#worth noting three of these are the principal cast!!!!

[douglaspiggott]

#happy nb awareness week #slay/slem or smth #jacob killeddddd it as frankie tonight!!!!! #worth noting three of these are the principal cast!!!! #&juliet #and juliet #theatre

[themuseandantarctica]

* 𝒒𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒑𝒕. 23

change however necessary.

“There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and engineers. While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far the more certain.”

“I cannot afford to waste my time making money.”

“Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it.  The more a man has, the more he wants.  Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.”

“All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.”

“There’s no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, than there was at the time of Genghis Khan.”

“The moral high ground is wreathed in fog.”

“The ethical view of the universe involves us in so many cruel and absurd contradictions, that I have come to suspect that the aim of creation cannot be ethical at all.”

“Do not be too moral.  You may cheat yourself out of much life.  So aim above morality.  Be not simply good; be good for something.”

“She who forms the souls of the young is greater than any painter or sculptor.”

“Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother.”

“My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.”

“If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?”

“What one owes to one’s mother is never repaid.”

“When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it is a mere formality.  It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no.  You’re going to get it anyway.”

“If a writer has to rob his mother he will not hesitate; the ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ is worth any number of old ladies.”

“The remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served us nothing but leftovers.  The original meal has never been found.”

“My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of church-going.”

“I can’t do with mountains at close quarters—they are always in the way, and they are so stupid, never moving and never doing anything but obtrude themselves.”

“Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.”

“You climb for the hell of it.”

“They say that if the Swiss had designed these mountains they’d be rather flatter.”

“There are three secrets to the success of a film: casting, casting, and casting.”

“Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.”

“Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union.”

“The moves were custard compared to politics.”

“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”

“Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.”

“When the script is finished, then we add the dialogue.”

“The only really good thing about acting in movies is that there’s no heavy lifting.”

“I am a filmmaker, not a director.  I like the physical process of making movies.  I might be a toymaker if I wasn’t a filmmaker.”

“This film cost $31 million.  With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.”

“My favorite line about Hollywood is, ‘Nobody wants to be first.  But everyone wants to be the first to be second.’”

“In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk.”

“Gandhi was everything the voting members of the Academy would like to have been: moral, tan, and thin.”

“I’m not going to go to any more dinner parties.  They’re so badly directed.”

“You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly, an still have room for three caraway seeks and a producer’s heart.”

“Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.”

“Music, which can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.”

“Music is the only cheap unpunished rapture on earth.”

“Music is no different from opium.”

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”

“The notes I handle no better than many pianists.  But the pauses between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides.”

“Music has many resemblances to algebra.”

“Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.”

“Music is the language spoken by angels.”

“It may be that when the angels go about their task praising God, they play only Bach.  I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille they play Mozart.”

“Music is powerless to express anything.”

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”

“My music is best understood by children and animals.”

“Nothing separates the generations more than music.  By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stranger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes.”

“Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind.”

“The British like any kind of music so long as it is loud.”

“All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.”

“There is two kinds of music, the good and bad.  I play the good kind.”

“No culture so far discovered lacks music.”

“It seems obvious that painting, sculpture, or drama imitated nature. But what does music imitate?  The measurements suggest that music is imitating the characteristic way our world changes with time.”

“Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work. We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to a human mind.”

“There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.”

“I know only two tunes: one of them is ‘Yankee Doodle’ and the other one isn’t.”

“Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune.”

“All music is folk music.  I ain’t never heard no horse sing a song.”

“What do you get when you play country music backward?  You get your girl back, your dog back, your pick-up back, and you stop drinking.”

“Country music is three chords and the truth.”

“If it has more than three chords, it’s jazz.”

“Jazz is not dead… it just smells funny.”

“There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahm’s Requiem.”

“People usually complain that music is so ambiguous, that it leaves them in such doubt as to what to think, whereas words can be understood by everyone.  But to me it seems exactly the opposite.”

“Remember: information is not knowledge; knowledge is not wisdom; wisdom is not truth; truth is not beauty; beauty is not love; love is not music; music is the best.”

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

“My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require.”

“Music is the best means we have of digesting time.”

“I like Wagner’s music better than any other music.  It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says.  That is a great advantage.”

“A painter paints his pictures on canvas.  But musicians paint their pictures on silence.  We provide the music, and you provide the silence.”

“If the King loves music, it is well with the land.”

“Music is essentially useless, as is life.”

“It’s easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.”

“Any space is as much a part of the instrument as the instrument itself.”

“There are two instruments worse than a clarinet—two clarinets.”

“The flute is not an instrument which has a good moral effect—it is too exciting.”

“A flute with no holes is not a flute, and a doughnut with no hole is a Danish.”

“What is a harp but an oversized cheese slicer with cultural pretensions?”

“Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune.”

“The sound of a harpsichord—two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.”

“When she started to play, Steinway himself came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano.”

“[name] did not like the saxophone; he said it sounds like the word reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge.”

“Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.”

“The tuba is certainly the most intestinal of instruments, the very lower bowel of music.”

“The difference between a violin and viola is that a viola burns longer.”

“Ah, music!  What a beautiful art!  But what a wretched profession!”

“Did Beethoven look like a musician?  No, of course she didn’t.”

“A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.”

“A typical day in the life of a heavy metal musician consists of a round of golf and an AA meeting.”

“I’ve never known a musician who regretted being one.  Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.”

#rp meme #rp starters #sentence meme #sentence starters #prompts #rp prompts #writing prompts

[blindeyetheater]

screaming nothing, loudly

During the pre-show announcements for Porchlight’s production of Spring Awakening, Artistic Director Michael Weber takes a moment to inform the audience of the Native peoples to whom the land originally belonged; the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations, as well as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox tribes. Then, he moves on. 

There is nothing about proceeds going to reparations for the community off of whom Porchlight is, by their own admission, directly profiting. Neither were there, to my knowledge, any indigenous actors in the majority white cast. Out of curiosity, I checked Porchlight’s board of directors, and found they were all white, too.

And it was here that it began to dawn on me that the one sentence land acknowledgment was, like so much of the neoliberal pageantry that commercial theater loves to parade about, an empty gesture, meant only to absolve the audience of their guilt. 

It set, I think, a fitting tone for the production. 

I will say this: I like Spring Awakening. There’s a reason it is still one of the most staged musicals in North America. The music is fantastic, and continues to be fantastic under the direction of Justin Akira Kono. The show has a lot to say about the fact that we live in a society, man. When done well, it’s a sensitive, morally complex piece of theater that gives young talent the opportunity to sink their teeth into the kinds of themes and characters that don’t usually come their way until much later in their careers. When executed poorly, and by people who have seemingly no interest in these themes, it becomes a toothless song cycle that risks nothing and pedals in the exact themes it purports to critique. 

A primary source of the suffering in Spring Awakening is repression, any of which is sorely lacking in several of the performances. The characters endure physical, emotional, and mental abuse at the hands of their parents and teachers, but you wouldn’t know it from the way they all keep screaming at them. The immediate descent into melodrama robs the show of the sense of resentment and fear simmering under the surface that builds to the inevitable, tragic crescendo. There is no feeling of the pot reaching a boiling point, no tension before the rubber band snaps. 

Moritz is the worst offender, but I hesitate to critique the actors too harshly. A skilled director should be able to reign in overblown performances, but there were moments in the show so overacted I wondered if she'd been in the room at all (though this could also be attributed to the overall devaluing of acting within contemporary musical theater, where high notes are worth twice as much as emotional authenticity).

By far the worst part of this show, though, is the age gap between the two principal actors. I can excuse bad theater (I myself have been a participant in a lot of it) because a poorly staged production is not, despite what critics such as myself might have you believe, the end of the world. I’m less forgiving of the choice to cast a 29 year old man opposite an 18 year old girl in a play wherein his character assaults hers multiple times. 

The beating heart of Spring Awakening is its moral complexity. Actors typically skew quite close to their character’s real ages, 15, and the discomfort comes from watching these children-- and they are children-- try to navigate their burgeoning sexuality through a roadmap of violence and abuse passed down by their parents. When Melchior beats Wendla, there is deep trauma on both sides; a girl so alienated from her body that the only way she feels she can connect to it is through physical violence, and a boy desperately trying to avoid becoming the patriarchal archetype that perpetuates such violence. We watch the power dynamics develop in real time between these two characters, and it’s heartbreaking. When the actors both look fifteen, these power dynamics are played out on an-- at least slightly-- more level playing field.

The hayloft scene, taken within the context of a repressive society, and understood to be happening between two deeply traumatized children, confronts the audience with a number of difficult questions. How do you accept pleasure when you have only been taught pain? Can you ever give true consent to an action you've been taught will send you to hell? How does consent even operate within a society that strips agency from women completely? How do you ask someone to hurt you? To hold you? There are no easy answers-- that's the point.

But any nuanced discussion about that scene goes out the window when it's a nearly 30 year old man persuading a high schooler to fuck him after she’s explicitly said ‘no’ multiple times. “Maya Lou Hlava is an experienced actress,” you might be thinking, “she has an impressive resume, she's not a regular high schooler, she took the part, she can handle it." It begins to sound an awful lot like, “but she’s mature for her age!"

Don't allow me to remove her agency. She's 18 and can make her own decisions, and it's a role that no one in their right mind would turn down. But it's not like this casting decision exists in a vacuum. I mean, no one could mistake me for a Swiftie, but have we all forgotten about “All Too Well (10 minute version)?” I thought we agreed to stop doing this shit! Pairing young women with Much Older Adult Men is an exhausting, outdated trend that should be left in the very distant past. Shame on the casting team. 

The question that I kept coming back to was, “why?” Why stage this show in 2022? Certainly, its themes are still relevant. Children still live under the tyranny of incompetent adults— they inherit a world of climate change, school shootings, and student debt. In Act 2, Wendla’s mother forces her to get an unsafe abortion, resulting in her death. As I write this, the Supreme Court is making moves to overturn Roe. Clearly, the political climate is ripe for a show about bodily autonomy and the consequences of a lack of comprehensive sexual education; but this production seems uninterested in exploring that. In fact, it seems uninterested in anything. 

There are ways to update this show for a new generation. In casting deaf actors, Deaf West’s production expanded on the show’s body politics and the ways that these children are silenced by the adults in their lives. The young protagonists in this iteration quite literally lack a voice. You leave that production thinking, my god, of course. Deaf West added an element that seems like it should have been there since the beginning, so natural it’s unbelievable nobody thought of it sooner. In contrast, Porchlight’s production makes few updates from the 2005 Broadway version. Back then, Spring Awakening was radical and rebellious for its frank depiction of teenage sexuality, but it’s 2022, and we have Euphoria now. If you chose this show for its shock value, you are severely late to the party. 

What we’re left with is the same production we got almost 20 years ago, except now we have the hindsight to see all of its flaws, as well as the illumination of better productions to which we can compare it. Today, telling a story in which every single woman is punished and our lead actress has virtually no agency outside of whom she chooses to endure violence from-- and doing so with a massive age gap between the two leads within a majority white cast-- is not rebellious. It’s regressive, and it’s lazy, and I’m so sick of this shit. 

Porchlight did not do Spring Awakening because they had something to say or any vested interest in expanding upon the themes of the original production. They did Spring Awakening because they wanted to do Spring Awakening. That’s it. Also, probably, because they wanted to make a buck— which they will, judging by the ticket price ($75 a pop). And therein lies the problem with all commercial theater. You can’t make or stage radical material when your audience is the Gold Coast. It leaves productions in a state of cognitive dissonance, because the people that the show attempts to criticize is often a population that overlaps with the very audience to which the theater caters. There can be no real controversy because that’s not what the patrons are paying for; and when the patrons stop paying, the show stops playing.

The result is a watered down, toothless retelling of a show whose politics were already over 100 years old in the first place. The kids try their darndest to make up for it through overacted performances, but, lacking any direction, come up short and out of breath. They’re screaming nothing at you, loudly. This production of Spring Awakening is, like its pre-show announcement, empty, performative, and self-serving. Don’t worry, though, their next two shows are famously non-political: Rent and Cabaret.

#theater review

[antoine-roquentin]

it’s nice that FAIR published this right before the announcement of the us withdrawal from afghanistan, which will inevitably cause a cavalcade of “think of the women” pieces from neocon cutouts in the us press:

The vast majority of the world was against the US attack on Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 attacks in 2001. However, the idea had overwhelming support from the US public, including from Democrats. In fact, when Gallup (Brookings, 1/9/20) asked about the occupation in 2019, there was slightly more support for maintaining troops there among Democrats than Republicans—38% vs. 34%—and slightly less support for withdrawing troops (21% vs. 23%).

Media coverage can partially explain this phenomenon, convincing some and at the least providing cover for those in power. This was not a war of aggression, they insisted. They were not simply there to capture Osama bin Laden (whom the Taliban actually offered to hand over); this was a fight to bring freedom to the oppressed women of the country. As First Lady Laura Bush said:

We respect our mothers, our sisters and daughters. Fighting brutality against women and children is not the expression of a specific culture; it is the acceptance of our common humanity—a commitment shared by people of goodwill on every continent…. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.

Wars are not fought to liberate women (FAIR.org, 7/26/17), and bombing people is never a feminist activity (FAIR.org, 6/28/20). But the New York Times was among the chief architects in constructing the belief in a phantom feminist war. Within weeks of the invasion (12/2/01), it reported on the “joyful return” of women to college campuses, profiling one student who

strode up the steps tentatively at first, her body covered from face to foot by blue cotton. As she neared the door, she flipped the cloth back over her head, revealing round cheeks, dark ringlets of hair and the searching brown eyes of a student.

The over-the-top symbolism was hard to miss: This was a country changed, and all thanks to the invasion.

Time magazine also played heavily on this angle. Six weeks after the invasion (11/26/01), it told readers that “the greatest pageant of mass liberation since the fight for suffrage” was occurring, as “female faces, shy and bright, emerged from the dark cellars,” casting off their veils and symbolically stomping on them. If the implication was not clear enough, it directly told readers “the sight of jubilation was a holiday gift, a reminder of reasons the war was worth fighting beyond those of basic self-defense.”

“How much better will their lives be now?” Time (12/3/01) asked. Not much better, as it turned out.

A few days later, Time‘s cover (12/3/01) featured a portrait of a blonde, light-skinned Afghan woman, with the words, “Lifting the Veil. The shocking story of how the Taliban brutalized the women of Afghanistan. How much better will their lives be now?”

This was representative of a much wider phenomenon. A study by Carol Stabile and Deepa Kumar published in Media, Culture & Society (9/1/05) found that, in 1999, there were 29 US newspaper articles and 37 broadcast TV reports about women’s rights in Afghanistan. Between 2000 and September 11, 2001, those figures were 15 and 33, respectively. However, in the 16 weeks between September 12 and January 1, 2002, Americans were inundated with stories on the subject, with 93 newspaper articles and 628 TV reports on the subject. Once the real objectives of the war were secure, those figures fell off a cliff.

Antiwar messages were largely absent from corporate news coverage. Indeed, as FAIR founder Jeff Cohen noted in his book Cable News Confidential, CNN executives instructed their staff to constantly counter any images of civilian casualties with pro-war messages, even if “it may start sounding rote.” This sort of coverage helped to push 75% of Democratic voters into supporting the ground war.

As reality set in, it became increasingly difficult to pretend women’s rights in Afghanistan were seriously improving. Women still face the same problems as they did before. As a female Afghan member of parliament told Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies (CounterSpin, 2/17/21), women in Afghanistan have three principal enemies:

One is the Taliban. Two is this group of warlords, disguised as a government, that the US supports. And the third is the US occupation…. If you in the West could get the US occupation out, we’d only have two.

However, Time managed to find a way to tug on the heartstrings of left-leaning audiences to support continued occupation. Featuring a shocking image of an 18-year-old local woman who had her ear and nose cut off, a 2010 cover story (8/9/10) asked readers to wonder “what happens if we leave Afghanistan,” the clear implication being the US must stay to prevent further brutality—despite the fact that the woman’s mutilation occurred after eight years of US occupation (Extra!, 10/10).

Vox (3/4/21) asserted that the US occupation of Afghanistan has meant “better rights for women and children” without offering evidence that that is the case.

The trick is still being used to this day. In March, Vox (3/4/21) credulously reported that Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Mark Milley made an emotional plea to Biden that he must stay in Afghanistan, otherwise women’s rights “will go back to the Stone Age.” It’s so good to know the upper echelons of the military industrial complex are filled with such passionate feminists.

In reality, nearly 20 years of occupation has only led to a situation where zero percent of Afghans considered themselves to be “thriving” while 85% are “suffering,” according to a Gallup poll. Only one in three girls goes to school, let alone university.

And all of this ignores the fact that the US supported radical Islamist groups and their takeover of the country in the first place, a move that drastically reduced women’s rights. Pre-Taliban, half of university students were women, as were 40% of the country’s doctors, 70% of its teachers and 30% of its civil servants—reflecting the reforms of the Soviet-backed government that the US dedicated massive resources to destroying.

Today, in half of the country’s provinces, fewer than 20% of teachers are female (and in many, fewer than 10% are). Only 37% of adolescent girls can read (compared to 66% of boys). Meanwhile, being a female gynecologist is now considered “one of the most dangerous jobs in the world” (New Statesman, 9/24/14). So much for a new golden age.

The “think of the women” trope is far from unique to Afghanistan. In fact, 19th century British imperial propagandists used the plight of Hindu women in India and Muslim women in Egypt as a pretext to invade and conquer those countries. The tactic’s longevity is perhaps testament to its effectiveness.

[yamayuandadu]

Hecate: falsehoods and myths

While my blog generally focuses on China and Japan, occasionally other topics related to religion and mythology warrant a post too. Due to Halloween being right around the corner, I decided to finally cover something I've been meaning to for a long while – the large number of misinterpreted, misreported or outright made up information about my favorite minor figure from Greek mythology, Hecate. While only rarely present in myths, she's a mainstay of not only popculture, but also of what I think warrants being called “pop-spirituality”. Under the cut I will examine a number of claims commonly seen online, and provide both the necessary debunks as well as some interesting genuine information.

Falsehood #1: Hecate's three bodies represent the neopagan virgin, mother, crone trinity This claim, as  baffling as it is, made its way even to a number of academic publications – what prompted me to write this post was in fact stumbling upon it in a paper about a completely unrelated topic. In truth, there wasn't even such a thing as an universal “virgin-mother-crone” trinity in Greek mythology – the whole idea is a product of dubious 20th century scholarship, mostly that of Robert Graves, a man whose notable deeds include writing a number of seemingly entertaining historical novels, cheating on his wife with his “muses” (some of them teenaged), and introducing the world to a wide array of myths and interpretations he came up with himself, but presented as genuine (he want as far as lament that more credible authors refuse to spread his ideas further). The most prominent of them, outlined in his book White Goddess, was his belief in the existence of some form of universal goddess figure with three aspects, which he himself named rather inconsistently, and which he claimed corresponded to the phases on the moon. What is true is that Hecate was associated with the moon from the Hellenic period onward, with neoplatonic writers in particular highlighting this affinity. This appears to be derived from Hecate's role as a “light-bringing” deity, frequently depicted with torches in art. Her arguably most prominent appearance in a myth presents her as Persephone's guide on the way back to her mother, lighting the way through the underworld. A shift from a general light-bringing role to just an association with the moon likely occurred due to conflation occuring between Hecate and Artemis – however in earlier times she was also frequently associated with Apollo, who even held the title of “Hecaton” in some sanctuaries. It has also been suggested that originally the connection was based on Apollo being depicted as a “builder” deity, while Hecate's principal role was that of a guardian of homes, gates and roads, which made their purposes overlap. Due to the aforementioned moon connection, combined with the fact she was commonly depicted with three bodies in art, Hecate became a postergirl for Graves' theory. Of course, this association has no foundation in reality – Hecate is not described as triplicate in Hesiod's Theogony, the oldest source mentioning this goddess.

The oldest known depictions, both sculptures and pottery decorations, likewise depict her with only one body. Some later sources seemingly discussed the three bodied version as merely an art motif. Pausanias's travelogue presents the three bodied Hecate statues as an invention of the sculptor Alcamenes, and contrasts them with a single-bodied depiction: Within the enclosure [in Aegina] is a temple; its wooden image is the work of Myron, and it has one face and one body. It was Alkamenes, in my opinion, who first made three images of Hekate attached to one another, a figure called by the Athenians Epipurgidia [on the tower] It should be noted that yet other sources consider them to have religious importance as guardians of crossroads, though these claims are obviously not contradictory.  Additionally, a few pieces of art, such as the Pergamon altar, depict Hecate with three bodies despite presenting myths in which she only possessed one.

Hecate was consistently portrayed as a young woman (some pieces of art, like the one above, depicted her in an Artemis-like manner, in a knee length garment) and with some small exceptions, usually relying on conflation with various nymphs, ancient Greeks seemingly considered her a virgin goddess. There are no widely agreed upon ideas regarding any other figures being regarded as Hecate's children, and even after becoming only a distantly remembered boogeyman she was not depicted as an elderly woman. Falsehood #2:  a “pan-european” set of “witchcraft traditions” was derived from Hecate Most claims online related to witchcraft try to add a degree of complexity to what was senseless violence caused by moral panics, not dissimilar from the 1980s satanic panic. There was no “pan-european” component to them (beyond all instances of large scale witch hunts being motivated by religious fervor, of course), and in particular the worship of Hecate was neither extant at the time associated with witch hunts and the development of the modern western image of a witch, nor was it ever “pan-european”. If anything, an argument can be made that outside Greece and Anatolia, Hecate was more of a popular import in the east than in the west. Some Roman sources present the existence of Hecate household altars in Greece as a puzzling curiosity, which further strengthens this impression. The late version of her cult, presenting her as a witchcraft goddess spread to Egypt and Mesopotamia, while an older, more positive image of Hecate seemingly survived in far off Bactria. as evidenced for example by Agathocles’ coins with Zeus holding Hecate, seen below.

Neither version ever spread to western or northern Europe, though, and pretty clearly it did not survive in any form into the middle ages and beyond. Wikipedia mentions a truly outlandish modern association between Hecate and germanic wild hunt folklore, which strikes me as completely random. An actual well documented example of Hecate syncretism with a figure from outside Greek mythology involved the Mesopotamian underworld goddess Ereshkigal, however.

What's rather curious is that the very concept of Hecate as a witchcraft and underworld goddess might have been a relatively late development, and as such not an accurate representation her original character – and even in antiquity it wasn't an universally embraced association. Earliest Greek accounts of Hecate cast her in a positive, benevolent role. In the Theogony she's a titan siding with the Olympians and then aiding them during gigantomachia as well; in certain versions of the Persephone myth, for example in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, she's an ally of Demeter offering her counsel and finally escorting Persephone back to her mother. Many of her epithets also point at a benign character.

The deity whose role was most likely the closest to Hecate's own before the negative associations made her little more than a boogeyman was Cybele. Iconography and surviving accounts of rituals to both of these figures bear many similarities, which is considered one of the strongest arguments in favor of Hecate being an Anatolian goddess adapted into the Greek pantheon due to contact between Greek colonist in Asia Minor with local inhabitants such as Carians. It's also worth noting that in Greece both Hecate and Cybele were generally worshiped at household shrines rather than official, large temples. Sometimes Hecate and Cybele were also depicted together, though it's generally agreed they were never conflated. It is still uncertain to what degree Hecate was associated with the underworld before becoming a goddess of witchcraft – some authors assume that she was already in part cthtonic as a Carian deity, while others assume she only started to fulfill this role due to the later witchcraft associations, or due to conflation with the goddess Enodia popular in Thessaly, who was depicted as a crossroad deity like Hecate and was associated with ghosts. Falsehood #3:Hecate was always depicted with animal heads While not entirely made up, this claim is rooted in the Argonautica Orphica, a text only written in the 5th or 6th century, and likely inspired by neoplatonic, gnostic and magical sources. A probable origin of animal-headed Hecate are Egyptian magical papyri, likely influenced by Greek perception of Egyptian religion, and to a large degree disconnected from worship of Hecate in, say, Caria or Phrygia. Earlier sources and art depict Hecate with a single, human, head on each body, as discussed above. The animal-headed image only developed when Hecate started to be perceived exclusively as a goddess of witchcraft and similar arts. However, even though that was always the perception of this deity in Roman sources and in most Greek ones from 5th century BC onward, a number of cult sites in Anatolia, for example the temple in Lagina, continued to venerate her under the regular guise, and one of the most prominent indications of a lasting devotion to her comes from Greco-Bactrian coinage depicting entirely human, single-headed and single-bodied Hecate with Zeus.

While Hecate was not depicted with animal heads before the dawn of Hellenic Egyptian magical papyri, from the very beginning she was associated with a number of animals, most importantly dogs, but also martens and polecats. Occasionally her animal companions were assumed to be humans cursed with such forms. While some versions of associated myths claimed Hecate cursed specific individuals (such as Gale or Hekuba) to live as animals, in others she instead took pity on victims of another deity's curse – for example, Antoninus Liberalis notes that it was believed that the polecat was a woman named Galinthias who was transformed into the animal by the Moirae and “Hekate felt sorry for this transformation of her appearance and appointed her a sacred servant of herself.” Occasionally Hecate was also depicted with lions, like Cybele and a variety of other Anatolian, Levantine and Mesopotamian goddesses. Falsehood #4: Statue of Liberty represents Hecate While the three falsehoods discussed earlier intersect and overlap, this one, as far as I can tell, developed separately, though it also was influenced by the idea of Hecate as a malevolent witchcraft goddess to a degree. Debunking it is much easier and doesn’t require any complex research – the Statue of Liberty was simply based on the personification of liberty depicted on the Great Seal of France:

While Statue of Liberty's crown does resemble that worn by one of the three bodies of a famous statue of Hecate, currently displayed in the Vatican Museum, this style of crown was associated more with solar deities, especially the late Roman god Sol Invictus, and I have been unable to find any other depictions of Hecate wearing it.

Bibliography:

Fragments from a Catabasis Ritual in a Greek Magical Papyrus by Hans D. Betz            

Hecate Cult ın Anatolia by Coşkun Daşbacak

Hecate: Her Role and Character  in Greek Literature From Before Fifth Century B.C. by Carol M. Mooney; some arguments on the contrary can be found in Hecate:  Greek or “Anatolian”? by William Berg

Theoi Hecate and Hecate cult pages - great source of quotations

COININDIA gallery of Agathocles’ coins

#hecate #hekate #cybele #greek mythology #homegrown esoterica

[dadoroki]

You Are My Soulmate

Katsuki Bakugou x Reader

Warning: Fluff, food fight, frenemies to lovers idk

Summary: Imagine being stuck by a single thread connecting you to an angry gremlin. Despite your “hatred” for one another, you both agreed to destroy the one thing connecting you two together.

Heavily inspired by a Bts Friends anamatic!

You, Izuku, and Katsuki used to be the best of childhood friends. Just the three of you playing outside the park after school. However, when you got too close to Izuku, young Katsuki would always feel the pang of jealousy, dragging you by the hand to another area of the park.

“C’mon (y/n), you don’t wanna be with that quirkless loser!”

You knew the two boys had a weird friendship but brushed it off. You turned and motioned a sad Izuku to follow, the frown quickly turning into a smile as he ran to catch up with the two of you.

Middle school was where it all started to change. Izuku and Katsuki’s relationship began to spiral into something more toxic. At this age, you were capable of seeing the wrongs of Katsuki, voicing your opinions to him only to be ignored. As the people around you started developing and strengthening their quirks, it was then people started comparing eachother to see which were more powerful. Katsuki wanted to be the best. To be better than everyone else. To become the number 1 hero.

“I dunno, dude. Bakugou’s explosions are strong but have you seen (y/n)’s telekinesis?”

When he heard others comparing your quirk to his, arguing who was stronger, that’s when it all changed. His care towards you turned into anger, turned to jealousy, turned to hatred. He didn’t see you as the girl he had a slight crush on. No. To him, you were now competition. An obstacle that was in his way. He started to ignore your calls and spent less time with you. You were a bit hurt but knew it was the best for you, sticking by the green-haired teen. After middle school, the three of you applied and got accepted to UA.

“Oi, magician! You’re in my damn line of sight! Do a magic trick and move!”

Through the busy caf, you turn to see the angry blonde glaring at you with an embarrassed Kirishima giving you an apologetic look. You fully faced him with a hand on your hip. “Then close your frickin’ eyes. Nobody wants to see creepy eyes staring at them. Especially not yours.” That made the man turn red with full anger.

“HUH, WHAT DID YOU SAY?! I CAN KILL YOU ON THE SPOT RIGHT NOW!”

You turned around ignoring the angry calls followed by Kirishima and his friends attempting to calm him down. “You might just end up killing yourself by a heart attack, don’t cha’ think?” That only fuelled the man even more. “I don’t even know how you got accepted! You’re useless just like your quirk! Just like that quirkless Deku”, he shouts as he tries to instigate the situation, to which he succeeds. You whirled your head around, hair flowing as it follows your head movement. You raised your hand, Bakugou’s lunch raising up with it. Full force, you pushed forwards and the food makes a strong impact towards his face. Gasps were heard and it was the one time you heard silence from the gremlin. “Hm, that’s interesting. Did you just get a haircut?”

The man slammed his fist on the table, furiously wiping away the dripping food off his face. “SO THAT’S HOW YOU WANNA PLAY?! WELL I HAVE ALL DAY, IDIOT!” He exploded whatever food was left on the table, quickly swipping it all towards you. Chaos began as others joined in too. You and Bakugou exchanged food blows, both full of dirty clothes.

Bakugou had enough, aiming his explosive hand towards you before the both of you were being dragged by a cloth-like equipment. You were both faced by an angry Mr. Aizawa. You chuckled nervously. “Oh, hey sir. Um..a food fight only consist of food and...” You motioned towards the material only earning a harder stare. “Both of you to the principal’s office. Now!” Bakugou scoffed as he pushed off the tangled cloth.

“Next time, work on your aim, you freak. You hit purple balls majority of the time.” Bakugou said as he rolled his eyes and headed towards the office. You caught up beside him with a smirk.

“No, that was intentional.”

It’s been a week since the food fight. That day, Bakugou only had 3 days of punishment while you had 4. The morning sun flashed through the crack of your dorm room curtain, waking you up. You sighed and got off your bed, heading towards the kitchen. Laying on the counter was a single bag of cinnamon twists. You reached to grab it, only for the other side to be matched with a tug.

“Oi, you freak! Let go, it’s mine!”

You furrowed your eyebrows, pulling on your side of the bag. “Don’t care. I saw it first.” You saw the famous colour of red flush his face and swore you saw smoke coming out of his ears. “ARE YOU STUPID?! I SAW IT FIRST!” After multiple tugs and pulls, the bag broke with all the cinnamon twists falling to the ground, the both of you being left with the small corners of the bag. You both stared at the ground in disbelief. Pointing at eachother ready to cast the blame on one another, you noticed a red string wrapped around the tips of both your fingers, connecting you two. Bakugou’s eyes darted the thin string.

“Hey, what the hell? Get off of me!”

“Get off of you?! Why don’t you get off of me?!”

Just like the bag of cinnamon twists, you both turned your full attention on the red string, playing a violent game of tug-of-war. The harder you both tried, the tired you both grew. This was never gonna get off of you, would it?

Nope.

Weeks went on and you stood in front of the planning board in your room. Your eyes glanced around the planner, the bolded title: The Red String with a violently scribbled subtitle in red underneath reading: Plan: DESTROY IT! You and Bakugou tried everything. From burning it with Todoroki’s flames to freezing it with his ice. From Bakugou’s explosions to Kaminari’s electricity and til’ this day, Bakugou still calls you stupid for that. But hey, you were desperate to try anything and Kaminari’s yay mode was worth it.

You stared at the calm blonde laying on your bed, uninterested in what you were doing and creating knots with the string. You thoughts were interrupted buy an annoyed sigh. “Hey, idiot. Are you done with that? I wanna get to sleep.” You switched off the lights and then realized, “Wait, that’s my bed. Get off my bed.” You tried nudging his back with your foot, only earning a snore in return. Sighing you dropped yourself to the ground, stealing your blanket off of Bakugou and laying it on top of you. Your body fidgeted due to the uncomfortable sting the ground was giving your back.

“Oi! quit it. I’m trying to sleep.”

You scoffed and wiggled your attached finger more to irrate him. “Yeah, I’m trying too.” He peeked down at you and signaled for you to get up. You did in confusion before watching him roughly tug the string and making you fall on top of him. He pushed you off and beside him, gripping your waist and resting his head behind your neck. You were quiet, unable to move and unable to process what had happened. He lifted his head up a bit.

“Shut up, idiot. It’s the only way we both can sleep comfortably.” However, you both woke up that very morning with the strings tangling you up against eachother.

It was the normal routine. Finding a way to get this stupid thread off of you both. Everyone around you found it amusing how hard you both tried. Two hotheads in a pot. As the days went by, instead of finding a solution, you both took advantage of it, seeing who could annoy the other more.

He had complained that it was too cold in the dorm foyer. Being the nice person you were, you had helped by turning the fan on. That only made it worse as the string got stuck in the blades, both of you being dragged and yelling at eachother to “turn it off!” and him calling you an idiot. One day, Bakugou had pulled the string, forcing you both to embrace eachother. He told you that he really liked you being around him. You thought it was a nice gesture at first until others pointed out a sticky note on your back reading, “I’m a loser”.

After another round of your long and intense game of tug-of-war, you both fell to the ground with exhaustion. “We’re never gonna get this off, are we?” Bakugou stayed silent before asking you.

“Hey, magic hands... I was wondering”, he scratched the back of his head before continuing, “Do you wanna, I don’t know? Pick flowers or make fun of people?”

You stared at the man dumbfounded and squinted at him. “Whut?”

His eyes widened and he looked away with a scoff. “Don’t look at me with that stupid expression! Just, nevermind. Pretened I didn’t say anything, ok?”

You tried your best to put the puzzle together and after a while, you did. “Huhhh, is Katsuki Bakugou asking me on a date?” You smirked as you leaned on his muscular arm. He quickly brushed his arm away from you. “Pfft, in your dreams, nerd.” You pretended to sigh pressing your chin to your collarbone. “What a shame, I actually started to like you...”, you trailed watching him turn his head to you.

“Fine, but I’m only doing this because I can’t stand your annoying whines so be grateful.”

Typical stubborn Katsuki.

You rested your head back on his arm, only this time he never pushed you off.

“You know I hate you, right?”

The longer you both spent with eachother, the more your affection for one another grew. Who knew that a simple kiss could release the knot on your fingers but that didn’t stop the both of you from spending time together. You had later learned that the whole class 1A had made a bet on the two of you, Momo using her quirk to create an inseparable thread that’s grip could only be released when the affection between the two grew.

And it sure did.

#bnha imagines #mha bakugou #bakugou katsuki #bnha x reader #mha x reader #mha fluff #bnha fluff #bnha bakugou #katsuki bakugou #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #mha imagines #mha oneshot #bnha oneshot

[a-secondhand-sorrow]

maybe it could have been

(read on ao3)

this fic is inspired by this post about a reverse AU by @fiddler-unroofed - if you want to be surprised and aren’t familiar with the concept, i’d suggest looking at it after, but definitely kudos to them for this whole concept. thanks for sending that out into the world!

“This is…Connor…he wanted you to have this.”

For the first time in his life, Evan Hansen sat in the principal’s office. Not for the first time, he was at a loss for what to say, completely hinging his next actions on the actions of the people near him, studying them for some sign but unable to come up with much in the frantic, muddled place his anxious brain had become.

The woman across from him - Cynthia Murphy, mother of Connor and Zoe-suddenly reached out a hand. The paper she’d pulled from her purse only moments before was now held in her outstretched hand. It was a sort of olive branch in Evan’s mind. Larry, her husband, looked at Evan expectantly. He took it uncertainly, casted arm still pressed against his thighs to hide the ‘Connor’ scrawled across it. As the room stood still, Evan unfolded the paper, which had clearly been rumpled and unfolded and refolded several times.

Dear Evan Hansen, it began. The room flashed for a moment, Larry and Cynthia gone and a printer in front of him, this letter clenched in Connor’s fist, where he’d seen it before. But Larry’s voice cut through the silence and he was back on the couch, the old, rough fabric sensible even through his jeans.

“We didn’t…we hadn’t heard your name before, Connor never…but then we saw… ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’”

Evan shook his head, shaking the sound of a printer starting up from his mind. “He, um, he gave you this?”

Cynthia finally spoke up, dodging his question. Her eyes were too bright, too shining and sad and desperate, as they bore a hole between his eyes. “We didn’t know you were friends.”

“We didn’t think that Connor had any friends,” Larry parroted. “And then we see this note and it’s, it seems to suggest pretty clearly that you and Connor were, or at least for Connor, he thought of you as…” Larry gestured at the note in his hand, voice dying in his throat. He clearly wasn’t used to that happening. “I mean, it’s right there. ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’ It’s addressed to you. He wrote it to you.”

“I’m sorry, but what - why - you think he wrote this to me?”

“These are the words he wanted to share with you. His…last words.”

“This is what he wanted to leave you with,” Cynthia said, voice shaky and uncertain. Something in it was desperately familiar to Evan.

“I’m sorry…his last words?”

Larry cleared his throat while Cynthia stifled a sob next to him. His eyes were the color of the wall behind him, drab and dark. The sound of a printer filled the air and Evan’s ears. Footsteps sounded behind him. Evan forced his eyes away from the printed letter to look into Larry’s eyes, those sad, dark, expectant eyes.

“Connor…uh…Connor took his own life.”

**

The computer lab was almost completely empty, save for a figure he’d barely given a second glance. It was empty enough for him, for his one goal of finishing this letter. He typed something out without paying much attention to what it was. It didn’t matter. Each clack of the keys startled him more than the last. He wasn’t thinking, only moving.

He clicked print on his document, immediately hearing the printer whoosh to life. It took a moment for him to stand up and move towards it, glancing at the first piece of paper to shoot out of the printer. He only stared at it for a moment before he heard footsteps behind him, heavy and expectant. The words flashed at him from the page.

‘Dear Evan Hansen’.

The footsteps stopped behind him. He froze, unsure of what to do. His pulse quickened, blood rushing through his ears.

Connor stopped just next to him, clearing his throat to command attention, and Evan’s head swiveled to look. “How did you break your arm?” He asked, almost monotone, like a kid forced to apologize by his teacher.

“Oh, I, uh, I fell out of a tree.” He finished, voice trailing off towards the end.

“You fell out of a tree?” Connor said, voice and face blank. He reminded Evan eerily of a voice in Google Translate when you clicked the speaker button - no breathing, little inflection, a robotic sense of detachement.

Evan nodded quickly, more of a jerk of the head than anything else.

Unexpectedly, Connor let out a laugh. The sound hit Evan full in the face, startling the still air. It felt familiar, almost. “That is just the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Oh my God.”

“I know.”

Something in Evan’s tone must have pulled Connor out of his humor-induced reverie. His eyes dropped to the cast on Evan’s arm. “No one’s signed your cast.”

“No, I-I know.”

“Guess I will, then.”

A swell of something rose in him. “You don’t - you don’t have to-”

“Do you have a Sharpie?”

After a moment’s pause, Evan reached into his pocket and withdrew the sharpie. Connor accepted it. He wrote slowly, each squeak of the marker and giant stroke that shaped the letters filling the silence more effectively than words could. “No pretending we have real friends, I guess.” He said, a dark note in his tone, as he passed the sharpie back to Evan.

“Good point.”

While Evan busied himself with the sharpie in his pocket, Connor reached for the paper in the tray. “Is this yours? It says “Dear Evan Hansen.” That’s you, right?”

“Oh, um, yeah, it is. That’s me. My name. It was a, uh, an assignment-”

But he couldn’t stop Connor’s eyes from dropping back down to the paper. “Because there’s Zoe?” He said, all traces of friendliness gone from his tone.

Another swell of emotion. “What?”

“You meant for me to find this, right? Because this is about my sister ? You wrote this because you wanted me to find this and freak out because of some creepy shit you said about my sister, and then you could tell everyone I’m crazy, right?”

“What? I didn’t - why would I-?”

”Fuck you,” Connor spat, and this time he wasn’t monotone. It was quiet anger - anger so great it almost shook, an anger that looked almost like sadness. He brushed past Evan, knocking his shoulder into him so that Evan fell against the printer right as it made another noise.

***

Barely three days later, Evan stopped short in the doorway to the principal’s office, heart already pounding out some uneven beat.

“Uh, is Mr. Howard…? I just, sorry, they said on the loudspeaker for me to come to the principal’s office.”

“Mr. Howard is, uh, he stepped out.”

Evan nodded, unsure of what else to do or why he was there.

“We wanted to speak to you in private. If you’d like to, maybe…”

The man on the couch opposite the only free chair was intimidating. A grey suit stretched across his shoulders, the fit perfect. His voice commanded a certain attention, even as he hunched uncertainly and fiddled with his tie. It was evidently a voice that was used to having people obey its commands. The woman next to him was easy to look past until you saw her, and then you would wonder how you missed her in the first place. Although she was quiet and still, she had her own presence, too, a kind of presence that came with money and assurance and all the confidence of the two. Her face was a mask super glued back together from some broken part of her, the cracks so obvious you’d wonder how you hadn’t seen them. They were people who knew who they were and exactly what they were worth, even though an obvious sorrow cut through their postures and controlled their expressions. They were pulled by invisible strings, strings they probably didn’t know existed until this sorrow arrived to weigh them down. The strings were probably the only reason they were standing.

Evan knew he should be intimidated by them, but he, himself, knew something about sorrow, and unlike them, he’d never had strings to hold him up.

As he sat across from them, the man cleared his throat. Larry, Evan remembered, and Cynthia. The names came from some dark shadow in his mind. He could almost imagine a voice saying them, but he was cut off by the voice of Larry.

“We’re, uh… we’re Connor’s parents.”

A flash of something in his chest, squeezing his heart. Letters on a page, the smell of sharpie and something bitter. Sunlight and fluorescent light at once. “Oh?”

Without warning, Cynthia began to pull her purse open to grab something out. Larry, an expression Evan recognized as desperation on his face, filled the silence with “Why don’t you go ahead, honey-”

Tone fraught, Cynthia cut him off. “I’m going as fast as I can.” They were decidedly not looking at each other, choosing instead to train their eyes on the coffee table and the wall, respectively.

Larry’s voice was measured and thin as he responded. It was clear he’d been through this conversation before. “That’s not what I said, is it?”

Cynthia ignored him. Evan counted the beats of silence in his head. For someone so terrible with music, he’d always been able to keep a rhythm. He’d reached five before Cynthia turned back to him, hand outstretched and letter between her tightly clenched fingers.

And Dear Evan Hansen was staring up at him again.

There was more silence until Evan was pulled out of his own head, and he’d lost track of how long he’d been in silence. He said something or Cynthia said something or Larry said something, or maybe it was all three and it just blurred together, the words on the page in front of him obscuring his vision even while he looked away.

“Connor took his own life.”

“His… last words.”

“Wanted you to…”

“It’s addressed to you.”

“...at least, he thought of you as…”

“Connor didn’t write this,” he said, coming back to the moment. He hadn’t properly looked at the Murphy’s before then, but with that choked out statement, he did. Evan hadn’t realized how his throat had narrowed and his eyes had burned until he had Cynthia’s eyes staring at him, all crinkled around the corners in a way that made his heart twist. “I wrote it.”

“What?” She said, it coming out as though it had been dragged from her throat - a raw, guttural noise. He dropped his eyes from her face.

Larry made a similar disbelieving noise - all instinct, no planning. “He’s in shock, he doesn’t mean-”

“He didn’t write it,” Evan said a little louder, voice verging on hysterical and suddenly very aware of the tears splashing down his cheeks. He shook his head, one hand shoving the letter back to the Murphy’s in some sudden urge to get it as far away from his as possible, to have it out of his hands, have it gone. Shock may have been what was coursing through his veins, but for what, he didn’t know. His other hand reached to his heart, tapping and massaging, before falling back to his shirt hem. “It was, it was a, a therapy assignment. I wrote - wrote it. We didn’t - Connor and I-” he’s choked off. “He took it in the, the computer lab, where I, that’s where I printed it-”

He could hear the printer clearly, once, then twice.

“I’m sorry, sorry, I’m sorry, I should-” he made to stand, dropping the letter as though it had scalded him, and he tilted a little as his vision became obscured by sudden vertigo. He couldn’t look at the Murphy’s, couldn’t even if he could see through his tear-blurred eyes, couldn’t see the disappointment in their eyes and grief in their faces, because he’d dashed their last hope of knowing their son, he’d ruined it, he’d-

A sob tore through the air. His own.

He stumbled on his feet, and suddenly a hand wrapped around his good arm’s bicep, strong even as the person it was attached to clearly had trouble getting the words out around tears. A business card with other writing scribbled on the back was shoved in his direction, and he grabbed it blindly before wrenching his eyes up to the person’s face. Larry stared back at him, an emotion so unprocessed on his face that it very nearly tore another sob from Evan’s chest. “Please,” he said, indicating the card with his free hand. “Come-come to dinner anyway, please.”

Evan nodded, knowing at that moment he’d have agreed to anything to get out of that office and finally breathe again.

Larry let go of his arm, his own hand dropping slowly to his side. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Cynthia, but he could hear her weeping from across the office. His hand wrapped more tightly on the card. Summoning some unknown inner strength, he turned and forced himself to walk away before he became frozen to the spot.

***

“They want you to go to dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? I mean, what good does it do to hang out with the kid their dead son had nothing to do with whatsoever?”

“God, Jared, do I seem like I know? Search me.”

“They’re crazy, probably.”

“That’s harsh.”

“What? They’re the Murphy’s. Connor’s parents. They must be. Why else would they-“

“Stop,” Evan said, and he was surprised by how harsh he sounded, especially given the fact that his eyes felt like they were burning for no reason. “They’re grieving. And Connor, he’s–” his voice trailed off.

“Yeah, no shit, dude. It’s just weird. Everyone’s acting weirdly now.”

“It’s a weird situation,” Evan said softly.

“You could say that again. Sabrina Patel was selling buttons at lunch.”

“ Buttons? ”

“Yeah, like, In Memoriam buttons? In remembrance or some shit?”

“That’s terrible,” Evan breathed.

He could practically see Jared’s shrug. “I don’t know. She’s just profiting, I guess. I thought of doing the same.”

Evan hung up before Jared could say anything else.

***

“Why did you say that about me?”

“Say-?”

“‘Because there’s Zoe. And all of my hope is pinned on Zoe.’ Why did you say that?”

Evan felt something tug in his chest, Zoe’s words striking something deep. He inclined his head ever so slightly in her direction.

He inclined his head ever so slightly in his direction, a smile spreading across his face as he opened his mouth to respond.

“I don’t know, you see, I just - there’s this, there‘s this little smile thing you do, when you’re playing guitar in jazz band? It’s like, your eyes kind of close and you get this tiny smile on your face like you’re totally content in that moment and you know what you’re doing, and it’s like, it’s like you’re letting us in on this secret without saying anything.” Her eyes meet his, brewing with confusion, and he taps a strange rhythm on his thigh, thoughts racing.

“You know your smile? It’s really nice. I never see it, it feels like, but when you smile, it’s like...it’s like everything is, hilarious, I guess, you know? Everything is, everything is good. It feels...like, like I’ve been accepted when you smile at me.”

He started again. “I went to your jazz band concerts, and there was something about your playing and your smile and all of it - there was something about it, something just really...something that’s really, really subtle, and perfect, and...real, I guess.” He swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. “It made me feel...wonderful.”

He smiles, and his heart skips a beat. “There’s something about a nice smile, I guess. If it is nice. If it’s nice, it’s really nice.” He pauses before he continues. “You know, she has a nice smile. I always feel really...wonderful, when she smiles at me. Even if I can’t show it.”

He doesn’t need to say who she is.  

“Really?” She said softly, and Evan looked back up, her eyes startlingly clear and focused. He couldn’t quite read the expression on her face or the tone of her voice, but it had softened considerably, the freckles around her nose relaxing against the rest of her face rather than scrunching up in self-defense.

“Yeah,” he said, the corners of his lips quirking. “And...and I noticed how you’d scribble stars on the,” he pointed to her crossed ankles, and her gaze dropped to them, her cheeks tingeing slightly pink, from what he could discern, “on the cuffs of your jeans, see? And I’d see you in, in the library, and the hallways, and like, half of the time you’d be filling out one of those-those quizzes in those teen magazines.”

Her eyes flitted back up to his, still guarded. “Did you really?”

He nodded quickly, hand still tapping at his thigh.

The edge of her lip twitched momentarily, and Evan almost thought she was about to give him one of her thousand-watt smiles, but it became neutral a moment later. He hadn’t noticed until just that moment, but she’d been choosing and shaping her words so carefully before then - so clearly thought out, although he’d missed it. The next words were rushed and hurried, her lisp slipping in, syllables blending just ever so slightly more. He almost got lost in that different feel-how almost intimate it felt, to have her speak differently than he’d ever heard her, but he couldn’t escape the feeling it was more from desperation than comfort. “Did...did you notice anything else?”

Still caught up in his train of thought, it took him a second to respond. “About...about you?” He said, voice tilting up at the ‘ou.’

If her previous words had been lax, these were negligent: “Never mind, I don’t really care anyways, it’s just-”

Maybe it was the way the guard immediately went back up in her eyes. Maybe it was the tone of what she said, the familiarity he felt at every moment of his life, the anxiety and disappointment and fear laced through the words. Maybe it was because she seemed upset more than anything. But suddenly he was rushing over everything else, to stop her from standing, from turning away, from slipping out of his fingers like on the first day of school.

From slipping out of his fingers that afternoon, a light hum and uncertainty hanging in the air, a glint in his eye he could understand but didn’t know how to interpret.  

“No, I, uh, it’s just, there were more - many things, I’m trying to think of - trying to think of the...best ones?”

She didn’t respond, but she didn't leave, either, and so he forged ahead.

“Um,” his hand, which had been picking nervously at the edge of his cast, fell to his side as he finally thought of something. He ignored how his heart warmed at the memory, and he hoped she couldn’t see right through him. “I know that I, I thought that you looked really pretty-er, uh, pretty cool!-when you put those, um, those indigo streaks in your hair.”

“You did?” Zoe said, either genuinely not having heard his slip-up or graciously ignoring it. Something in her tone urged Evan to meet her eyes, and he identified it a moment later - hope, shining out from the uncertainty.

“Yeah,” he said quickly, giving her a half-smile. “And, and, I saw you dance - that sounds creepy, but in the cafeteria sometimes you’d kind of - grab your friends and make them dance with you funnily? And at school dances, you’d just dance - you’d dance like no one else was there. And it was like, you didn’t care what anyone else thought? Or if it was awkward and it was just - I thought it was - perfect? But I was too - I was always too scared to say anything-”

He’s cut off by her lips, pressed against his. They’d been leaning ever so slightly forward towards each other as he talked, and at some point, he’d gained the courage to meet her eyes again, and the skin just in the corner had crinkled in some complicated way, and her nose had scrunched a little, and he could see her lips work ever so slightly, and he’d never been close enough to see those little pools of lighter brown in her eyes, and then she’d closed the distance between them. Their lips were pressed together for maybe a second before she pulled away again, but it felt like simultaneously a lifetime and no time at all, the feeling of it played again and again on repeat, the jolt of the slightly rough feel of her lips had given him, the taste of chapstick and some fruity Seltzer, the way it felt as though they’d melted together for just that one moment. As she pulled away and his eyes opened again (he’d closed them?) everything seemed sharper and more in focus, like every one of his nerves had been zapped awake.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and her words were once again careless. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I - what the hell,” she added, almost under her breath, more to herself than him, he knew. She looked away from him quickly.

“Dinner’s ready!” Cynthia called, her voice traveling up the stairs. They both jumped up immediately. Zoe quickly made to move past him. He could’ve sworn her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

“And you were-you were always nice to me,” Evan said. She paused, back still to him. The caramel brown of her hair contrasted against the white of her blouse in a way that made it quite easy for him to look at it. “Not just me. To everyone. Even when it seemed like everyone else-“ he cut off. “You weren’t. Even if you didn’t realize it. You are - you are good, Zoe Murphy. And that first day of school…”

“Tell them to eat without me,” Zoe said, and Evan knew for sure that the force obstructing her voice was tears. “I’m sorry, I, I can’t.”

His heart twisted as she hurried out of the door, her tear-choked voice hanging in the air.

“Guys?” Cynthia called, concern edging into her voice.

***

“Would anyone like more chicken?”

“I think you’re the only one with an appetite, Larry.”

Two days before Zoe kissed Evan, they sat across from each other at a dining table with five chairs. His was shoved hurriedly between Cynthia and Larry’s, and the one next closest to Zoe was simply (achingly) empty. He thought he could see a curved shadow in it for just a moment, but it was gone a second later.

“The Harrises brought it over,” Larry said, defensiveness creeping into his tone. Evan didn’t have to glance over at Cynthia to see the disapproving look she threw at Larry; he could feel it over his shoulder. He looked down at his plate instead, one hand picking at his cast. As his gaze moved downward, he couldn’t help but notice Zoe’s eyes on him, one hand sluggishly pushing her chicken around with a fork.

“We used to go skiing together,” Cynthia explained for Evan.

“Connor hated it,” Zoe bit out.

“Zoe,” Larry said, and that was the end of that conversation.

“I, um. I’ve never skied.” Evan said, desperate to fill the heavy silence between the Murphy’s. Larry nodded, but that was the extent of his interaction.

“Why did he sign your cast?” Zoe said suddenly. When Evan turned to look at her, her eyes were bright.

“Um-what?”

“Your cast.” She said, ignoring Cynthia’s death glare. “He signed it. In giant fucking letters.” (Larry interrupted with a scandalized ’Zoe!’, but she ignored him). “Why did he do that if you weren’t friends?”

Evan’s mouth twisted downwards. “He, um. He offered. In the computer lab. Said something about pretending we had friends.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Cynthia looked down and away from him, but Zoe at least seemed to understand where he was coming from.

“That makes sense,” she muttered. “You know, it’s kind of weird. The only time I ever saw you guys together was when he shoved you at school last week.”

“Connor shoved you?” Cynthia breathed.

Looking back at Zoe, something hardened in her gaze, in the corners of her eyes, Evan wondered how he’d never seen the resemblance between her and Connor before. Maybe he’d never realized just how bitter they could look, their shared expression of trepidation. He didn’t like hers leveled at him.

“I, um. I tripped.”

“He pushed you. Hard. I saw the whole thing. How’d he get from that to signing your cast?”

Evan closed his eyes, opened them again. The story sprang off of his tongue. “He was upset. Someone - someone made a rude joke. I coughed and he thought I was laughing at him. He pushed me.”

Cynthia frowned. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“Well, Connor wasn’t very nice, so that makes sense,” Zoe snapped.

She must’ve known she crossed a line, but she didn’t seem to regret it at all. Cynthia shut her own eyes. Larry glanced up from his chicken sharply. The silence that settled over them was deadly. Evan was afraid to breathe for fear of breathing in the shrapnel coming off of their glares.

“Connor was a...complicated person.”

“No, Connor was a bad person. There’s a difference.”

Larry finally decided to intervene. “Zoe, that’s enough.”

“You agree with me. Don’t pretend you don’t,” Zoe said, her eyes flashing to Larry. He froze in his seat.

“You refuse to see any of the good things!” Cynthia shouted.

“Because there were none! What were the good things, mom?” Zoe returned her mother’s volume.

“There were-” Cynthia’s voice broke off, and her eyes cut to Evan’s face. Her meaning was clear. “Not here, Zoe. Not in front of our guest.”

“What were the good things, mom? Tell me!”

“There were good things!”

“Connor could be good,” Evan found himself saying. All three sets of eyes snapped to him. He couldn’t have handled watching Cynthia grow more distressed for another moment.

“What?” Zoe said. She seemed to regret how much edge there had been in her words a second later, but her eyes didn’t yield a single inch.

Evan hedged. “I mean. He. He signed my cast? And he was, well. He was the only person who did that. Or even wanted to, really. No one else noticed. Or, or cared, I guess.”

Cynthia’s eyes were latched onto him. Zoe looked away, back at her plate. He wondered if she could hear him saying no way, Jose just as clearly as he could.

“I think, I think there were a lot of those, um, those small moments,” he said finally.

His hand ghosted over a new scrape. “Where’d that happen?”

“Oh, I just got into a fight with a notebook.”

“There aren’t a lot - a lot of people who see those?”

“Are you sure you’re okay to be out tonight? You look tired.”

Evan shook his head a little. “He did, though. With everyone, I think.”

Cynthia seemed to be on the verge of tears again, but they were a happier kind of tears.

He was invited back to dinner as often as he wanted to come.

***

Later, he’d stand in front of the Murphys’ table. “The Connor Project,” he said, letting it sink in. Jared Kleinman and Alana Beck were on either side of him, makeshift pamphlets in their hands. Cynthia looked up from the pamphlet. For the first time, she seemed able to truly meet his eye.  

“The...Connor Project?”

“Yeah,” Evan said. “Something to make sure that no one else feels like Connor did. To, to preserve his memory.”

He was aware of Zoe’s eyes on his face. He didn’t think they’d ever left, but he couldn’t be sure.

“There’ll be a massive online presence,” Jared said from his side. “Resources, hotlines, chats that are heavily monitored, those types of things.”

Alana, after offering her condolences to the family, picked up her part of the pitch with great enthusiasm. “And a fundraising drive, so we can hopefully create more resources and do something in honor of Connor. All of it started with an all-school memorial assembly.”

Evan’s gaze angled to Zoe. She seemed surprised that he could even see her; she’d been entirely quiet in this din of noise. “Maybe jazz band could do something.”

She nodded after a moment, seemingly caught off guard. “Yeah, maybe,” she said quietly. He couldn’t quite read the emotion on her face.

“I didn’t realize Connor meant this much to people,” Larry said. Like his daughter, he’d barely said anything before. His thumb rubbed over the faux pamphlet, his mouth twisting into a deep frown.

“Oh, Evan, this is wonderful,” Cynthia said half a second later. He was startled but not surprised to see tears sparkling in her eyes. She stood and crossed the kitchen in surprisingly short strides, her arms enveloping Evan in a warm hug for a minute. She hugged Jared after him; Jared didn’t seem to know what to do, caught off-guard by the sudden affection. Alana was next; Cynthia whispered something to her, and Alana whispered something back, but Evan had no idea what either said. They each smiled a moment later. Evan’s gaze fell back to Zoe. She’d seemed to shrink back into herself at the table, but when he met her eyes, one of the corners of her lips tugged just the barest hint outwards. He was sure he was the only one to catch it. For whatever reason, to everyone but him, Zoe Murphy may as well have not been in the room at all.

***

He’d stand in front of their kitchen table again, head ringing and tears imminent, Zoe so far from smiling he’d wonder how she was even functioning.

Everyone would see him again, and they’d see her, too, but there would be something else to see, too. Someone. The Connor Project in its entirety, at its ugliest, at its core.

***

But Zoe smiled at him, over but not because of the Connor Project, and he could see her and she could see him. That was a pretty big deal, in and of itself. Sometimes that’s all we need to feel like enough, one person seeing us. Sometimes that’s all we need to think that someone else is enough to make us feel human again.

***

“Whatever happened when you fell from the tree?”

The question fell from Zoe’s lips where they rested just above his shoulder. Her head was resting on it while they sat outside one of the outer walls of the school. Her arm was wrapped tight around his waist, and his hand held hers with practiced ease. The way their fingers laced together still sent butterflies through his stomach at the first touch but quickly settled him afterward. Holding hands with Zoe was starting to feel as easy as breathing. He let his head drop to rest against the top of hers.

“What?”

“I mean...who found you? Your coworkers? Random park goers? It just sounds like it must’ve been a terrible fall.”

For a moment, he remembered the feel of a different hand in his and the catch of light on brown hair. But another second later and it was gone.

“No one,” he said. “I had to go find my boss.”

Zoe took in a sharp breath. Her arm drew him even closer to her, and her head dropped more to press a kiss to his shoulder. He felt his heart warm and widen at the movement. More than anything, he just felt safe and content with Zoe next to him.

***

He shared what happened when he fell from the tree.

“Good morning, students and faculty. I would, um, I would just like to say a few words to you today about...our classmate, Connor Murphy, on behalf of the, um, the Connor Project community.”

He felt like he was going to choke. Like the lights would drown him and he'd disappear forever, lost in all but the minds of the entire school in front of him. The entire school.

“I didn’t know Connor that well. But Connor was always there, whether we knew it or not. Whether we acknowledged him or not.”

His cards nearly fell from his hands. He choked on a building cough, but he kept going.

“I wish Connor were still here, because then maybe I’d know him enough to give a proper speech about him. Maybe I’d know him as more than the boy who was kind enough to sign, um, sign my cast when no one else would.”

He flipped a notecard.

“Good morning, students and...um, uh.”

This was his worst nightmare, coming to life. He shuffled through his notecards. He may have heard a laugh building up in the crowd, but he couldn’t be certain.

All of the cards went flying and it was so silent you could hear a pin drop.

Instead, he dropped. He went to the ground, hands flying to pick them up. It was useless. He couldn't grab them. He looked up towards the sky, the lights, whispering um s that barely made it out of his throat, choking on tears of frustration and sorrow. He was trapped under those lights, harsh and unnatural. Why not sunlight over the horizon? Like when he broke his arm. These lights were artificial, but weren’t they the same as the outside? Wasn’t he the same person he’d been then?

He wanted to disappear, swallowed up by the light he could see as far as he looked. Why couldn’t he just disappear?

Evan swore he could feel Connor’s gaze on him, the weight of his giant sharpie name on the cast on his arm.

Light on the horizon. Sharp pain in his arm. Connor saved him, right? (Not literally, of course. How would that be possible?) He wished everything was different. He wished someone noticed him. Them. The two of them. They shouldn’t disappear into background noise, the deafening silence of a crowd of people waiting for him to fix things in their minds.

And after a deep breath, he stood, notecards forgotten on the ground. His eyes dropped to the first row of chairs, where he could swear a pair of eyes stared back into his like they did across the Murphy’s kitchen table.

Connor.

With a quick nod from him, a plastic, detached version of the real thing in the computer lab that day - with his robotic voice and jerky movements - words sprang off of Evan’s tongue.

“ I, uh, I broke my arm this summer. Obviously.” A chuckle went through the crowd, hesitant, uncertain, probably because of the tears still drying on his cheeks.

“Um. I was working at Ellison State Park. It was the morning, and it was just - it was so beautiful. I loved it, really. No one else was there. I was so-so lonely. All summer, really. I was, uh, I was invisible.

“When I fell from a tree, I thought it would be better. Maybe, like maybe I’d be gone for good?”

There was a deafening silence, then.

“But I just broke my arm. I was still there. No one, no one really saw me, still. Through the rest of the summer. Until-until Connor signed my cast, first day of school. He wasn’t the person to find me that day I broke my arm. But in a roundabout way, he found me eventually. Just by being there, and being open to someone he barely knew. It was enough to feel seen.

“I wish I could’ve done that for him. Made him feel seen. I wish we all could have done that. And I hope that’s what we do in the future. Provide some way for us all to be seen. We should all be found by each other. We will find each other, and we will help each other. We need to at least try.”

He almost ended it there, but then he said, “There should always be someone to find you. Even if it looks like there isn’t, keep your eyes open. Someone will find you when you fall from a tree and think there’s no tomorrow. Someone will find you.”

The lights swallowed him up, and then they were gone. He was lying in the grass for a moment before the sunlight - no, the stage light - cleared from his eyes. The sound of applause was deafening, and when he searched for Connor in the front row he came up short.

He was just relieved to be done speaking, but that would be far from his last moment with that speech. The next morning, he’d be on almost every major news source, thanks to a video of his speech Alana posted on the Connor Project social media. He’d rush to the Murphy’s, stand in front of their table, try to understand their gratitude at what he’d done. He’d get a rush of Instagram followers. He’d immediately start filming more videos with Alana. He’d learn to see the outpouring of gratitude for his words, learn to share more as time went on.

His mother would see it, and she’d barge into his room, face pale, and pull him into her arms. She’d hug him close and whisper apologies he said she didn’t need to share, and she’d tell him just how proud she was of him, how fantastic he is, her smart, brave boy who managed to say all of that in front of everyone.

And he’d find Zoe in her room, watching his speech on her laptop. She’d shut it as soon as he walked in, all of her attention focused on him. And she’d start to say something, maybe, to thank him, to thank him for trying and for doing this all for her family and for making her realize the impact of his words, but he’d kiss her and pull away a second later. And before he could run, she’d kiss him back, and some small, selfish corner of his brain may think that this made all the other parts of his speech worth it, just to feel Zoe Murphy’s fingers twined through his hair and his body pressing against hers. But deep down, he had a feeling it would come to all of that anyway, that he and Zoe were meant to be this version of themselves. Together. Larger than life, an emotion so strong he couldn’t begin to imagine it.

***

For once in his life, Evan was more than just Evan.  

(Once? a tiny corner of his brain said, a pair of eyes across from a table, a hand grasping his right hand with a fierce protectiveness and steady squeeze.)

It was so unspeakably nice to have the knowledge that, outside the four walls of his room and the screen of his laptop, people watched the videos he and Alana filmed. With every “Hello, Connor Project Community!” he became just a little more seen, and even though Alana talked over him half of the time, there were a few time their eyes met in the webcam and they just smiled, because they’d done something. It was the same with Jared; no more assertions of family friends, but then spent together working in a comfortable silence.

He never hears from his father as the weeks go by and his cast comes off. (“Zoe must be happy, huh? Must be a real turn off, trying to get it on with her dead brother’s name giant on your cast.” That didn’t sit very well in his stomach.) But when Larry offers to go through stuff in the basement with him - and Cynthia and Zoe roll their eyes in exasperation - he really is happy to listen. Larry told him partway through that he was a really good listener, and he couldn’t help but feel his chest inflate a bit with pride. He doesn’t know anything about sports, doesn’t even care. But it’s so nice to have Larry joke with him, show him his years and years of collecting, give him a glove like there’s nothing in the world he’d rather be doing then spending the afternoon with Evan Hansen. That’s a nice feeling, the knowledge that someone wants to spend time with you.

And there’s Zoe, of course. But she can barely be captured by words. Perhaps more than anyone else, she’s the one that makes him feel least like just Evan. Because they are a pair, and it feels so nice to have someone else on his side, making the good parts of life seem fantastic and the bad parts seem inconsequential. When they make eye contact and laugh to themselves across the garage, or when she grabs his hand at school or after, or when they just sit next to each other, heads leaning onto each other, he doesn’t feel like solitary, lonely Evan. He feels - knows - that he is part of a pair, and the other side will always be there so they can hold each other up.

***

“We don’t need to talk about the Connor Project.”

“Oh,” Evan said. “Okay.”

“No, I just...I want to know. But I also want...I want to have this time with you. Just for us.”

“For our kegger?”

The corners of her mouth twitched. “Obviously.”

“Oh, good.”

After a pause, Zoe continued. “My brother...he had so much of my life. So much of my time. I feel like everything in my family...it was his. And I really just need something...for me.”

Up this close, Evan was pulled in, again, by the look in her eyes, the freckles on her cheeks, the curve of her lips, the affection and determination in her eyes. The space between her eyebrows furrowed just the slightest bit, and he reached out and grabbed her hand. His heart jumped a beat into his throat. He swore he could count the stars in her eyes if he tried enough. She reached a hand up to cup his cheek.

“You don’t have to impress me, Evan. You’re enough. You’re more than enough. You’re...everything. You don’t have to convince me of anything, okay? I know who you are. I know what we’re in the middle of. Ignore that doubting voice in your head.”

He smiled at her, and her eyes softened. In the soft lighting of his bedroom, he felt she was an angel come to save him, the floral pattern of her dress caught in the reflection of the daylight and the sleeve of her denim jacket rubbing against their entwined hands. She’d taken all of the anxious energy that normally followed him in waves and she’d thrown it out the window with a flick of her wrist. She’d stolen the air from his lungs and ignited every nerve in his body. She’d steadied the air around him, made him comfortable with the curve of her calloused fingers on his. He only hoped he could do the same for her.

“I know you, Evan Hansen. And I know you outside of anything else. You’re...you’re mine. And I’m yours. It’s just us, okay? Nothing to live up to. Nothing to worry about.” She smiled. “Just us. Zoe and Evan.”

“Zoe and Evan,” he echoed, unable to stop the grin on his face. A pair. A matching set. “I could get used to that.”

Her hand dropped from his face to his shoulder. “I plan on making you get used to it for quite a long time, actually.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

When she kissed him, he swore he could have lifted the stars from the sky and brought them down to her simply with the sweeping wave of affection and joy and love he felt for Zoe Murphy, for every constellation splashed on her cheeks.

***  

“Because I know what it’s like to feel invisible just like you did!” Alana said, her hand curling around her backpack strap. Evan chose to focus on that rather than the way the floor seemed to have bottomed out beneath him. “But you don’t seem to understand that that’s why I’m doing this.”

He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “I get it,” he said. “I’m sorry, Alana. I understand. I know. I know that feeling.”

“I think you might have forgotten that other people do, too. That Connor might have. That’s why we’re doing this.”

“I know! I know!”

“You’re not showing that, Evan. You’re not.”

“I’m…I’m sorry. I’ll try harder. I’ll do more.”

Alana just sighed. “Please, Evan. We’re trying to do something here. We’re trying to help people. Raise money. I’m not sure about your story, and neither are the community.”

His stomach flips unpleasantly, landing about six inches higher than it should.  

“Do me a favor, from one invisible person to another,” she says. Something in her tone forced his eyes to meet hers. “Don’t let someone else go forgotten, okay? Just...I’d prefer you didn’t lie to me, but God, at least admit everything to yourself.”

***

Evan wasn’t quite sure when he first saw Connor. It may have been in the audience at his speech, or maybe curled into his chair in the Murphy’s kitchen at one of their countless meals.

In his mind’s eye, he fell from a tree.

“Oh, that’s a nice story. You let go?”

But with the fragments of his and Alana’s conversation from the week before echoing in his ears, Connor was more present to him than he ever had been. Actually speaking instead of just staring.

“Yes. Yes, I let go. I wanted to…I wanted to…”

“Did you let go? Or did you fall?”

"At least admit everything to yourself.”

“I…I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Is it true that no one came to get you that day?”

“Yes! I was…I was alone. Just like I told Zoe.”

“I don’t give a shit what you told Zoe. What happened?”

“I was alone.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Evan. You can’t even tell the truth to yourself.”

“Admit it to yourself.”

“It’s the truth! I don’t…”

“Oh yeah?” Connor, the fake and cleansed one, suddenly leaned in close to where Evan’s face was as he sat on the bed. “Maybe you should think again.”

Something wrong struck Evan just then. It turned over a dog eared page in his head, but he shook it rapidly and squeezed his eyes shut to keep it down. Shadows flicked at the edges of his vision and colors exploded against his eyelids with the force he closed them.

one two three

***

He had never thought of himself as a person of habit before, but he became rather attached to his new routine with the Murphy’s. His mother was home for dinner Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he stayed home those nights unless he could claim a Spanish project and say he needed to go to Jared’s. But most nights, he walked to the Murphy’s with Zoe and stayed for dinner and sometimes slept over. He was used to that routine, and that day wasn’t any different.

Looking back on it, Zoe, perhaps, seemed a bit bouncier than usual on the walk home, tugging Evan forward by their joined hands a bit more persistently than normal. And maybe he’d noticed the extra car parked down the street, but he didn’t look closely enough to see that it was his car before Zoe wrapped a quick squeeze around his waist and bounced forward to her front door, leaving Evan to trail after her like a lovesick puppy.

And then they walked through the entryway and into the living room, and Evan felt his entire body jolt to a stop without planning it. His mother perched on the edge of a chair, a wine glass held in her hand so delicately he wondered if she wanted to be holding it at all.

Zoe smiled even more broadly, bounding forward and holding out a hand to shake as she was so wont to do. Heidi shook it with an air of confusion.

“This, um, this was your idea?” Evan heard himself say. He wanted to smile at the look of joy on her face, but the overwhelming sense of confusion on his mother’s made it impossible. He had a creeping feeling of foreboding in his gut.

Evan sat in a free chair and Zoe perched on the armrest. He could feel his mother’s eyes on him, but he was truthfully on autopilot. He could feel himself curling into himself, trying to take up less space, but he didn’t stop it. He knew, in his gut, that it would end poorly.

And then Larry and Cynthia offered to pay for his college tuition.

His first thought, stupidly, was of those printed-out college essay contests sitting in a stack on his bedside table. He’d barely glanced at them, but his mother had gone to all that work to print them out.

“No. No thank you,” Heidi said firmly, already standing to leave. “I appreciate it, but I assure you, we can make it on our own.”

That was the first time she’d referred to Evan as part of the family unit in a while. Most of the time she placed all of the responsibility on herself whenever finances came up, but now she included Evan in the ‘we.’ It felt almost like she was trying to assert a claim over him, like she thought the Murphys were trying to use him as a proxy for Connor.

“Of course, no, I’m so sorry. We simply meant….well, Evan has been such help with everything. We wanted to repay him some of his kindness,” Cynthia said, so earnestly no one could doubt it. “That won’t be necessary,” Heidi said, her eyes flicking over to Evan. “But thank you. We appreciate it.”

“Do you know how humiliating it is? To see that your son has joined a new family and you didn’t even know? To have someone offer you something I could never give you? Do you know that, Evan?”

“If you’re sure,” Cynthia said softly. “But I hope you recognize that it’s an open offer, anyways. For anything. We mean it.”

“I feel like you aren’t telling me the whole truth, Evan, and that scares me.”

“I can’t tell myself the truth!” He heard himself shout. ”I don’t know what’s real anymore, mom, but I know that you’re never here. That’s enough for me to understand about you.”

He didn’t really mean any of it, not the way that she meant her words. But hers weren’t as harsh, while his cut deep. They were at a standstill, and neither knew how to proceed.

“I’m trying my hardest,” she said eventually, her jaw set and words measured. ”I am trying my best. Shit, Evan. I am trying to give you the best life I can. I’m sorry I can’t give you what they can give you.”

“At least they don’t think I’m some-I’m some broken thing, some burden, just need to check on the meds and you’re-”

“Shit, Evan. I am your mother! It is my job to make sure you’re happy, you’re okay, and I - you’ve been there all year! I didn’t know! I can’t-” and here her voice sounded sad rather than angry, “I can’t protect you. But I can make sure your meds are set. That’s - that’s all I can do. That’s all I do all day. Shit, I need to do it for you.”

He shook his head, crossing the room to burn off anxious energy. “I’m not a job over there. I’m not broken. I’m not part of a job.”

Ice crowding out fatigue in her voice, she found words again. “It must be nice to have the luxury of forgetting responsibilities. But I don’t have that.”

He shook his head again. Neither of them knew what to say; they weren’t good at fighting, especially not with each other. They weren’t used to it. But there seemed to be nothing else left to say, so he went to his room. Heidi didn’t follow him.  

***

four five

After five precise beats Evan opened his eyes again slowly, looking back up at Connor. There was still something removed to him, plastic, almost, yet after a moment it melted away and Connor leaned in to squeeze his arms around Evan’s shoulders.

Suddenly everything sparked.

The computer lab was almost completely empty. He typed out some meaningless message, creating something veneered to show his therapist. Each clack of the keys startled him more than the last. He wasn’t thinking, only moving.

He clicked print on his document, immediately hearing the printer whoosh to life. It took a moment for him to stand up and move towards it, grabbing the first piece of paper to shoot out of the printer. He glanced at it for a moment before he heard footsteps behind him, heavy and expectant. The words flashed at him from the page again.

‘Dear Evan Hansen.’

He froze, unsure of what to do. His pulse quickened, blood rushing through his ears. The footsteps stopped behind him.

Connor’s arms were still around him as he pulled back slightly, looking into Evan’s eyes, suddenly as real as his own.

“I don’t deserve to be forgotten, Evan,” Connor said softly, and that déjà vu hit him again.

He hadn’t written those words.

“Please,” Connor said, and Evan had had this conversation already, had sat like this with Connor’s arms around him, had heard each word puncture his soul like this before. “Please don’t let me fade away.”

Evan shoved him away, suddenly and harshly. Connor staggered back, posture melting back into something half plastic.

Evan didn’t know what to do.

He looked up at him, expression already fading. “What about my parents? How can you do this to them?”

He only shook his head, feeling his throat narrow.

Connor persisted, even as he tensed more. “After everything they’ve done for you? You could help them.”

“I-they don’t need me.” Evan hated how choked his voice sounded.

He scoffed. “Yeah, they don’t need you to keep lying to them.”

“They don’t need my help!”

“Do they seem like a pretty happy family to you?” For a moment, Connor seemed to regain expression, his cheeks flushed with anger, words infused with the famous Murphy venom. He broke eye contact with Evan for only a moment, and he was surprised by how uneven Connor’s voice sounded when he continued, eyes filled with steel. “What you’re hiding from them, it could be the only thing to keep them together.”

He couldn’t look away from Connor, even as his eyes watered. He shook his head, feeling his pulse elevate.

“What about Zoe?”

“Zoe said, she just…she wants me.”

“Right.”

“She likes me for who I am.”

“Sound familiar?” He didn’t respond, and Connor’s voice melted somewhat. He could’ve sworn he smelled the acrid scent of burning plastic in the air. “You didn’t happen to tell her, everything you’ve said about how you felt-it was all one big fucking lie.”

“It wasn’t!”

Scathing, sarcastic. For some reason, his heart twisted as he heard it in something that felt eerily akin to nostalgia. “Oh, that’s right. You left that out.”

Connor’s face shifted again, starting to change before a buzz startled the air. Evan turned away from him to fish his phone out of his pocket. It was Alana, a video chat.

He turned back to Connor, but he was gone, and before he could really recognize it he pressed accept.

“Hello, Evan,” Alana said, words clipped short, before Evan could even say hello.

“He-”

“We’re still a thousand dollars off from our goal.”

“I know, Alana. I’m sorry. I’m going to-I’m going to do something. I’ve been a terrible co-president. But I’ll do whatever it is. I’ll-I’ll film more videos, yeah? I’ll get it done. I want this to work.”

“What’s the point, Evan? You’ve already made it clear to me that you’re not invested in seeing the Connor Project grow. Why should I trust you now? We need something that will captivate our audience. You don’t have anything.”

“I-” He saw Connor across from him. He shook his head, his forearms rested on his knees where he crouched on the floor.

“Don’t, Evan,” he said. He knew Alana couldn’t hear Connor, but Evan wished she could hear him for just a moment.

“I don’t know, Alana. I’m-I’m the one who came up with the idea, I talked to the Murphy’s, I - I wrote a note they thought was his!”

Connor dropped his head into his hands.

“What?” Alana said.

“He - I wrote it for an - for myself. And Connor took it. He had it with him when, well. He had it. And that’s how this whole mess started.”

“You wrote something indistinguishable to a suicide note that Connor just happened to take and keep in his pocket?”

“Yes. I did. I can - I can send it to you!”

Which he did.

“Evan,” Alana said. Her voice was gentler than it had been the entire time. He finally brought his nervous eyes back to his screen rather than just on the blank patch of the wall behind Connor. “Did you really write this?”

“Yes.”

“Connor, he had it on him when he was found?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t write it?”

“No!”

“He just...happened to have a note that you wrote on him when he was found. A note like this…” She shook her head. “That’s quite the coincidence, Evan.”

“Yeah. It is.”

Alana shook her head again. She seemed wearier with every passing second. “I don’t know. I’m not entirely certain it is. I feel like there are too many inconsistencies. I’m not so certain you’re telling the truth.” She smiled ruefully, continuing before he could even process that. “I could publish this, I guess. It might spark some interest. Show people how far you’ve come.”

He couldn’t ignore the wave of panic that overcame him, starting deep in his stomach and cresting up above his head. “No, no, no.”

“Isn’t that why you gave it to me?” She said.

He shook his head. “No, that’s not why-I just. I wanted to. To show you.”

Her eyes studied him for one long moment. She shook her head back at him. “Okay, Evan. I have another thousand dollars to raise in less than twenty-four hours. I suggest you start deciding what you know is true. Get back to admitting it to yourself, yeah? I might post it. I might not. But until you actually make up your mind as to how involved you’re going to be - how honest you’re going to be, with me and everyone else -  I can’t help you. You can’t even help yourself.”

And with those words, Alana was gone. He dropped his phone into his lap. He hunched forward, leaning his elbows onto his knees. His head fell into his hands.

He felt rather than saw Connor’s body closer to his immediately as the call ended. Judged on feeling alone, Connor was only a few inches away. Evan, still struggling to really breathe properly, lifted his head. He met eyes with Connor again.

He was in the computer lab, holding a note addressed to himself that he wrote, and Connor Murphy was angry because of his stupid crush on his sister, and the steps behind him slowed and hung hesitantly in the air, and Evan never wrote this note, he’d never seen the words on the page before. He picked this up from the printer thinking it was a therapy letter, but no, it’s not his, it’s-

Connor-suddenly real, again, alive if only in his mind-leaned forward and pressed his lips to Evan’s.

Connor stopped just next to him, clearing his throat to command attention, and Evan’s head swiveled to look. “How did you break your arm?” He asked, almost monotone, like a kid forced to apologize by his teacher.

Evan’s pulled back to the present, to the feel of Connor’s mouth against his, and suddenly the page is flipped over and sunlight breaks through every crack in his brain and the orchard spreads out in front of him, Connor laughing just next to him. They’re racing up a tree, breathless and full of wonder, Evan pausing just for a moment to see the sky. It’s an expanse of blue that stares right back at him, and he’s full of hope, he’s full of wonder until a branch snaps right under him and the air is rushing around him and he’s in free fall and just as he hits the ground his feet root to the concrete below him and the printer shoots out another sheet of paper and

“Is-is your arm doing better?” Connor said, not quite meeting his eyes. There was a point where Evan would be able to dissect every layer to Connor’s voice, but he’s unsure now. He’s not even sure why Connor would talk to him after what happened in the orchard, in the car and the hospital afterwards. A flash of a pair of lips at the corner of his mouth was so heavy he could almost feel it.  

“It’s better,” he said. “Would you - would you sign my cast?”

Connor nodded and accepted the sharpie Evan held out. He wrote slowly, each squeak of the marker and giant stroke that shaped the letters filling the silence more effectively than words could. “No pretending we have other friends, I guess.” He said, a dark note in his tone. The paper still hung loosely in Evan’s grasp.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted for no reason. “For everything. And not…not trying to reconnect.” Connor looked at him and nodded, looking like he was on the verge of saying something but never quite saying it. Finally, he settled on “I’m, um, I’m sorry too, I owe you a giant apology-”

“No you don’t,” Evan assured him, not quite sure he knew what he was saying. He opened his mouth to say more but was left grasping for words as they were all swallowed by the sound of another piece of paper coming from the printer. Connor grabbed it quickly, eyes skimming over it quickly. His face instantly morphed into panic, and he looked up at Evan. He looked down towards his hand, the paper it loosely clenched, and Evan realized those weren’t the words he’d written.

Dear Evan Hansen,

It turns out this wasn’t an amazing day. This won’t be an amazing week, or an amazing year. Because, why would-

Connor made a grab for the paper, swapping the one in his hand for Evan’s. “I think that’s yours,” he said, and Evan was left too blindsided to properly respond. Before he could process Connor was moving away from him again, shoulders hunched without so much as a goodbye.

“Hey-” he started. “I know we lost all this time this summer, but, you know, that doesn’t mean we have to lose more.”

Connor turned back towards him, some foreign expression plastered on his face. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess we don’t.”

“Want to hang out? I have therapy today but after-”

“No, I uh-” Connor moved his hand enclosed around the letter to his pocket. “I can’t hang out tonight.”

There was something odd in the gesture, but Evan couldn’t quite place what it was. “Okay, then. I guess - I’ll see you around?”

Connor nodded, a little too exaggeratedly, before turning on his heal again. Evan looked back down at his own letter, veneered and plastic.

Dear Evan Hansen,

Today may not have been an amazing day, but it was still great because you were at school and you didn’t try to be not you. You had a conversation with Jared, and one with Alana, right? Even if not many people talked to you, you were you. You didn’t try to be anything else. That’s something, I guess.

Sincerely,

Me

Evan pulled away from Connor, immediately feeling the Connor in front of him weaken back into a less real version of him. He reached his hands up to grip Connor’s upper arms.

“Please,” Connor whispered, voice gruff, and as Evan dragged his gaze up to meet his eyes he disappeared entirely, leaving him grasping thin air with his fists and staring into nothing, a phantom touch still lingering on his skin.

“No,” Evan muttered, hands barely moved a centimeter, eyes straining as though he could find Connor in the space he just disappeared into. “No, Connor, I-”

A sob tore through his chest. One hand reached to just above his heart, and he started the old song and dance of tapping and massaging it, trying to calm it from its unsteady beat. He stumbled up to his feet, reaching for his laptop blindly. It was still open from sending Alana the letter, but he ignored it and navigated to some part he’d entirely forgotten, a little airplane icon in the corner of his desktop.

***

Again, he stood in front of the Murphy’s kitchen table. But no one stood there with him. There was just him and a thick stack of papers in his hand, but he didn’t think the Murphy’s noticed that. Not around the sounds of their phones buzzing and beeping.

Alana had posted his letter. She’d texted him barely thirty seconds later when he’d already been hightailing it to the Murphy’s, a simple if you’d like to know, I posted it. As though feeling the need to justify it, she added hopefully it’s the push we need. If this works maybe it’ll be enough.

The thought of the letter out in the open for everyone to read sent a chill up his spine, but he barely had time to think on it before he was in the eye of the storm, the Murphy’s frantically shooting ideas back and forth to each other. The Connor Project community had turned surprisingly violent with the posting of the letter, and suddenly no one was on the side of the Murphy’s. It was framed as a note that Connor had read on his last day, written by co-president Evan Hansen. Nothing that should force people to turn against each other, but they were, and viciously. Claims that the Murphy’s were exploiting Evan, or forcing him to do something when his mental health was obviously poor. Claims that Evan was manipulating them and forcing his way into the story by faking suicidal thoughts. Threats of violence against the Murphy’s, posting their numbers and their address and supposedly personal claims about how awful they were.

And Zoe. Zoe, whose phone started ringing the moment he walked in the door, something she’d shut down with a “have fun with your miserable life, bye.” The community seemed torn in two directions with her: a small minority of people who thought that Evan was manipulating and stalking her before their relationship began, putting too much trust into her and unfairly impacting her, and then the large majority of people who blamed her. For what, Evan wasn’t entirely sure. Not seeing Evan before, for not magically giving him more hope like it seems Evan wanted within the words of that page? Her comments were the nastiest. He met her eye from across the kitchen, the corner of his mouth upturned in apology. Her own turned down as if to say it wasn’t his fault, but her eyes were glassier and harder than he would’ve liked. Not hardened for him, but hardened against everything else. He got the unmistakable urge to sweep her up into his arms and try to solve every last one of her problems, or at the very least make her forget about them. Instead, he broke his eyes away from hers, trying to forget the genuine edge of fear in the lines between her forehead.

In his mind's eye, he saw Connor hurry from the computer lab and somehow through the doors of the kitchen where he stood now. He circled for a moment, stranded in space, before he pulled the note out of his pocket once more. He held it tight, eyes scanning it. Evan removed the same letter from his sweatshirt pocket. Connor hovered nervously over the table before disappearing from his line of sight.

For the briefest moment, Evan thought he saw Larry jump, eyes fixed to the spot where Connor had been, but a moment later he was sure he had imagined it.

Cynthia and Zoe’s budding argument brought him back to the present.

“-tell them, Evan, tell them, you wrote this, you know what it means!”

“I didn’t,” he whispered, eyes dropping again to the note.

“Don’t, mom. It’s not his job.”

“Evan, please,” Cynthia said.

“I didn’t. I didn’t write it,” he said again, just a little louder, but it seemed like only Zoe may have even heard him. Their eyes met again, and her frown deepened. He wondered if she could read it off of his face. He wondered, offhandedly, if this was what Connor felt like. If he was dead and gone, and Zoe was the only one who could see him. Is that what that felt like?

“Evan?” Cynthia said once more.

“It wasn’t me!” Evan practically shouted. He tossed the letter to the table. The kitchen was silent, then.

“What do you mean?” Cynthia said, her voice small.

“I didn’t write the note. He did.”

Larry finally spoke. “He...you mean, he…?”

“Connor wrote the note.” Evan felt tears rising in his throat. “I lied about it being a therapy assignment. I didn’t write the note at all. I wrote, I wrote different letters for myself. But that wasn’t one of them. I didn’t, I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say that he-”

“No,” Cynthia said. She was choked up, her cheeks already turning red. “no, Evan, you wrote this letter, you-”

“But I didn’t,” and here a sob tore through Evan’s chest. “Here-” he tossed the stack of papers onto the table. Zoe reached for them first, her mouth set in a taut line. “We-we emailed. A lot. Secret email accounts. He didn’t,” Evan bit his lip, working through another sob, his hand tapping and massaging his heart again, the other at the hem of his shirt. He was shaking his head, or maybe his head was just shaking. He met Zoe’s eyes. She looked up from the papers. The genuine look of confusion and betrayal in her eyes made him choke a little more. She lifted one hand to her face, brushing over the freckles he knew so well. Her touch was light, and her hand was shaking. He wanted to fix that. He wanted to cross the kitchen and trace her freckles and hold her hand until it no longer shook.  “He didn’t want people to know.”

“He knew you went through his emails,” Zoe said, to either Larry or the table, Evan wasn’t sure. Larry said nothing in return.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I - those are all of the, all of the emails. And I’m, I just couldn’t, when you came to see me, I couldn’t possibly understand, I had no idea what to, I couldn’t believe - I couldn’t believe that it would be to me .”

He swallowed around another wave of tears. “I couldn’t imagine that he was-” He shook his head. To Zoe, he said “he was there. He got me. When I broke my arm. He was the person.”

“But you said, so you and he, you would-” Zoe finally seemed to be at a loss for words. It made Evan’s heart break. She shook her head, and through his own tears, he could see tears sparkling in her eyes. She let out something akin to a laugh, but a hundred times sadder and smaller. “You loved him, you were-you were best friends, and you were mo-” she cut off. “So he said that about me. Not you.”

Evan nodded. ”Some - some of it, yeah. I heard from him.”

When Zoe’s sob came, it was quiet and pained; her head dropped forward into her arms, emails in her lap.

Cynthia was crying with full abandon now, having snatched up the note. Larry’s head was shaking firmly, and his lips were moving in either a curse or in prayer.

Again, Evan felt rather than saw Connor’s presence behind him. His sobs came from him in violent bursts, all at once hit with the full force of Connor’s death and the weight of what he’d done. As it slammed into him, just below his throat, he felt the last whisper of a touch against his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Connor said, for once sounding just like he used to. All of Evan’s breath left his lungs. “Thank you, Evan.”

And with that, Connor was gone for good. His best friend stood, choking out sorry’ s. And his family sat at the table, in various states of distress. A house broken, filled with sniffles and sobs so violent they shook furniture.

Evan dropped to the tile floor. His head felt dizzy from lack of air.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Zoe’s voice was stretched thin and prone to crack at any moment. When he looked up again, her eyes made his own full with even more tears. They were red and sore looking. She continued, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “Why didn’t you tell me, Evan?” It was barely more than a whisper, but Evan was sure he would’ve heard her voice across a thousand miles or a million worlds. A tear fell from her right eye. “I killed him. I killed him. They’re right. It’s my fault.”

He shook his head desperately because if nothing else, he needed her to know that it wasn’t her fault. Connor didn’t blame her.

“Didn’t you hear me before, Zoe?” The words were so choked with tears he would be shocked she could hear them. “You were the one thing. The one thing he could rely on being good. Beyond me, beyond - anything. I wasn’t enough. God, I wasn’t enough. You were. You were everything to him. But he couldn’t, didn’t know how to say it to you. I couldn’t measure up, I couldn’t - couldn’t make him feel okay. I couldn’t blame him for it, Zoe. Because you’re-” another sob racks his words. “You’re perfect. Can’t you see that? He wasn’t blaming you. He couldn’t blame you. It wasn’t you. It was me. It was my fault. It-it was my fault. He was my best friend. It was my job, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it.”

Zoe shook her head. Some hair slipped from behind her ear. “I didn’t see. I couldn’t tell. I-I blamed him . I could’ve—” she cut off, choosing instead to hide back in her arms.

“Stop,” Cynthia begged. The sound was drawn from her lungs just as it was that day in the principal’s office, pure primal sadness. “Please.”

His entire body shaking with the force of his sobs, he couldn’t help but comply with her request.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Larry said. The thickness of his words scared Evan. “We needed to know that. That’s just what we needed.”

Evan shook his head wildly. “I couldn’t let myself know that he was - that I had failed, that he had wanted me to know that. I couldn’t face it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Things fell silent again, but no one left the kitchen. Zoe’s phone dinged again.

“I’m sorry,” Evan whispered.

“Oh, do you think that the old plane is still down there, Larry?”

“I’d doubt it,” Larry replied. “They probably cleared the whole lake out when they reopened.”

“Is the lake still here, even?”

“I don’t know,” Larry replied. “Shall we check?”

Alana did it, somehow. Maybe it was the push of the letter, or maybe the money would have come to them anyway. Either way, the Connor Murphy Memorial Orchard was a reality at the end of May of that year. With graduation around the corner, Evan and the Murphy’s decided to take a trip together. Heidi was set to show up after her shift ended that afternoon, but until then it was Zoe and Larry and Cynthia back in a place from the past. And Evan, of course. Evan was included in everything to do with Connor, and maybe a little bit more.

Cynthia took Larry’s extended hand and stood to step off of the picnic blanket, following him as he led her towards where Evan supposed the lake used to be. Their hands stayed linked together even as they simply ambled along to their destination. The sight made Evan smile. They were a far cry from the couple in the principal’s office, next to each other but not looking. They seemed like they could finally look each other in the eyes and smile doing it.

At some point, Evan stood up from the floor. He couldn’t seem to cry anymore. He slid into the seat across from Zoe, the one where the shadow of Connor had been before.

“Where did it happen?” Zoe said. She lifted her head from her arms. Her face was surprisingly blank, as though she was resigned. Though she didn’t clarify, he knew what she was really asking.

“We went to the orchard. Autumn Smile,” he said. “Connor-” he almost choked on the name. “Connor made fun of it. The letters had worn off so it said ‘Aut ile.’” He shook his head. “I don’t know why he thought it was so funny. But he did. And we went inside, even though it was closed down. Insisted we-we climb a tree, and everything. Since it was. Um. My hobby, or so he thought, I guess. And I fell, and he got me. Stayed with me through the hospital, and everything, the whole time. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he weren’t-well.”

“The orchard,” Cynthia whispered. The tear tracks on her face glistened. She stood suddenly and surged towards Evan, and for one ridiculous moment, he thought she might hit him. She had every right to, in his mind. But he couldn’t have been more wrong. She wrapped him in a hug so motherly he felt tears resurge in his eyes.

Of course, later, he’d go home and receive a hug like that from his own mother. He’d explain the full truth of everything, and she’d apologize and he’d apologize and he’d finally stop pushing her away. But for then, receiving a hug like that from Connor’s mother was enough to make the pain of loss feel so new and raw that it was like that unadulterated feeling in the principal’s office, the one that choked him until he forced out a lie. It scared him, but he couldn’t ignore the part of him that said he deserved to be afraid.

Wrapped up in that hug, along with all of the new grief and gratitude and relief in Cynthia’s sob, it felt like a bit of forgiveness, maybe. Like it could become forgiveness.

Zoe reached out to him while her parents talked and began to amble away, and her fingers brushed the back of his hand. He turned his hand automatically, lacing his fingers with hers. She squeezed his hand gently, and he squeezed hers back.

“They were talking today about how they want to come back for stuff like this,” she said, her voice low to ensure her parents didn’t hear. They probably wouldn’t have heard around their ensuing chatter, anyway. “I think this might be the best thing for them yet.”

Evan shrugged. “I hope.” He squeezed her fingers. “I’m glad to be here with you.”

She smiled, one of her thousand-watt smiles that always filled his chest with a kind of warmth. From further away, he could hear Cynthia giggle, happier than he’d ever heard her. The sun warmed his cheeks and his knuckles where his hand lay intertwined with Zoe’s. It had been a far from easy journey to get there, but he thought it was worth it. The last months had been new, different, painful in a previously unknown way. But with the truth out, he could finally grieve properly. Learning to do that, with his mother, with the Murphy’s, with Zoe was more of a gift than he could have possibly given them.

Zoe leaned her head onto his shoulder. “Me, too,” she whispered, and he knew she was telling the truth.

He closed his eyes against the light as he had on stage all those months before. But the light seemed to ebb through him anyway, leaving him feeling nothing but content. Of course, nothing was perfect. His trust with the Murphy’s may not have been completely rebuilt, nor would it ever probably be. He still felt an emptiness directly to his right, in the pit of his chest, on the edge of his shoulder where a black-polished hand used to lie (and at the corner of his mouth where a pair of lips had once, ever so briefly, ever so destructively, brushed under a hot summer sun, that had driven them apart), but it was far from the gaping hole it had been when he'd convinced himself it hadn’t existed. His mother had fewer shifts and he attempted to communicate more, but they still only really connected once a week at most. He and Jared and Alana had finally begun working together again, but all their conversations were a little awkward and uncertain. And he and Zoe, though they touched at the hand and the head and shoulder, were stuck like that indefinitely, despite conversations and attempts at more or at less.

He didn’t need perfect, however. Better - better was more than fine. He’d convinced himself, once, that he only needed one thing or one person to feel like enough. He might’ve been right, but maybe what he needed was several things, several people and several experiences. Not whole things and not half things, either, but things and relationships and experiences that were slowly, steadily, always growing better and stronger. Marching on towards better, into the sunlight dipping over the horizon. A possibility of new growth and a possibility of dead ends were both fine to him, and the possibility that it might stay the way it was then, in a park with people he cared about deeply - people who cared about him despite all of his flaws and mistakes and pushed him to do better in the future - didn’t scare him at all. It was better than he’d ever hoped for. (Except for the idea that Connor was truly gone forever. He would’ve given anything to change that.)

Zoe squeezed his hand, and he smiled against the sun, thinking he might just disappear into that feeling.

#deh #deh au #dear evan hansen #dear evan hansen fanfic #dear evan hansen au #evan hansen #zoe murphy #zoevan #treebros #bandtrees #connor murphy #jared kleinman #cynthia murphy #larry murphy #Heidi Hansen #alana beck #reverse deh au #suicide mention #implied/referenced suicide #suicidal idealation mention #suicide tw #language tw

[aswallowssong]

Second Child, Restless Child

Chapter 6 - Restless Child

@valkyrie-5583​

Read on AO3

I promise I’m working on chapter 7 my work life exploded but we’re chillin now! We’ll be fine! 

Kit and Hotch have a conversation and Kit's first health meeting doesn't go exactly the way she planned. When Morgan catches her at the track the next morning, she really doesn't want to talk. (But ends up talking a whole lot.)

Tapping. Kit was tapping on her thigh, fighting with the anxiety trying to pull her down. They were slated to have their first health meeting, finally, after having to push it due to traveling and cases. She was supposed to give it in January, but as she stared mid-February in the face, she knew she had to push to make it happen.

She wanted to tug at the bottoms of her crimson braids. It was the one thing that grounded her immediately. Morgan was sitting right across from her and she knew he could feel her nervous energy, though he hadn’t said anything yet. She thought of him as almost a friend, of sorts, and the last thing she wanted was for him to think she was some kind of anxious freak on top of the dark cloud Gideon was casting over her head. Their morning workouts had helped, but she’d avoided him that morning at the track too, and he hadn’t said anything then either.

It was like she was untouchable. They’d left her behind when they went on a case that Monday, and now as she looked around the exhausted members of the BAU, she wondered if Gideon had said anything about her.

Of course he did. He probably does every day you aren’t there. That’s probably why JJ has been avoiding you, and why Elle and Spencer don’t try to talk to you in the bullpen anymore. Even Morgan has been on edge around you the last few weeks, after you let Hill die.

Hill’s death had hit her harder than she let herself realize. Kit never liked losing patients, but Hill had never even been her patient. He was an Avenger. Someone that poisoned a lot of people. Some of them had died.

But it didn’t matter. Hill had died on the floor right in front of her, and she’d been helpless to save him as the botulism choked the breath from his body. Then she’d argued with Gideon, and then she’d yelled at Reid on the metro platform, and she still hadn’t had a conversation with either of them about it.

She figured she should apologize to Gideon, no matter how she felt about who’s fault their terseness was, but she couldn’t bring herself to walk up to his office with her tail between her legs. Every time she considered it she felt hot rage tug at her gut, burning new all over again. Everyone else allowed her to exist. They didn’t make comments or express their distaste for her out loud. Why did he have to?

“Colghain,” came Hotch’s voice, the man himself standing at the railing overlooking the bullpen. She looked up at him, and he gestured to his office.

“Oooh,” Morgan teased quietly. “Someone’s in trouble before the meeting even begins.”

She tried to give him a lighthearted chuckle, but it sounded forced in her ears. He was teasing her, and she appreciated it, but she didn’t feel like the conversation she was about to have with Hotch was going to be a particularly lighthearted one. He’d given off too much tightness into the air for that.

Maybe she was being fired. While it would definitely come as a blow, she wouldn’t have to deal with Gideon’s skeptical and judging eyes on her every time she took a breath.

That wouldn’t be that bad, actually. I’d get to be back in the clinic and get my old life back.

But you like this job.

There was Monty’s voice echoing at her, always the voice of reason in her head, even though she never was in their triplet triad.

And as always, the Monty in her head was right. Regardless of the way Gideon made her feel like an idiot, and Reid’s sniffling drove her crazy, and Hill’s final breaths haunted her every dream, she really did like her split position.

She liked the way Penelope Garcia came to see her in the bullpen when the team was gone. They’d drink tea together and Kit would listen as she gushed about Morgan. Their friendship was one of a kind, and Kit longed to have any connection on the team like that.

She enjoyed her conversations with JJ and Elle before they’d started to become fewer and farther between. Both women were younger, especially JJ, and they’d had at least one really good conversation about music between the three of them in the six weeks leading up to that day.

Okay Kody, it would be bad. You don’t really want to be in the clinic every day. You like looking at the medical information. You like giving your input. Even if Gideon doesn’t seem to think your opinion is worth a damn, Hotch does. Hotch always has.

Hopefully he’s not firing you.

When she stepped into Hotch’s office, he gestured to the seat across from his desk.

“Close the door, too, if you would,” he said evenly, the air in the room cold and stern and as stoic as their leader tended to always be. She felt a little better when she noticed that his eyes were still kind, though she had no idea how he managed it.

She did as he asked, shutting the door behind her and sitting down across from him. There was an attempt to pull his calm energy in and use it to replace the anxiety now swirling around her, but no matter how hard she wanted it to work, she still felt exactly like she was back in her high school principal’s office.

Again.

She didn’t say anything, waiting for him to tell her why she was sitting in his office, full of anxiety, instead of sitting at her desk and finishing her prep for their meeting.

If you get fired, there won’t be a meeting.

“Are you ready for the health meeting today?” Hotch finally asked. His tone was lighter than she expected, and it took her a moment to respond.

Not being fired. Okay.

“Yes, sir,” she said slowly, “I have my notes prepared.”

“Good.” Hotch nodded, waiting another second before he said, “And, that’ll be in the conference room. Do you have any visuals or need access to the screen?”

She shook her head, skeptical now. Hotch’s body language told her he wanted to ask about something else, but was holding back. How he kept himself so calm and didn’t give anything away impressed her to no end.

“I don’t. I’m trying to keep it short. I know it’s supposed to be forty-five minutes, but I’m sure I can get through it in thirty.” She ended her sentence with a nod, letting a hand drift up to play at the end of her braid. She didn’t tug, mindful of that, but she was the most comfortable with Hotch by a long shot.

He nodded along with her, taking a breath before saying, “I wanted to talk to you about Agent Gideon.”

There it is.

“Agent Gideon, sir?” She kept her tone light despite the frustration she felt at the mention of his name.

“Yes. I think it goes without saying that the sort of outburst you shared in New Jersey is unacceptable. The reason I haven’t brought it up until now is because no one was around to see it but me.” He waited a moment before saying, “I don’t blame you for being aggravated. I haven’t missed the way that Agent Gideon approaches you, and in the room with Hill, he was out of line. You are the lead on medical during cases, the position information was very clear, and I understand where your frustration came from. I’ve spoken to him about it.”

Kit’s cheeks warmed at the thought of Hotch having to speak to Gideon about her. To have to come to her rescue like she was some child with hurt feelings. She knew she had been out of line, but knowing she wasn’t the only one being reprimanded for it helped.

“Yes, sir,” she said quietly.

“The reason I am bringing it up now is because one of your responsibilities is assisting JJ to maintain good rapport with local law. You’re trained to manage people and their feelings in the clinic, and that’s needed, as some of the members on this team, well,” He thought for a moment before deciding to say, “are lacking in that area.”

“You’re talking about Gideon and Reid,” she supplied, and his lips pressed into a firm line.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s what you meant,” she said, her head tipping to the side. “I wouldn’t say anything to them. I watch the way they interact with others.”

“Then you know that your job is to be the balance.” His posture shifted to sit taller. More authoritative. “And you know that outburst like the one you had in New Jersey will not be tolerated. If something like that happened in front of local law, or in a precinct with officers around and watching, we could misrepresent the bureau.”

Shame washed over her, cold and sharp. She’d expected that, but it didn’t make it any less embarrassing. Any less shameful. She could control herself when the nurses in the clinic made mistakes. When they were idiots, or when they questioned her. Why did she have such an adverse reaction when it was Gideon?

Because those girls know you. They’ve worked with you and they respect you. Gideon couldn’t give a shit about you or what you think.

Kit found herself nodding. She didn’t want to disappoint Hotch. She didn’t want to make him question his decision or his trust in her. Her eyes drifted to her hands, now playing at the hem of her shirt. “I understand, sir. I’m sorry I allowed my emotions to get the better of me. I won't let it happen again.”

“Colghain,” Hotch said. His voice was softer than before. “Both cases you’ve worked with us have been a success with your help. You add value to this team.”

“Then why doesn’t Gideon respect me?” Her eyes were hard when they flicked up to meet his. “Why does he act like I’m intruding every time I try to do my job?”

Hotch took a second before shrugging, just slightly. If she wasn’t watching him as closely as she was, she would have missed it. “Gideon doesn’t like change. JJ, then Elle, now you. Give it time.” He glanced down at his watch. “Speaking of time, it’s almost noon. The meeting is at one?”

Kit was well aware of the fact that he knew when the meeting was. He was letting her be in charge of it. Letting her do her job.

“Yes, sir,” she said, standing from her seat. They were done. “Thank you for speaking with me.”

She meant it, hands still for a moment and eyes sincere as they continued to hold his. He nodded, standing as well and coming from behind his desk as he said, “I appreciate you listening. Leave the door open, please.”

Kit nodded once more before making her way to the door, opening it, and walking through. Morgan raised an eyebrow at her as she caught his gaze, and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she moved towards the stairs.  

She couldn’t catch a break.

-----

At one o’clock they filed in. No one looked excited, and Kit couldn’t blame them. Having a compulsory health meeting once or twice a year was bad enough. She gave them, and she couldn’t stand them. Being subjected to one every other week? It was work for her, and thirty minutes of their lives they’d never get back.

Gideon was the only one that didn’t sit, opting instead to stand with his hands braced on the back of his chair. Kit didn’t mind, not letting it phase her in the slightest. If he wanted to stand while she talked about the importance of sleep, she quite frankly couldn’t give a shit. She honestly didn’t mind if they all tuned her out for the next half hour. All she needed was for Hotch to write in his post-meeting report that she’d led an informational meeting, about a desired topic,  up to standards. They were already behind by quite a number of weeks, and that alone should have placated any worries or annoyances.

Plus, who actually cares right? This has to be the least important part of this job. And it’s a new job, so maybe they'll take away the requirement, and this is the only one I’ll have to do.

“Okay,” she started once they all sat down. She wore the same smile and used the same tone she always did in the clinic, and when she’d given health meetings in the past to varying departments. The only ones that smiled back at her were Penelope and JJ, which helped. Some of the tense energy she felt earlier ebbed away, and she started into her lesson.

“So technically this should be forty five minutes, but I think I can zip it in thirty.”

“Zip it?” Gideon mumbled, his eyebrows pulling together at the phrase.

She ignored him. “More people voted for ‘Sleep Habits’ than ‘Diet and Nutrition,’ which didn’t surprise me.” She paused, genuinely smiling. “And honestly, now that I’ve traveled on a case that took more than one day, I understand. Sleep is important, especially if you want to stay healthy.”

The room visibly dropped in energy, Elle leaning her face on her hand and Morgan leaning back in his chair.

It was going to be a long thirty minutes, and they’d barely started. She had to think of something.

It took exactly nineteen minutes for Gideon to say something. That was more than she’d given him credit for in her head, but she was actually almost done, and even Reid had help on without interrupting her once. He’d been more quiet after their interaction at the metro station, and hadn’t engaged with her as much. Which, she didn’t care about. He was Gideon’s chosen one, and she was trouble.

What she did care about was Gideon arguing with her over sleep debt when they were almost done and people wanted it to be done.

“That isn’t true,” he’d said, and the world had stopped spinning. There was visible tension in both Hotch and Reid, both sitting just a bit straighter than before.

Morgan and Elle wore twin expressions of surprise, and JJ and Garcia had a combination of stress and expectancy.

What flooded the room, however, was a feeling that Kit had only ever been able to describe as “Oh No Feeling.” It took a moment for her to get her bearings and swallow down the remark she wanted - shut the hell up, Gideon - and bury the "Oh No Feeling" before she simply nodded

"It is true," she said, voice staying even. She'd argued with plenty of people in the hospital she and her siblings had started in, and plenty of parents or loved ones when major injuries happened in the academy.

She was in charge. Hotch told her she was the lead on medical. This was her job. Hotch had her back. Didn't he?

"No, it isn't. One hour of sleep less than is expected isn't going to kill anyone."

"It matters," Kit said, not bothering to acknowledge the fact that he had stood straight and crossed his arms. "Because long term sleep debt can lead to insulin resistance and heart disease. Most adults in America have some level of sleep debt, and I understand why this would be the case for those in a job like this one."

"So you sleep in on the weekends," Gideon argued back, though in his normal flippant way. As if he was correcting a naive child. "You get two good nights and you're good to go."

Kit shook her head, the Oh No Feeling pulling at her gut more firmly as time went on. One hand floated towards her thigh, fingers drumming lightly.

“Actually, no,” she said, her voice a little more firm, though tone even. She’d delt with worse than Gideon challenging her medically because she was young and they underestimated her. Didn’t respect her. Hotch had her back. Didn’t Hotch have her back?

Does he have your back? He’s letting Gideon walk all over you right now.

“If you lose two hours a night during the week, that’s ten hours of debt. Sleeping an extra three on the weekend still leaves you seven hours short of working at full mental capacity.”

“Which means what? You yawn a few times?”

"Gideon," Hotch warned, but the older man continued.

"Why are we having this meeting in the first place? We're all adults, we don't need to be told for half an hour that sleep is good for you. We know that."

Kit could feel her hands clenched into fists at her side before she could stop them. His words weren’t really aggressive in tone as much as they were disrespectful.

Hotch talked to him. He said he did. So why is he still doing this?

“The meeting is mandated as part of Colghain’s position-” Hotch started before Gideon interjected, voice casual. “Which is unnecessary in the first place.”

“And,” Hotch said, never braking face or stride, “the information we’re receiving is valuable.”

Gideon moved back from his spot, just a step away from the table. “What’s valuable is the time of the victims we’re letting be hunted or murdered while a nurse tells us we need to sleep. What about those people, huh? Are they worried about sleep debt?”

“You know what?” Kit said, releasing the grip on her hands and picking up a manila folder off the table with far more force than necessary. Her tone was even and cold, eyes aimed at Gideon alone and she took forms from the folder. “We’re done. I hope-” She slammed a form in front of Elle, who was the closest on her left.

“You all-” She slammed one in front of JJ. She continued to place a form in front of each member of the team, not breaking stride for a second. “Found this,” Slam. “To be,” Slam. “Incredibly,” Slam. “Useful,” Slam.

She looked into Hotch’s eyes, the last form in her hand, and she felt her anger and frustration dissolve.

He was supposed to have her back.

She dropped the form in front of him, shaking her head slightly and scoffing before turning and moving towards the door. Before she could cross the threshold she allowed herself one moment to take a breath. The room was tense. The Oh No Feeling had escalated to full blown surprise and discomfort. She turned and faced them, looking around at them in turn before saying, “I hope this was a valuable use of your time. Please give your feedback, I can’t wait to hear all of your incredibly honest opinions. Really.”

She thought for one moment that someone would dare to say something, but she turned and walked away before they could have the chance.

I cannot stand this place.

-----

Five, four, three, two, one. Breathe. Breathe. Arms. Stride.

Kit took the turn wider than she wanted, pushing faster as she neared the end of her sixth lap. She needed to break back under twelve minutes or she was doomed. The frustration of the day before was hanging over her, pushing her to be faster, to be better, and at one point the night before, to march into Unit Chief Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner’s office and give him a piece of her mind.

Ari had talked her most of the way down, and by the time he was leaving she’d assured him she wouldn’t do something to get herself fired.

Not yet, anyway.

She was almost across the lap mark when she heard her name being yelled. Not Colghain, though, and not Kit. Not even Dakota or Kody.

“Lep!”

Morgan.

She hadn’t spoken to him the day before after her swift departure from her own health meeting. She’d sat at her desk with her headphones on, tearing manically through form after form and leaving the second the clock struck five without so much as a word to anyone, including Hotch.

She should have figured someone would try to talk to her, but when she and Ari had hashed it out the night before, she’d settled on the idea that she’d be approached by Hotch first. Not by Derek Morgan when her guard was down. Selfishly and stupidly she’d completely forgotten that of course she’d run into Morgan. She wasn’t the only one at the track. She’d started going to the track half an hour earlier in the mornings because she could run or do strength training with someone else. That was the whole basis of their half formed friendship.

One she’d surely destroyed when she’d slammed the post-meeting form in front of him the day before without so much as a glance.

Kit nearly tripped over her own feet as she turned to look at him, slowing several paces before she darted over the lap line later than she would have wanted. She slowed to a stop before pulling the stopwatch from her jacket pocket, one hand raising it to where she could see while the other crossed to lay over the top of her head.

12:17

“I dtigh diabhail,” she swore, breath coming out harder than she thought it should. The stopwatch flew into the grass as she rounded on Morgan. “What?”

He stood there with his bag on his shoulder, one eyebrow raised at her. Confusion. “Is that one of your secret swear words Reid was talking about?”

Her ears burned, air harder to bring back into her lungs when she was embarrassed. They did talk about her behind her back, and Morgan had just outed them.

“It’s not a secret, it’s Gaelic,” she managed between huffs, diverting the focus she had from her embarrassment to evening her breathing.

“Well what does it mean?”

“Damn it,” she said, moving her hands to her hips.

Morgan put his hands up in surrender. He was skirting around her.

Great.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

She shook her head. “No, it means damn it. Or the Irish version of it, anyway.” She shifted her eyes to the stopwatch she’d tossed, her water bottle sideways in the grass. With three steps she snatched it up, standing straight again before asking simply, “So? What do you want?”

Morgan dropped his bag down in the grass near the stopwatch. He was sweating, just like she was, which meant he’d been there a while. He had waited until she was nearly done with her run, though, to get her attention, which told her that he wasn’t looking for a work out partner.

He was looking to talk.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said, gesturing toward her with his right hand. “You were really upset when you left.”

Kit shifted where she stood, taking a sip before dropping her water bottle back onto the ground. Her arms moved up to cross over her chest, though it wasn’t going to help with the last of her breath evening out.

She knew it was defensive to stand that way, but she was being defensive. She didn’t want to talk about it with Morgan. She didn’t want to talk about it with anyone at all. She wanted, really, to go to her shift in the clinic and pretend the day before hadn’t happened at all. To bury it all down inside like she always did, like she always had, and deal with the repercussions from Hotch when they would come. If he decided to send her back to the clinic full time, would Ari or Monty be offered her job?

Probably not. She’d probably ruined it for all of them.

“I don’t question anyone’s profiling,” she found herself saying, though she had no intention of divulging any of her inner thoughts to Morgan.

He looked at her for a moment, and when she risked moving her eyes from the grass to his face, he tilted his head at her, nodding. “And you don’t like that you feel questioned about your stuff.”

“I don’t feel questioned,” she said, shaking her head, “I am questioned. Every move I make. Everything I say. Even input I’m asked for is taken with more than an entire shaker of salt.”

“This is about Gideon,” He said. It wasn’t a question. “Gideon is just…” Morgan looked like he had no idea what he was trying to put into words. “That’s just how he is, Lep. It’s not about you. Don’t take it personally, you know?”

She shook her head, arms tightening in their crossed position. “How could I not take it personally? I... it’s, I-” She groaned, fingers pulling at her sleeves. “It is personal, Derek. By nature.”

“By nature?”

She nodded quickly, arms loosening as she started to gesture to nothing in particular, voice a bit tighter as she tried to convey her meaning as clearly as possible. “By nature. If you were being told, directly or indirectly, that you weren’t good enough to do a job you were chosen to do, wouldn’t that feel personal?”

Morgan stared at her for a moment, mouth working over words he didn’t quite say. He’d quickly shifted from casual to guilty, and Kit could see the tension working across his face.

He thought this would be easy. That I’d fold.

“I didn’t think about it like that,” he finally said, “but that would piss me off.”

Kit nodded quickly, shrugging as she felt the dynamic shifting. She could tell he was thinking about it now. “It does,” she said simply.

She let the air sit for a moment before she sighed, dropping into the grass gently and crossing her legs.

“I know he talks about me,” she said, watching her fingers as they twisted at a blade of grass in front of her. “When I’m not around. I can tell the difference when you guys travel without me. When you come back, and everyone's a little quieter. A little more distant.”

Morgan stared at her for a moment before he ran a hand down his face, dropping into the grass next to her.

She was surprised, to say the least. She hadn’t expected him to sit with her. She’d actually expected him to do quite the opposite. To deny what she was saying and say he was going to start his cardio. That she’d see him the next day, and maybe things would shift a little. He’d know she was upset, and he’d know why.

As he sat next to her, he looked around. “He’s just… Gideon. I don’t know how to say it any other way. I don’t always agree with him.”

“He thinks I’m trouble,” She said. “My reputation in the bureau has never been anything but positive. I’m literally in a position of authority over an entire shift of nurses, most of which are older than I am.”

“Maybe he just thinks it’s a bad choice by the bureau,” Morgan said, catching her eyes, “Not you, but your job. Like we’re being steamrolled or something.”

“What?” she asked, “Like you’re being watched or something?”

“Yeah.” He gestured towards her. “It’s a weird time for them to add another person to the team. We didn’t get Elle very long ago. I’ll be honest, that was something that ran through my mind when you showed up, too.”

“Well, I’m not doing that. You can all read my list of duties” She said. “I’m around for a very specific purpose. Ask anyone. Ask Hotch. Ask Ramos. The director himself, I don’t care.”

There was heat crawling across her face, and her grip on the grass was getting tighter as a weight started to settle in her gut.

“Oh, I asked around,” Morgan said, “I know some people in the clinic. And in the field training sector.”

Kit let out a humorless laugh. Gideon was the loudest, but they all really were checking into her. “So, none of you trust me?”

“Hotch does,” Morgan said immediately. “And I do. And JJ, for sure. She was telling me that she was impressed with you after we were in New Jersey.”

She shook her head slowly, finding that she’d scoffed out loud. “New Jersey. I yelled at Gideon. When Hill was dying, I was trying to direct Hotch and handle it and he was just-” She cut herself off with a quiet growl. “He was in the way. He kept trying to, I don’t know. Take over. As if I don’t know how to do my job.”

They were quiet before she said, “Did you know that I worked in an ER? Before we joined the academy?”

Morgan shook his head. “No.”

“I did. Monty and I worked the same twelve, and Ari worked nights. He’s always worked nights.” She looked off towards the locker room, knowing she needed to go soon, but finding herself continuing. “We were nineteen. Graduated high school early so we could get out of Vermont, and there was a program at our high school that got us a direct line to nursing school. All three of us. Worked in college to finish as quickly as possible and move on with our lives.”

She shifted, tucking her legs underneath her. “And then we worked in an ER here in the district. Ginny and Wash live here, too. Or at least they did. We slept on the floor at Ginny’s for months, and then at Wash’s when he was deployed.” She turned, looking Morgan directly in the eye. “And we worked our asses off. And Monty and I did school at night so we could get our masters, and Ari did it during the day. We got promoted. And it was hard. But we did it together.”

Morgan nodded after a moment, Kit having stopped to give space and try to right herself.

"And then what? You joined the academy together?"

She nodded. "It was our supervisor's idea. At the hospital. We were young, really young, but since we were already here in DC it was streamlined. Our supervisor used to be a field medic for the bureau, so his recommendation meant everything."

She shrugged with finality. "I'm good at my job. I've always been good at my job, and I've proven it again and again. I don't need to prove it to Gideon, too."

"You should tell him that," Morgan offered, and Kit had to stop herself from laughing in his face.

"Right."

"You just told me, so tell him."

He was being genuine. There was no sense of sarcasm, no sense of mocking or joking.

"You really think I should?"

"Couldn't hurt, right?"

She sighed before nodding, working it over in her head.

Couldn't hurt, right?

Unless Gideon says he doesn't care, and that I'm an idiot. That it doesn't matter how hard I've worked. How good at my job I am.

"Couldn't hurt," she heard herself say. She sighed, grabbing her stopwatch and water bottle and stuffing them in her bag. "I need to go."

"Sure. You're in the clinic today right?"

He knew the answer, but it was nice of him to ask.

"Yeah, back upstairs tomorrow."

"Well, see you then, Lep."

Lep.

She stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder and rocking her weight.

"Hey, Derek?"

He raised an eyebrow at her, but there was a small smile on her face. She never called him Derek. "Yeah?"

Don't ask him. Don't do it, Kody.

"We're… friends, right?"

Kill me where I stand.

He chuckled before nodding up at her. "Yeah, Lep. We're friends."

The weight that had settled inside her gut seemed to lift, and she found a genuine smile creep across her face. He'd listened, really listened, and it seemed that he'd understood.

"Cool… great. See you tomorrow."

She turned and moved away from him quickly, the smile on her face never fading. She had one friend, and Morgan had said Hotch trusted her. And apparently so did JJ.

That was nearly the team, and she knew Garcia didn't mind her. They hadn't worked together, per say, as their fields crossed so infrequently, but she liked talking to the brightly dressed woman, and she'd never gotten a bad feeling from her.

She could talk to Gideon. Morgan would have her back, and while she was frustrated with Hotch, he had spoken up in the meeting. She'd talk to him, in his office, on Friday. She could do that.

-----

Confident was how she'd always felt in the clinic, and after her talk with Morgan and a full day working her shift, she felt a million times better than she had leaving the BAU the day before.

"If the emotional backlash is going to be this bad, is it worth it?" Monty asked her. They were both in the breakroom, Kit grabbing her backpack and Monty leaning against the counter, civilian clothes on. Normally she would be depositing her bag into the locker as Kit emptied it. They'd always shared a locker, and the combination had been an easy choice: Carolina's birthday.

"I had a good talk with Morgan-"

"Oh! Antibiotics guy!"

"Stop! We talked this morning, at the track. It was good, I think."

Monty rolled her eyes quickly, identical irises meeting. "You think. That's reassuring, isn't it."

"Oh, múchadh, Montana."

"I won't!"

Kit felt like the tables had been turned. Monty was the one that got frustrated and loud, just like she did in the BAU. Here in the clinic, her words were as even as Morgan's had been. Atmosphere had always mattered in their behavior, and as they stood in their shared space, there was no exception.

"He affirmed me, Mont, why would that be bad? Why would that not help?"

She played with the hem of her scrubs, her eyebrows pulling together as she searched her twin's feelings. Monty was good at masking, and Kit hated it.

"It's not bad." Monty had slipped into Gaelic now, eyes darting for others around them, even though the room was otherwise unoccupied. "But I think you need to be careful. If you go and talk to that idiot-"

"Monty -"

"You should do it with Agent Hotchner in the room. Don't give him a chance to belittle you."

Kit sighed, moving a hand to tug at the end of her braid. It was fraying, and she'd have to take it out soon. "I don't need backup, Mont. I'm a big girl. I stood up for myself, remember?"

Monty laughed, running a hand through her loose hair. "Yeah, and then last night Ari had to talk you down over it."

Kit rolled her eyes, starting to undo her braids. "Well," she said, "that's because I thought I might be fired. Or, that I might do something drastic, like quit."

She finished combing the braids out with her fingers, looking at Monty and laughing quietly. "I wouldn't, would I?"

Monty shook her head, pulling a drawstring bag from behind her and passing it over.

"Never. You like the stiffs. You're one of them now."

"Never. " Kit assured, taking the bag and opening it to find her civilian clothes. She scoffed at what she saw, raising an eyebrow and looking up as if looking in a mirror. "Why these?"

"Lighter set. Leave your hair."

"Lighter set?"

"Ari made the list. We haven't had time to learn anything new with your fancy job, Special Agent Colghain. "

Kit smacked at Monty, both sisters giving into peals of harmonizing laughter.

“You know,” Kit said, tugging at her left shirtsleeve, “We haven’t played in a while.” She gauged Monty’s reaction, knowing she was the reason in the first place.

Monty simply smiled, squeezing Kit’s shoulder gently. “Sure, but Leeland said that we can have our spot back, now that you’ve settled a bit.” She turned Kit around, pushing her towards the bathroom in the corner of the breakroom. “Now go, sound check is at seven, and I want to eat.”

Kit stumbled a bit as she was pushed, but nodded and moved towards the bathroom with quick strides. Once she shut the door she looked at her reflection in the mirror and smiled. She was still an even tempered nurse. Monty had her back. Morgan had her back. She could talk to Gideon, and she would. On Friday.

And as she looked down at the bag of clothes in her hand, she realized that she was still her, too. Thursday nights could still be theirs, and clinic shifts could still end with her and Monty, laughing in the breakroom.

#Brenna writes things #or at least she tries #Second Child Restless Child #SCRC #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #gaelic/irish #OC #female OC #I'm literally so tired y'all but we're gonna make it

[heavenly-hero-mourningstar]

Taiyuu High Entrance Exam: Grigori Vai Quirk: Animate

@taiyuu-high-oct

Vai knew they were in for a rough ride from the second they saw the building.

They had wondered for quite some time why the entrance exam was being held at a secondary location instead of on school grounds, but looking up at the massive warehouse (carbon steel frame– melting point of 2,500° F; Fiberglass roofing– melting point of 2,075° F), the answer became clear.

Hundreds of applicants stand outside, slowly filing into an atrium of sorts (concrete floor– ‘melts’ at around 1,000°F) where a dark-haired woman in a grassy bodysuit awaits them, leaning casually against a two-story tall, cast-iron door. Vai manages to push their way into one of the less crowded corners just as the woman speaks.

“Welcome, hero wannabes!” she shouts, not bothering with a microphone. The crowd hushes and from Vai’s position at the back, they can just barely make out the woman– Pro-hero Lacca-daisy, principal of Taiyuu High –move away from the door with a grin. “As you can see, we’re a bit overwhelmed with the sheer number of applicants this year, but this test was a bitch to set up as it is, so no whining about the extra competition, ‘kay?”

Several applicants shift and grumble, but the principal pays them no mind.

“This here,” she stops to pound twice against the metal door. “is your first challenge on the road to becoming heroes, and let me tell you, it ain’t an easy one. You’re gonna be placed in a maze with a bunch of enemies and your goal is to wrack up as many points as you can by grabbing ‘flags’ we’ve scattered throughout. Bigger flags are worth more points, but there’s no limit to how many you can grab at once, so try an’ be strategic about which flags you choose. Once you’ve collected your flags, you’re going to bring them back here where the door will automatically log your points. There are two other ‘safe zones’ like this in the maze, but you’ll have to find those for yourselves. You follow so far?”

There’s a murmur of agreement throughout the atrium, but once again, Lacca-daisy doesn’t particularly seem to care.

“As for the enemies, there’s two types you gotta worry about. Type one: faculty. They’re all wearing masks and have been warned about using their quirks, but don’t think that makes ‘em any weaker. With or without their quirks, these guys will still kick your ass if you get too cocky.” she says, giving the crowd a meaningful look. “Then there’s type two: robots. You’re welcome to go all out on these guys and they come in a variety of shapes and sizes just to spice things up. Neither enemy will actively try to hurt you but they will slow you down, and if you’re not careful, steal your flags.

Last rule and if you break this one, you will be disqualified regardless of how many points you get, no sabotage. You steal from another contestant, set traps, slow them down– I don’t care how, you’re out of the running. Any questions?”

A smattering of hands raise and Lacca-daisy grins. “No? Nobody? Then get going!”

The door slams open, startling most of the crowd and sending the first of the applicants into action. Sat at the back of the crowded room, Vai immediately curls in on themself as the room empties around them.

‘Shit,’ they think. ‘Already off to a bad start.’

They stand and begin sprinting after the others, straight past a smiling Lacca-daisy and into the maze. Walls sprout up around them, each one reaching two stories before meeting the roof. Vai takes the first left and keeps going straight, trying to get away from the throngs of hero-hopefuls.

CLICK.

“Shit!” The lights go out. From around the corner, Vai can see a purple spotlight, and ahead another hundred feet is a pulsing green and blue one. It’s just barely light enough to maneuver, but it’s certainly disorienting, and more importantly…

“I’m glowing. Ffffffffff–” The soft white light of their skin and hair sends halos onto the walls and within moments, they can hear the mechanical whir, thump of a robot heading straight for them. “The one freaking day I don’t bring a hoodie,” they lament, dashing further down the corridor before ducking just below the pulsing light. They put their hand to the wall, testing for it’s malleability before cursing again. The walls are a carbon alloy, clearly created to withstand the barrage of quirks about to be thrown at them.

I could probably use it anyway, but I have no idea how long this test is, and if I overdo it…

The bot comes into view– a tall, gangly thing with reinforced arms and a clear weak spot in its neck. It scans for Vai, but hidden low under the blues and greens of the pulsing light, it isn’t immediately apparent that they’re there until a pale hand suddenly grabs the bot by its leg.

It tries to step back, but suddenly the teen is wrapped around it like a koala hanging for dear life and forcing their quirk through it faster than they can think. It raises its arm to beat them off when a loud pop! sounds and the whole thing twists, taking head and arm and legs with it.

The metal melts and bends and twists before re-converging on something resembling a twisted giraffe.

Vai slumps to the ground, staring up at their creation with dull eyes.

“Why did I make a giraffe? Could’ve made a lion, but no. I made a giraffe.” The creature in question cocks it’s matte metal head (steel, thank gods) and Vai groans again. “I know, I have no one to blame but myself.”

Looking up as they are, Vai sees the moment the blue light glints against the ceiling and–

“Okay, sweetie. Lift me as high as your spindly little neck can,” they grin. The creature complies, and Vai silently dubs him Jeff because why not. Once Jeff has lifted them as high as he can (about 17ft), they press flush against the closest wall and activate their quirk again, forcefully shaping handholds into the wall until they can reach the ceiling.

“Fiberglass roofing,” the teen grins. “Lightweight with a melting point of 2,075° F.”

Minutes later, soaring eighteen feet in the air on a freshly made pair of fiberglass bat wings and followed closely by an overzealous Jeff, Vai finds the first of their ‘flags’ rather quickly. Not having been given any guidelines on what exactly the flags were, they were surprised to find a variety of objects ranging from small disks to a full sized crash test dummy, all with the Taiyuu logo printed across them in incandescent paint.

“Jeff, take the dummy. I’ll grab as many of the smaller ones as I can,” they say.

“Oh, will you now?”

Vai spins in the air, shocked to find a rather well-muscled man in all black standing at the end of the alcove. “Shit.”

The man pauses, and Vai can suddenly feel the disappointed frown materialize beneath his mask. “You know this is a school entrance exam, right? You shouldn’t curse.”

Vai blushes red. “Shit, you’re right. Wait. Sorry, shit!” Vai buries their face in their hands, letting out a long groan. “I suck at this.”

They look up just in time to see the man running toward them, a bo staff having appeared in his hands. Jeff leaps in front of his creator just in time for the staff to come down with a loud and reverberating CLANG as Vai grabs as many of the small disks as they can before taking to the air and releasing Jeff, dropping him in all his 450 pound robotic glory directly onto the man in black.

Flying off as fast as they can, because Jeff’s robot form may be heavy but there is no way a trained pro is going to let that stop them, Vai shouts a quick, “Sorry!” and speeds back toward the first Safe Room. By the time they arrive, there are at least three dozen other applicants crowding the door, all clutching a variety of neon painted Taiyuu-themed objects. Luckily, their altitude makes it slightly easier to push past the squalling throng, but after dropping the disks and making their way back out, Vai still feels shaken in a way that has nothing to do with the crowd.

So many people want this…

They push through the middle this time, landing and curling their wings around their glowing form as best they can. They can feel the beginnings of some pretty bad bruises forming under the Fiberglass harness of their wings. Note to self: get an actual harness for next time.

“Attention, applicants! Time is now half over. I repeat; you better hurry your asses up!”

“She’s allowed to curse…” Vai grouches, turning in on what looked like another flag deposit. “Shit! This one’s cleaned out already.”

BANG!

Vai spins around, turning the corner to find a section of floor blown to pieces and two applicants nursing minor scrapes and burns.

“There’s traps now, too?” one of them shrieks, crystal growths in her skin flashing red in anger. “What the actual Hell?”

“Ah! I think I broke my ankle!” the other cries. Shaggy black hair obscures his eyes, but Vai is pretty sure there are tears dripping down his cheeks.

Vai pales. If I had landed any sooner, that would’ve been me… I’ve gotta keep flying.

“Do you need help getting back to the Safe Room? It’ll be slow, but I could probably fly you there?” they offer. Both applicants look at them like they’ve grown a second head.

“What, and quit while there’s still time left?” the crystal girl says. “Not a chance.” Beside them, the dark-haired boy nods along.

“We’re going to be the best hero duo the world has ever seen! We can’t do that if only one of us gets in!”

Vai nods in understanding, but feels sick even as the boy shakily gets to his feet, his friend helping him continue into the maze. They peel up their own shirt and gently prod at the darkening bruises digging into their hips and ribs.

Everyone wants this…. I can’t afford not to give it my all.

Taking off once again, they quickly scour the maze for more flags, but only find several more deposits, a disk someone must’ve dropped, and the second of the three Safe Rooms. That along with quite a few broken robots and several more injured teens– a girl who could stick to walls even warns them that certain walls have laser sensors in them too.

“Just a few more points,” they incant. “I can’t give up now.”

Suddenly, something hits them from behind with enough force to send them straight into the wall. Vai collapses to the ground in a heap, ribs burning like the sun. Another robot stands behind them, this time with tank treads and a gun.

Vai tries to stand, but the pain flares brighter and they collapse back to the ground. “No…Please, fuck, no.”

The robot advances, leveling the gun with Vai’s tear-stained face and for a brief second, they remember Lacca-daisey’s words.

“Neither enemy will actively try to hurt you but they will slow you down, and if you’re not careful, steal your flags.”

If they give up that last disk, the bot might leave them alone. If they don’t fight, just surrender and let it keep them here…

But that would mean giving up. That would mean saying ‘hopefully this is enough’ and letting fate decide, and fate, as Vai knows from personal experience, is an idiot.

They wrap their arms around their middle, feeling where a rib has popped out of place and is pressing horribly against the abused skin under their make-shift harness. The robot stills as they close their eyes, taking it as a sign of defeat, and Vai forces their quirk through their own body, superheating and popping the rib back into place with a pained shriek. It hurts– it hurts so goddamn bad they think for a second they might’ve lost consciousness, but when they open their eyes, the robot is still there, the gun is still leveled at their face, and Vai still doesn’t have enough points.

They stand, ignoring the sharp jabs of pain, and launch themself at the robot with all the force they can muster, sending the last of their energy into the bot in the vague hopes of it being enough. The treaded robot trembles beneath their hands, the gun click– click– click– clicking until Vai realizes with a start that the clicking has turned to a roar. They look up at the mane of their creation and give a watery smile.

“I made a lion.”

The buzzer sounds three minutes later and Vai has barely managed to scrape together another two disks and a plastic dog before collapsing in the second Safe Room they found, their lion falling to sheet metal as the last of their adrenaline-borne energy runs out. Eventually, several black-clad faculty members come to get them, one of them checking over their rib and asking what on Earth they did to it that the entire thing seems to be twisted like a barbers pole. The lights come on and someone heals them– properly this time –and Vai goes home limping, covered in sweat, and positively beaming.

They did their best, and fate will have nothing to do with it.

#bnha #bnha oc #taiyuu oct #audition #mha #tw injury #tw cursing #so for medical reasons I wasn't able to do this in full color in time #and my wonderful father wound up helping me shade my lion and add the gradients #thank you dad!

[tarysande]

When season 4 of Lucifer came out, I was about to go up to the mountains for 3 days. With spotty WiFi at best. I finished all 10 episodes 4 hours before I was supposed to leave. Watching it on my phone, I knew I was going to miss some details of the show. It felt like I couldn't read Chloe too well for the first few episodes. Then I saw it again on a larger TV, and I swear her eyebrows and forehead barely budged. My brother and I were very concerned. Now I need to rewatch everything. Woe is me.

I mean, I’m on my third rewatch, and I’ve watched some episodes four or five times, and some axe scenes 200,000 times, so ... enjoy it. It’s worth rewatching on a screen big enough to see emotions---because they’re definitely there.

But here’s some real talk. And it’s not just directed at you; in fact, I’m not sure you meant to sound as dismissive as you did. It’s just ... you’ve complained to the wrong person about the things actresses do to keep working in a system that despises and even vilifies age. I’ve seen Chloe (or, rather, Lauren) and her eyebrows and her forehead mentioned before, and I think people lack a basic understanding of how Hollywood works.

It sucks, okay? It really fucking sucks. I have a BFA in acting. I loved acting. I was, if I may be so bold, a pretty great actor. One of the reasons I don’t act professionally is because getting jobs in acting---especially in the Hollywood-driven environment---fucking sucks. Getting acting jobs as a woman? Good fucking luck. Hope you like playing the lottery!

Because Hollywood is obsessed with youth and beauty. They are obsessed with selling a dream of young, beautiful people doing things as only young, beautiful people can do them. Day in and day out, amazing actresses, trained actresses, super fucking talented actresses walk into audition rooms and are judged by their appearance before they open their mouths. Before they speak. Before they read their sides or perform their monologues. And if someone behind that table decides you’re too fat, too thin, too blonde, not blonde enough, too busty, not busty enough, not ‘what they were picturing,’ or any number of other purely appearance-based judgments---you’re not going to get the job. It has nothing to do with training or skills or talent or ability. It’s what you look like. I know a talented actress who was once sent out of an audition before she even spoke because she would “never be cast as a leading lady; I don’t know why your agent put you up for this.” She doesn’t act anymore, either. Weird.

I would rather get 100,000 rejection letters on writing submissions; at least they’re judging my work and not whether my teeth are perfectly straight or whether I can squeeze myself into a size 2---because God forbid a woman has a hint of flesh on her bones (except boobs, obviously! Boobs are allowed!).

Men are allowed to age in Hollywood. Men are allowed to be overweight (they will still have thin, young, beautiful wives and girlfriends). Men are allowed to deviate from “beauty,” especially as they age. Men are allowed to exist outside the “love interest” “parent” “grandparent” roles women get pushed into.

Have you ever noticed that Tom Ellis is allowed to have crows feet and lines on his brow? I have. When men age in Hollywood, it gives them ‘character.’ When women age in Hollywood, they stop getting work. Or they get Botox. Because they want to keep working. To keep working, they have to trick casting directors into thinking they’re eternally young and fresh and beautiful. (And yes, obviously, some women manage to have long-lasting careers. But for every Meryl Streep, there are dozens of actresses who once held principal roles that no longer get work.)

It’s bullshit. The more experience a woman gets, the less “saleable” she is. Think about some prominent male actors who’ve had long Hollywood careers. Now, go look at IMDB. Look at some of their early films. Who were the women (let’s be real, who was the woman, probably the love interest) in those films? Are any of them still working regularly? Are their names as household as Marlon Brando or Al Pacino or Tom Hanks or Tom Cruise or Jack Nicholson? Then, just for fun, take any of these household name male actors and look at the age of the actresses who’ve played their last few love interests.

And let’s not even start on how unbalanced the lines-spoken numbers are between men and women. Let’s not talk about how almost every bloody time there’s a team or group or whatever, you get one woman for every four or five or six men. Ha, ha, token female, amirite?

(I also want to note that, generally speaking, British film and TV approaches casting quite differently. A lot of not-traditionally-Hollywood-beautiful people come up through the British system because they far more frequently cast based on talent.)

Part of the reason I love Lucifer and support it so passionately is that it’s full of amazing female characters played by amazing female actors who are not in their early 20s-but-pretending-to-be-35. All of these women are unique. They have different voices, different arcs (not dependent on men), different agency, different goals, different hopes and dreams. Yes, they’re all very thin and very beautiful---it’s still Hollywood, and change isn’t going to happen overnight.

So, when I see a talented, beautiful actress who’s obviously had some Botox or some work done, I don’t criticize her. I sure as shit don’t judge her. I know she fucking loves her job and she’s doing everything she can to keep working. I know she lives every single day of her life fearing the inevitability of age. I know she is scrutinized and judged and found worthy or lacking first on appearance, and only then on skill. I know she probably fights like hell with her self-esteem, because how can you not when so much of your life and livelihood depends on outside validation based on frigging appearance? She deserves our support; she deserves better than being treated like a prize show animal. She’s stronger than I was. Stronger than most of us, I think. 

Besides, and specifically, Lauren’s emotive as hell. Her forehead may be pretty smooth, but she’s not frozen. She’s not expressionless. She may not be quite as facile as Tom with the microexpressions, but she holds her own. And, as an aside, I think her acting as Chloe is amazing in those first few episodes. She’s playing like, three different layers of stuff going on. You’re not supposed to ‘read her well’---like Lucifer, you’re supposed to recognize that something’s weird with her, but you can’t put your finger on what, and meanwhile she’s presenting ‘business as usual’ 24/7. I don’t know what to tell you. It was great.

#asks and answers #Anonymous #on acting #lucifer on netflix #you accidentally backed right into one of my buttons sorry #but stuff like this needs to be said #because the system is awful #and it's not on the actresses #they're doing what they can to survive #lauren german #chloe decker #support women 2k19 #long text post

[blindwyrm]

Notes on Magic

Notes On: The Elements of Spellcrafting by Jason Miller Key 2: Stop Making Crappy Goals Set a long term goal for something you want to change with Magic. Analyze it through these steps.  Impossible and Highly Improbable Goals There are no spells that are going to make you invisible. Put off your plans of magical bank robbing. You can’t change your appearance to look like Sailor Moon or create a girlfriend like in Weird Science. These are impossible goals. It’s not that miracles never happen or that paranormal phenomena do not ever manifest, but you shouldn’t ever bank on them as a life plan. Highly improbable goals are also crappy. This doesn’t mean hard goals, but highly improbable goals, like winning the lottery or casting a spell to get someone struck by lightning. It’s not worth spending a lot of time on. The Lame Goal This is the opposite of the improbable goal. It is uninspiring and barely worth the effort. A good goal is inspiring. It lights a fire in the belly. It is a reason to charge into the temple at dawn or head to the graveyard at 3 A.M. Just because we are not going for the impossible or highly improbable does not mean we can’t strive for greatness. We should not limit ourselves. This is not true only of material success, but spiritual goals as well. We may think we are being humble by saying we only seek modest attainments, but examples of great people exist to inspire greatness. In stories of the great Sorcerer turned Saint Milarepa, his attainment and wisdom seemed so far beyond his students that they insisted he must be the incarnation of some powerful Holy Man or Buddha. He scolded them and said that to insist that they were incapable of the same results showed a lack of faith in the teachings which promise enlightenment to any who dutifully practice. Even if we don’t become millionaires or celebrities, deliberately cutting ourselves off from that right at the start is no way to live your life. Vague and Immeasurable Goals The next type of crappy goal to avoid is the vague and immeasurable goal. Things like “I want wealth,” “I want to be healthy,” and “I want to be enlightened  are all noble, but vague and immeasurable.  Take “I want to be rich” for example. If you evoke Tzadkiel, the Angel of Jupiter, and say “I want to be rich,” what is the metric he’s going to use? Maybe he looks on the world and sees that people who make over $40,000 a year are in the top 1% of the world and then looks at your $60,000 and decides “you look pretty rich to me already.” However, if you ask to get promoted to a position where you are making $100,00 a year, as well as boost sales on your side business website by 30% this year, this is something specific he can grab onto. It’s also something you can measure yourself against. If you want to lose weight, then you need to know how much you want to lose. If you want to make money, you need to know how much you want to make. If you want to have a fulfilling romantic life, you need to know what you want out of it. If you want to reach spiritual enlightenment, you need to know how you are going to measure it. Whatever it is you are looking to do with your magic, you should be able to measure it somehow.  Setting Goals is Not an Accomplishment Did you set a good goal? That’s awesome! But you haven’t done squat. The last type of crappy goal is one that is not acted on. If you really take the time to examine your life, discover a lot of the self-sabotaging and negative inner scripts that you have been running, and take the time to figure out where you really want to be spiritually, materially, romantically, or socially, it can be a hugely satisfying and uplifting experience. It provides direction where formerly there was none. Avoid fetishizing your goal.Your goal does not need to be written in a Moleskine bought specially for that purpose; it just needs to be accomplished. Sigilize the goal for a working, but don’t obsess over it. So, What is a Good Goal? Pretty much anything you want to do with Magic that avoids these traps. Your goal is difficult enough to warrant using Magic, but not so improbable that it would need a miracle; important enough to warrant action. A great goal seems to have its own gravity that pulls you towards it. Lastly, it’s measurable. It’s something you can look at and say  “That worked!” or “That didn’t work. Time to try something else.” A rule of thumb that will always keep your goal on track: Make a plan that can happen without Magic. Then use Magic to make sure it does. The Take Away Three suggestions after setting your goal: 1. Take action immediately after setting your goal. What is the first step? 2. Plan out the next several steps that you need to take after that first one, and assign them dates and times. If it doesn’t have a date and time, it’s not a real step. 3. A week later, look at your steps. If you did not do them when you said you would, you need to examine why. It usually is either a) you realize that you don’t want this right now as much as you say you do, or b) you need to figure out some way to keep yourself to it using pleasure/pain principals because will power alone isn’t cutting it.

#notes #magic #elements of spellcrafting #witchcraft #witchblr #jason miller #bos

[qobiin]

when i fill them, they’ll shine forever | ch 3

pairing: todobakudeku (bakugou x midoriya x todoroki)

genre: fluff | abo au, canon-compliant 

warnings: swearing, trans male character  

word count: 3839 

summary: Katsuki being an omega from birth changes a few things. 

chapter three of when i fill them, they’ll shine forever 

Katsuki stays in his room until dinnertime when his grumbling stomach and the angry shouts from his mom forces him to come out of hiding.

His dad is home now and heard all about the dumbass sludge villain on his commute here from the studio. Katsuki endures the mother henning, assuring his dad multiple times that he took off his binder as soon as he got back and no, he is not even wearing a sports bra either. His dad doesn’t look assured in the least, but then his mom butts in and asks if it really was Izuku who rushed in before All Might showed up.

Katsuki fights back a growl, but his mom sees right through his bullshit. She's always been able to do that.

“You sent Izuku packing, didn’t you?” she asks.

“Shut up, old hag,” Katsuki deflects.

His mom sighs, rolling her eyes heavenwards in exaggeration. “You’re being stupid, ungrateful brat.”

“Love, this really-” his dad tries to cut in.

“No, he needs to hear it,” his mom interrupts before looking back at Katsuki and frowning like he's the one who did something wrong. “You’re being stupid. Izuku is your alpha. Of course, he’s gonna risk his life for yours, it’s built into him. You would do the same stupid stunt too, that’s why you’re mates. Because you love each other so much that you would do anything for your mate no matter the cost. Don’t make that face at me, you brat! You know that I’m right.”

Katsuki sulks, chopsticks picking at the food that was set in front of him during his dad’s mother henning earlier. He doesn’t feel all that hungry anymore, but he knows that he needs to eat. If he doesn’t, his dad will go into a flurry and his mom will ultimately force him to finish what’s on his plate anyway.

“I never asked him to,” he finally says, chancing a glance up at his mom.

She stares back, giving nothing. “And he would never want you to! The least you could have said is thank you before you ripped him a new one. I’m sure those useless heroes at the scene did enough of that crap since they couldn’t do anything better.”

“I can’t even fucking look at him right now.”

“Why?”

Katsuki growls, hands pulling at his hair in frustration as he feels the burn of tears in his eyes again. “Because I was weak! I was just a shitty, useless omega who had their alpha save them and now that’s all anyone is going to remember from that shitshow! My alpha was in danger because of me and I promised to protect him, but I couldn’t even fucking do that!”

His mom’s voice raises in tandem with his own. “You really are fucking stupid if you think-!”

“Let me handle this dear,” Katsuki’s dad cuts in, one hand on his beta’s shoulder.

With a deep exhale, Katsuki watches his mom calm down underneath his dad’s hold. He sets his chopsticks down and waits, hands folded together in his own lap as his father’s gaze swings from his mom to him instead. He knows that his dad is about to give him a lecture the equivalent to the smackdown of the century and he should probably save himself and just run, but Katsuki is no coward.

“Katsuki,” his dad begins with, “you are not weak and I would pity the fool who would ever believe that of you.”

Indignation rises up in him causing Katsuki to sit up straight in his seat, the beginning of a protest on the tip of his tongue before it dies as his dad shoots him an uncharacteristic glare and continues.

“You and I both know that Izuku did not do what he did because he views you as weak. He risked his life for the chance of saving yours because you are his mate. You are his other half and if he stood by while your life was in danger, he would never be able to forgive himself. And you know what?” His father asks, tilting his head to the side to see if Katsuki will answer.

Satisfied with the silence, he plunders on. “I would never forgive him either if he only stood by and did nothing like those so-called heroes who were there at the scene. Not one of them was going to even try and save you in the end, Katsuki. They were going to let my little boy die without even doing anything to prevent it. Izuku is a true hero and you’re lucky to have him as a mate.”

Katsuki scoffs but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he waits and is rewarded when his dad ignores him and keeps talking, voice strained in that way Katsuki has learned to associate with holding back tears.

“It’s okay if you’re mad at him too. I would be if your mother did anything like that for me because I would have been scared for her and beside myself with worry,” his father says, not expecting a reply.

His mom speaks up then, her tone much softer now to appease Katsuki. “If you need time away from that green twerp to get your thoughts all in order, that’s fine too. Just don’t let his actions go unnoticed either, you ungrateful brat.”

Katsuki manages a smirk then, an expletive on the tip of his tongue before he stamps it down when his dad shoots him a withering look. “Okay, old hag.”

  Deku stays away as he promised.

Katsuki regrets agreeing to it by the second day. The day after the sludge villain incident, people crowded around him, wanting to know more about what happened. Katsuki had bristled at all the attention, fighting back the urge to let his control on his quirk slip just a little. Just enough to get these shitty extras away from him.

Then some dumbass alphas had to ruin it by posturing and Katsuki sent them to the school nurse. He was not suspended for it, the principal excusing the fight and talking down his nose at him about “traumatic events” and whatever the fuck else the old motherfucker was preaching. Katsuki was much too busy seething at his pity to notice anything else.

He goes back to class and ignores the looks he receives as he walks through the classroom door. He settles down in his desk, casts the projector screen a cursory glance, then decides that taking useless notes isn’t worth any of his time.

Deku’s eyes burn into his back for the rest of the day. Katsuki doesn’t confront him about it, knowing that Deku’s shadowing is the only reason people leave him the fuck alone for the rest of the day.

Everyone knows that they are mates and everyone also knows that while Deku is timid and quirkless and allows others to ridicule him, he switches into high gear the moment insults, violence or slurs are directed at his omega. Katsuki would probably be angry and frothing at the mouth furious about that in another life, but Deku is his mate, alpha, and best friend. If anything, Katsuki expects his alpha to rise up to the challenge. Otherwise, what is the point?

The day Deku stops defending him is the day Katsuki knows Deku is done with him.

So, he is annoyed about his alpha having so much sway, but he is not angry. Not necessarily anyway. Maybe just a little since Deku doesn’t look injured or harmed and barely shows any emotion when people interact with him.

This is why after school the next day, Katsuki rushes out after Deku and catches up to him past the school gates.

Deku doesn’t say a word, just lets their hands intertwine and follows after Katsuki as he leads the way home.

The alpha yelps in surprise when Katsuki takes a sharp right and drags Deku into an alley a couple of streets away from Katsuki’s house. He lets go of Deku’s hand and pushes his alpha against the grimy wall, glowering at him before he closes in.

“K-Kacchan, w-what-” Deku starts to stutter out, back pressed firmly against the wall behind him as Katsuki steps into his personal space.

Katsuki cuts him off with a kiss. He tries his hardest to make it gentle, to try and show everything he can’t say just yet with his mouth on Deku’s.

At first, Deku doesn’t respond. He’s too stiff, pressed back into the brick and arms at his own sides, but when Katsuki starts pulling back, Deku practically attacks him.

Arms come up to wrap themselves around him, a hand burying itself in his hair before gripping on the strands hard. Katsuki makes a choked noise in the back of his throat that Deku takes as encouragement, pulling Katsuki into his space until their chests bump together. Deku’s lips are chapped, but their movements are steady against his own, so Katsuki exhales and relaxes into it.

They pull away for much-needed air a few moments later, Deku flushing a bright red and eyes sparkling with an emotion that makes knots twist in Katsuki’s stomach. His own face feels warm, but his breaths are even unlike his alpha’s and something deep within him preens at the response.

“If you ever pull a stunt like that again,” Katsuki snaps, his voice like a whip breaking the silence. “I will kill you myself.”

Deku smiles at him, pulling Katsuki in close for another kiss. “Okay, Kacchan.”

  Things start to smooth over between them after that.

Katsuki still refuses to talk about stupid feelings when he thinks he can get away with it, but he listens to Deku’s muttered rambling with a small smile on his face that he denies having afterward. His dad teaches him how to cook when he catches him making a mess of the bento box he was going to take for Deku as lunch and he grudgingly learns, picking it up fairly quickly.

Deku smiles at the bento box but picks at the food, only explaining about his new diet once Katsuki explodes at him about not appreciating his hard work, the bastard. Katsuki is irritated with him for not letting him know sooner, but takes note of the new diet anyway and makes a more suitable bento box the next day.

His alpha eats that one without complaint, thanking and praising Katsuki as he eats. Katsuki tries not to let it get to his head and fails.

Their homework and study sessions start ending with Deku pinned down on the floor or against the wall while Katsuki makes a mess of him. Katsuki kisses his alpha as if neither of them is going to get the chance to do so again. Deku barely hangs out with him as is and he is always smelling faintly of garbage no matter how often he showers, so Katsuki treats the time he can get with his alpha as a prize. Something to look forward to.

It’s only when Deku unexpectedly pins Katsuki down one day while they are getting carried away and Katsuki can't push him off no matter how hard he tries that the explosive blonde takes notice of his alpha’s new strength.

“What the shit? Have you been working out without me, you fucking nerd?” Katsuki asks, eyes wide and chest heaving.

Deku’s eyes are dark and his expression is blank, but at Katsuki’s words his features shift and then he’s pulling away, embarrassed. Katsuki sits up once Deku has settled down on the floor beside him, scratching at the back of his head as his gaze flickers across the room but never settles on Katsuki.

“Um, y-yeah! This guy, who’s a personal trainer, sought me out after what happened with the sludge villain and he’s helping me build up my strength for the UA hero course. I don’t know if it’s working well yet, but his training regime is really intense,” Deku flushes, sweat beading along his hairline.

Katsuki’s eyes narrow into slits. “The new diet?”

“His idea too!” Deku answers, smiling nervously.

There are many things that Katsuki could focus on right now. Deku’s new diet, a mysterious personal trainer seeking him out, his new workout and strength, the stench of trash or the fact that Deku is giving him the bare minimum of the truth. Katsuki can tell everything that came out of his alpha’s mouth just now isn’t the real story, but it’s sprinkled in with enough of the truth to not raise suspicion. At least not from someone who hasn’t known Deku since they were in fucking diapers.

Katsuki decides to be merciful - just this once. He’ll ignore the fact that his alpha is being secretive for the time being and play along. But only this once so fucking Deku better be grateful about it when he finally tells Katsuki what’s really going on.

“You’re still gonna apply then?” Katsuki asks, glare trained on the edge of his bed where their homework lays forgotten.

Deku hums, nodding his head quickly. “Yeah! I think my chances are getting better and better each day that I follow this new training plan. I know that the practical part of the exam is going to be a challenge, but I really do think I can pass and so does Yagi-sensei.”

“Deku, what the shit?” Katsuki asks, filing away the trainer’s name for later.

“Kacchan, I’ll be okay,” Deku assures him, turning to smile at him.

Katsuki sulks instead, refusing to meet Deku’s gaze. “You’re an idiot.”

Deku laughs a little under his breath. “Don’t worry. We’ll both get in and then we could be a hero duo like we used to talk about before…”

He knows what his alpha means. Deku doesn't have to say it out loud for Katsuki to remember what happened when he turned four and got his quirk. He and Deku went into an absolute frenzy about how powerful of a hero duo they would make as adults. Deku was practically vibrating with excitement as his own fourth birthday closed in and Katsuki tolerated it, not wanting to be mean to his young alpha.

It wasn’t until they found out about Deku’s pinkie toe joint and his quirklessness that they stopped talking about it. Katsuki still thought of it from time to time though, thinking of other ways Deku could have his back while Katsuki became a pro hero.

He also knows though that Deku would never give up on that dream. And really, who is Katsuki to crush that for him? He’s an omega and the only reason UA allowed his application was because his parents and Deku signed off on the appropriate forms and his mom gave them a piece of her mind through multiple threatening phone calls if they decided to throw out Katsuki’s application anyway.

So Katsuki sighs and leans into Deku’s side. “I never expected you to give up on that dream, you fucking idiot. I just didn’t know you were suicidal.”

Deku has the audacity to laugh. “I’ll be fine, Kacchan! My training is going to pay off, just you wait.”

“Well, I want in,” Katsuki says, half-expecting Deku to tell him no.

But Deku has rarely ever denied Katsuki something he wants. “Sure, Kacchan. Meet me at Dagobah Beach after school, okay?”

Katsuki huffs but nods his head. “Fine, you shit nerd. Now get back to kissing me. Come and show me just how strong you’re becoming.”

Deku’s smile curves sharply at his words and before Katsuki knows it, he’s pinned to the ground with his alpha hovering over him once more.

  Either Deku is an idiot or he knows exactly who Yagi Toshinori actually is.

Katsuki can’t quite believe that the number one hero would seek out his quirkless alpha and decide to train him, but he isn’t very surprised either. All Might had suddenly shown up soon after Deku had rushed to Katsuki's aid when he was trapped by the sludge villain. Deku had also said that he had been attacked by the same villain earlier that day too. Katsuki had heard the dispersing crowd whisper about All Might spending most of the day chasing this villain around, so it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.

Really, Katsuki is honestly just surprised that the number one hero can look this deathly ill and still kick ass when needed.

As much as Katsuki would like to know what the fuck is going on firsthand, he keeps his mouth shut. He sees the way All Might looks at his alpha. It’s the same way his own dad looks at him from time to time whenever he has done something to warrant his father's approval or pride.

Deku’s father not being around would explain a lot of things as well. Katsuki has never met him, but he knows that Auntie is still married to him, that he was an alpha too and that he supposedly had a fire quirk. The more time he spends at the beach watching the two alphas in front of him interact though, the less he believes a Midoriya Hisashi ever even existed.

Katsuki decides to keep this secret guarded close to his chest. He doesn’t want his alpha or Auntie to be thrown into the line of fire just because Auntie married and bore All Might a son. He would never be able to forgive himself if he slipped up and an evil villain with a grudge against All Might decided to take it out on the number one hero’s defenseless family.

But they won’t be defenseless. Katsuki will be there and he would never let anybody lay a hand on either of their heads. Over his dead fucking body really.

He watches Deku move the trash, keeping a close eye on Yagi Toshinori as he thinks of how strong he'll need to be to make sure his birth pack is not harmed.

  On the morning of the exam, Deku stumbles into him at the entrance gates.

He’s sweaty, nervous, and smells like garbage and ozone of all fucking things. Katuski tilts his head at him as he tries to sniff out the new scent but it disappears as quickly as it appeared.

Deku is a stuttering mess and Katsuki rolls his eyes at him, throwing an arm over his alpha’s shoulders and pulling him in close as he guides them to the testing room. Plenty of people stare at them as they pass, probably surprised by the scent of an omega, but Katsuki knows he isn’t the only omega here so he glares at everyone and finds them their seats quickly.

He’ll deny this with all his might, but he is relieved that he and Deku are sitting next to each other for the written portion of the exam. Katsuki always feels calmer when he can hear Deku’s very faint mumbling during a test.

Which is why he glares at some stuck up, tall as shit extra who interrupts Presenter Mic’s explanation on the rules about some dumbass typo then turns right around and calls out his alpha for his muttering. Just who the fuck does this fucktard think he is?

Katsuki mutters expletives under his breath until the start of the written portion, smirking when he feels the fucktard’s eyes on him. Deku smiles at him from the corner of his eye and he smiles back, focusing on answering the questions on his exam after that.

He splits up with Deku for the practical portion and kisses him for good luck, doing his best not to worry about his alpha. Deku has this. He’s been trained by All Might himself for fuck’s sake and he carries those genes in him. Deku has the practical portion under control just as much as Katsuki does.

So when the practical ends and Katsuki calculates his score, he feels smug as he makes his way back to the entrance gates. He’s sweaty and smells strongly of pure omega if the looks from stupid alphas mean anything, but he glares at anyone who looks his way as he toughs it out and waits. His binder is starting to dig into his skin thanks to the robots and being slammed into the side of a building once, but he ignores it and forces himself to take deep breaths no matter how much it makes his chest ache.

His discomfort is completely forgotten about when he sees Deku emerge from the exam building, head low and steps uneven. His usual muttering storm is absent and when Katsuki asks what the fuck happened, Deku stutters out something about a broken arm and legs and zero points. He smells awful, almost something like grief and mostly of shame. It makes Katsuki's hackles rise with anger as a surge of protectiveness overcomes him.

Katsuki walks his alpha all the way home and spends the night after yelling at his mom on the phone for ten minutes. Deku is mostly out of it, not really responding to anything but managing to dress himself in his own pajamas when they get ready for bed. Katsuki ends up crawling into the small bit of space that is left between the wall and Deku’s body on his alpha’s small bed instead of the futon his Auntie dragged out.

It’s a tight fit, but they make it work. Katsuki wraps his arms around his alpha and presses his face into his dark, curly hair, inhaling his scent and hoping that with Deku's head cushioned on his chest, his alpha will be able to come back to. Deku doesn't fall asleep for a long time and when he starts crying, Katsuki only holds him closer and presses his lips to Deku's forehead.

He’d rather die than let his alpha wallow in his own failure. Fuck that crap.

  Deku makes it into UA.

Katsuki is surprised considering how dejected his alpha smelt after the exam, but he doesn’t say anything except for a quiet congratulations and sits through the joint family celebration their birth pack holds for them.

Auntie cries the entire time and Deku looks like he might be on the verge of tears too, especially when All Might shows up in his civilian form and Auntie Inko blushes bright red. Katsuki sees his mom spare All Might a glance before she ignores him, ordering another round of drinks for the adults present instead. Katsuki frowns as his mom orders him another fucking apple juice, but says nothing, much too focused on the way Deku is adamantly playing stupid footsie with him underneath the table.

Katsuki files all that he learns through body language and minute glances at the dinner away for later. Deku doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss, but his alpha has always been pretty oblivious when it comes to social cues so his reactions stopped counting a long time ago.

At least now they can really become a Hero Duo like they always talked about when they were toddlers. 

a/n: if you’re interested about how this is all coming together, check out my #progress-report tag (: 

thanks for reading! please remember that my requests are open 

#todobakudeku #bakudeku #todobaku #tododeku #bakugou x midoriya x todoroki #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #chaptered #f:bnha #g:fluff #t:chaptered #p:ot3 #p:bakugou/midoriya/todoroki #wifttsf #m: fic

[obaewankenope]

so i finished my raphael!crowley fic @darthvcder ur welcome

You Were Made (To Meet Your Maker) summary:

How does one Fall and still stand as an angel? How does one exist both as good and evil? How does one embody the virtues and the sins? How does one perform miracles on Her order when they are no longer one of Her angels?

.

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell       Whose heart-strings are a lute;

None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell         Of his voice, all mute.

                                   Edgar Allan Poe

.

How does one Fall and still stand as an angel? How does one exist both as good and evil? How does one embody the virtues and the sins? How does one perform miracles on Her order when they are no longer one of Her angels?

Crowley doesn’t know the answer to any of those questions, he’s not sure he wants to know them. He’s always been curious—always asked and asked and asked—but some questions, he knows, are not always answerable[1].

Once he was an angel. Once he had brothers and sisters made of beautiful light, full of song and praise and wonder. Once he knew what it was to be Her mediator. Once he knew heaven in gentle glory.

Once.

Now he is a demon. Now he knows what it is to claw his way through the earth, from a searing heat at the core, further and further away from the boiling fire toward sweet blue sky and cold beyond. Now he knows what it is to feel so, so alone. Now he is no one’s messenger, no one’s herald. Now he knows hell.

It’s not as bad as it could be, Crowley knows this. It is worse for some of the demons who were Made Demons and not who Once Were Angels. There’s a difference between the two types; those who have been made into demons are so much weaker, they’re the cannon fodder to thin the enemy lines and exhaust the heavy-hitters on the battlefield. Demons Who Were Angels Before are strong and mighty still, with their wings retained and all of their celestial powers driven by demonic strength instead of God’s love.

Crowley has wings but to those he is now kin to, they see him as a Made Demon rather than a Once Angel. He prefer it that way. Made Demons are given simpler tasks, capable of far less intellectual ability and generally good for a few temptings before they stupidly meet their end at the hands of a priest with holy water on hand.

It was his wings that made Crowley the option for tempting Eve in the garden. He could fly as well as slither, speak as well as hide. Made Demons are given far less attention by heaven and the celestial Powers That Be so, obviously, Crowley would go under the radar and avoid detection[2].

That made the meeting with the principality on Eden’s wall all the more amusing. For Azirafel knew not who stood beside him. Though he could not for Crowley had done much to hide it from all—brother and sister and Parent alike. Mother did not know him for Crowley had dropped all but his power and wings when he Fell.

Yet…

Mother did not stop calling on him. She called for him—Her mediator, one who heals, —to perform miracles throughout human history. Heal this human, save this place, travel to that town and perform a miracle to save the children, speak between the Archangels and stop them from tearing each other apart. Always a Purpose. Always another Task for him to Perform for Her.

And for all that he hated it, hated being called when She had cast him out, he still answered her summons. He wore a face that his siblings knew, answered them when they called for him by That Name and never let it be shown that he felt that part of him had died the day he Fell.

Azirafel grew as a friend, became someone Crowley found companionship throughout the ages of humanity. The angel who was a Principality of Eden, the angel with a flaming sword gifted to humanity for warmth and protection and out of kindness. Azirafel was worth knowing, Crowley decided only moments after meeting the angel in Eden.

Knowing him throughout the ages only solidifies that fact as Incontestable.

The kind of Incontestable that makes life insurance policies such useful things to have on a spouse with a dangerous job even when you mess up details on the policy when making it[3].

God’s plans are, as always, ineffable. Azirafel loves that phrase, that word, it’s his go-to defence and distraction from Important Conversations method. Crowley respects it, that sort of verbal skill is sadly lacking in hell—and heaven, it was lacking there as well, but that was Then and this is Now[4].

Now where he sits in his flat and wonders what the itchy sensation across his back is. It feels… not familiar, it’s too strange to be mistaken for the irritation of his wings wanting to move and be in the world. Crowley feels as though it’s a sensation meant only to be felt by him and only at this specific moment in time.

The moment his television blares to life, screen mottled with white noise and a distorted but instantly recognisable voice echoing through the surround sound system built into the walls, Crowley understands.

He wishes it had been his wings itching for some freedom.

 .

.

“Crowley, darling, I have a brilliant task for you.”

It’s not brilliant. Crowley knows it’s not. He knows it like he knows the way Abraham couldn’t believe the sight of three Archangels standing before him in the Grove of Mamre two thousand years ago. It’s the same understanding of this being A Distinctly Not Brilliant Task that he has of every order She has given him over the ages.

This is something Crowley is destined to do but he sure as hell doesn’t need to enjoy it[5].

So delivering the end of the world doesn’t necessarily involve him tooting a horn for the world to hear, but even celestial and demonic beings had to move with the times.

As an Archangel, Crowley’s purpose was so different to his demonic duties that it was laughable how they—finally—meshed together with his being the bearer of Armageddon. It was hilarious.

Perhaps he should have been sat waiting for the end times, perhaps he had been. All through his time on earth, acting as demonic scourge while performing angelic blessings, Crowley has been waiting. He knew—knows—the fruitlessness of it all. The ending is written in the lyrics of the cosmos, in the stanzas and bars of each note, a mournful admission of what was, is, will be.

Aziraphale—modernised pronunciation, grammar, letters, language, it suits the angel better than it does Crowley—has never understood the pointlessness of it all. A loyal angel, loving and kind, who holds fast to the order of loving humanity. That’s Aziraphale.

Crowley wishes he could be like Aziraphale.

In the moments of his life when he has had too much time to sit and think, Crowley has envied and resented Aziraphale in equal measure. But he has pitied him most of all.

At least Crowley knows the ending, Aziraphale doesn’t even have that. It’s a small consolation[6].

So here it is, Crowley, the Fallen Archangel Who Is Not Samael, who delivers unto the earth an ultimatum, a determination, a statement of undeniable fact[7].

Let the axe fall, let those who will fall collapse and those who are given Favour rise. Crowley is the harbinger of extinction.

A fitting duty for one such as he.

Aziraphale understands that the end times are coming. He understands in distant terms, removed from the centre of it by virtue of his distance to the child Crowley delivers to the nuns—Crowley knows without having to check that the child is unremarkably remarkable and will bring the world to ruin in ways it has never been brought to before—and the time they have until the War To End It All.

That Aziraphale honestly considers Crowley’s suggestions, his nagging, his hints, his temptings, to the point of agreeing to work together on the child… Crowley has known the Principality for a long, long time and he never thought the angel would agree to such a thing even with the Arrangement between them.

It’s as unexpectedly wonderful as learning an angel gave his celestial blade away out of kindness and kindness alone.

He’s reminded of his time in Greece, back before the Romans got it into their heads to be a civilisation. Before he met Aziraphale in Rome and continued to bond on their immortality on a mortal world. Greece had been a wonderful place with a lot of dark spots to mar the brightest sheen on it.

Hell had loved Greece for its slaves and wars and conquest. Crowley had loved Greece for its potential.

He had flourished in Greece, walking streets with his eyes gold rather than serpentine yellow, hair flowing red to his waist, robes always a pristine white, red, and blue. Crowley knows he had looked beyond anything mortal. He had intended it.

Greece was a place where healing was so, so important. Where Crowley could walk into a temple dedicated to Asclepius—a lovely gent—and touch the heads of the sick and heal them of their ills and have no fear of it reaching heaven that it was he was doing it.

Heaven had never tracked his movements—they couldn’t, no Archangel could be tracked save by another Archangel or God Herself—and Hell was more interested in the suffering he claimed credit for that a minor healing meant little to them.

It was always assumed to be in service to a higher cause[8].

Falling had never been his choice, not really. He’d just hung out with the wrong crowd, asked too many questions, been tricked at the worst possible time to be tricked.

Samael’s words were like honey but with a vinegar aftertaste only noticed when one stopped imbibing the sweetness. Crowley remembers how kind Samael was, how loving and bright and sly. He remembers huddling beneath his brother’s wing and staring in wonder as the beginning of the cosmos. He remembers Samael’s hurt anger when She revealed to them all Her newest project.

Humanity.

Most of all, Crowley remembers the boiling pits of hell as he landed, the searing agony as the sulphur bit into celestial skin and tried to poison it. He remembers his wings unfurling and launching him from it, landing on rock-molten ground and screaming screaming  s c r e a m i n g.

He remembers contact with his wings of bodies and beings never before known in the universe. He remembers celestial fire burning around him, lashing out and immolating those who dared approach him.

Crowley remembers wings of fire and light and love wrapping around him, blocking out the world, smothering his own celestial strength and arms entwining around him, caging him in place.

Crowley remembers the soft words, spoken in that honeyed voice, calming him, soothing him, placating him to stop, stop, just stop dear brother, you are safe with me.

But safe was not here. Safe was Before. Safe is an illusion Now.

“Go above, tempt the mortals, do this and remain there, I give you the duty and honour and freedom from here. I am Kind like that, I am Gentle, I am Merciful.”

Merciful? It would have been merciful to end him then and not force him to endure as this.

But Samael was only ever merciful in ways that He Preferred to be. Not ways Crowley wished.

That angel up in Eden bears a blade that is common and yet rare. It burns with celestial fire and something more, something else that is a leftover from one who bore it before. Power and strength and will entwined.

Crowley recognises it and he wonders at it. Why this blade? Why this angel? What is the reason?

But questions have damned him once, Crowley wishes them not to damn him again.

She would likely do worse than just let him Fall[9].

Being the bearer of the end, knowing without doubt that it will come to pass. It is no kindness to know it. It is less so to realise he will be Called Upon to fight.

Which side will call him first? First come first served.

Crowley hopes to never know but he does, deep down he does. It is always She who will Call him first.

It is less a kindness than heaven or hell calling him.

Standing on the ground of an airbase in Tadfield, beside an angel who has no idea who he is, with children who follow the Anti-Christ, two mortals who have souls tied to one another, and the Horsemen—and Women—of the apocalypse, Crowley accepts his Place.

It has always been with humanity.

Selfish reasons have driven him over the eons. To be seen as more than just a demon, less what he has Become and instead as one who is Kind and Gentle. But, at the core of him, Crowley loves more than any other.

He loves so much he Fell.

He loves to understand, to ask, to enquire, to have answers.

He loves to spend time with others, witness them, wonder at them, love them equally and without guile.

He loves to be with his angel, the principality, the kindest he has ever known.

He loves these children, standing beside their friend who terrified them only hours previous, steadfast in their loyalty and love for one who could destroy them.

He loves it all and all Crowley has ever been is a being of Love.

Whether he has admitted it or not since his Fall.

Now he admits it.

Now he stands.

.

.

Gabriel is shocked to witness it. To see two immortal beings standing beside a mortal weapon, implacable and unrelenting in their loyalty to neither side and to the Third they all Forgot.

Aziraphale, the bright and kind angel of Eden, is wondrous in how he does not startle at the change of one he has known since the start. His strong, determined, focused angel.

Crowley wants to smile at him.

He smiles at Gabriel instead[10].

Adam, the child who has been named for one of promise and born of dust collected by Crowley’s own hands, just looks at him and smiles.

“You look more like you now, Mister Crowley,” the boy with Power Over All says, and Crowley wants to laugh.

Of course the boy who is his nephew would Know Him beneath the illusions he has constructed from the start. Of course.

“I’ve always looked like me, thanks,” he replies, smirking a little at the way Adam shakes his head.

“No, you look like you should now,” Adam insists, his eyes moving from Crowley’s face to the wings behind him.

Crowley realises they are no longer the inky-black with slight shades of blue. Now they Shine bright and reflective. Like gemstones shaped like feathers. Lapis lazuli.

And there are four, not two, wings sprouting from his back[11].

No wonder Gabriel is shocked into open mouthed silence.

Crowley’s revealed himself in every way and hadn’t actually realised until Adam pointed it out.

“Raphael,” Gabriel breathes, shocked beyond measure. The Archangel Who Is Messenger seems weak-kneed and confused, as though he cannot believe what he sees.

Crowley figures he probably can’t. Gabriel always did have a problem with imagination.

“Gabe’,” Crowley nods at his brother—younger than him by moments but no one but the Archangels know that—and shrugs a shoulder. “Long time no judgement.”

The kids snicker at that and Crowley’s smile widens because yes, that was funny. Aziraphale’s nervous fluttering makes the smile and humour sharp and as vicious as Crowley is capable of being.

It’s often forgotten than healer’s know best how to cause hurt.

“You died.” Gabriel looks like he can’t believe the sight of him as real, like it’s a trick of some sort and, yes, he’s a demon to all here so demonic trickery is the Thing To Do.

But Beelzebub is looking a little green around the gills—flies—and Crowley realises that she didn’t know who he had been.

Samael—Lucifer—hadn’t told them.

It’s obvious, looking back on it all, that had he told them that the Archangel he smothered in his wings was the snake he sent to Eden, the one entrusted with the Anti-Christ, were one in the same, he’d have faced a distraught rebellion of Made and Once demons jealous of the favouritism.

And it was favouritism[12].

“Died? I’ve been performing miracles the world over,” Crowley replies and okay, yes, perhaps that’s not something to admit in front of Beelzebub who definitely didn’t know about those miracles—the green hue on her face is mixing with a pale sort of red, the kind shocked anger tends to produce—but oh well, it’s done now. “Good to know you’re as observant as ever, Gabe’.”

That makes Gabriel scowl, wings ruffling in offence. If there’s one thing Gabriel always did hate his brothers and sisters doing, it was pointing out his attention span. For one who was so good at destruction, he sure did overlook the obvious.

The obvious here being that when an Archangel dies, heaven is dimmed and their name rings out and—hold on a second.

“Did She declare me dead?” Crowley asks suddenly, and he wants to know but he doesn’t at the same time because if she did—he doesn’t know if he could bear that.

“No,” Aziraphale answers beside him. The angel has been forgotten between the Archangels facing each other—one Fallen, one not—and Crowley startles a little. Gabriel too, from the expression on his stupidly square face. “She declared you Lost.”

Crowley blinks. “Oh.”

“There’s a difference between dead and lost?” One of the children pipes up, Crowley knows it is Brian just because Adam knows it and Adam is his family in ways only Gabriel can understand.

Aziraphale looks at the child and it’s not Crowley’s imagination that the Principality’s face softens from a sort of hard concern to something much kinder. He’s good with kids, Crowley knows, when he isn’t intent on shoddy mortal magic.

“Dead is extinct in angelic terms. Angels die and we know because we feel it and the Almighty declares it,” Aziraphale explains in that soft way he has when explaining things, a little fast and with so much feeling. “Lost is—uh—not quite the same. It can mean dead, but it can also mean stolen, misplaced, or one who has abandoned—” Aziraphale looks at Crowley, voice faltering and Crowley snorts.

“I never meant to fall,” is his response, his explanation, and defence in one.

Beelzebub chooses that moment to finally chip in on the whole family drama[13].

“Thiz izz all nicezz but we have a war to fight!” She gives Gabriel a Look that has the Archangel shifting as though he’s just remembered why he popped into being on earth when he so clearly hates the whole damned mudball.

“Yes! Right! Well, family reunion will have to wait! We really do have a schedule to keep to,” Gabriel says, giving his attention to Adam who, Crowley is pleased to note, is very Not Impressed with the Archangel’s attempts at being friendly to him. “Adam, we need to restart the apocalypse.”

“But why?”

Crowley officially loves this kid.

Gabriel and Beelzebub both blink, nonplussed and Crowley just wants to cackle. It’s insane and bonkers and absolutely bloody hilarious.

“Because this is the Great Plan, Adam, and you have the starring role.” Gabriel smiles but the smile is strained. Crowley remembers the smiles Gabriel used to give him as a fledgling, all full of joy and wonder and awe at his family. This smile is the smile of upper management being forced to try and wrangle an agreement from the union when they’d rather have everyone slogging away for a tuppence.

It’s sad how well that smile suits his brother now.

“Don’t you want to rule the world, Adam?” Beelzebub asks, trying to be friendly and approachable and Crowley sort of wants to gag and maybe Adam does too because the boy leans back a little from her.

“It’s hard enough thinking of things to keep Brian, Wensleydale and Pepper happy,” is what Adam says and Crowley smirks.

Bless those who don’t want power because it’s too much effort.

“Listen, you little brat,” Gabriel’s smile falls away and in its place is an annoyed scowl that rings of storms and destroyed cities of men. “This apocalypse is happening. Now restart it!”

If a child with power over all of creation could turn an Archangel into a slug for being an absolute dick, Adam Young could definitely do it.

“Bit rude, Gabe’,” Crowley says, sauntering up to stand behind Adam, and he’s a little pleased at how Beelzebub and Gabriel both step back at his approach. Aziraphale joins him on the other side of Adam and they stand with the child, facing down heaven and hell both. “You used to be much better with kids.”

“Really?” Aziraphale looks askance at Crowley. “I never knew that.”

“Welllllllll,” Crowley drags out, scratching his neck. “He was pretty good with the new angels when Mother got around to making them. Always showing them how to use their wings and stuff. Guess he’s gotten cranky in his old age.”

The wings Gabriel has been keeping from this mortal plane appear in a sudden flair of motion and light that blinds most of the humans out on the field—Adam and the witch are unaffected. They’re whiter than Crowley remembers, with less gold in the feathers to mark him as loving and wise. Perhaps that says all that Crowley needs to know about Gabriel as he is Now compared to how he was Then.

Gabriel, just like Crowley, possesses six wings to Aziraphale’s two. It is a mark of the status and power of Archangels that they all have four wings on their backs, though only two are used for flight. The other two are more… excessive displays of power and status.

That Crowley retained his when he Fell probably shocked Gabriel more than his being Not Dead. An Archangel who Fell is a disgrace and that he would still have all his wings is unheard of. Samael, Crowley knows, lost a set in the Fall. It’s one of the reasons he has avoided his—avoided him and kept his wings strictly to two whenever he has been forced to see The One Who Was Lightbringer. It hurts them both, he thinks, to be reminded of what was lost[14].

“Enough!” Gabriel roars and the world around them trembles from the force of an Archangel’s anger.

The humans shake and look around in alarm, even young Adam, and Aziraphale seems—rightly—terrified of an angry Archangel. But Crowley knows Gabriel.

He has known this Archangel from the moment She made him and he knows Gabriel’s limits.

Even without the Host of heaven to give him strength, Crowley is strong enough to match his little brother[15].

So he sighs and clicks his fingers with all the fanfare of his usual dealings with celestial beings who foolishly draw on their power in front of mortals. Immediately the rumbling ceases and the sensation of thunder and power dies away.

Gabriel looks around, confused and Crowley raises an eyebrow because, well, it should be obvious.

“You always were prone to temper tantrums, Gabe’,” Crowley remarks, amused at it all. Gabriel’s expression is as close to open confusion as Crowley has ever seen it.

Beelzebub—now—looks rightly afraid. That Crowley—lowly Crowley whom she has always hated—can end an Archangel’s anger before it even really begins… it shocks her.

“Last one I remember was Sodom,” Crowley continues. “Oh, and Gomorrah! That was a doozy of a temper tantrum, I tell you.”

If looks could kill, Gabriel’s thunderous expression probably would have murdered Crowley on the spot. As it is, only Adam’s looks can probably kill. Probably.

“This is an absolute joke! Stop with all of this crap and just start the apocalypse!!”

And there’s the whining from an Archangel. Lovely.

“I agree. It izz time, boy!”

And now a demon’s joining in. Great.

“No.”

Adam Young is the absolute best child, Crowley has ever met.

“It izz the plan!”

“It is the Great Plan!”

“It izz written!”

“The war must be waged!”

“There must be a winning side!”

Adam stares at the Archangel and demon as they trade off, without even realising, to try and convince the child to do what they want. They sure as hel—heav—Alpha Centuri can’t make him.

“But—uh—excuse me for a moment,” Aziraphale pipes up, distracting Gabriel and Beelzebub from continuing their routine. “Is that the Ineffable Plan you’re talking about?”

Gabriel splutters. “It’s the Great Plan.”

Beelzebub nods. “It izz written.”

“But,” Aziraphale presses. “Is it the Ineffable Plan?”

And like a bolt of lightning to the face, Crowley understands what this angel—the kindness and softest and most loving—is doing. He’s being sly.

“You don’t know,” Crowley breathes, near silent, but Adam catches his words, looks at him with that look on his face that is part-confusion and part-understanding.

Neither side understand Her. They never have. Not Before, not Now, not Ever. It’s how it’s always been. Crowley accepted that a long time ago, as much as it galled him and enraged and hurt him to do. He is steady with that understanding. He has made himself a life by doing what he Knows is Right and not regretting it.

She let him Fall and he learnt to Stand Alone after.

Maybe it’s time for heaven and hell to learn to do the same?

“Well, Ineffable Plan and all, maybe this is Her plan all along and you lot are messing it right up?” Crowley questions, mock-thought and pondering. The look on his little brother’s face is so amusing that he wants to laugh, but the situation is Serious and laughing would be Bad[16].

“God does not play games with the universe!”

Crowley cocks his head because really? Gabriel, really? “Where have you been?”

“Your father will not be pleazzed boy!” Beelzebub declares and, well, she’s not wrong. Samael will be pissed beyond reason with Adam for not causing the apocalypse as per the Great Plan.

Crowley would probably have pointed out the irony that Samael is following Her plan with the apocalypse if he hadn’t been concerned with Samael tearing off his wings in anger. Fun times.

“He’s not been pleased since Mother went and decided to create humanity in case you hadn’t noticed,” Crowley snips at Beelzebub who buzzes angrily at him[17]. The amused breath that Aziraphale lets out makes Crowley smile, pleased that his snark still amuses the Principality.

It’s very endearing that Aziraphale is amused by Crowley at his most snippy. Endearing and very easy to fall in a whole new way for.

“I hope someone tells him, your father,” Gabriel says, giving Beelzebub a Look that Crowley quirks a brow at. His little brother knows a Made demon so well that he can exchange Looks with them? Oh how the hypocrites rule the roost.

“Oh, they will,” Beelzebub promises. It’s an ominous promise, the sort that is an assurance of a lot of Problems to come and probably, most likely, Pain too.

Crowley finds he dislikes that.

But he can’t really do anything about it when both Beelzebub and Gabriel disappear in hues of green and purple, leaving the airbase with two fewer immortal beings than it started with.

“Did we do it? Did we stop the apocalypse?” one of the children ask—Wensleydale—and Crowley nods.

“I… I think we did, yeah,” he says, frowning a little.

His wings are still out and he’s just realised that fact and is starting to pull them back within when the ground trembles and a striking pain runs through his chest, dropping him to the ground with a pained cry.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Aziraphale demands, stepping toward him in concern. “I feel something.”

Crowley hisses, more like a snake than any sound a human or angel would make, coming up to his knees—the best he can do with that striking pain still in his chest—and he looks at Aziraphale. “They did it. They told him.”

He lets out a shuddering breath. “He’s coming.”

Crowley feels like he’s about to witness something—do something—that will forever change him. Forever change who he Was, who he Is, and who he Will Become and he’s afraid.

“Come up with something Crowley!” Aziraphale snaps at him, standing with the flaming sword of Eden and the Morningstar. “Or I’ll—I’ll never talk to you again!”

He’s so, so afraid.

But there’s anger beneath the fear. Bubbling anger that has been simmering away on the back burner for over six thousand years and it’s finally, finally boiling over.

His wings, snap out, fan around him as he forces himself to stand, to ignore the pain, to heal what is causing it over and over and to keep going. He is the Archangel Raphael. He is the demon Crowley.

He is healer. He is tempter.

He is humanity’s protector.

And he is done with his brother.

Stopping time is easy, he’s done it dozens of times over the years whenever he’s needed a little more time. It’s a little more difficult to pull Adam and Aziraphale into the little bubble he’s created where they can exist and be but not be affected. Adam is easier to pull than Aziraphale and it’s only because of the closeness he has to Aziraphale that it takes less power than it ought to otherwise.

“Adam, you have to make a choice.”

Choices. It always comes down to choices.

“Right now, reality will listen to you.”

A child of eleven has power over reality the likes of which Raphael-who-is-now-Crowley knows to be unique. Half-Archangel, Adam Young can do anything with the strength of his will alone. But it is the humanity in him that makes him so, so worthy of that strength.

Adam won’t squander it like Samael would. Like Crowley would, even.

All angels are flawed beings, imperfectly flawed and prideful. A perfect world is what every angel thinks is Best. They don’t understand the beauty of struggle.

Crowley learnt it the hard way. Aziraphale has learnt it over time on earth. The earth is beautiful for its variety, its difference, its disorder, for every ounce of pain and suffering and harm and wonder and love and kindness there is upon its surface and beneath it.

Adam Young knows the same for he is human and he knows that perfection is an illusion crafted by imperfect hands.

So Adam won’t create perfection. He’ll create what is Right and what is Good and it is never going to be Perfect.

Everything must have a balance. Even paradise.

“You’re not my dad! You’re not my real dad!”

Oh but it’s true. No parent who is absent in their child’s life is a parent, least of all one who appears and demands obedience just for being Parent.

Samael is learning the same lesson She learnt and Crowley wants to laugh at him. He really does.

But it’s hurting too much in his heart of hearts to laugh. The pain of seeing his brother laid bare, rejected again, unmade once more… it’s like Crowley’s being rent in two.

Perhaps he is.

“But you’re my uncle.”

And just like that, with four words from a child with Power, Crowley’s pain stops. Adam has rejected Samael—no, he has rejected Satan as father—but claimed Crowley as uncle. He accepts the bond of family, celestial and timeless, and he accepts Crowley.

Maybe he cries, Crowley doesn’t really know. All he knows is that having an eleven-year-old son of the Devil only-by-birth clinging to him and telling him that “you’re mine, you’re my uncle, mine, my uncle” over and over until it seeps into his skin and muscles and right into the core of his being made of material no mortal could understand, is the most amazing sensation Crowley has ever known.

It’s like Forgiveness and Absolution in one.

This was Her plan all along.

Crowley—clinging as fiercely to Adam as the child does him, Aziraphale stood with a hand on his shoulder—can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed at Her for not sharing some of the details to make it a little less painful for him in the long run. It’s so very like Her to not explain.

Some lessons, parents learn in the end, cannot be taught, they must be lived.

Crowley is happy enough to live this.

He still has Questions though. He wouldn’t be him if he didn’t, after all.

.

.

[1] It’s an incontestable fact that some answers hurt too much to hear. Crowley knows this better than most considering he has given answers to humans over the centuries that have driven men mad and women to drown their children to protect them from the Suffering To Come.

[2] He could have too. Not because he was Made but because he wasn’t. His divine power has always been his own, his knowledge always his, his wit, his smarts, his survival instincts and drive to Be More. It means that he knows how to avoid notice when, by all rights, he is the most noticeable thing around.

[3] Crowley had been secretly pleased at managing to make that clause in a policy—it had nothing to do with protecting The Little Guy from the Big Bad Corporation as a psycho-therapeutic act, nothing at all.

[4] Before the Fall is, in Crowley’s mind either ‘Then’, ‘Before’ or, ‘When He Was Still Just One And Not Two’. After the Fall is, naturally then, ‘Now, ‘The Present’, ‘Where He Is Two Instead Of Just One Any More’. He exhausts himself sometimes, figuring out the mental hurdles he leaps on an endless track trying to figure it all out. Who he was Before and who he is Now, how much they bleed into each other, how little they do, what parts are the same, where the differences lie. It’s all the more exhausting because he can’t just talk to anyone about it. Talk therapy is a Big Thing that Crowley puts a lot of stock in but, unfortunately for him, no licensed therapist has quite the credentials necessary to help him out. Unfortunate, that.

[5] Crowley has rarely enjoyed any of the orders he has received from Her or from hell, with the exception of three orders that allowed him the chance to work around the strict commands. One time was with Noah’s Ark when he managed to rescue a few dozen of the children surrounding the Ark whom he miracled to a patch of land far enough from Noah and Co to not be a problem for a few generations. She hadn’t smited him or rained down destruction on those children so, as far as Crowley feels, the action wasn’t wrong of him and She agreed with him on it all but was a little Too Proud To Admit It. It was a habit with Her.

[6] It is no consolation at all. It is too painful to be reassuring knowledge to have.

[7] It is noted in several religions of humanity that there is an unnamed angel who heralds the end of the world, sounding a trumpet signalling Armageddon. Crowley isn’t quite sure how the humans came to learn this but, considering that the angel they mention with no name is him, he’s pretty impressed. Also concerned and a little bit afraid because someone had to tell the humans.

[8] It is an oft’ forgotten fact that demons, just as easily as angels, are capable of feats of healing. It is less common but no less possible. Crowley has, in his long existence, performed several hundred thousands healings. Of those healings, hell has not thought to investigate on them beyond a short memo enquiring—dropping the matter when Crowley responds each time with credit for whatever suffering those healed have caused, intentionally or otherwise. After all, a healed slave who was freed but poisoned by their master is causing suffering for that master whom exile is the punishment for.

[9] But what is there that is worse than Falling? Crowley feels that there is only Death and Oblivion but those would be a kindness now. So obviously She would deny him them. Living as a demon and it being known who he was would, perhaps, be worse than the Fall. One who was bright and kind and a healer, now Fallen? If it was known, that would be so, so much worse.

[10] It is not a nice smile. Bit too bloodthirsty and full of Might to be nice.

[11] He possesses another two but they aren’t really wings so much as strategically placed protection methods for celestial organs of great important. Crowley has no desire to reveal those to any present. Except maybe Aziraphale.

[12] For reasons Crowley never really wanted to think about too much. It was a painful reminder that they were, among the Fallen and the still Flying, apart from all the rest for how they had been made and what they were to each other. Existing without him is, for Crowley, both impossible to consider and all too easy to imagine.

[13] Beelzebub however is not really family. She is a Made Demon—quite powerful and with a lot of pull down in hell but Made all the same.

[14] Crowley is under no illusions that the hurt caused by his four wings upon his back is more from the fact that Crowley still, somehow, retained Her favour and love even in a place as loveless as hell when Her Lightbringer was torn at and left mutilated by his Fall. Maybe it’s a commentary on how Crowley never really Fell so much as tripped and landed in the wrong place and had no way back before the crossing closed up shop and vacated itself out of existence. Either way, it has always made interactions between Samael and Crowley awkward.

[15] The thing that is easy to forget is that, as the One Who Heals, Crowley has an understanding of energy and power and all those other things that makes him a match with Michael and Samael because he doesn’t need the raw power of the First Archangel or the Lightbringer to win in a conflict. One day, Crowley supposes, the others will understand that fact.

[16] But he can definitely laugh about it later.

[17] She’s done that several times over the years, each time because Crowley had said or done something she wanted to hit him for but actually couldn’t.

#Good Omens #Good Omens Spoilers #An Angel and a Demon together #Ineffable husbands #Crowley #Aziraphale #Crowley as Raphael #Raphael!Crowley #Good Omens fic #GOmens #my writing

[bumblebeetrading]

NEW AUDIOS

my website is www.kaybeetrading.weebly.com

1/10/2020

Hamilton - 05/24/2019 - San Francisco, CA - Julius Thomas III (Alexander Hamilton), Julia K. Harriman (Eliza Hamilton), Darnell Abraham (u/s Aaron Burr), Sabrina Sloan (Angelica Schuyler), Isaiah Johnson (George Washington), Simon Longnight (Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson), Brandon Louis Armstrong (Hercules Mulligan/James Madison), Rubén J. Carbajal (John Laurens/Philip Hamilton), Darilyn Castillo (Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds), Rick Negron (King George III), Vincent J. Hooper (Philip Schuyler/James Reynolds/Doctor), Andrew Wojtal (Samuel Seabury), Christopher Campbell (Charles Lee), Brendon Chan (George Eacker), Tiffany Mellard, Emily Tate, Brion Marquis Watson, Sheridan Mouawad, Jennifer Locke, Morgan Anita Wood, Elijah Reyes. 

11/29/2019 - Madison, WI - M4a (Untracked) - RoseRedTrading's Master - Nick Sanchez (u/s Alexander Hamilton), Emily Jenda (s/b Eliza Hamilton), Nik Walker (Aaron Burr), Jen Sese (s/w Angelica Schuyler), Marcus Choi (George Washington), Warren Egypt Franklin (Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson), Desmond Sean Ellington (Hercules Mulligan/James Madison), Elijah Malcomb (John Laurens/Philip Hamilton), Nyla Sostre (Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds), Neil Haskell (King George III), Julian Ramos (u/s James Reynolds/Philip Schuyler/Doctor), Aaron J Albano (Samuel Seabury), Gabriel Hyman (Charles Lee), Trevor Miles (George Eacker), Demarius R Copes (Ensemble), Julia Estrada (Ensemble), Kristen Hoagland (Ensemble), Lili Froehlich (Ensemble), Marcus John (Ensemble), Quiantae Thomas (Ensemble), Samantha Pollino (Ensemble) notes: Rare capture of these three understudies performing together! First recording of Jen Sese as Angelica for a full show. 

09/24/2019 - tjonc’s master - Austin Scott (Alexander Hamilton), Jennie Harney-Fleming (s/b Eliza Hamilton), Gregory Treco (s/b Aaron Burr), Mandy Gonzalez (Angelica Schuyler), Nicholas Christopher (George Washington), Kyle Scatliffe (s/b Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson), Wallace Smith (Hercules Mulligan/James Madison), Anthony Lee Medina (John Laurens/Philip Hamilton), Joanna A. Jones (Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds), Marc delaCruz (u/s King George), Roddy Kennedy (u/s Philip Schuyler/James Reynolds/Doctor), Thayne Jasperson (Samuel Seabury), Robert Walters (u/s Charles Lee), Terrance Spencer (George Eacker) 

1/8/2020 - 2nd UK Tour - musicalgifs's master - Lauren Drew (Catherine of Aragon), Maddison Bulleyment (Anne Boleyn), Lauren Byrne (Jane Seymour), Shekinah McFarlane (Anna of Cleves), Alicia Corrales-Connor (u/s Katherine Howard), Athena Collins (Catherine Parr)Notes: Alicia came from the Bliss cruise ship, where she was principal Howard, to understudy the role while alternate Howard Jen Caldwell is emergency covering in the West End production of the show. This is Alicia's tour debut. 

1/6/2020

12/13/2019 - Salford (Evening) - spicybelladonna's master - Cassandra Lee (u/s Catherine of Aragon), Maddison Bulleyment (Anne Boleyn), Lauren Byrne (Jane Seymour), Harriet Watson (u/s Anna of Cleves), Jennifer Caldwell (u/s Katherine Howard), Maiya Quansah-Breed (e/c Catherine Parr) Notes: Four of the principal actresses called out but there were only three alternates, so Maiya made an emergency return to the show to cover Catherine Parr. 

12/21/2019 - Salford (Matinee) - Lauren Drew (Catherine of Aragon), Maddison Bulleyment (Anne Boleyn), Lauren Byrne (Jane Seymour), Cassandra Lee (u/s Anna of Cleves), Jennifer Caldwell (u/s Katherine Howard), Athena Collins (Catherine Parr) Notes: Cuts out during megasix intro. File Type: M4A 

10/20/19 - West End - Zara MacIntosh as Catherine of Aragon (alt Aragon), Courtney Bowman as Anne Boleyn, Collette Guitart as Jane Seymour (u/s Seymour), Cherelle Jay as Anna of Cleves (alt Cleves), Vicki Manser as Katherine Howard, Hana Stewart as Catherine Parr (alt Parr) Notes: mp3 file

10/19/19 - West End - Matinee - Jarneia Richard-Noel as Catherine of Aragon, Cherelle Jay as Anne Boleyn (alt Boleyn), Hana Stewart as Jane Seymour (alt Seymour), Alexia McIntosh as Anna of Cleves, Collette Guitart as Katherine Howard (u/s Howard), Danielle Steers as Catherine Parr

Notes: mp3 file. Cherelle's Boleyn debut!

10/27/19 - West End - Jarneia Richard-Noel as Catherine of Aragon, Courtney Bowman as Anne Boleyn, Hana Stewart as Jane Seymour (alt Seymour), Alexia McIntosh as Anna of Cleves, Zara MacIntosh as Katherine Howard (alt Howard), Danielle Steers as Catherine Parr Notes: mp3 file

11/24/19 ~ West End ~ Jarneia Richard-Noel as Catherine of Aragon, Zara MacIntosh as Anne Boleyn (alt Boleyn), Natalie May Paris as Jane Seymour, Alexia McIntosh as Anna of Cleves, Vicki Manser as Katherine Howard, Collette Guitart as Catherine Parr (u/s Parr) Notes: zip files. Zara's Boleyn debut! This audio is 2 for 1 limited trading, it's worth 2 audios or 1 bootleg.

01/04/20 - Australia - Evening - Chloe Zuel as Catherine of Aragon, Kala Gare as Anne Boleyn, Loren Hunter as Jane Seymour, Kiana Daniele as Anna of Cleves, Courtney Monsma as Katherine Howard, Vidya Makan as Catherine Parr. Notes: mp4. Second preview

07/17/19 - Chicago - Matinee - Miguel Cervantes as Alexander Hamilton, Keith Webb as Aaron Burr (u/s Burr), Alysha Delorieux as Eliza Schuyler, Nikki Renee Daniels as Angelica Schuyler, Tamar Greene as George Washington, Paris Nix as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson, Ebrin R. Stanley as Hercules Mulligan/James Madison, Jamaal Fields-Green as John Laurens/Philip Hamilton, Jared Howelton as King George (u/s King George)

09/15/19 - Broadway - Alison Luff as Jenna, Colleen Balliger as Dawn, Charity Angel Dawson as Becky, Todrick Hall as Ogie, Delaney Quinn as Lulu Notes: mp3 file. Gifted upon request. Alison Luff, Colleen Balliger, Charity Angel Dawson, Todrick Hall, and Delaney Quinn's last show. Many apologies, I'm not aware of the full cast. Notes: mp3 files. A slightly more detailed cast can be provided.

#audio trading #audio #bootleg #bootleg trading #alison luff #waitress #waitress musical #hamilton #Hamilton chi #Hamilton chicago #six #six tour #six bliss #audio gift #six au #six Australia #understudies

[visedenim63-blog]

Why People Are Not Discussing Sql Server Interview Questions and Everything You Ought to Be Doing Now About It

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#sql interview questions #sql interview questions and answers

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Why People Are Not Discussing Sql Server Interview Questions and What You Should be Doing Right Now About It

Ideally a new implementation program should be made by SQL Server. It may be connected to any database which has supplier to provide a hyperlink. Database is an organized form of data of information for handling, storing, retrieval and accessibility. Antoonvandaal You won't tell the database when to utilize an index that choice will be made from the database. Even though it might be worth noting that in most databases (such as Oracle and MySQL), it's possible to actually specify which you want the index to be used. You may make your own query. There are 3 types of sub query 9. https://tinyurl.com/y6sgblbs Getting the Very Best Sql Server Interview Questions You will surely be amazed by your interviewer on the details of your projects. Every assignment differs and the range of a project differs also. It is a practice to opt for the list of subjects to be covered and ensure that you have prepared yourself in every of the regions whenever you're getting prepared for a SSAS interview. https://is.gd/i9iBn8 A report can have a lot of points of entry using many resultsets. https://antoonvandaal.com Lots of reports may be determined by just one small business view. Crystal report utilizes the 3 pass manner of parsing reports. There are several ways to see a implementation program. The method means on which implementation strategy to pick, the database must settle. The Oracle cost based optimizer is intended to figure out the best approach to perform the SQL statement. There are three kinds of sort order 25. There are a variety of sorts of Noramalization forms in SQL. In case you need to change the physical group sequences for any grouping given in the order that is incorrect, you will need to change each category number manually. The list of questions is unlimited. MySQL could as well have returned order amounts 60 or 70 the purpose is it just chooses one order number. Hash tables are not sorted data structures, and there are a lot of kinds of queries. Truncate is a quick method. There is A key one particular table which may be associated with some other table's key key. There is a table A KEYin linked to some other table's principal KEY. A foreign key is a distinguishing table that can be related to another table's most significant key. Unmatched rows in the table do not appear. The concept here is to obtain an idea of the method by which in which the candidate maintains and designs code. It's important to see the essence of these questions you will be asked. The questions and their answers given below's function is to make certain that the people who read them and learn them will find a comprehension of the XML functionalities. Scheduled tasks or tasks are used to automate. Informational commands offer feedback for example providing information concerning the procedure cache regarding the database. TCL commands are utilized to take care of the changes. By referencing foreign key together with the key of some other 19, relationship should be made between two tables. Database Relationship is known to be the link between the tables in a database. Developing an opinion in SQL Server as soon as you've got a basic grasp of the CREATE VIEW syntax, you're all set to build your own opinion. Finding out how to answer the SQL interview questions is a powerful skill which may produce the difference between getting hired or not. The manner is the manner that is very simple. There is not any correct or wrong answer , because the aim is to demonstrate which you are forward thinking and challenging however should you have to become serious about your goals then you are likely to want to make certain they are objectives. There will be instances in you profession for a data professional that you don't have the answer to a issue immediately before you but then you're really a precious asset in case you have the capacity to locate the solution. Problem solving isn't actually a skill you might instruct but it can definitely be improved and enhanced through practice. Remember, it's about problem solving. The Sql Server Interview Questions Chronicles You need to be able to demonstrate a level of problem solving into the interviewer. It requires skill to make them see it at a 30-60 minute interview's whole period if you're an ideal match. First you require the database abilities and then the interview abilities are required by you. Consider how you're likely to boost your abilities and knowledge. There are lots of types of connect that are cast-off to save information and it's dependent on the association between tables. There are types of join which could be utilized to retrieve data and it's determined by the institution between tables. You'll need to push that sum of data every day through the cable.

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