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lorata · 8 months

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Claudius & Eibhlin for @penfoldx

in which anthropological study subs in for discussing one's private anxieties

(h/t to attractiveness anon & @literallyjustanyurlatthispoint for partial inspiration)

it's @penfoldx's birthday! have some ridiculousness

also found at DW here

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The notebook lay on the coffee table, half buried under various tomes (that was a new word Claudius learned and liked to throw around, tomes) on rabbit husbandry, one corner peeking out just enough to draw his curiosity.

Eibhlin called them ‘composition notebooks’ and claimed every child in Three used them, which cracked Claudius up — imagine writing enough in school you needed multiple notebooks — but sure, why not. It was the genius district after all. She’d had to make do with recycled paper for a while after the war but now she could finally import the good stuff. Which meant Claudius kept finding them everywhere, experiment logs and local recipes and logical reasons why Brutus should let her keep a Village bear (pending).

This one, worryingly, carried the simple title ‘Observations’.

It could be private, unleashing the wrath of heaven if Claudius cracked open the cover. Or it could be a topic too awkward or embarrassing for Eibhlin to raise on her own, leaving this as the most convenient and least emotionally excruciating way of broaching the issue. The real question, which one?

With Misha, this would be deliberate psychological warfare. With Eibhlin, the lines blurred.

“Eh, fuck it.” Claudius flipped open the book. He could always cave on a fifth rabbit if need be.

Later that evening Eibhlin crept up behind him in the kitchen, impressively silent as always. Claudius resisted the automatic impulse to flip the chef’s knife around into throat-slitting position (years of post-Arena healing undone by ground warfare, now finally uncurling a second time) and laid the blade flat against the cutting board.

“Hold out your hands,” Eibhlin said. Her voice twinkled in a way that those who’d never lived with rabbits might call childlike innocence.

Claudius, on the other hand, shared his living space with several rabbits, and left innocence behind a long time ago. “I am making dinner,” he said without turning around. “Should I still hold out my hands?”

A pause, in which Claudius envisioned the pout growing like fog over the lake in early morning, and yeah, he thought so. “Misha says you are a party pooper.”

“Ironic,” Claudius said dryly, but while he’d acquired several mental illnesses over the years, finding ‘wee little rabbit poops’ endearing was not one he’d picked up along the way, sponsors save him. “I’m sure there will be more cute poops tomorrow. Do I want to know why you’ve been polling people in town about what they find attractive? If we’re hosting an orgy I should go out for snacks.”

Silence of a very different character this time. Claudius spent a long time cataloguing the pauses in their conversations, learning when to send for Beetee, when to backtrack and apologize, when to wait it out. “Ah,” Eibhlin said. “That was careless.”

“I thought maybe it was on purpose,” Claudius said. He slipped the knife back into the block and turned around, risking embarrassing Eibhlin with eye contact just to let her see he wasn’t pissed off. “Like one of those things you hid as a hint or something. I can pretend I didn’t see it if you want.”

Eibhlin’s gaze shuttered. “Don’t be asinine,” she said, her tone acerbic. “You do not need to insult us both. I am conducting — research. Anthropology. Desired physical traits in this district seem to be consistent in a way that extends beyond what I had assumed to be Village sampling bias.”

He’d been pretty good at keeping his expression neutral and non-judgemental, but Claudius felt his eyebrows creep up in spite of himself. “You mean we’re a bunch of lunkheads so you thought we were poisoning your data?”

Her ears turned bright pink. “I meant —“ but oh, looks like Claudius wasn’t the only one to pick up a few tricks over the years. Eibhlin stopped, narrowed her eyes. “You are attempting to distract me by manufacturing outrage. Despite the willfully reductive phrasing, yes. This is a community of athletic outliers. You are not representative. I have made many efforts not to generalize across the population, and so this one has surprised me.”

It felt absurd to have this conversation while Eibhlin stood in front of him with a handful of rabbit dung, and so Claudius ducked down for the compost bin. Stepping out of the way for Eibhlin to wash her hands gave him a second to think about whatever the hell this was. “Is it really so weird? We move rocks around and make guns in factories and kill people. Grr, argh, strong people hot.”

This time the impatience nearly skewered him. “But that is the point, it is not that. Perhaps superficially, for short-term liaisons, but not partnerships. There is a reason why attractiveness in Three is strongly weighted toward intelligence. Physically symmetrical but intellectually bankrupt partners will not create a stable or successful household.”

Claudius blinked. “Ouch?”

“Do not —“

“Okay, okay. “ He held up his hands. Three-stupid was not universal-stupid, they’d had this argument before and reopening it now wouldn’t help anyone. “So you’re trying to figure out what is the … biological imperative … behind what Twos find attractive?”

See, he could do it too.

Now she hesitated. He probably should have moved this conversation to the living room or found her a rabbit to cuddle before starting this conversation, but more fool him, now they had to have it in the middle of the kitchen with nothing to fiddle with but sharp implements. “Leaving aside the question of whether biological or evolutionary imperatives exist other than as excuses for the creation of sexist binaries — yes. In Three we value intelligence because intelligence is how we survive. I could not understand how brawn could hold the same value in your society.”

“Okay.” Claudius leaned back against the counter, hands braced but open, nonthreatening. “And?”

“It isn’t brawn,” Eibhlin said. “It’s — community. Care. You are a district of physical labourers and physical people, so of course you value those who can take care of each other with your bodies.”

“Sounds kind of like cavemen,” Claudius said, amused in spite of himself. “I’m sure Brutus would agree, though.”

“He did,” Eibhlin said, nose in the air with the delicate air of someone choosing not to take offence, as the bigger person in the room thank you very much. “And Artemisia, once she stopped laughing. She went home with many girls, but she wanted to marry Emory when she was young, and now she is with Devon. That speaks to type.”

“Okay,” he said, again. “I still don’t know what — you don’t just do anthropology. You have to have a thesis.”

Eibhlin’s fingers curled in her sleeves, which — Ah, shit.

This was the part Claudius hated. Speedrunning weeks of research and observations to find whatever tangled mess of emotions had prompted Eibhlin to do this in the first place, because while Claudius might mangle onions or spar with his mentor or call up his friends in a total panic when he had a problem, Eibhlin … well, she did science.

“Okay.” A third time, the jigsaw puzzles falling off the table and clicking together into the most terrifying image of a nightmare clown he’d ever seen, but also the clown was right in front of him looking sad and he had to be very careful not to jump. “So it sounds like … we have the best of both worlds? You’re a super genius and I — well, I can sort of fix the roof, if I have help.”

Eibhlin studied him in silence for several moments, eyes intent and searching, but finally she nodded sharply and the knot in his chest unhooked. “Don’t forget the cooking,” she said. “You have become quite adept.”

“Glad to hear it,” Claudius said. “You want to help? I was still chopping when someone tried to put rabbit poop in my hands.”

“Hm,” Eibhlin said, admitting absolutely nothing, and held out her hand for the knife.

#we must be killers: tales from district 2 #my writing #oc: claudius

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gogogoats · 8 months

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Dragonblade Deep Dive - Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter twenty

Welcome to the final chapter of this madness (save for an epilogue still to come) and boy is it a doozy. First of all, that MASSIVE SPOILER EVENT has finally happened, and it disappoints in ways I really didn’t think this book had left to offer. Secondly, if you thought the final chapter might actually resolve some things, please leave your expectations at the cut.

Chapter twenty-one – Acts of Courage

We open in Jester’s POV. He’s lurking outside of Magnus’ house, where he can’t hear or see anything. If this were a well-written novel that could have been foreshadowing, but it isn’t so it’s not. Moving on. The door opens and he hides behind it as one of the henchmen appears, very drunk and apparently incredibly stupid as he repeats his task out loud to himself, which is very handy for Jester. He is to saddle up a pony and cart (NOT a horse and wagon, in case you were wondering. And no, that’s not a crucial detail we needed to know). The Henchman (I would say he is privileged to have a name, but it’s ‘Ox’ so, no) stumbles into a laneway beside the house. Jester assumes he is doing some dodgy deal for Magnus, then repeats Ivon’s line about the princess being his duty now and thinks about how he must do what he can to keep her safe until help arrives and that she’s almost certainly in the house at Magnus’ mercy and… follows Ox into the laneway. There’s no logic here but we’re supposed to understand that Jester following Ox is going to help the princess.

The laneway is very messy and cluttered with objects, which doesn’t seem right for someone as possessive and mercenary as Magnus Breech. Instead of being an opportunity to show how years as court jester have made Jester nimble and light-footed, allowing him to be sneaky, this obstacle course is a struggle for him, but it allows him to stay hidden from the drunk Ox (henceforth known as Hugs and Kisses) who is in a yard at the end of the passageway untying a pony (not a horse!). Another man appears from nowhere to see what he’s doing, they talk, the second man helps Hugs with the pony and points out he’s drunk, and gets efficiently knocked out by said drunk. It’s really hard to tell if Ox actually is drunk or if he’s faking, but I think he’s supposed to be drunk for real. Then again that’s a transient state at best in this novel.

Ox picks up the man he just knocked out and carries him over his shoulder to the laneway. Jester searches for a hiding place and finds a pile of musty, stinky, gross damp sacks. He crawls under just in time for Ox to dump the unconscious man right on top.

We join Gunther now, who is shaking so hard he’s almost rendered mute, as his father continues to beat him. Magnus curses him for his fear and Gunther defies him for it, claiming he’s angry not scared. He tries to persuade Magnus that this is not who they are but Magnus strongly disagrees, and tells Gunther that he is of Magnus’ blood, so his parentage now gets even more confusing.

Magnus lays out his plan to Gunther. He has promised to pay Ox a vast sum of money if he kills Lavinia by throwing her off a cliff and making it look like she fell off Dragon. He says Ox will do it for “fear of me and love of gold” so he really knows how to motivate his employees. Gunther is still shaking violently (this is really focused on a lot) as he tries to point out that Ox can’t keep a secret. Magnus says that won’t be a problem because Gunther is going to follow along behind and kill Ox. I’m really starting to question Magnus’ ability to formulate a plan at this point, if he honestly thinks that Gunther will stand back and watch Ox kill Lavinia and then walk up and kill him.

Magnus tells Gunther that they either succeed together or hang together. Well at least someone finally acknowledges that Gunther wasn’t exaggerating about how this situation would probably get him killed. Yay?

Gunther tries to protest and is smacked around some more. Magnus continues to extrapolate, telling Gunther that Lavinia was always meant to die, after Gunther had married her and they had produced an heir. Cuthber was supposed to be killed too so Gunther would be regent until his child came of age. This is a very convoluted plan with lots of room for error.

Magnus tries to “calm his rage” by pacing and punching his own thighs. It’s as strange and awkward as it sounds. He insists that tonight Gunther will leave his “spoilt, comfortable childhood behind.” For those playing along at home, Gunther has been hiding money in his bedroom walls since he was thirteen in expectation of the day he will need to run for his life from the house where his father beats him and he serves as unpaid labour. I think whatever childhood he had ended long ago.

Magnus tells him that tonight he will kill Ox.

Dragon joins Jane and Robert, and is immediately angry at Robert as he can feel Jane’s pain through their psychic link or whatever. Jane tells him it was wolves, and that he should thank Robert for saving her. Blech.

Jane asks about the Princess and Dragon tells her where she is. Both Dragon and Robert want to take Jane back to the castle to have her injuries seen to as they both say she is more important than the princess. Not sure why Robert gets a vote here but Jane overrides them both anyway.

Robert “assists” Jane onto Dragon, and Dragon is briefly annoyed but then realises that Robert is agreeing with him and is mollified. He also mentions Robert’s TEETH, in case you’d forgotten what book we’re reading.

Dragon argues in favour of letting Pepper patch Jane up and Robert agrees again, saying that his hands have (miraculously!) started to mend.

Robert starts giving Dragon orders and call Jane his Dragonblade, which gets Dragon indignant and then confused. It’s worth mentioning at this point that Dragon has been told literally nothing about all of the life-altering information Jane has learned thus far.

Jane overrides them both and tells them they are going to find the princess.

We’re back at the merchant’s house, where Lavinia is less than impressed by the Ox and Pony show. She tells Magnus she would rather walk back to the castle and that Gunther should escort her. Magnus insists that she ride in the cart and Lavinia is quickly distracted by a not* at ALL** important*** pile of canvas in the back of the cart (it’s not even shiny?) and agrees. She reminds Magnus that he and Gunther are to come to the castle tomorrow and sort out the whole misunderstanding. I’m struggling to believe that she’s really this stupid. She offers Magnus her hand so that he can kiss her ring and as he does so she notices that his sleeve is completely soaked through with blood. She comments on it and Magnus sighs, which is apparently Ox’s cue to stuff her into a sack. Magnus tells him to make sure her death looks like she accidentally fell from Dragon.

*definitely not

**not even a little

***nope

Jester is watching all of this from the alleyway, and jumps unseen onto the cart as it passes by. We’re given a long-winded insight into his decision making leading up to jumping in the cart but it’s completely unimportant. The main point is that he’s being Very Brave.

Now he’s on the cart, where he climbs over the canvas. The canvas is mentioned A LOT. If this were a well-written novel that would NOT have been foreshadowing, but it isn’t so it is. He sits behind Ox and deliberates for a seemingly endless amount of time over what to do, if/how to over power him, if to call for the guards at the castle gate as they pass by, wishing he had paid more attention to Jane and Gunther’s training over the years etc. etc. ad nauseum. Ox turns the wagon away from the castle towards the cliffs. It’s a dangerous stretch of road with one corner known locally as “Widow’s Bend”, for the many fatal accidents it has caused. Jester finally decides what to do and it’s… pulling his hat down over Ox’s head? Ugh. Ox has his hand over Lavinia’s mouth to keep her quiet (why didn’t he just thump her over the head? He’s good at that) and she bites him, so he’s doubly distracted.

Lavinia tosses off the sack and sees Jester. The pony freaks out and takes off, Ox and Jester are thrown into the back of the cart but Lavinia remains on the seat. Ox tries to stab Jester with a knife but is thrown out onto the road. Lavinia grabs the reigns and tries to get the pony under control and Jester crawls forwards to help her, holding onto the back of the seat for support (what a good idea). They approach Widow’s Bend and Jester knows they won’t make it. He tells Lavinia they have to jump (another good idea) and they both get ready when Lavinia spots Dragon flying towards them.

Jane has seen the wagon and instructs Dragon to grab hold of it. He swoops down and Robert holds tight onto Jane’s waist (eyeroll). Jane hadn’t even known who was in the cart until they got closer, she was just following her heroic instincts.

Jester sees Dragon coming and tells Lavinia to hold on tight to something (a GRAND idea). Lavinia grabs hold of the bench seat and wraps her arms around it. Jester jumps onto the pile of canvas and holds onto a piece of rope that holds it together (a very, very bad idea).

Dragon grabs the pony and cart as they careen off the road, and funnily enough he’s not particularly slow or gentle about it, so the loose cargo (and the jester holding it) slide right out. Jester lets go of the cloth and tries to grab the cart, but is left with nothing but air.

Jane didn’t see him fall, but she notices his absence when the cart is back on the ground. She tells Robert (the guy she just met who recently escaped from the castle dungeon) to get off Dragon and look after the princess, and she and Dragon race off to find Jester.

They find him and Dragon lands close by. Jester is still alive as Jane runs to him, heck he’s even singing! He’s a mangled and bloodied wreck with some bones protruding, and Jane knows there won’t be any saving him. He asks if Lavinia is safe and Jane says she is thanks to him.

Jester claims he’s a hero, and Jane agrees. She tells him he will have to write a ballad about it.

Incel!Jester makes his move, telling Jane he wrote ballads for her, and she requests to hear one. He sings for her as she watches her friend dying, but this scene is all about Jester. He makes Jane promise that she will find Gunther and keep him safe because of all the blood on Magnus, then he tells her how he wants his funeral arranged (I shit you not). He wants to be cremated on a boat Viking-style with dragon fire because it’s the colour of Jane’s hair. He tells her he would have brushed her hair every day of her life. Jane kisses him as he dies, then starts crying.

End chapter.

Overall Impressions:

UGH.

Last chapter we learnt that Gunther isn’t Magnus’ son, but in this chapter we’re told they’re still blood relations. Is this supposed to absolve everyone who failed to intervene in Gunther’s life because it turns out he IS a Breech after all? Because it doesn’t, just to be clear.

I know the scene between Gunther and Magnus is overshadowed by the end scene but the disturbing undertone of the previous chapter really carries through here. Why, in a chapter called “Acts of Courage” is Gunther’s fear focused on so intently? Jester is off being a man of action while Sir Gunther the Knight quivers and quakes with no reprieve. His reasonable fears have been dismissed by everyone he has shared them with throughout this novel but now that we are seeing how on point his predictions were, the focus is on how terrified he is? We don’t even get to see if he was able to make any difference at all, or how hard he fought to stop his father, or even if the blood dripping from Magnus’ hand is his or Gunther’s. We ALREADY KNOW he’s scared; he’s spent the last twenty chapters explaining WHY he’s scared and if one person had listened to him this whole mess could have been avoided. Instead, everything has imploded, and doubtless Gunther will be blamed and probably called a coward to boot.

ROBERT’S HANDS. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this last chapter but he fought off those wolves with bandaged hands?? Which have already started to heal even though they were only burned THAT AFTERNOON???!!?!?!? Anyway, he sure can’t keep those hands off Jane, which is a detail that really didn’t need to be included full stop, but in this chapter especially.

Robert telling Dragon that Jane is his Dragonblade is really telling of his attitude towards Jane and her autonomy in this whole situation. It should be up to Jane to have that conversation with Dragon when they are able to on their terms, it’s really none of Robert’s business. But of course he can’t let a chance to exert control over Jane pass him by.

Now, about Jester. I found his POV in this chapter frankly exhausting. So much time spent extrapolating all of the things he could/should/would do before he just goes and does the dumbest thing. I’m not sure if all the reasoning was meant to show how intelligent he is and how deeply he thinks everything through, but really it contributed nothing except a higher word count.

His death was meaningless and unnecessary. He didn’t die to save Lavinia, she was already saved, and would still be saved if he had not died. It could be argued that sometimes death is unnecessary and meaningless and that is the point, but I don’t think that applies here. If Jester had just listened to Gunther instead of dismissing his warnings, then this could all have been avoided. But no, better to call him dramatic and then grandstand from his deathbed by making Jane promise to find Gunther and keep him safe. Never mind that Gunther would be safe and Jester would be alive if he’d been just a bit smarter earlier in the day.

The death scene itself was painful to read for all the wrong reasons. He has fallen to his death from some kind of height, his body is destroyed but his lungs and brain are working just fine. He gets to have the “death he deserves”, confessing his feelings to Jane as she cradles his head, singing the ballads he wrote for her, alone with her at last. We see this from Jane’s POV but as usual she is just a passive vessel into which male characters pour their adoration, and we get very little insight into how she actually feels about it. Does she kiss Jester because she realises she loves him, or because she pities him? We don’t know.

Time passed since the start of the novel: day two - night

Mentions of the word gong: 1

Mentions of Robert’s teeth: 1

#jane and the dragon #jatd #dragonblade #dragonblade spoilers #dragonblade deep dive

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thiswasinevitableid · 11 months

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Resurfaced (Sternclay)

To close out mermay, here's the winner of the "mers and humans on water" poll: A mer rescues a drunk human who fell off a yacht (or was pushed?). This fill is NSFW.

Barclay is ten years old the first time he’s seen by a human.

His home near what humans call the Apostle Islands means there are many tourists in the spring and summer, and his moms taught him from a young age how to keep himself camouflaged or out of sight. Which is why he ducks behind a red-brown rock as voices barrel down the beach towards him.

“Give it back!”

“Why? I took it, it’s mine now.”

“Yeah, finders keepers!”

“You didn’t find it, you took it!”

All three voices belong to children, and so he doesn’t dive right away. Human kids don’t carry weapons. As far as he knows.

“So what? You gonna come take it back?”

“Please just give it back? It’s a library book.”

“It’s a library book” the second voice rudely mimics the first. “Figures, right Katie? Joseph has no friends so he has to spend all his time with books. Whoops!”

A book comes flying over the rock, and Barclay catches it before it hits the water. The cover has a black and white picture of a monster head sticking out of the lake below the words Monsters and Mysteries.

“Hey! I, you, if the library bans me forever I, I’ll tell my mom.”

“Pfft, whatever. My dad’s your dad’s boss. C’mon sis.”

Two sets of footsteps fade away, but the third comes closer, underscored by short, controlled breaths. Like someone trying hard to stay calm instead of crying.

“Please don’t be ruined.” A face pokes over the rock; a human boy, about Barclay’s age. Who nearly falls into the water when he notices Barclay.

“Ohmygosh. You scared me.”

“Sorry,” Barclay holds out the book, “it didn’t fall in. Did get kinda splashed when I caught it but I think it’s okay.”

The boy, who he assumes is Joseph, holds the book to his chest, relieved, “Thank you so much.” Eyes blue as the summer sky flick down to the water.

Barclay hopes holding perfectly still will keep him from noticing the tail.

“Are you a mermaid?”

“Uhhhh”

“You are.” Joseph swings his legs over the edge of the rock, book in his lap, “are there others in the lake? Are you the only one? Are there monsters down there too?”

“I’m, I’m not really supposed to talk to humans. If people find out we’re here they might hurt us.”

The human goes silent, staring at the book, then at Barclay, and then looking around at the bank and the lake.

“If I promise not to tell, can I stay and talk to you?”

He shouldn’t. But the boy seems so nice, and he’s smiling at Barclay in a way that makes him feel like fins are fluttering in his belly.

“Only if you let me see the pictures in your book. I want to see what other parts of the land look like.”

“Deal” the boy holds out his hand. When Barclay just stares he adds, “you shake it. That’s how we know it’s an agreement. Do mermaids not do that?”

“We bow.”

Joseph bows, then extends his hand again. Barclay returns the motion and takes it.

—------------------------------------------------------------

Technically, Joseph is alive when he hits the water.

But as he struggles to right himself, to make sense of what’s happening, he understands he was dead the moment he set foot on the boat. He should have been warier, should have listened to his gut. He was just so proud.

He kicks for the surface. He’s a good swimmer, which is probably why they plied him with congratulatory gin and tonics before shoving him overboard. All the same, he’s gulping down air in a matter of seconds.

Something small zips into the water to his right. Even drunk, he has the presence of mind to drop below the surface after the third bullet hits the water near him.

He’s in the middle of Lake Tahoe, in the dead of night, with no other boats in sight and no fewer than five trained marksmen shooting at him.

Logically, he should just decide if he’d rather be shot or drown.

He dives as deep as his current coordination will allow and begins a desperate, determined swim to shore.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------

This is Barclay’s favorite spot for a night swim; there’s no way to see it from the road, and the water is always just the right temperature for cooling off after work. Which is why he’s annoyed to hear humans and the faint hum of a motor in the distance.

He sighs and dives beneath the water, figuring they’ll pass by soon enough. In the moonlit, dark water, a shape floats towards him. Another mer?

No, a human. A human that isn’t swimming but sinking.

Barclay swims forward, catching the figure in his arms. The nearest boat is too far to swim to while carrying him, so he busts his tail to reach his little beach where he keeps his sandals, hauling the human onto the rocky shore.

Two years ago Barclay’s friend, Indrid, declared that they should all learn CPR so that they could help drowning humans. After all, they live in/on a popular tourist destination. Barclay was pretty sure at the time that this was all so Indrid could invite local ranger Duck Newton over to give the course and spend an afternoon staring longingly at him, but he paid attention all the same.

He’s glad he did, because after only a few moments of it, the man is gasping and coughing lake water all over his nice suit. As the man continues spluttering, Barclay quickly puts on the woven bracelet that gives him legs.

The mostly-drowned man sits up, blinking. When he sees Barclay, his hand grabs Barclay’s shoulder with as much speed as he can muster.

“Did anyone see you?”

“No. Your boat was kinda far away when I pulled you out, and their lights were facing the other way. Do you want me to try and flag ‘em down?”

“No! No, no that’s” he coughs, “that’s not safe. I need to get out of sight. We need to get out of sight. If someone realizes that you rescued me you’ll be in danger.”

Barclay has zero desire to be in danger or in an argument.

“My place is just around that bend, on the edge of town. C’mon.” He helps the soaking man up, steadying him as he wobbles side to side. When they reach his houseboat, he glances to make sure no boats are nearby and then ushers the human inside. The instant he indicates a kitchen chair, the man collapses into it.

“Do you need me to call 911?”

The human slowly, methodically ptas his body and examines at his limbs, “Am I bleeding anywhere you can see?”

“Hold still a sec?” Barclay kneels, checking the man’s back through the chair and gently holding his head to make sure there’s no injuries hidden by his black hair. There’s something familiar in the shape of his face and the sharpness of his eyes, but Barclay’s been all over the place; he could have seen the guy, or his brother or something, at one of his earlier jobs.

“You’re good.” He stands, “I’m gonna get you some dry clothes. Then we should…call the cops?”

A slow shake of the head, “No. I wouldn’t make it out of the station. I, I’m sorry, I know you’re just trying to help but I’m a little on the backfoot myself.” A pause, followed by a casually wary tone, “how did you even find me?”

“I was out for a swim. Helps me relax after work.”

“Seems a little dangerous, swimming alone where there aren’t other people.”

Barclay smiles to himself, “I guess. But I’m the strongest swimmer in the lake.”

He ducks into the bedroom, pulls a pair of grey sweatpants and one of his Donner Lake sweatshirt from the dresser. When he returns to the kitchen, the human is on his feet, studying a picture on the wall.

“Here you go. If these don’t fit, lemme know.”

“Thank you…”

“Barclay.”

A slight smile, although the human is still looking at the photo, “I’ve only ever known one other person with that name. I’m Joseph. And these are the Apostle Islands, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. I grew up around them. Uh, around there.”

“I used to vacation there every summer with my family.” He adjusts the frame slightly so it’s perfectly straight, “it’s funny, this looks like a spot I used to go all the time…”

It can’t be. This can’t be his Joseph.

The human turns, slowly, and Barclay realizes Joseph’s previous scrutiny was only surface level to determine if Barclay is a threat. This is burning attention, like an osprey sizing up a dive.

“Did you ever happen to save someone’s library book?”

Barclay’s heart catches fire, “Yeah. Yeah I did. He was a real nerd too.”

Joseph beams at him and now he sees it, can’t deny that the smile is the same one that always felt unfairly bright and smooth for a teenager. Barclay cautiously opens his arms.

Joseph hesitates, “I’m soaking wet.”

“Merman.”

In two, wobbly but determined steps, Joseph is in his arms, stiff as driftwood.

“I fucked up” the human whispers into his shoulder.

“Getting the sense it’s more like you got fucked over.” He pets Joseph’s hair, “either way, you can stay here tonight. I’ve got a spare room, and I don’t start work until noon tomorrow so I can make us breakfast.”

Joseph looks up at him with a sad smile, “Twenty-two years and you haven’t changed, big guy. You’re still nicer to me than anyone else.”

“Jesus, has it really been that long?”

“We moved to California the year I started high school, so yeah.” The tension in his spine is melting like snow, “Christ I’m tired. I was drunk when I went in the water and then in full fight or flight and now I think I might pass out.”

“Then get changed and I’ll show you your bed.”

“But I want to know where the legs came from!”

Barclay chuckles, “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

Joseph nods and steps away to pick up the sweats. Then he turns, and for a moment Barclay is in the water of Lake Superior, sun setting as his new, human friend asks if he can come back and see him again.

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. I promise.”

—---------------------------------------------------------------------

“...So, yeah, turns out if one of your buddies has some enchantment skills and also a desire to get the fuck away from his family, he’ll make you both disguises with legs.” Barclay stretches the legs in question out on the deck; Joseph agreed to eat breakfast out here since there’s a hammock chair that means anyone looking for him would just see a vaguely human shape in the shade.

“Amazing. Are there a lot of mers who do the same thing?”

“If they have access to it, most at least give it a try. But plenty of us decide we’re happy in our home turf, or only use the charm in the nearby town. I just wanted to go see more of the world, and I ended up here once I found out some of my friends also migrated this way.” He offers Joseph the plate of muffins, “what about you? If it’s not too much of a sore spot.”

His friend takes a long sip of his coffee, “Like I said, I started working for the FBI about ten years ago. They wouldn’t put me on unexplained phenomena no matter how many times I asked because I was “too valuable” to waste on chasing ghosts and boogeymen. I’d just made the biggest bust of my career; arms trafficking, the kind where the corruption goes all the way to the top of certain places. Some pretty high-profile arrests happened as a result. My bosses bosses boss invited me out here to celebrate, saying he wanted to toast and honor the best agent he’d ever seen.” Joseph traces foot on the deck, “turns out he’s part of the whole thing and wanted to make sure I didn’t fuck up anymore of his deals.”

“Oh, Joseph, I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I just feel so stupid for not seeing it as the set-up it was. I’d worked for years and never got much recognition because agents of my level are supposed to be high caliber, why would they praise me doing my job? And that’s on top of everyone thinking I’m a crack-pot because I believe in monsters and mermen and thus treating my genuine insights as flukes. I was so proud of myself for pulling this all off that it blinded me.”

Barclay scoots closer and, on a hunch, rests his head against Joseph’s thigh; when they were boys he’d lay with his head in the human’s lap and talk for hours, and Joseph always seemed to like having him there.

“It’s not your fault they’re fucking corrupt assholes.”

“Mmm” Joseph sips his coffee again.

Barclay tries a different tactic, nudging his leg with his elbow, “amazed they got you out on the lake. You must know about Tahoe Tessie.”

That gets him a smile, “Oh I do. Had I not been being used for target practice, I’d have been worrying that my thrashing around trying to swim while drunk would attract a lake monster. Assuming one is in here.”

“Not a big one.”

“Wait, what?” Joseph sets his cup down, “are you serious?”

“Yeah. They don’t get any bigger than my tail; and it’s why no one ever gets a picture of one. They’re easy to miss.”

“Incredible.” Joseph peers into the water like one might surface and steal a muffin.

Barclay smiles, “If you want, after work tomorrow I can show you some.”

His friend looks happy for the first time since hauling him from the water, “That would be wonderful, big guy.”

—--------------------------------------------------------

“Are you sure there isn’t a monster in there?” Joseph stands on the shore of Lake Superior, summer heat warring with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder as he stares at the dark water.

“Positive. Besides, promise I’ll protect you from any pike that show up.” Barclay swims a lazy circle on his back, and Joseph must admit that he looks more than capable of the job. Between this summer and the last one, his friend has undergone a growth spurt and is now sporting muscles to go along with his height (length?).

“Okay. But if anything bites me I’m out.” He wades in, at once embarrassed at his own fear and glad his friend doesn’t judge him for being thirteen and still convinced there are lake monsters.

His family has come back every summer, though mercifully after he turned ten his dad got a better paying job and he didn;t have to play nice with the old bosses shitty kids. Barclay has been here, waiting for him, every July. Joseph spends so much time at the water that his mom teases him for the lake air being the only thing that can coax him away from his summer reading.

To be fair, he and Barclay do read on the beach together. His friend has gotten into historical novels, but seems most interested in the romantic subplot, talking about all the dates he’ll take someone on when he finally starts dating. This only adds to the pile of evidence that the mer would be a great boyfriend.

But he’s stuck in the lake, and Joseph lives several hours away. So he lets his crush lurk beneath the surface of his mind and hopes it won’t come back to bite him.

This is safe. Barclay says this is safe.

Joseph is on a paddleboard near a rocky patch of the lake, tossing nori strips into the water in the hopes of a small lake monster coming for a snack. He is on a paddleboard. On a deep lake. In which there are monsters.

But Barclay says it’s safe.

He could have taken a kayak, or even a canoe, but then Barclay couldn’t rest his arms on the board or reach out and playfully flick water onto Joseph’s legs as easily. And all Joseph wants is to make it easy for him to be close.

“Here they are. Hey guys.” Barclay swims slowly back from the board as two, narrow, reptilian heads break the surface. They’re grey-brown, backs mottled like rocks spattered with water, and they’re not even half the size of his paddle. The larger of the two takes the saturated nori in its teeth and chews. The other bumps the snack with its nose, then swims to the board, bumps it, and then tries to bite it.

“No, no, here buddy.” Barclay herds it back towards the food as its larger friend dives beneath the water. As it takes the nori and swims in an excited oval, four more heads emerge.

“Ohmygod.”

“That’s what I was hoping for. Usually one or two test how safe it is, and then the rest follow. Kinda like birds.”

Not wanting to disappoint the flock, Joseph tosses more seaweed in the water. Little teeth snap them up, dive, and then return for more. After a while, a few of them become full enough that they move to exploring Barclay and himself, burbling when the mer pets the tops of their heads.

One watches its companions getting attention, then shifts its yellow eyes onto Joseph and glides through the water to him. For a miniaturized version of his recurring nightmare, it’s very cute.

He reaches out and runs his fingers over smooth skin. The creature burbles, then sniffs the air, going stiff when it sees the open box of nori strapped to the board.

Joseph smiles, “Okay, you convinced me-AHSHIT”

He hits the water, the monster capsizing the board in its attempt to leap onto it. The scales bumping his legs, the water over his head barely a week after almost drowning, the surprise, all of it makes panic flood his system.

Then he’s breathing air, strong arms wrapped around him and an even stronger tail between his legs, keeping him afloat with ease.

“Man, if I knew they liked those so much, I woulda brought more. Last time I used kale chips.” Barclay chuckles, then rubs their cheeks together, something Joseph hasn’t felt since he was thirteen and missed more than he ever had words for, “you good?”

He links his fingers at the small of Barclay’s back and takes a deep breath, “I’m good.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joseph and Barclay are laying on the deck of his houseboat, feet dangling above the water, playing what Joseph always referred to as “Quid Pro Quo;” he’ll ask Barclay a question, then Barclay will ask him one in return. It came about after they first met; they were each so interested in the other’s world that they needed some kind of system to keep from just talking over one another.

They certainly weren’t asking these kinds of things, though.

“Hmmm” Joseph rests his hands behind his head, “most spontaneous thing I’ve ever done…well, there was one night where I was so exhausted from work that I spent two hours on the, um, giving end of a glory hole.”

Barclay breathes out something in mer, then says, “Everyone on the other end better have treated you right.”

“More or less, which is about what I wanted.” He turns to find Barclay blushing in the porch light, “what’s a fantasy you were too embarrassed to share?”

The pink on his cheeks deepens, “Uh. So. For a long time I used to fantasize about getting caught in, like, a fishing net. By a researcher. And then they’d spend all this time touching me and examining me and get me off while being kinda detached but still…still make me feel like I was special. Turns out I’m not the only mer with that idea; they sell a special net just for that kinda scene, but I always chickened out before asking someone to use it on me.”

“Can I see it?”

Barclay swallows down a low, soft purr, “C’mon, it’s inside.”

When they reach Barclay’s bedroom, the mer takes a garment box from the closet and opens it. Inside is a cloak of fishnet with little crystals woven in here and there, and as Barclay reverently lifts it out, Joseph runs a finger over a section and finds it far softer than anything used at sea.

“I can see why you bought it.” He traces his fingers up the net and over Barclay’s knuckles, “that’s a new color for your nails.”

Usually his friend paints his fingers and toes in bronzes and greens. Tonight they’re metallic black and blue.

The grip on the net tightens, “It’s a thing mers do when they’re into someone. Mers from the sea actually have scales that change color to reflect what’s on their mates' tails. Lake mers don’t, so we use make-up and flowers and, uh, stuff like that.”

Joseph takes his hand, “These look like my colors, big guy.”

“They are.” Barclay’s voice is painfully shy, “I had such a crush on you when I was thirteen, and when you didn’t come back the next year I’d float on my back and dream up all the ways we might be able to find each other again. I never really stopped daydreaming like that, even when I left home and that’s how, uh, how the net fantasy cropped up. I thought maybe you’d be on a research boat somewhere and haul me up accidentally. Then I got carried away and discovered I really, really liked the idea of being your catch.”

“You are a catch.” Joseph snickers at the pun as he strokes Barclay’s beard, “I didn’t think someone trying to murder me could lead anywhere good but, well, it dropped me right back into your arms.” He steps a half-inch closer, tips his face up, and kisses Barclay. The mer whines low in his throat and presses against him, clinging to him through the net still in his hands.

“Joseph” it’s barely a word and entirely a plea.

“I’m right here.” He brushes Barclay’s hair from his face, “tell me what you need.”

“You.” Barclay dips his head down, rubbing their cheeks together.

“And if what I want is to examine my catch?”

Brown eyes go huge, “Fuck, yes, babe please-”

“Then get changed for me, big guy. Wait, do we need to do this in the water somewhere?”

“No” Barclay yanks off his shirt, “I’ll be okay in my mer form in here for at least an hour.”

Joseph waits patiently as Barclay sits with his back to the wall and removes his bracelet. The mer drapes the net over his shoulders and slips his arms through two loops.

“Uh, Joseph? I think this is gonna take both of us.”

He grabs the directions from the box, and soon the net is stretched against Barclays chest, trapping his hands at his shoulders and cascading under him to loop around his tailfin. Joseph checks to be sure nothing is too tight, then stands.

“Ready?”

“If you don’t start right now I’m gonna fucking die.”

Joseph runs a hand over his own hair, pushing it into some semblance of order, then stands toe to tip with Barclay’s tail, “Now, merman I have never seen before, any and all agency rules state I should hand you over to my superiors. Who I definitely still report to.”

Barclay chuckles but plays along, trying to writhe away from him.

Joseph gently steps on his tailfin, “Hold. Still.”

The mer moans, manages to make his full lips tremble when he says, “You’re not gonna turn me in?”

“No. Those small minded assholes wouldn’t appreciate you. Wouldn’t see you for what you are: the most perfect, gorgeous specimen I’ve ever caught.”

That gets him a full-throated moan, so he crouches at Barclay’s side, tracing his fingers over trapped fists, “Here’s what we’ll do instead; I’ll examine you for my notes. If you’re very, very good while I do that, you’ll get a reward.”

“Yes” Barclay whispers, tail twitching, “baby, please-”

“Not quite” he runs his hand over Barclay’s chest, “right now my name is ‘sir.’ Understood?”

“Yes. AHFUCK, yessir” the mer smacks his tail into the floor as Joseph pinches his left nipple.

“Much better. Now, since it’s the part of you most unlike a human, and something I definitely haven’t spent a lot of time staring at, I’ll start with your tail.” He straddles the lower half of it, tenderly petting the iridescent bronze and green. It’s always reminded him of a Muskie’s scales. Maybe sightings of “monster fish” in the Great Lakes are really mers…

Focus, Stern,

“Let’s see…very muscular. Lots of power for something so beautiful.” He skates his hands up the tail, “pattern and coloration suggest camouflage–hmm, was that a sensitive spot?”

“Uh huh. I mean yes, sir.”

Joseph concentrates his touches on that section of scales, scooting up Barclay’s tail as the mer moans and the scales ripple and part.

“Amazing.” He dips his fingers into the opening and Barclay groans happily. The inside of the slit is ribbed, and the deeper he pushes his fingers the louder Barclay becomes.

“Fascinating. I assumed there’d be an appendageOH, oh there it is.” He laughs as a prehensile shaft curls around his thumb, “it’s happy to see me.”

“You have no fucking idea, sir.”

“Then enlighten me.” He continues fucking the slit with one hand while the other strokes Barclay’s dick.

“I, it, it can basically move on its own, on, on instinct. Used to, fuck” he claws at the net as Joseph fucks him harder, “I used to imagine making you suck it, it could fuck your throat without you having to work for it, all you’d have to do is be a nice little holeOHfuck”

Joseph smiles as he draws the head of the dick further into his mouth. It does seem to have a mind all its own, caressing and gently prodding his tongue and cheeks as he sucks it.

“Fuck, sir, please, if you keep fucking me both ways I’m, I’m gonna cum in like ten seconds.”

He doubles his efforts, and that ends up making it five seconds before something slick and earthy spills down his throat. Barclay is moaning, voice higher than he’s ever heard him.

Joseph sits up, wiping his mouth, “That was very good, big guy.”

Barclay smiles at him.

“Now: do it again.”

“FUCK!” Barclay thrashes in the net as Joseph fucks him deep and strokes him roughly, leaning in to kiss his neck, then his cheek as a tear streaks down it.

“Still good?”

“So good, sir, please, wanna be good for you, wanna, fuck.” He cums all over Joseph’s hands and his own tail, whimpering when Joseph pulls his hands away.

“That’s enough research for one night.” Joseph stands, undoing his shorts, “do you want your reward?”

“Fuck yes I do. Sir.” Barclay’s eyes gleam as Joseph steps out of his clothes and plants his feet on either side of the mers tail. He tangles his fingers in chestnut hair and shoves Barclay’s head forward, gasping as he eagerly sucks his dick.

“Good boy, oh very good boy” he braces his free arm on the wall, “christ your mouth is amazing, now I am for sure keeping you all to myself, the, the thing I wasn’t planning at all on before, ohgod” his orgasm barrels toward him at record speed, “yes, that’s it, right there, ohmygod, Barclay, Barclay.” He cums hard, releasing the mers hair as he shudders and moans.

A beard tickles his thigh, “Always wanted to do that.”

“Glad to help.” He flops down to the floor, undoing the net until Barclay is able to remove the rest himself, “in retrospect it’s good we had those years apart. If we’d started doing that in our teens we’d never have gotten anything done. Just lain on the beach and fucked.”

“Man, now I’m wishing I had a time machine.” Barclay teases as he cuddles into Stern’s arms, draping his tail over his legs, “but yeah. I mean, I don’t regret how I spent the last two decades. Just really, really wish they’d included you.”

“Me too.” Joseph turns so they’re face to face, “I meant what I said the other day about living around here permanently. It’s not like I can go back to my old life. And I’m not sure I really want to. So…maybe we could make up for those missed years?”

His merman rubs their cheeks together, “Took the words right outta my mouth.”

#agent stern/barclay #sternclay #taz amnesty #mermay #terato #human/monster romance #monster boyfriend

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captainpikeachu · 2 years

Text

i was today years old when i learned that there are some people out there who genuinely thinks that Luke specifically planned to order a roasted pig and put it in front of Aemond as a form of cruel bullying and thus Luke is an evil bully and deserves to be killed

i don’t even know how to begin unraveling this whole logic

1. a prank, even a bullying cruel one that mocks you doesn’t justify actual murder (and yes it was murder as it was made rather clear in the books at the very least Luke was there as an envoy and not as a knight and refused to engage in any kind of fighting/violence despite Aemond trying to provoke him)

2. the dinner was literally planned and prepared by Otto on Viserys’ behalf, Luke was hardly asked about the dinner menu or was shown in any way of having the power or the time to make any requests, it was just a bad coincidence that a roasted pig (something normally eaten at these dinners) was placed in front of Aemond unintentionally and Luke was just reminded of stupid pranks they (him and Jace and Aegon) pulled as kids and laughed about it. of course Aemond is justified in reacting to things he was bullied about, but Luke had no deliberate plotting or intention. for some reason, some people seem to think Luke is like some ultimate bullying master plotter having plotted ways to mock Aemond about his bullying or his eye loss at dinner or even deliberately slashing Aemond’s eye to bully him (as opposed to just the spontaenous reaction of a scared 5-8 year old)

3. i feel like some folks are not understanding the context to recognize that Aemond’s bullying, however terrible it was to Aemond, is ultimately not a evil malicious thing. yes of course it hurts, of course Aemond is entirely justified at being upset about it and holding a grudge, but kids do stupid things, and sometimes they’ll brag and make fun of others because one kid won’t have something they all have. it’s not nice and it’s wrong, but there is no real malice behind just kids being stupidly immature. the whole incident with the pink dread pig thing is unlikely to even be Luke’s idea anyways, he’s literally the youngest and smallest, he’s just following what the older kids are doing, if anyone was to blame for Aemond being bullied, it’s Aegon whom as the oldest and most mature, ought to know better and put a stop to it, he’s the older one, if he wasn’t teasing Aemond and leading it all, Jace and Luke wouldn’t have followed. but again to the kids, it was just teasing, and kids often don’t understand the fine line between teasing and bullying, and let’s be honest here, how is Aegon even to know what he’s doing is wrong if Alicent even says to him that basically he can make fun of Aemond at home but it’s just not okay to do it out in public? it doesn’t exactly tell Aegon that bullying his brother is wrong, just that he should only do it at home. Luke is unlikely at that age to even recognize he was doing anything to bully Aemond unless some adult told him so, because he probably just thinks it’s harmless fun. and even in the later fight scene after Aemond claimed Vhagar, Luke didn’t even know what they were doing at first, the dialogue even clearly states him asking “Jace, what are we doing?” as the four kids run up to see Aemond, he clearly wasn’t intending to go ambush or attack anyone, he just followed along with his brother and the girls. Luke doesn’t even strike the first punch or anything, he only runs at Aemond after Rhaena, Baela, and Jace were knocked down and Aemond easily just knocks him away anyways, and the second time he comes at Aemond is again after Aemond has already knocked away the other three older kids and Aemond clearly doesn’t struggle in restraining Luke and Luke is even crying at one point. and as Luke even says after the fight when all the kids are arguing, “he was gonna kill Jace” so Luke in his view was defending his brother who was gonna die if he didn’t do something. malice was not the reason for Luke’s animosity with Aemond when they were kids, and it’s hardly likely that malice drove Luke to somehow mock Aemond with some strategically placed roasted pig

i’m sorry but it’s just really a reach to act like Luke is some deliberate evil bully when at best when they were kids, he was just the mostly clueless little brother who followed everyone else around and did what they did

was he immature? yes. did his actions constituted bullying Aemond with that pink dread pig thing when they were kids? yes. but is he some cruel bully tormentor plotting to purposefully hurt Aemond all his life and thus deserves to be murdered? no. not even remotely close.

it wasn’t okay when Aemond got bullied, and it’s not okay when Luke is murdered

#house of the dragon #house of the dragon spoilers #hotd spoilers #lucerys velaryon #aemond targaryen

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thesherrinfordfacility · 7 months

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I kind of think the reason why the Book of Life is referred to as 'extreme' sanctions and why they haven't used it yet is because it's intended to be an absolute last resort, due to how badly it may mess up the timeline. Butterfly effect and all that. And they'd be looking at potentially undoing/rewriting 6000+ years of history. Who knows what life would be like for anyone if humans never left Eden. I mean. No death and no suffering, obviously, but no free will or knowledge, either. But it WOULD accomplish the basic plan everyone knows God has laid out- create humans that live eternally in paradise. I'd imagine using the Book of Life is very risky and they can't account for the full extent of the effects, but I don't think that would stop the Metatron from using it as a means to make Aziraphale go along with the Second Coming. If anything, the chaos of that potential timeline might be even more of a motivator for Aziraphale to follow orders in this one.

that's a very good point!!!✨ definitely would fit the bill of 'extreme', but then again - if it is only used in extreme circumstances, as i said here and @aq-uatic reminded me in a separate ask, you'd think that the stopping of armageddon would be worthy of threatening the BOL, and yet it wasnt? or the fall of humanity, or even the fall itself... but somehow, hiding gabriel is bad enough to warrant erasure from existence...?

this does however only take into account how michael is threatening to use it (i.e. the extreme sanctions are not, in fact, officially sanctioned; metatron confirms this in ep6). michael takes the supreme archangel position, and presumably considers this to be adequate authorisation to wield the BOL as a weapon - something we don't see gabriel do in s1.

i would love to know what michael's rationale behind this was; jumping straight to erasure of existence for a fairly insignificant transgression. it might say more about michael's character than 'the true nature' of the BOL, but still find it interesting that for a reasonably cunning character, this threat is so... little thought-out.

and maybe that's just it; that the BOL does exactly what it says on the tin, and it's just michael getting gung-ho on their assumed new power and station. maybe gabriel never intended to ever wield this weapon because of the catastrophic implications it has (though this would bring into question what the point of the BOL is to begin with, if not to be used).

i honestly don't have much of anything to negate this from within the narrative itself, other than crowley saying that it was only a rumour (which i do think has some basis). but from a storytelling perspective, i do think it very odd that this new concept, this huge-ass weapon that heaven seems to have had in its back pocket all along, would be so blatantly explained and handed to the audience in s2. the whole thing, imo, just feels a little off.

biblically speaking, too, i feel that the BOL in the context GO poses is somewhat off too; revelation shows that the book belongs to jesus christ, and (heavily paraphrasing multiple references here but this is my understanding of the christian scripture on BOL) was for humanity to repent and enter the kingdom of heaven, or face erasure and be cast instead into a lake of fire in everlasting punishment.

now, of course, GO does not necessarily follow the word of scripture by the letter; but regardless, the whole notion seems odd in relation to angels. they... are of heaven; would erasing them from the book lose them their existence, or would it cast them out of heaven? by the same logic, does erasing humans from the BOL during the last judgement also mean those humans will cease to exist? the lake of fire is described as being "a second death" (20:14), but is that the same thing?

basically, anon - i don't know. idk if the BOL is what we're led to believe it is, but something in my gut (and by god has it been wrong before) is telling me not to take it as read!!!✨

#good omens #ask #the mental gymnastics this whole theory requires ks ridiculous and for that im sorry #book of life theory #s2 meta #s3 narrative spec #second coming/last judgement spec #ALSO @aq-uatic i promise i will answer you tmo but your ask got me in the brainrot so it's taking a hot minute to respond to💕

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sparring-hyena · 2 years

Text

winter.

in which weather can be profound and personal growth is messy.

OR, my own imagining of post-book 2.

they find each other later. much later. weeks and months later, really, during winter break. although, Poppy guesses, it’s not really winter break if they’ve both graduated and left their days at Belvoire behind them. it’s just winter.

so it’s winter when they find each other, somewhere in that awkward week between Christmas and the new year that doesn’t even feel like a real point in time. there’s snow and belated family gatherings and nights spent alone as a forecasted blizzard rips through the city.

it’s an odd kind of loneliness that settles in Poppy’s chest during that week, like she’s missing something so small yet so important and can’t quite identify what it is. but she pushes on. puts on a smile and pretends it’s all fine as she sits through a belated Christmas dinner with her parents.

and then, only when she finally manages to escape her parents’ brownstone just before midnight, when she steals a few quiet moments for herself in the candy aisle of the bodega that she felt compelled to step into, does she find AJ.

“fancy meeting you here.” the voice is familiar and pokes at those silly little words that have been rattling around her mind for months.

it’s always been you.

she bristles, pretends it’s unresolved hate that makes her react that way, and turns around to face the voice. “AJ.” clipped. neutral. good, no way she’s going to lose to AJ Hughes in the candy aisle of a bodega.

“just can’t seem to stay away from me, huh?”

“i could live a very peaceful life if i never had to see you again.” it feels like a lie coming off her tongue, and that gaping thing in her chest screams and begs her to take it back.

AJ clutches her chest and makes like she’s been hurt, but she smiles through it all and Poppy never wants to think about why she hasn’t stopped thinking about AJ’s stupid smile since graduation. and that stupid declaration. and that god-awful kiss that had left her shocked and speechless and her lips tingling with fiery— whatever.

“doing anything right now?” AJ asks.

“walking away from you.” and Poppy proves her point by turning on her heels and walking down the aisle. she holds her breath firm in her chest as she walks, and only releases it when she hears AJ follow after her.

“first of all,” AJ starts as she falls in step with Poppy, “i know you wanted me to follow you. and second of all” —she stops in front of Poppy, forcing them to stand face-to-face— “wanna grab a drink?”

so she grabs a drink with AJ. so what? no biggie.

except one drink turns into two, turns into three, turns into making out outside the bar, which, naturally, turns into fucking in AJ’s kitchen because they couldn’t make it to the bed.

no biggie.

Poppy braces herself for the cold and flees AJ’s apartment early in the morning.

she decides that that was the last time. no more running into AJ. no more grabbing a drink because what’s one drink between old university friends? because they aren’t friends, weren’t ever really friends. no, they toed the line between enemies and two people with a complicated arrangement who can’t seem to do one thing right even now!

so that’s the end. for the best, Poppy thinks to herself as she wraps her coat tighter around her body as the wind slices at her skin.

and she feels... okay about that decision. she knows, logically, that not seeing AJ again is for the best. but she also knows, less logically, that her bed is much too large, much too cold when she crawls into it that night.

she loses track of the days. gets lost in a dreadfully dull cycle—wake, eat, phone, shower, sleep, repeat. she keeps tabs on all her old friends through their socials, and starts to wonder if they were ever actually friends.

has she ever actually had a real friend?

she likes Chloe’s latest post—a photo of her on vacation in the Swiss alps—and then turns her phone off.

then those four silly words echo in Poppy’s head again.

a lie, she told herself as soon as AJ had breathed them into existence. and it had worked for a while, had tamped down the hope she allowed herself to feel bloom in her chest for just one moment, because she’ll never let herself hope again.

a game just like everything else, she tells herself now as she watches the snow fall from the dark sky.

and then before she knows what’s happening, Poppy’s off her couch and out the door as those four stupid, awful, annoying words chant in her mind.

she had made a note of AJ’s address when she left a few mornings ago. only so she could stay away and make good on that decision to never see her again. so it’s no trouble getting to AJ’s building—modest and nothing particularly exciting.

homey, huh? AJ had said with an air of insecurity as they’d stumbled inside a few nights ago and Poppy had paused their make-out to judge and look and absorb AJ’s new home.

she doesn’t know what to do now that she’s met with the reality of her late night decision. leaving would be wise, she knows, but she just can’t seem to get her legs to carry her away.

she slips inside the building behind someone else who’s too lost in their phone to notice Poppy, and rides the elevator up to AJ’s floor.

she knocks on AJ’s door, softly in the hope that maybe AJ won’t hear it and she can leave unnoticed and pretend this never happened. but then there are footsteps getting closer and Poppy’s heart beat drums in her ears and then the door opens.

“what’re you doing here?” AJ asks, her voice firm and eyes hard.

clearly a mistake coming here, Poppy decides and suddenly she wants nothing more than to be at home curled in her too large and too cold bed.

“i don’t know,” Poppy admits.

AJ nods, glances back over her shoulder into her apartment, and Poppy immediately thinks she’s interrupted something important.

“did you mean it?” Poppy quickly asks before AJ has a chance to tell her to leave.

“mean what?”

“what you said at graduation?”

AJ’s head quirks to the side, clearly trying to remember.

or maybe she does remember and she’s just trying to give you an out. trying to let you down easy.

but the words thrum through her veins and she needs an answer now if she ever wants to be able to carry on with life.

“when you said ‘it’s always been you’ did you mean it?”

AJ continues to stare and for the first time ever, Poppy can’t read it. or maybe doesn’t want to be able to read it for fear of what it will mean.

“did we actually hate each other?” Poppy now asks, desperate to just get some answers and keep AJ in front of her.

“do you think we did?”

“i don’t know.”

AJ nods and clicks her tongue. “maybe you should figure that out before you come knocking on people’s doors at midnight.”

AJ moves to close the door but Poppy’s quick to stop it. “no, no, wait. please.”

maybe she hears something in Poppy’s voice, because AJ pauses, waits.

“i know we didn’t hate each other. i know that. but i just… i wanted to hate you. i wanted to hate you so much and i don’t know why i couldn’t just hate you because your were everything i despised. maybe you know why because you always seemed like you knew something that i didn’t.”

AJ doesn’t say anything right away, and Poppy, for a moment, thinks she’s finally gone too far. that after everything she’s put AJ through, this midnight-doorstep-declaration will be what costs Poppy having AJ in her life. and then—

“i used to think you hated me, way back when we first met. i didn’t care, of course. i never hated you, even then, but i didn’t like you much. but i quickly learnt to see through everything you were throwing at me. i think you subconsciously knew that you needed me because i was so different from everyone you’d met before, i was challenging.”

“you weren’t challenging.”

AJ quirks her head to the side a playful smile pulls her lips up.

“maybe a little bit,” Poppy admits, and admitting something to AJ doesn’t bother her and she realises that it maybe never did. “but it was nice.”

“yeah, i thought so too. we were so different in a few ways and so alike in others. i think that’s why we worked… why we probably needed each other.”

Poppy sits with that for a moment, and thinks that AJ might have a point.

“my bed’s too big,” Poppy says, and she doesn’t know why she decides to admit that. “i just— i think i’m lonely and i think i miss you.”

“you think or you know?”

“i miss you and i need you and i wish i’d done things differently.”

AJ just stares for a moment and then: “a friend of mine is having a party for the new year tomorrow night, you should come with me.”

“really?”

“yeah, really. i think you’d have a nice time if you came and i know i would enjoy it more.”

Poppy’s cheeks turn a little red. “okay, yeah, i’ll come.”

and then they stand awkwardly at AJ’s front door, unsure of what to do next but desperate to not let this moment fade. AJ steps aside a moment later; an invitation, silent in its declaration but loud in the space between them.

Poppy smiles and steps close to AJ. she cups her cheek and says, “Thank you,” before moving inside.

#my writing #poppy min-sinclair #poppy x mc #playchoices #queen b

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lycanlovingvampyre · 1 year

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MAG 153 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: apple cutting.

"Intelligence doesn’t make you less prone to taking on bad ideas, it just makes you better at defending them to other people and to yourself. Smart people can believe some truly ridiculous things, and then deploy all the reason and logic at their disposal to justify them, because a belief doesn’t begin in your mind. It begins in your feelings. Cults are very good at finding you when you’re at your lowest point, when you’re your most emotionally vulnerable. And when you’re at that point it’s astounding what can crawl into your heart and start to fester there." Generally I'd say "intelligent people" are a lot less prone to joining stupid ideas. Especially since we now had a global event, that put this to the test. The Covid pandemic. All those people, of whom I'd have expected to believe stupid shit, did. I personally know no one, who surprised me to suddenly chime in to a conspiracy theory. But a few friends told me they had someone like this in their circle of friends and acquaintances - someone they always deemed smart and stable and suddenly they fell down this hole because they lost something important to them that put them at an emotional low. And then they’ll want to believe that shit that would them get their thing back.

"But that was when I started to properly look at my life, and I really didn’t like what was looking back." Ah yes, getting back to that DMN talk from yesterday's episode. The ability of self-awareness buys us the ticket to depression.

"And I’d always assumed that that was enough to eventually have real success, and for the first 10 years it seemed like I was right. I worked my way up, performed for basically nothing basically every night and got to be pretty successful." Yeah, I know that feeling... I get pretty decent fairly quickly when I latch onto a new interest. Problem is, I stay there. After my initial climb to "better than average" I stagnate and no matter what I do I just won't climb any higher. But I’m surrounded by people who do get farther and I stay just behind. It's frustrating. Doomed to be mediocre forever.

"do you know how much a “pretty successful” comedian makes?" Another line that's featured in the "Jonathan asks you things" video!^^

"Let’s just say I had a full-time office job and was still barely making rent. But between working full-time and gigging full-time I just kept putting off everything else in my life, always so sure the big time was just around the corner. This is the TV spot that gets me noticed, this is the sell-out fringe show that makes me mainstream, this is the deal that actually goes somewhere." Is that still part of the statement or is this just Jonny venting? xD

So Agape apparently means "love", and in Christianity it's meant as the love for god or god's love for humankind. Fits the toxic love theme.

“We formed into a long line, a chain holding hands with Joyce at the very end of it. It stretched from one end of the building to the other. “ When I hear about cult settlements, my mind wanders pretty quickly to Jonestown. And while there's nothing even remotely in common aside from just being a cult, there is one thing, that actually did remind me a bit of Jonestown. The thing about the cult members having to line up for the horrible thing. (If you're not familiar with Jonestown and are planning to look it up, be warned for suicide. Mass murder-suicide. It’s extremely gruesome...)

"Did you ever do that experiment in science class, where you held hands in a line and the teacher passed a very gentle electric shock down through the students" Okay first, what the fuck, no? Second, this is also in the "Jonathan asks you things" video!

JON: "He asked me to." JULIA: "Oh really? You always do what evil books tell you to, do you?" Oh wow... That was a low blow...

JON: "Christ, he was right, I didn’t – didn’t – when did you get so thin?" DAISY: "I’m not, it’s fine." JON: "It’s the Hunt, isn’t it? Without it –" Not submitting to their purpose does eat away at them. And to think that Jon never really as one of the physically fittest people out there..

JON: "Don’t listen to the blood." DAISY: "Listen to the quiet." One of my favorite quotes of TMA <3

@a-mag-a-day

#a-mag-a-day #mag 153 #tma #tma spoilers

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kajaono · 8 months

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Why making Crowley and Aziraphale human would waken their character development

When talking about how the story should end for Crowley and Azi we all know it will end like it started: In a garden... their own garden, in front of their cottage. But will they still be celestial beings or human beings?

Imo making them humans is logical and okay, but not really satisfying because it means that a lot of their character development from the first two seasons ends… nowhere

First at all the most simple reason. They waited for each other since 6000+ years. Giving them the happiness they waited for all those year but only for a limited time, in a body that will hurt and age… just feels wrong imo. After 6000 years of pining they deserve more then +/- 40 years of happiness.

Second, and much more important: Making them human would imply that being immortal was a curse for them. Something they need to be freed from. But in first two seasons they never said that they hate being immortal. Actually the opposite. They seem to enjoy to stroll through human history, seeing humanity change and evolve. This is best shown for Aziraphale who collects all those books since hundreds of years, being super proud of all the authors he already met. Taking his immortality away would be mean that he wouldn’t be able to do that anymore. Generations and generations of authors to come that he will never meet. Crowley will not be able to talk with his Bentley anymore or perform a small miracle, just to make Aziraphale happy. Which brings me to the most important point.

What makes GO so amusing to read and watch is that Crowley and Aziraphale are deeply human but not human beings. They do not blink when someone points a gun at them because they know it can not hurt them. When they enter a pub they just wave their hand, without even paying attention to it, to get a free seat, they always leave restaurants without paying, and the trafficlights are always green when Crowley is driving his Bentley.

Can you imagine them without their miracles. Without their wonders? Crowley has to wait for the lights to turn green, Azi really has to sell books to finance his living. I know thinking about it is kinda cozy but it is not THEM anymore

Since season 1 they are learning how to be independent from heaven and hell, and eventually they will leave heaven and hell behind. But that doesn’t mean they have to become humans. Because if they are humans who is watching over the earth evolving and the universe growing? Who is trying to make the world a better place with little miracles but actually fucks up horrible? Who is there to fix the broken heart of the neighborhood lesbians? Who?! If not them

TL.DR: Immortality was never a curse from them. Not be able to be together was the real curse after all. Let them be together, forever. On the earth they love so deeply.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens season 3

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renjunnipeikko · 2 years

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Turbo Sus Vice Housewardens to Be Avoided at All Cost Rankings (Source: Me)!

1. Jade Leech - This man is so scary for obvious reasons. Other reasons probably aren’t so obvious to other people and I can’t even explain what I mean by this not only because I feel like no matter where I am nor regardless of the fact he’s fictional, he’ll be able to hear me but also because some of the things I just flat out won’t talk about. Like I straight up cannot be brought to say them. Evidence for this? None. Just- bad vibes. Bad vibes all around. Also I just can’t figure out his motives. Like Azul likes money and wants revenge for being bullied. Floyd seems like a genuinely nice guy all things aside and just wants to have fun. But Jade? Wtf does he want? He doesn’t care about money so part of me thinks he just wants entertainment like Floyd but to put up with all that? A business he’s not even in charge of, a flakey brother, a pushy boss. Nah… he’s playing some game for the long run. Highly functioning sociopath and the bogeyman that plagued your fragile mind as a child. No. Hate that.

2. Jamil Viper - Snake. Will spends years pretending to be your friend just to stab you in the back and for what? For someone who’s like the most hyper-competent guy on campus, he actually surprisingly lacks like… all critical thinking skills. And it’s because he’s so blinded by the cards he was dealt in life he can’t look beyond that. Is so convinced Kalim is his arch nemesis he can’t take a second to think about it and realize Kalim is actually his greatest ally in life. And even if he did… he probably just would not care. Lifetime of resentment and all that. He’s book smart, he’s street smart, but he is not emotionally nor logically smart. Just avoid him. He’s good at seeming mature but he’s petty and will Regina George you because you like, got the scholarship he wanted or smthng idk

3. Lilia Vanrouge - Listen. I don’t think Lilia will hurt me. I don’t think he’s planning anything nefarious. He’s nice and friendly. Super helpful. Incredibly loyal to Briar Valley and the royal family. Incredibly loyal and loving towards Malleus. That’s not why he’s scary. He’s scary because he’s hiding in plain site. He ain’t even necessarily trying to hide anything about himself, he just won’t outright dish out personal info. It’s the fact no one at NRC is suspecting he’s anything more than just a student that gives him safety to be a little reckless. I have reason to suspect he holds much more power than he lets on but everyone overlooks it because they’re all looking at Malleus instead. Meanwhile Lilia is standing directly behind him, completely hidden (not just bc he’s so short and Malleus so tall 😋), also a complete powerhouse. But no one.suspects.a.thing. And even though the player is privy to this information, there’s still so much about him still shrouded in mystery. Like, again, I don’t think he’s up to anything. I do believe he really is just trying to protect his kiddos and wants peace between all races. But I feel like there’s something about him, something big, that we don’t know yet. And it’s making me nervous.

4. Rook Hunt - I’m not as weirded out by Rook as I had been initially. Both he and Vil grew on me in chapter 6. I flat out disliked both of them before. But they really showed themselves to be loyal and caring towards each other, Epel, and MC (which was what made them stand out compared to the other housewardens and vice housewardens for me, they’re the first ones to actually establish a seemingly genuine personal connection to the player after Ace, Deuce, and Malleus). But- mans is playing The Most Dangerous Game and that story creeped me out so badly when I first read it at like 11 years old that I still think about it constantly to this day, over a decade later. I tried to justify his stalking by reasoning that he wasn’t actually interested in hunting merfolk/beastmen and rather was interested in hunting actual eels or lions, but his PE uniform vignette really said otherwise. He didn’t seem at all interested in the nature of bats as he did fae. And if it were just animals, I doubt Malleus would have nearly taken his head off with that ball as a warning. Nah, it feels like he straight up was looking to Butcher Baker Lilia and that makes me wanna vomit. Rook. You’re one of the good guys. You’ve got the light powers to prove it. If hunting animals is becoming boring for you- find another hobby. Do not fucking turn this into The Most Dangerous Game! Please!

5. Ortho - I always hated the movie Smart House.

#for legal reasons this is a joke #i feel like i was especially mean towards jamil but listen i don’t hate him i just have a lot of critisicm of how he handled… everything #i like all the characters truthfully okay and i like the subtle horror elements yana toboso threw in #but notice that a lot of these things just relate back to shit that freaked me tf out as a child #i grew up in ak and the most dangerous game scarred me so YOU CAN IMAGINE ROOK STRIKES A CERTAIN FUCKING CHORD DEEP IN MY PYSCHE #also jade but we’re not gonna get into that #i think he was just supposed to be creepy and unsettling but yana toboso just made him remind me of things growing up #okay but lilia is actually a top fave and I’m really scared something bad will happen to him I love him so much BLEASE 😭😭😭#p.s. don’t look up butcher baker or the most dangerous game if you can’t handle creepy shit or serial killers okay?#twst #twst wonderland #twisted wonderland #disney twst #disney twisted wonderland #jade leech #twst jade #jamil viper #twst jamil #lilia vanrouge #twst lilia #rook hunt #twst rook #ortho shroud #twst ortho #twst chapter 6 spoilers #twst chapter 6 #twst spoilers #spoilers #tw spoilers #tw: spoilers

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funkymbtifiction · 2 years

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I’m an ENFJ 2w1 so/sx and I have a lot of difficulty understanding and properly appreciating my brother, an ISTJ 6w5 sp/so...

Well. First I am going to say that one of the strengths of high Ni is finding a different vantage point from which to survey a situation and re-interpret it in a different, unusual way. Meaning that you need to go inside yourself and consider your brother from a different, larger viewpoint than just "he offends people." Think about him in a broader context, think about the psychology behind this (I assume you have read a lot about 6s? if not, please do so, it will be helpful in understanding how fear is motivating him, and that will give you an even deeper understanding of his psyche), and then think about how you could reach him by catering your Fe to what he would respond best to. How can you use what you know about being a 6 to reach him? (Let's say that a 6 wants to be liked, because it's true -- they are attachment types. What would be the benefit to him of being liked, by him actively working toward softening some of his own edges? Would he be more successful in his career, for example? A strong Te user responds to facts and logical thinking -- cause and effect. You do this, that results. For a 6, you do this, you alienate people who might not like you anymore and could hurt you -- so the goal becomes, how do I find allies? How can you help your brother be someone who attracts allies and friends?)

Another thing... how old is he? If he's 12 or 15, this is not a huge deal; if he's 30 and still alienating people, it's a problem. Age matters. Being a teenager who is trying to figure out who he is and what he thinks and where his place is in the world... matters. If he's under 20 years old, cut him some slack. He's immature. What you described to me are "young" 6 behaviors and as he gets out into the world, gains more experience, deals with more people, they will fade a bit. The less experienced in real life a 6 is, the more rigid their views -- because they can cling to them in the comfort of their own home.

Okay, on to the rest of your ask...

He attaches to people and ideologies to keep himself safe and make sense of the world and I get that. But, by constantly choosing this over this etc, he alienates other people and offends them which as an Fe-dom is just no. He often seems to have no idea about the emotions and opinions of others and is self-centred, constantly talking about what he likes and he’s doing.

Really, this is butting up against your need, as an EFJ, to have everyone on the same page and maintain harmony between them, which is understandable. But TJs do not think that way, as you know from living with him (ha, ha). Something to remember, then, is that... his actions don't reflect on you and won't change how people feel about you, if that is partly your concern. People will evaluate him independently from you and not lump you together. Second, you can't expect him to understand the emotions of others -- this is beyond his understanding. ITJs are incapable of that. Does it offend higher Fe types? Yes. Can it change? No, it can't. You need to find a way to accept this, and not expect it from him, which means being more able to just shake your head when something happens, remind yourself that "this is just who he is," and deal with the fallout.

When something goes slightly wrong, it’s like his whole world explodes and everything is ending right this second and he either starts yelling or sulking or blaming other people for something that is his fault.

You may want to read the book I am reading, which is the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In it, the author talks a lot about putting power back in people's hands through your choice of language (I think the author is an EFJ 2w1 as well; he might even be ENFJ due to his focus on language/words/communication techniques). He says that most people excuse personal responsibility by insisting it was not their fault, but that you can put power back into their hands by reaffirming that the choices they made led them here. Are they CHOOSING to get upset right now? Angry? To blame others?

Something about blame is that the 6 being an ego type, wants to be a good person in a similar way that the 1 gets credit for being (the difference is the 1 doesn't want to be good, so much as RIGHT). 6s also want to be RIGHT. Blame means I did something wrong, which attacks their ego structure--their line to 3 rebels at being seen in a negative light, and they want to avoid the consequences of having something be "my fault," so that' why they point fingers elsewhere. It takes a lot of self-work for a 6 to be able to admit when they were wrong without fearing the consequences (punishment). But as I said, the more immature the 6, the more this happens; the more mature the 6, the less this happens. It can be grown out of, but the 6 has to be aware that this is a problem with them and something that needs fixed (which a lot of 6s will want to do, because they are super-ego types who don't want to do the wrong thing). So... maybe introduce him to the Enneagram. Find a good book about it and give it to him, something like Russ Hudson or Richard Rohor. See what happens.

He constantly measures himself against the normal and “shoulds” endlessly, ending up despairing and frustrating himself and everyone else. It’s just so stressful.

I realize this is going to be incredibly hard for you to hear, as an EFJ 2, but... you can't fix him, you can't change him, and his struggles are none of your business if he won't listen to you. You cannot control how other people think, feel, or behave, all you can control is how you respond to them. If you see a technique that might help him, point it out to him, but don't lecture or mother him. Younger siblings hate being parented by older ones. Come at it from a "friend" perspective, and not a "sub-parent" perspective.

I think he’s amazing overall and some of these negatives are also very positive. I just don’t know how to keep everyone happy without “shoulding” at him. He deserves to be and express himself but so does everyone else and when he’s being him, that can’t happen without an explosion. I don’t know if this is personality related really. I was just wondering if you could give me some tips on how to deal with 6’s need for security at all costs (as opposed to my 2 need to be needed) and Fi vs Fe. Thank you so so so much for all you do! I love reading through your blog and your thoughtful, kind responses :)

Turn your Ni to thinking about -- how can I make him feel 'safe and supported' in this environment and pursue that for a while. Instead of seeing him as a problem or something to fix, look beyond that to his true needs, his 6 wounds of feeling unsure and unsupported, and see what happens.

#question #enneagram #enneagram 6

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linawritestwst · 1 year

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(Match up for my OC please!)

Name: Vespera Nightingale

Nicknames: Ves, Vessie, Vespie

Ves is a 2nd year Diasomnia student, she/her/they, INTP.

Personality- She’s superstitious, the type to believe in karma and good luck charms, horoscopes and the supernatural and all that.

Ves is also an insomniac to boot, barely able to sleep more than a few hours each night, and thus she has a perpetual flat, melancholic expression on her face almost always.

Her biggest red flag would be her overall vindictiveness and vengeful streak. Her temper is actually quite short, and although she doesn’t show it outright, if you somehow tick her off, she’s already planning your demise or flinging a nasty curse behind your back. Most of the time her “retributions” are harmless, if annoying inconveniences (such as turning Sebek’s hair diarrhea brown), as she doesn’t really have the heart to do anything too dangerous.

Ves is able to admit that sometimes she does take things too far, and will usually knit something, like a scarf or maybe a pair of mittens as an apology. She likes making sweaters for her dormmates in particular.

On the positive: she’s extremely resourceful and an adaptive thinker. One of her strengths is her endless imagination and boundless creativity (often wasted by her brainstorming for ways to get back at people). And despite her sour expression, Ves is also more optimistic than she looks. She’s quite hardworking and productive, and actually spends alot of time studying and cleaning.

Ves also seems to be picking up a new hobby or interest almost every week, seeing as she has plenty of spare time on her hands. But just as quick as she picks something up, Ves may drop the interest just as fast and move onto something else entirely. Her latest fixation so far is old movies that she binge watches with the Film Appreciation Club. The few hobbies that have stuck with her so far are reading, jigsaw puzzles (the 1000 piece sets), and handicrafts such as sewing, knitting, and embroidery. Ves is a particularly avid reader and can sometimes go through 2-3 books a week, usually on magical history or weird magic anomalies.

Other fun facts and tidbits about Ves:

-her birthday is on 2/29 and she hates it, in fact she’d prefer not to celebrate it at all. If you really ask her she’ll probably just lie and say 3/1. Or curse you.

-favorite food is pudding, least favorite is anything with caffeine

Overall, her belief in superstitions and vengeful tendencies may cause others to view her as childish or immature. So a good match would be someone who wouldn’t mind that (or…..would help her in her petty crimes). If it isnt someone as eccentric as her, they should also be able to rein her in if needed. They’d also need to be someone who can handle clinginess because Ves gets attached REAL QUICKLY. I’d say she’s mildly yandere but she’s quite naive and innocent when it comes to romance. Definitely believes babies are delivered by storks and that handholding is ~forbidden~

Thanks and congrats!!

hi, i hope you like this matchup!

the character that i think would be a good partner for your oc is..

floyd leech!

i'll explain why i chose him:

i actually spent quite a lot of time thinking which character would be the best (or at least good) match for ves and i wasn't sure if i should go with a more chaotic and eccentric partner for her or someone who's more chill. the second option sounded more logical because, you know, someone's gotta make sure ves is not causing too much chaos, but the first option sounded more fun! also i feel like some characters wouldn't have enough patience for her I'M SO SORRY i think ves and floyd's dynamic would be very interesting, it's like you never know what these two are gonna do next. floyd would definitely help ves out with their pranks or he would actually be the one to suggest ideas for how they can "take their revenge" on someone. but if ves finds someone too annoying, floyd can just squeeze them-

floyd doesn't really get ves's interest in things like horoscopes or supernatural stuff, but he does think it's cute of her to like things like that. he may tease her for it, but he doesn't really mean it.. well, maybe he does mean it, but not in a bad way, he just thinks it's funny. he won't let anyone say they're childish for having hobbies like that though. also yeah, he did laugh when he first heard about their birthday, but then he said that maybe ves should just celebrate her birthday on february 28th or she really should go with march 1st. or both! she can have two birthdays, she deserves it. oh and when february 29th actually comes, it means that they can have three birthdays!

oh, you don't have to worry about ves being clingy, floyd wouldn't mind that at all! he would love it actually. he's already a very affectionate guy, but ves acting like this makes him refuse to let her go when he's hugging her. he thinks her being so innocent is adorable and he can try to play along just for fun. or he can actually destroy her innocence. who knows, depends on his mood. and oh? she's mildly yandere? WELL THAT'S INTERESTING. again, he wouldn't think it's weird or scary and he even would find it cute <3 he's a strange man, okay.

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland imagines #twst imagines #twst headcanons #twisted wonderland matchups #twst matchup

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honoka-marierose · 3 months

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Black Widow's track record in the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't always been flawless. The highs ("Captain America: The Winter Soldier") were certainly high, but the lows ("Avengers: Age of Ultron") were just as low. Still, the operative otherwise known as Natasha Romanoff was always the MCU's secret weapon. She practically ran away with every film she appeared in, and for a large part of the franchise's initial run, she was one of the few female characters making a consistent impact. But as Johansson continued to turn in solid supporting performances, it was hard to ignore the fact that she'd yet to get a chance to stand on her own.

By the time Marvel finally delivered a solo Black Widow project, it felt like way too little, too late. "Black Widow" found itself somewhere in the middle of the franchise's 15-year output: it did its title character justice, in a way, but it wasn't exactly worth the wait either. It didn't help that the film came hot on the heels of Natasha's shocking sacrifice in "Avengers: Endgame," perhaps as a conciliation prize for over a decade of demand for more female-centered stories.

"Black Widow" was only the second MCU film to feature a female lead after 2019's "Captain Marvel." Why exactly did it take so long for Marvel to give the people what they want; to recognize that the future is, in fact, female? The answer is tangled in a whole lot of red tape, but the behind-the-scenes book "MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios" boils down years of conflict to one pervasive issue: the obstinance of former Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter.

A tentative start

A Black Widow movie had been a topic of discussion even before the formation of the MCU. Conversations were taking place as far back as 2004 when Lionsgate optioned the rights to adapt the character in a feature film. Back then, Black Widow was considered the easiest Marvel character to bring to the big screen: there was already a precedent for spy films with the rise of Jason Bourne and his gritty, jet-setting contemporaries.

"X-Men" screenwriter David Hayter had been tapped to write and direct for Lionsgate — but whatever progress he made was halted by a new wave of ill-received action vehicles. "Unfortunately, as I was coming up on the final draft, a number of female vigilante movies came out," Hayter told the "MCU" authors. Some — like "Tomb Raider," "Underworld" and "Kill Bill" — were bankable hits. Others, however, weren't so lucky. After the less-than-auspicious release of the Charlize Theron-led "Æon Flux," Lionsgate pulled the plug on its Black Widow movie.

"'Æon Flux' didn't open well," Hayter recalled. "And three days after it opened the studio said, 'We don't think it's time to do this movie.'"

Hayter went on to develop Zack Snyder's "Watchmen" and Netflix's "Warrior Nun," but still looks back with regret on Lionsgate's canceled plans. "I accepted their logic in terms of the saturation of the marketplace, but it was pretty painful," he continued. "I had not only invested a lot of time in that movie, but I had also named my daughter, who was born in that time period, Natasha."

Designing Natasha

When Black Widow made her MCU debut in "Iron Man 2," Hollywood was still acclimating to the idea of a female-fronted superhero film. Fans seemed to want a solo Black Widow film right off the bat, but Marvel and its notoriously meddlesome Creative Committee remained lukewarm to the idea.

Johannson, meanwhile, was working hard to prime Black Widow for an imminent solo film. With the help of Joss Whedon, Nastaha's appearance in "The Avengers" felt much more grounded and nuanced. "Joss Whedon and I talked about her past," Johansson said. "Who is she? How does she get to be a mercenary? What path do you follow in order to get to that place? We both wanted to see the darker side of her — why did she have to learn those skills?"

Johansson's conversations with Whedon would lay the groundwork for Natasha's long-gestating solo film. "The Avengers" established her strong relationship with fellow Avenger Clint Barton, spun a compelling tale of her time before S.H.I.E.L.D., and reintroduced her as an operative with her own agenda. Johansson seemed much more at home in the role, which only made her performance that much more captivating. Natasha was holding her own with a handful of superpowered men. But that, in turn, raised an "obvious question": if Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man got to continue their arcs in their own films, why couldn't Black Widow?

Trouble in the toy aisle

As years passed, Marvel continued to drag its feet on a solo Black Widow movie. "There's no definitive plans," Kevin Feige said in 2011. "But we have started talking, and talking with Scarlett, about what a Widow movie could be."

But despite Feige's claims of progress, Marvel seemed no closer to greenlighting a Black Widow film. At the end of the day, the argument kept circling back to merchandise sales. "Toymakers will tell you [female heroes] won't sell enough," Whedon said in 2013. And given that the head of Marvel at the time, Ike Perlmutter, had made his name in the toy business, he had no problem clinging to that philosophy. For years, Black Widow action figures were conspicuously missing from toy shelves. The same goes for the female characters that followed in her footsteps, like Zoe Saldaña's Gamora from "Guardians of the Galaxy."

Things seemed to come to a head in 2015 when IndieWire's "Women and Film" blog uncovered an email sent from Perlmutter to a Sony executive. The message was brief, containing a short list of female-led superhero movies and their respective box office takeaways. Perlmutter cited "Catwoman" and "Elektra" as financial disasters, likely to discourage Sony from investing in a female action hero. (In 2014, Sony had announced its plans to develop a female-centered story for the Spider-Man Universe — just days before Perlmutter sent his email to Sony's Michael Lynton.)

Kevin Feige's last straw

By the time Perlmutter's email was leaked to the public, the outcry had reached its zenith. Female fans seemed more visible than ever, but female heroes continued to be sidelined in the MCU. It wasn't just Black Widow; fans were also disappointed in Marvel's decision to exclude the Wasp from "The Avengers," despite her being a founding member of the supergroup in the comics. Though she'd later appear in "Ant-Man," the 2015 film didn't do quite enough with her character. "Guardians of the Galaxy," meanwhile, had pulled a large female audience in its theatrical run (more than 40% of the audience was female). Change was certainly in the air, but Marvel remained unmoved by it.

Even Marvel head Kevin Feige had seemingly had enough and all-but-directly addressed Perlmutter's emails in a 2014 interview with Comic Book Resources. "I very much believe that it's unfair to say, 'People don't want to see movies with female heroes,' then list five movies that were not very good," he said. "And they don't mention 'Hunger Games,' 'Frozen,' 'Divergent.' You can go back to 'Kill Bill' or 'Aliens.' These are all female-led movies. It can certainly be done."

Feige's "unusually blunt criticism" of Perlmutter and the Creative Committee was one sign of his efforts behind the scenes. In 2017, Vanity Fair reported that Perlmutter had been "quietly sidelined" in "a long-overdue" management restructuring at Disney. Sources close to Marvel cited Perlmutter's "outdated opinions about casting, budgeting, and merchandising" — as well as his financial support of then-President Donald Trump — for the studio's switch in leadership.

The next generation

Once Feige was promoted to Chief Creative Officer, the MCU immediately pivoted to make its projects more inclusive. With films like "Black Panther" and "Captain Marvel," the franchise was finally beginning to mirror its audience. Those efforts paved the way for "Black Widow" to finally bow in 2021 — but even with all that red tape finally cleared, the film would have its own set of problems.

Still, for all that frustration, at least we know why it took so long to get more women-centered films off the ground. Marvel has since introduced a handful of powerful female heroes, all of whom owe some measure of debt to Black Widow, and to Johannson. It is, of course, a shame that she never got to truly enjoy the fruits of her labor: with Natasha's death in "Endgame," the MCU lost one of its most nuanced characters. "Black Widow" proved that she still had plenty to give, all while offering a brief glimpse into the sort of blockbuster vehicles that fans (and actors) have been denied for years.

Alas, such is the nature of a trailblazer. Marvel is still grappling with a new set of issues in its latest phase, but with Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova, it's safe to say that the Black Widow mantle is in good hands. Hopefully, we won't have to wait another 10 years to see her solo vehicle.

#marvel #marvel comics #marvel cinematic universe #marvel studios #mcu #black widow #black widow movie #black widow mcu #iron man 2 #scarlet johansson #kevin feige

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diatonight · 5 months

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The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

☆☆

(this review is my honest opinion and has no intention of offending anyone. So just read if you want. It contains spoilers.)

(Quite long as I had a lot to rant about 😅)

Okay, let’s talk about one of the most disappointing, nonsense books I read and it was one of my biggest book disappointments.

The premise of the book was dark academia with big plot twists, about a group of talented people that enter a competition for a year to be part of a society that has the knowledge that once was in Alexandria. However, only five could pass to the second year and turn to be society members.

World Building

Bad or even non-existent. In this book, there are people with and without magic. However, a lot about this magic system is not explained in the slightest.

We know that there are different types, which makes us believe that people are born within a specific type. However, characters end up talking about having abilities outside their magic type. Despite it trying to explain (minimally) how that is possible, we just don’t know enough about the magical system to fully understand it. It just comes as a very broad and limitless magic type where quite everything can be put in a way to fit it.

The separation between humans and magicians is also never truly explained. It tells us that people with magic go to universities, have important roles and even high-paying jobs. Due to this, you end up assuming that everyone knows about magicians. However, suddenly when explaining that an old scientific theory regarding light was actually wrong as the real event was caused due to a magician making fun of the unaware scientist, we have to assume that humans actually don't know about magic. It could be that in the past humans didn’t know about it but now they do. But there is really no point in thinking it forward because it is never truly explained.

This constant lack of explanation of the world that you are being introduce to will, unfortunately, continue.

Another good example of how the world of this book lacks structure is the existence of mermaids. I had to reread the section more than once as I was surprised that this book had mermaids as they were just introduced out of nowhere. Pretty much as “Ah, and that’s Gideon, he is half mermaid, half something else”. So, they are in the universities but again does everyone know? Never explained. Additionally, why do they exist? They were meaningless besides creating a subplot for Nico and Gideon, which was also meaningless, so...

Writing Style

The writing style made it difficult to understand what was going on. I have nothing against simple writing, there are lots of books that can be very profound while maintaining it simple. But it was quite different. It kind of felt that the author didn't have the energy to properly explain and write things clearly. For example, she tends to use brackets to explain things further or even to indicate who talked. It went pretty much like this:

That had begun almost immediately after the installations (”installations” being Atlas’s word for all of them nearly dying on their very first night as part of the society).

“Why would someone want us to think Rhodes was dead?” (Nico.) “Is the question why Rhodes, or why us?” (Parisa).

The use of a certain vocabulary also made the writing feel like pretentious tweets more than actual thoughts, conversations or explanations, but I believe this is more a picky point on my part.

Some quotes really didn't make that much sense. You just have to think about them more than once to see the flaws behind their logic. For example:

You have a choice, you know. You have only one true choice in this life: live or die. It is your decision. It is the only thing no one else can take from you.

Hmm... not so sure about it. There were some more, but this was one of the best.

There were also moments when it seemed that what was pointed out in one page, was forgotten in the next one. For example, after a battle Atlas shows up and it is described that Dalton was right behind him when everyone looked. Considering this is written in POVs, they saw him, but in the same scene, it is pointed out that they were surprised when he talked because they didn't know he was there.

This type of situation is repeated in the plot too. For example, when Atlas and Ezra were thinking of their motive to create the new team, it is said that they didn’t know but wanted to do something useful with this magic. But suddenly on the next page, it changed and now it was because they wanted to destroy the society as they disagreed with it.

However, the scene that made me question my interpretation skills was the battle, which I blame on the lack of proper description. In this scene, Libby and Tristan are trying to defend the place from some invaders and they enter a room that has some enemies. For Libby, there were dozens of them, but Tristan could see there were merely three (powers and stuff). So they start arguing about it, and due to the lack of description, it just looks like the enemies are just there waiting while they start understanding their trick. Another thing that made me annoyed in this scene was when this pair entered another room where there were two more enemies. But the thing is that it just described that they entered and decided to wait to see if there was someone else. So... were they hiding? Were they just standing there in the middle of the room? I don’t know. However, when it is mentioned that the men looked up from the computer and immediately locked eyes with Tristan, I just laugh. So I guess they were just there, in the middle of the room. I actually tried more than once to understand this scene and reread it but still have no clue.

Characters

This is a topic that lots of people seem to disagree in their opinions. Some love all the characters, and some really hate most of them. I would say that I am in the middle.

Nico was my favorite initially (aka he was giving Cardan vibes). However, despite looking like he was gonna be the focus on the first pages, by the middle of the book he was practically forgotten in the main plot of the book and only appeared to participate in the secondary plot, which was honestly meaningless for this book.

Libby was also a character that I enjoyed. I did like her interactions with Nico for the most part, but they did start to annoy me as they were always the same, their relationship got no development whatsoever. Plus, it did feel like she was always a topic in almost every chapter, even if the reason was everyone making a very teen-like comment about how she asked too many questions when all were still meeting. This made no sense as she didn't ask that many and didn't even ask many more for the rest of the book. It feels like the author wanted to make us understand that Libby’s attitude irritates the group but thought that only describing her being annoying once would be enough to justify everyone's constant complaints for the entire book.

Reina is probably the most boring of them all. Not because she didn’t have potential but because she was simply left out of everything in the story. She was just there to read, quite literally and didn’t care about anyone, or start caring. So, when she disliked someone it would only feel dull as there were barely any disagreements besides a single moment. Once again, it feels like the author thought that just one single scene where nothing major happened was enough to justify the characters' complaints for the entire story.

Tristan was the one that I disliked the most. I understand he is the guy with daddy issues who looks for people who can hurt him and be cruel towards him. It was an interesting build for some time. But it got to the point that his monologues were always the same. All of his thoughts are loyal to his traumas but it never felt like he barely tried to think outside that even if he had all the ways to do so. No development whatsoever. Plus, his sudden high interest in Libby after that drunk nightstand just didn’t feel right to me. I can understand the reasons for the attachment, but it was just too sudden. However, I was quite interested in his dynamic with Callum, to the point that I would much prefer that the attachment he created with him would have been the focus instead.

Parisa was a surprise for me as I didn’t expect to like her as I did, but she was without doubt the most interesting one. Parisa made her relationship with s*x seem very logical. For her it was not just s*x, but her way of playing mind games. She is by far the most intelligent character in the entire book and the one that made this book seem engaging for a while. Everything she did had a logical objective and made sense. She even made the fact that the author always had to add sexual references in almost every moment a little bit more tolerable, but just for a bit.

Callum had all the potential, but none of it was used. His perspective on morality was very intriguing and his thoughts on emotions due to his ability were fascinating. He could have been the character that would make the reader doubt, make them question, be the imbalance, be the one that would challenge others, but all that was left behind. His game against Parisa was the best part of the book and the only reason I might have given 2 stars.

Plot

Firstly, there was the plot regarding the society. As expected this was the most academic part of the book. All six of them had to create better security for the society. Were they able to do it? So for the largest part of the book it was completely forgotten, but eventually it was mentioned their success when it was no longer important. If it ever was.

We also know they are having classes about certain topics and I guess they needed to research independently (once again, wasn't very clear). Three of them ended up working together on this research regarding wormholes in space. Despite sounding like a very big event as it was never done before, it was, once again, completely forgotten for the rest of the book. It didn't add anything to the book at all. And this same pattern repeats. There are academic topics that appear from nowhere, then the characters do something incredible, nearly impossible, and then it is just forgotten or not developed.

Now, back to the mermaids. From the very beginning, we know that Nico needs to protect Gideon from his mother. However, we never know what bad stuff she's on, apart from her being a terrible mom. We are constantly reminded that she is a threat, to the point that Nico almost died just to make a safe place she couldn't invade. However, she didn’t do anything threatening. By the end of the book, we are just left wondering why she even existed. Of course, this narrative may be going to be expanded in the sequel. However, I can not even feel a bit excited about it as her existence wasn't important for this book.

Despite these, there was a part of this book that was okay. Since the tension between Parisa and Callum started, the stakes got higher. The majority of it was still dialogue and not a lot of action, but when we finally got a bit of it actually made me interested. The best parts of this book were definitely when Parisa manipulated Libby and Tristan and the mind duel. At this point, it felt more like a dark academia and I was so ready to see their corrupt arcs coming up, especially when all of them decided to kill Callum. Until it was all left behind for the "plot twist".

One of the main topics of this book was about what we do for more or prohibited knowledge. This is introduced when they all understand that they have to kill one of them. The book makes it look like most characters would have refused before but the time in the society and the taste of all that knowledge had changed them and they would kill to continue having it. However, at no point in the book we saw this corruption happening. There were just random discoveries but never the obsession with it nor the selfish thoughts. And is not like most cared for each other to think murder would be a big challenge.

Now the "plot twist"…

Guess what, Libby’s boyfriend, Ezra, was all this time a time travelling and together with Atlas, selected the whole group for a reason that changes each page. Jumping all the moments and changes of narrative in the only chapter where all this was presented, I want to point out how badly this plot twist was introduced and how it completely destroyed the good potential that it had.

The first time we are foresight about this was when Tristan saw someone outside the society and the reader can easily guess that it was Ezra. At this point, it was intriguing. Then Ezra speaks with Atlas out of nowhere. Then we know there is an outsider from the initial six. Finally, we are just explained in one chapter to the end, that Ezra saw the future and Atlas is a traitor who is planning to destroy the whole world. This whole chapter made me just scream "WHAT?", and not a "now everything makes sense" WHAT but a wtf WHAT. Everything in this chapter is just confusing. Was Ezra not being part of the initiates a betrayal or his decision? Does Ezra like Libby or not? I don't really know since he does say he likes her and then thinks it is better not to respond to her question regarding him caring for her since he does not have something good to say. Even the whole thing about Ezra now having six recruits to go against the society made me question how the hell he got time to find those people as he didn't even know about Atlas's plans for the longest. Atlas’s choice, despite having good logic behind was terribly discovered and foreshadowed. The only things we know for the whole book about Atlas are that he got a position uncommon to be gained and that he was not in society a lot. The same applies to Ezra. To add to all this, Ezra only associates the end of the world he saw in the future with Atlas because he remembers a conversation between them when drugged. He didn't even question if he was wrong, that his friend would never do it. No, he immediately knew clearly it was Atlas.

This book made me feel that all the years learning English were for nothing because I constantly couldn't understand what was happening.

#the atlas six #book review #olivie blake #ya #dark academia #book rant

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julianxreese · 5 months

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Daylight // self-para

Julian raised the wooden bat at eye level and inspected the infamous Louisville slugger stamp branded along the barrel with close precision. Even though it had been well past his prime playing baseball in high school, the countless ball games and practices came flooding back. His feet seemed to instinctively know what pose to land, his hands knowing where they should curl around the bat's handle, fingers firmly gripping and knuckles lining up perfectly. Muscle memory at its finest after over a decade.

The batting cages were relatively empty this time of year, ensuring him a prime spot with plenty privacy one could not take for granted. Julian required the distraction anyway, distancing himself from the family, from the faction drama, from the noise constantly bombarding his thoughts. Some people found their distractions elsewhere like reading or a long hike in their favorite park, but his options were limited. Books did nothing but remind the young man of the jealousy he experienced for the characters and their lives far unlike his own. And if rumor mill whispers began spreading as he suspected, especially when Savitri caught a whiff of his alliances, it certainly wasn't the best idea for Julian to be walking the streets so out in the open right now.

God, Savitri, how blissful it has been without the gossip blog churning and the text notifications blowing up the phone of everyone in each faction, tormenting those who became a clout target for their amusement. Julian wasn't an innocent party involved in his fair share of scandal, so it seemed surprising that no secret he kept close ever blasted across the blog's many tantalizing posts. The company he associated with increased any chance that somebody as all knowing as Savitri could place the puzzle pieces together and figure out just how much of an impossible choice he's been forced to make.

The sound of the pitching machine caught Julian's attention just in time to drag him back as it sent a baseball flying towards his direction, giving the male enough of a split second to swing the bat and completely miss it, watching instead as it veered past and smacked straight into the wired fence behind him. Damn, his skills weren't that rusty already, were they? The logical excuses came flooding through Julian's mind, his hands were sweaty, he was out of practice since high school, the sun's glare blinded his purview, nothing but reason. He was a stubborn optimist, but he could play with logic from time to time.

Julian thought fixing the position he stood in solved the problem, even adjusting the grip on the bat might aid the previous mishap. Mistakes happened, no play was perfect, he just knew the talents he possessed never failed on such a rookie fumble. Breathe and focus, sage advice from his old coach. Never take your eye off the ball. He latched onto the moral support, ensuring that was the one thought he would focus on as another baseball ejected toward him. Julian saw it coming with fervor, knowing what he must do and feeling the weight of the bat in his palms, but there was an unusual hesitation the moment he swung, once again missing the trajectory of the ball entirely. He was overthinking this now. Sitting here, imagining his coach or any pair of judgmental eyes watching him fail the second go-around when he was a well-trained baseball player. No...what Julian actually was was a washed up high school has-been varsity jock who risked everything his junior year falling in love with a faction leader's daughter.

He shook the inkling of Morrigan away, knowing what will come of it once he dives too deeply. His life didn't revolve around her, it couldn't, not when she wasn't willing to welcome him back for duty's sake. He could patch the pieces of his heart together and move on if he truly tried, surround himself with good people devoid of corruption for the most part, and find someone who never brought him this much misery. Balancing normalcy and being with Morrigan at once, who the fuck was he kidding? She threatened his younger brother, caused irreparable damage to both Austen and Wyatt's psyche, she made her choice and pushed him away. He made his too, neither weren't at fault. Why bother?

Julian tapped the bat gently against the ground and released a huff of frustration, typically holding an entire city's worth of patience and finding it draining away rather unnervingly quickly. He would hit this one right out of the park, no more thoughts about any Urie or Hedgestone, not even Casey will cloud his concentration. Something was getting to him and burrowing itself into every crevice of his mind. Those negative feelings, the strong emotions, were neatly stored within an imaginary bottle Julian concealed tight by shoving a stopper on the opening, and now...it was starting to leak. The calm and collected almost reached utter depletion, but he cannot allow that to happen. Anger doesn't prosper.

One click of the machine, nothing but the sound of the internal mechanisms spinning the two tires drifted through the crisp autumn air, and leaving a racing heartbeat pounding in the male's ears. Julian readied himself for the pitch as he had for the previous two unsuccessful times, feeling as if he were watching the ball head towards him in slow motion. How strange is it that what he was seeing wasn't actually the ball, but Douglas Urie, the true source of his burning anger etched on the pristine white leather. Morrigan's father treated her as a disposable object unworthy of love, he's the reason why their relationship imploded. He tormented, abused, murdered in power's name. And as the ball came closer, Julian could see...Douglas Urie was laughing at him. At his pain, at Morrigan's agony, certainly at the paranoia in which the foundation of his faction was built upon. Knowing his daughter knew the price of the heavy crown and having no one to trust as a result.

So, Julian swung the baseball bat as hard as he could and as accurately as he could, expecting the satisfying reverberation he anticipated from the ball making contact with the wood, but it never came. The same hesitation swept through him again and left the ball instead whistling past his head before smacking the fence, watching it drop to the cement and slowly roll toward his feet with a dramatic fashion no one would believe had he told them. Julian could do absolutely nothing for a moment except stand in disbelieving silence as the sheer irony dawned on him. The former leader of Hedgestone, alive or dead, had won.

And that was enough to shatter him.

Why can't he just live in a world where he was not forced to give up everything? His happiness, his sanctity, his sanity, placing into question his morality at every turn? A traitor among liars who spent years lying to himself over the fact he knew a faction leader intimately and still found the pathetic desires crawling back to her begging for the torment to end. You don't continue returning when the woman you still loved so clearly chose solitude unless you were an extreme glutton for punishment. It was one thing Julian had that was truly his, their secret, but men throughout history were called fools for wanting what they can never have. Forbidden love tainted by tragedy and a faction steeped by turmoil.

A switch flipped on in the eldest Reese's head that he never dared touch before, an unseen wrath shrouded by a patient demeanor and personal everyday sacrifices, snapped in two. The moment he disregarded the public setting and the self-restraint holding together the cracked edges of who he was, it was finished. The man lifted the bat and suddenly sent it flying into the wire fence, releasing an agonizing roar that carried through the wilting trees surrounding the field. However, he did not stop there. Julian reared back, losing all sense of direction as he slammed the Louisville slugger against the fence over and over and over, ignoring the ear-splitting clanging as wood collided with metal. It was as if the outrage traveled along his arm and cascaded through the makeshift weapon, a metaphorical extension of the anguish pouring from his inner core. This...this was no longer a batting cage, it was his cage, imprisoning him to a dark fate and he couldn't breathe. He needed out and he needed an escape now.

Each time the baseball bat collided with the barrier, again and again, the piercing thoughts rattled against the dark-haired male's skull like a pinball machine. What would his life beyond the faction be if he left Hedgestone behind for good in search of levity, if he abandoned Morrigan and any failing pursuit not worth signing away his whole existence? He could take the offer Judas lay before him, cross the border, and never face the woman who held his heart in her hand ever again. What he would not give for the luxury of a new life, something different to renew all lost hope. Those are the saccharine dreams of the optimism. There is no escaping who he was or the choices he made, not even Judas Langley could play the savior.

Julian couldn't recall how many throws he swung, but by the moment that bat loosened from his grasp and clattered to the concrete, he directed one last assault against the enclosure with the palm of his hand. "Fuck!" Shouting explicitly, he turned around and created distance between him and the wall towering over on all four sides. His chest heaved, his arms ached, and his entire body screamed exhaustion. Shit, he was so fucking tired of being alone fighting a losing battle nobody would ever understand in their lifetime. Alone. Morrigan didn't need him when she owned a faction, Casey would rather stay with Judas than spend another minute with his own idiot brother who pined after his secret high school girlfriend that was seconds from shoving him out the nearest exit because her faction came first. His parents, loving as they might be, dismissed the truth concealed by niceties. Even they were blinded by the pedestal they threw him on.

Julian's gaze scanned the invisible destruction he caused around him, at least grateful he didn't smash the pitching machine. What would an average person walking by the batting cage come upon if they saw him now, a bad-tempered hothead with steam pouring from his ears or a plea for help that required ignorance when he wasn't their problem to solve? His curly locks were a disheveled mess and several spots on his tee shirt dripped with patches of sweat. He looked disastrous, drained of all emotion and spark, like a hurricane wreaked havoc on all that is Julian Reese.

He reached for his jacket, uncertain of where he would go from here. Not home, not with those who pretended to be his friends, and there is no way in hell he'd end up at Morrigan's door appearing like a walking calamity. He would run from this mess that he is, no, he would be running from the daylight. If he couldn't set himself free from the length of rope tethering him to his doom, if Judas' promise could not hold, then...Julian saw darkness in the distance.

There was only one place he could go.

#self para: daylight

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