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love-and-monsters · 3 years

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Deluges and Droughts

M water elemental X gn human, 7, 206 words

Your farm is being drowned by a flood, and, desperate to stop it, you recruit the services of a water elemental. But when the tides change, will you be able to help him?

It hadn’t stopped raining for the past eight days. The sky was still thick and gray, with clouds that descended to the treetops. It didn’t fall in a constant barrage, going back and forth between heavy rain and something of a drizzle, but it was nonstop. Even in your house, the air was damp and heavy.

You couldn’t get dry. Every day, you went out, checked your fields, and tried to care for your animals. The ground sloshed under your feet as you walked, muck loose under the grass. Your sheep bleated irritably at you whenever you entered the barn, usually dripping wet. The roof of the barn sagged dangerously in one area, a thick damp patch spreading toward the back. You made an effort to reinforce it, but there wasn’t a lot of chance it would hold. If the barn flooded, you would be in a lot of trouble.

When you woke up to water droplets trickling down your face and water seeping through your floor, you decided to go looking for a water elemental.

You fed your animals in a hurry, then strapped on your most waterproof boots, tugged on a raincoat, and headed out into the fields.

All elementals were tricky to find. They tended not to hang around humans settlements, mostly because they weren’t fans of humans in general. Rarely did they even take on human form. But you needed to find something that would stop the damn weather.

You hiked to the one spot in the fields near your house that would house a water elemental- a lake fed by a massive river. The banks had swollen and overflowed thanks to the abundance of rain, so you had to give it a wide berth. Once you had made it as close to the bank as you felt was safe, you swung your pack off your shoulders and started looking through it.

In your bag, you held what you hoped would be sufficient to summon a water elemental. There was a shell that had been formatted into something like a wind chime, or a bell, an offering of coins that had spend the past three days submerged in brackish water, and a few pieces of sea glass that you had collected from the beach as a child.

Delicately, you approached the edge of the water and placed the sea glass into the waves. Once they had been pulled away from shore, you placed the coins on the bank so the water lapped over them, and held the windchime out until it caught the wind and the soft sound of bells echoed across the water.

You took a deep breath. “You who lives in waves and water, who is one with the sky and sea and storms. Source of all life, I call to you, and request your presence.”

Your voice barely carried over the sound of rain against the lake. Wind whipped stinging cold raindrops against your face. You snuffled against the running of your nose. For several minutes, you stood on the shore of the lake, staring out into the misty silence.

Just as you were ready to assume it hadn’t worked, something out in the lake splashed. You felt your shoulders stiffen, creeping up toward your ears. Cold rain slithered down your back and dripped down your shoulders.

Something in the water splashed again. You squinted out over the lake, trying to make out anything through the haze of mist. As the splashing grew closer, you could see something moving under the water, a dark shape that grew more distinct the closer it got.

Within moments, the shape had approached the shore. It remained in the water for a moment, then the surface rippled and it emerged.

For a moment, its shape was indistinct, like a pillar of water was rising from the lake. Then the water rippled and started to take on a humanoid form. At first, the shape was only vague, like a shadow, then details started to emerge. It stood on the surface of the water as steadily as you were standing on dry land. The water seemed to solidify, not like ice, but like the water was growing thicker and thicker, drawing in tight until the details were evident.

He (he looked like a he) was taller than you, at least six and a half feet tall, with an impressively broad chest. His facial features were surprisingly detailed, from the hooked shape of his nose to the ice-white chips of his eyes. His hair looked like waterfall, rippling down his back and ending in a frothy white cap. He was entirely nude, but with doll anatomy, something you were both grateful for and slightly disappointed by.

“You were calling for me.” His voice had a strange quality to it, like the sound of waves against rocks. It was more intimidating than you’d expected and it sent a shiver wrapping down your spine.

“I did.” Your voice shook, but the water elemental barely seemed to take note of it. He stepped closer to the shore, where only a thin barrier of water kept him from stepping directly on land.

“And what did you summon me for?” the elemental asked. He sounded slightly impatient.

“The rain,” you said. “The land is drowning. It’s been raining nonstop for eight days. It’s destroying everything. I need your help to prevent it.”

The elemental looked at you levelly. He seemed neither surprised, nor concerned. “Yes, it has been raining. My own territory has been expanding thanks to this.” He tilted his head at you. “Did you wish for me to stop the rain?”

You swallowed. “Can you?”

“No.” His voice was cool and unconcerned. Despair rolled through you in a massive wave. “Nor would I if I could. The rain grants me great strength. I can feel it seeping into the land.” He lifted his arms and the mist seemed to thicken around him.

Panic lanced through you, hot and sharp. “Wait!” you said. The elemental looked at you. “What if I can make it worth your while?”

He lowered his hands again. “I would be terribly interested to see how you would do such a thing.”

You took in a deep breath. This plan would work. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully. “You gain power based on how much water you have in your… territory, right?” The elemental gave you a skeptical look, but he nodded. “So, obviously, you’re going to want more water in your territory, yes?”

“That would be beneficial to me, yes,” the elemental said. “You are offering to being me water?” He didn’t seem all that impressed.

“Sort of,” you said. “Water elementals can control water, right? If you really wanted to, you would be able to draw it out of the land.”

“Yes,” he said. “Thought it is rarely work the effort. If the water is in my territory, regardless of the form it takes, it adds to my power.”

“Well, if you come to my land, you can have the excess water. It’ll be added to your territory, so you’ll grow more powerful, and I’ll get rid of all the water I don’t need. It’s a win-win.”

The elemental looked at you for a long moment. He seemed to be thinking it over. His form rippled as if he were about to dissolve and your heart sank. Then he smiled wolfishly. “Yes. Your terms are acceptable.”

You sagged in relief. “Good. All right. Then we should start right now.” You started to head back up the bank, realized he wasn’t following you, and stopped. “Are you coming?”

He smiled, like you were being funny in some way you didn’t fully understand. “I require water to travel,” he said.

“It’s pretty wet,” you said. “You can’t travel in the rain or something?”

“There is not enough water in the air to sustain me,” he said. “And the ground would need to be much more saturated than it is for me to walk across it.”

Despite him pointing out problems with your plan, he didn’t seem all that concerned about it. You narrowed your eyes and folded your arms over your chest. “I assume you have some kind of plan?”

The elemental smiled. “Indeed.” He lifted one watery hand and pointed at you. “Humans are made of seventy percent water. Enough water for me to hitch a ride.”

You gave him a skeptical look. “What, you want me to carry you on my back all the way back to the farm?” you were strong, but you weren’t entirely sure if you could carry an entire man on your back over such a long distance.

The elemental’s smile grew wider. “Not precisely. I have an easier method in mind.” He held a hand out to you. “Touch me. You will see.”

That was mysterious, and you weren’t a huge fan of mysterious things. But you had a feeling he wasn’t going along with you unless you did as you were told. You gritted your teeth and placed your hand into his.

It was like you had thrown yourself face-first into the ocean and gone limp. The tide caught you and heaved you back and forth. Water rushed around you, tugging at your limbs almost hard enough to wrench them out of their sockets. As much as you could feel it on the outside of your skin, you could feel a tide pounding against your insides. Your blood pulsed in the same rhythm as the sea, like waves were crashing against the inside of your skin.

Gradually, you became aware of the ground underneath you once again. You were on your knees, sinking into the mud. Rain dripped down the back of your neck and soaked your hair. But within you, there was still that pounding of the tide. Your blood pounded through your veins, rushed in your ears. You were aware of the way it thundered through your veins, like the entirety of the ocean’s power had been tucked under your skin.

You forced your mouth open. “What did you do to me?” It was almost impossible to hear your own voice over the tides of your own body.

The voice didn’t come from outside. It echoed in your head, a rushing sound like a waterfall had learned to speak, like the tides in your body were forming words. Your body is seventy percent water, he repeated. I can stay within the water in you.

You pressed a hand to your chest. The tide still thrummed under your skin, but you were getting more used to it. The pulse was almost comforting, like a second heartbeat. “You’re inside me?”

In a manner of speaking. I am within the water you carry inside you. The rushing sensation within you grew stronger, as if the elemental was doing it deliberately. Now you may carry me back to the land with you. I will emerge, take in the water, and you can carry me back home.

Slowly, you got to your feet. You found yourself swaying involuntarily, moving with the tide inside you. Even though he was no longer speaking, you could feel the elemental lingering in the back of your mind. It was a sensation not unlike the feeling of being watched.

“Comfortable for your trip?” you asked, trying to sound casual. It didn’t work as well as you’d hoped. The tide pulsing inside you made it hard to focus. A sudden wave of amusement hit you, and you almost laughed before you realized that the amusement wasn’t your own. It was his.

You are actually quite comfortable. The tide inside you gave a powerful surge, like the elemental was shifting in some strange way. I have not done this in a very long time. Your body is far better than my last travel partner. They were tight. You are not too cramped and not too large. Cozy. Your blood surged once more and you had to stop moving to reorient yourself.

“Can you try not to move so much? It’s… uncomfortable.” The elemental didn’t say anything, but you felt his answering apology. After allowing your heartbeat to stabilize once more, you headed back home.

You trudged across the flat, open plains. You felt hyperaware of the water against your skin now, like every trickling drop of rain was electrified. The water elemental pounded through your bloodstream, heavy and heady with power. You felt like you could taste the storm as it rolled across the sky.

Something in the back of your mind shifted and your attention refocused. Somehow, you weren’t entirely aware of how, you could feel the water elemental poking around in your head. He seemed to be flipping through your memories with the mild interest you associated with looking through an acquaintance’s photo journal of their vacation.

“What do you think you’re doing?” you asked out loud. The water elemental spared you only the tiniest flicker of attention before returning to his sifting.

I want to know about the life of my carrier, he said. I know so little about humans. You are fascinating.

“Fascinating as I may be, I don’t appreciate you- hey!” The elemental hovered on an image of you and your ex buried in a particularly heated kiss. “Cut that out!”

Swapping fluids seems to be a particularly intimate form of human communication, the elemental said. There was no mistaking the amusement in his tone. I approve.

“Cut it out!” you protested. The elemental’s amusement became thicker in your head, swirling like some heady storm. Fine. Two could play at this game. He was inside you, his thoughts inside your head. All you had to do was swim against the tide and-

You plunged into his mind like diving into a great ocean. The currents of his thoughts buffeted you, but you were able to turn against it. A memory drifted by you, buoyed on a stream of thought, and you reached for it.

He twisted, curling, a puddle barely big enough to stand in, but he could feel it, the rain and the stream that fed him. Yes, he was here, he was new, but he could grow stronger and powerful-

The storm overhead raged and he raged with it, his surface surging to catch every drop of water. The river that fed him was swollen, overspilling its banks and feeding him in a great, surging wave of power. He could feel it growing stronger, yes, yes, the power, the feeling of becoming greater, stronger-

It was the sun, the blazing heat that was destroying him. He slunk to the depths of his lake, barely able to feel the trickle of his river feeding him. No matter how hard he struggled, he could still feel the pull of each tiny drop being drawn away from him by the sun, a slow death of heat until he was nothing more than a damp patch on the ground-

The sun was hot, but his river was feeding him and the air was thick with delicious humidity. Humans splashed in his shallows. He looked at them curiously, feeling their motions through the water. They played, hands entwined, laughing with delight at the feeling of his water. Delighting in him, in his power. His awareness was drawn to the two humans at the edge of the lake, standing in his shallows, their bodies pressed together, mouths connected. Some strange emotion flared within him, something tender and sad and happy all at once-

Enough! Something slammed into your mind, like you were being violently shoved. You wobbled in place, the unsteadiness in your mind transferring into your body. The water elemental surged within you, twisting and writhing. Stay out!

There was rage in his voice, but it barely managed to conceal his terror. You looking into his mind had scared him- he hadn’t known you could do that. “I could say the same to you,” you replied. The elemental churned inside you for a moment, but you could feel his anger wane.

Very well. Truce. He did the mental equivalent of turning his back on you, deliberately putting his attention somewhere else. You waited for a moment to make sure he wasn’t just trying to get your guard down, then continued walking toward your home.

The ground sloshed under your feet as you entered the outstretches of your land. The fibers of grass were no longer properly holding the ground together, and you could feel everything slipping under you, threatening to trip you up. It was part of the reason you hadn’t been letting your sheep out. The last thing you needed was for one of them to get stuck in the mud and break their leg.

The skies opened up once more as you approached your barn and you picked up the pace, hurrying get inside. The water elemental perked up as the rain drenched you, soaking through your clothes and straight to your skin.

Your sheep bleated anxiously as you stepped into your barn. The damp patch on the roof was still dripping and starting to sag dangerously. Your concern about that, however, paled under the sudden weight of the elemental’s curiosity. What are those!?

“They’re sheep,” you said. “Have you never seen sheep before?”

No. The elemental cautiously started poking at your mind again, shuffling through your memories.

“Hey!” you said. The elemental froze guiltily. “No looking through memories, got it? If you just ask, I’ll tell you.”

The elemental shifted sulkily in the back of your mind for a moment, then stretched out toward you again. What are sheep?

“They’re, uh.” Well, you hadn’t wanted him to poke through your mind, but now that you were actually being questioned, you weren’t sure how to explain sheep. “Uh, they’re animals. They grow wool that I shear and sell and sometimes I butcher them, if they get too old or injured. I take care of them, deliver lambs when it’s lambing season. They’re a lot of work, but it’s better than working in an office or something.” You gave one of the sheep an affectionate pat. It bleated at you. “And they go ‘baah.’”

I am aware. They are doing so right now. Another one of the sheep butted against your hand and gave a low bleat.

The sheep gathered around you, nuzzling and butting at your hands. As much as he was clearly trying to hide it, the elemental was delighted by the sheep. When you brushed your hand along their wool, he could barely suppress his glee.

You spent several moments indulging his curiosity before another groan from the roof drew your attention. A few splatters of water slipped through and splashed on the ground. “Okay. We should actually do what we came here to do. Can you control the water or something?”

Not from in here. Do you have water that I can enter? You snagged one of the basins that you’d been using to collect the dripping water and dragged it a little ways away from the sheep.

“Will this work?”

Well enough. If a bit cramped. Place your hand in the water. You crouched and rested the palm of your hand on the surface of the water. The elemental shifted inside you once more. It was a strange, twisting sensation, and the pull and rock of the tide began to yank at you once more. You closed your eyes, breathing in and out slowly. For a moment, you could feel the elemental pouring himself out of you. Then there was a strange quiet in your body.

Your body was lighter without him inside you. But there was also something strangely empty about it. For some time, you had felt the power of the elemental pulsing inside you. Now there was nothing in its place, and you felt light, but also disconnected. You couldn’t even feel the pulse of your own blood.

“Are you well?” The voice drew you out of your thoughts. The elemental was looking down at you, formed from his knees-up in a bucket of water. It was a little bit of a ridiculous sight.

“I’m okay. Just- I don’t know, it feels a little like when you’ve been straining your muscles for a while, then you stop and you kind of feel all floaty?” The elemental tilted his head to one side, eyes completely blank. “Oh. Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t know a lot about that, huh?” You stood up from where you’d fallen on your butt and brushed the dirt off your pants. “What do you need to do now?”

The elemental closed his eyes. “I must gather the water to me. I should be able to collect a great deal of it- possibly enough to stop the oversaturation of the land.” His form wavered and shifted like he was taking in a deep breath.

Your skin started to tingle all over, almost like static electricity. The air felt thick and damp as you tried to pull it into your lungs. Dampness stuck to your skin. It felt like the air itself was growing thicker, like you were trying to breathe underwater. The sheep bleated and shifted frantically.

Just when you were sure the air was about to turn to water and you were going to drown on land, the tension that had been rising in the air popped. Within a second, the air went from nearly oversaturated to bone dry. Your mouth had been open as you tried to suck in breath and you felt the moisture wick itself from your tongue. You choked as your mouth and throat were completely dried. The sheep were shifting in a near panic, crushing up against you.

Something soft and jelly-like hooked itself around your waist and dragged you across the floor, taking you away from the panicked sheep. You fumbled, trying to seize the appendage, but your fingers went right through it. Yelping, you pulled your soaking hands back. It was water, a column of water that had just enough solidity against your skin to pull you around. You followed the column with your eyes. It led back to the water bucket. The elemental was looking back at you, expression placid.

You made an attempt to speak, but your mouth was still completely dry. Your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth and no matter how much your throat spasmed, you couldn’t swallow.

“Apologies,” the elemental said. “I was only trying to pull water from the air. I didn’t expect it to pull water from you as well. You should probably have kept your mouth closed.” You were too busy trying to get your mouth to not feel like you’d been chewing sand to replay. “Here. Drink.”

You refocused on him. He had changed position in the bucket, turned fully toward you and lowered, like he was kneeling. His hands were out in front of him, cupped around a drop of water. It was clearly differentiated from the water of his hands, glistening like an oversized dewdrop.

It was fundamentally pretty weird, but you were too thirsty to bother with any sort of discomfort. You bent your head forward and slurped the water up from his palms. It was ice cold and it tasted crystalline and sweet, better than any other water you’d ever tasted. Whether that was just due to how thirsty you were or if he had some sort of way of making water taste delicious, you didn’t know.

Once you had drunken your fill, the elementa withdrew his hands. “I pulled as much water from the land as I could. I will guarantee nothing, but I should have taken enough to prevent any more flooding. Possibly even enough to lessen the storms.”

You turned to look at your leaking roof. The damp patch was completely gone, dry as if it had never been there. The roof still sagged alarmingly, but that was something you could fix. Peeking out the barn door showed that the sky had lightened considerably. There was even sunlight peeking through a few tiny gaps.

“Thank you,” you said. The elemental looked away from you, one of his shoulders rising and falling in a smooth shrug.

“It was a beneficial arrangement for the both of us. There is no need to thank me.” His voice was oddly reedy, a quieter trickle of water than the great rushing noise that his voice usually was.

“Still. I’m grateful.” You tilted your head in a gesture of appreciation. The water elemental made a noise similar to a grunt. “Give me a few minutes to inspect everything.”

He rolled his eyes, but also waved a hand dismissively. You took that as a sign to leave and hurried outside.

The fields outside were firm under your feet as you ran toward your house. Even the air was free from the oppressive mugginess that had surrounded you for over a week. It was easier to breathe.

A quick jog around your property revealed that the awful dampness had receded and everything felt much clearer than before. The worry that had been resting in your chest for the past few days lessened.

When you returned to the barn, the elemental was crouched in the bucket, holding his hands out to the sheep. They appeared to be biting and snapping at his hands, fighting for the best position. A snap of alarm went through you. “Hey! Back up!” You clapped your hands and the sheep scattered obediently.

The elemental straightened back up. “They aren’t harming me. I believe they were thirsty.”

“Yeah, they’ve got water buckets,” you said. The elemental turned his attention to you as you approached. “Ready to go home?”

“I am. Brace yourself. This will feel… more than before.” He extended his hands toward you as you reached back toward him.

The instant your fingers came in contact with his, you were hit once more by the sensation of a powerful wave crashing over you. This time, you were braced for the sensation. It didn’t knock you on your ass, but you felt the power.

It was stronger than before, the pounding of water in your veins. The elemental surged in the back of your mind. Pressure pounded against the inside of your skin, thundered in your ears.

Move with the tide. You are fighting it. The elemental’s voice sounded in the back of your mind, above the pounding waves. You relaxed, letting your hackles drop. The water pulled you along and, for a moment, you felt that you were going to drown. Then the tide calmed and you found yourself drifting, pulled gently by the water.

You opened your eyes. The sheep had scattered back, giving you a wide berth. The elemental’s thought surged in the back of your mind, a sudden and intense urge to pet them.

You laughed and gave the sheep affectionate pats as you headed out of the barn. “You know, you can come back and pet them any time you want.”

The elemental shifted in the back of your mind, disgruntled and a little embarrassed at being caught. I cannot. This is outside my territory and I cannot be brought here without being carried.

“Oh.” The disappointment you felt was surprisingly keen. You felt the elemental shifting in your mind, like he was trying not to look at your feelings. Embarrassed that your thoughts had an audience, you distracted yourself by trudging across the land.

You were back at the edge of the lake sooner than you’d anticipated. The elemental surged with excitement at being back in his home territory. You could feel the boundary in your own body, like a massive case of the warm fuzzies. It almost made you giggle, like being tickled from the inside out.

The edge of the lake lapped over your feet as you approached. You crouched and placed your hands beneath the surface of the water. This time, however, the elemental didn’t come pouring out of you. He hesitated, churning beneath your skin. you could feel his longing to go home war with some strange other desire that you couldn’t place.

“Don’t you want to leave?” you asked, keeping your voice as gentle as possible.

Yes. I am merely making sure that I don’t pull the water out of your body when I leave. His statement would have been more intimidating if you hadn’t been able to feel how flustered he was.

“You didn’t have to do that before,” you teased. The elemental only got more flustered, twisting within you like a cyclone.

I am leaving. Again came that strange pouring sensation and you fell back on your rear in the mud. The elemental rose out of the water in front of you. He looked more solid than he had before, his hair billowing around him in misty waves.

“Okay,” you said, standing up and brushing your pants off once more. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“I suppose it is,” the elemental said. Despite being composed entirely of water, he managed to look as stiff as a board as he spoke to you. “If you ever wish to summon me again, simply place you hand in the water and call for me. I will come.”

“I don’t know your name,” you said. The elemental shrugged.

“Elementals rarely take names. If you wish for something to call me, pick anything. I’ll be fine with it.”

You considered for a moment. “Cerulean,” you said. “I’ll call you Cerulean.” He shrugged.

“If that is what you wish to call me.” His voice sounded mostly even, but he had been in your head and you had been in his and he couldn’t completely hide his pleased embarrassment from you. “Farewell, human.”

With that, he dissolved into the water. You looked out over the surface of the water for a moment, feeling the cool mist of rain on your skin, then you turned around and returned home.

You had planned to visit him sooner, but it ended up being over a month before you went back to the lake. Life was busy as ever, and the weather had one-eightied so sharply that walking to the lake had been profoundly unappealing. It was hot, the sort of heat that made you think crawling into an oven might be the cooler option.

When you hit the third day of drought warnings, you decided to go see Cerulean. Just out of concern. After filling two massive canteens with cold water and strapping them to your thighs, you headed out.

Your house was well-watered, thanks to an underground reservoir, so the drought wasn’t affecting you all that much. But you’d heard that several rivers had dropped precipitously in level, and your mind kept wandering back to the image Cerulean had inadvertently showed you- the one where he struggled in the blazing heat, in a tiny puddle, feeling himself drawn away bit by bit.

The lake had receded. The edge of the lake that you’d stood upon to summon Cerulean for the first time was dry as a bone. The edge of the water, several feet away, was murky with muck and silt. You walked closer and dipped your hand beneath the surface.

“Cerulean?” The water was barely cool to the touch. Sweat dripped down your back as you bent forward. “Cerulean!”

There was silence. Panic flickered in your chest. “Come on, where are you?” You unhooked one of the canteens from your side and dumped the water into the lake. The water rippled. Some distance away, the surface of the lake shifted.

Hope sparked in your chest. “Cerulean!” You dumped the other canteen and plunged your hand back under the water. “Can you hear me?”

The water underneath your hand surged, reaching up until it was encasing your forearm. Slowly, as though it was taking a monumental effort, the water shifted and formed Cerulean’s torso.

“It’s you again,” he said. His form wavered, threatening to fall apart. “I’m afraid if you need my help, I am not in the right condition to do so.”

“I came here because I thought you might need my help!” you said. “Are you okay? The lake looks really low. And the river…” The usual flowing water that fed into the lake was barely more than a trickle.

Cerulean pulled his form further together, rising out of the water to his knees. “I have been… I suppose the human term for it would be asleep? It conserves my energy, but I am not aware of the world around me.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” you said. “Mostly okay, anyway. I was worried about you, with the drought.”

“Is that why you brought water with you?” he asked, gesturing to the empty canteens.

“I thought, maybe if the lake levels dropped enough, these might help.”

“It would take monumental effort for a human to maintain the lake in the middle of a drought,” Cerulean said dismissively. “Especially considering your own water needs.”

“I’ve got enough water,” you said. “But the lake looks bad.” It had lost at least half its volume since the rains had stopped.

“I have had worse,” Cerulean said.

“They’re not predicting rain for at least another week,” you said. “And that’s only going to be a drizzle, probably. Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“There is little I can do about it either way,” Cerulean said with a flowing shrug. “If there is a drought, there is a drought.”

“What happens if the lake totally dries up?” you asked.

“I die,” Cerulean said. “In a manner of speaking. I will evaporate. Eventually I will reconstitute, but I will lack my memories.”

“So, you’ll forget me?” you asked.

“I will forget everything,” Cerulean said. “That includes you, yes.” He shifted in the water, his form rippling. “This upsets you?”

“A little,” you said.

Cerulean looked as though he didn’t know how to feel about that. His expression rippled, facial features dissolving before he managed to reform them. “Then I will endeavor to remain here,” he said. “Though I have little control over it.”

“Is there a way you could get to a more secure location?” you asked. “Somewhere with more water?”

“If there was another lake or pond of some sort that was not already occupied by a water elemental, it would be possible for me to move there. But there are no areas close by that are suitable.”

“You would know if there were other elementals nearby?” you asked.

“I would sense it,” Cerulean confirmed. “We can tell when we cross into another’s territory, and we can sense where our own territory boundaries end.”

“There weren’t any on my land, were there?” you asked.

“No. I did not sense any when I was there. Though I was not particularly looking hard for anything.”

You considered that for a moment. “Would the lake have to be above ground?”

Cerulean gave you a funny look. “No. Any particularly large body of water would work.”

“Okay. Well. If you’re okay with it, I might have somewhere in mind.”

It took some convincing to let Cerulean come check out the underground reservoir. He was reluctant to leave his home, especially when he was in such a vulnerable state. Eventually, however, you pointed out that there was no harm in just taking a look at it.

“If it will make you happy,” he finally sighed. He poured himself into you again. This time, it no longer felt like an overwhelming wave of power. It was weak, barely enough to make your blood pound. Worry crawled through you at how weak he was.

Your worry is irritating, Cerulean said in your mind. You felt a little embarrassed at the intrusion, but your concern overpowered that.

“Let me worry a little bit. You’re not used to someone being worried over you, huh?” you said. Cerulean bristled in the back of your mind.

No. Elementals are solitary by nature. But you could feel his mind in yours and, as much as he tried to hid it, you could feel that he was pleased someone was caring for him.

You trudged across the land until you got into your house. Cerulean’s attention shifted to the sheep with interest. “We can look at them in a bit,” you said. His attention snapped away again and there was a swell of irritation and poorly hidden embarrassment.

There was a well not too far from your house that was also attached to the reservoir, and that seemed to be the easiest way for him to get to it. You carefully filled the bucket and pulled it up. “You can get in the bucket, and then I can lower you to check it out. Will you need help getting back up?”

No. I will find my own way out. There are many connections to other areas. Cerulean flowed away from you. The water in the bucket rippled and shifted as he entered. You replaced the bucket on the hook and cranked the winch until the bucket had vanished with a quiet splash.

You sat by the edge of the well, swinging your legs. The minutes ticked on as you waited for him to return. By the time thirty minutes had passed, you were starting to get nervous. Could he actually get out on his own, or was he just being overconfident? How would you even get him back out?

Just when you were starting to consider actually getting in the well, your sheep set up a bleating alarm. You scrambled to your feet and bolted toward your barn.

It took you a moment to discover the source of the alarm. One of the spigots had turned itself on and was gushing water onto the ground. Your sheep bleated and skittered away from it. Grimacing at the interruption, you stalked over and tried to twist the spigot back off.

It refused to turn, no matter how much force you tried to put into it. Water splattered at the ground, forming a puddle that soaked your toes. You grimaced. God dammit, you couldn’t afford to be wasting water.

Just as you were about to go find some tools to shut the water off, a familiar form emerged from the water. Cerulean gazed steadily at you, a faint smile gracing his face. He looked far stronger than he had at the lake. His hair was a waterfall behind him and his form was so solid it was hard to see through.

“I thought it was connected to your house,” he said. “It took me some time to fond the correct pipes.” One of the sheep cautiously stepped closer to him and he offered a watery hand. “The reservoir is much larger than I anticipated. It descends a great deal underground and is fed by multiple rivers. Even with water being drawn out of it, the whole thing dwarfs my lake.”

“Then it works for you?” you asked. Cerulean smiled.

“It is a far better territory than my old one, even if there were not a drought.” Cerulean hesitated for a moment. “You would be all right with me taking up residence here?”

“It’s mutually beneficial, isn’t it?” you said. “You have a safe location from the drought, and I’ve got someone who can help out my farm if the rains come back.”

Cerulean gave a small, soft smile. “Mutually beneficial. Yes.”

Weeks passed and you got used to his presence on the farm. It wasn’t uncommon for one of your taps to turn itself on and for Cerulean to appear in your sink or tub or wherever he felt like turning up. Eventually, his presence became a near-constant thing. He would assist on the farm, keep you company in the evenings, and even managed to be good enough at math to help you with your taxes, which was certainly not something you were expecting.

A couple of months after he had come to the farm, you returned home and sank onto your couch. Cerulean peered at you from the kitchen. “Are you well?”

“Sore. Ugh, my muscles are killing me. I don’t know what I did, but I think something happened to my back.” You lay on your stomach, groaning as your back muscles strained and protested. “I’m not moving from this couch.”

Cerulean slipped closer to you. “Would you like some help?”

You opened one of your eyes. “You can help with this?”

Cerulean answered by flowing his shape over you. It was cool for a moment, then it warmed until it was pleasantly heated against your skin. Then the water started to move, currents buffeting your muscles like a massage.

You let out a low groan. “Oh, that’s so good. Thank you, thank you.” your mind hazed with pleasure as you drifted into a state where the only thing present was the feeling of your sore muscles being soothed.

“I miss you,” you murmured absently. Cerulean paused and you whined in displeasure.

“I’m right here,” Cerulean said, sounding more amused than annoyed.

“I know, but- you remember when you were in my head? I miss that. It was… nice.” You felt relaxed, so relaxed that you were no longer able to guard the words coming from your mouth. “I could feel what it was like to be you for a little bit.”

Cerulean’s massage started again. “You enjoyed that?” There was a long pause. “I enjoyed it as well.”

“Maybe we can do it again sometime,” you said.

Cerulean was quiet for a moment longer. “If we are thinking of experiences we would like to try,” he said slowly, “perhaps there is something else we can try. In the show we watched the other day, some humans did something I was interested in.”

You looked over your shoulder at him. “Yeah? What was it?”

Cerulean leaned forward, tilting his head and his mouth pressed to yours. It was cool and strangely textured, but it tasted sweet and bright as spring water and it made your stomach flutter.

“Do you- Do you know what that means?” you asked as soon as his mouth broke away from his. Cerulean couldn’t blush, but you saw tiny cyclones swirling inside him that indicated he was flustered.

“It’s a gesture of affection,” he murmured. “Between humans who are living together. And it often leads to other things, that often occur between humans who are close.” He leaned his head close to yours again. “I enjoy spending time with you. I feel close to you. And it would be mutually beneficial.”

His tone became more flustered the longer he spoke. Perhaps if you hadn’t been in his head, you would have believed it was just for some passing curiosity. But you knew the look in his eyes, could detect how flustered he was and how much he wanted this. And you had to be honest: you wanted it too.

“Mutually beneficial, huh?” you said, voice teasing. “Well, if it’s mutually beneficial, then why not?”

As Cerulean’s form shifted and flowed over you, trying to cover your body, you murmured a quiet, “I love you.” He didn’t respond, but you knew he had heard you. And he would say it back when he was ready.

For now, you were just happy to have him with you.

#exophilia #monsterxhuman #monster boyriend #water elemental #monster lover #my writing #OC

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ayuuria · 3 years

Text

Yashahime Translation: Animage Magazine May 2021 Issue

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.

The Yashahimes’ Future

The three Yashahimes who carry both demon and human blood: Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha. The three of them have varying personalities, environments in which they were raised in, and goals for their actions. However, through the shared task of demon slaying, they slowly begin to accept one another. Though they are not a perfect “Close, in sync team”, trust has certainly budded between the girls who, together, have overcome any difficult situation. Even Kirinmaru’s attack that killed Setsuna in one stroke could not sever the bond that connects the three. Towa especially, who received a broken Tenseiga from Sesshōmaru, appears to have not yet given up on Setsuna’s life. Although it looks like the girls will still continue to face hardships in the future, we want them to clear the way to a happy future with their own hands.

“Hanyō no Yashahime” entered a short break, leaving behind many points of interest such as Setsuna’s shocking death, the broken Tenseiga entrusted to Towa, and the continued separation of Moroha and her parents. Let’s consolidate the existing mysteries and wait for the second chapter (season)!

Higurashi Towa

Faced with the death of her beloved little sister, Setsuna, her demonic blood awakens for the first time. Until now, she had been using the demon sword, Kikujūmonji, as her weapon but what is this blade… …? (referring to the promo picture for season 2)

Series Composition: Katsuyuki Sumisawa Q&A

The Yashahimes’ story with continuous ups and downs. In addition to reviewing everything up until now, please tell us about the backstory and hints to the second chapter (season)!

Q. Where do Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha normally spend the night?

A. Towa freeloads at Kaede’s house. Setsuna stays at the demon slayer’s headquarters. It’s just that she can’t sleep so she probably keeps watch outside at night. Moroha lives at the corpse shop.

Q. How far apart is Kaede’s village and the corpse shop?

A. Kaede’s village is in the land of Musashi so in terms of modern geography, imagine around Tokyo’s Nakano and Suginami ward. Compared to that, the corpse shop is in the harbor so around Shinagawa ward or maybe even Yokohama. It seems the three of them frequently met up but there’s actually quite a distance. Each of them had different goals behind their actions too.

Q. When Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha first met, how was Moroha able to figure out that the two of them were Sesshōmaru’s daughters?

A. Probably through “smell”. Sesshōmaru is well known among demons and Moroha knows that Sesshōmaru is her father’s older brother. However, Moroha still doesn’t know that Sesshōmaru is the one who trapped her parents within the black pearl.

Q. Does Moroha know her parents’ names?

A. She does. When Inuyasha and Kagome were approached by Kirinmaru and Sesshōmaru, Awa no Hachiemon (aka Hachi), the racoon dog, took Moroha to the wolf demon tribe where she was raised. That being said, Kōga probably told her.

Q. Doesn’t Moroha want to meet her parents?

A. She thinks her parents are dead. That’s why her thoughts are “There’s no point obsessing over someone who’s dead”. Hachiemon the racoon dog, didn’t watch the details of the incident to the end and assumed that “If Sesshōmaru and Kirinmaru were their opponents, they’re probably not alive now.” That’s what Moroha was told through Kōga.

Q. Why is the instrument that Setsuna plays the violin?

A. When creating the scenario, I wanted some sort of “gift” from the modern era as “something to connect the modern and feudal eras”. Therefore, I decided to give Moroha the giant backpack as Kagome’s daughter and Setsuna an instrument. In addition, an instrument that absolutely didn’t exist in the feudal era was better, so I chose the violin. There of course won’t be violins in Japan and even in the West, it had a different shape than it does now. Plus, before the current story was solidified, I had thought of a plot where the modern era was the setting so it’s a remnant of that.

Q. Did Mama Moe teach Setsuna the song she always plays on her violin?

A. While she learned how to play the violin from Mama Moe, the song was not something she learned (from her). Rather Setsuna is playing a song she once heard based off her memory. Where she heard it… please wait for the second chapter (season)!

Q. With Kanemitsu no Tomoe as a medium for Setsuna and the rouge being suggested for Moroha, each of them has had their demonic blood sealed. What about the seal for Towa’s demonic blood?

A. Towa’s is not sealed. Moreover, her demonic blood had not yet awakened. That’s where in episode 24, her demonic blood awakened for the first time with Setsuna’s death being the trigger. However, that was in an out-of-control state. Going forward, how “Sesshōmaru’s blood” flowing within her will manifest itself will be something worth noting.

Q. Why does everyone call Towa and the others “Yashahime”?

A. Ever since the spirit of the Tree of Ages called them as such in episode 4, everyone started calling them that, no matter who they spoke to. At first, even Towa and the others were like “We’re not Yashahime” or “Are you referring to us?” but as they got addressed that repeatedly, they gradually accepted the name.

Q. Kohaku’s* older sister, Kin’u, is a nun but what does his other older sister, Gyokuto, do?

*Translator’s Note: I think the publisher made a mistake and meant to say Hisui

A. She shoulders the responsibility of helping Sango create the weapons for demon slaying, delivering those weapons to the other slayers, accepting demon slaying requests around the area, and collecting information on demon sightings.

Q. Is Kirinmaru a demon of Japan?

A. No. I think talking like this will be easier to understand. Kirinmaru is one of the few greater demons who is aware that the earth is round. In that era, the only ones who have a sense of this are probably just Kagome, Towa, and Kirinmaru. Having circled the globe many times, Kirinmaru, who had traveled around the world, met the Dog General at the very end in the land at the farthest end (of the earth), Japan. Ever since then, he has remained in Japan so it could be said that he’s a demon of Japan, but his existence is on a bigger scale than that. Kirinmaru frequently reads Western books and he orders those from various places around the world. The one who buys them is Riku. Naturally, I’m sure that not only does Riku secretly read the Western books in the library, but Kirinmaru wouldn’t reproach him for such a small thing either. In episode 7, Riku called the apple a “Forbidden Fruit” but of course, I’m sure Kirinmaru has read the bible before. That’s most likely because he’s been alive since the era of myth so he may have seen Buddha or Jesus Christ in the flesh. There’s probably no way he saw Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit though… … (laughs).

Q. Point blank, what is the relationship between Kirinmaru and Riku? In a reflection of the past (200 years ago), it seemed Riku didn’t have any emotions. What exactly was that?

A. This will be revealed in the second chapter (season) as well but to give you a little hint, Riku started taking care of Zero after the Dog General died and as he healed her, he gradually began to have emotions. That’s why Riku’s way of thinking was influenced by Zero, such as “You have to destroy those that you love”.

Q. Zero lost her demonic powers when she created the Rainbow Pearls. Then what was the power she was using when she fought?

A. Zero was using the power of hexes. In this world, there is not only demonic power but all sorts of powers such as spiritual power and Buddhist power and each of them is separate. What she used was a power similar to charms and Inyougogyō**.

** Translator’s Note: Yin and Yang and the five Chinese elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

Q. Why did someone like Kirinmaru, who values reason, have the Four Perils, who had sleazy personalities, as subordinates?

A. Kirinmaru’s mind is preoccupied with a “certain matter” that’s important so he doesn’t really care about anything else. Hence, he doesn’t remember every single demon that has challenged or served under him and he doesn’t care what kind of person they were.

Q. In episode 21, it was surprising when Towa said “I like you (Riku)!”. To put it frankly, what do Towa and Riku think of each other?

A. Towa thinks Riku is “Riku”. She doesn’t perceive him as being part of Kirinmaru’s group. On the other hand, Riku thinks Towa is “The lady Yashahime that will slay Kirinmaru”. That’s why he addresses her as “Lady Towa”. Currently, there are no romantic feelings between the two of them. Just that, there’s probably “affection” from Riku to Towa.

Q. Why does Riku think “I only kill those I love”?

A. Because “Those who are loved vanish beautifully”. That is what Zero said in episode 23. To Zero, death is sad but to Riku, there’s no difference between dying and living and that they’re the same. Based on that, Riku came to think “You have to destroy those that you love” and he chooses to “kill” as an expression of love. That might be quite difficult to understand.

Q. Why is Sesshōmaru so cold to his daughters?

A. Just as a lion drops its cubs into a bottomless ravine, a demon’s feeling is that they only raise the child that gains strength from hardship. That is the “Rite of Courage and Cowardice”. It’s a little different from the feeling we humans have. That’s why hating his daughters or purposely tormenting them is certainly not the case.

Q. Although, isn’t separating the babies from their mother immediately after birth or having them fight the strongest beast king of the eastern land, Kirinmaru, a little too much?

A. If you watch the kabuki play “Renjishi” I think you will get it immediately. Anime is fine, but I would like to recommend the traditional arts that have ceaselessly been passed down since ancient Japanese times. Even if going to see them is difficult, researching on the internet is easy. Even the phrase “Rite of Courage and Cowardice” will show up in there. It seems that in this world, there’s no people who love their children more than Japanese people. Perhaps that’s why it can’t be helped that the way Sesshōmaru is raising his children feels very cold. However, those who watched the “Inuyasha” series I think will know but Sesshōmaru’s hearing and smell are exceedingly exceptional. He has the ability to immediately rush in, no matter how far the distance.

Q. Lastly, please tell us how production for the second chapter (season) is going?

A. Currently, we’re writing the second half of the script for the second chapter (season). The whole staff are eagerly working under this difficult Corona crisis. In the second chapter (season), we would like to create a script that is particular on the details as much as possible. In the previous series, there were many self-contained demon slaying stories but for the second chapter (season), we’ve changed the structure of the story so that it progresses with the feelings of the various characters intertwining together, just like in “Inuyasha The Final Act”. Hence, I think the impression of the story will change quite a bit. Please wait until the broadcast to see what kind of story it will be!

#Yashahime #hanyou no yashahime #yashahime: princess half demon #translation #there's actually a lot of key information in this so I recommend reading it #I had fun translating this

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

Note

You are your top 5 Shadow agents

I don’t talk about the Agents as much as I should, even though I constantly try to stress their importance, because I’m working on essays for them individually. To be honest, I think about the Agents practically every day to the point I have a hard time separating my headcanons from the actual canon material, but I have to stay true to it, and the lack of material regarding them means that the only way I can truly talk about their characterization is by diving deep into the novels and taking notes, which I don’t have much time to do, and then finding the right books or moments to talk about, which is even more difficult.

This by no means constitutes my big thinkpiece on them, but it’s a start, and ultimately narrowing it down was a lot harder than I expected. This order is by no means final, if you asked me this question next week or next month I’d probably have a different answer, but it’s the 5 that I find myself thinking on the most.

Honorable mentions: Jericho Druke and Myra Reldon, who are incredibly awesome characters conceptually and who have great moments each, and whom I definitely think deserve big turns on the spotlight if the Agents ever get put on the spotlight again, but are held back by issues with their presentation and lack of prominence. Margo Lane, whom only just narrowly missed the cut because, as much as I like her and think she gets an underseved bad rep and definitely has great things going for her, I sadly have to concede isn’t as consistently great or well-written as she should be. Clyde Burke, whom I definitely like a lot based on what I’ve read and consider an integral part of the line-up, but haven’t read enough of the novels he’s in to really solidify him as one of my favorites just yet. And Slade Farrow, who is a bit too complicated to talk about superficially.

Allright, so here they are

Number 5: Burbank

As the center of all communications within The Shadow’s network and the only character in the series who is even more mysterious and elusive than The Shadow himself, Burbank is fascinating and the kind of character who simultaneously seems to be both begging for an in-depth exploration and yet who also should be dead last on the list of mysteries about the series we want spoiled, because nobody wants the mystery ruined. He’s a bit of cipher personality-wise compared to the other agents, but he kind of has to be, and I think it helps to illustrate the many forms the agents of The Shadow can and should take, that one of them is this total mystery whom we know nothing about and yet is so vital to the whole thing. And it’s interesting also because, for all the many variations we’ve had on The Shadow’s life and thoughts and feelings and etc over the years, Burbank has stayed more or less the same. Whatever variations he’s had in design aside, Burbank just is.

The pulps did often have moments where we would get to see moments that told us a little more about Burbank, gestures he did, capabilities he had and didn’t have, little details Gibson would sprinkle in to keep people fascinated. Several scenes with Burbank are almost presented like you’re watching a movie, in the way Gibson keeps describing his face being mysteriously blocked from view by objects or lighting, like not even in your mind you are supposed to know what he is. And it’s all the more fascinating because, unlike The Shadow, as far as we know, Burbank is just some guy who’s good with tech, who was only recruited in the 2nd story but apparently knows The Shadow from before it, and whom The Shadow entrusted with virtually every secret necessary to keep his operations running.

It’s kind of a sign as to how utterly neglected the agents are that, to this day, few writers who’ve ever touched The Shadow has ever come close to giving us any sort of explanation or backstory or anything on Burbank, and I refuse to believe these people had that much self-control. Of course I have my own ideas for Burbank, but even I would hesitate to put them on a story, because Burbank epitomizes that double-edged sword that comes with a solid narrative mystery. Burbank just is, and hopefully he will stay that way.

Number 4: Dr Roy Tam

Mention of Dr. Tam meant much to Sayre. He was acquainted with Roy Tam, the Chinese physician. He knew that Tam was a power in Chinatown; one who worked for good

Unrolling a map, Tam showed the entire Manhattan area, studded with tiny dots in districts quite remote from Chinatown.

"These represent my outposts," he said soberly. "They are places, owned by Chinese - restaurants, laundries, curio shops, other places of business. In each of these places, I have a friend."

The Shadow understood. Dr. Tam was the motivating factor among the Chinese who adapted themselves to American ways. His mission was to create good will among races, to put an end to prejudice and superstition.

A newer and more sober spirit had replaced the old and dangerous festivities. Feuds in Chinatown were a thing of the forgotten past. Dr. Tam and his associates had done much to bring about the present sentiment; but there were persons - even among that group - who felt regret at the passing of old traditions.

Dr Tam is a remarkably layered character for one that only appears in about ten stories, and he’s one of the agents I’m most eager to discuss in-depth. He’s another one of those agents that Gibson introduced by tricking you into seeing him as a villain, as a Yellow Peril cliche, until he is revealed to be in fact a good man. Not just good, Roy Tam is presented as a powerful, influential and cunning Chinese man with a lot of assistants secretly working for him, and who is consistently presented as a progressive, pacifistic, benevolent civic leader and ally, even friend, of The Shadow.

Tam is very much westernized and the stories paint that mostly as a good thing, and this is one of the areas that I think could very much result in an interesting story that looks at the ramifications of his role, because of course not everyone is going to agree with his viewpoints, of course him being an advocate against superstition and tradition isn’t necessarily a good thing (and it’s not how Yat Soon, The Shadow’s other major Chinese ally, works, which puts the two at odds), and of course it’s a complicated situation, but the fact that Tam invites this kind of debate at all I think is something very interesting

Largely because of the movie, Dr Tam is one of the few agents of The Shadow who’s managed to sustain appearences in modern stories, and none of them have ever really went with his original angle as a powerful civic leader. Instead he’s been largely painted as either a scientist, like in the movie, a general practitioner, and a psychiatrist, and his age has been all over the board.

I prefer him in his original form but I also very much like the idea of Roy Tam being, like the Chinese supervillains he was created to be a subversion of, an incredible genius who’s got skills in all fields that can fit under the “Dr” part of his job and is also an incredibly capable leader able to unify splintered communities under a cause of unity and cooperation, someone who absolutely could be the adventuring genius so many other pulp heroes are, except he dedicates himself wholesale to his community and the fight against prejudice and the betterment of lives, even if he’s misguided or wrong at some of the causes he takes up. I really think this character could partake in really great stories if ever brought back.

Number 3: Cliff Marsland

(Fan-art by @cryptixcreations)

Cliff may have actually been the first agent I really fell in love with based on concept alone, even before I read the stories he was a part of and started loving all of the others. He’s one of the few agents who has prior history with The Shadow and we get ever so tantalizing hints at his background that we ultimately never get to learn about in full. He’s the resident tough guy and underworld contact of The Shadow, which in any other series might have made him the biggest badass and a loner action hero who’s too cool for things like thinking and relying on others for help. But here, trying to be that only gets Cliff into trouble, and circumstances gradually morph him into the series equivalent of a Team Dad.

He was one of the agents who we got to see develop as a character. As he appears more frequently past his introduction, he grows from a headstrong, careless jackass, mostly interested in the action parts of the job, who “resigned himself to an adventurous career with violent death as its inevitable termination”, into one of the most reliable and capable agents, taking the lead during action scenes but otherwise fully defering leadership to Harry, and being the agent most likely to partake in gunfights and rescue The Shadow out of trouble, joining in missions like infiltrating circuses or high-society clubs and forming very strong friendships with Harry, Clyde & Hawkeye, who almost kills a man with his bare hands when he thinks Harry’s been killed. He’s the hardass, square-jawed ex-con who plays the reputation of a brutal killer, and is in reality a great friend, ally and husband (Arline has sadly only been mentioned in three stories), on top of being an invaluable fighter and secret agent.

Cliff could have easily been the protagonist of a long-running series all his own and that’s one of my favorite aspects of The Shadow’s agents. They are people with agency, goals and dreams and relationships and lives beyond the roles they play, they all have strengths and weaknesses and faults and positives that bring them much closer to us than The Shadow could ever be, with no end to the variety of roles they can take, and Cliff in particular is a character I’m very attached to.

I do hope that he eventually found peace in a quiet life with Arline once his business with The Shadow was over.

Number 2: Harry Vincent

The Shadow as a franchise has been vastly worse off as a result of Harry Vincent being completely sidelined and mischaracterized in virtually every adaptation since, and the sheer love that Shadow fans hold for Harry purely may be the closest thing to a true universal opinion in the fandom.

Harry is a lot of things: the audience surrogate, the protagonist of much of the early stories, the leader of the agents in field duty, the dude in distress who gets kidnapped far more than even Margo, a hopeless romantic, an action hero, the one who gets sent to recruit agents because all The Shadow has to do is send Harry on an assignment and wait for him to come back with a new friend. He is a competent, resourceful, strong, extremely kind ball of sunshine who's got the potential for greatness, even if he can't see it.

And for this post I’m going to highlight this: Harry is, on top of all that, the ultimate embodiment of what The Shadow strives to protect, help and uplift. He is the living proof that The Shadow's mission has a good, positive effect in the world, long after criminals are brought to justice and plots are failed and victims are rescued, purely by the fact that he’s alive and helping others who were once like him. Someone who, despite having so much to offer, could have easily been swept away by the world’s callousness and cruelty, if The Shadow wasn’t there to rescue him and uplift him.

I liked The Shadow pretty much at first sight after seeing the character’s design and listening to episodes of the radio show, and my appreciation for the character grew after reading The Shadow’s Shadow, but it wasn’t until I encountered @oldschoolcrimefighters and her brilliantly informative writings on The Shadow and Harry that I not only fell in love with the series, but decided to do everything in my power to try and get other people to love it too and see the potential it has. I think a lot more people should at least be aware of why Harry matters.

Number 1: Moe Shrevnitz

I was honestly a bit surprised when I rounded up all of the agents to make this list and Shrevy here ended up in Number One, but in hindsight, it may have been obvious all along.

My reasonings as to why Shrevy is my favorite agent do get a bit too personal, especially because of something that happened to me as I was writing this post, so I’m putting it on a separate post here.

#the shadow #pulp heroes #pulp fiction #replies tag #harry vincent #moe shrevnitz #roy tam #cliff marsland #burbank

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stereksecretsanta · 3 years

Text

Merry Christmas, tobythewise!

For @tobythewise. I tried to incorporate the prompts: canon divergence, soulmates, spark Stiles, good Alpha Derek and pack feels. I hope you enjoy! 😊

Read On AO3

*****

Dust of Snow

Derek woke up gradually as the weak winter sun crept across his sheets. Any sound from outside was muffled by the snow blanketing the woods, lending a calm, dream-like quality to the morning. Instinctively, he reached out to the other side of the bed, brow furrowing in confusion when he encountered the warmth of another body.

He opened his eyes, smile already on his face.

“Stiles?”

Sure enough, his soulmate was fast asleep beside him, completely swaddled in the duvet. Derek tugged at the corner closest to him until he could slip beneath the blankets too. Stiles made an unhappy noise at the rush of cold air invading his cocoon and latched onto Derek, who immediately felt any lingering tension drain away. He never realized how much he missed the feeling of Stiles in his space until they were reunited again.

Deaton attributed it to the bond they had forged during their first few years fighting together, that was somehow solidified by Stiles’ Spark and Derek’s own Alpha powers. They functioned best around each other and occasionally picked up on the other’s feelings in times of great stress. That particular aspect used to come in handy nearly once a week, but now the last big bad the pack dealt with was sometime in the early summer. The bond still allowed Derek to call Stiles and remind him to sleep when he was worrying about deadlines, but school stress was so much better than constant life-or-death situations.

Stiles stirred beside him, one eye opening blearily, then the other.

“You’re awake,” he said, as if Derek were the one who had just woken up.

“When did you get in?” Derek asked. According to the last time they’d spoken, Stiles planned to finish administering finals and then leave the day after the semester ended. He was currently enrolled in a prestigious master’s program that was actually a front for emissary training, but still offered TA positions to off-set the costs of attendance.

Stiles hummed sleepily, rubbing his face against Derek’s chest. “A couple hours ago. Drove home right after the last exam.”

No matter how often it happened, Stiles calling the pack house ‘home’ made Derek feel warm all over.

“You didn’t have to rush. We’re not going anywhere.”

“But I missed you,” Stiles said, turning his head to press a kiss the underside of Derek’s jaw. “Only have one more year of this and then we can wake up together every morning.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “I wake up at six.”

“I was trying to be romantic,” Stiles kicked at Derek’s shins with his cold feet. “And you like to have a lie-in as much as I do.”

“Only when you’re here with me,” Derek said, honestly.

“And the romance is back.” Stiles pushed himself up for a real kiss, taking the time to reacquaint himself with Derek.

They kissed until Stiles’ arms got tired and he collapsed back onto Derek’s chest.

“I love you,” Derek said, softly. “And I’m glad you’re home.”

“I love you too.” Stiles kissed his jaw one last time before pushing him away, rearranging their limbs to his satisfaction. “Wake me up when the pack gets here.”

Derek huffed a laugh but stayed where he was moved, with his arms wrapped around Stiles and Stiles draped over him like a heavy blanket. He pulled the duvet snug and let himself drift for a while, content to listen to Stiles’ steady heartbeat.

***

Derek must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, he was jolting awake to the sound of arguing.

“I told you, you’re supposed to let the water boil first,” Isaac’s voice drifted up the stairs.

Erica scoffed. “That makes it too hot for white tea.”

“Can you honestly tell the difference?” Boyd asked, sounding skeptical.

“Yes!” Isaac and Erica responded in unison.

Then the scuffling noises started, along with Scott’s laughter.

“Let me up.” Derek gently rolled Stiles onto the mattress, untangling himself from clingy limbs. “I need to go restore order before –”

There was the sound of ceramic shattering.

“– they break something,” Derek finished, resigned.

That was enough to wake Stiles. “Make sure to sweep, there are human feet in the house,” he said, voice still sleep-rough.

“Stiles!” Erica yelled, making Derek wince. “You weren’t supposed to be back until late!”

“And miss pack breakfast?” Stiles wriggled out from under the covers. He tugged on the long-sleeved shirt Derek had left on the floor the night before and bounced out of the room.

Derek took a moment to gather himself. Stiles was home, the pack was downstairs, and Derek couldn’t ask for a more perfect morning. This amount of happiness still made him nervous.

“Oh shit, missed a piece.” Scott said, followed by the scent of blood.

Derek sighed and grabbed Stiles’ abandoned t-shirt, pulling it on as he headed down the stairs. In the kitchen, Stiles was perched on the counter while Scott swept the floor again. He leered a bit at Derek in his shirt, before hopping down to help Erica with the eggs. Isaac was making coffee, while Boyd and Scott took turns flipping pancakes.

After feeling a warm sense of accomplishment at how well everyone was working together, Derek started setting out the plates and silverware. Pack breakfast had become a tradition after high school, where once a week everyone would try to touch base and spend some time together. Six years later, it was still going strong.

“This is the new coffee Jackson sent,” Isaac said, handing Derek a mug.

Derek took it gratefully and sat at his usual seat by the window, soaking in the feeling of pack. Stiles sat beside him, shamelessly stealing bacon off of his plate while he recounted a TA finals horror story that involved a stack of essays, an improbable amount of mud, and an unfortunately timed bus.

After the dishes were washed and put away, everyone bundled up. Stiles liked to joke about the ‘wolves needing time to commune with nature, but the reality was that keeping the pack confined to the house usually ended in property damage. Derek gave up on keeping track of how many times he’d replaced the lamp next to the sofa.

They’d barely made it off the porch before Erica shouted, “snowball fight!” and threw the first snowball, sending Isaac staggering off into a snow drift. Scott leapt to his pack-mate’s defense and tackled Erica to the ground, only to be pelted by a series of snowballs from Boyd.

Derek set off on his usual path through the woods, listening to the chaos unfold around him. It was nice to see the pack having fun, rather than fighting for their lives. Hopefully, things in Beacon Hills had settled now that there was an established pack and a soon-to-be unbeatable Alpha and Emissary pair, and they could forget the way it was in the beginning. Although not all of the memories were of pain and suffering.

There was a hum of energy accompanied by the sharp smell of ozone, and Derek found himself buried under a small mountain of snow shaken loose from the trees above.

“I feel like using your Spark powers should get you disqualified,” Derek grumbled, brushing snow from his hair and letting his melancholy thoughts dissipate.

Stiles grinned at him, rosy cheeked with snowflakes caught in his eyelashes. “All’s fair in love and snowball fights, Alpha.”

He looked so smug and beautiful; Derek had to kiss him. And maybe shove a handful of snow down the back of his coat.

Stiles squawked and ducked away, sending out another blast of energy that shook the remaining snow from the surrounding trees. Given the yelling coming from the other pack members, no one avoided the sudden snow shower.

“Is that any way to treat your future emissary?” Stiles teased, already scooping up a snowball in each hand.

“I don’t know,” Derek said. “Apparently all’s fair in love and snowball fights.”

#tobythewise #stereksnata20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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changingourdestiny · 3 years

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Beyond Light Part 3: Behemoth

Summary:

After running into her along with Drifter, Eris and the Exo Stranger, Marcia joins the team on their mission to stop Eramis. But after realising Light alone might not be enough to take down the dark Kell’s house, Rae, Tif and Marcia accept the Stranger’s offer to wield the Darkness.

Previous Part: Here

Next Part: Here

“I know. I owe you an explanation for all of this.”

Back at the campsite from before, Rae, Blaze and Tif were talking to the Exo Stranger while Drifter and Eris remained around the campfire and Marcia stood a few feet away keeping watch.

“An explanation would be nice.” Rae replied, “But that aside, it’s nice to see you again. It’s been a while.”

“Indeed.” The Stranger nodded, “The last time we spoke was when I asked you to destroy the Black Heart. To prevent Darkness’s arrival. Success may have been achieved, but now I know that fate comes knocking sooner or later. The floodgates are open. The Darkness is here. I wield it now with intent to stop our enemies where the Light cannot.”

“So you guys wield Stasis too then.” Rae said looking back at Drifter and Eris. “Not me. Not yet anyway.” Marcia interjected as she made her way over to them, “I was waiting for you guys in case you showed interest. Who better to help you control Darkness than someone cursed by it for over a thousand years?”

“She’s not wrong.” Tif added. “I almost feel bad for ya. Being stuck with Huffy the Magic Dragon, Crazy McHobo, and Negative Nancy: Creepy Edition.” Blaze chuckled.

*BONK!*

“GYAH!”

Blaze was knocked to the ground as a dark blue sphere crashed into the back of her head before returning to Eris, who was glaring at the Awoken Hunter, and reverting to its Hive bone state. “You deserved that one.” Rae said shaking her head as Blaze got to her feet while Drifter laughed from behind them, “Nice aim, Moondust!”

“And ‘Huffy the Magic Dragon’? Really?” Marcia raised an eyebrow as she folded her arms.

“Uh, you were talking about Stasis?” Tif attempted to get the conversation back on track. “Right.” The Stranger nodded, “From what I’ve heard from Marcia, your resilience within the Pyramid proves you’re capable of wielding it too.” She motioned to the temple in the distance, “Before us lies what we call a ‘Ziggurat’. Its purpose is temptation. To begin your training, you must give in.”

Rae glanced at Blaze who shook her head, “Nah. Don’t get me wrong, I trust ya. But I already have my fire and vision bs to deal with. Don’t wanna add another mysterious power to the list.”

“Fair enough.” The Stranger replied before facing Rae and Tif, “And you two?”

“I…I’ll try!” Tif volunteered, “If it means I can help people better, then I’ll do it.” The Stranger turned to Rae who sighed, “If it means we can take down Eramis a bit easier, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try. I’m in.”

“Good. Take these.” The Stranger handed Rae, Marcia and Tif a splinter each, “Please understand. The line between Light and Dark is so very thin. Let’s cross it together.”

“That line sounds familiar…” Blaze muttered under her breath. “Alright.” Rae began, “Let’s see what this Ziggurat has to offer.”

“I’ll hang back with Drifter and Eris.” Blaze said, “Lemme know when we’re heading out.” Rae nodded before she, Marcia and Tif began heading toward the Ziggurat. As they approached the stairs, Ghost piped up, “I understand why you’re going along with the Stranger’s plan, but…well, she’s clearly not telling us everything.”

“When has anyone?” Rae replied, “If we want to stand a chance against Eramis, we need to level the playing field and fight fire with fire. Or in this case, ice with ice- ARGH, AGAIN WITH THE WHISPERS!” Rae exclaimed as the whispers re-entered her head. “Yeah, I’m with ya.” Marcia grumbled as they reached the top of the stairs, “After a while it gets less creepy and more annoying.”

Upon reaching the top, four large shards stood floating in front of them. “I feel drawn to that one at the front. I think it wants us to attune to that one.” Marcia pointed out. Rae took a deep breath, “Here goes nothing…” The three Guardians held out their splinters to the shard, causing it to glow a bright orange before disappearing. “You guys feel that?” Tif asked, “I feel like I’m being drawn to somewhere.”

“Yeah, I feel it too.” Rae replied. “Well, what are we waiting for?” Marcia began heading back down the steps, “Let’s see where this leads us.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tracking down the pull of energy, Rae, Tif and Marcia found themselves in what appeared to be a Vex-constructed area where another shard was floating. “Another shard?” Rae muttered.

“Uhh…”

Rae and Marcia turned to Tif, whose shard was glowing. “Does it want you to go to it?” Berhane asked. “Let’s find out.” Tif hopped off the ledge they were standing on and made their way towards the shard before holding their splinter up to it. Suddenly there was a pulse of energy, causing Tif to stumble backwards before feeling their joints begin to freeze up as Stasis began to surround them. “Tif!” Rae was about to run to her but was stopped by Marcia placing a hand on her shoulder. “Wait.” Marcia said. Rae was about to argue with her until she saw Tif suddenly break free of the Stasis, panting heavily. “Vex incoming!” Ghost alerted and several Vex began to teleport in. Rae went for her gun but was stopped again by Marcia, “Wait for it.” Rae watched as Tif turned to face the incoming Vex horde. Stasis crystals began to surround their right fist before completely solidifying. Tif charged towards the Vex before launching themself up into the air and slamming their fist into the icy ground below. As they did, three lines of icy spikes emerged from the ground and impaled some of the Vex while freezing the others. With their gauntlet, Tif went lunging forward through the frozen Vex, shattering them instantly. Marcia and Rae watched as Tif mowed down more and more Vex with Stasis, not having to touch their gun once. Rae was awestruck while Marcia just smirked, “That’s the power of Stasis right there. I was pretty baffled too when I watched Eris and Drifter use it. And that’s only it when in the hands of a Titan! Imagine what’ll be like if you or I use it.” Marcia’s sentence was punctuated by a loud crash and a cloud of snow erupting upwards. It cleared to reveal Tif in a three-point landing with three minotaur bodies skewered by ice spikes, successfully taking out the last of the Vex. Tif stood up, out of breath but looking pretty proud of themself. However their moment of pride was interrupted by feeling energy being sucked out of them. Tif glanced down at their hand and saw that their energy was solar again, not Stasis. “W-wha? Where’d the Stasis go?!” they exclaimed. “Calm down.” Marcia reassured as she hopped off the edge, “You don’t get it right away. What you just experienced was just a sampler. The process of achieving Stasis is a test. The Darkness wants to see if we’re worthy of using it and introduces Stasis gradually. But unlike Eris and Drifter who had more time to hone theirs, we’re cut for time thanks to Eramis. So our training will be more like a trial by fire. Hope that it’ll kick in when we need it most.”

“And by the looks of it, it’s testing us one-by-one.” Rae added, “Not the most practical way, but we don’t really have a choice. I’ll have Blaze meet us back at Variks’s place. It’s time we get to planning our first strike on Eramis’s house.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We’re back.” Rae announced as she walked in the door to the base, “Sorry we took so long.”

“Can it be?” Variks narrowed his eyes at Rae, Marcia and Tif, “I can smell that poisoned power on you. Does corruption spread so quickly? Or do you hope to fight Eramis with her own weapons?”

“The latter.” Marcia replied as she followed the group inside. “Who is this?” Variks asked. “This is Marcia Wyverk. She’s a close friend of ours and a fellow Paralian.” Rae explained. “Variks the Loyal, right? Nice to finally meet you.” Marcia grinned, “Rae briefed me on the Eramis situation and I’m ready to help.”

“As for Stasis, yeah. An old friend of ours is helping us to use it properly.” Rae explained, “So far, Tif is the only one that’s used it.”

“Temporarily.” Tif added, “Marcia says that the Darkness wants to test us first.”

“You walk a very dangerous path.” Variks warned, “Take this recklessness to Phylaks, then. But beware. She is Eramis’s most skilled warrior. She made her name at Twilight Gap.”

“Yeah. Tif told us as much.” Rae replied, “Any ideas on where to start?”

“Prove yourself a worthy opponent, and she will show herself.”

“Sounds easy enough. Cause a ruckus, get her attention. The rest is sure to follow.”

“Causing a ruckus is what we do best! Right, Marci?” Blaze grinned.

“Aw yeah! This is gonna be fun!” Marcia chuckled.

“Ooh! I wanna cause a ruckus too!” Tif beamed.

“Yeah! Tif’s on team chaos!” Blaze whooped. Rae held her head in her hands, “I swear I’m gonna have a nervous breakdown dealing with these three…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“OHCRAPOHCRAPOHCRAPOH- GYAH!!!”

Marcia let out a yelp as she was thrown from the missile blast of a brig. Quickly scrambling to her feet, Marcia ducked behind a block of ice where Rae also was hiding, sniping from a distance. “Can we agree not to tell Drifter about these? Gambit will be a nightmare if he manages to lure one in.” Marcia panted. “Agreed.” Rae replied, “Oh no. Move!” Rae grabbed Marcia and dragged her away from the ice block as missile strikes came from above. “Nice reflexes.” Marcia breathed as she activated her Shadowshot bow and began firing at the brigs. “Take this, ba sloat!” Tif yelled as they charged at one of the two brigs, managing to slice at its front with their arc blade and cutting deep enough to down the large mech. “Tif, watch your six!” Blaze called out as she launched a rocket from her rocket launcher at the last brig, causing it to stumble backwards, “Go for it!”

“Thank you!~” Tif cheered in a sing-song voice as they took advantage of the stunned brig and stabbed the blaze right into its centre, digging in as deep as they could before the brig let out a low, fading whir and collapsed to the ground, Tif just managing to duck out of the way. “That’s the last of them.” Blaze let out a sigh of release as Tif removed their blade from the brig, “You think we got her attention yet?”

“I think so. Incoming message from Phylaks.” Ghost called out as Phylaks’s message came through.

“Machine-spawns! I admire your thirst for the fight. Come and find me.”

“She’s…transmitting her location to us. Looks like we won ourselves an invitation.” Ghost announced. “I’ve a feeling it’s not a dinner party sort of invitation.” Marcia muttered, dismissing her super, “Phylaks doesn’t seem to be the fancy type.”

“It’d be funny if it was!” Tif giggled, “I wouldn’t complain.”

“Where’s the coordinates at?” Rae asked. “Looks like Nexus. Beyond where Tif used her Stasis.” Ghost replied. “Well, let’s not keep our hostess waiting.” Blaze smirked, “Let’s go party, Paralight style!”

To Be Continued…

#Changing our Destiny #rae drakyx #blaze kiria #marcia wyverk #tif kariuki #fireteam paralight #exo stranger #The Drifter #destiny drifter #Eris Morn #destiny eris morn #variks the loyal #variks #destiny ghost #ghost #destiny 2

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Infinity Train and Manifestations of Trauma and Abuse

https://ift.tt/3b40KOO

In the third season of Infinity Train (subtitled Book 3), one single aspect among many sticks out: the shots of characters placing their hands on each other’s shoulders. In the crazy, random events that occur on this grandiose, mysterious train, characters reach out to each other, eager for connection, longing for trust, pining for affection.

Then when certain revelations disrupt understood and accepted relationships, the meaning and of these gestures shift. Suddenly, reaching out for others is dangerous, portrayed as movements of panic, fear, control, and manipulation. They become violations of personal space. These denials devolve into warnings, then threats, then all-out violence. Such events exemplify the theme and power of Infinity Train season 3. The show depicts the ways trauma and abuse manifest themselves, even in those we love, and the harrowing ways people have to elude the brunt of it.

Infinity Train’s overall development has been shocking, ingenious, and powerfully clever. It began as a broadly vague but character-specific fairytale of a young girl who had to face the truth of her past, and her relationship with her parents’ divorce, in which the train’s purpose could be distilled down into creating distinct worlds within each train car that provide assistance to help its troubled passengers become their best selves. The second season tore apart the premise and saw a mirrored doppelganger of the first season’s protagonists break free of their original train-car world, only to be confronted with the raw truth that the denizens of each car world serve no purpose but to advocate for the progress of the passengers.

The third season pushes this notion even further by taking a closer look at Apex, a group of passengers who have in effect tossed aside the story, who thrive in the train with little concern for the denizens of the train worlds–the “nulls.” They aren’t looking to get better; or, more accurately, they believe the act of getting better consists of increasing their number (humans who arrive on the train are assigned a number that glows on their hands; as they perform acts of generosity, bravery, compassion, or overall acts of goodness, that number goes down. Once it reaches zero, they can go back home). To them, improving one’s moral or ethical perspectives towards a self-actualized sense of peace isn’t how one gets better. To the Apex, becoming a raw, primal, carefree agent of chaos is true Enlightenment. (The Apex also have a complicated belief system where the conductor of the train, a small robot named One-One, is “fake,” and the “real” conductor, a human that took over the train way back in season one, is the One True conductor.)

Grace and Simon, the leaders of the Apex, take their wards on occasional missions to other train cars where they loot, pillage, and destroy the world within them with glee. It’s brutal to watch, even if the denizens–the nulls”–are just anthropomorphic objects. On one particular mission, the train “shifts” (relocating the entire car, basically), leaving Grace and Simon to traverse the cars to get back to the Apex HQ. Along the way they meet a young girl named Hazel and her large, powerful, protective companion, a gorilla named Tuba, who has literal tubas connected to her. Hazel intrigues the Apex leads, partly because she’s human, and the Apex recruits humans, but partly because the number on her hand doesn’t glow, while the others humans’ numbers do. The course of the season at first is about venturing back to the Apex car while figuring out a way to get Hazel on the Apex side and ditch/dispose of Tuba.

In the course of this mission, however, Grace grows more and more affectionate towards Hazel, opening up to her about her past and establishing an “older sister” dynamic to the girl. Grace’s careful manipulations to pull Hazel away from Tuba and towards her ends up also bridging Hazel and Grace closer. Simon, however, gradually starts to feel pushed away, particularly in an episode where they meet Simon’s former companion, a cat named Samantha, who ran away from him when he was younger and at his most helpless. Grace apologizes to Simon for her neglect, but this moment also plants the seed in which Simon’s broken, vicious downfall begins. In the following episode, Simon begins to step up his direct challenges to Tuba, and while Grace tries her best to maintain some kind of peace, Simon finds a way to “wheel” Tuba–to essentially kill her.

It’s an explicit, horrifying moment, and Simon expresses no remorse. Hazel, completely distraught, rushes out, but when Grace follows, Hazel transforms into a strange, turtle hyrbid. Hazel is not human but a “null,” and the revelation instantly makes Simon a real, vicious threat if he were to find out. Now Grace has to use her skill for manipulation less as a mechanism for weaponizing and control, but as a tool for protection and survival. It’s genuinely nerve-wracking to watch Grace wrack her brain in subsequent episodes to keep Hazel’s truth a secret and to keep Simon off guard. It’s even harder as Hazel struggles to keep her true emotions at bay, bottled up due to the direct fear that Simon will kill her.

The human characters that traverse this train all struggle with some kind of personal failing or struggle, but the Apex’s worldview only exacerbates the issues. Grace, for her part, channelled her loneliness and isolation into crafty acts of desire and attention, and directing that towards Hazel inadvertently starting on the path to healing. But Simon never was afforded any potential outlet for compassion or empathy. We don’t get a backstory about him, but it doesn’t matter. Samantha “leaving” him traumatized him, and seeing her again triggers him in the very direct and honest sense of the word. With no real outlet to cope or learn (Simon doesn’t get a chance to really venture the cars to even somewhat develop; Grace at least seems to explore a bit), his trauma and pains festers, solidifying into three unhealthy, self-rewarding truths: a quasi-love for Grace, a power/status role in the Apex, and a misguided understanding in the purpose of the “true” conductor.

How The Ren & Stimpy Reboot Reignited the Debate Around Animation Gatekeepers

By Kevin Johnson

So it’s inevitable that Simon wouldn’t care at all about Hazel’s loss, pain, and/or fear. Simon’s inability to provide support or empathy towards Hazel, not two episodes after Grace shows sympathy towards Simon’s traumatic relapse over losing his past “null” partner, is telling. Simon’s pain is based on what he believed to be his past partner’s betrayal and abandonment, which partly explains why he doesn’t trust nulls, but he also weaponizes his pain and trauma, wielding it the very ways abusers often do: guilt trips, passive-aggressive behaviors, snide and unsympathetic remarks (“I got through it, you should be able to, too” – never mind that no, Simon clearly has not “got through it”.)

Simon’s more committed belief into the “real conductor” narrative suggests he copes with trauma through this belief structure (and also by pouring a deep amount of meaning and vulnerability into a quasi-romantic pursuit of Grace’s heart). Other people who interfere with either of those two things are automatic threats, and ultimately disposable. It explains why when Simon sees the memory of Grace telling Hazel to keep her secret under wraps, to keep it from Simon, he doesn’t see the raw threat of real violence he has become, but the victim of some kind of audacious conspiracy against him, particularly from the person he loves.

Simon discovers the ability to “see” this memory by returning to Samantha and asking for help (Samantha possesses keener insights and access to the machinations of the train than most denizens). An uneasy, fraught alliance between them occurs when Samantha explains her past actions; while not ideal, at least had a reason. Simon asks her “why” Grace is shutting him out, but it’s remarkable how he literally can’t see–or refuses to see–the obvious: he “wheeled” someone, he terrorizes their new ward, his aggressive behavior, once proudly thrown at the nulls and worlds around him, has turned towards the one person he supposedly cares about. He’s become dangerous, but can’t grasp why people would be scared of him.

It’s the ultimate in abuser mentality. It was always burgeoning in him: a white, male nerd-type (he is introduced painting figurines and writing a fantasy novel), epitomized in his ability to manipulate his own emotions and then callously kill Tuba. Simon’s surging toxic sense of masculine control builds in a slow-moving trainwreck manner: he’s made vulnerable when he sees his original betrayer (so he thinks), he challenges himself with a unnecessary wager (“I bet I can take Tuba”), faking new found affection for her until the point he can finish her off, and when not provided with the praise he thinks he deserves, believes everyone else is wrong to react this way. Amelia’s presence (the human who once took over the train but now finds herself wandering about to try and “fix” things to make amends), destroys his entire belief structure behind the false and true conductors, specifically, the very point of the numbers. “Numbers are power,” Simon says, ruefully. “Numbers are numbers,” Samantha shoots back, calmly. But to Simon, that can’t be. Simon is humiliated, but Grace is scared. That line about men’s biggest fear is being laughed at and women’s biggest fear is being killed? It feels apt.

Watching Simon become more hostile is difficult, but at the very least, Hazel is able to escape, leaving with Amelia to learn about herself. Grace is clearly hurt, but like with Hazel, Simon doesn’t understand why. And so he gets “grabby,” in the kind of possessive, jaw-dropping, cringey way that signals instant trouble. He snatches and pulls at her arm in one deeply dark moment; in the next episode, he shakes her by grabbing at her shoulders. The following episode, he callously tries to grab at her shoulder again for her attention, and this is the point where Grace swats his hand away and unloads on him. The argument is cut short though when Simon attacks her with her own memories, a sort of specific, literal type of gaslighting that nevertheless Grace manages to overcome (“So my memories are real until you don’t like them, then they’re fake?” Grace shoots at Simon at one point during the memory venture).

Yet here is where my singular criticism of this season occurs. Grace relives both her distant and recent past and the show portrays Grace’s behavior and actions as personal fears of self-honesty instead of inherited techniques and actions to minimize and avoid Simon’s abusive reactions. Grace is far from infallible: her manipulations were self-serving early on, but she also recognized Simon as a threat at some level, so to portray this as a failing, even a little, feels disingenuous. Simon was kicking and punching at Amelia just one episode earlier, and it was a sound waves shield that protected the viewer from what very much would have been brutal. Grace was protecting all the parties involved to the best of her ability and to the best of her understanding of everything that she learned up until this point.

The final episode does address this, somewhat. Grace returns to Apex HQ a new, honest, introspective person (her number has shrunk considerably). But she finds herself at odds with the entire Apex crew, manipulated by Simon against her. They almost “wheel” her, but the Apex crew is mostly children, so they demure. But Simon confronts Grace with the uncontrolled anger he cultivated all this time. He says the words that all abusers say: “You made me do this,” attempting to force Grace to apologize for doing the very things she needed to do to ensure her and Hazel’s survival. Powerfully, Grace does say that while she made mistakes, the choices she made to lie to Simon to protect Hazel were not among them, and she stands by those, even when directly confronted with Simon at his most dangerous. She also refuses to apologize for Simon’s pain and conflicting emotional/violence state. Those two beats should have hit a bit harder though. This narrative beat emphasized what those moments for Grace really meant, not just for her, but as a broader response to the ways in which abusers justify their abuse.

Simon and Grace fight, and their battle is up-close and personal. Grace bests Simon but still saves him from being wheeled, but in the season’s most shocking moment, he pushes Grace off the train anyway. Grace, miraculously (and somewhat randomly, as it’s not common for random train denizens to leave their train worlds) is saved by a few nulls she helped restore to life; Simon, his number so high that it covers his entire face and body, is killed by a monstrous bug-creature that lives outside the wastelands that surround the train.. Grace, a changed woman whose number is now much lower than where it was when we are first introduced to her, tells her young Apex wards to seek out their own unique, special truths, and work to be better people so they themselves can be free.

Infinity Train’s greatness stems from its ability to open up its characters in the kind of ways that a lot of weighty, rich shows these days can do, like Bojack Horseman and Steven Universe, but it also possesses an inherent flaw that the writers are actually utilizing as a narrative crutch in rich, clever ways. From the question of how its train worlds portray and think of its denizens, to the question of whether the train’s purpose is genuinely beneficial, Infinity Train makes the argument that maybe it’s not.

One-One, in past seasons, fixates on the humans’ pain, trauma, and problems as algorithms, as numbers that need to be solved. But as the Apex, Simon, and Grace showed, humans are messy, complex beings that can disrupt any premise or belief or narrative to justify their behavior and actions. Simon, prior to his final fight, yells to Grace, “Why would I ever want to change, when I’m always right!?” Trauma, pain, and abuse cannot always be solved with whimsy. One of the last shots of the season has Grace crying over Simon’s body. An Apex member places his hand on her shoulder. Perhaps an honest connection like that is truly what’s needed to be better people.

Infinity Train is available to stream on HBO Max now.

The post Infinity Train and Manifestations of Trauma and Abuse appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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intematefly · 4 years

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Step by step instructions to Satisfy Your Wife

I have recently been left in such a condition of complete sexual weariness that even Jude Law and Brad Pitt couldn't stir my advantage, quit worrying about much else generous. For sure, such is my repletion, that I dread I may always again be unable to grasp a Romeo y Julietta half-crown between my thighs.

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Everything started mundanely enough when I was popping some underwear into the tumble dryer and discussing whether to sit on top and consider England. The tumble-drier that is, not the underwear. I am glad to state that desire prevailed upon genteel unobtrusiveness, and hitching up my dark small skirt most of the way up my delightfully tanned, smooth thighs, I stopped my charmingly sprightly base on the tumble dryer and trusted that a turning out to be wetness will assemble around my solidifying love button. No sooner had the first tremours which consistently foretell these moving encounters for me, started to swell through my thighs, than I heard the natural tones of my better half over the satisfying murmur of Germany's best vibrating homegrown apparatus.

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"Simply coming," I answered with impressively more precision than expected.

Tragically I didn't come- - or 'cum'- - as you miserably verbally tested youngsters demand spelling the word which falls so oftentimes from your lips, however I think isn't at all surely known, as my little story will quickly uncover sex in corona virus.

"However, I figured you weren't returning until Saturday?" I shouted as my smiling playmate planted a loving kiss on my improved lips.

"I thought I'd shock you, sweetheart," he answered pleasantly, and included kindly: "I was unable to manage the idea of you in isolation with just that dreadful American Harold Robbins to delight you."

I should include at this point that Michael is a good old kind of chap, who while he has nothing against careless American mash fiction, discovers Mr Robbins' bodice-tearing portrayals of female excitement rather bland, or as he once put it to me: "That man is clearly a couple of prophylactics shy of the full pack or he would not constantly abide upon the size of his champion's chests. The chap is basically not mindful of any erogenous zone other than his own, 'fun-sized' pardon for a todger."

In any case, I stray. You need to recognize what we did together after Michael discovered me in the high condition of sexual excitement which his hasten entrance unexpectedly captured. Indeed, you will, my dears, you will. My darling had brought some scrumptious, wild smoked salmon with him which tragically won't be something that the vast majority of you have ever eaten. Do the trick it to state that the individuals who have, realize that it will generally be a delicacy of outperforming greatness not to be contrasted and the terrible filth my perusers scoop down their necks in 'down the chippy'. I subsequently proposed Michael prepare a light plate of mixed greens while I opened up a container or three of an especially light and fruity Californian Zinfandel.

When we had completed the process of eating and were very much into our second jug of plonk, Michael had figured out how to strip me of my pullover and bra and was persistently utilized in recharging his crooked tongue's long knowledge of my bosoms. So diligent was he in giving equivalent consideration to the two areolas (so as not to cause the smallest enviously) that his fingers' investigation of my pants was a fairly hit and miss issue. Those of you who have touched a lady's areolas with your tongue while at the same time fingering her adoration button in an adequately master way to stir her passion and poured wine with your other hand simultaneously, will realize that it is so hard to give equivalent focus to every one of these undertakings while the lady has her hand around your laugh stick.

Normally, Michael fizzled, yet he flopped bravely and we ladies welcome a man who gives his all in the quest for the fulfillment of his dearest.

Minutes after the fact we tumbled, as one does, onto the sheepskin carpet in the parlor, that Michael had mindfully made more agreeable by the shrewd expansion of a few pads put at vital focuses fully expecting the foolish deserting into which we currently plunged.

I was going to eliminate his pants when he got a handle on my wrist and advised me to close my eyes. Dutiful as I am in everything intimate (observe, you freed young ladies) I promptly leaned back on the pads and energetically anticipated improvements in the desire for something very irregular.

I didn't have long to pause, nor was I disillusioned. The main sensation was something round, hard, yet plush, being delicately squeezed between my separated thighs. I came to down to contact the puzzling interloper just to have my hand authoritatively slapped away. Gradually the article, which I presently saw was a little ball, was pushed under my inexorably wet pants. Another before long followed it and another. The most incredibly wonderful sensations overwhelmed through me as my sweetheart's handy tongue continued to instigate the puzzling spheroids to initiate a languorous move around the engorged access to my affection burrow.

I detected, instead of felt his teeth nibble into delicate tissue. Chill juice ran off my thighs and a hot, fragrant smell destroyed my trembling nostrils.

This was trailed by the first of many breaking climaxes, as what I presently acknowledged was some little, fragrant natural product, was squashed against my erect clitoris.

I was shuddering in each appendage and had everything except fainted away when the odiferous organic product was abruptly moved to my frightened lips. Its sugary alcohol was blended with the sweet wine of my own bounteous love juices and I licked my lips in thankful euphoria.

"Wow!" I discharged (quip completely planned), "it's a greengage!"

Any further conversation was smothered as a greater amount of the ambrosial organic products were tenderly moved to my trembling lips, hot from their dangerous visit between my shuddering thighs.

For those of you who have never tasted an English greengage straight from the tree in your own nursery, let me endeavor to portray the experience to you. The natural product is round and about an inch and a quarter in measurement. When completely ready, it is a brilliant, straightforward green- - flushed with pink and purple features. The skin looks like nothing to such an extent as an excellent lady's base, plush, and brilliantly delicate and providing for the touch. Pass the natural product before you nose and you are immediately compensated with the most brilliant fragrance; aromatic of drowsy summer days, powerful like a peach, hot like a newly cut apple, yet more perplexing than either and overlaid with all the lushness of the best attar of Rose. In the event that Chanel could blend such an aroma, ladies would murder for it.

And afterward you gently take it between your delicately separated lips and nibble into the substance. Ok! The pleasantness is stunning. So strongly sugary it nearly consumes your mouth with its pleasantness, yet like every one of Nature's organic products, never wiped out in the way that man-made desserts are. In any case, pause... there is another amazement, for as the tissue dissolves in your mouth and the clingy juices thrill your tongue, you experience a delectable sharpness; a tang of apple-like freshness as you bite the skin and gradually oust the rest of the substance from the little stone inside.

#sexcorona virussafeunsafe

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onigirii · 5 years

Text

MESSAGE. [ guard ] @johtei

NONVERBAL MEMES. ( closed )

for your muse to step between my muse and danger

IT WAS RANDOM &. UNEXPECTED, occurring in the middle of the night when most of the Kuja population was asleep, vulnerable to malicious intent ; a pirate crew, a pack of men, infiltrated Amazon Lily, inducing terror &. violence in their wake as the onslaught shouted a deafening battle cry with swords in hand, some staying on-board to load their cannons in the island`s direction.

Fortunately, Nezuko was on watch --- a demon child that rises when the sun falls, highly alert unlike those that were on-guard alongside her. As soon as the pirates were on land, on the sandy beaches by the shore, that`s when she &. the remaining guards on night watch took off where the invaders stood, with Nezuko taking the lead among the pack --- quiet, relying on the element of surprise. She was the quickest, with enhanced strength &. vitality as a result of her demonic status. Her goal was ambitious, but she hoped to stop them before they could come close to reaching the Kuja village.

A one-track mind, her vision was red, 'Kill them ... Kill them ... Kill them all.' The mantra repeated in her head like a desperate prayer as she was heaving, practically salivating with rage. Veins protruded furiously from her forehead &. enclosed around her eyes. Tunnel-visioned. Too tunnel-visioned. After all the loss she endured in Wano, after all the months she spent in Amazon Lily ... Nezuko cannot, will not, allow anyone to take her newfound family away from her, never again --- she will protect everyone with her life, a meager price for all that the Gorgon Sisters has given her &. her brother without demanding anything in return. The moment her feet touched the sand, course against her calloused soles, she swiftly removed her long-sleeved haori before her nails made a clean cut through her delicate skin, tearing off flesh, jumping up immediately towards the front-lines the moment her blood began to seep out, spilling onto the numerous faces &. uncovered skin of the unsuspecting pirates as they grunt in shock, a chorus of disgusted groans. Then, a fiery explosion. A grand entrance. Without a second to lose, her blood burst into flames, burning up the men engulfed in a scorching heat, unlucky enough to come headfirst into battle. The display was brutal ; most of them were screaming out a blood-curdling cry as they burned alive. One particular pirate fell to his knees, wheezing his last breath before presumably succumbing to the burns. Soon, the remaining pirates changed their trajectory &. turned their attention towards Nezuko, directing their focus to attack her rather than ambush the village. &. Soon, she was surrounded. She was a threat, a deadly one, &. she cannot be stopped.

Her kick-based attacks were just as striking as her demon art, having trained to incapacitate anyone with one, single swift kick, equally beautiful as it is powerful. A true Boa Hancock incarnate. The resemblance was uncanny as she handled the legion on her own, precise where her foot landed as she aimed for the pressure point on the chest or neck of any pirate that dared to get close to the demon. Before long, the Kuja guards joined Nezuko &. her assault on the invaders, aiding her where she failed. Her rage predisposed her to attack indiscriminately, occasionally aiming for an ally that was fortunately skilled enough to block Nezuko`s kick with ease before piercing the pirate sneaking behind the girl with their lance. Precise, but too sloppy. Her feet were painted red with foreign blood, unable to recall how many men fell by her rage. Her view was not 360 &. her vision was red. She lacked focus.

Tunnel visioned. Too tunnel visioned. Nezuko was too late to realize a pirate had his gun pointed directly at her head --- conniving in his dirty methods to take her out, too far from her reach. &. When she finally did notice his weapon, she faltered, feet planted on the ground as she shut her eyes, bracing for impact --- heartbeat quickened, banging in her eardrums ; she forgot to breathe. Panic ... panicking. The pandemonium increased after the deafening bang of the gun shot.

Then ... silence. Before the loud ringing heightened in her ears. &. Nothing ever came.

Nezuko opened her eyes to find that she was still alive. Still breathing. Air reached her lungs in short breaths.

She saw that Hancock now stood in front of her, her leg in mid-air after kicking away the bullet that was nearly a breath away from claiming her, directing it back at her assailant before it struck him square in the forehead. A grand entrance. "Stay behind me," she heard the older woman command ; at least, the general gist of it. It was still hard to hear with all the ringing in her ears. Following instruction, she did as Hancock said, latching onto her arm. &. Just as quickly as Nezuko took down the front-lines only moments before, Hancock petrified a great number of the invading pirates to stone, undoubtedly lusting after the beauty pirate queen. For those that averted their eyes, she maimed with one, single kick --- the force carried an immense amount of strength to blow out a whirlwind sharp enough to cut a knife. The pirates that once surrounded the demon were now lying on the ground, either dead or paralyzed. &. Hancock did not look down once ; the pirate invaders were unworthy of her gaze. From the distance out at sea, there was an explosion, then another, then another. Consecutively. It seems like Hancock`s sisters were able to immobilize the pirate ships before they sank. Those few that survived surrendered in defeat, clearly unmatched by the Kuja tribe.

If anything, the incident solidified the girl`s hatred towards pirates --- hostile &. inexplicably proud of their cruelty, indiscriminate without rhyme or reason. But more than anything else, she appreciates &. is wholly devoted to Boa Hancock, the only pirate that has ever offered her &. her brother any semblance of kindness. The assault was over &. she can now relax. Hancock then covered Nezuko`s shoulder with the haori she abandoned earlier, enveloping her with warmth. Gradually, the ringing in her ears stopped, &. she was grounded back to Earth. The hard grip she had on the woman`s arm relaxed to a light touch, before sliding down to hold her hand, a soft grasp as a display of her relief with a desire to never let go.

#johtei #that new op movie in theaters now gave me a lot of muse for this verse akfnreka #◜ﾟ✧. a murder of crows (answered). ❜#◜ﾟ✧. trapped in a maze all night (ic). ❜#◜ﾟ✧. it is i who will open up the world in this era (one piece). ❜#boanezu tag.#blood mention /#death mention /#long post /

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heresince93 · 5 years

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Full transcript of Gillian’s Telegraph interview

Gillian Anderson is hard to pin down. Is she American or English? (Her accent slips between the two, depending on who she is talking to.) Guarded or warm? (She can be either, based on her mood.) Tough or vulnerable? (Or both?)

When we meet Anderson is English and warm, talking about the birthday parties she has to organise (she has three children, Piper, 24, Oscar, 12, and Felix, 10); and although she is very petite, wearing white patent stiletto boots and slender black trousers, she exudes the commanding charisma that makes her perfect for her imminent roles.

Rumour has it that she will be playing Margaret Thatcher in an upcoming series of The Crown, the Netflix series created and co-written by her partner, Peter Morgan. No one is confirming this, but no one is denying it either.

Meanwhile, this month she stars in a new Netflix series, Sex Education, in which she plays a sex therapist who lives with her teenage son (Asa Butterfield). And in February Anderson has another plum role: Margo Channing in Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove’s much-anticipated adaptation of All About Eve, also starring Lily James as Eve, with music by PJ Harvey.

The play – a modern reinterpretation of the 1950 film, which starred Bette Davis as Channing, a blazing Broadway star who is gradually supplanted by a younger rival – is about ambition and betrayal, femininity and anger, stardom and personal sacrifice.

Anderson’s is a bravura role, one that requires not just the cool intensity that we have come to expect from her, but also humour. Channing is deliciously droll, delivering endlessly quotable lines with comic precision (‘I’ll admit I may have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut’).

‘A couple of years ago my boyfriend Pete said to me, “You know what would be a great role for you? Margo Channing,”’ Anderson says. ‘So I rewatched the film and I thought, “Oh my God, how much fun would that be!”’

Anderson, not one to wait for opportunity, discovered that theatre producer Sonia Friedman had the rights to the script and was working on it with van Hove – Cate Blanchett was set to be Channing. ‘So I thought, “Ah OK, I’ll just slink into the background.” Then my agents got a call to say that she [Blanchett] had backed out due to scheduling conflicts, and there was interest, and was I interested? So I was like, “Yes! When’s the meeting? Now?”’

Van Hove, on the phone from New York, is equally excited to be working with Anderson. ‘Margo needs someone who understands what the theatre is all about, someone who can carry a play, who can occupy the whole stage, and Gillian can do that; she is a fabulous theatre actress. Although, of course, she became iconic for me in the 1990s when she was in The X-Files.’

There is something a little surprising about Ivo van Hove, an avant-garde director celebrated for his reinterpretations of plays and operas such as Hedda Gabler, Antigone and Lulu, professing fandom for a mid-’90s sci-fi series; but that is to forget the huge cultural impact of The X-Files, its quality and its ingenuity.

The series was about two FBI agents, played by Anderson and David Duchovny, who attempt to unravel various natural and supernatural mysteries. No one expected it to become such a success, least of all Anderson, who was 24 when she was cast in the show. It was her first major role and it made her a star.

She won multiple awards for her portrayal of the sceptical Dr Dana Scully, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe. But such stardom often involves sacrifice and Anderson was suffering.

The production schedule for The X-Files was brutal, involving 16-hour days for nine months of the year. Furthermore, in 1994, aged 25, Anderson married Clyde Klotz, assistant art director on the series, and nine months later she gave birth to their daughter, Piper. After three years she and Klotz divorced. It was while she was pregnant that Anderson started having severe panic attacks.

‘I was having them daily,’ she explains, experiencing palpitations, numbness, ‘hallucinations, all of it’. Things didn’t get better once Piper was born. ‘I was a young mother, and shortly after that we were separating, and I was working these crazy hours. I remember periods of time when I was just crying, my make-up was being done over and over again and I was not able to stop crying.’

Anderson sought solace in meditation. ‘I went to somebody and there was a meditation we did together. We went to some quite dark places and I got to see that I could still survive those dark places, I was stronger than they were, and after that the panic attacks stopped.’

Anderson had been having panic attacks, on and off, ‘since high school’. As a teenager she was a daydreamer and a troublemaker who felt different from her peers in Michigan because of her childhood in Harringay, having left the ‘incy-bincy flat with a bathroom outside’ that she and her parents lived in when she was 11 years old, when her family moved back to the US.

‘I started falling in with groups and trying to fit in, until it got to the point when it was like, “I don’t f—ing want to fit in. I want to look completely different to all of you, and stop staring at me because I have a mohawk.” I’d shave the sides of my head with a razor blade and dye my hair different colours.’

Anderson’s parents, Rosemary and Ed, were living in Chicago and were both just 26 when she was born. Soon afterwards the family moved to London so Ed could attend film school, while Rosemary worked as a computer programmer.

‘My parents were working very hard and would often work late. I have lots of memories of playing by myself in the back garden and searching for friends in the neighbourhood because I didn’t have siblings.’

After moving back to America, Rosemary and Ed had two more children, a son and a daughter. Anderson admits that her adolescent waywardness might have been related to the arrival of two new babies in the house. ‘I made trouble and I got attention that way.’

Acting is another way to get attention, something Anderson learnt early on. ‘I remember being in a play when I was in primary school. I was meant to be a Chelsea fan. I started chewing gum on stage and blowing bubbles and got all the attention. I thought, “This is all right, everybody is watching me!”’

But when she reached 16 and started doing more professional productions in America, performing became fundamentally important to her. ‘I enjoyed the connection between performer and audience, the control. And I remember thinking, “I can do this. They are showing me I can do this.”

'It changed everything in my life, knowing I could do something. Prior to that there hadn’t been that moment yet when I found purpose and direction.’

Anderson decided that she wanted to pursue acting as a career and was accepted at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. ‘From the very start of school I didn’t go into the dorms, instead I found an apartment with a roommate in a funky neighbourhood. I was the only one who was living out of school. That is my pattern, carving my own thing.

'All through [theatre] school I dressed like I was a member of The Cure. That was how I was in the world, grungy, not considered, not mature. I was forthright and gutsy – I drove myself to Chicago in my dad’s VW van – but slightly falling apart.’

She always knew she would return to England. ‘My childhood here, the smell of north London, it has such a massive tug on me. I really felt, when we moved to the States, that I would eventually have a life back here.’

She and Piper moved to the city after The X-Files ended its original run, and she went on to have two more children, Oscar and Felix, with her now ex-boyfriend, businessman Mark Griffiths (there was also a marriage to British documentary maker Julian Ozanne, which lasted for two years, with the couple separating in 2006).

Anderson, as DSI Stella Gibson, was imperious in her white silk shirts and high heels, unwavering in her pursuit of the serial killer played by Jamie Dornan. The screenwriter Allan Cubitt created the role of Gibson with Anderson in mind. ‘I wanted Gibson to be an enigmatic figure. Gillian is a riveting actress, but there is an aloofness to her as well. Also I was attempting to reclaim the idea of the powerful femme fatale, without the fatale; someone who is aware that her beauty can be used to help her ends. That she is unafraid of that was radical.’

Anderson was deeply involved in the creation of Gibson’s look, altering the way she thought about herself in the process. ‘What fascinated me about her, and I feel that we were able to find that in the costume design, was that the way she dressed never felt like it was for anyone else but her. I don’t think I have necessarily changed the way I dress since her, but I feel like I am certainly more conscious of what I wear and what it says.’

As a younger woman her style was ‘messy, like a discarded urchin’. She would wear oversized suits and ‘floppy dresses that I had probably stolen from the thrift store’. Whereas now her look is sleek, and she favours brands like Jil Sander, Prada and Dries Van Noten.

The Fall was about gender, power and desire; and it was while filming it in Belfast that Anderson began thinking more about the struggles that women face in the 21st century. ‘I was reading all these statistics about young girls being suicidal and having such low self-esteem and I thought, “Surely, given everything that we know, and the fact we are all having these feelings, can we not start a conversation about whether we want this and how to deal with it?”’

This morphed into her writing a book, We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere, with her friend, the writer and activist Jennifer Nadel, in 2017. Alternating between pieces by Anderson and Nadel, it details their own personal struggles, and includes practical sections on how to deal with issues such as anxiety and low self-esteem using practices such as meditation, affirmations and gratitude lists.

‘We both know how it feels to be in emotional pain,’ says Nadel. ‘Both of us have felt lost, and found a spiritual way out. Both of us have experienced radical transformation as a result of the things that we wrote about in that book.’

Cubitt and Nadel each say that among the most impressive things about Anderson, as a collaborator, are her focus and drive.

‘I have never met anyone with Gillian’s ability to focus. And she has a certainty about things, she is not mired in indecision,’ says Nadel. What this means is not just an incredibly long CV, but numerous satellite projects. Anderson has a line of smart, grown-up clothes that she has developed with the brand Winser London (‘I didn’t realise I was so opinionated about buttons!’).

She also works for numerous charities, focusing especially on women’s rights and environmental issues. ‘Because of my work ethic and also having had such high expectations, both of myself and other people’s of me, at such a young age, I think it became near to impossible for me to relax at all, to do anything that wasn’t work-related, so a lot of my later adult life has been trying to force myself to do that, and I struggle so hard, and sometimes I lose sight of it. So there is a part of me that wonders if I am slightly addicted [to work], I learnt it so young.’

The scant spare time that Anderson allows herself is spent ‘going to the cinema, to the theatre, watching documentaries’.

Piper, who has just completed a degree in production and costume design, is now living in her mother’s basement, and the two of them recently went on a trip to Amsterdam to see van Hove’s four-hour stage adaptation of the Hanya Yanagihara novel A Little Life. That might not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but Anderson loved it.

And despite all the seriousness and the self-examination (or perhaps because of it), she is good company, thoughtful and witty. She has, she says, got happier as she has got older, less self-critical, more self-accepting.

‘I am constantly reminded of the fact that I am not normal. But fortunately I have enough abnormal people around me to help me feel that it is actually OK.’

All About Eve is running at the Noël Coward Theatre from 2 February to 11 May 2019

#gillian anderson

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flexiblefish · 5 years

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Source:[X]

by Gavanndra Hodge 12 JANUARY 2019

'‘Because my parents were American and we lived here in the UK, there was always a sense of not quite fitting in. Because of that I’ve always felt a bit of an outsider. I have perpetuated that because that is what feels familiar to me, it is what feels comfortable,’ she explains. When we meet Anderson is English and warm, talking about the birthday parties she has to organise (she has three children, Piper, 24, Oscar, 12, and Felix, 10); and although she is very petite, wearing white patent stiletto boots and slender black trousers, she exudes the commanding charisma that makes her perfect for her imminent roles. Rumour has it that she will be playing Margaret Thatcher in an upcoming series of The Crown, the Netflix series created and co-written by her partner, Peter Morgan. No one is confirming this, but no one is denying it either. Meanwhile, this month she stars in a new Netflix series, Sex Education, in which she plays a sex therapist who lives with her teenage son (Asa Butterfield). And in February Anderson has another plum role: Margo Channing in Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove’s much-anticipated adaptation of All About Eve, also starring Lily James as Eve, with music by PJ Harvey. The play – a modern reinterpretation of the 1950 film, which starred Bette Davis as Channing, a blazing Broadway star who is gradually supplanted by a younger rival – is about ambition and betrayal, femininity and anger, stardom and personal sacrifice. Anderson’s is a bravura role, one that requires not just the cool intensity that we have come to expect from her, but also humour. Channing is deliciously droll, delivering endlessly quotable lines with comic precision (‘I’ll admit I may have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut’). ‘A couple of years ago my boyfriend Pete said to me, “You know what would be a great role for you? Margo Channing,”’ Anderson says. ‘So I rewatched the film and I thought, “Oh my God, how much fun would that be!”’ Anderson, not one to wait for opportunity, discovered that theatre producer Sonia Friedman had the rights to the script and was working on it with van Hove – Cate Blanchett was set to be Channing. ‘So I thought, “Ah OK, I’ll just slink into the background.” Then my agents got a call to say that she [Blanchett] had backed out due to scheduling conflicts, and there was interest, and was I interested? So I was like, “Yes! When’s the meeting? Now?”’ Van Hove, on the phone from New York, is equally excited to be working with Anderson. ‘Margo needs someone who understands what the theatre is all about, someone who can carry a play, who can occupy the whole stage, and Gillian can do that; she is a fabulous theatre actress. Although, of course, she became iconic for me in the 1990s when she was in The X-Files.’ There is something a little surprising about Ivo van Hove, an avant-garde director celebrated for his reinterpretations of plays and operas such as Hedda Gabler, Antigone and Lulu, professing fandom for a mid-’90s sci-fi series; but that is to forget the huge cultural impact of The X-Files, its quality and its ingenuity. The series was about two FBI agents, played by Anderson and David Duchovny, who attempt to unravel various natural and supernatural mysteries. No one expected it to become such a success, least of all Anderson, who was 24 when she was cast in the show. It was her first major role and it made her a star. She won multiple awards for her portrayal of the sceptical Dr Dana Scully, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe. But such stardom often involves sacrifice and Anderson was suffering. The production schedule for The X-Files was brutal, involving 16-hour days for nine months of the year. Furthermore, in 1994, aged 25, Anderson married Clyde Klotz, assistant art director on the series, and nine months later she gave birth to their daughter, Piper. After three years she and Klotz divorced. It was while she was pregnant that Anderson started having severe panic attacks. ‘I was having them daily,’ she explains, experiencing palpitations, numbness, ‘hallucinations, all of it’. Things didn’t get better once Piper was born. ‘I was a young mother, and shortly after that we were separating, and I was working these crazy hours. I remember periods of time when I was just crying, my make-up was being done over and over again and I was not able to stop crying.’ Anderson sought solace in meditation. ‘I went to somebody and there was a meditation we did together. We went to some quite dark places and I got to see that I could still survive those dark places, I was stronger than they were, and after that the panic attacks stopped.’ Anderson had been having panic attacks, on and off, ‘since high school’. As a teenager she was a daydreamer and a troublemaker who felt different from her peers in Michigan because of her childhood in Harringay, having left the ‘incy-bincy flat with a bathroom outside’ that she and her parents lived in when she was 11 years old, when her family moved back to the US. ‘I started falling in with groups and trying to fit in, until it got to the point when it was like, “I don’t f—ing want to fit in. I want to look completely different to all of you, and stop staring at me because I have a mohawk.” I’d shave the sides of my head with a razor blade and dye my hair different colours.’ Anderson’s parents, Rosemary and Ed, were living in Chicago and were both just 26 when she was born. Soon afterwards the family moved to London so Ed could attend film school, while Rosemary worked as a computer programmer. ‘My parents were working very hard and would often work late. I have lots of memories of playing by myself in the back garden and searching for friends in the neighbourhood because I didn’t have siblings.’ After moving back to America, Rosemary and Ed had two more children, a son and a daughter. Anderson admits that her adolescent waywardness might have been related to the arrival of two new babies in the house. ‘I made trouble and I got attention that way.’ Acting is another way to get attention, something Anderson learnt early on. ‘I remember being in a play when I was in primary school. I was meant to be a Chelsea fan. I started chewing gum on stage and blowing bubbles and got all the attention. I thought, “This is all right, everybody is watching me!”’ But when she reached 16 and started doing more professional productions in America, performing became fundamentally important to her. ‘I enjoyed the connection between performer and audience, the control. And I remember thinking, “I can do this. They are showing me I can do this.” 'It changed everything in my life, knowing I could do something. Prior to that there hadn’t been that moment yet when I found purpose and direction.’ Anderson decided that she wanted to pursue acting as a career and was accepted at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. ‘From the very start of school I didn’t go into the dorms, instead I found an apartment with a roommate in a funky neighbourhood. I was the only one who was living out of school. That is my pattern, carving my own thing. 'All through [theatre] school I dressed like I was a member of The Cure. That was how I was in the world, grungy, not considered, not mature. I was forthright and gutsy – I drove myself to Chicago in my dad’s VW van – but slightly falling apart.’ She always knew she would return to England. ‘My childhood here, the smell of north London, it has such a massive tug on me. I really felt, when we moved to the States, that I would eventually have a life back here.’ She and Piper moved to the city after The X-Files ended its original run, and she went on to have two more children, Oscar and Felix, with her now ex-boyfriend, businessman Mark Griffiths (there was also a marriage to British documentary maker Julian Ozanne, which lasted for two years, with the couple separating in 2006).

In the UK Anderson’s career developed in a way that might not have been expected for the golden girl of ’90s sci-fi. She took juicy roles in big-budget period dramas – Lady Dedlock in Bleak House, Miss Havisham in Great Expectations – and appeared on stage, at the Royal Court and the Donmar Warehouse. But it was her performance in the BBC detective drama The Fall, starting in 2013, that solidified her reputation as the go-to actor for female characters who are charismatic and powerful. Anderson, as DSI Stella Gibson, was imperious in her white silk shirts and high heels, unwavering in her pursuit of the serial killer played by Jamie Dornan. The screenwriter Allan Cubitt created the role of Gibson with Anderson in mind. ‘I wanted Gibson to be an enigmatic figure. Gillian is a riveting actress, but there is an aloofness to her as well. Also I was attempting to reclaim the idea of the powerful femme fatale, without the fatale; someone who is aware that her beauty can be used to help her ends. That she is unafraid of that was radical.’ Anderson was deeply involved in the creation of Gibson’s look, altering the way she thought about herself in the process. ‘What fascinated me about her, and I feel that we were able to find that in the costume design, was that the way she dressed never felt like it was for anyone else but her. I don’t think I have necessarily changed the way I dress since her, but I feel like I am certainly more conscious of what I wear and what it says.’ As a younger woman her style was ‘messy, like a discarded urchin’. She would wear oversized suits and ‘floppy dresses that I had probably stolen from the thrift store’. Whereas now her look is sleek, and she favours brands like Jil Sander, Prada and Dries Van Noten. The Fall was about gender, power and desire; and it was while filming it in Belfast that Anderson began thinking more about the struggles that women face in the 21st century. ‘I was reading all these statistics about young girls being suicidal and having such low self-esteem and I thought, “Surely, given everything that we know, and the fact we are all having these feelings, can we not start a conversation about whether we want this and how to deal with it?”’ This morphed into her writing a book, We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere, with her friend, the writer and activist Jennifer Nadel, in 2017. Alternating between pieces by Anderson and Nadel, it details their own personal struggles, and includes practical sections on how to deal with issues such as anxiety and low self-esteem using practices such as meditation, affirmations and gratitude lists. ‘We both know how it feels to be in emotional pain,’ says Nadel. ‘Both of us have felt lost, and found a spiritual way out. Both of us have experienced radical transformation as a result of the things that we wrote about in that book.’ Cubitt and Nadel each say that among the most impressive things about Anderson, as a collaborator, are her focus and drive. ‘I have never met anyone with Gillian’s ability to focus. And she has a certainty about things, she is not mired in indecision,’ says Nadel. What this means is not just an incredibly long CV, but numerous satellite projects. Anderson has a line of smart, grown-up clothes that she has developed with the brand Winser London (‘I didn’t realise I was so opinionated about buttons!’). She also works for numerous charities, focusing especially on women’s rights and environmental issues. ‘Because of my work ethic and also having had such high expectations, both of myself and other people’s of me, at such a young age, I think it became near to impossible for me to relax at all, to do anything that wasn’t work-related, so a lot of my later adult life has been trying to force myself to do that, and I struggle so hard, and sometimes I lose sight of it. So there is a part of me that wonders if I am slightly addicted [to work], I learnt it so young.’ The scant spare time that Anderson allows herself is spent ‘going to the cinema, to the theatre, watching documentaries’. Piper, who has just completed a degree in production and costume design, is now living in her mother’s basement, and the two of them recently went on a trip to Amsterdam to see van Hove’s four-hour stage adaptation of the Hanya Yanagihara novel A Little Life. That might not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but Anderson loved it. And despite all the seriousness and the self-examination (or perhaps because of it), she is good company, thoughtful and witty. She has, she says, got happier as she has got older, less self-critical, more self-accepting. ‘I am constantly reminded of the fact that I am not normal. But fortunately I have enough abnormal people around me to help me feel that it is actually OK.’

#gillian anderson #all about eve #nice article #a little more depth than usual

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doomedandstoned · 5 years

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Naked Monks Open Gateway to Mystery in LP ‘Take 37′

~Tom Hanno~

I am bombarded with review submissions on a daily basis, some slide through and get reviewed, some get sent to the trash folder, but others, such as the new NAKED MONKS album, demand reviewing. The music was a large part of that, but once they explained the theme and the secret code, the power of the music was doubled by a form of creativity that doesn't get explored in music very often. Get ready, because this gets very interesting, and rocks hard.

Take 37 by Naked Monks

On this new album, entitled 'Take 37' (2019), Naked Monks delve into the darker side of human behavior, but I'll let them explain, "The aesthetics of the album is based on cult behavior and serial killer Hollywood classics. These themes relate to the photography of the album, in which each photo is pinned to a song, the desired feeling of that song and seeks to tell a story. Holding up to the existence of a plot, the tone of the album solidifies, becoming more aggressive along the way." Each photo also contains a number, and when deciphered reveals a message; something I find extremely intriguing, and unique in this situation.

"Open Door" starts the album off with a mellow, almost Mumford and Sons type of vibe; due in no small part to the vocals in the intro. Even as the first verse begins, that Mumford vibe continues on, and a more rock edge creeps into the mix. This begins the journey nicely, and is also the most relaxed song on Take 37, as the rest of the album gradually picks up the pace.

My personal preference is called "Turn Around". If you listen to how the vocals are performed, the nuances, his inflections, the way he pronounces words, then you'll realize just how talented this man is. The intro has a familiar sound to it, like the mellow aspects of grunge, and the groove is beautiful as the verse parts kick in.

The first track I'd heard by Naked Monks was the phenomenal "Camel Tongue", which is currently tied for best track on the record. This is one of the tracks that will make you wanna move, tap your feet, bob your head, something will move. I love the way this one is written, it's just put together so well. I also love the tone of the guitars, that fuzz is biting, but sweet as all hell too!

Immediately following "Camel Tongue" is another great tune, "Debbie Downer". The guitars have such a gritty tone, almost like a dirty blues sound, not to mention how nicely this song flows; making me think I may have three songs tied for first on this album. As on every track, the vocals are flawlessly performed.

Now we come to the part where I discuss the secret code that is hidden within the numbered pictures in the liner notes. Now, I totally suck at decoding things like this, so I asked the band for their help. Then, after a brief glimpse of hope that spring from the confirmation that I was correct on the first step, I realized that I'm too dense to get further without the answer; I'll give you that first step, but only because it is so obvious anyway.

There's ten photos, each with one number on them. The fabled first step is the realization that one of these numbers is 26, and that there are exactly 26 letters in the English language. Those letters are only the first step, and, if you really can't figure it out, you can email me at [email protected], and I'll give out the solution to the first 3 people who ask.

This Portuguese band makes music that is very well thought out, taking the aesthetics into consideration on as even a plane as the music. That fact is what deepened my interest into Naked Monks' Take 37 album, and despite not figuring out the code on my own, the idea of that approach is endlessly interesting. If I were you, I'd head to their Bandcamp page and crank out these songs. While you're doing that, see if you can crack the code using the attached photos. Good luck and Enjoy!

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#D&S Reviews #Naked Monks #Lisbon #Portugal #stoner rock #Tom Hanno #Doomed & Stoned

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lgbtqiahistoricalromance · 5 years

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*LGBTQIA+ Historical Romance Novels w/Cowboys, Ranchers, and People of the Frontier and Old West (Includes Fantasy, Steampunk, and Horror offerings this time.)

A River of Time by Dale Chase

- It's 1895 when Luke Straily returns to Gunnison, Colorado, after a twelve-year absence and reluctantly heads to the cattle ranch owned by Jack Hinch, the only man he’s ever loved. Looking to make amends for an intolerable act, Luke hires on at the ranch, but Jack makes it perfectly clear he's unable to forgive or forget just yet. It'll take everything in Luke's power to set things right with the man he wronged and placed in jeopardy before he ran away, but he aims to earn back Jack's trust no matter the personal cost. Complicating matters, though, is ranch foreman Tim Dutcher, who’s been enjoying a sexual relationship with the handsome rancher during the intervening years and thoroughly resents Luke's intrusion. As Luke and Jack gradually rebuild their severed friendship and renew their former passion, jealousy flares, leading to a volatile confrontation. Can the men settle matters without any shots being fired?

Devil’s Paw by Dale Chase

- Lloyd Lasky is a seasoned operative for the Whitlock Detective Agency in Denver that often infiltrates outlaw gangs in order to thwart stagecoach robberies. When he’s assigned to infiltrate the Bonner Gang based in Devil’s Paw, Arizona Territory, he’s unprepared for the personal ambush his heart suffers over gang member Frank Metty. Taking up sex with Frank, Lloyd convinces himself that doing so is part of his job in solidifying his place in the gang and learning of their plans. But as time passes, Lloyd not only starts to care for the younger man, but jealousy also rears its ugly head when it becomes clear the gang leader, Merle Bonner, also has a sexual claim on Frank. When the line between self-indulgence and detective work blurs to the point where Lloyd considers not only breaking agency rules but breaking the law, will he be able to ignore his ever-growing sexual desires and successfully complete his dangerous mission?

Untamed by Anna Cowen (Gender queer MC!)

- Outspoken and opinionated, Katherine Sutherland is ill at ease amongst the fine ladies of Regency London. She is more familiar with farmers and her blunt opinions and rough manners offend polite society. Yet when she hears the scandalous rumours involving her sister and the seductive Duke of Darlington, the fiercely loyal Katherine vows to save her sister's marriage - whatever the cost.

Intrigued by Katherine's interference in his affairs, the manipulative Duke is soon fascinated. He engages in a daring deception and follows her back to her country home. Here, their intense connection shocks them both. But the Duke's games have dangerous consequences, and the potential to throw both their lives into chaos...

Stealing West by Jamie Craig (Stealing series #2)

- Leon Stroud is wanted for robbery and a murder he didn’t commit. On the run to California with his partner-in-crime, Kenneth, he spots the relentless bounty hunter, Thomas Grady, on the train. The only way to protect Kenneth is to create a distraction, and that’s what Leon does when he flees the train at the top of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He forces Thomas to chase him, but nothing can prepare him for what it means to be caught. Thomas Grady always gets his man, and Leon Stroud is no exception to that rule. But almost from the moment Thomas touches Leon, he wants the outlaw for something besides his bounty. Driven by desire he doesn’t understand, Thomas repeatedly claims Leon’s body on the long journey from Soda Springs to San Francisco—and Leon only begs for more. An even bigger threat, with a larger bounty, could be the very thing they need to drive them together...or tear them apart.

Robby Riverton: Mail Order Bride by Eli Easton (Longer review on this site, but suffice to say the cover and description don’t do this novel justice. Robby is as smart as a whip, Trace is a cinnamon roll, and this novel has a lot of tender moments surrounding the MCs as well as the Crabtree family.)

- Being a fugitive in the old west shouldn’t be this much fun. The year is 1860. Robby Riverton is a rising star on the New York stage. But he witnesses a murder by a famous crime boss and is forced to go on the run--all the way to Santa Fe. When he still hasn't ditched his pursuers, he disguises himself as a mail order bride he meets on the wagon train. Caught between gangsters that want to kill him, and the crazy, uncouth family of his "intended", Robby's only ally is a lazy sheriff who sees exactly who Robby is -- and can't resist him. Trace Crabtree took the job as sheriff of Flat Bottom because there was never a thing going on. And then Robby Riverton showed up. Disguised as a woman. And betrothed to Trace’s brother. If that wasn’t complication enough, Trace had to find the man as appealing as blueberry pie. He urges Robby to stay undercover until the danger has passed. But a few weeks of having Robby-Rowena at the ranch, and the Crabtree family will never be the same again. Damn, what a kerfuffle. If only Trace can get rid of the fugitive while hanging on to his own stupid heart.

The Bibliophile by Drew Marvin Fraye (This was a pleasant surprise of a novel, with multiple examples of healthy LGBT relationships. The author did some good research surrounding the treatment of native tribes and health practices of the time. The May/December relationships are sweet, and not one-sided.)

- Nathanial Goldsmith is the only son of the richest man in the Idaho territory, Jessum Goldsmith, the Silver Baron of the Western Lands, as he is called in all the newspapers. But life in the late nineteenth-century American West weaves no magic spell for Nathanial, who longs for the academic worlds his father has forced him to leave behind. To toughen him up, Nathanial’s father has indentured him to a ranchman, Cayuse Jem, a large, raw-boned, taciturn man Nathanial’s father believes will help teach his son to “become a man.” Cut off from his books and the life he has always known, Nathanial is not only forced to co-exist with Cayuse Jem, but to truly get to know him. In doing so, Nathanial discovers there is more to this silent horseman than meets the eye. And, in the process, Nathanial also learns a few things about life, about human nature, and about the differences in being a man and a boy…

A Place to Call Their Own by Dean Frech

- Frank Greerson and Gregory Young have been discharged from the Army and are headed to their childhood homes. They both defied their parents in 1861 when they joined the Army. After battling southern rebels and preserving the Union of the United States of America, the two men set out to battle the Kansas Prairie and build a life together. Once they find their claim, they encounter common obstacles to life on the Kansas Prairie in 1866: Native Americans, tornadoes, wild animals, and weather. When a prairie fire destroys their crops and takes their neighbor’s lives, Frank and Gregory are instructed to find their young son’s aunt. Faced with leaving a destroyed claim, the railroad coming through their land, and dwindling funds, Frank and Gregory must decide whether to leave the place they have worked hard to make their own or fulfill their friends' dying wishes.

Looking for Trouble by Misha Horne

- A trip across the country just might lead to a trip over a cowboy’s knee… Trouble seems to follow Jesse Morgan. No matter how many times he tries to clean up his act, drinking and fighting and picking pockets are about the only things that make him feel good. All he wants when he boards a train headed for Nevada is a fresh start. He might not even know where it is on a map, but nobody knows him there. He just needs a little change, a little adventure, a chance to shake off the dark cloud he seems to be stuck under. What he doesn’t expect is to meet Will Kaplan. A tall, handsome cowboy with a chiseled jaw who pulls him out of a jam five minutes after he steps off the train. He’s ever met anyone like the no nonsense stranger who offers him a temporary place to stay. Will might be stern and have a lot of strict rules, but he’s patient and fair, and he makes Jesse crave things he’s never thought about. Makes him want to cause trouble, just to see what might happen. Will makes him want to do all kinds of things that are definitely a bad idea. Will Kaplan couldn’t care less about people. Everyone he was ever close to is long gone, and he’s perfectly happy on his farm with his animals and just enough to get by— alone. He only heads into town when he has to, and sure never expected to come back home with a mouthy stranger who seems dead set on driving him crazy. Will doesn’t need a farmhand. He definitely doesn’t need one who’s stubborn and reckless and has an ugly temper, even if he’s sexy as hell. Just because Jesse is good company when he isn’t being irritating doesn’t mean Will is interested in having another person in his life for more than a week or two. Excitement and disruption are not things he’s fond of. Just like he’s not fond of this sassy, sullen city boy who seems determined to cause trouble, almost like he’s begging for a firm hand…

Gunslinger’s Lullaby by Jovana (MMF, Bisexual MC!)

- Easy McClure is a hot-headed little spitfire named after her father’s favorite saloon girl. When her father is killed in a range war, she inherits his ranch. Alone now, and facing the responsibility of taking care of a large spread, she packs away her bloomers and corsets and wears tight jeans with a six-gun strapped to her hip. One day, a bleeding cowboy rides up to her house with a bullet in his shoulder. By the time she learns he’s a notorious gunslinger, his whole gang arrives. She has never seen such hot, sexy cowboys in her life, and has a problem resisting their advances. As time passes, she is slowly drawn to them and puts her better judgment aside, surrendering to their steamy seduction. Then the day comes for them to leave. That’s when she must admit she’s in love with each one and faces a painful dilemma -- can her love tame all four men, or will they forever be a group of hard-riding gunslingers dodging bullets and running from the law?

Finding Forgiveness by Ari McKay

- Boston in 1888 is quite urbane, but unfortunately for Gil Porter, that isn’t the same thing as being understanding. When his sexuality is exposed by the scandalous suicide of his lover, Gil is exiled to the small town of Mercy, Texas, by his domineering father, George, who believes life on Vernon Porter's ranch will cure Gil of his “unnatural” desires. Grieving and ashamed, Gil is determined to keep his distance from everyone until he can return home. To his surprise, he finds acceptance at Bent Oak Ranch, especially from Matt Grayson, the handsome son of the ranch foreman. Knowing he must fight his attraction to Matt, Gil courts a local girl, but an unexpected encounter with Matt leads to his discovery of Matt’s feelings for him. Torn between Matt and his desire to be “normal," between returning to his old life and building a new one in Texas, Gil is faced with a choice—appeasing his father or becoming the man Matt knows he can be.

Heart of Stone by Ari McKay

- Stone Harrison never knew he had an aunt; he certainly never expected her to bequeath him one of the largest spreads in central Nevada. But something about Copper Lake Ranch and its foreman, Luke Reynolds, speaks to him, offering a chance for the home he’s never really had.Luke wants Stone to succeed as a rancher and put the legacy of his shiftless father behind him, but he’d also like Stone to share his bed. Unfortunately, Stone is convinced that the world is a harsh place that will never accept two men sharing their lives. Much to Luke’s dismay, he refuses to risk Luke’s life despite the intense attraction they share.The tension between them escalates when a series of calamities strikes Copper Lake. An unexpected and unwelcome visit from Stone’s dandified cousin, James, only makes things worse. Stone’s ability to run the ranch comes into question, but the threat of losing it means less to Stone than the threat to Luke’s life. Stone will do anything it takes to protect the man he loves—even if it makes him a murderer.

Carnival Cowboy by Dale Madison (Trans MC!)

- At the end of a bloody trail, Johnny Redd finds an incredible secret. While struggling with a bullet in his chest, he crawls along the ground until he finds himself surrounded by a maze of quaint carnival tarps. Inside is a world of color, costumes, false hair, nails, eyelashes -- and a man who dresses like a woman. It’s a world of trickery, deception, and lies. Johnny makes it just inside the tent when his strength fails and he faints dead away. When he awakes, he’s reminded of the bizarre reality that surrounds him. It’s that he learns he has been taken care of by a man – er. woman -- by the name of Frenchy Starr. The name rolls from the tongue of this fallen angel, this princess of darkness, this twilight queen. She’s a mystery, a dangerously beautiful mystery, and Johnny slowly becomes ensnared in the trap which she sets. After one night of incredible love, a jealous fan shoots Frenchy. Thinking her dead, Johnny’s heart is broken and he leaves in search of something to fill the hole she left in his heart. Enter Kit Dalton.

The Redemption of Nathaniel Bane by RL Merrill (Novella from The Banes of Lake’s Crossing series, but can be read as standalone.) (Native American MC!)

- In 1860, Nathaniel Bane and his brothers dug deep into the earth on a mission from God, searching for a cache of silver to help fund their new religious civilization. What they found altered them forever and set off a chain of events that changed the course of Nevada's history. Nearly twenty years later, the constant hunger and restlessness has made Nathaniel desperate for relief. A chance encounter in the desert and a meeting with an incredibly powerful holy man will set Nathaniel on a path to redemption—a journey filled with love, blood, and revenge. Will Nathaniel find peace with his soul’s mate, or is he destined to walk the earth alone?

Cowboy Dreams by Terry O’Reilly

- Store clerk Chadwick Algood dreams of leaving his small New England town and becoming Chad Armstrong, a cowboy living a life of adventure in the Wild West. However, Chad is the sole support of his widowed mother and younger sister, so knows his cowboy dreams may never be realized. Chad’s life is turned upside down when Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show comes to town and Chad meets Bo Miller, a roustabout with hopes and dreams of his own. A relationship quickly develops which deepens the young store clerk’s longing for his dream for a new life. Eventually, news from England sends Chad’s mother and sister across the Atlantic. Chad decides to stay in the US. Traveling from town to town in search of Bo and the Wild West show, Chad meets ranch owner Leon Scruggs in a bathhouse and feels an instant connection with the hot cowboy. Which cowboy dream will Chad choose? Or will fate choose for him?

Grow Wild by KM Penemue (f/f!)

- Josie has been drifting from town to town for years, surviving on whatever work she can find. When she rolls into Rio Plato, however, it's not work she's hunting, but an old enemy. Dahlia Wheeler owns the Sentimental Lady saloon and brothel, where Josie stays. But though Josie feels the pull between her and Dahlia, she refuses to get involved and risk dragging Dahlia into her plans for revenge and the aimless life she leads—assuming she doesn't wind up with a noose around her neck.

A Cowboy’s Heart by JM Synder

- Ranch hand Tommy Prout thinks he's in love ... with his boss, Hal Bolstrum. Problem is, Hal's engaged to be married to the ranch owner's daughter and, though he knows of Tommy's crush, he sees it as nothing more than harmless affection. When payday rolls around and the other cowboys want to ride into town to check out the girls at the Wildhorse saloon, Tommy tags along to throw off any suspicion anyone might have about his feelings for his boss. He sure as hell doesn't want to spend his money on any of the soiled doves the town has to offer. At the bar he meets Lila, an enterprising young working girl who takes a liking to him. When Tommy says he wants to be left alone, Lila suggests he rest in her room -- with the promise they don't have to actually do anything. But Lila isn't like the others, and when she discovers Tommy is more scared of her than attracted to her feminine charms, she lets him in on a little secret. Lila's real name is Stephen Marsh. He lives as a woman, moving from saloon to saloon, pleasing men for money. He loves men and enjoys his work, and what others don't know about what's under his skirt doesn't bother him. In all his years on the prairie, he's never met someone quite like Tommy. When he discovers Tommy is sweet on Hal, he suggests teaching the cowboy just how to please a man. He doesn't mean to lose his heart to Tommy in the process. With "Lila" in his life, Tommy begins to dream of someone softer than Hal, someone pretty when dolled up but still man enough where it counts. Someone like Lila. As his feelings deepen, can he use Lila's own teachings to win the heart he really loves?

On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch by Shelter Somerset

- It’s 1886, and Chicago is booming, but for nineteen-year-old Torsten Pilkvist, American-born son of Swedish immigrants, it’s not big enough. After tragically losing a rare love, Tory immerses himself in the pages of a Wild West mail-order bride magazine, where he stumbles on the advertisement of frontiersman and Civil War veteran Franklin Ausmus. Torsten and Franklin begin an innocent correspondence—or as innocent as it can be, considering Torsten keeps his true gender hidden. But when his parents discover the letters, Tory is forced out on his own. With nowhere else to go, he boards a train for the Black Hills and Franklin’s homestead, Moonlight Gulch.Franklin figures Tory for a drifter, but he’s lonely after ten years of living in the backcountry alone, and his “girl” in Chicago has mysteriously stopped writing, so he hires Tory on as his ranch hand. Franklin and Tory grow closer while defending the land from outlaws who want the untapped gold in Franklin’s creek, but then Franklin learns Tory’s true identity and banishes Tory from his sight. Will their lives be forever tattered, or will Torsten—overhearing a desperate last-ditch scheme to snatch Franklin’s gold—be able to save Moonlight Gulch and his final shot at love?

Eden Springs by Ada Marie Soto

- In the boomtown of Eden Springs, someone is spilling the blood of children. Desperate, the sheriff calls in ex-Union scout Aaron Byrne to stop them. For the lawman for hire, it's just another job-until he meets Jonah Mann, the town's Oxford-trained astronomer-cum-schoolteacher. Aaron never stays in one place for long, but a few stolen glances from the eccentric professor begin to test his resolve to move along once the job is done. Now a telescope, a whorehouse bathtub, and a cup of Chinese tea could change Aaron's own stars forever. A Timeless Dreams title: While reaction to same-sex relationships throughout time and across cultures has not always been positive, these stories celebrate M/M love in a manner that may address, minimize, or ignore historical stigma.

Bitter Springs by Laura Stone (POC MC!)

- In 1870s Texas, Renaldo Valle Santos, the youngest son of a large and traditional family, has been sent to train with Henry “Hank” Burnett, a freed slave and talented mesteñero—or horse-catcher—so he may continue the family horse trade. Bitter Springs is a sweeping epic that takes themes from traditional Mexican literature and Old Westerns to tell the story of a man coming into his own and realizing his destiny lies in the wild open spaces with the man who loves him, far from expectations of society.

The Dino Rancher’s Winter Bride by Eloise Sumner (f/f!)

- Eleanor Fields is from a well-to-do big-city family that’s looking to expand its industry out West. Looking to make connections, her father arranges her to be married to Jacob Hammond of Vanwell Ranches.After years of work, Jesse Vanwell has just won back her family home, the Vanwell estate, from the vile Jacob Hammond. But taking his assets comes with a surprise – a city bride.Jesse’s got no need for a wife, but Eleanor doesn’t want to be sent back to her family. A storm is brewing on the horizon, as is the threat of Jacob Hammond returning to reclaim what he lost.

To Hell You Ride by Julia Talbot

- Big Roy is a hard-rock miner with a not-so-secret love for the theater, so when he hears a new troupe of actors are coming to the Telluride Opera House to put on a Shakespeare play, he saddles his mule and makes the trek into town to see it. The play doesn’t disappoint, but the beautiful lead actor, Edward Clancy, certainly does. Clancy is rude and arrogant, and Roy figures he’d never have a chance with such a man. He’s wrong, because Clancy needs some entertainment himself, being stuck in a hellish mining town for the long, snowy winter. Come spring, though, Clancy knows he’s going to want to move on, and he thinks Roy will be easy to forget. Then tragedy hits, and Clancy has to rethink his entire life. Can these two strike gold?

Home Before Sundown by Tinnean

- George Pettigrew and his papa must leave the California rancho they'd lived on since his birth. They end up in New York City, where Papa marries and George gets a new beloved mama. George also meets Frank and Bart who become fast friends, and in Bart's case, even more.The start of the Civil War leaves George the man of the family, but although he’s found a job, it’s difficult to pay the ever-increasing rent. Then Papa dies at Appomattox and Mama falls ill.After Mama dies, her father takes George’s siblings. When George learns his younger sister is being abused, he rescues the three children. But will dressing his sisters as boys and himself as a woman be enough of a disguise to keep them safe until they can reach the valley he’s dreamed of? Will Bart leave behind his own family and go with the man he loves?

A Hard Ride Home by Emory Vargas

- It’s hard enough returning to his birthplace to replace a dead man as sheriff. The last thing Emmett needs is to find himself smitten with Jesse, the whore he arrests almost immediately upon arrival. Especially since Jesse works for his half-sister and at her thoroughly disreputable saloon. But being smitten with a whore is only the beginning of Emmett’s troubles. Silver Creek is a town full of secrets and people too terrified to talk. Why does Emmett’s father, the mayor of Silver Creek, have such a strong hold on the town—and on Jesse?

A Little Sin by Sionnach Wintergreen (Just finished this one the other day, and it’s such an intelligent read. Having lived in the area where this takes place, I can say Wintergreen was totally accurate with her details involving the treatment of “racism, homophobia, and sexism“. The mystery portion is solid, and a WOC is shown as bright and appreciated by Garland and Avery.)

- Sheriff Avery O’Rourke has tried to obey his strict Christian faith and lead a “normal” life. In 1923 in a rural East Texas town, “normal” means heterosexual. A cholera outbreak has made Avery a young widower, so he is married to his job. When a murder investigation forces him to confront his truth, will he finally be able to accept being gay?

Veterinarian Garland Sands has returned from Europe to take over his father’s practice. Struggling with shellshock (PTSD) and heartbroken by the suicide of his French lover, he resigns himself to a quiet, solitary life as a country vet. But the murder of the town doctor brings the sheriff to Garland’s doorstep looking for help with the investigation. Seeing Avery awakens dormant feelings. Can he love a man who hates what he is?

This isn’t the lavish 1920s of The Great Gatsby. This is the flip side of that coin—rural East Texas. No electricity. No indoor plumbing. No flappers. In 1923, the timber barons have left and racism, homophobia, and sexism thrive.

A Little Sin is a realistic mystery with unlikely heroes and a timeless romance between lovers caught in a world where their love is forbidden. This book contains steamy sex scenes and is intended for adults only.

Interested in some Fantasy, Steampunk Western or Horror with your Western by some of your favorite historical romance writers? Try these reads below the cut...

The Devil’s Land collection from @lessthanthreepress includes more traditional historical novels, fantasy, and steampunk offerings in frontier areas that are real (US, Australia, etc) and fictional.

Bushrangers series by Jack Byrne

- Having long ago lost his wife and children, cattleman Jim Kelly works the family farm in the harsh 1800s Australian outback, most days wondering why he bothers. That question is foremost in his mind when a venomous snake takes him by surprise. Another surprise comes when a skilled doctor is in the vicinity to save his life. But the third, and biggest, surprise for Jim is falling hard and fast for that man. Life on the lam is tough, and bushranger Mark Turner simply wants to maintain his freedom as long as he's able. Unfortunately, being a doctor, his conscience won't let him leave a snakebite victim to die. Before he thinks about the consequences of his humanitarian actions, he's both saved Jim and become smitten with him. But considering how Mark's past could negatively impact any possibility of a future, maybe falling in love wasn't such a great idea after all.

Venom Valley series (Cowboys & Vampires, Stakes & Spurs, Blood & Stone) by Hank Edwards

- In the frontier town of Belkin’s Pass, as a vampire quietly feeds on the local saloon girls and their customers, a tragedy teaches resident Josh Stanton he has the ability to raise the dead. Knowing he is now a wanted man, Josh flees into the arid plains of Venom Valley.

Dex Wells, the town deputy and Josh’s best friend, catches up with Josh. During the confrontation, both men realize their friendship is truly something deeper, and Dex has to decide if he’s a man of the law, or a man in love.As Josh and Dex ponder a viable course of action, the vampire circles ever closer, drawn by Josh’s power and gathering his forces against them.

Once Upon a Time in the Weird West by Jamie Fessenden, Andrew Q. Gordon, Jana Denardo, Kim Fielding, Shira Anthony, Tali Spencer, Venona Keyes, Lex Chase, C.S. Poe, Nicole Kimberling, Ginn Hale, Astrid Amara, Langley Hyde

- This isn’t the same old Wild West. The usual suspects are all present: cowboys, outlaws, and sheriffs. There’s plenty of dust, tumbleweeds, horses, and cattle on the range, but there are also magical gems, automatons, elementals, airships… even dinosaurs and genetically modified insects. Roaming among the buffalo and coyotes, you’ll encounter skinwalkers, mad engineers, mythical beings cloaked in darkness, and lovers who stay true to their oaths… even beyond the grave. On this frontier are those at the mercy of their own elaborate devices as well as men whose control of time and space provides a present-day vision of the West. There might even be a dragon hidden amongst the ghost towns and wagon trains.If you like your Westerns with a splash of magic, a touch of steampunk, and plenty of passionate romance between men, these genre-bending tales will exceed expectations. Hold on to your hats, cowboys and cowgirls. The West is about to get weird, and you’re in for a hell of a ride.

Brought Forth by Josie Finch (I know MPREG isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but this was an engaging novel with lessons on family and acceptance.)

- Henry Merrill escaped the abusive family from his childhood and has built a life as the kindhearted handyman for the small town of Ashford in the 1880’s. Henry has every intention of living his life alone, serving the town he considers home. But an angel named Cory-Elle has other plans for Henry. With a soul that needs to be brought to earth, Cory-Elle gives Henry the opportunity to raise the family he never imagined he would have. Dr. Lawrence Turner has a bad reputation in Ashford for attending to poor patients who cannot pay him and for being the only physician the town has ever seen make house calls to the local brothel. So when a young man claiming an angel has made him pregnant arrives in his office, Dr. Turner is not surprised. Despite his disbelief, Lawrence has few things to lose in tending to Henry—though Lawrence never counted on his heart being one of those things. With the help of the doctor’s assistant Ben Lockhart and a saloon woman named Lily Mae Pepperidge, Henry and Lawrence must challenge everything they thought they knew about faith and family. Together they encounter pain, joy, sorrow, and pleasure. But among it all, they discover love. Standalone. HEA. Mpreg (Male Pregnancy) is a primary theme.

The Serpent and the Angel by MD Grimm (The Shifters Book #8)

- In the year 1866, Sheriff Tobias Goldstein guards a small mining town in the Colorado territory with a cold and merciless hand. A rare rattlesnake shifter, he lives by a code and expecting others to do the same has kept the peace—until a nameless stranger wanders into town. Intrigued by the lone man, Tobias names him Angel Smith, and sensing he’s trustworthy, he deputizes Angel.

A guardian at heart, golden eagle shifter Angel protects the townspeople, but his dedication is to an ancient scroll capable of great destruction. For generations, Angel’s family protected the artifact with their lives. Now something has returned to hunt down the scroll. Forced to leave his tribe, Angel enjoys the quiet he’s found with Tobias, who hides a warm heart under his aloof exterior. Angel knows the quiet will not last and fears the battle on the horizon. But with Tobias at his back, Angel might stand a chance against his enemies.

Wild Wild Hex by Jordan L Hawk (Hexworld 3.5)

- After weeks spent tracking down the gentleman bandit Rafael, Hexas Ranger Enoch Bright finally has the outlaw in his sights. He doesn’t expect to find out Rafael is his familiar.

When Enoch runs afoul of the murderous Bone Gang, he and Rafael strike a deal to take down the gang together. As lawman and outlaw work together, Enoch soon realizes the next thing the gentleman bandit steals will be his heart.

The Mechanical Chrysanthemums by Felicitas Ivey (POC MC!)

- Hachisuka Narihiro is a pilot in the Shogun’s elite unit of musha-ki, robotic armor automated by steam and magic for the defense of Nippon in a slowly modernizing 19th Century, when he’s requested to help with political negotiations. Compromises are difficult, with American Admiral Perry determined to open Japan to the West but only on his terms. Like most Western leaders, the admiral is unaware of the advances the Japanese have made with steam and thinks Nippon is an isolated and backward nation. Narihiro’s uncle, the twelfth Tokugawa Shogun, believes Narihiro is the best man for the duty. Despite his extensive training, plans might not go as well as expected.With the American delegation comes closeted former Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, Maarten Zook, a shy translator who catches Narihiro’s interest. As negotiations stall, the Japanese are left with few options to convince America that Nippon is its equal. Japan is ready to open its borders, but a show of force may be needed, and that force may destroy the budding relationship between Narihiro and Maarten.

Heartaches & Hoofbeats by Maz Maddox

- Like all centaur shifters, Sheriff Calhoun is the epitome of honor. He protects his small town of Stallion Ridge and its people from any threat large or small.When word comes in that the notorious Iron Bandits are making a play for a train in his territory he’s both livid and invigorated. If anyone can bring these thieves to justice it’s him and his crew.What he did not expect was having a charming, whiskey-eyed outlaw dumped in his lap that challenged everything he thought he knew.

Honey From the Lion by Jackie North

- Soulmates across time. A love that was meant to be.In present day, Laurie, tired of corporate life, takes a much-needed vacation at Farthingdale Dude Ranch.The very first night a freak blizzard combined with a powerful meteor shower takes Laurie back to the year 1891. When he wakes up in a snowbank, his only refuge is an isolated cabin inhabited by the gruff, grouchy John Henton, who only wants to be left alone. His sense of duty prevails, however, and he takes Laurie under his care, teaching him how to survive on the wild frontier. As winter approaches, Laurie's normal fun-loving manner make it difficult for him to connect with John, but in spite of John's old-fashioned ways, the chemistry between them grows. Sparks fly as the blizzard rages outside the cabin. Can two men from different worlds and different times find happiness together?

Song of Oestend series by Marie Sexton

- Symbols have power…Aren Montrell has heard tales of the Oestend wraiths – mysterious creatures which come in the night and kill anyone who’s not indoors. Aren’s never had reason to believe the stories, but when he takes a job as a bookkeeper on the BarChi, a dusty cattle ranch on the remote Oestend prairie, he soon learns that the wraiths are real. Aren suddenly finds himself living in a supposedly haunted house and depending on wards and generators to protect him from unseen things in the night. As if that’s not enough, he has to deal with a crotchety old blind woman, face “cows” that look like nothing he’s ever seen before, and try to ignore the fact that he’s apparently the most eligible bachelor around.Aren also finds himself the one and only confidante of Deacon, the BarChi’s burly foreman. Deacon runs the BarChi with an iron fist and is obviously relieved to finally have somebody he can talk to. As their relationship grows, Aren learns there’s more to Deacon and the BarChi than he’d anticipated. Deacon seems determined to deny both his Oestend heritage and any claim he may have to the BarChi ranch, but if Aren is to survive the perils of Oestend, he’ll have to convince Deacon to stop running from the past and finally claim everything that’s his.

Brothers of the Zodiac: Earth by Maxwell Thomas

- Stories of the three Earth signs, Virgo, Capricorn, and Taurus

Virgo: Needles has just lost his brother, and goes to the florist that pays the Outfit for protection. But when he goes to collect money from him for the Outfit, he realizes that the florist is not as gentle as he seems.

Capricorn Jack Casement has two months to find his heir because the Lady Ishtar finds him wanting. Will the man he chooses be his lover or his heir?

Taurus For the third time Isaiah has been kicked in the ribs and realizes he needs a ranch-hand. What he gets is something much more.

Cast From the Earth by Leandra Vane (Frontier zombies, but mainly a wonderful metaphor for social acceptance for LGBT persons and persons with disabilities as well as important concepts on what a family truly is. MMF poly relationship and FF relationship.)

- An epidemic that turns men into monsters has seized the nation. At first the disease only spreads in cities but soon cannibals are roaming the prairie, threatening the quiet little towns of the late 19th Century heartland. At an isolated poor farm in rural America, Sara Warren has survived a tumultuous life of loss and an accident that leaves her with one leg – but she is hopeless of any other future until a woman named Cordelia arrives at the farm and changes Sara's life forever. Along with Dan, a man who can't hear and Grace, a young woman who is more concerned with her sewing needles than people, they face the oncoming apocalypse with their wits and their bare hands. When it seems like all is lost, a man from Sara's past named Jack returns to her life and they all realize the only way to survive is together. A story of romance, violence, sex, and the wild prairie that proves broken bodies still feel pleasure and broken souls can find love – even at the end of the world.

Jack Wolfe by Kay Walker

- Henry Dalton is sent across the country by train to the western town of Woolridge in order to investigate the werewolf problem they’re having during the monthly moon cycle. The townsfolk are not forthcoming with information, making it difficult for Henry to solve the case. Even more distracting is Jack, a handsome older lycanthrope. Known for his rebellious youth, Jack has settled down into life and routine in Woolridge, working as the local blacksmith. He assures Henry he’s no longer trying to stir up trouble, that those days are long gone. Henry must attempt to ignore the spark between them, the indication of their potential to become mates, which is rare because Henry is human. Henry remains professional and focuses on his job, but each meeting with Jack adds to the draw, and Henry isn’t sure how much longer he’ll be able to resist. A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2015 Daily Dose package "Never Too Late."

*“Homos on the Range” How gay was the West?

NOVEMBER 1, 2005 by JANA BOMMERSBACH

#historical romance #lgbt romance #queer romance #bisexual romance #m/m romance #f/f romance #lesbian romance

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sasorikigai · 5 years

Note

What would happen if Hanzo and Kuai made the choice to combine their clans? And who would be the one to suggest it?

Random Headcanon Question || @damuxblade || accepting

A really in-depth and good question (that will be hard to answer). I had to look at the Lin Kuei and the Shirai Ryu history first in order to tackle this.

Somewhere in the northern most parts of Asia, there exists a secret clan of assassins and thieves known as the Lin Kuei. This group has existed for centuries and thrives on the evil intention of the people who pay for their services. Its warriors are chosen at birth to be raised apart from the workings of day to day civilization and are stripped of their former lives. Only the clan knows their existence. Each of them possess certain skills and abilities that set them apart from normal men. These abilities are passed on from generation to generation and honed throughout the experiences of life. Certain Lin Kuei warriors possess supernatural abilities including those that commune with nature.

The Shirai Ryu was formed many years ago by a Lin Kuei warrior named Takeda. He eventually grew tired of the Lin Kuei and left the clan. However, leaving the clan is punishable by death, and Takeda was sought after by Lin Kuei assassins. He left China and returned to his homeland in Japan, where he offered his services to the lords and generals. His art gradually spread throughout Japan and developed into the art of ninjutsu. In addition to teaching his new art form, he also taught modified versions of Lin Kuei tactics, as well as revealing many of their secrets. This only further infuriated the Lin Kuei when Takeda’s teachings became well-known with many followers throughout Japan. His followers became known as the Shirai Ryu.

So we already know from the Mortal Kombat lore that the founder of the Shirai Ryu was in fact, a defector of the Lin Kuei; which is understandable, because the Chinese clan is known for being sinister, and demonstrated their mercenary nature when they inadvertently placed the Earthrealm in danger for personal gain numerous times. Which in return, resulted with the loss of their then-Grandmaster Bi-Han, the plaguing sins of the humanity (seeking greater power, greed, immortality, arrogance, ambition, all the facets of human weakness) had tainted the Lin Kuei.

Then, with the clan under Kuai Liang’s leadership, implements a number of changes to the clan, the most important one being transforming the mission of the Lin Kuei, making it a force for the side of good for the first time and completely rejecting the hellbent philosophy of the Cyber Initiative, which only concerns absolute authority and power through augmented improvements that go against what human resilience and emotions are capable of; which are more than enough to driving them into greatness.

And I feel because of the Quan Chi’s manipulations and other factors that deviated them from seeking allegiance, instead of continuously and consistently feeling animosity and hatred against each other, it feels as if they’re just two strings that had once been a part of the same rope; and they let themselves float away to the pull of different currents as it became inevitable through the course of their history.

Since it was Kuai Liang who proposed to improve relationships between the Shirai Ryu and the Lin Kuei in order to bolster forces to protect Earthrealm from future threats, just as he reassured Hanzo that his intentions for peace and cooperation were genuine as he revealed a recording of the conspiracy from Sektor’s head. Quan Chi had in fact not only killed the Shirai Ryu by himself, but also created Scorpion from Hanzo’s soul after his death, turning him into the vengeful hellspawn specter that compelled him to unfairly blame and kill Bi-Han.

And it was Kuai Liang who blamed Quan Chi’s treachery for his downfall and Bi-Han’s death, holding no grudge against Hanzo. As diplomatic and level-headed he is without bias, he would carefully bring the subject to Hanzo as their renewed and reformed clans thrive. And as the similar manner, Hanzo would be skeptical at first, but since they have different strengths (the Lin Kuei grounds themselves with more defensive tactics, while the Shirai Ryu go all out offensive), the amalgamation of the different clans would only be beneficial (as Hanzo and Kuai has demonstrated in their own partnership).

Then perhaps, Scorpion would take on the new tradition of training capable and reliable outsiders and accepting them as the clan’s own, and implement further changes, which seem lenient, but created in order to prevent corruption and further needless bloodshed within the joined clans themselves. It will be entirely based on hierarchy of power and tradition they both consider pivotal, but they are benevolent and sympathetic, and will do their best to hear out all the suggestions and criticisms to further improve and solidify the clan’s unity.

#✗ obsessive cathartic (headcanon)#✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ bone-deep chill of despair (sub-zero)#(answered)#✗ behavior exhibition (answered asks)#(I hope this makes sense lmao)#(crossing my fingers that I got my lore right)#damuxblade

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bblosangelesmurdercase · 5 years

Text

The Interesting Genre of Death Note

The state of the world is deteriorating while the heads of both government and police forces stand idly by and do nothing about. A young student ponders over this thought constantly as he watches the news daily to find only murders and crime to be worthy of the media's time. This student is Yagami Light and his griefs of the world around him are the beginning of the supernatural horror series called Death Note. Through a distinctive combination of otherworldly, vigilante justice and crime-solving intellectual combat, Death Note brings viewers into a dark world where it holds more emphasis on intellectual battles than physical combat. The world of Death Note is derived from Western-style adaptions of Gothic and detective story genres to set the stage for an egotistical adult bent judging humanity and his battles against sleuths who think his intentions are nothing but murderous injustice. Death Note cannot be accurately defined within one genre due to the combination of Gothic imagery and detective strategies so the series effectively intertwines the dominant features to form its own genre.

The Death Note series has a unique perspective of combining two uncommon genres for an anime so it must be analyzed at its core aspects to fully grasp the genre. An apt description of the genre is called “irregular detective fiction” or henkaku tantei shosetsu which was first established by Koga Saburo of the magazine Shinseinen around the year 1920 (Matthew, p. 13). During this point in Japan's literary scene, writers in this genre were more classified under 'science fiction' in which the story didn't focus on theoretical problem-solving, but in Death Note's case, the use of shinigami and paranormal means to kill adds an unusual twist to make the series go outside the bounds of a normal detective and science fiction genres. A blog makes a more pertinent argument about Death Note that the story employs rational, objective detective methodologies while incorporating elements of the gothic and fantastic absurdity. Main writers of the genre were Edogawa Rampo and Yumeno Kyusaku who wanted not for fellow writers to use the Western Gothic writing style but to add Japanese sensibilities to it and make it their own style (Asleep). The latter explanation of irregular detective fiction fits more into the series' supernatural justice and police attempting to stop that which they don't comprehend. Both the protagonist, L, and antagonist, Kira, use intensive deductive skills in order to figure out each others identity throughout the entire series while characters, their personalities, and the world around them is filled with darkness. While the story structure takes a more detective fiction genre, Death Note's artistic and symbolic aspects take its influences from Gothic imagery and events that attracted writers like Tsugumi Ohba and Edogawa Rampo to make irregular detective fiction.

Unlike many of the anime series of its time, Death Note's genre relies on both Gothic imagery and themes and noire detective work to build up plot that has its bases in old Western literature. The western Gothic style of writing used in Death Note was first invented by the writer Horace Walpole, who wrote the 1764 novel called The Castle of Otranto, which has been replicated in film, poetry, and writing to this very day and is the predecessor to the modern horror genre. Elements that typically constitute something to be of the Gothic style are settings that create sense of claustrophobia and entrapment of sorts, an atmosphere of suspense and mystery, an ancient prophecy, bad omens or visions, supernatural events, high emotions, women in distress, women threatened by powerful males, and a metonymy of gloom and horror (“Elements of the Gothic Novel”). The series may not contain an ancient prophecy or completely dreary settings throughout the entire anime, but the other attributes are thoroughly spread into many scenes, actions, and personalities of the characters. The times when Light tries to push his goals of domination further, he uses Misa, his supposed girlfriend, or Kiyomi Takada, a news reporter and love interest Light had, as emissaries of messages by using the affection they have for him to his advantage. Light pressures them both with the promise of being his wife in the new age he rules in, but casually throws them aside when they prove worthless to his cause. The supernatural events are predominant throughout since Kira is killing all his targets by simply writing their name in book once he sees their face and having death gods called “shinigamis” constantly following those who own the actual Death Note. Even the settings commonly exhibit feelings of gloom and entrapment since the rooms most events take place in are always dark and have little room for large groups of people. For example, Light would constantly write in the Death Note when he was in his dark, cramped room, and L often sat in a dark room when researching or on his computer to name a few. Although the Gothic style of writing and art affects nearly every part of Death Note, the genre it evolves into also has many viable aspects in the anime.

As the Gothic style changed and became adapted into writing by other authors, the horror genre came into existence in with a much more powerful presence. The horror genre that predicates itself on Gothic contains many similar elements, but horror elements include strong language and graphic violence to establish an otherworldly setting, an antagonist with paranormal abilities, exaggerated personalities for antagonists, and unexpected occurrences or 'pop-outs' (“Characterisitics of the Horror Genre”). Death Note's writer, Tsugumi Ohba, used both genres effectively in his work, but instead of feeling completely nervous and scared like you would with any horror writing or film, the viewer feels more of a suspenseful air in which you wait in anticipation to see how Kira and L think in order to stay one step ahead of each other. Light obviously has paranormal abilities due to the Death Note he uses and shinigami he sees and both sides of the story meet many unexpected happenings like when Light meets Ray Penbar's wife, who had information that could solve much earlier who Kira was. Unexpected occurences that happened quite often as well were the deaths Kira performed with the Death Note since only he and the shinigami knew what would happen and the police teams investigating wouldn't know when he would strike next. It makes sense as well for Death Note to be part Gothic world instead of a complete horror one because if the story were focusing more on scaring the viewer then it would take away importance of the intellectual detective battles that make the series into irregular detective fiction. The anime as a whole uses an intense of psychological insight and deductive reasoning to build up the plot in the genre, but a work by another irregular detective fiction writer contains similar events that can further show its relation to the irregular-detective-fiction genre.

One of the first works to be introduced into the distinctive genre was Dogura magura by Yumeno Kyusaku that tells the story of a mental health patient who is trying to figure out his identity from two psychologists. The main character in Dogura magura constantly fears that he may be a murderer by the name of Kure Ichiro, but by the end of the novel, he finds out he really is the murderer (Bolton, Csicsery-Ronway, Jr., and Tatsumi 12). Light in Death Note does not worry, but embraces the idea of being a murderer in order to create his new world and the idea of killing does not even bother him to the point that it seems he has two different personalities, one being Kira and the other being Light. He constantly switches in between the two while the character in Dogura magura fights to repress any association or memory to his murderous side. By the end of the mental patient's journey his actions become so programmed that he exhibits repetitive killing actions and feels little emotion for killing those close to him as he fails to return to the life he previously had( Bolton, Csicsery-Ronway, Jr., and Tatsumi 18). Light is just as willing to sacrifice all those who love him as he uses the Death Note and feels no remorse when his family slowly crumbles around him due to the gradual involvement in the investigation and events surrounding the Death Note. Both characters lose their sensibilities as human beings, either unintentionally or knowing full well of the consequences yet these are the main points of both works in order to build story and character development. Light uses his cold intellect and logic to win against those who oppose his new world yet it doesn't work out and it ends in failure just like the mental patient's journey of self discovery. The two stories differ greatly in terms of setting, style, and plot, but their focus of intellectual struggle and ideas of unnatural means of discovery truth and meaning leads the stories into the genre irregular-detective fiction.

The anime Death Note contains many elements of several different genres of writing and storytelling to form the interesting genre of irregular-detective-fiction that has been used since early science fiction writing of the early 1920s. It contains all of the sleuthing and deduction that any detective series would have and combines it with the dark and dreary aspects of western horror/Gothic style of art and writing. It even goes beyond these to add a supernatural aspect into the series that gives each character and story element an interesting way to solve the problem or crime that arises through use of shinigami and the mysterious Death Note. Death Note is most certainly a unique anime of its time yet it takes many ideas and themes from its predecessors to further solidify its standing in the genre of irregular-detective-fiction. A police force trying to solve mysterious murders that occur from simply writing a person's name in a notebook when they can't exactly say when the murders will occur goes well beyond any one genre so Death Note keeps its story tied to multiple genres with an emphasis on one major genre to keep the plot interesting.

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x-fantasy-is-my-reality-x · 6 years

Text

Goku Black x Reader: Forbidden Fruit (Chapter 7: The Calvary Arrives)

Black and Zamasu had immediately flown off to meet Trunks, leaving you alone in the cabin. You waited until they were nothing but dots in the horizon before sprinting about the house checking all the windows and doors, but they were all locked. You threw a chair at one of the windows, but it did absolutely nothing, confirming your suspicion that they had discreetly strengthened it with magic before they left. It was agonizing, your freedom was so close yet so far.

You tried all the closed doors, but they too were locked and impenetrable. Eventually, after breaking two chairs and a knife you let them clatter to the floor and sat in the armchair in the living room, with your head in your hands. It just wasn’t fair. Once again, you were engulfed by a crushing sense of helplessness and frustration as the gravity of your situation gradually tightened the noose.

Just as you were about to start crying again, a light tapping sound came from the window near the kitchen. Cautiously, you moved towards the source of the sound and hesitantly looked over the edge of the windowsill, and nearly had an aneurysm. It was Black, with his face pressed so close to the glass that you could every tiny detail of his nose. You screamed shrilly and tripped backwards as he rose up outside, so you could see his very unusual gi. Had he changed his clothes? And then it hit you. That must have been Son Goku, who looked nearly identical to Black as Trunks had once told you. Still, it was unnerving to see someone who looked like Black’s twin. And it was even weird when he smiled sheepishly at you and rubbed the back of his head, mouthing something inaudible to you. You had never really seen Black smile like that, or anyone on this earth since his arrival as a matter of fact. He hovered near the window and placed his hands on it, pushing at it but it still wouldn’t give.

“Uh hi?” You said loudly, hoping he would be able to hear you.

Luckily, he did. “Hi I’m Son Goku! Trunks told me that Black kidnapped you, so he sent me here to rescue you,” he replied, still smiling. “Why can’t I get through the window?”

“I t-think they magically enhanced it or something before they left.”

“Oh okay, that’s no problem, I think I can still get in.”

You had just opened your mouth to ask him how, but you didn’t get the chance before he unexpectedly appeared in front of you just like Black had. You let out an involuntary shriek and kicked him in the shin, your heart leaping into your throat.

“Oh my God you people are absolutely insane!” You panted as you concentrated not losing your mind.

He grinned at you apologetically and reached out a hand, from which you flinched away. “Sorry, I guess most people aren’t used to that.”

Now that he was standing in front of you, you could see subtle differences between him and Black. For one, he dressed the complete opposite of Black and appeared to be a bit more muscular. Goku was also less tan and there was a different glint in his eye, a pleasant shine that said ‘I’ll kill you with ice cream and sunshine’ instead of Black, who gave off a vibe of ‘I’ll kill you by disemboweling you and then feeding you your entrails’. Still, even with the small differences you still couldn’t help but be wary of him. But I guess if Trunks trusts him so should I, you reasoned with yourself.

You suddenly remembered your blue-haired friend. “Oh uh Mr. Goku sir how’s Trunks?” You stuttered nervously. Please let him be okay.

“Please, you can just call me Goku Y/n, and Trunks if fine, he’s with Vegeta.” He beamed at you, all teeth and gums and you found your own lips quirking up a bit. You could see why Trunks liked him so much, his positivity was infectious. It was a pleasant change for once. He seemed to just notice the bands around your ankles and wrists, frowning at them.

“What are those?” He asked, brushing his finger against one, jerking away from it as it let out a sharp zap.

“I’m not really sure Goku,” you replied. “I can’t seem to get them off.”

“Here, let me try.” You gave him your arm, watching as he flared his chi and gripped the bands tightly, and after some straining they cracked and shattered to the ground. Goku did the same to the rest of them, and you rubbed your wrists thanking him.

“It was no problem. Speaking of which, we should probably get you back to Trunks and Vegeta. Grab my arm.” He held it out for you.

“What why?”

“You’ll see, just please don’t scream, we don’t want for Black to know that you’re there,” he answered, giving you a reassuring look. “Trust me.”

You looked into his eyes, and after finding nothing malicious you gave a small nod and touched his arm.

“Okay now w-” The rest of your sentence was cut off as the ground suddenly changed beneath your feet, along with the rest of the scenery. You were back in West City, the familiar scent of dank death and musty decay flooding your nose. Burning embers danced around your face and up above the gray storm clouds rioted and raged, the wind howling like wolves. The fallen city looked the same as always, the buildings rising from the ground like skeletons and the earth all churned up and wounded. Brilliant flashes from the distance caught your eye, streaks of bright yellow, blue, pink, and purple. Distinctly, you were able to recognize Trunks as a blazing Super Saiyan, charging with all his might towards Black, in his regular form who was laughing in glee. Zamasu was battling with a warrior you had never seen before, with tall, flame-shaped blue hair and a tight cobalt-colored spandex suit. Based on Trunks’ description of his father you guess that it was Vegeta, the legendary Saiyan who had turned his back on evil. Lightning split the sky as they clashed, energy balls flying everywhere and destroying everything that they came in contact with. A golden one whizzed over your head and blew up a car ten feet behind you, and the black-haired Saiyan next to you quickly ushered you behind a standing chunk of concrete.

“Stay right here Y/n, we’ll be right back for you after we defeat Black.” And he was off before you could even protest. Goku let out a thunderous war cry as he shot towards the brawl, his hair flaring into scarlet as he rammed into Black, who had the weakened Trunks in a headlock. The teenager flopped to the ground when Black dropped him in favor of Goku, his hair turning back into its normal color. You growled angrily, but there wasn’t much you could do to help other than to get yourself caught again.

Maybe I can go find Mai and the other survivors.

Well, it was better than just sitting there and watching them fight. The cracked dome of Capsule Corp stood a bit further up ahead, close to the place where their hideout was. You began to slowly make your way around the debris, hiding in the shadows of the forlorn buildings as the war raged on. Quite a few times you were almost crushed into a pancake as the vibrations caused by their blows broke off massive pieces of what was left of the surviving structures, or when a rogue Final Flash or Kamehameha came your way. Finally, after dodging the sixth attack you ran into Mai, who was spectating close by.

“Y/n!” Mai nearly screamed, and you quickly covered her mouth with your hand.

“Mai, I’ll explain later it was a long story.” She nodded at you, and both of your attention was drawn back to the battle by Trunk’s frantic cry. You and Mai could only stare up at them, horrified as a magenta blade protruded from the prince’s back, trails of crimson leaking down his white armor as he twitched in agony. The warrior made a raspy choking sound and like Trunks, his hair faded to black. Black’s face was painted with Vegeta’s blood, and he had never looked so terrifying, grinning with shining white teeth as the dark liquid ran down his face, like red tears. You watched as the blood plopped onto the ground and you heard Mai let out a quiet sob. Zamasu had Trunks pinned underfoot, barely able to keep his eyes open, and it appeared that Goku was the only one capable of standing, but even he looked tired and weary, bruises and scratches all over his body.

With a flick of Black’s hand, Vegeta dropped like an anchor into a crater, unconscious and bleeding heavily. You gritted your teeth and struggled against the rage that made your entire body shake like a leaf. Black’s eyes locked on the last standing Saiyan, and he began to power up as Goku splayed his feet ready to fight to the death. Black flew towards him in astonishing speed and crushed him into a building, holding him there as Goku fought valiantly against him.

“Black,” Zamasu said coyly. “Why don’t you tell our dear friend dear how this came to be? He must be so confused.”

His partner smirked, and the entire battlefield went quiet.

“What? What do you mean?” Goku spat.

“Oh I think you know very well what I mean Son Goku,” Black purred. “Why do you think I look like you? Why I am you?”

When Goku didn’t respond, he went on slowly, savoring every syllable. “Because Goku, I stole your body. I used the Super Dragon Balls to switch bodies with you, and you know what I did after that?”

A cold sense of dread solidified in your stomach and you wanted to vomit as you guessed his next words.

“I killed you. And then your wife and that little brat that looked like you. I killed them all.”

#goku black

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