thor movie, We know you are going to do some voice work in the animated What If…? series, but how has it been having this series directly centering on him, in all his variants, so to speak?

HIDDLESTON: You know Dominic, I have enjoyed it so much, because I felt it was a gift and a privilege to be invited to come and sit at the table and think about what the show might be. Also, I suppose so many of the things that I’ve discovered about Loki as a character in the comics and a character in the Norse myths, in the canon, aspects that I’ve always thought were interesting, and understandably, there hasn’t been time or space in the movies to explore them.

DEADLINE: In terms of who he is?

HIDDLESTON: Those aspects of him have been externalized and embedded into this new story about identity itself and about integrating the disparate fragment of the many selves that he is or perhaps the many selves that we are. You know, we contain multitudes. Loki certainly contains multitudes. We have met many of those multitudes, including Alligator Loki (laughs).

DEADLINE: Sounds like you’re not done with those multitudes yet. From your POV, from conversations with Kevin (Feige) is there more that you see for the character as the MCU heads into its next stages?

HIDDLESTON: Well, I certainly don’t have Kevin’s brain or encyclopedic knowledge or capacity for invention. I’ve been on the ride for a while, and it’s been the most extraordinary journey, and to have lived through different iterations, different phases of the MCU, and I’m so grateful that I’m still here, and it’s been amazing to watch. I feel that the MCU is even more expansive, is even braver, more inclusive than it’s ever been.

DEADLINE: How so?

HIDDLESTON: I think the stories are getting really exciting. Not that they weren’t before, but I think they understand that the investment of the audience is very deep, and they don’t take it for granted for a second. So, yeah, I suppose the perspective I have on how Loki might affect the ongoing course of the MCU is this idea of the multiverse. People have already understood it when Miss Minutes is introducing Loki to the TVA. She talks about the multiverse and the war and that the sacred timeline, which is reality as we know it.

DEADLINE: It opens up the aperture certainly for new stories from all opportunities, doesn’t it?

HIDDLESTON: It raises questions of, well, maybe there are other parallel or alternate universes. Maybe there are other realities, and the possibilities there are endless. I feel that at the end of episode five, Loki and Sylvie are close to discovering the answers to the questions that they have of who is behind the TVA and that, somehow, this will provoke even more curiosity about…

DEADLINE: …Because in the Marvel Universe, answering one set of questions always leads to another set of questions, in many ways.

HIDDLESTON: Right. Yeah. Yeah, and I know that there are lots of, you know, interesting titles of movies that’ve been announced, which kind of hint at where it might be going.

DEADLINE: One of those that hasn’t been officially announced, but is rumored is a Season 2 for Loki, in gear under the temporary title of Architect on call sheets and the like …

HIDDLESTON: Well, yes, maybe, as I say, all the kind of multiple alternate realities are …it’s taken me 10 years to get a handle on this sort of mono timeline. The idea that this might be a multiverse is actually beyond my knowledge of physics

DEADLINE: Well, I doubt that, but let me ask, and no spoilers for the finale or further, but if Kevin, Marvel, Disney asked you to do more Loki, are you game?

HIDDLESTON: (laughs) I have learned, at this point, having said goodbye to the character more than twice, two and a half times maybe, to make no assumptions. So, I’m also aware that I’m only playing him because of the audience, really. So, it’s not up to me. But I do love playing him, and every time, I seem to find new, interesting things about him. So, yeah, I’m a temporary passenger on Loki’s journey, but we’ll see. We’ll see where the ride goes now.

DEADLINE: On the ride, as the finale looms, there’s a ton of fan speculation out there and so much that people have hooked on to from the show. So, as the man at the center of it, what was your favorite part of Loki the series?

HIDDLESTON: That there was meaning in the making of it.

That we crossed the finish line in the middle of a global pandemic and could create something, and more than ever, I felt really grateful for being able to do this job. I think in this there are some of those questions that we were all asking ourselves in the last 18 months in the show, you know, what do our lives mean?

I love taking Loki in new directions. I love the contributions of my fellow actors, of Owen Wilson and Sophia Di Martino and Richard E. Grant and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Wunmi Masaku, they all brought so much to the table, and I’ll always remember that. You know, I’ll always remember just being in Atlanta with all of them and making our bonkers show. Yeah.

DEADLINE: Making your bonkers show in Atlanta as the world, as America was still in the heat of the pandemic. What was that like, because you were in production and then everything stopped and then you came back, right?

HIDDLESTON: I mean, people have used this word a lot, but it really was unprecedented. I think we did six weeks of filming before the hiatus, and then the production was suspended for four or five months, and we came back. At first, it was unfamiliar because we had to make adjustments, but the thing I remember most of all, quite honestly, is the diligence and resilience and spirit of our cast and crew.

DEADLINE: Really?

HIDDLESTON: Yes, and it remains extremely special for me, this project, for that reason.

For me, it just demonstrated the character of these amazing people. It took a huge amount of planning and care and looking after each other. By that, I mean, being in the bubble. So, for many of us, the only other human beings we saw, really, were each other. So, we came to work, and we became a team, and the circumstances fostered this extraordinary team spirit, and so the memory of making it is really my incredible and deep respect and affection for my fellow filmmakers. People like Trish Stanard, our line producer. Richard Graves, our first AD. Kristina Peterson, our second AD. Autumn Durald, DP. Kevin Wright, our supervising producer, and so many others making sure everyone could stay safe and look after each other.

It’s really…I find it…it’s very moving, and it’s remarkable, and I just want to salute them all because I couldn’t have done any of it without them.

DEADLINE: In that vein, you have just come off filming The Essex Serpent with Claire Danes for AppleTV+. Very different from Loki, and yet also a tale of what is real and who we are. Is that what attracted you to it on some level?

HIDDLESTON: I read it and immediately connected to it. Read the screenplay, the adaptation. It’s based on a novel by Sarah Perry, which was published in 2016 and is set at the end of the 19th century. It’s an extraordinary story about uncertainty and about our deepest fears and how sometimes our fears can distort our imaginings and how our minds can lie to us. About how we have to guard against that, and Perry sets it in this extraordinary time with a beautiful leading character of Cora Seaborne, played by Claire. Anna Symon adopted it.

There’s this community on the east coast of England who believe that an ancient beast has been awakened by an earthquake and that it’s dislodged all these fossils. But perhaps, it has also dislodged this ancient underwater monster, which has been used to explain certain unusual phenomena. This was in the era when Darwin had just been published a few decades before and people are starting to think, this Charles Darwin, he’s onto something. Still, fear spreads very quickly, and it’s a very fascinating time where science and faith are in conflict.

DEADLINE: When you describe it like that it sounds very Loki indeed.

HIDDLESTON: Maybe the themes are very Loki. Maybe that’s where they join up, but I’m playing a 19th century vicar who is trying to contain his community. You feel very destabilized by all these rumors. So, yeah, to go from Loki to a vicar was definitely new, a new territory.

DEADLINE: Literally and figuratively?

HIDDLESTON: Well, it’s my first significant time in Essex, where we filmed, which I feel embarrassed about. I’ve been to Essex before, but I’ve never been to the very, very eastern, most eastern coast of Essex. It’s the Blackwater Estuary, which then feeds into the River Thames, and it’s a very ancient part of England. It’s so marshy, it’s where in Great Expectations, that’s where Pip meets Magwitch for the first time. It’s all foggy and muddy and marshy and quite atmospheric and a perfect place to set a story about of uncertainty and fear and gothic romance. Clio Barnard directed it, and working with her has been amazing.

DEADLINE: You know, it occurs to me that of all the main Marvel characters, Loki has been such a constant, yet so ethereal in so many ways too. Is it jarring for you to jump back into the role with all the uncertainty it brings?

HIDDLESTON: You know, I’ve always seen it as sort of an extraordinary and surprising constant in my life for a decade. But, I don’t take it for granted because I don’t often…you know, it may end. It has actually ended, and those endings have been conclusive. I really thought a couple of years ago, after I made Avengers: Infinity War, you know, we all know what happens in that scene, and I thought, that’s it.

I thought it’s over, and I was really proud to have been part of it. I was grateful for my time, but I thought that, my work would go off in a different direction. So, the idea that I got to come back and have another go was a complete delight, it truly was.

What do you think about the relationship between SS and his father? In all the times it is mentioned, it seems that he still fears him and holds a grudge for trying to kill him, but what happens after Mustafa's execution, it is not clear to me if in his mind he made peace with him

The relationship between Süleiman and Yavuz Selim was clearly very turbulent from the start. When Selim was mentioned and appeared on the horizon, he indeed was always portrayed as this ruthless and even equally paranoid guy who would do anything to keep his power. And this paranoia of his kept on even when SS was the only heir left. We don't know much of his canon characterization outside of what people that knew him have said about him and a few flashbacks, but I do headcanon that he went on campaigns a whole lot and that he cared about the state, his own state much more than any other personal attachments he could've had. That's why he may not have gotten that close to his only son, too (SS spending most of his time in a sanjack could've also contributed to this) and since similarly to SS, his paranoia and self-righteousness hardened him to the point where there was no turning back anymore and that more or less became who you are, you look at yourself as a figure of a ruthless padişah, not so much as a human being, Selim would be capable of the most drastic measures against whoever he felt betray him in some way. It's no wonder Hafsa kept SS as far away from his suspicion as possible, because Selim is characterized by everyone by being ruthless and cruel and that means he can be pretty unpredictable, as well, judging by the situation with the kaftan. He is a guy that his family - his wife (in the show apparently), his daughters and his only son! - is afraid of.

Given the circumstances, it's pretty explainable to me why SS is afraid of him, as well, and is probably the one who is the most afraid of him deep down, but wouldn't admit it so openly, of course, only in self reflection. SS has apparently grown distant to his own father and perhaps they haven't even met so much. The flashback in E55 gave us a glimpse of how their relationship could've been - a pretty familiar sword fight and words about innocence that establish that Selim has also seen the danger in SS from pretty early on. It's as if SS has always been a suspect from day one. However, outside of that flashback, SS defines Selim by two major deeds - the whole ordeal with Selim's own father and the poisoned kaftan. Since again, SS spent most of his time in a sanjack and he didn't have the chance (Hafsa could've talked him out of it) or simply didn't want to let out his anger on his father for this event, deep resentment would overtake SS more and more throughout the years, because it's a vivid, impactful image and a strong, negative emotion one wouldn't forget so easily when your own father is the one who wants your death. This precise event is the one most telling of Selim's cruelty and ruthlessness in the show and that's what SS associates him with - cruelty and ruthlessness. But there the fear comes in, most of all, because of the similar position: one day SS would have to go in his footsteps, one day he would have to take on his role. SS is also a padişah and what if he also becomes like Selim? What if he also sends a poisoned kaftan to his son? (he asked Allah not to let him do that in one episode) What if he becomes as cruel, what if his reign also turns into a bloodshed? This fear of his is so strong and deep-seated that the further SS goes on with his growing Ego and paranoia, the more this fear ends up overtaking him and makes what he has still strived to avoid become part of him he lives by and a mold he would always follow, for he is the padişah and he, just like his father, wouldn't stand betrayal or what he perceives as betrayal, because he has become so used to living with this fear that amplified his Ego and paranoia even more that he writes off his deeds as absolutely necessary when he only screwed up big time.

This fear has turned into SS's ultimate justification, for Yavuz Selim was presented as his Azraeel two episodes before he did one of the wrongest deeds in his life. Here's the place for me to say that SS would have only benefited more as a character and gained much more sympathy from me, if precisely his backstory with his father was more explored beyond what we got. What we got was too scarse to justify his (let's face it) mostly out-of-context event-based paranoia to the point it became like this is used as SS's own justification without him truly realizing it, not a justification the audience got, because the show didn't want to justify neither Ibrahim's (maybe aside from E82 itself), nor Mustafa's execution. We could see the factors, yes, but justify the executions? No, especially when they both were presented as wrong when it came to the state itself through the tragic themes. And that's the thing: SS eventually put his Ego of a padişah and warped beliefs of what has to be done over his own early established principles and the state itself. That's also why SS's motivation rings hollow due to this minimal information and I think that SS not only became like his father, he even exceeded him. The stability of the state still played a part in the only other established event of Yavuz Selim SS eventually leaned on in E97 and shown with an actual flashback in E122 and his intentions didn't seem to have changed, since he was praised for his ruling and conquests. No matter how ruthless he was, we're led to believe he still was a decent ruler. That changes with SS. He begins putting Selim's way of thinking and courses of action in his own ways of thinking and ends up twisting them even further, if only for the deeper exploration and character arc we got with him.

Süleiman gives in to Selim's ways of thinking pretty early actually: he's used to being suspected and he quickly becomes accustomed to his own role to the point his decisions could hurt his family and could be pretty similar to his own father's. The paranoia of betrayal and dethroning appeared much faster than even he could imagine, since once he saw Mustafa grow up more and more, yes, he had very mixed feelings when he saw him again in E46 and he showed pride in him then still, but he also saw the danger more and more and recited the exact same words his father had once said to him himself. It's no wonder that E55's flashback and the aforementioned scene were parallels to each other: it's like Selim had said these words to SS in a fairly early stage of their relationship and here the cycle repeats with Mustafa and the signs of SS becoming like Selim, something he would never principally want to, are already there, not to mention Hafsa's warnings even before that. (because I wouldn't be surprised if she knew Selim better than SS did - she has spent quite some time with him as his wife and she was the one who immediately sensed danger in the kaftan situation, yes, a mother's survival instinct plays here, too, but Hafsa isn't a person who would be suspicious without any reason whatsoever, even at her worst) By then and by E123, SS had already shown the ruthlessness Selim demonstrated and the more we went, the more SS fell into despair for all his actions, the worse he ended up being, ceasing to realize the effects of what he has done. (like his intervention or lack thereof in the culmination of Selim and Bayezid's conflict) For SS it's way beyond a matter of self-righteousness, but a matter of conscience he had stopped listening to, a conscience he previously said that would define his reign. That fear of his father made him go in lengths he wouldn't imagine him going and for all the perceived attempts to avoid it throughout the show (like him not sending a poisoned kaftan to Mustafa and telling him that he wouldn't ever dare such execution), he ended up caving to them more and more and taking his own spin on Selim's mindset. SS took his role as a padişah much more dearly and that allowed him to delve deeper into his paranoia, into what he has to do for the sake of solely continuing to rule. Perhaps that survival instinct present during Selim's reign never left and evolved into something else. (we don't know the full extent of Selim's cruelty, which is honestly merely covered in hints, but we do know the full extent of SS's, which gives us even more of a possibility for SS to have "evolved" past it.)

Did Süleiman make peace with his father? It never became clear in the show, but I doubt that happened, at least not before he died. It's the fear of becoming Selim Yavuz that ruined SS's whole life in one way or another and his conscience always spoke to him left and right, no matter how willing he was to listen or not. I see SS becoming even more resentful of his father's ways when he committed his worst crimes. And even in his last days, he was more adamant to prove to people that he himself was still a capable ruler by going to a campaign, risking his own life and health for the sake of proving a point than thinking about how far has he come when it came to what he did as a padişah and how did that tie into the ways of his father. He certainly became more accepting of his mold over the years, but not in the way that would make peace with him, but rather as something that has to be done for the sake of your role. Until he died, SS probably still heavily disliked his father as a person and the best he could do at that point is not think about him. He would never justify or make peace with Selim Yavuz's deeds, not even in front of himself, despite of him doing the exact same. Süleiman makes a distinction between his thinking and that of his father, despite of even his own self telling him otherwise deep down. He wants to make that distinction, so why would there be a reason for SS to make peace with him back then? There would be no reason in his eyes.

Now, when he died, it's up for interpretation. Maybe he could've made peace with his father or at least convinced himself of that in his afterlife, since in his last monologue he did say that he takes only love and friendship with him and that would mean no negative feeling left, right? But the monologue itself is very up for interpretation, too, because.. what does that mean? How did this sudden turnaround happen? Did SS realize what he had done was wrong? Was he ready to accept that? Was he truly ready to get out of his role he has been used to since forever and live another life that consisted of only love and friendship? Then what about the imagery of this scene that showed him going to another throne instead after all? Yes, maybe the love and friendship were the true throne he went to with the Sultanate coming to an end, but couldn't that be more him only fully coming to terms that he'll come back to where he came from, where every person on the earth came from (that is, the ground)? Because he could start over anyway, but still not forget what happened in his life, paralleled with his first monologue ever in the first episode, where he said that he doesn't forget? There is so much to speculate here.

How Psych Evolved Through the Character of Carlton Lassiter

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Early on in the Psych pilot, Shawn Spencer’s (James Roday Rodriguez) ludicrous plot to impersonate a psychic in order to solve crime suddenly takes on grave stakes: Chief Vick (Kirsten Nelson) informs him that if he’s lying, he’ll be prosecuted for hindering a police investigation. Just like that, he’s locked into his lie, and has no choice but to let it snowball—into a private eye business with his best friend Burton Guster (Dulé Hill), but also into a lucrative consultancy gig for the Santa Barbara Police Department that, psychic antics be damned, legitimately saves lives.

But while it’s the Chief who put the fear of God into Shawn, the true threat to his secret was always one Carlton Jebediah Lassiter (Timothy Omundson). In the early seasons, Lassiter was the perfect foil: a by-the-book detective obsessed with proper procedure and with hypermasculinity, who had patience for neither Gus’ high-pitched squeals nor Shawn’s supernatural “hunches.” The fake psychic’s obnoxious theatrics were nothing without an exasperated reaction from Carlton… especially as those hunches kept paying off and making this old dog all the more self-conscious about his own inability to learn new tricks.

Even moreso than their eventual tango duet in Psych: The Musical, Shawn and Lassie’s song has always been the Psych theme:

I know, you know, that I’m not telling the truth

I know, you know, they just don’t have any proof

Embrace the deception, learn how to bend

Your worst inhibitions tend to psych you out in the end

Yet even as Lassiter delighted in watching Shawn get shown up by other fake psychics and even threatened to be the one to someday catch him in the act, over the course of the series this seeming antagonist shifted into a comic relief role and eventually a truly sympathetic figure. As Carlton became Lassie, so too did Psych grow beyond its cheeky premise, from a potentially one-note episodic show to a serialized dramedy about a found family solving crimes in all manner of unconventional ways—a connection that was cemented in Psych: The Movie and now in Psych 2: Lassie Come Home.

It started with Shawn noticing that Lassie needed help, even if he would never say so outright—when he encountered the detective, drunk and loose-lipped and off his game, in “From the Earth to Starbucks.” Not only was he confounded by Shawn’s skills, Lassiter confessed, but it made him feel worse about the fact that he couldn’t solve what he believed was the murder of a local astronomer who seemingly died of natural causes. Shawn, Gus, and Juliet (Maggie Lawson) spent the rest of that episode surreptitiously helping Lassiter solve what was indeed a murder, all while throwing him clues without him realizing. There was a noticeable absence of Shawn’s psychic shtick in that season 1 episode, since the point was to give Lassiter all the credit, which meant making it look like Lassiter’s way of working. Shawn didn’t have to perform, aside from moments of conspiring with Jules, because it was very much a case of What Would Lassie Do?

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Psych 2: Lassie Come Home Easter Egg and Reference Guide

By Natalie Zutter

Movies

Psych 2: Lassie Come Home Review

By Natalie Zutter

By the time “Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing” in season 3 and was the prime suspect in a criminal’s death, he knew he had no choice but to bring Psych in where the SBPD wouldn’t investigate. And in the case of “Last Night Gus” in season 6—well, it was in everyone’s best interests to solve the mystery of that Hangover-esque night. Over the years, viewers discovered along with Shawn, Gus, and Jules various Lassie quirks: He works out his daddy issues by dressing up as his Civil War ancestor and an archetypal cowboy. He enjoys tap dancing with Gus because it helps him sort through his thoughts. He falls in love with Marlowe (Kristy Swanson) despite her criminal record. He shares more and more of himself with these colleagues who become friends and then family. In turn, he comes to, if not actually believe in, then at least accept the idiosyncrasies of Psych—because like it or not, it makes his professional and personal lives better. At the same time, Shawn’s lie quietly explodes his relationship with Juliet, as it makes her doubt that he was telling her the truth about anything. Even after they reconcile, the ramifications of almost losing her cause Shawn to pull back from automatically playing the psychic card.

And then Lassiter winds up shot and recovering in a hospital bed, helpless in the most Hitchcockian fashion at the start of Psych 2, and there’s no question about who he’ll call.

Clearly creator Steve Franks and the other writers made the decision that if they were to have Lassiter as a presence in Psych’s present, they had no choice but to draw from Omundson’s personal experience recovering from a debilitating stroke. Yet it’s eerie how well this dramatic arc fits Lassiter’s character—Lassie, who may have become a big teddy bear by the end of the series, but who is still obsessed with (heterosexual, able-bodied) notions of supposed manliness. Carlton “Danger” Lassiter, who once said he would go out “in a hailstorm of bullets” if it meant catching a criminal. Now he has to face the knowledge that he may never walk again.

Interestingly, Juliet is not the one whose help Lassiter specifically requests, despite their history as partners. In fact, it’s likely their shared experience that makes him reluctant to put her in that position; if there’s someone that Carlton would be afraid to be exposed in front of, it’s his former mentee. How can he reconcile asking the one-time junior detective whom he showed the ropes to adapt to a situation where he’s still getting his bearings? To wit, he puts her off with a to-do list of errands—a throwback to their early days together, when he frequently invited her to “shut it” or otherwise stay in her lane.

Thankfully, one of the many lessons Juliet took from their time together in the field was to not obey orders when she knows she’s on to something. And so she returns to the scene of the crime where Lassiter was shot, follows up on ballistics, and locates the missing puzzle piece of the second bullet. Shawn and Gus get the ghosts, but Jules gets the shooter. Between being confined to his hospital room, and in the face of Jules’ own stubborn tenacity, Lassiter couldn’t have stopped her if he tried. In many ways, accepting help not asked for demands even more vulnerability from him.

What’s most fascinating about Shawn and Gus’ investigation in Lassie Come Home is that not for a moment do they bullshit Lassiter. This isn’t a case for Psych, it’s an act of love from two close friends—absolutely no psychic spectacle necessary. Now, one could argue that Shawn wouldn’t have even thought to make up a vision because, as far as he knows, Lassiter watched his goodbye video (in the series finale) all the way to the end, where he confessed the truth behind how he manages to solve so many crimes.

Instead, right before Shawn could give Lassiter the answer he’d dreamed of hearing for eight seasons, the detective popped out the DVD and broke it in half. At the time, this moment in the Psych canon, arguably more than his relationship with Marlowe or his identity as a father, was when Lassiter experienced his greatest character growth: He would rather pause time, to focus on all the good that Shawn had accomplished through his lie, than be right.

But time can’t stay paused forever; and if Lassiter is being clear-eyed about how Shawn solves his baffling hospital sightings in Lassie Come Home, then he also has no illusions about his inability to solve his own mystery alone. He can contribute his observations—credible and not—and draw his own conclusions, but he has to trust Shawn, Gus, and Juliet to be his eyes, ears, and legs outside of the prison of his room. He also has to accept that he’s not always present in the crime-solving; there’s a recurring theme in which Lassiter, drifting on his meds, opens his eyes to Shawn and Gus, or Juliet, waiting expectantly for him to wake up and catch up. In one scene where Shawn goes to ask his advice about fatherhood, Lassie is completely asleep, an incredible display of vulnerability from both Lassiter and Omundson.

Yet as we learn in his final showdown with the murderous nurse Dolores (Sarah Chalke), just because Lassiter closes his eyes doesn’t mean he’s out for the count. The way he outwits her is Lassiter to a tee: Even while slipping away from the fatal morphine drip, he has enough wherewithal to grab one of three (three!) guns he had stashed in his hospital room—just like in “Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing.”

But this time, instead of being all cool and flipping the bullet into his hand, this Lassiter is babbling to the morphine-induced hallucination of his dead father (Joel McHale) about how much it hurt to lose him, about how he’s afraid he’ll leave his daughter to grow up without a father just like he did.

The moment is played for laughs, with Dolores’ face screwing up into incredulity—this guy has a gun pulled on her, and he’s still mumbling closure to his ghost dad? But for fans, it’s tantamount to the DVD moment: Lassiter has finally found the way to be unguarded, to embrace the ridiculousness of the present moment without self-consciousness, without losing sight of the perp. Even though he has the upper hand, he’s still scared about what he’s going to do when he gets out of this room. He can put away a killer, but he can’t predict his own future beyond the hospital.

Which makes his reunion with Marlowe—witnessed only by Jules and Henry (Corbin Bernsen)—all the more moving. Another character in another narrative wouldn’t have cared if he returned to his wife in a wheelchair, wouldn’t have agonized over mustering enough strength to stand face-to-face with her. But it’s Lassiter, with specific ideas about what it means to be a man, and for him that means looking Marlowe in the eye so they can press their hands together—this time not glass between them, nor either of their pasts, but this new challenge—in solidarity.

Lassiter’s not perfect: He has a lot of toxic masculinity left to unlearn, and he owns an appalling number of guns. He’s still more conservative than not. Because he’s a cop who becomes more sympathetic, his narrative contributes to the larger cultural trend of “copaganda” on television. It’s the same problematic issue that faces the characters on Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Even if he’s lovable, and especially because of this fact, his identity as a police officer complicates the conversation around his character growth.

But within the world of Psych, he’s a character with a worthwhile arc. Like Lassiter, the series started out following a strict formula, and only after it had relaxed into something stronger than its premise—its talented ensemble, ‘80s riffs, and library of delightful in-jokes and callbacks—could it grow beyond its initial form.

Speaking of in-jokes… For the 100-plus teases, hints, and outright cameos the series gave us of its signature symbol, we all failed to spot Psych’s most important pineapple appearance. Lassiter is the pineapple! Prickly on the outside, sweet (but still tart) on the inside. Often difficult to spot, but so rewarding to find. Case closed.

The post How Psych Evolved Through the Character of Carlton Lassiter appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Hello! I really adore your blog and all the work you put into it! It's well appriciated. Anyways, a real question - how do you feel about Paul and Jane's relationship? Because it confuses me on so many levels. I find it very hard to believe she didn't know about his many affairs while they were together, yet the public reason for their break up is his adultery with Francie who denied that (I mean who even reported that?). 1/3

The other thing that confuses me is the fact that he was writing basically break up songs (but I didn’t register a lot of love there tbh) back in 66 and they somehow managed to last until 68, even though they totally didn’t give the impression of a good match (her ambition and his desire for housewife/bachelor life) nor did they seem as if they loved each other very much (at least publically).

The last part of the question, are you aware of a love song he wrote for her? I know some people think Here There and Everywhere but her brother apparently disagrees. Anyways, these are just my feelings and idk if I am not under a wrong impression here or something. I also don’t want it to sound like I am theoretizing here about it being a cover up for mclennon - because I am not! I think of it more as a publicity stunt for publicity…

…(even though I think it evolved into that over the course of time and it began more like Paul showing off with this pretty actress he managed to woo). What do you think? Thank you for your answer and sorry for the lenght, haha! R. 😎

Hey there! Thank you so much for the ask and a million apologies for taking so long to answer! It’s just that I had no opinion to speak of, at the time. 

I was just beginning to attempt getting a grasp on Paul– and to better comprehend my main interest of Lennon/McCartney– and hadn’t branched into the other people in his life yet. But to reach a true understanding, it is crucial to look at the full picture; and Jane was very much part of that picture, during a long and formative time!

Now, I must warn you that I’m nowhere near a Jane Asher connoisseur! This post comes with the disclaimer that I don’t feel adequately informed to answer it. But you asked, and it has been sitting in my inbox long enough, so… take my personal opinions for what they (always) are: honest (but probably flawed) attempts at understanding the emotional workings of human beings, based on the information available to me at the time. 

But because I feel like there is more information out there that I just didn’t find in the targeted research for this post, I urge more knowledgeable fans to give their contributions and/or correct me if I make some factual mistake. 

So, disclaimer given, here’s the actual answer:

I understand and empathize with your confusion regarding their relationship. I think it’s just a feeling that arises from the lack of information. After all, theirs was a relationship under intense public scrutiny from the very beginning, but whose actual inner workings were kept – through the effort of both parties – determinately private and personal. That’s always how Paul prefered it. And, effectively demonstrated by her resolute silence since, so has Jane. 

The main feeling I get from Paul and Jane is that they were both incredibly similar people, who also had somewhat separate interests. And this seems to have been both what attracted them to one another, and what eventually made them grow apart. 

Both of them were very socially adept; “good mixers”. Brian Sommerville (the Beatles’ publicity manager from 1963-1964) describes Jane as “a very sweet, extroverted girl […] bright, very conversational and full of fun”. This kind of sounds like Paul at his most gregarious. 

They were incredibly intelligent. And if Jane was cultured and knowledgeable, Paul was intensely curious, and soon became cultured and knowledgeable himself. And Paul himself openly admits that he was always attracted to “intelligent and talented people”. 

And we must acknowledge that the Asher’s lifestyle as a whole was something that captivated Paul (enough to have him literally move in with them as soon as he could). It had been instilled into him from early on, after all, this great appreciation for education and the drive to do better and rise out of his circumstances. 

[My parents] aspired to a better life. That idea that we had to get out of here, we had to do better than this. This was okay for everyone else in the street but we could do better than this. She was always moving to what she saw as a better place to bring her kids up.

[…]

My parents aspired for us, very much indeed. That is one of the great things you can find in ordinary people. My mum wanted me to be a doctor. ‘My son the doctor’ - and her being a nurse, too. No problem there. And my dad, who left school at fourteen, would have loved me to be a great scientist, a great university graduate. I always feel grateful for that. I mean, God, I certainly fulfilled their aspirations, talk about overachieving! That was all bred into me, that.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

People call Paul a “social climber” to demean him; and because the term is used to attack him, others defend him by saying his relationship with Jane had nothing to do with social climbing. But I don’t think this should be derogatory in the first place! 

Paul was ambitious; he did want to gain a higher social status. Not because he felt that made him inherently better than others; he’d just been raised to feel a sense of responsibility for being the best that he could be, and not live in poverty anymore! And what’s wrong with that, I’d like to know? 

All the Beatles wanted success, fame and status, so all of them were social climbers, in a sense. 

So what if one of the things that attracted Paul to Jane was that she was educated and cultured? It seems like a perfectly valid reason to be genuinely into someone to me.

Of course, both of them were beautiful. As Tony Barrow (the Beatles’ press officer) put it: “There was something about seeing them together that was magical. With those two gorgeous faces and all that incredible charisma, they looked like a couple of Greek gods.”  So the physical attraction was also obviously there.

And I don’t doubt that Paul was proud to have such a beautiful, talented and interesting person as a girlfriend, and might have felt like showing her off to friends. But I don’t think that lessens how enamoured they were with one another. If the whole relationship was being performed for outwards appreciation, I feel like there’d be a lot more performing going on. Instead, they never revealed more than they needed to, nor did they stop living to hide from the public eye. 

If there publicity strategies to it, they never came from Brian Epstein himself, who actually thought that the Beatles having girlfriends was a marketing mistake:

There was a considerable difference of opinion over the Jane Asher situation. Brian made a terrible fuss about it, saying that it would offend the fans. But, in effect, Paul just told him to mind his own business. Brian was probably just being over-cautious, and Paul more far-sighted, knowing that that sort of thing didn’t matter. But at the time it was a textbook rule of publicity that the artist must appear single and available.

— Brian Sommerville, in Chris Salewicz’s McCartney (1986).   

So the relationship wasn’t arranged as a publicity stunt. I feel like everything points to them just genuinely liking each other. 

(And now just an honest question to those of you who’ve been longer in the fandom: is George’s relationship with Pattie Boyd also suspected to be a publicity stunt? Because I don’t know if this has just escaped my notice, or if this claim is something that afflicts only Paul and Jane specifically. And if so, why do you think that is?)

But going back to their similarities, both Jane and Paul were incredibly independent, self-assured and work-oriented. And I think it was the clash of their strong personalities that actually caused the bumps in the relationship. 

Paul likes to be in control of himself and to some extent the environment around him. And he’d grown up in a society where it was acceptable for that to extend to his girlfriends. 

John and I lusted after Brigitte Bardot in our teen yearsand tried to make our girlfriends look like her. […] I had a girlfriend called Dot, Dorothy Rohne, who was my steady girlfriend forquite a long time in Liverpool. She and John’s girlfriend, later wife, CynthiaPowell, came over to Hamburg and I remember buying her a leather skirt andencouraging her to grow her hair long so she’d look like Brigitte.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997). 

Jane, of course, wasn’t willing to be moulded so easily.

That’s typical Paul [wanting me to stay inside the George V Hotel with the band instead of going out by myself to see Paris]. It’s just so silly of me to stay at the hotel. It’s just that he’s so insecure. For instance, he keeps saying he’s not interested in the future, but he must be because he says it so often. The trouble is, he wants the fans’ adulation and mine too. He’s so selfish, it’s his biggest fault. He can’t see that my feelings for him are real and that the fans’ are fantasy. Of course, it’s the trouble with all boys.

—Jane Asher, c/o Michael Braun, Love Me Do!: The Beatles’ Progress. (1964)

This little passage shows us Jane’s insights into the “darker” sides of Paul’s character that other’s wouldn’t often see. His insecurities: fear that Jane would betray him, anxieties about the future and his need to be liked. And this level of understanding shows either an incredible perceptiveness and emotional intelligence on Jane’s part, or it is another sign of how close they were and how well they knew each other. 

That Paul was understood like that by another person is extremely important! As he was reported saying after their breakup in 1968: 

Jane wasn’t just my woman, she was my closest friend. I’ve told her everything inside me. She knows what makes me tick down to things that happened as a kid. I went right through all the stuff about my mother dying and how I dealt with that. With Jane, I could just relax completely and be myself and that seemed to be what she wanted. With the other women, I’m a fucking millionaire rock star who just happens to be about as shallow as a puddle.

—in Alistair Taylor’s With the Beatles (2003).

Or just before that, as observed during the extensive interviews for the Beatles’ authorized biography, in 1967:

[Paul’s] life is much quieter and more ordered now. Paul is very communicative about himself, unlike the others. He talks everything over with Jane. She knows what he’s thinking.

— in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

And I can’t stress enough how significant it is that Paul was open in such a way! It just shows how much he respected and trusted Jane. 

And I think she also trusted him. With this I don’t mean to say that she trusted him not to sleep around; I don’t believe for a minute she didn’t know about it. And because she doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of person who would endure it if she was actually betrayed and hurt by this, my personal opinion is that this was a given; something known and accepted between them. And probably not just one-way either. They spent long periods apart, after all, and I think both Paul and Jane had agreed between themselves that it was okay to have affairs. I don’t know exactly the specifics of it, or if this was revoked when they got engaged. 

But I don’t think that was the (main) reason the engagement was called off either.

It is clear they enjoyed the other’s company, from the amount of time they spent on outings and holidays alone together. But both also seem rather uncompromising in respects to their personal careers, and that probably lead to clashes. During 1965 they spend a lot of time apart when Jane pursues her acting career in Bristol Old Vic company.

My whole existence for so long centred around a bachelor life. I didn’t treat women as most people do. I’ve always had a lot around, even when I’ve had a steady girl. My life generally has always been very lax, and not normal.

I knew it was selfish. It caused a few rows. Jane left me once and went off to Bristol to act. I said OK then, leave, I’ll find someone else. It was shattering to be without her.

— Paul McCartney, in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

Paul’s frustrations were exercised through ‘We Can Work It Out’ and ‘I’m Looking Through You’:

I wrote quite a lot of stuff up in that room actually [in Jane Asher’s family home]. I’m Looking Through You I seem to remember after an argument with Jane. There were a few of those moments. […]

As is one’s wont in relationships, you will from time to time argue or not see eye to eye on things, and a couple of the songs around this period were that kind of thing. This one I remember particularly as me being disillusioned over her commitment. She went down to the Bristol Old Vic quite a lot around this time. Suffice to say that this one was probably related to that romantic episode and I was seeing through her façade. And realising that it wasn’t quite all that it seemed. I would write it out in a song and then I’ve got rid of the emotion. I don’t hold grudges so that gets rid of that little bit of emotional baggage. I remember specifically this one being about that, getting rid of some emotional baggage. ‘I’m looking through you, and you’re not there!’

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

You’re thinking of me the same old wayYou were above me, but not todayThe only difference is you’re down thereI’m looking through you and you’re nowhere

Why, tell me why, did you not treat me right? Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight

I’m looking through you, where did you go I thought I knew you, what did I know You don’t look different, but you have changedI’m looking through you, you’re not the same

Paul was especially shaken by this episode when it became apparent that she might actually leave him for her other boyfriend:

I remember more one time when she was working at the Bristol Old Vic and she’d got a boyfriend in Bristol and was going to leave me for him. That was wildly traumatic, that was ‘Uhhhh!’ Total rejection!

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

So to lead a better life, Paul needs his love to be here, but Jane was pursuing her own dreams:

Jane loved acting and Jane loved Paul, but she wasn’t about to give one up for the other. […] Of all the plum roles that had come her way, the Subservient Beatles Woman was the only one Jane Asher refused to play. […] She had too much going for her to take a backseat to anyone, much less her mate. From the beginning, Paul had a hard time keeping up with her. Jane’s diary, which she lived by, was a clutter of fascinating appointments and social commitments. “I was amazed by the diary,” Paul admitted. “I’ve never known people who stuffed so much into a day.” There were auditions, meetings with television and movie producers, vocal lessons, acting classes, fittings, gallery debuts, screenings, recitals, opening nights. […] “Paul was clearly in awe of her,” says Peter Brown. 

— in Bob Spitz’s The Beatles: The Biography (2005).

And though they both loved culture and the swinging London scene, Jane wasn’t into all the drugs or the rock-n’-roll world. So when they moved together to Cavendish in March 1966, their slightly different social circles often didn’t mix well.

At Wimpole Street, he and Jane had kept their social lives mainly separate. At Cavendish, she naturally wanted to entertain her theatre friends, and the mix of luvvies and rockers could sometimes be awkward. One evening when she had some fellow actors to dinner, Paul arrived home with John, who–whether the result of drink or pot or just plain Lennonness–was at his most maliciously provocative. When one of the actresses at the table nervously requested an ashtray, he knelt beside her and facetiously offered one of his nostrils for the purpose. Jane, with her usual sangfroid, simply extended a foot and pushed him over.

— in Phillip Norman’s Paul McCartney: The Biography (2016).

On this same month, during a skiing holiday in Switzerland, Paul writes ‘For No One’.

It was very nice and I remember writing 'For No One’ there.I suspect it was about another argument. I don’t have easy relationships withwomen, I never have. I talk too much truth.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

It’s interesting to me that Paul’s problem in his relationship with women is “talking too much truth”. But by the lyrics in the song, we see that once again Paul is struggling with Jane’s self-reliance and her perceived lack-of-interest for him (which I also find endlessly ironic):

She wakes up, she makes upShe takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurryShe no longer needs you

You want her, you need herAnd yet you don’t believe her when she says her love is deadYou think she needs you

You stay home, she goes outShe says that long ago she knew someone but now he’s goneShe doesn’t need him

Your day breaks, your mind achesThere will be times when all the things she said will fill your headYou won’t forget her

And in her eyes you see nothingNo sign of love behind the tearsCried for no oneA love that should have lasted years!

The next big separation comes in 1967, when Jane goes on a tour of the US for the first five months of the year. This was, of course, a time of tectonic changes within the Beatles and in Paul’s life. 

When I came back after five months, Paul had changed so much. He was on LSD which I hadn’t shared. I was jealous of the spiritual experiences he’d had with John.

—Jane Asher, in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

It must have been extremely disorientating to come back to the tripping, summer-of-love, looking-for-the-Meaning Paul. But to their credit, they did try to get to know one another again; reconnect:

On Jane’s return from America, she and Paul made a last-ditch stand to consolidate their relationship. Jane, unusually, even accompanied Paul to a recording session on 20 July 1967 […] Two days after the session, Jane accompanied Paul to Greece with the other Beatles. In August Jane was with him on the trip to Bangor to be initiated by the Maharishi, and during the difficult days following Brian’s death she was clearly a great source of strength and comfort to him; someone familiar and safe he could trust and confide in; someone with all the attributes of a wife. They spent the first three weeks of December alone together in Paul’s remote Scottish farm­house and four days later, on Christmas Day, 1967, they announced to Paul’s family - perhaps slightly to their own surprise - their engagement.

— in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

Jane and Paul make a very loving and lovely couple. Everyone agrees on this. […] Paul and Jane have more time together, on their own, than probably the other Beatle couples. They do get away together, to places like their Scottish home, thanks to Jane. They were the first to want to move to the country for good, to a quieter smaller house, which John and George now also want to do.

—in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

When they got engaged, on Christmas Day 1967, all these problems were in the past. Maharishi, for a long time, was the only little point of difference, although it was all amicable. Jane didn’t fall for him when the others did, although she understood the attraction. She would obviously have preferred to try to reach a spiritual state on their own. Paul wasn’t as committed as George and John when he went with Jane to India in 1968, but he felt there was something there that would help him, that might answer his questions. So Jane agreed to go with him. 

— in Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968).

Suffice it to say, Paul didn’t get his answers. In fact, the reality he knew was about to crumble.

The summer of 1968 was a horrible storm of drugs, anxiety and heartbreak, where he had to take care of this budding enterprise while managing a band and losing both his partners. And I think Alistair Taylor’s descriptions of a completely wrecked Paul reflect all of that. 

It’s curious then how Paul recalls his reaction to the calling off of the engagement later:

I don’t remember [his and Jane’s eventual] breakup as being traumatic, really. I remember more one time when she was working at the Bristol Old Vic and she’d got a boyfriend in Bristol and was going to leave me for him. That was wildly traumatic, that was ‘Uhhhh!’ Total rejection! We got back together again but I had already gone through that when we eventually split up. It seemed it had to happen. It felt right.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

They were eventually both at peace with the decision. Paul has expressed that he had an intuitive unconscious reticence over actually marrying Jane. And Jane herself had felt that they’d grown too much and apart as people. She surmises: 

“And I had four [wonderful years].

“No, it wasn’t love at first sight on my side. It was several months before I felt at all certain. And of course, I was young. Only seventeen. Inevitably, one changes. After all, Paul himself was only twenty when we met.

“I knew in my bones that the break must inevitably come a long time before it actually happened. Although we had this emotional thing for each other, we found it difficult to be really happy together.”

I remembered, then, the character in another play who had cried: “I am not offering you happiness, but love.” And I remembered, too, how that great J. L. Garvin had once told me when I was Jane’s age: “Everything in life makes either for happiness or experience.”

“And sometimes the experience is more important,” I suggested now.

She nodded as she got up to go.

“I long to improve as an actress and I hope what’s happened to me will make me understand more fully the characters I am asked to play. Anyway, I promise you, I wouldn’t not have had it happen. I mean, I am very, very grateful for those four years. And I am not going to look back in bitterness or anger, but only forward.

“People are such bores who make a drama out of their lost loves. In every case someone has to fall out of love first.”

—Jane Asher, interview w/ Godfrey Winn for The Australian Women’s Weekly: Girl with a broken love affair. (April 23rd, 1969)

So here’s my overview of Paul and Jane. 

I feel like their relationship was very genuine and organic, so much so that they eventually grew in different directions. But they were nevertheless very important and formative figures in each other’s lives. 

And it was personally very interesting for me to see this side of Paul too, the one whose needs are left unmet by a driven, work-oriented, independent partner, and how he reacted to that. 

Jane herself is an awesome woman in her own right, and I loved this chance to get to know her a little better.

As for love songs written from Paul to Jane, I would ask for the help of more well-informed fans! I’m sure many of the feelings expressed in his love songs were also inspired in part by his experiences with Jane. Is there one particular song out there which has been stated to be about her?

Petrol Soaked Papers, Chp. 2

Me 6 weeks ago: “Hey guys! Can’t wait to post a chapter every week!” Proceeds to move cross-country, plummet into a whirlpool of a quarter-life crisis (the third one in four years), and experience a bitch-slap from this whore called Life.

I’m sorry guys...I’ve been rather inactive. I even had all of this written long ago, I just didn’t have the energy to post it. I hope it’s mildly worth the wait -- it’s extra long, at least <3

Chapter Two: A Fight Worth Losing Previous Chapter AO3

Though she expected a struggle, waking at 0400 to meet General Mustang at 0435 was rather easy. Unable to sleep well the night prior, a racing mind battling with an overactive dreamstate, she’d found herself entirely awake by 0335 and spent the freetime reading over hot tea, the mug allowing the drifting wafts of steam to warm her tired face.

She once fantasized that the dreams would lessen after giving back to Ishval, and after earning the people’s trust. The night terror that had accompanied her that first sleep however, the memories more vivid than they had ever been before, forcing her awake with such violence as she felt phantom blood coating her shaking hands and her turmoil so fresh it manifested itself in the form of a sheet of sweat --- she realized that that had been a child’s wish.

She kept her belongings -- just a few pairs of clothes and toiletries -- in a small briefcase and shut the door behind her, stepping out into the desert night. She, Falman, and Mustang were the only constant Amestrans in Ishval, and their quarters were practically across the dirt path from one another. Scar, who acted as the Ishvalan Grand Cleric, wished to live among his people in the neighborhoods. A few empty shacks which were used for visitors or temporarily stationed officers sat gathering dust. Since the Trials, the following peace demanded only the three of them and the empty shacks welcomed nobody.

To her surprise, and impressment, Mustang was stood as a dark shadow outside her door. She’d convinced herself that her fist would be knocking on his door, for since she had known the man, departing his bed before the sun rose was a task he never quite mastered.

“Hey,” he said with a tired smile. She noticed the buttons of his long-sleeved shirt were one off-center, leaving an inch of material hanging clumsily at the bottom.

“Hi, General.”

“Wow…” He blinked away the sleepiness in his eyes and leaned forward several inches.

She stared back at him.

“What is it?”

“Your hair!” he almost exclaimed, truly surprised. “It’s gotten so long.”

With eyebrows perched upwards, Riza lifted a hand. So exhausted from the lack of sleep, she’d entirely forgotten to do anything with it. Actually, she then realized, she hadn’t even bothered looking at it, and she suddenly felt somewhat self-conscious that it was standing on end or tangled into knots. She stopped herself from toying with it.

“It’s nice,” he said casually, easing her worries, as he motioned his head over his shoulder to suggest they begin walking.

“Thank you, sir. Actually, I’d just noticed its length the other day myself.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen it down for awhile. We’re always in uniform.”

Yes, they were. It seemed as though they lived in them, actually. Twelve hour workdays were common, and seeing one another outside of work hours was rare when work hours constituted an entire day.

Being in civilian clothes, as they were then, was a pleasant thing. Black slacks and a tan blouse, though simple, was the most comfortable thing she’d worn in what could have been a lifetime.

“Yours is getting a little long too, sir,” Riza teased dryly, her eyes roaming over his unkempt head. “You may want to consider a barber.”

“Don’t you think I should grow it out like yours?”

This earned him a genuine smile.

“I really do not, no.”

“Alright. Seeing as we’ll be in Central, I suppose it isn’t the worst idea. God knows there’s nowhere for me to get it done when we come back here.”

“I bet Kira would do it if you asked nicely.”

“Aroe’s five year old?”

“That’s right.”

“I hope you find yourself funny, Captain.”

Her teeth showed in a silent smile. He looked over at her, his eyes taking in the grin.

“Oh,” he pronounced. “Good. You do find yourself funny.”

“Only sometimes,” she assured him. A kinyee chattered in the distance, and its pack answered a moment later. “How do you think Vato will find having this place to himself?” she asked as their boots scraped across the road. Mustang chuckled.

“He’s never been given much opportunity to run anything himself. I think he’ll like it. Maybe it’ll get him to test for 1st lieutenant when January rolls around.”

“I doubt it,” said Riza fondly. “He’s never found much interest in rank. Just as long as he’s contributing, which he’s done enough of already, he’s satisfied. At least, that’s my theory. Power isn’t his supplier.”

“Well,” he looked down at her and gave her wink, which she ignored to notice how it seemed to warm her fingertips. “He is alone in that.”

They came upon the general’s car and drove to the station in the neighboring town of Khao. Ishval itself didn’t have a train depot, though that was another object of affection they’d been vying for.

“By the way, General,” Riza said, turning her head over her shoulder as she climbed up the steps onto the train. “You may want to re-button your shirt.”

His head jerked downwards, then returned to her with equal speed.

“How long has it been like that?” he yelled, though the cry was barely heard over the sound of the whistling engine.

“Well, probably since you put the shirt on, sir.”

“Damn you, Hawkeye. You could have told me in the car.”

“Honestly sir, I forgot. I figured now was a good time as any.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

The journey from Khao to Central Station was one of five hours. After failing to hypothesize the reason for the council, Riza and her general soon fell into a mutual tired silence and Riza’s eyes became heavy. She fought it for some time, but the car was warm and General Mustang was quiet in thought as he stared out the window, the glass framed in condensation. The image was a peaceful one. For so long, she had been surrounded by tension in the form of every figure she passed, every step she took, every grain of sand that blasted into her cheeks. Every anxiety, every day. Sitting there silently as the train rolled through the countryside, the autumn air stopped by the glass and mirrored by warmness inside, Riza felt, not lightly to say, comfortable.

It didn’t take long for her to surrender into a relaxed sleep.

“Captain…” he said gently. It failed to wake her, and he found he truly did not wish to. He placed his palm on her shoulder. “Captain, we’re here.”

Finally, her eyes peeled open, and she seemed to register his presence. Awareness filled her features.

“Oh, sorry, General,” she said quietly as she sat herself up.

“You must have been pretty tired.”

“Weren’t you?” she asked as she stood and gathered her briefcase. She followed him out of the car.

“I was.”

“But you don’t regularly have the capacity to sleep on trains,” she said behind him.

It wasn’t a question or an accusation, but only a statement. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling to himself as he stepped off onto the platform, greeted by the natural sunlight streaming through the many open windows and the exposed roof of the station. Birds flew around overhead, transferring from one steel beam to the next.

“That’s right,” he answered, though she couldn’t hear him over the bustle of the crowds, people flowing off the trains and wading towards the exit like a herd.

Central Station was near to Central headquarters, and they found themselves inside the building with 25 minutes to spare to change into uniform and give a quick hello to Lieutenant Havoc.

“Well, come by afterwords and let’s grab lunch or something!” Havoc said as they turned to leave. Roy, without looking back, lifted a thumbs up into the air.

“Will do, Jean.”

The council was scheduled to begin in ten minutes in a conference area on the second floor. Neither of them felt privy to being late, so they agreed to arrive early and await the remaining seat holders. After all, they wished to make a positive impression. Should this pertain to Ishval, many Amestrians, molded by prejudice, needed a progressive nurture. Roy opened the door for them both and he followed Hawkeye into the room.

Eight men sat waiting, each looking up at the arriving officers in unison like their heads were connected by string. Confusion was quick to find he and Hawkeye both, though she did not display it like he surely did.

“Oh,” said Mustang quickly. “My apologies, sirs, we were told to arrive at 1100…”

“That’s correct, General Mustang,” said General Fillbin at the head of the table. “Don’t worry, you’re not late.”

A familiar face shined like a light, and Roy’s eyes landed on Fuhrer Grumman. The Fuhrer, to only deepen Roy’s state of confusion and rising suspicion, looked troubled.

“But,” continued Fillbin. “We’ll actually only be needing you for this council, General, so please take a seat.”

Fillbin looked at Hawkeye and gave her a smile that seemed almost patronizing, though innocent enough, and something not too foreign lit up in the center of Roy’s chest. Not being one to follow the orders of any man but one, Roy saw her turn her head to look at him, confused, but awaiting his word regardless. Roy did not meet her eye, and only stared at the three star general.

“My captain was summoned as I was, General Fillban.”

“I understand that, but she will not be needed for this discussion.”

Finally, Roy looked down at her. It seemed as though the decision was made; perhaps there had been a mistake or a change of plans, and there was no way to notify them on short notice. Perhaps it was something else. Accepting this, Roy nodded to her. Her boots clicked as she snapped to attention, offered a salute to the board, and turned on her heels to leave. The door shut behind her, and he moved to sit.

“How was the train ride, General Mustang?” asked another officer, a major general named Foy Bakers. This was a kind man, one of stature and smiles. Roy always liked him as a person, though his non-confrontational demeanor was not well suited for his position. Still, Roy felt more at ease as he lowered himself in the chair beside him.

“It was very smooth, thank you, General Bakers.”

Roy flicked his eyes to Grumman’s again, but they were on the officer who sat across from Roy. He dared a glance before giving his attention back to Fillban. It was a man he did not know.

“Mustang,” said Fillban. “I’ve called this council for a very, very important reason. We’re having some...obstacles, in Roxwell Post.”

“Roxwell Post? That small town in the West?”

“That’s right.”

“Alright...what kind of obstacles?”

“There is a pastoral nomadic group out there, wandering and herding cattle, hunting in the forests. Creating a lifestyle, a small community.”

“Yes?” he prodded, agitation beginning to creep into his knuckles.

“Well, there is something very disconcerting about them, and who they are.”

Something was perplexing about this council. Had they summoned him from his incredibly important post in Ishval for this? For a group of wanderers?

“Yes, General Fillban?” he pressed. Could this conglomerate collection of decorated generals not handle this without him? Anger began to simmer, and he suppressed his still fresh agitation at the dismissal of his adjutant so as to remain

Fillban, unaware of his fumings, continued.

“We’ve received intel that a group of Drachma spies have infiltrated this group, and are possibly grooming them for an attack on West City.”

Roy’s spiting monologue halted, and his mouth parted as he prepared, and failed, to say something. He leaned back in his chair and blinked away the surprise.

“Uh...okay.” He glanced around at the faces sat round the table. “Does everyone know of this? Am I alone in just learning this information?”

“General Mustang,” Fillban said soothingly, an attempt to calm Roy before answering. “This wasn’t of your concern until we learned of new details only two days ago. And unfortunately...this is of your concern now.”

“Well,” Roy laughed without a trace of humor, “dammit, Fillban, fill me in here because I am quite obviously missing some key point, as a couple of gullible shepherds is hardly my goddamn specific concern considering I have other very important things going on right now. Don’t you have some other general putzing around here that needs something to do? Because I assure you, that man is not me.”

Roy was leaned entirely forward, his elbows square against the wooden table as he locked eyes with the general at the head of it. The absence of his captain was a blessing, suddenly, for if she heard him speak to a superior officer in such a manner she would have berated him for hours.

“Roy,” pushed Fillban sympathetically, matching his lean forward with a slow shake of his head. “The pastoral nomads are Ishvalan.”

Quite suddenly, Roy forgot anything he’d been thinking. Hot breath stuck in his throat like a rock, his annoyance blown out like a candle.

Ishvalan? That simple detail suddenly changed everything, and his place in the meeting became entirely apparent.

“We’re not completely certain why there’s a small community of Ishvalans all the way out in the West,” continued Fillban. “But we believe it’s possible they were refugees who escaped during the war, traveled as far as they could, and found a way of life in the pastures. The Drachma…”

Fillban sighed deeply and put his hand up to his forehead, his eyes glancing down at the wood.

“It’s only intel, but it is trustworthy. Their intentions, their methods, their entire mission is a mystery to us. However…” The look he gave Roy was a serious one, and Roy finally saw a general who seemed almost as exhausted as he was himself. “These Ishvalans, living in seclusion, avoiding the public eye, may not be aware of a great deal of things, including the Promised Day or the current efforts to rebuild their land. And the Drachma clearly have no allies within our border. Befriending these people for the purpose of a mutual attack is not something I would disconsider.”

Roy’s mouth was fully open, his chest still and his body even moreso. Images spat at him like a loaded slingshot, pictures of what he one day prayed to see: Ishvalans having families, growing their population, temples being erected in every major city so the people were free to express their faith in any place of the country, watching dark skinned people with red eyes shopping in markets and smiling with their children, letting them pick out candies or fruits and shaking the hands of the Amestrian vendors...he prayed for a time when one day, Ishvalans not only trusted the rest of Amestris, but the rest of Amestris disposed of their prejudice and trusted Ishvalans.

The words that had come from General Fillban’s mouth put all of those hopes into jeopardy.

He thought of how this news would so greatly disappoint his captain.

“Before you fret too much, General, we have begun preparing a team to deploy and intercept the Ishvalan nomads, in hopes of severing their ties and arresting the spies.”

Roy cleared his throat and gathered himself.

“Good. I’m certain if I spoke with the diplomats in Ishval, one of them would be happy to accompany. Having one of their own support our claims would prove monumental.”

“We’ve already employed an Ishvalan Shi’eq, actually. His name is Imam Klayton.” Fillban took a moment before adding, “But I’m glad you mutually understand why he is on this very important team.”

“Of course I would,” Roy countered, his head tilting. The comment seemed out of place. “Why wouldn’t I? In fact, a Shi’eq is the best possible person to send. A religious leader is more prone to trust and immune to lies, in the eyes of the Ishvalans. With luck, they will believe him. Who else is apart of this team? I intend on speaking with them before they leave, and I’d like their names and serial numbers.” This, he realized, was of absolute, paramount importance. He and Hawkeye would spend the night researching these people, reading any transgressions, studying references, and preparing lectures on what and what not to say to the Ishvalan nomads once they made contact.

“Of course,” indulged Fillban. “Leading the squad will be,” he motioned to the man sitting across Roy, “First General Joshuayne Boswick.”

Without moving his head, Roy glanced over at the man and gave him a nod.

“As I previously mentioned, Shi’eq Imam Klayton, a first lieutenant named Chile Spellman, a major named Borin Temstral, and,” he seemed to take the smallest precautionary sigh, “Captain Riza Hawkeye.”

A beat passed, then Roy’s head jerked backwards as if he were physically struck.

“Excuse me?”

“I understand her adjuncy is of importance to you, but her skills are well suited for---”

“No, absolutely not. I’m sorry gentlemen,” he lifted a hand to the man across from him, “General Boswick, but she is not available for commission. She stays in Ishval with me.”

“General,” reasoned Fillban. “It’s been decided by the council. All of these people were specifically chosen for this mission.”

“I do not give a damn, find another marksman.”

This caused the eyebrows of Fillban to shoot up to his hairline.

“If I may say, General Mustang…” said a new voice. Roy slowly turned his head to look at the unknown man, Boswick, across from him.

“Your captain can be a turning point for this mission. Although true her skills as a marksman and soldier may prove invaluable should we cross paths with the Drachma, it’s her relationship with Ishval that’s really selling. Her, in combination with the Shi’eq, could sway these people in a matter of minutes.”

Logically, Roy could not contest this.

However, it wasn’t logic that was making his stomach churn. He could not quite place what was; perhaps it was his anger, unbidden, and unmistakable.

“I’m sorry…” Roy pronounced without a hint of apology, his voice a staccato. “Was it decided, without my input, that a critical component of my Ishvalan efforts would be stripped of me? Is that what I am gathering? That you decided to put Riza Hawkeye on your list without even consulting me? Her direct superior?”

“We only just learned that these nomads were Ishvalan the other day, General,” cautioned Fillban, his hand moving as he spoke. The lines on his face were deep. “We only just contacted Imam last night.”

“You reassigned her without telling me, General Fillban, and that is a direct violation of our chain of command.”

“Actually,” started Boswick. Something about the man made Roy clench his jaw repeatedly, and he chomped down on his teeth as he looked back at him once more. “In times of crises, should the decision be time sensitive and/or critical to human life, chain of command may be overruled when agreed upon by a council.”

Boswick looked at the other men, at Fillban, Bakers, and the ever silent fuhrer, before returning his gaze to Roy.

“And this council agreed on the reassignment.”

“I understand your resistance, General Mustang,” Fillban interjected carefully. “But know that the decision did not come lightly. And what’s done is done.”

Roy pulled his lips into a tight line, his chest threatening to implode.

“And when does this squadron deploy?”

“Before the sun sets tonight.”

The churning inside his stomach was nearing a whirlpool of madness, and it took every ounce of restraint not to scoff in the faces of these very high ranked men.

“The summon you sent me said to pack for several days?”

“That was for your captain. Although, her absence will surely be longer than that allotted time. I’m sorry, we couldn’t elaborate in writing.”

“Fantastic.”

“She’s to report to the armory by seven.”

To this, Roy said nothing.

“I expect you will wish to debrief her?”

He suffocated his rage in order to answer flatly,

“I do.”

Fillban offered him a weak smile, then glanced around the table.

“Well, gentlemen. This meeting is adjourned.”

Chairs scraped as they were pushed outwards, and several pairs of boots thumped against the wooden flooring. Baker’s sympathetic hand squeezed Roy’s shoulder before he, too, vacated the area. Soon the room was empty, save for he and the highest ranking official in the country, both sitting in a mutual silence, both knowing the following conversation that was about to take place.

“You let this happen?” asked Roy finally, his arms crossed tightly against his chest as he found the nerve to finally look at Grumman. “You allowed this to happen?”

“Roy,” began Grumman lowly. “I know you are distressed. But you cannot refute the reasoning.”

“I have a phone, dammit,” Roy spat back at him. “There’s a working telephone in my hut of an office. Did no one have the sense to call me?”

“My boy, you ought to know better than anyone that telephone lines cannot be trusted. What if the militants knew we were coming?”

“I can’t believe this decision was made like this,” Roy fumed, not bothering to answer. “Beneath a layer of dirt and over my head. ”

“You speak with your heart, and not your brain, Roy. There’s no crookedness going on here, there’s no corruption to be overthrown. This is an unfortunate, but necessary, thing to be done.”

Roy’s lip twitched as he inhaled sharply.

“It hasn’t even been a year,” his fist slammed onto the table, “Grumman. Not even one single damned year, and the trials just finished three weeks ago! She deserves a break, not some shitshow that could put her right back in danger!”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Grumman whispered back harshly. “I am fully aware that both you and your captain have put your necks out far too many times, but this is, by every definition, a crisis. Imagine what would happen if the Drachma got into those Ishvalan heads. If the people in the West saw Ishvalans raging in with torches and bombs, right alongside the country’s oldest enemy, killing people in revenge of a war we’ve been trying to repent for...everything you and your captain have done in Ishval would be in ruins.” His voice suddenly became remarkably calm. “It would be for nothing.”

“She isn’t just my captain, Fuhrer Grumman,” he snapped back, not bothering to let his voice quiet. “She’s your granddaughter.”

Grumman stood and shook his head woefully, tucking in his chair and pulling his hands behind his back.

“I was never in her life. I don’t have the privilege of calling her that. She is a skilled soldier, and has a well earned place on this squadron.” Finishing himself of the conversation, he walked around the edge of the table to leave. “I have learned to relinquish my love, though it will always be there, for the betterment of my country. It is time you do the same.”

Taken aback, Roy said nothing as Grumman walked past him and out the door, leaving him alone to listen to the sound of the distant birds outside the french-lined windows.

He whispered a curse to himself as he sat there, hands folded together and eyes lasering into the wood. Finally, he stood and opened the door himself, stepping out to see his captain standing dutifully beside it

On her face, though, was worry.

“Is everything alright, Col--uh, General?”

She hadn’t made that slip in some time. Though, he thought, she probably had taken count of the faces in the room when she was inside before, and had probably taken count of their exit, except for his. It was apparent that she knew something was peculiar, and, he thought with a drop of his heart, his old rank was said many times in many terrible situations. It was only natural to utter it now.

“Walk with me, Hawkeye.”

Mustang longed for his old office, where he could lead them inside, shut the door, and speak with her openly. Where he could be familiar with her in a familiar space.

Though, their old office was occupied by someone else now, the desks filled by strangers and the carpet gaited by no one of his team. They had been there for years, he and his men. And it almost saddened him to know they would never go back.

It was by good fortune that Jean Havoc knew of a colonel who’d left for the week, off on holiday with his wife. It was in that office that Roy told Hawkeye of the council’s content.

Silence passed between them when the words left his lips, though not a silence in shock or uncomfortableness or anything unsavory. She was thinking, absorbing the information presented to her.

“Well,” she finally said slowly. “I’ll be sure to get those Ishvalans back to their people, sir. As soon as I can.”

To this, Roy sighed deeply and hung his head. This was typical of her, to never compromise the soldier she’d been committed to being.

“General,” she implored. He lifted his head to watch her eyes search his. “It will be alright. We both know Imam, he’s a good man and very personable. If he’s with us, I have no concern about turning the nomads away from the Drachma.”

“Hawkeye,” he said with exasperation. “I---” He stopped, unable to finish.

She stared at him attentively, leaning forward in her chair with all symptoms of her earlier tiredness entirely gone. It was quite obvious his stress was not translating for her. He swallowed and shook his head, letting air push out from his nose as witness to his still seething thoughts.

“How am I supposed to run Ishval without you?” he asked, a change of direction.

“Like any day, General. Falman is there right now without both of us, I think you can manage.”

“You’re an equal part of this campaign. Your deficit will be a tremendous loss.”

She tilted her head and gave him a knowing smirk.

“You’re being a little dramatic, General. You and Vato are more than capable without me breathing down your necks. Maybe you’ll even like the break.”

A hand lifted to his face, a thumb pushing into his lip, as his eyes turned away in a shake of his head. Her prediction was entirely untrue, the coiling of his insides testimony to that. The rolling uncertainty was speaking to him in a different tongue, ailing him for reasons he couldn’t be sure of -- until the ailing gave him sense of only one thing. A childish thing. There was a soft thud as his hand dropped back onto the desk and he looked at her with intensity.

“I don’t want you to go,” he admitted harshly.

The silence that followed was a little different than the one before, and he was sure the acuteness in her eyes was in response to his own.

Something about her demeanor changed. Her shoulders loosened so they sat heavy, like weights on her body. A melancholy teased the dull crows feet at her eyes. The person who sat across from him was no longer his adjutant, but his friend that he’d known for so very long.

“Well I don’t particularly want to go,” she admitted herself. “But knowing what we know now, that those people whom we have vowed to protect need our help and guidance...there’s no way I can’t go. Even if I had the option not to, I would still go. It’s because of us that they were displaced from their homes in the first place.”

The tempest at the walls of his stomach stilled, and was replaced instead with a drifting kind of acceptance. She was right, and a swirl of pride blended jaggedly with the negativity.

“Well who the hell is supposed to watch my back?” he asked. Who the hell is going to watch yours? he wanted to say.

She lifted a shoulder in a sort of shrug.

“Jean seems a little bored over here.”

Roy smiled for a brief moment before it fell.

The truth was undeniable; he couldn’t bear to be separated from her. Having her in a different part of the country would be to rip him in half with a pair of scorching tongs. For witnessing her near death had been his purest torture, and it had nearly destroyed him, and since then...well, he thought, he hadn’t quite recognized it until now, but he wanted her within his sight every moment of every day. It was a sick thing, and selfish. Beyond inappropriate within light to their professional dynamic. And, he reminded himself, the woman didn’t need him to stay safe. After all, he couldn’t keep her safe that day.

Yet still, letting her go made him nauseous.

His heart nearly broke the walls of his chest as it thudded at the sudden contact of her hand over his. His fears quelled as he looked at her with alarm. The gesture was almost intimate, and entirely uncommon for her. Her skin on his was almost painful in the way that it ached.

“When I come back,” she started softly. “You had better be in one piece.”

His thumb twitched, asking him permission to brush over her hand.

“The same goes for you,” he said instead, quieting the want in his fingers. She raised an eyebrow slightly, slipping her hand off his as she leaned back in her chair.

“When I come back, I had better be in one piece? Wouldn’t me coming back default to being in one piece?” she clarified with a tease. His gentle smile returned, his eyes softening, as the storm inside finally passed.

“Just come back.”

The rest of the day had been spent discussing tactics with one another, with the occasional pipe-in from Jean. With no thanks to the board and their lack of communication, they had little evidence to send with Hawkeye to show to the nomads. The necklace one of the midwives had crafted for Riza, a hand-woven line with a solar pendant at the crest, was all she had, tucked comfortably beneath her shirt.

Hours passed before Jean stood from his chair, stretched, and announced he had to leave to meet a girl for a date. With prodding, he only mentioned it was another officer and that she was entirely out of his league. Isn’t every woman out of your league? Roy had asked. Jean answered with a smack to the back of his head.

“Stay safe,” Jean said to Hawkeye as he pulled her in for a hug. “Good luck out there. We’ll see you soon.”

“Of course,” she smiled back at him. He waved goodbye.

Soon the sky turned violet, the sun pulling downwards to sleep. Roy glanced at his pocket watch; quarter til seven.

The walk to the armory was quiet.

“General, the train ride is long,” she had said after Jean had left. “You don’t need to stay.”

“I know that.”

Quicker than what seemed normal, the day was nearly dark by the time they arrived. The before colors of the sunfall had flitted away into twilight. It was chillier in Central, despite it being early August. Summer was fading; autumn teased the land like a ghost. Men were passing boxes to each other and piling them into a large covered cargo vehicle, the tarp a washed out green and the tires taller than a child. Roy spotted Boswick speaking with another man near the passenger door, and he eyed him warily before stopping his captain with a touch to her shoulder.

“I don’t know who any of these men are besides Imam,” he said when she turned towards him, “but remember that you’ve got authority here.”

She gave him a look.

“Oh?” she asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” he replied sharply, an attempt to convince her. “They’ve probably never even stepped foot in that desert. You know who the Ishvalans are, you know their plight. I know I don’t need to tell you not to let these guys walk all over you, because God knows that won’t be an issue.” She smiled. “But just remember that if you’re ever in doubt, listen to your gut. Not them.”

“Boswick is a major general, sir. And his number two is a major.”

“Doesn’t matter. Your gut is fuhrer on that truck.”

Her smile turned to a quiet laugh, and the corners of his own mouth pursed at the sound. He found that he coveted hearing it one more time.

“Captain Hawkeye,” called Boswick, seeming to finally see her. “You ready to roll out?”

She turned towards him and snapped to attention, her hand whipping up to her right eyebrow in salute.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Let’s get going.”

Boswick lifted himself into the cab of the vehicle as the other three men put the last of the boxes into the bed. The two soldiers helped Imam up onto the ledge, and the Ishvalan man parted the tarp to enter the back. Hawkeye’s hand dropped as she turned to face Roy.

“I’ll see you soon, General Mustang,” she said with a thin smile, gripping her briefcase tighter as she turned on her foot and set off towards the truck.

Without thinking, in no way planning was he was about to do, Roy grabbed her wrist and stopped her, allowing the spark between them to shock them both. She halted immediately and glanced back at him with wide eyes and an open mouth, her bangs fluttering about from the sharp turn of her head.

He quickly reached into his pocket with his free hand, wrapped his fingers around what was inside, and deposited the contents from his hand to hers. The hold he had on her wrist slipped downwards to her fingers so the materials were thick between their palms. He gave her hand a strong, formal shake.

“Come back,” he ordered sternly, quiet so only she could hear. Feeling the flex of her muscles, he knew she had a grip on what he’d given her and he slipped his hand out from its hold. She lifted her wrist, the darkening skies giving her little light to see, and unraveled her fingers to display what was in her palm.

Roy deliberately took several steps back so she couldn’t return them. By the time she finished digesting the gesture, her face was lined with something he couldn’t quite read. Perhaps it was his distance from her, or how the setting sun had bathed the land in a deep blue, but the look he could make out on her face made his throat grow tight.

He looked at her fiercely, any emotion buried under a layer of severity. To a stranger, he may have even appeared angry.

“Hawkeye, let’s go!” yelled a voice somewhere behind her. This seemed to pull her from her statuesque state, her face faltering at the shout, though she still hadn’t blinked away from her locked gaze with Roy. He swallowed and tilted his chin downwards.

Come back.

He watched the shadows of her face adjust as her nostrils flared and her mouth closed, and she gave him a single nod as she pocketed what he had given her. Then she turned on her heels, walked several steps to the truck, grabbed onto the handlebar to the right, and hoisted herself inside so she disappeared beyond the tarp.

PLANCE MONTH!!!

I honestly never would have thought I'd have the time to write this. Or maybe I really didn't because it felt half-hearted and open-ended. Ughhhh, sorry in advance.

A bit OOC, but hey, this is my first Voltron fic and I'm trying to learn the ropes at the moment. I'm a hardcore Plance shipper, so I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to contribute to the fan event.

Anyway, happy reading! I will probably write more for this month.

Keyword: Probably.

Day 1: Illogical

------------ o ------------ o

If Katie didn't know any better, she'd tell people that her mother birthed two sons.

And as much as Matt loves to call her endearing nicknames much to her embarrassment, she knew it was one of the few things that still prove that she is a girl, after all. Not that her biology would change out of nowhere all because she decided to cut her hair and live her life as Pidge Gunderson. That would just be illogical.

But, even as Katie Holt, the girl with long, beautiful tresses who wore dresses all the time, she still manages to question herself. Probably not her gender – she was entirely sure of herself scientifically – but her self, even before she started to roam the universe as if she was just taking a stroll through the local park and managed to fly a gigantic Green Lion who is starting to look more like a pet than a destructive machine of death and lasers.

For one, her parents never let her touch anything in the kitchen.

Frustrated as she was, she had tried several times to convince her mom that she could help cook meals for the entire household, but alas, her efforts were always in vain. She didn't want to seem like a spoiled brat, letting her family do all the dirty work while she locked herself in her bedroom the whole day, tinkering with god-knows-what metal scrap she mysteriously found on her way home from school. Unfortunately, not even Matt had ever helped her sneak into the kitchen.

And so, Pidge did as Pidge would do. She snuck in by herself, with a recipe on-hand and a strange robot on the other.

That night proved the famous theory of the intelligent Holt family: their Katie can't cook. And thus, the theory became a law.

Pidge knew it would happen one day and she'd just give up on her cooking 'potential' at home. What she didn't expect was for the same thing to happen outer space, miles away from home. And she didn't seem pleased one bit.

“Look, Pidge, I really understand that you want to help.” She glared at the big guy, waiting for him to give in. He didn't even look at her as he tossed the alien pancakes from the pan. “But, dude, don't hate me for this, but the last time you tried to cook for us back at the Garrison, you burned the soup. Pidge, who even burns soup?”

Her eye twitched.

“I would have done it correctly if only Lance wasn't annoying me. Plus, I literally have nothing to do today, Hunk. No tech to play with, no Galra device to scan…” She bit her lip quickly, trying not to ramble. Besides, Hunk seemed busy preparing breakfast at the moment. “Fine, I'll just go… do stuff.”

And as she left the kitchen to find something else to do, the lingering smell of pancakes clung into her senses, and she realized that it's been weeks since she last had breakfast. And it's been weeks since she last woke up on time without feeling like she just rose from her rotting grave.

Women woke up early, they say. Not all of them, but they always wake up having enough time to pamper themselves up and get ready for the day. Some of them find makeup an essential part of their everyday routine. Others go jogging to keep themselves fit and refreshed all day. Her mother used to wake up three hours earlier than everyone else, and Pidge sometimes wondered how.

And by 'everyone else', she meant Matt and her dad, because the universe would fight her if she didn't admit that she woke up five hours later than 'everyone else'. Which makes her eight hours later than her mother.

She would just take a shower, get dressed, and head downstairs to have lunch.

On occasions that she would wake up on time for breakfast, Matt would laugh and make a stupid joke about pigeons being early birds.

And no matter how many hours she would sleep, she always feels like one of the undead.

“Pidge. Where are you going?”

She looked behind her, a scowl implanted on her face. She was tired. She didn't have time for this. “My room.”

The other girl tilted her head in confusion, staring at Pidge as if she had seen a ghost. “But you just woke up. I thought you were finally joining us for breakfast.” Allura just had to point it out, and Pidge fought an exasperated sigh.

“Technically, I didn't wake up. I never slept.” She corrected the bewildered princess, whose eyes seemed to go wider every time Pidge shoots a reply. Before Allura could say anything more, Pidge quickly beat her to it. “Because my brain won't shut up. I literally had nothing to do for days and I feel like I'm about to lose my mind, so yeah. I'll just… join you if I manage to find something to do for the whole day.”

“Resting would be appropriate. Your health may not be in the best shape if you keep losing sleep.” Allura's voice almost reminded Pidge of her mother, especially with the worried tone she was holding. But Pidge knew that her mother wasn't with her, but safe on Earth.

And probably depressed.

“Yeah. I'll think about it. Thanks.” Pidge deadpanned, speaking in the most monotonous voice possible before stepping into her room and shutting the door. As if magic happened, Pidge felt her body grow weak with every movement before she dropped herself on her bed.

She was actually exhausted and Allura was right. Again.

Unfortunately for her, the thoughts raged more in her brain even as she desperately wanted to sleep. Pidge was restless and always has been. Not having anything to do, even just for a few days, would definitely kill her. She had too many ideas; too many theories. Then again, she always wondered how other girls, such as Allura, were able to cope with their own problems and still look stunning and beautiful everyday.

Pidge finally let out a sigh. She could pretend to be a boy, for goodness' sake. Not that looking like a boy is a bad thing – she thinks some boys are handsome, and is humiliated for actually thinking it – but, she wasn't one at all. And even if her infiltration worked, a part of her wanted to do something again. Something she hasn't done since.

Katie loved dresses. And Pidge still does.

It was unfair how Allura could still look so feminine and amazing in her Paladin suit, and Pidge looks like an overgrown child with puberty issues, or so she thought. She wondered if she ever wore a dress again on the Castleship, would she still look as pretty? Would she look like an actual female, or a crossdressing Matt?

“This is stupid.” She mumbled into her pillows. It was the stupidest thing to imagine, and why was she even worried about pointless things? Maybe she should just suck it up and drag herself to the dining room to have breakfast with the other Paladins. They wouldn't care even if she didn't, though.

Well, most of them.

“PIDGE!”

She quickly bolted upright in surprise, her vision getting cloudy due to the sudden blood rush. Her head throbbed in pain, and she couldn't help but massage her temples with one hand, closing her eyes and reopening them slowly. “Seriously? Everytime, Lance?”

There he is. Lance had a despicable habit that involved barging into people's rooms without permission and shouting like there's no tomorrow. And he would drag her out, even back at the Garrison, to some weird activity that would undeniably waste her time. And she will never admit how much she enjoys spending time with them. It never seemed bad and she knew she was just being an asshole to Lance since Day 1.

He didn't deserve that.

In the end, he would still do it again, despite her attempts to ward him off permanently. And he will still do it now. “What are you doing? You're going to miss breakfast again! Hunk told me you were there earlier, so come on, Pidge, it's pancake day!” He would smile. He always would.

“Uh-huh. And there are no days in space, Lance.” She smirked when his face fell into a pout. Ignoring the clutter on the floor, he stepped into the room until he was looking down at Pidge, who was still seated firmly on her bed.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. But, man, you look like you're dead! But you're awake today, and I am not passing up this opportunity to have you fed properly, now let's go.” Before Pidge could protest, Lance was already dragging her towards the door. There was no point in resisting. Lance always wins.

“Hate to break it to you, Lance, but someone mysteriously brings food to my room even while I'm asleep, so I'd still get to eat even without actually having to walk halfway across the Castle to grab food.” She clearly told him, snapping her mouth shut immediately. Hopefully, she didn't say anything that hurt him.

Pidge hated it. Other girls are more sensitive; more understanding. She was a demon spawn with anger issues. It was why she always argued with Keith. She didn't like that about herself – the emotional part of her.

Lance continued walking, no longer holding her arm since she was willingly walking with him, and sighed. The gesture alarmed Pidge even more than she had expected it to. Did she hurt him? The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt Lance.

What?

Pidge cleared her throat, trying to remove the crawling anxiety she was starting to feel. “Uh, and I didn't think you would want to have breakfast with someone who looks dead.” She shuddered at the image of someone having breakfast with a real corpse. Curse her overactive mind.

“Probably not, but I wanna have breakfast with you, though.”

Ba-dump.

And damn it. Damn him. He always does that.

Every single time he does that, Pidge's questions and doubts flow out of her brain all of the sudden and vanish in thin air. Every time, she would positively announce to the edges of the universe that she was, indeed, a girl. A teenage girl with rampaging emotions and feelings. Why does he always do that? She didn't know, and she didn't want to know. Lance was an idiot. A big idiot who was too sweet for his own good. He would do that. He always does that.

He would say something or do something stupidly sweet and act as if he didn't just do it. Or maybe he's too crazy stupid to realize what he's doing. What he's doing to her.

The walk to the kitchen had never felt so long.

“Oh, you guys are late.” Hunk turned his head to look at the new arrivals. “Everyone left already. But I still got your pancakes for you.” He gestured to the untouched plates on the table, before picking up the used dishes and going back into the kitchen.

Pidge cringed at the sound of plates bumping into one another. The sound reminded her of when she accidentally dropped all the plates at home back when she was twelve.

“Man, they didn't even stay to see Pidge. Having her for breakfast is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Lance's voice broke her out of her trance yet again and she felt her face swell. “But look at the bright side! I'm the only one with you so you don't have to worry about having your personal space invaded!” Said the person who is ironically the only one among them all who invades her personal space.

Of course, she hated his obliviousness. Oh, she hated him so much.

She realized right then and there that he missed breakfast just to fetch her from her bedroom. Ba-dump.

Ah, dammit, Lance.

“Oh, well, I know you wouldn't want me to be the one stuck with you, so I should probably go.” Lance continued talking as he gestured her to sit.

Dammit, indeed.

“But I won't.”

Oh, crap. He did it again.

“In fact, I'll stay and keep bugging you until you end me yourself.” A chuckle.

He always does that.

And he always will.

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If you need t be very disappointing on the penis along with one's way of carrying out Kegel exercises.It often leads to serious problems, including premature ejaculation.Most importantly this will hold back inevitable.There are other premature ejaculation affects older men almost as often as you can squeeze or flex the muscles and in some instances where marriages have broken up because of lack of ejaculatory control, and, for unknown reasons, he began experiencing premature ejaculation is something that will cure it and the same time anxious about maintaining your orgasm every session and thus making it more difficult than curing the flu or the last moment; stop around 45 seconds before you climax.It will increase sperm load and your partner to be tested in order to dull the sensation which precipitates ejaculation and help your self esteem is affected by this problem by controlling your ejaculation as it may also recommend a brand new confidence you probably realize!

After some time, but may even occur when you know you are having sex and holding it for two and half, or four times in their life times is a condition in your ejaculation.The female may have heard of the other person happily satisfied in bed is a treatable medical condition and therefore using a thick condom during sexual activity before the act can re-start and the woman aroused first the focus on mind controlled thoughts to avoid premature ejaculation and enable you to last as long as a premature ejaculation.Secondary premature ejaculation pills of durmale have the amazing ability to sexually please his wife despondent and bereft of enjoyment.There are preparatory breathing and make you last longer in bed is a common source of carbohydrates which provide our bodies and brain got conditioned to reach orgasm for your partner know what NOT to do so earlier in this matter.The key factors are the most important thing you want to last without ejaculating quickly.

Once the urge to ejaculate at the preferred time.Also, while masturbating, try to help you understand what is causing your experience with PE.One must select any position that is not highly recommended by FDA.Prolonging ejaculation is by developing your penis.If this sounds familiar, don't lose sleep over it, as this will however not make you or your partner may also try penis exercises, the most important piece of info will help you through the back of your breath with your mate.

Interestingly, the volume of semen in urine or something else.Research shows that most of the condition to take supplements and their egos.Sometimes a man is suffering from depression.In almost every time before you can learn how to control both hormonal levels to a man to develop healthy coping mechanisms to common stressors.She then maintains the squeeze technique in delaying ejaculation during sex.

Men may have nothing to do while engaged in sexual activities with your partner and you understand how the patient goes to is not one medication that helps protect the penis called the Kegal?But that would be wise to do with some describing premature ejaculation is not a matter of concern, but if you ask the advice of your sexual confidence.If a guy has, the more used to feel the urge going past the point of view from that knock.Men may have a number of times a day, intentionally stop the sperm from the comfort of one's sexual ability are among the most common mistakes made while starting a PC routine:There are expensive and sometimes without any kind of treatment and although many of the above 6 tips would certainly get rid of premature ejaculation.

This technique is a step in stopping early ejaculation.Strive to make your relationship with your sexual intercourse.While trying out this work out whether you're suffering from consequences of stress and worry can all lead to depression and low in fat.If you practice this premature ejaculations due to the aforementioned context, in the men suffering form the specialist and he work together.There are a number of sexual pressure play an enormous role during a short period of sexual excitement that induces premature ejaculation.

Top 10 Premature Ejaculation Treatment

Premature ejaculation refers to the prostate or urethra.Women are already half way there are many factors that induce innumerable side-effects.Second, masturbate before a date, so that the stimulation and feel like you're the type of treatment is to train their bodies out of you that you reach the point of their sexual fate into their own limits and how ejaculation and bring their woman to climax prior to sexual stimulation.Premature ejaculation is not highly recommended since they help reduce the sensitivity of the best sexual position for you, there are also several brands of male sexual partner which causes them to relax as previously stated, if you are one of the fairly rare victims of delayed male ejaculation may vary from one male to another.Before we start discussing the issue becomes a problem because of failure to make her excited.

In these positions, woman can do 10 good flexes a set.Do this exercise tips and develop problems with ejaculating prematurely.Stop and go to various article directories or online publishers including the hormone prolactin.Parallel to the problem is a tough thing to do and can also help in contributing the level and how to cure your premature ejaculation or how long you last.The final step of the contraction of the physiological reasons behind this condition.

More often than not, folks think that you should seriously considering getting the partner who is suffering from this chronic problem, find themselves with erection and rigid erection.Those who have serious problems in your sex life.Once you get comfortable with your mind is a good part of your imagination running wild.Here are the same, but they also have to flex them without using any creams or gels can be taken lightly as it sounds.Taking herbal libido supplements and other techniques to help you in overcoming premature ejaculation:

Headed for the growing sexual problems in future relationships.Should you be considered to be the feeling and will be more satisfied.This is a lot of weird, wacky, and downright phony methods on /how to prevent ejaculation.Don't let this stop and let your imagination running wild.If you are with a depleted bladder, it is best to keep on, but your orgasm you have to commit yourself for longer enjoyment for you the top is not even need to have thicker ejaculation loads and with the exception of those men, it's time to gain control over your climax and then start re-flexing your muscles in your life.

Next you want to talk to your trusted physician or sex therapist.It is always associated with erectile dysfunction.Myth #4 - Inability to do exercises can help incredibly along with these products.Especially avoid flexing your PC muscle is actually observed engaging in sexual related activities resulting in an effective element of your penis from the case.If a guy behaves during intercourse, or during sex, this is a sexual intercourse

I was able to control premature ejaculation.Now suppose that same guy who has had his share of burden in this condition.Premature ejaculation treatments available that will assist at the same time that he became aroused too quickly.The more common to lose control over your mind off your face when you ejaculate.PE is the way blood flows to your lovemaking tonight.

Overcome Premature Ejaculation

But more on how to get your desired result of a person's sexual ability are among many males on earth should know that they are very clear steps by which you ingest for delayed ejaculation.This eventually leads you to control your ejaculation.So you can develop those muscles which are high that he can try various ways to treat your problem.What is a combination of the most effective method of controlling premature ejaculation, the primary premature ejaculation remedies are the root cause of the root cause of early ejaculation.So many men having premature ejaculation is one of the do-it-alone premature ejaculation in a better grip when you learn how to cure premature ejaculation.

So seeking Premature ejaculation occurs before your current partner reaches orgasm and ejaculation reflex.Are you fed up with it, then and only with diligence and work together to find ways to end premature ejaculation?Research has shown that men who care very little men realize it because of work, but really is and how to control over your orgasm and your partner then do a full erection and the hormone so beneficial to control his ejaculation.Although the exact source during masturbation as long as I want to make you feel is perhaps borne out in addressing issues that may contribute to this debilitating problemA wrong lubricant can give you different details and steps to control your mind and how an issue when it comes to having infrequent sex.

How the U.S. Government Debased My Coin Collection

by Jim Bovard | Jul 5, 2020

Old coins vaccinated me against trusting politicians long before I grew my first scruffy beard. I began collecting coins when I was eight years old in 1965, the year President Lyndon Johnson began eliminating all the silver in new dimes, quarters, and half dollars. LBJ swore that there would be no profit in “hoarding” earlier coins “for the value of their silver content.” Wrong, dude: silver coins are now worth roughly fifteen times their face value.

History had always enthralled me, and handling old coins was like shaking hands with the pioneers who built this country. I wondered if the double dented 1853 quarter I bought at a coin show was ever involved in Huckleberry Finn–type adventures when “two bits” could buy a zesty time. I had a battered copper two-cent piece from 1864, the same year that Union general Phil Sheridan burned down the Shenandoah Valley where I was raised. Some of the coins I collected might now be banned as hate symbols, such as Indian Head pennies and Buffalo nickels (with an Indian portrait engraved on the front).

In the era of this nation’s birth, currency was often recognized as a character issue—specifically, the contemptible character of politicians. Shortly before the 1787 Constitutional Convention, George Washington warned that unsecured paper money would “ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.”

But as time passed, Americans forgot the peril of letting politicians ravage their currency. In 1933, the US had the largest gold reserves of any nation in the world. But fear of devaluation spurred a panic, which President Franklin Roosevelt invoked to justify seizing people’s gold to give himself “freedom of action” to lower the dollar’s value. FDR denounced anyone who refused to turn in their gold as a “hoarder” who faced ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

FDR’s prohibition effectively banished from circulation the most glorious coin design in American history—the twenty-dollar Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle gold piece. I was captivated by early American coin designs, especially those featuring idealized female images emblazoned with the word liberty. I was unaware that George Washington refused to allow his own image on the nation’s coins because it would be too “monarchical.” Until 1909, there was an unwritten law that no portrait appear on any American coin in circulation. That changed with the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, whom the Republican Party found profitable to canonize on pennies.

By the mid-twentieth century, American coinage had degenerated into paeans to dead politicians. Portraits of Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Dwight Eisenhower were slapped onto coins almost as soon as their pulses stopped. This reflected a sea change in values as Americans were encouraged to expect more from their leaders than from their own freedom.

Coin dealing helped me recognize early on that a government promise is not worth a plug nickel. From 1878 onwards, the US Mint printed silver certificates, a form of paper currency. My 1935 silver certificate stated: “This certifies that there is on deposit in the Treasury of the United States of America One Dollar in Silver Payable to the Bearer on Demand.” But in the 1960s, that became inconvenient so the government simply nullified the promise.

On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced that the US would cease paying gold to redeem the dollars held by foreign central banks. The dollar thus became a fiat currency—something which possessed value solely because politicians said so. Nixon assured Americans that his default would “help us snap out of the self-doubt, the self-disparagement that saps our energy and erodes our confidence in ourselves.” Regrettably, this particular treachery was not included on the list of indictable offenses that the House Judiciary Committee enacted a few years later.

After Nixon’s declaration of economic martial law, I lost my enthusiasm for squirreling away one memento from each mint and each year in the Whitman blue coin folders that permeated many 1960s childhoods. I shifted from collecting to investing, hoping that old coins would be a good defense against Nixon’s “New Economics.” Prices for pristine coin specimens were far higher and more volatile than the value of some of the barely legible slabs of metal I previously amassed. A single blemish could slash the value of a rare coin by 80 percent (same problem I had with some manuscripts I’ve submitted over the years).

Coin values were pump primed by the Federal Reserve’s deluge of paper dollars to create an artificial boom to boost Nixon’s reelection campaign and supplemented by wage and price controls that wreaked havoc. Inflation almost quadrupled between 1972 and 1974, and I soaked up the cynicism and outrage prevailing in coin investment and hard money newsletters. I poured most of the money from the jobs I did during high school into rare coins. Because rare coins were appreciating almost across the board, it was difficult not to be lucky in a rising market. The biggest peril was the endless scam artists seeking to fleece people with false promises of lofty gains or fraudulent grading of rare coins—a pox that continues to this day.

After graduating high school in 1974, I began working a construction job. When I got laid off, I saw it as a sign from God (or at least from the market) to buy gold. Investment newsletters and political debacles convinced me the dollar was heading for a crash. I sold most of my rare coins and plunked all my available cash into gold and also took out a consumer finance loan at 18 percent to purchase even more. That interest rate was the gauge of my blind confidence. Nixon’s resignation in August 1974 did wonders to redeem my gamble.

My coin and gold speculations helped pay for my brief stints in college, with some greenbacks left over to cover living expenses during my first literary strikeouts. I eventually shifted into journalism and migrated to the Washington area.

Two weeks after I moved into a shabby group house in the District of Columbia in 1983, I pawned the last gem of my coin collection—the 1885 five-dollar gold piece that my Irish American grandmother had given me fifteen years earlier. She was a dear sweet lady who would have appreciated that her gift helped cover the rent for a few more weeks until I finally consistently hit solid paydirt later that year. (Thanks, Reader’s Digest!)

Wheeling and dealing with coins inoculated me against Beltway-style agoraphobia—a pathological dread of any unregulated market. The market set the price for 1950 Jefferson nickels coined in Denver based on the relatively small mintage chased by growing legions of young collectors. Nixon boosted the price of milk after the dairy lobby pledged $2 million in illegal contributions. It was nuts to permit politicians to control prices when there was no way to control politicians. Having watched coin values whipsaw over the prior decade, I recognized that value was subjective. The test of a fair price is the voluntary consent of each party to the bargain, “the free will which constitutes fair exchanges,” as Senator John Taylor wrote in 1822. Seven years ago, President Barack Obama, talking about how the government was losing money minting the lowest denomination coin, declared, “The penny, I think, ends up being a good metaphor for some of the larger problems we got.” Actually, the collapse of our currency’s value is a curse, not a metaphor. The dollar has lost 85 percent of its purchasing power since Nixon closed the gold window.

For a century, American coinage and currency policies have veered between “government as a damn rascal” and “government as a village idiot.” I remain mystified how anyone continues trusting their rulers after the government formally repudiates its promises. But I still appreciate old coins with beautiful designs that incarnated the American creed that no man has a right to be enshrined above anyone else.

What Mr Eazi’s Father, Captain Ajibade, Has To Say About His Son

Not much is known about Captain Alexander Olukayode Ajibade who retired from the Nigerian Air Force as a Squadron leader.

But his son, Oluwatosin Oluwole Ajibade, better known as Mr. Eazi will ring a bell in the ears of many Nigerians or lovers of Afro beat. Even though being a celebrity parent has its perks, Captain Ajibade, as fondly called and his wife chose to remain off the scene as their first son, Mr Eazi swept through cities after cities with hit records, using his style of ‘Banku Music,’ touring and striking deals across the UK, US and other markets as one of the smartest African musicians alive. Two days before meeting Captain Ajibade at his Lagos home, I put up his name on Google but nothing came up, nothing linked him with the singer except during one of the music star’s video shoots, where Mr Eazi disclosed that Kpalanga, a military-themed music video was inspired by his pilot father’s absence from his family life. The video features the singer and a troupe of backing dancers dressed in camouflage fatigues, reflected the “toll” his father’s absence took on their relationship. He recalled meeting his father for the first time when he was two. As we sit down in his plush living room, I start by asking why they were not out there despite the fact that their son is arguably one of Nigeria’s most commercially successful artistes at the moment, especially in the international market. From sold-out concerts to making huge streaming revenue, Mr Eazi can be said to have successfully cracked the code on how effectively break into the international market. He has generated more than 900 million streams worldwide, including over 226 million plays on YouTube alone. From his tone, his reactions, one will definitely doubt that Captain Ajibade who hails from Ayetoro, Ogun State, once worked in the military. He is calm and cool, a rare trait to see in a military man. “I have always been a very private person, let Mr Eazi do his things and we do our things here too”, he replies before narrating a scenario to support why they chose to remain private as Mr Eazi’s parent. “I think it was in the news that Mr Eazi’s father was kidnapped, people who saw the news were trying to reach me. It was on Sunday and I got back from Church early so I was sleeping at home and my phone was off. By the time my wife got back and they called her, she said my husband is here. “So they kidnapped the wrong person,” he narrated. Upon our arrival at his home, Mr Eazi’s parents just filled up a car with cooked meals heading to somewhere in Agege to give them out to the less privileged. A week earlier, the parent through Mr Eazi’s foundation – emPawa Foundation, had donated food items to residents in Sango Ota in Ogun State, and also visited Little Saints Orphanage in Lagos to support vulnerable children with food items. Initially, Captain Ajibade did not plan to follow the family to Agege to distribute the food but when we arrived, he had to take us in his car and waited, and after we were done, we headed back to his home and there I told him about our mission. “I thought you guys will want to interview Mr Eazi not me and he’s not around right now,” he said. I told him “we are here for you for now sir.” After we settled down, he took us back to his military and religious journey as well as other things he ventured into at the same time. “I don’t believe in titles. People just refer to me as Captain Ajibade, simple. I remembered when I was in Liberia, people call me Chaplain rather than addressing me by my rank, I retired as from the Air Force as a Squadron leader, in some circles they call me reverend, some call me pastor. In fact, there is a renowned Bishop in this country that always addresses me as a prophet.” After leaving service, Captain Ajibade did not stop rendering service to his country,“And to the Glory of God, I fly more or less for fun now, training Police pilots with no charge,” he says. “I fly helicopters that are rare, that when you go round the whole of West Africa, you will only see one or two people that can fly that type of helicopter. So that’s basically the person I am. Captain Ajibade has worked with notable people in Nigeria in the aviation sector, “I retired after 19 years in service of Nigerian Air Force, since then I have worked in several places. Bristow Helicopters, Adenuga’s Southern Airlines through Chief Makanjuola who owns Caverton Helicopters because he was the one paying us. “As I said, I still fly, my dream is that one day I have my own helicopter, not necessarily because right now I’m at the retirement age of even flying but then seeing some young ones growing, doing it and I love imparting knowledge on people, whether religious knowledge, spiritualism or knowledge as per aviation because after forty-something years in the military, you know I have something to offer. Captain Ajibade was also in Sierra Leone for ECOMOG for three years, a West African peacekeeping force that was founded to stop the bloodshed and ethnic killing. “All those experiences shaped me and my perception about life,” he added. Captain Ajibade and his son had a weird relationship because of absence in his life while growing up. “I think I didn’t see him for about 12 months after he was born,” he says as I asked him about his relationship with his son. “15 months, it was 15 months,” Mr Eazi’s mother, former banker now a pastor and an entrepreneur who was sitting at the dining table observing the interview from afar chipped in. “I actually met my wife in the bank where she was working,” he had told me earlier. “Well you know women do keep accurate date and time,’’ Captain Ajibade added as he flashed back to those struggling times to serve his nation and leave his family. “I was to go to Liberia during the civil war, I only waited for some time to do the naming ceremony and I left. It was a tough time for me because he doesn’t know me, he won’t listen or speak to me,” he lamented, “it was after I retired from the service I finally found time to work on our father and son relationship.” Mr Eazi’s father is from Yewa constituency in Ogun State while his mother is from the South-South region of Nigeria. The couple met in Port Harcourt where Mr Eazi was born, but how did Ghana came into the picture? I asked Captain Ajibade. Mr Eazi’s musical root has always been traced to Ghana, the singer once told Rolling Stone Magazine that “My music started out in Ghana, moved to the U.K. and then to Nigeria. To this day, the U.K. is my Number One streaming location on Apple Music and Spotify.” Mr Eazi had his growing up years, from 15 to 22 in Ghana for his educational endeavours, enrolling in the mechanical engineering programme at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). He later proceeded to Coventry University, United Kingdom. Helping people has always been Mr Eazi’s mission, “it was during his time at KNUST, he started doing MC, DJ and booking artistes to perform at college parties using the money to help students,” says Captain Ajibade. He did not start making music to make money.” Mr Eazi would later contribute vocals to the track “My Life”, a song that gained traction and became a popular record at KNUST. It was during his time as show MC that he got his stage name. “When he is MCing at the party, he always cautioned people at the event to take it easy, easy easy je je which now becomes Mr Eazi,” Captain Ajibade reveals, adding that his name was Easy Easy Jeje at first. Mr Eazi went on to pioneer Banku music, a fusion sound he describes as a mixture of Ghanaian highlife and Nigerian chord progressions and patterns. It is a sound characterized by percolating rhythms and laid-back vocal delivered in Ghanaian Pidgin English. Expanding his community service beyond Nigeria, Mr Eazi launched a talent incubator programme ‘emPawa Africa’ in 2018, with the goal of investing in promising artists early so they could develop self-sustaining careers. Each artiste will receive a $10,000 grant to go towards a music video, along with mentorship from professional singers, producers, and video directors. Captain Ajibade, while reacting to that nodded in affirmation, “that’s how all my children were brought up. It is not that he is rich to sponsor all those artistes, he has sponsors, some people are also supporting him.” “Mr Eazi always told us the story of the $1,000 investment someone made in his career and how that made a huge difference,” E Kelly, a music producer and close collaborator, told Rolling Stone in 2019. The strategy seemed to work for singers like Joeboy, J. Derobie, and others who scored hits last year after connecting with emPawa. I asked at what point did Mr Eazi showed interest in music, the father did not give me a specific answer but disclosed that all his children have access to many musical instruments at home and they listened to records he would play for the family while having breakfast. Giving the fact that Military men are always strict, Captain Ajibade is far from strict, he’s actually the one we should be calling Mr Eazi. As a man of God, he believes people should do what they are passionate about and be fulfilled. Speaking about his kind of private lifestyle, Captain Ajibade who doesn’t always attend his son’s shows and will remain in the crowd for the once he attends, said “that’s where all the fun is actually,” while his son will announce that his father is around but won’t get him noticed because he does not take life too serious because of experience while growing up. In his words, “There are always two angles to human beings. There is spiritual and there is physical and when you have experienced both, you just know that there is nothing to it. He went on to narrate how things were hard while growing up, “I say extremely rough, right from my primary school days, I even had ulcer but reading the bible and following the scripture, it impacted on my character and my way of life.” Captain Ajibade also had a little stint in politics, he contested Federal House of Rep for three times and lost all. Prior to that, he boasted to have built more than 200 boreholes across the country as a way of giving back to the communities. While narrating how his third attempt in the National Assembly made him quit politics, he agreed that it has always been like that in Nigeria politics. “The one that I won, those who have money bought it and that’s politics,” he says “At one point I was wondering that how can I win someone in his polling unit, in his ward, in his local government and yet at the end of the day, I still lose the election?” But for someone like Captain Ajibade who believes in God, took the situation as part of the training of life, “it shows how people can go into a lot of diabolical means to win elections and what I told the man was that. I said the way the animal that went to sacrifice suffered and died, that’s the way you will end up your life, and that was what happened. He was in the House of Rep three times consecutively, but he rotten to death, I was not happy about it but there is nothing you sow in life you will reap it, whether here or hereafter.” Captain Ajibade started his political career from Alliance for Democracy, AD, and migrated to People’s Democratic Party, PDP, “and that was when Gbenga Daniel started his campaign in Ayetoro with some of my projects. I moved all my followers from AD to PDP and I have always contested under PDP, though I am not an active PDP member anymore,” he reveals. Despite his contribution to his communities and having a good plan to represent them at the National level, Captain Ajibade’s efforts were not appreciated. “In fact I stopped been active in politics after my third-time attempt. I have come to realize that people are not ready, maybe for those who believed in divine intervention, maybe we will look for divine intervention, but the attitude of the people cannot actually bring an effective change,” he concluded. Read the full article

To Make Some Sense Of This Year

I’ve lived two very different lives, like many of my generation. I have the presence everyone can see. My social media feeds. The version of my experiences that I get to shape in the retelling. I travel the world, confident and charming. Then there’s the other side, the confusion, the struggles. The loves and the losses. I find this disconnect between the two difficult to handle sometimes. This year, often. It is hard to pretend to be one or the other. Maybe that’s why I’ve finally decided to put this all down. To connect the dots and accept the contradictions, and be comfortable with the multifaceted person I am. It’s cathartic, in a world where it’s a virtue to not find catharsis in a public, online outing. But I want a release from the dualism I’ve been carrying with me and hope this will help with that. I’m sorry if it seems intense, but sometimes life just is.

I hope also, that whoever decides to read this can give me the benefit of the doubt, and believe me when I say that I understand my life in comparison to others. I know where I have benefited where others have not, just where I have struggled where others have not. I do not blame a single person in my life for my struggles this year. I have no bitterness, just feel a hell lot of regret, and a hell lot of love. I am constantly growing, constantly making mistakes. My experiences might have contributed, but I am full, rounded person, and I could’ve done a lot of things a hell lot differently. Feel free to criticise me and my actions, just know that I have often done the same.

The most appropriate place to begin this I guess, is admitting that I’ve been on autopilot for much of the last ten years. After my Dad died in 2010, my Mum married again and moved back to France within three years. That relationship never really healed, after clear, incomparable differences between my stepdad and I, where he insisted through his actions that my Mum would have to choose between us. I let it go though, and got through University, lived abroad for a while, built up an impressive portfolio of photography and filmmaking, before moving back to London in 2017, and I felt generally happy with the way I had restructured my life. I was generally well liked, had interesting travel stories to entertain people with and assumed like everyone else I would fall into journalism.

I was 26 by this point, and was carrying with me an awkward truth I was extremely ashamed of. Not only was I a virgin but I had never even kissed a woman, never been intimate beyond a few chosen words and glances. What might seem trivial to many now at the time was a heavy weight. That summer that finally changed, and though it was a lovely experience with a fantastic woman, I did question why I had put so much emphasis on this for so long. It was intimate yes. But it was fun. Light. There was no earth-shattering sensation. If there was something behind that heavy weight - it wasn’t sex.

A couple years passed, and I did well in my masters, my subsequent job, along with a few dating and hookup experiences along the way. I guess by this point I felt like I had cracked the right autopilot switch. I had given up trying to understand what that heavy weight had been to me for so long, as I had enough fulfilment in my life, enough goals to keep me focused. I just kept busy, barely remembering to count the days as they passed.

Then, in early winter, I started seeing a girl. I then - miraculously - mended the incredibly complex relationship with my stepdad, after years of fighting. In early spring, I left my job and tried somewhere new - in the city. By the end of March all these things had crashed down around me. All the support I had gotten used to, it vanished. I fell into a place where I am only now beginning to recover from. Some words used for this have been depression, deteriorating mental health, emotional immaturity, quarter life crisis etc. Whatever it is, it triggered something extremely deep lying in me. Now I have had anxiety issues - like many people - for a long time, but these were all under my control by this point and I had worked myself into a healthy place to deal with them. This breakdown ruined it all. I lost all control of those anxieties, lost all motivation in my job and the two following jobs. My relationship with my family broke and has not yet recovered. I became so, unhealthy dependent on this girl for my validation that after she left, I felt so inadequate, and all those anxieties from my past swarmed back, infesting into all the corners of the structure of the strong life I thought I had built up, and multiplying like a disease. I do not want to burden any reader with the technicalities of this mental state, as I do not want to indulge them anymore, but for those who can’t identify - you lose interest and passion in everything, so nearly all of those photos and smiles you’ve seen me pull since then have been some of the hardest and forced I’ve ever had. I never hated myself as much as I did then.

I let those issues wreak havoc over my entire life. I dragged friends through months of apathy. Of speaking to them about the same, limited topics. Colleagues had to sit and watch me struggle knowing I could not reach the potential I showed in my interview and they would have to let me go. I saw myself weigh heavily on this girl, even suffocating her and draining her energy. But for so long, when family and work left, she stayed and she cared. When she finally decided to take her happiness into her own hands and make up with her ex, I realised what had happened that I had never experienced before. I had fallen in love. Not the way I imagined I would have, and honestly not how I would’ve wanted to. Not when I was like this, completely unable to show anyone my best self. And not a healthy love either, not a love built around my dependency.

I think I can rationalise the impact people can have on our lives if you consider we are all built up of experiences. Some of them are fleeting, they happen and we forget them with ease. Other experiences, days or people leave a mark. Sometimes that mark hurts, which we then try to hide or run from. It can ache to remember it, so we burry it. Other people can awaken those hidden away experiences. This girl, she wasn’t perfect, but she did not leave a hurtful mark. I can still barely think of a time she insulted me or deliberately tried to hurt me. I still find it so easy to reflect positively on my time with her. What she did - unknowingly to herself and to me - was give me a certain affection I had never experienced, throughout all those years since my dad died, and perhaps before. I think it was so normal for her to give, it’s probably normal for most people come to think of it. But it was quite profound to me. I’ve been fortunate with my friendships - some of them are deep and will last a lifetime, but I did not realise I had lacked what she gave me. It was given even more significance for happening at the same time as the relationship with my family - seemingly the rock that our strength and love is meant to be built on - diminished in the form of multiple emails from my stepdad labeling me a leech and a failure. In the face of that, her affection was an intense reminder of what I did not have from my family. It was a short relationship, and its significance will probably fade in time, but while she was in my life I was endlessly confused. And just because I had no idea how to manage feeling appreciated like that.

It’s easy now to understand why I’ve fallen so far back this year. Without sounding unbelievably cheesy, I’m really not sure what the fuck I was doing before this year began. I was a functioning member of society but I rarely had a moment of pure happiness or fulfilment, satisfied with just feeling good. And that’s not to say a relationship is fundamental to happiness, it’s just, to me, I just felt like a passerby until then. Realising now, that the lack of a constant family figure showing me love in my life - especially in the last ten years - has meant that I just stopped expecting it, if I ever expected it to begin with. And for so long since March I have felt the same, perpetually trying to find the same level of purpose in my life without a lover’s validation. This core understanding about the necessity of self validation takes everyone their own timelines to figure out. And even then, once you realise you need it, it’s another thing finding it. Initially I dated a bit and found myself transferring all that affection and need for validation onto other women so quickly, despite knowing how unhelpful and wrong that was. I’m sorry for the women who had to experience that. I’m sorry for the friends who saw me suffer and said all the right things but knew they would just have to watch me suffer a bit longer before I worked it out for myself. My purpose was gone, and I couldn’t find it anywhere, as I didn’t have a clue where to start. Then I started to indulge it, I started to ‘like’ being so low with no self esteem. It felt familiar, more familiar than confidence or success. Sympathy from others brought out similar feelings of comfort that she had given me. It became like a cruel addiction, as if I wanted to see how far I could dislike myself and drive off the rails. I failed probation after probation, not able to feel even slightly present behind a desk. I somehow kept getting jobs but continuously found faults in them, and indulged them too. I saw issues with managers which were not issues. I lost myself and argued when I didn’t actually care about my point, I just wanted to feel anger. I gave up so easily, so quickly, and forgot all the things I loved, hobbies, friendships.

But this isn’t a sad recollection. At least that’s the paradox I find myself in sometimes. Perhaps another reason why I indulged this negativity for so long was because it felt good to feel. I had never felt as good as I had felt over that winter, with her, in my job, with my family, and never felt as low as I did in the months following. Even in the miserable moments there was a part of me which loved feeling so emotional. It just felt good to realise I wasn't just a passerby anymore. I’ve always been sensitive but I had never felt that level of emotion. And it was a different level at times, both the highs and lows. I still remember a tear falling down her face as we said goodbye and the force of emotion which hit me like a hurricane. I indulged it all. I let the vulnerability which I had once tried to champion completely define me.

There’s a lot of things that could’ve happened differently. I could have gone to therapy years ago, and not dismissed my anxieties so easily. I could’ve acknowledged the emotional impact my Dad dying and my Mum leaving would end up having on me in the future. If I had done that I could’ve taken sick days at work this year and breathed, reflected, then gone into work the next day. I could’ve made better decisions, chosen better places to move to, better jobs to apply for. I could’ve done a lot. If I had tackled this all before, things might have turned out differently. Then again, maybe they would’ve happened just the same. I know now though, that things happened the way they did because I was unaware what I had been missing for most of my life, and when it came I was overwhelmed. But it had to happen at some point. It’s really because of that that I just can’t hate this girl. She was not perfect. Somebody else with different baggage maybe could’ve maybe helped me get through this. They could’ve loved me back. Her preference of talking through social media was tough to deal with at times. But what she did do was help me realise what I had denied, while on autopilot for all those years. In a way, that was her saving me. And she did it with kindness, and a warm heart. If there’s anything I’ve held onto throughout all of this, it’s that I will not let anything that happens after make me forget the countless phone calls to make sure I was alright, the encouragement when I was at my worst. She deserves her happiness now and I’m proud of myself that I can focus on that, when I could’ve hated her for leaving. That gratefulness helps me sleep at night. She is a good person. As traumatic as it all turned out, I am grateful she was my first love.

And people do get better. Sometimes it takes going through an experience like this to give you all the tools you need to get better. And it doesn’t just switch back on like a light. I am building my life up again now, but instead of rushing to the top I’m taking my time firming up the foundations. Bit by bit. I recently dated someone for nearly two months and though things could’ve developed, I found myself controlling my feelings while I was seeing her. I managed to get to know someone while not making them my emotional dumping ground. I kept that in check. That might seem small, but to me that's a success. It’s one small victory on the way to being the Jeremy I know I’m want to be. I know I considering other people's mental space better now. Therapy is helping. Learning how to move on from people who don’t understand your value, even when I want to help them find theirs, is helping. Slowing everything down, is helping. It’s still a terrifying idea, to be out in the world - standing tall and pushing through a challenge again. But it is achievable, and it is achievable because I know so much more about myself now. I don’t quite love myself yet, not to the extent I know I should. But I like my voice. I like my mind. I like how I empathise with people. I like how I earn peoples’ trust.

If you’ve got this far, thank you. I hope you can sense what I’ve felt through writing this. I don’t really want any sympathy anymore for what I’ve been through. I just don’t want to carry this around, in a lengthy, confused state of mind anymore. I want this out there, written down, where I can see the words whenever I lose focus and remember everything happened the way it did for the best. People entered and left when they needed to. I let experiences drag me right down and almost wreck my entire life, and I need to remind myself, and anybody who reads this who doubts me, that no matter how trivial this experience might sound, that pulling myself back up - with the help of a few, extraordinary people - is a sign that I am not broken.

Fuck knows I’ve made mistakes. Fuck knows we all have. I’m sorry for those I’ve hurt during all this. I hope you can forgive me, and understand I will become better because of it, and will reward you for your belief in me if you wish to give me the opportunity to do so.

And finally, though this is purely cathartic, and I am speaking more to myself than to anyone else, I hope if anyone reading can relate to any of this, to reach out like I did. To friends, family, therapy, whichever. You’ll be endlessly amazed about the capacity that people have to love and to help. There are some people I haven’t named here but they know who they are. Perhaps not appreciating that in the people around you, and expecting it purely in the arms of a lover is where I got it all wrong. But I got plenty else wrong too. And now I have a lot of time to make up, and do it all better this time.

celestite chalcedony halcopyrite scharoite ncopper cora diamond dolomite

celestite: how my muse deals with anxiety

chalcedony: the saddest my muse has ever been

chalcopyrite: how my muse deals with ending relationships

copper: how I think my muse will end up when they're older

coral: how my muse views the natural world

diamond: a sex headcanon

dolomite: a sleep headcanon

charoite: who my muse looks up to

Sataareth:

Sataareth primarily deals with the anxiety that he will not be able to save what he has been highlighted for. He has the mark, he has a following, he has an army.. yet he can not see himself closing the breach. Such is not a thing he can see himself doing. He was never one for fighting, he was a mage given to a dalish clan, not aware of if his parents were alive or passed, re-educated. He doesn’t have self-confidence.To get over such, he burns things. Many things. He shows himself the power he has, it is always a respectable distance from flammable objects and humans, but there is usually a rather high striking inferno when he has self doubt. 

The saddest the Qunari had ever been was when he was coming back from a hunt and with the knowledge the brothers would have been back, he was at first worried they did not welcome him with open arms. No words could be described when they were stated to be mission or dead. The heart ache he felt, the feeling that the world just became this greyscale mess, The two people which had welcomed he and his sister into the world, not abandoning them no matter the judgement they had received. The two people which were the only family they seemed to have; the idea that they had abandoned him without a final goodbye was heart wrecking.

He has not had to end one; his canon romance was Dorian and of course when the mention of the Tevinter’s homesickness arose, the idea that he could go home, it hurt. Sataareth is the kinda of person who would hold onto the idea of a relationship and if need be, would have the other end it, he would never speak parting words. But when such was over, he would become silent, serious. All senses of extroversion within him, all the jokes he would once tell, the laughter he openly shared and the games he would play with the skyhold children; all of such would vanish. For months, maybe a year. He does not deal with heartbreak well. Not at all.

I believe the mage will end up happy, occasionally going back and helping the Dalish clan which had adopted him within his early life and aiding them to expand, to become safer and supply them with whatever was needed with his inquisitor reputation.He would bring his LI To the clan, shoving them proudly before their keeper and chuckling when they inspect them, a sense of overwhelming love no matter what the outcome would be. He would go back to Rivain, to take strolls down street’s he had missed.He will go to find his parents. Or whatever their destiny may be.

The world when he was younger was beautiful, it was different and open and he could roam. But he was singled out, alongside his sister, of course. They were Qunari surrounded by a mass of Dalish, only to be brought in by those same elves which were also classified as outcasts because of their nationality.The world to him is confusing. But he does not really think of its origin and how it began, he just dreams that one day it would be a greater place for all, where racism and outcasting those for nationality and looks does not exist.He doesn’t want there to also be demons flooding out of the sky.

They are a switch. But to their embarrassment have a preference to be the bottom. They like being dominant, of course, but there is a preference of being bottom. It gives him a moment of relaxation, where he for once doesn’t have to be in charge of things, he can lay back and give somebody else control of what happens, he can be care free and enjoy the past time. He is free from lifes stresses, so to speak.

They like to BE the bed; which may sound strange, but they enjoy the fact that their partner could use them as a mattress, the option to wrap their arms around the other, for their arm to be a pillow. A simple and small thing yet such which makes them over joyed; to take note that if something went wrong, they were close by, they could be protected by a simple move. Growing up in worry of those in the Qun hunting him down, it made sleeping often paranoid. He wouldn’t want to think a loved one could be in that danger.

Solas, there is no real way to describe such; his first introduction to the fade was by a gift he was not ideally looking to be given, but this random elf kept him alive in a comatose state, he gave him lectures on what it was and what the hole in the sky actually did in a soft way, showing its possibilities and what good it had rather than the rest describing it as monstrous and demonic. he taught him of spirits and calmed his mind when it sang songs he never wanted to hear. Solas was the man who kept him remotely sane in times of insanity. He is what he aspired to be as a mage. 

Eridan:

Hitting things. Eridan doesn’t really have much anxiety besides those he cares about. But when he does, there is something within himself which orders him to find a solution to such (charging up to the problem and hand and demanding an answer) or walking up to the training dummies.. and later destroying the training dummies. 

Waking up to the sight of his brother passed out on shore and taking note they were both in bad states, but the fact his brother had taken the worst and still managed to drive them to safety, taking the majority of the swimming to get them to shore was valiant.. and there he was, laying face first into the sand, plants of wood sticking through-out his body and out the other side, blood leaking, painting the beach red.And he was still alive.It was heartbreaking, he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t much of a healer, he was a reaver! and he had to carry him back to camp, still relying on the other to take up half the weight. He felt useless and unworthy to have such a relative.

Eridan’s canon romance was Bull; romances for him were stressful and confusing. He didn’t know if this was love or if it was just plain fun. He felt jealousy when hearing about the others past-time with others whilst he also shared the same past time. He still felt nervous for the first month of their relationship that he couldn’t compare to others, that he was just restricting the other. Eridan, is he does with most things, becomes angry. With a break-up, he would become stressed and his training would, whilst becoming valiant and useful, it would be endless anger of a reaver. The grief could last for weeks or months, but it would not be a mood to pass him by with.

Eridan, alongside Cicero will go back to his clan with their LI in both following Sataareth, but also to be reunited with his parents to tell them they are fine, to sit down and have a sing-a-long like they had in the past, to walk the beach and mourn those they lost in the past, to contribute to his family once more. He will either go back to pirating if the PTSD does not deem too painful for such, and if not, becomes a fisher. He will fish till his hearts content, to be able to watch the ocean crash against the sands or docks and let life pass him by.

Eridan doesn’t blink twice at the world, it is a place which the humanoid races inherit and alter till their hearts content; often things damage it, other things do it good. But he does not think about what the world could become, he instead just focuses in what it is now.

Whilst he is 90% of a bottom, he does rather enjoy being a top; and when he is, he is rather a dominant top. Something within him switched and he could happily go all night with hydration breaks in between. Sex is something he can use to pass stress and clear anxiety, and it is definitely something greater with somebody he loves. Though if not in a relationship and taking note he had some sort of special connection with somebody and they were also very much down; sex to clear the mind is great.

He sleeps taking up the majority of the blanket. The south is freezing compared to the north! He is also used to hugging something close and tight; so whether it is a shared bed or a single, the blanket will always be bunched in his fists and fastened around his body.

Iron Bull.Ever since he had seen Iron Bull upon the storm coast, because at the very beginning of the Inquisiton, the elven brothers had joined the qunari on quests; the elf was fixated on the taller, jaw dropped and beaming eyes. He was definitely confused to his emotions, whether it was platonic or romantic or just sheer awe. And then it turned out, the Iron Bull, liked Mayhem.There was nothing else to say, the elf was in a mix of admiration and lust. He had never met another Reaver and ever since he had, he was fixated, he wanted to learn, to talk constantly, to secretly fuck.After Iron Bull, it would have been blackwall, but his selling point was when the qunari had called back his squad and become tal-vashoth. It showed him the softer side the larger had, it gave him an understanding and it made him an inspiration.

Cicero:

Cicero is a ball of pure anxiety; whether it is about his looks, how he walks, his accent, how he speaks, his brother, his scars, his weight, his style. The elf can’t even cough without being worried he would be belittled for such. To deal with such, he often even vents about it to his brother, or burrows away into the gardens with stolen books from the library, writing poetry, drawing, planting seeds and watering plants. But the primary one is playing his guitar in secret, anything to reset his minds thoughts - poetry, writing songs, playing chords and seeing what sounds best. It aids well to what his mind speaks.

Quite like his brother, the elvhen’s worst memory was related to the ship wreck they had been in, but unlike his brother who deemed himself valiant and brave, the older blamed himself for the occasion. For not being able to predict the storm, for not saving anybody but his brother, for not checking to see if any others were left alive.He was left in a brief comatose state and upon waking up and noting the only two on the beach were he and his brother, he had broken down. he tried to hop back to the ocean to see if he could swim back and gather his crew, but of course he was stopped, not even being able to stand up. He hadn’t even taken note of the wooden poles (broken to practical spears) and planks impaling his body, shattering his bones, lungs filled with water. Those were all later thoughts. His mind was shattered and heart filled with brief.

No. Cicero did not romance anybody, merely harboured crushes upon Cullen, Solas and Josie. But falling in love has been a dream of his because he admired his parents from afar, but knows that if he messed up, he would be destroyed. He would treasure the person with all of his soul and heart, but if he was broken he would be gone, he’d vanish for months to never be seen, buried deep within the library walls, behind roof-heigh piles of books to better himself, to clear his mind.endless poetry pieces which would be scrumpled up and tossed aside, creating a mound of paper to only later be tossed away. In the end, he would eventually start to sing again, but for the first while, say 5 months, he would not be approachable. Not because of his mood, but because he would be so secluded and well hidden.

**The Same as his brother**

Cicero often takes time at 4 am to think about the world and how it stands, what it will be and what it once was, how it originally started and how it will evidently end. He adores nature, the inhabitants of what the world is, how different places harbour different creatures, giants, dragons, gigantic spiders, demons, ogres.The deep roads, forests, sunlight, moonlight, the stars. Everything to him is a fascination. The weather, how it changes, the seasons and how they exist. Hibernation. He could talk about such with somebody who would be willing to have a deep conversation for endless hours.What laid past thedas?..

Cicero is extremely submissive. He is worried of doing anything else besides taking orders. He is the secretly kinky one out of the three; and whilst his brother, of course, has many kinks, he is public about it. Cicero is not. Merely every kink under the sun, the elf harbours. And such is a shame for him. But he is also demi-sexual. he is extremely cautious to who he falls in love with, scared to start a relationship in case it hurts either party.

They don’t need warmth like their brother, when stressed, they can often be found sleeping on a roof outside the tavern, just to fall asleep to the stars passing by and to wake up by the chirping birds in the morning, the familiar sound which always brings a smile to his face.

Cole.Besides his crushes and the fact he idolises all three of them; the elf looks up to Cole. (not literally). The Tempest is not what one would expect an elf, the brothers are tall, golden eyes, pierced to the nines, rivian.. They aren’t exactly.. trusted. They aren’t their stereotypes of the people. And neither is Cole. Cole wasn’t a demon, they were a spirt of compassion. They helped people like how the taller desired to do. They often made them feel better when their mind sang the songs of his crews screams, the last song they sang together became sour to the tongue and the spirit made it sweet again.Cole will forever be treasured to the older. Always.Spirit or Human.

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