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blueprint-han · 3 years

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ex.

↪ so many what if’s. who would give you those answers?

— where in you stumble into your ex at a friend’s wedding, and the subsequent conversation leads to new hope blooming in your relationship.

pairing: chan x reader

genre: ex au; angst with a fluffy ending.

⇥ warnings: themes/mentions of break up/make up, mentions of alcohol, please let me know if I miss a warning. please note that i, by no means condone any toxic relationships. this fic here with bang chan and Y/N is NOT an example of a toxic relationship or an implication of bang chan’s actions in real life. please take it as fiction.

word count: 3.3 K

type: one shot.

⇥ disclaimer: this fiction does not represent the activities of the real Bang Chan, nor is associated with JYPE in any form. Events are pure fiction. ♡

↯ note: I decided to merge your request with the prompt because it’s angst and guess who’s the queen of angst? You !! 😌 This was picked up from ex, as you can see and again your url ~vibes~ so uwu hope you enjoy it, this is my first time writing angst tho so please go easy on me. <3 Love you mom <333 ⇥ dawn.☀️

The dance hall’s fairly crowded when you take another shot of your martini, drowning in its essence as you make a desperate attempt to disconnect yourself from your vicinity. You wanna believe you’re drunk, though it’s not true in the slightest — you can still feel, hear, see everything around you clearly — the alcohol’s clearly not having its effect today. You wish, oh so dearly wish it did, because the man standing about two tables away from you really doesn’t deserve the attention you’re giving him right now.

The last thing you’d expected when you entered the hall to attend your friend’s wedding was to stumble right into the one man you’d been trying to avoid for the past two months. At that very moment, you cursed all the odds for making you face the man of your nightmares, the one who broke your heart.

Bang Chan.

Sure enough, just like when he’d dropped the news on you, all the butterflies in your stomach drop dead one by one, gloom and desolation taking over. The mere sight of him is enough to send you into a frenzy of confusion — you feel the flutter in your heart to know that he’s doing okay, but you can also feel that pit of sadness, anger and heartbreak mixed to wash over as one of the most conflicting feelings ever.

“O-oh, hi there, Y/N.” Chan had waved a hand and bowed down, but you shakily nodded your head, not bothering to give him any words of acknowledgement as you stumbled into the hall. How is it that you didn’t notice him until half the wedding was over? How could you forget that he was supposed to attend, because he was the bride’s friend alike?

Was it wrong that part of you still wished that you could be standing next to him, watching him as he introduced you to his friends, calling you “his girlfriend”?

You wondered what the look on Chan’s face would’ve been when you left his greeting hanging in the cold air like that. Was he broken on the inside too? Or did he simply not care? He’d been the one to end it, after all. He looks smart right now — adorning a luxurious black suit, his brownish hair slicked neatly to the side and parted. The delicate silver chain you’d given him on his birthday is oddly still on his neck — you promise yourself to not think about it much, because you know it’ll give you hope — and hope’s a dangerous feeling, at least for you.

When the music starts blaring through the speakers and the couple start dancing together, you sigh, straightening your posture from where you’re leaning against the shot table. Your friend has the prettiest smile plastered onto her face — it comes naturally to her, you figure, seeming as to how she’s married to the love of her life right now. They both seem lost — almost peaceful — as they stare into each other’s eyes. Soon, more and more couples join, until the whole hall is filled with everyone dancing on their heels, twirling and smiling and dancing gracefully. Everyone except you, of course.

You sigh, fixing the hem of your swan-white dress. Way to go for your mood to be ruined — all because you happened to stumble upon your ex boyfriend, and thoughts consumed you as a whole. Was it so wrong of you to wish that you could go back in time and change his decision? You’d moved on from this — you’d told yourself you’d moved on a month ago. You wiped him out of your memory — all the things that reminded you of him — but what if you’d only patched up the wound, not healed it in the slightest? What if the person who held the key to repair your broken heart was held by a person who you’d let go, and by all means, couldn’t reach out now?

So many what if’s. Who would give you those answers? He surely hadn’t, when all he did was just break it out to you over a meeting at the park that he’d fallen out of love with you.

You never understood what happened. It just started with the less frequent messages and meet ups, the excuse of always being busy, and that slowly morphed into him ignoring you for days, until one day he broke the news and ended it, on good terms. Or at least you thought so.

You sigh again, asking the bartender to lend you one bottle of the drink — which he does without question — before you walk over to the staircase that seems to lead to the terrace. Away from the risk of your eyes landing on him and your thoughts going all over the place again. If only you could walk away from the pit of emotions in your heart the same way. If only.

When you kick the almost rusted door open, the fresh blast of cold air that hits you makes you sigh in relief. You tuck several strands of hair neatly behind your ear, walking to the edge as you glance at the view. Leaning against the concrete, you let the lights coming from the night cityscape blur your vision, along with the faint, distant echoing of horns coming from the roads fill your ears. It’s a distraction, after all.

You pop open the cork of the bottle, letting the fizz bubble down before pressing your lips against the rim. One gulp, two, you then gaze up at the night sky. Rinse and repeat, until the whole bottle is almost finished. You ignore the void in your heart, filling it with the essence of alcohol and ignoring the feelings bubbling in it right now.

Chan was like a drug — so addicting and so hard to get rid of once you got into the habit of consuming it regularly. You wanted to reach out and hold onto those memories you shared with him — he was the first person where you let your heart do the talking, and all it took was a look at another person to change lanes, leave you alone in the dust of your crushed heart — only to come to the disappointing note that you’d lost those memories forever. They existed merely in a place you couldn’t reach, couldn’t see, but could only recall. It was pure torture to you, but you’d ignored it all for so long, certainly you could ignore it again.

“Need a refill?”

Your head snaps back in the direction of the voice. A familiar, one soothing voice that now brings pain to your heart, now threatens to bring back the wave of emotions you’d kept at bay.

Your eyes meet the hazel brown orbs, and not diverting from their strong, fierce gaze; you scoff, turning back around to stare off into the distance.

Chan frowns, tilting his chin as he tries to soothe the burn from your two reactions. He doesn’t back away though, because now he maybe understands what you felt like when it all fell apart, when he wrote your ending with a shaky hand.

He walks front to where you’re leaning against the concrete, silently drinking out of the glass he holds in his hand.

Should I say something? He thinks. He should, right? When you ended it, you did end on peaceful terms, even though your reaction felt like you were more affected by it. Even after three months, he still feels the warmth that flowed through him whenever he looks at you — you who clearly don’t want to speak to him. He feels crazy now, for wanting to let you go.

You hadn’t even bothered to curse at him that day — just looked at him with eyes that honestly pierced through his soul, and hurt him more than any of your words could’ve. But maybe that was what he deserved, right?

“Why did you come here?” You ask, swirling the almost empty bottle in your hand. Oddly enough, you don’t feel like walking away, feet frozen in position. You’d ended it on good terms, didn’t you? You’d promised to each other you’d be good friends.

“I noticed you were alone.” The man feels himself say.

“Didn’t you bring your girlfriend along? Isn’t she alone right now?” You counter, taking another sip of your drink. Again, the alcohol is having no effect on you. Why did your tolerance have to be so high when you needed it to be low?

“I-” He takes a deep breath, tilting his head to either side to relieve the tension in his neck. “Broke up with her. About three weeks ago.”

You only chuckle. Somehow, your feelings are strong when he’s away, but when the cause is right in front of you, somehow they fail to make an appearance.

“Did you come here so you could win me back?” You ask, straightening up as you avoid Chan’s firm gaze on you, and his face goes gloomier and gloomier with every statement you spew at him. But then again, who could blame you for being angry? You had every right to.

“No.” He shook his head, fixing his position so his shoulders are about an inch away from yours. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m alright.” You say, softening at the edges at his concerned tone. You don’t know why you’re listening to him and not going back into the hall, but your legs are still frozen in place, something in you, your heart, doesn’t let you move.

Why do you feel like it’s your first time meeting him all over again?

He’s your ex, a part of your life you’re supposed to forget. Instead, you’re here, reminiscing it with the very person who left you in the first place. The situation you’re bound in is so weird — you almost don’t know what to do — but nonetheless, you just stand there, ignoring the slight flutter in your heart — just like the first time again.

“How are you doing?” You give yourself the liberty to ask him that question — just to know how he’s doing. Just another way for you to answer your countless what if’s, another method to try and fill the void in your heart.

Chan sighs, straightening up himself before looking at you. “I missed you.”

At the simple admission, you soften around the edges some more. It was wrong, so wrong that you were giving him to permission to get into your heart again — but what if you never wanted him to leave in the first place?

Hope — the dangerous feeling — starts resonating through your chest. It’s the tiniest emotion, one you can’t quite sense, but still feel. You can feel yourself grow warm, feel his gaze burn into the side of your face as he awaits a reaction.

“I-I don’t know what to say to that.” You reply, tucking some of your hair behind your ear again, before curling it with your index finger. You don’t look into his eyes yet — you’re not so brave to do so — focusing your bored, almost sad gaze as you count all the lights flashing at you on a skyscraper. Anything to distract you from this feeling.

Chan notices your stare, and sighs again. He’s battling himself too, right now. Should I say it? He thinks.

“I-I’ll be honest and confess to you, okay?” Chan turns to face you properly, while you bite your lip, waiting for his next words. Oddly enough, you feel more nervous now than you felt that day when Chan ended it with you. It’s so weird to feel it all over again.

“I’ve missed you and… I truly regret what I did that day.” He runs his hands through his chocolate brown hair, which seems to look particularly soft today. It reminds you of when you’d casually back hug him when he was working, pecking the back of his neck as you’d comb your fingers through his hair.

“Chan, no.” You feel your voice crack, the sadness overflowing out of its cup, spreading to all your senses as you close your eyes, letting out a single tear.

“Y/N…” Chan places his hand on your shoulder. You don’t flinch.

“Y-You l-left me.” You feel your brain cloud over, having no control over yourself as the words start spilling out of your mouth, piercing Chan’s heart bit by bit. “Y-You l-left me when I thought you’d stay… And you left me alone.” You feel his thumb rub against the bare skin of your shoulder, and this time, you stare up, looking straight into his eyes.

“I loved you,” You stammer, inhaling deeply as you take note of Chan’s expression. Surprisingly, he’s crying too. The rims of his eyes are filled with tears, his whole face goes red as he tries not to violently sob. “I love you.” You correct yourself.

“But you left me. You left me when I thought all I had was you and - and, what? Three months later, you tell me you miss me? Is this because your girlfriend broke up with you? You wanna win me back?” You spew, slamming your hand against his chest as you shake in his arms.

He wordlessly pulls you into his embrace, and you don’t complain — you don’t know if it’s because of your brain being cloudy and your eyes being all itchy from crying, or if it was because you missed his hugs, but you feel yourself clutch onto the material of your shirt as you cry, cry and cry until you feel like your tears don’t remain.

“I’m so sorry…” Is all he can say, wrapping his arms around your shoulders as he tries to comfort you.

“I hate you, Chan. I hate you so much.”

Something in him shatters when he hears your words. He wordlessly mouths “Alright.” and doesn’t bother controlling his tears anymore, letting them flow down his cheeks and settle into your hair, not bothering to hold back the sounds of brokenness he makes either.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N.” He pulls away, holding your chin to force your gaze into his eyes. “I shouldn’t have done that to you, it was so wrong of me. I regret it now, so much.” He curls his lips inwards, and watching him cry is soul-crushing. You should be hating him for leaving you, screaming, crying, but you hate yourself for reaching up to rake through his hair, sliding your hand down to his soft cheek before gently swiping your thumb against it. Wiping off his tears.

“We’ve already forgiven each other, right? It’s okay.” You take deep breaths to calm yourself down. Leaving him behind seems hard enough, but seeing him cry in front of you seems impossible. Are you still in love with him?

“I’m still sorry.” He mutters softly, gazing into your eyes as he takes hold of the hand that rests on his cheek. “I was so horrible to not know that I had you beside me all along, and instead I turned my back at you and left you. It was so wrong of me.” he breaks into tears again, and this time, before you can pull him into a hug, he grabs both your hands in his own. Holding them in between each other.

Yep, you’re still in love with him.

You look at him, absorbing all his features, and suddenly you’re thrown back to the first time he ever asked you out. It seems all too familiar — all too real. You find yourself holding your breath once again, waiting for what he has to say. He rests his forehead against your grasped hands, sighing brokenly as he speaks up.

“I won’t ask you to accept me again, Y/N.” He says as a matter of fact. He understands that the things that happened may not allow you to let him into your heart again. “I won’t ask you to date me either, because I know what I did isn’t that simple to forgive.”

Chan feels so stupid now. You were there for him all the time, yet he left you for someone else. You were beside him to help him when he felt desolated, but somehow he became a cause for your desolation. It shocks, confuses him and makes him seethe in turmoil.

“But,” he begins, holding his breath. “I still want to try. I wanna try being the person I couldn’t be when I was with you. I-I wanna change and win you back, b-but…”

“But?” You ask mindlessly, totally overwhelmed and dazed out by his honest words, the newfound emotion thrums to your chest. It’s love, for sure. But it isn’t that special kind of love, at least not yet.

“But I wanna do that only if you let me. It’s your choice, Y/N.”

Your eyes widen as you try to grasp his words, noticing how his warm hands holding onto yours still, only grow warmer and tighter.

“I r-really love you Y/N, a lot. And… well, I know you may not be able to make this decision soon. But please, just give it a thought?”

You shake your head, a soft smile tugging at your lips as you look up into his eyes again. They’re red and puffy by now, but they’re still gorgeous, they still remind you of the time you’d gently kiss over his eyelids whenever he cried like that.

You roll your eyes to the back of your head in deep thought, before tucking your bottom lip under your teeth and nodding. “Okay.”

“Okay…?” He asks, hopeful. You can almost feel his nervousness in the way his palms sweat, but you simply smile.

“We won’t date yet.” You said. “But I’ll allow you into my heart one last time. Don’t break it.”

And at your acceptance, Chan beams, feeling more tears roll down his eyes as he pulls you into a hug. This time, you don’t spare any restraint, wrapping your arms around your waist as you press your cheek against his chest. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…” Chan keeps mumbling and repeating, to which you only shush him gently, telling him it’s okay and he doesn’t have to thank him.

He still does. You only smile to yourself, and for the first time in three months, you feel somewhat at peace. There’s a long way to go — you have to adapt to this relationship, let your heart join back bit by bit and build each other’s confidence again. But you’re certain you can do it together. This story deserved a happy ending, and you were going to give it one, no matter how hard you’d have to try.

“Hey guys!” You hear someone walk through the door, immediately parting away and clearing your throats.

“Yes?” The both of you say at the same time, tensing up and then laughing at each other. If Chan’s tears were crushing, Chan’s giggles were truly healing. The way his eyes would scrunch up into the cutest crescents and his dimples would make an appearance always made you want to peck his cheeks. Now wasn’t the time though.

“Dinner’s being served, so Y/F/N told you to come downstairs.” The person at the door says, immediately running downstairs, as if to not interrupt your moment any further.

“Alright.” You laugh, taking Chan’s hands in yours as you intertwine your nimble fingers with his long, slender ones. “Let’s go shall we?” You don’t bother picking up the alcohol bottles, because you’ll be coming back here with your friends later anyways — they can be tended to later.

“Of course,” Chan pulls you along with him, running to the door — both the ones that lead to the diner and the ones that signified your new start.

Curse at me all you want, as long as you let it all out, and we can go back to how we were.

*:･ﾟ✧ find the other fics here !

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generallypo · 4 years

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[ Constellation ’Director of the False Last Act’ is looking at you. ]

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dark academia!hsy, yeeee! the white coat is fantastic, but unlike kdj and yjh, she doesn’t really switch up the color scheme. no, her bum-aesthetic purple hoodie does not count. i think she’s super hot. i yell about how much i love her under the cut.

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yo han sooyoung is actually amazing, incredible, powerful, witty, drop-dead sexy... what makes her so irresistible? let me explain

1) yeah, kdj takes the kdj company to end of the scenarios, but please. how many times does he have to kill himself to get there? not to mention his intentional (and unintentional) kill count?

sure, he does the job, but damn is he kind of inefficient about it. say what you like about hsy’s methods or personality, but the 1863rd round far surpasses the 1864th in terms of the lives preserved while still managing to take the team to the end.

without the benefit of cheat-like knowledge, skills, and resurrections, hsy almost single-handedly orchestrates the events of the 1863rd round to a satisfying finale. kmw, problematic as he is, survives and becomes an admittedly better person, yjh finds a timeline where he can rest in peace, and the rest of the cast have their eyes set on the hopeful end of all scenarios. all this, while only being HALF of a person (hsy originally split off into two after misusing her avatar ability). do her actions lead to the happiest ending? no. but it’s the one that sacrifices the least and saves the most. for the greater good, in other words.

hsy may be an intrinsically selfish person, but unlike kdj, she has the ability to grasp the entire picture and avoid tunnel-visioning into a crappier, more convoluted and self-sacrificial solution. ironically, it ends up saving more lives. perks of being a talented writer, i guess.

and the 1864th hsy emerges as a leader in her own right as well. the epilogue arc shows her assuming roughly the same role as her 1863rd self in kdj’s absence: yjh breaks off from the main group (AND BECOMES A TERRORIST AKFDJDSLKSL HAHAHA) to assume a similarly antagonistic role to the remaining members of kdj company. as a result, she’s the most powerful lawful incarnation remaining, and once more the incarnations circle around her for direction.

2) independent, confident, competent (hot and kinda shameless about it). this woman has the most delightfully unrepentant attitude towards life -- how to defeat the man with the strongest defensive ability without dealing a single blow? summon a horde of your naked dancing clones to terrify his innocent sensibilities, and then cackle at his helplessness. the fact that her sponsor is literally the chuuni-est cringefest in the entire galaxy and she gives no fucks about him is just additional comedic gold. her undisguised disgust for what should otherwise be a highly respected/feared entity is a clear indicator of her supremely dominant position over everyone else, and i admire her consistent irreverence of everyone and everything.

hsy is the only character who can consistently bully kdj, brush off his deflections, and bully him again. 1863rd round hsy gives kdj about 50 migraines in the span of 5 minutes of conversation before confirming her superior wit. jhw comes close, but unfortunately, she actually respects the rat bastard. i wish i could mention yjh, but let’s be real: he -- and just about every existing version of him -- has been whipped for the guy for at least 250+ chapters now.

hsy, on the other hand, has no regard for anything except herself... man, i respect that so much. what a queen.

and i won’t lie! i didn’t like her in the first fifty or so chapters. plagiarism? homicide? kind-of-in-general-just-being-an-obstacle-to-kdj’s-plans? yeah, i almost fell into the trap of disliking her purely because she didn’t cave immediately in the grand scheme of kdj’s plotting -- thereby denying me the power rush that came with seeing kdj bulldoze his way through the puny attempts of small fry characters. she’s neither a friend nor a despicable foe, but rather someone who acts independently and in her own self-interest, WITH the ability to thwart major players if need be. aka, the one who frustrated kdj’s plans -- and me -- the most.

going by my previous isekai/power-fantasy trope experience, i figured she’d get pegged into the sexy-but-sassy harem candidate, or get killed off if that didn’t work out. in hindsight, i’m just pretty fucking dumb, but honestly, i can accept that with gratitude --

-- because in fact. the whole ‘she-gets-in-my-way-so-she-either-goes-into-the-harem-or-dies’ trope in light novels/webnovels and the like, is, frankly, misogynistic and boring as hell. i had some admittedly low expectations for ORV, which consequently blasted my ass to the moon and left me there sobbing for 42 years as i mourned my stupidity and paid my respects to its incredible ending and character development. hsy is a particular delight, especially in her meta awareness of these tropes -- blatantly stating she isn’t obligated to kdj for saving her life and declaring the damsel-in-distress cliche as ridiculous, for example.

and it really is, because suspension bridge effect aside, you’re not gonna want to bang a total shady stranger in the middle of the apocalypse. it’s the little statements of self-awareness, self-worth, and frankness that build up hsy’s charm. as ORV progresses, these little windows of her personality bloom as her presence takes stage center -- and then BAM! you really get to know how strong she is, how hugely capable of love she is, how subtly but wonderfully she expresses it, how she leads and protects those close to her, and how damn good she is at it. hsy is amazing. we stan an iconic queen -- no, black flameS EMPRESS. *kneeling*.

3) writes an entire EPIC, just to keep one lonely, broken fifteen-year-old alive. like. at that point in ORV, i knew. i knew. hsy is the fucking GOAT. seeing her spend the rest of her life on WOS, making sure it reaches completion because it’s the only thing that will sustain kdj until the advent of the scenarios... that hits too hard. inadvertently, it also damns the rest of the world to the terror and tragedy that the star stream brings.. but that’s the call she makes in order to save kdj’s life.

obviously, there’s no precise beginning to the timelines -- ORV is so neatly crafted in its cycle of writer, protagonist, and reader -- but i’d have to argue that hsy holds the greatest power in the trinity. creating the existence known as ‘yoo joonghyuk’ and granting life-changing hope to an otherwise forgotten boy.. is pretty powerful. yjh, for the most part, is a slave to the scenarios (until he breaks free in the 1863rd and 1864th rounds, in particular), while kdj (unwittingly) admits it himself: he’s truly the most powerless god in existence. i forget exactly where he mentions it, but it’s in response to lgy’s reverent commentary that, with all his knowledge and presumed confidence, kdj seems like the protagonist of story or a god to him. kdj’s inner monologue, of course, is appropriately self-deprecating and scarily accurate.

in a lot of ways, WOS -- and ORV itself, really -- is a love letter to readers. it’s a two-way connection, writer and reader, between someone who creates with all their passions and someone who consumes and responds with equally sincere feelings. Ways Of Survival -- the story of a man who defied death and grief and great powers far beyond his being -- is a fictional guide to surviving in a ruined world. but to a battered, bullied, and ostracized boy, it’s not just escapism, or wish fulfilment anymore. WOS is the map to navigating the hell of his reality. there’s a certain power in the right words being spoken -- or in this case, written -- at the right time, even if it’s only for the temporary burst of endorphins upon reading an especially delightful chapter. even if it’s forgotten the next day, you’ve managed to connect. you’ve touched another person’s heart. you made them think about questions they’ve never considered before; maybe, you made them smile.

what can i say but the honest truth? ORV, without a shadow of doubt, has most certainly reached me. i’m a goner for this story and its excellent characters -- long, long gone. something has changed, something that wasn’t there the previous day.

the mark has been made on the reader -- small as it is, it’s irrevocable. behold, in all of its little magnificence: the power of a writer, and their story.

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #omniscient reader #orv #han sooyoung #dark acadamia aesthetic #fanart #long ass emotional screeching #wow these are the nights i wish i had someone to yell about orv with #otherwise i stay up at ass-o-clock uncontrollably writing and groaning and writing #anyways hsy is best girl and sexy as fuck

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wissbby · 4 years

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"The hospital is a magical place.” - Akaashi Keiji

A couple of weeks ago I wasn’t doing great. I felt disconnected from my body and was mentally exhausted which brought me to one of my lowest points in life. The love of my life, also known as @dreamykou, wrote me a lovely motivational description which brought me back to my senses. Since writing is almost always my way out, I decided to turn her words into this little fiction. Thank you, my love, for giving me the strength to pull through. I’ll literally never forget that message. I didn’t proof read it so I’m sorry if there are mistakes in here!

Date: the fifth of July, 2020 Warnings: fluff Word count: 2.4K

“Hi, Yuna.” Akaashi felt the white walls coming towards him, swallowing him whole. Even after coming here frequently, he never got used to the strong smell of chemicals. In a place like this, hygiene was the number one priority. Yet, he couldn’t get used to the smell.

“Oh,” Yuna smiled when she saw the person who the voice belonged to. “Hello there, Akaashi.” She immediately noticed the way he switched from breathing through his nose to breathing from his mouth. The fact her colleague’s spouse hated the smell of the hospital was known by the whole division.

“Is Y/n here?” The question was directed at Yuna, but Akaashi’s eyes were looking into the different corridors in the hope of seeing your angelic face again.

He had brought you flowers.

The previous night wasn’t as great as Akaashi hoped. You had told him about this surgery months ago. It was a dangerous one and there was a slim chance of the boy getting out of the operation room alive.

He knew you had your heart in the right place. That’s why you were sulking all night about the little boy. You couldn’t sleep and Akaashi grew worried.

“You need sleep to function tomorrow, love.” You were sitting at the kitchen table, a book in front of you with a half-filled mug with coffee beside it.

“I know, I just can’t fall asleep. I could read about techniques to use tomo-“ Before you could read on about the different doctors who had performed the same surgery, a hand grabbed your wrist.

“No,” Akaashi had whispered out, stern but caring.

“Akaashi, do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be tomorrow? The chance of the kid dying in front of my eyes is bigger than him walking out alive.” Most of the time, you and Akaashi were on the same page about different topics. Akaashi was one of the few people with great understanding and patience. However, this was different. For the first time in years, there was understanding but no support for your choices.

“I know, love. That doesn’t change the fact you need sleep to function.” Somehow he finally managed to get your body into bed, at the very least. Nevertheless, you could not sink into the soft mattress, the stress and fear stuck to you.

With a sigh, Akaashi sat up and pulled you into his arms. You leaned against him, eyes drooped and covered by a thin layer of glossy tears.

"I'm scared, Akaashi," you confessed. Years into the relationship, it was still as surprising as ever if you would show your emotions to him. He always knew you could never easily show your emotions, let alone your weaknesses.

“I know you are.”

“What if I let him die? I don’t want him to die. He is young and has a whole life in front of him. I don’t want to be the one taking that away from him.” The words hit the man hard. He never expected you to blame yourself for something that would happen beyond your power.

“You’ll never be the one taking his life away. You’re there to help the kid. And yes, the chances are slim. However, that doesn’t change the fact you’re not and will never be the one who killed him if he actually does die. In fact, you’ll help him, even if he dies. You gave him and his family hope, a second chance of living if it all works out.”

Akaashi wanted to promise you that it was going to be just fine.

But he couldn’t. Because he couldn’t promise everything would be “just fine”.

If Akaashi promised you something, he would always fulfill his promise.

“Are those beautiful flowers for your beloved Y/n?” a light chuckle flew into the air.

“Ah,” Akaashi laughed, hand automatically crawling to the back of his neck to scratch it. “She just had a rough night, that’s all. I wanted to give her these flowers to tell her she has done something amazing, no matter the outcome.”

“That’s adorable. You guys literally make me want to get my own spouse and gag at the same time.”

“I guess you want to know where she is? Room 143, she was done but told me she went and stayed for a bit longer.” Yuna knew what the outcome of the surgery was and she couldn’t suppress the smirk that crawled up her face.

However, Akaashi being Akaashi, didn’t question it any further.

So, with the bouquet of flowers in his hand and sweat collectively coming together in the palm of his hands, he wandered through the empty, white corridors.

⇜ “How do you like the smell of a hospital?” Akaashi’s eyebrows were knitted together, a questionable look taking over his features.

“I don’t know, I just do.” You chuckled lightly, swinging your arms back and forth, tilting your head slightly back to bask into the fresh ray of sunshine.

“The fact that isn’t even the weirdest thing about you scares me.”

“Oh, what is the weirdest thing about me, Keiji?” At the beginning of your relationship, Akaashi was very private. He kept a lot to himself and didn't share much. Later, he began to see that a relationship had to come from two sides. Not long after, you got to see all sides of your spouse.

“You told me you got a calm feeling every time you walk through the hospital. It freaks me out.” You would lie if you said you weren’t surprised by hearing him recall that. It had been a while back since you’d stated that. It only showed how much your love actually paid attention.

“What’s so scary about that?”

“I don’t know, Y/n. Maybe because hospitals are filled with death, blood and fatality.” In Akaashi's eyes, his statement seemed self-evident. Every day dozens of people died in the building and the white walls became terrifying as the night approached and no one walked through the corridors except for some of the staff.

“That indeed is true. However, hospitals are also filled with hope, life, love, laughter and stories. A hospital is a magical place, you just need to see it.” ⇝

“One thirty-nine, one forty, one forty-one, one forty-two.. one forty-three!” Akaashi whispered as his eyes passed the tiny signs with the numbers carved in them.

As he got closer to the small room, he noticed the door was left open just enough to fit half a body.

Room 143. Akaashi knew exactly whose room it was.

He was ready to prepare himself mentally for one of your breakdowns. He knew how much you cared for the little boy that you got assigned and was not ready to lose in the OR.

To confirm his expectation, he peeked into the room, heart siphoning an immense amount of blood through his veins.

When he didn’t see the scene that he had created in his head in front of him, he let out a breathe he didn’t know he was holding onto.

You were kneeled beside the hospital bed with the little kid laying underneath layers and layers of blankets. The boy’s nostrils flared, eyebrows high and rounded, eyes shot and a mouth wide open while a fit of laughter slipped right out.

Akaashi didn’t miss the way a warm smile crept up your lips and how the mother of the child held onto the father a little tighter while tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes.

And that’s when Akaashi realised what you meant. Hospitals could indeed be a magical place.

His eyes noticed your hand disappearing into the pocket of your white doctor’s coat. Your thumb and index finger had captured a white stick to present it to the little boy who had opened his eyes in the meantime.

“You’re actually not supposed to eat sweets,” you snickered. “But because you are my favourite, I’ll let it slide this one time!” With a playful smile painting your lips, you handed the red lollipop to your patient.

The boy had twinkling eyes and a tongue sweeping across his lips. He gratefully wrapped his tiny hand around the white stick.

It was late and time to end your twenty-eight-hour shift. You replaced the playful smile with a gentle and heart-warming one.

“Akaashi-sensei!” Once the kid noticed you were about to leave, he couldn’t help but crave one more thing. “Thank you.”

It was something simple, something everyone would expect to hear after helping another.

But this was different.

You had met him for the first time eight months ago. He was hard to get to talk because of his shyness. So, to say the least, a “thank you” coming from his mouth and not his parents’ was surprising.

Your smile grew bigger to the point it started to hurt. Ruffling his soft, brown locks was the very first time he didn’t shy away from your touch.

“You did great, Izumi-kun,” you complimented him. “Now, get some rest and save your lollipop for tomorrow. But don’t show my colleagues; you don’t want me to get in trouble, right?” Izumi shook his head violently after processing the last sentence. Chuckling, you turned to the parents that bowed forty-five degrees.

“Thank you so much for your help. We will forever be grateful for your work.”

You never liked the way people looked up to you for doing something that was simply your job.

Bowing just as respectfully, you spoke up, “It was no problem. I’m just as happy the operation went well as you are.” Making eye contact with two pair of eyes that stared right back at you with multiple emotions held inside of them, you felt yourself getting warm.

“I’ll be back in two days. The nurses will check up on him and make sure everything is going as planned during the time that I’m gone. If there’s anything I can do for you or Izumi-kun, I’m always there to answer your questions.”

Just as you were about to leave, a hand wrapped around your wrist. The source tried to pull you into its direction but there was no intensity to get you where he wanted.

With raised brows and wide eyes, you felt how two arms were wrapped around you securely. Looking down, you saw Izumi’s arms, that were full of needles that fed him the insulins he needed, wrapped around your waist.

The warmth of the boy swallowed you whole. And for the first time since twenty-eight hours, you felt a wave of relief washing over you.

A thin layer of salty tears stung your eyes as you returned the warmth.

It took the both of you a little bit to let go of one another.

“Have a good night, Izumi-kun.” With those words and a heart-warming smile plastered on your face, you left the room, eyes fixated on the white shoes that belonged to the hospital.

You stopped dead in your tracks after walking a bit further away from room 143. Everything sunk in deep and you finally had a moment to let your mind race and take its time to bring itself to ease by progressing everything that happened from the restless night to the moment you gave Izumi a lollipop.

Pushing your body against the white wall behind you and sliding down against it, gave you the peace you craved.

Quiet moments like these always hit the hardest. And it wasn’t much different today.

The tears started flowing over the edge of your bottom eyelid, all the stress, frustration and relief washing away with the salty droplets. The walls, the walls that hold you up, that make you strong in front of your patients collapsed right then and there. Second by second, you see them falling, the bricks smashing against the ground and dividing into millions of pieces right in front of you.

Salty drops travel along your cheeks, falling from your chin and entering the fabric of your white doctor’s coat. It was then that you realised there was an iota of blood on it. The bloodstain got watered down by the tears and expanded in its size, the dark red colour turning into a lighter shade.

“My love,” you heard your lover’s voice call out. Rubbing the salty fluid out of your eyes, you looked up to see if you weren’t hallucinating things due to being sleep deprived.

But you weren’t hallucinating, Akaashi really stood there.

You quickly stood up, bewildered by his sudden appearance.

“What are you doing here?” Your eyes started watering again after seeing his eyes filled with warmth, worry and relief.

Akaashi took a few steps forward, handing you the bouquet he had bought you.

“They are Gladioli. In Rome, gladioli were associated with gladiators. Some say that gladiators wore gladiolus corms around their necks during battles to help them win and protect them from death. Because of their association with gladiators, the gladiolus flower meaning is strength and integrity,” Akaashi rambled, nothing more than anxiety and love being projected into his irises.

He loved you so much, it hurt.

“You’ve been so strong and I’m so proud of you. You’re always there for everyone and ready to help. That’s one of the million reasons I love you.” Akaashi saw your emphasised pockets, plaintive, painful eyebrows, relaxed jaw, eyes that could barely stay open and a slightly drooped head. Despite your tired expression, he could feel the love radiating from you.

“Keiji,” you whispered out, tears now uncontrollably streaming down your face. You buried your face in the bouquet, shoulders shaking and sobs decorating the silence in the white corridors.

In next to no time, you felt two strong arms wrapping themselves around your waist. Akaashi’s heart shattered into pieces when he felt your body giving up on you, the exhaustion finally catching up on you.

“Let’s go home, yeah?” Even though it was said like a question, it was nothing more than a warning demand, a reminder to show you he cared.

“Yes, yes please.”

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leupagus · 5 years

Photo

dynamicsymmetry: One of my primary reasons for shipping some of the stuff I do is because OH GOD DO NOT PREFER, and it's my own reaction that I want to explore, what is so uncomfortable about it. Like, Spike and Buffy? Good god can you get any more toxic in s6

hasturpriestess: ship culture went wrong when people collectively decided that your ships reflect what you, personally, want out of a relationship, rather than what dynamics you find interesting in the context of the media and characters.

[twitter thread:]

dynamicsymmetry: And yet that relationship is fascinating to me. I don't want it, and it doesn't even vaguely resemble the relationship I have. If I did have a relationship like that I would be doing everything possible to leave it.

But the dynamics of it are so interesting.

dynamicsymmetry: This attitude toward shipping expands outward into a general theory of the case regarding fiction as a whole, which is that you cannot ever explore Bad Things, and if you must, you have to include a gigantic disclaimer on every page about how THIS IS A BAD THING

dynamicsymmetry: Think about how much fiction is no longer acceptable under the terms of that theory. Think about how many tremendously important works are beyond the pale.

This is some fucked up shit.

dynamicsymmetry: There are a number of reasons why I'm very insistent on people not dismissing this movement in fandom as "only" fandom. It isn't going to stay confined to fandom. It's a worldview, and it's a poisonous and dangerous one.

dynamicsymmetry: It places harsh, radical restrictions on what we're allowed to write about and how we're allowed to write about it, and it cloaks itself in the language of moral authority, as well as appropriating social justice discourse.

dynamicsymmetry: And it doesn't look at works it finds morally unacceptable with a genuinely critical eye. I mean, of course it doesn't: moral panickers never do. That's part of their MO. Their first principles require the total rejection of nuance.

What other ideological movements does this sound like?

dynamicsymmetry: I don't know what size a percentage antishippers/antis make up in fandom. I suspect they're a very loud minority. That's often how these things go. However.

dynamicsymmetry: They appear to be primarily seeded in the incoming generation of fandom, which is a problem. They teach this ideology to the fans coming after them. Who teach other fans.

Fandom already has a big problem with communicating communal history.

dynamicsymmetry: They hate AO3 because AO3 is, as far as they're concerned, primarily a haven for horrible nasty immoral people writing about disgusting immoral things, but also because they have no idea what AO3 is about or why it exists. These people don't read Fanlore.

dynamicsymmetry: (The fact that so many of them still use http://fanfic.net despite it being outrageously hostile to fandom for most of its history as well as being hideously ugly and astonishingly poorly designed tells me so much)

dynamicsymmetry: And if you're making space for one kind of transgression, guess what: you kind of have to make space for a bunch of other kinds.

Which isn't to say all, or that some kinds can't be called out. Racism is not acceptable, for example. It should be called out.

dynamicsymmetry: But there's also all the difference in the world between saying "this is unacceptable and here's why and there's no place for it in this space" and "YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON FOR WRITING THIS AT ALL, INSERT SUICIDE BAITING HERE"

Which is literally what they do.

dynamicsymmetry: "You can't post this here, it's harmful to people in our community, you need to go somewhere else with it" =/= "IF YOU WRITE THIS EVER YOU SHOULD FUCKING DIE"

Again, they literally do this. This is their position.

dynamicsymmetry: Talking about why certain things are potentially harmful and maybe shouldn't be tolerated, or should at least be closely scrutinized, is not the same thing as condemning the disgusting person who wrote it and launching a harassment campaign.

dynamicsymmetry: There's no space for *why* this person wrote what they did. There's no allowance for any examination of what the work is actually doing. If it has X in it, it's disgusting and the person who made it should stop or die.

dynamicsymmetry: If they do allow that space on any basis, they want hard evidence that you're working through some kind of trauma, complete with witnessed legal statements from people who can attest to the truth of your claim.

dynamicsymmetry: And mostly they don't allow that at all. You can't create works about X. Ever, under any circumstances. Everything must be pure and wholesome and inoffensive, and they get to decide what those words mean.

dynamicsymmetry: Because *you are only allowed to write/create about completely desirable things*. Because there is no other way to create. No other form of creation is possible. It's not that they think you *should* only create stuff you want, it's that they think anything else *is impossible*.

dynamicsymmetry: Again, this isn't going to stay confined to fandom. This is an ideology. This is weltanshauung. This is a notion of what is acceptable and what is not.

And really, do we want *anyone* in fandom who thinks suicide baiting is appropriate behavior?

dynamicsymmetry: These people need to be pushed back against, and called out, and kicked out of fandom spaces. That doesn't mean harassing them, it doesn't mean adopting their tactics, but there can't be any place for them in a healthy community. If they behave, they can come back.

dynamicsymmetry: And when people are being abused and harassed and hounded by them, those people need to be supported and protected on every level. This has to be a team effort, because it's about protecting what's made us strong.

dynamicsymmetry: And it's about protecting our stories and our art. It's about protecting the very theory of the case, as I said. That it's possible to write about disturbing things. That it's possible to write about relationships we do not want or think are good.

dynamicsymmetry: That's the core of the argument: not that this should be *allowed*, but that *it is possible*. You have to start from there, because they don't accept or understand or believe that.

dynamicsymmetry: Whew, this became a thread. Sorry, I just have a hell of a lot of feelings about this as someone who likes to write morally transgressive things (and also stuff that is frankly fine but they've decided isn't) and has been targeted for it.

#posting this thread here because so much of what they talk about here is what I've experienced in SC fandom #and fandom in general more recently #this idea that if it's not what you want in real life then it shouldn't be written #is a deeply strange one considering fandom's history #and I think this general contempt for and distrust of that same history from younger/newer fans is part of the problem #there are people in SC fandom telling my friend to kill herself!#like HOW do you get to that point???

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tiaragqueen · 5 years

Note

a yandere sub jimin pls? its all i want 😔 really gentle smut if that’s possible

Off The Deep End

✂ Pairing: Yandere! Park Jimin x Reader

✂ Word Count: 1,5k

✂ Trigger Warning: Negative thoughts, mention of suicide, self-deprecation, swear words

✂ This story is fictional and for amusement only. I don’t believe any of the members would do this in real life. As always, thank you for reading and I hope you have a good day!

Donot re-upload my writing to another website or use it without mypermission.

***

Like Salem the Cat said: “And let’s give a big warm welcome to sadness.” So, here’s my poor attempt at being angsty.

If you like mywriting, please support me on ko-fi!

“The way I act don’t seem like me. I’m not on top like I used to be. I’ll give in when I know I should be strong. I still give in even though I know it’s wrong, know it’s wrong.” Guess I’m Dumb [Glen Campbell]

“Ugly.”

“Horrible.”

“Fat.”

“Pathetic.”

“Cry-baby.”

The mirror reflected Jimin’s shivering figure as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the persistent voices. They reverberated around the room, while in reality they only existed within his head. Jimin whimpered when they began to mock his pathetic attempt to counter them with positive thoughts. Their volumes increased as they kept jeering and bringing up his past insecurities. The insecurities that he had buried deep in the crevices of his brain.

“Do you think she loves you? What a fucking joke.”

“Look at you. Crying like a snotty baby you are.”

“I bet she’s only dating you because of a damn pity.”

“What a weakling. You don’t deserve to be near her in the first place, let alone dating her.”

Jimin wasn’t sure how it happened. One day, he went out to buy a present for your birthday, when he suddenly became uncertain with his choice. He wasn’t sure what you’d like, even though you had repeatedly reassured him that you wouldn’t mind anything he bought. Regardless if it was a mere snack or simple shirt.

But Jimin was a perfectionist. Everything had to proceed smoothly, otherwise he would go crazy. He only wanted the best for you, and he always treated you like a queen you were. Therefore, he refused to buy anything that wasn’t up to your taste. He didn’t want you to fake a smile at him as you received his poor excuse of a gift. He wanted you to leap in joy and, possibly, cry from happiness. He wanted you to hug him and express how lucky you were to have such a perfect boyfriend in your life.

In the end, you got a beautiful silver necklace with his initial. It wasn’t really expensive – something that you didn’t care much considering that you’d still accept anything he gave you – and beamed at him. However, he had mistaken your act of gratitude as one of those ‘fake smile that people only do when they receive something that they don’t like, but feel obligated to do so’. And from that day onwards, those voices from the past had begun to haunt him again.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, huh?”

“She deserves better.”

“You should rot in a gutter instead. Better yet, you should kill yourself right now. It’ll ease her burden.”

“Nobody wants you.”

“Unloved.”

Jimin gripped his head with both hands as he gritted his teeth. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.” he muttered, desperately praying for them to just leave him alone.

“You’re just robbing her from her happiness, you know?”

“There are a lot of men in this world that want her. Don’t be so fucking greedy. They’re more interesting than a weakling like you!”

“Stop being delusional and break up already!”

“It’s your fate to die alone. Just accept it and move on like you’re supposed to.”

“You are, and will always be, a lonely man.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” he yelled at nothing in particular, the loud sound echoing in the otherwise quiet apartment.

Jimin collapsed on to the floor with tears streamed down his flushing cheeks like a small, seemingly never-ending, waterfall. He sobbed against his palms, chest heaving in each inhale he took. In his meltdown, he failed to notice the thundering footfalls that rushed into the room. He couldn’t hear anything, except the sound of his labored breaths and a constant coo.

A pair of arms wrapped around his trembling body and brought him close to someone’s chest. The warmth of a loving hug faltered his cry slightly as he buried himself deeper into the person, seeking the comfort he’d desired. Delicate fingers stroked his cheeks, wiping away any trace of tears that glistened on the reddened skin.

“Shush, it’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” you murmured in his ear, patting his shuddering back. You patiently listened to his blubber and kissed the blond locks.

“Disgusting.”

“You can’t even deal with your own problems and have to drag her into these? You truly are pitiful.”

“So now you want her attention, huh?”

“Once an attention seeker, always an attention seeker.”

“[Name]…” he choked on his sob.

“You’re such a burden, you know that?”

“Am I…” Jimin inhaled shakily, blinking away the tears that stung his pupils. “Am I a burden to you?”

“Hell, yeah!”

You frowned, the corner of your lips curled downwards. “Of course not, Jimin. Whatever made you think that way?” you answered, feeling both concerned and confused with his sudden question.

Since when did he start considering himself like this? And most of all, why did you find out now? To think that you’d finally gotten to know him better, and worked on easing his insecurities. It seemed that the ‘voices’ had only given him a respite before they returned, strong enough to break him down. You could count on one hand the times where he cried, but never this loud and until he had to yell at himself.

“They… they said I’m a burden to you, and that I should just kill myself to ease your burden.”

You unconsciously gripped his petite body as you ground your teeth in silent indignation. “Well,” you huffed, trying to form the right words so he wouldn’t end up misunderstanding you. “You’re not a burden to me, okay? You’re not, and will never be. And no, I won’t let you kill yourself. You’re too precious for me, you know that? Life would be meaningless without you.”

“She’s lying. She only said that to make you feel better. She didn’t say it because she loved you or something. Don’t get your hopes too high.”

“Bet she’s secretly tired from comforting you all the time.”

“Life would be meaningless without you? Ridiculous!”

“Yeah, you’re too precious alright. For a moment, that is.”

“Do you mean that, [Name]?” he asked softly, hanging his head down as if he was a criminal being caught red-handed.

You smiled and caressed his jaw. “Of course, I do. I’ve never lied, haven’t I?”

Jimin mustered a weary smile and looked up through his wet eyelashes, observing your serene face. You were crooning his favorite song, although normally you were too shy to even him in front of him. There was a certain anxiety and fear that came from performing before a professional singer, knowing that your skill was still far from theirs. You knew that Jimin would never judge your voice, no matter how bad and off-tune it sounded, because he himself didn’t have much confidence in his own voice. Still, he had and was still trained in singing. While you? The furthest thing you could do was belting out the ‘la la la’ part from his songs.

“Look at her. She’s a goddess, and you’re just a dirty little peasant. You’re staining her beauty.”

“[Name],” Jimin sighed when he heard you hum in response. “I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“I’m scared that you…” Another tears prickled his bloodshot eyes as he tried to even his breathing. “That you would leave me someday. I’m scared that you would stop loving me like you used to. I-I know I’m a cry-baby, a weakling, and an attention seeker, but I love you. I truly do, with all my heart. I… I don’t think I can live without you. So, please. Don’t leave me, [Name]. Don’t abandon me. I need you, so much I can go crazy.”

There was a short period of silence that sent his heart into a thumping disarray. Maybe he shouldn’t say that. He had been coming on too strong to you – what with all the crying and sobbing – and you clearly hadn’t been prepared for that. He had scared you, and now he had to deal with the consequences. Jimin could only hoped that you didn’t choose to break up with him, because he wouldn’t know what to do if such scenario arise.

You exhaled; the act only served to increase his anxiety even more. “Jimin,” you spoke up, breaking the tension between you.

Gulping, Jimin prepped himself up for the upcoming punishment or whatever decision you’d bestow upon him.

“I know that I’m not really good at expressing my feelings but…” you slowly unbuttoned the white shirt that didn’t cover his chest very well and glanced up. “I want to show you just how much I love you.”

Jimin’s pupils dilated at the lust and affection that reflected on your half-lidded eyes. That was certainly unexpected. He had thought that you were upset by his statement and prepared to leave him. But, as always, you never failed to surprise him.

Pushing him down slowly, indifferent to the coldness of the floor that crept like vines around his bare upper body, Jimin watched you open your own shirt with a shy yet gentle smile.

“Tonight is all about you, baby.”

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forestwater87 · 4 years

Text

Cutting Myself on all this Edge

This post has no reason to exist, except that I keep bothering my friends with literally dozens of messages making fun of this and I need a place to keep it all.

What is “this”? Oh, just some people having some Fucking Strong Opinions about how Harry Potter is the Pied Piper (they use that comparison multiple times. It gets old fast) leading our children into the End Times with its pro-illuminati Satan-worshiping witchcraft lessons. You know, the usual.

And no, this isn’t a battle of Forest vs. the Crazy Christians; I’m like 94% sure I’m not working through any sort of religious trauma, partly because I never went deep into this kind of mentality but mostly because I’m just delighted by The Cutting Edge, a website for a very specific type of Christian (no, not you, Catholics. You’re specifically not invited to the Cutting Edge club because you worship demons) interested in the New World Order, the evils of public schools, and Satan’s favorite color.

No, really.

Satan’s favorite color is green. They don’t . . . really explain why.

This site still exists and is the best thing I’ve ever seen. Hours of fun for the whole family. I mean, look at their logo:

And look at their illustration that goes along with their particular Harry Potter series:

Are you not entertained?!

I cannot stop reading these amazing essays -- which delve surprisingly deep into Potter lore, considering they say that there is no sufficient reason for a Christian to ever read a single page of these books -- and I can’t keep harassing my friends with thousands of notifications, so here we are.

Starting small, let’s read the book review for Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s/Philosopher’s Stone. Or, as they prefer to call it:

This book chronicles Harry's first year at the Hogwart's School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. Prepare to be shocked for the bold, blatant, and bodacious raw Satanism that underlines this story! Since "proper"Drug Use is essential in opening the centres of vision and achieving higher consciousness, we should not be surprised that First-Year students learn Drug Use, Drug creation, in a way that makes Drug use seem glorious! You will be shocked to see '666 ' in the story line, and symbols of Antichrist receiving a "fatal wound"!

That’s the entire subtitle. That’s just how they roll on

THE CUTTING EDGE

Part 1: The . . . Plot? I Guess?

This story introduces us to Harry Potter, an orphaned boy sent to live with his "horrible" Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and their fat, obnoxious son, Dudley.

I feel very comfortable with the fact that Cutting Edge has chosen to put scare quotes around the word “horrible,” like that’s up for debate. Combined with the very normal and sane opinions expressed elsewhere on the site, this really bodes well for their ideas about parenting and childcare in general.

all through this book, any non-witch folk -- like Vernon and Petunia -- are depicting in disgusting language.

Typo is theirs, as is the apparent offense they take to the fictional depiction of people who are very much not real. While there hasn’t been any exciting formatting going on yet in this essay, I will replicate it as much as possible, and any changes made will be clearly indicated through square brackets and ellipses.

Non-witch people are known as Muggles , and they are depicting as being "dumber than a box of rocks", of being physically obscene, and of living the most boring, unimaginative lives possible.

I was going to argue that this isn’t true, but I suppose we don’t really meet any cool Muggles in the first book. I guess I have to give them this, but I don’t feel good about it.

Witches, on the other hand, are depicted as being very smart, very "with it", of being physically normal, and of living wonderfully exciting lives

It bears repeating:

a flashback scene to the time 10 years earlier when Harry's Mom and Dad were psychically murdered by evil Lord Voldemort

Okay. Now I’m no Potterologist, and so I’m hoping any true believers will correct me if I misinterpret the holy texts,* but I don’t think Harry’s parents were psychically murdered by anyone. I’m pretty sure they were quite literally, physically made dead. Just because it’s a beam of magic doesn’t mean it’s not physical anymore, does it? Voldy didn’t Professor-X Harry’s parents and they died of three D10 psychic damage or anything; he just fucking killed them with a wizard gun. Am I wrong here?

*By which I obviously mean Harry Potter. It teaches children how to become Satanists; we’re clearly dealing with a book of immense spiritual relevance.

Skipping a little bit of plot summary, which is a combination of, well, summary of the plot, although Cutting Edge is determined to get Hogwarts’ name wrong, and a little bit of baffling End-Times(?) nonsense thrown in for funsies --

Of course, a Christian would be immediately alerted to this turn of events [in which Harry defeats Voldemort and is scarred] because soon a supernaturally powerful global leader will demand everyone on earth take some sort of a mark in exactly this place on the body.

What?

-- and there’s some weird formatting things going on that I think are supposed to imply something sinister but really just come off as goofy:

They have Harry on a boat headed for nowhere and they had every intention of keeping Harry from ever attending Hogwarts School. However, Harry receives supernatural assistance.

(It’s not letting me do colors on desktop, which is stupid, but that “supernatural” is supposed to be both bold and red)

There’s a long description about the difference between the Real and Fantasy worlds, which apparently Satanists try to live in both of (and so does Harry, making him also a Satanist. This is actually one of the less-stupid arguments Cutting Edge has for Harry’s Satanism, so just go with it) that’s honestly more boring than funny so I’m skipping it. Then we get to a much more fun section: why Rowling’s descriptions of Muggles are . . . teaching children to hate Jesus?

Part 2: Rowling Hates Muggles

Rowling consistently depicts people who do not practice Witchcraft in most obnoxious terms. They are depicted as being really, really dumb, boring, and living a life not worth living . We share these examples, below, with you so you can appreciate the truth of this statement. Uncle Vernon was also the only Muggle quoted in the book as being really opposed to Witchcraft; therefore, when readers see how stupid, ugly, and boring Vernon is, they get the idea that all people who are opposed to Witchcraft must be as stupid, ugly, and boring as Vernon is.

... Are all people opposed to Witchcraft cowardly bullies?

I mean, you are the one going after a children’s book for daring to entertain children, so if the shoe fits . . .

"Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang ... Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader." [p. 31] How do you know your own child does not think of you in these terms? After all, you are a non-magical Muggle.

I actually can’t complain, because this is just accurate. I 100% hate my parents and think they’re stupid because they’re not literally witches/wizards. Our relationship has never fully recovered.

"Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on." [p. 47] Remember Adolf Hitler, the most famous Black Magick wizard in modern history? He depicted Jews as Rats in his Propaganda Machinery, convincing the Germans they should extermination the "vermin".

GODWIN’S LAW HAS LANDED!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND EVERYTHING OUTSIDE OR IN-BETWEEN, WE HAVE OFFICIALLY COMPARED HARRY POTTER TO HITLER!

We find it highly interesting that, later in the book, when the Evil Lord Voldemort is supposedly killing the unicorn in the Forbidden Forest, the color of the blood of the unicorn is silver!

Okay, but like . . . why? I mean, it immediately follows a description of the Bloody Baron, who is depicted with silvery blood because he’s, like, a ghost, but I’m not sure what that has to do with unicorns or with Satan. Are unicorns associated with Satan? Is silver associated with Satan?

Is everything Satan? Am I Satan?

There’s a lot of rage at a gentleman named Chuck Colson throughout this section, who apparently made the grave error of telling parents it was okay for their children to read Harry Potter because it doesn’t involve contact with the supernatural. And I’ll admit, that seems like a pretty bad defense of the books, because if you define “supernatural” as ghosts, poltergeists, or whatever the hell Voldemort is, then there is absolutely a metric buttload of supernatural stuff in here.

Arguably, a better defense of why it’s okay for children to read these children’s books is that they are books made for children, but YMMV on that one. Probably depends on whether or not you think children are sitting in the giant metaphorical (or literal? Not sure Cutting Edge gets metaphors) lap of the Antichrist every time they pick up the books.

(A visual reminder.)

Part 3: Basically Part 2, But This Time There Are Colors

The next section is on colors, which are very important to Cutting Edge. As linked back in the very beginning of this post, there is an entire essay devoted to the demonic colors used in the Harry Potter books, but we get just a taste of it here:

Rowling makes use of vivid colors in her story line. Some of these colors are consistent with the colors preferred by Satan and his followers in the Occult. Rowling's use of such vivid colors also enables her to paint the Fantasy Reality of Witchcraft as THE most exciting place to live. Wizard of Oz uses the same technique: when Dorothy is in her real world in Kansas, the color is black and white, but when she steps into her Fantasy Reality, the scene explodes in the most wonderful color.

Interesting interpretation. An alternative view is that Rowling needs to use more descriptors for things within the Wizarding World, because her readers won’t have the same frame of reference to draw from that they do with real-life objects and events in the Muggle World, and one can assume that these lovely descriptions are part of her being a, y’know, good and evocative writer, and the colors are just related to how she pictured the world she was creating.

But I mean, yours is good, too.

Actually, the citations provided by Cutting Edge don’t depict anything especially vivid; it’s not like she’s throwing massive amounts of purple prose at the descriptions of the Satanic green of Harry’s eyes. In fact, the only enhancer used is “emerald” at one point. For the most part, this essayist is just . . . noticing when the word “green” appears in the text and calling it a siren song to entice good Christian children out of the colorless world of reality and goodness and into the technicolor dreamland of magic and mayhem.

Also, please remember that Satan has a favorite color, and it’s green. For all birthdays and Christmases (or wait, whatever the Satanic version of Christmas is! Halloween?), please make sure all gifts are green or green-adjacent.

Even though Harry is nearly as powerful as a Black Magick practitioner, and could easily have decided to go over to that side, he declines to go over to the Dark Arts. Dumbledore assures Harry that he is not evil as Lord Voldemort. However, as a symbol of the Black Arts he could perform, Rowling makes Harry's eyes green.

This observation -- and I use the term loosely -- implies that every single Slytherin and villain of the Harry Potter series would have green eyes, to demonstrate their capacity for evil. The fact that this is obviously not the case must just be a red herring.

Part . . . 4, I think?: Drugs, Magic, and Magic Drugs

Harry and his friends learn how to makedrugs, and the glory of taking them.

The fact that they don’t actually take any in this book is entirely irrelevant. (”Drugs” should also be red as well as bolded. It’s very serious business.)

The plant, wormwood, contains thujone, an hypnotic drug, banned by the FDA since 1915 [Christian News, "Latest Potter Book Meets Cautionary Response From Christians, July 17, 2000] ; further, wormwood is used to make Absinthe, a hallucinogenic liquor. Therefore, the drug to which Rowling makes reference is very real, and is so dangerous the FDA has banned it -- to this day, it is banned!

While thujone was illegal at the time of this essay in the United States, it was actually never banned in the UK . . . you know, where these books take place and were written? I don’t think Rowling gives a solitary fuck about our FDA standards. Also, I don’t know if you could just straight-up buy wormwood on whatever the equivalent of Amazon was in 1998 (was it just Amazon?), but you sure can now. Can’t be all that scary.

You can hardly get a better description of drug use, and drug glorification than this!

I wonder why they keep using red to emphasize all these evil things . . . you’d think they’d go with Satan’s favorite color/the sign that Harry is the Antichrist to really jazz up all of the evil.

"The drug message in this book is clear. To reach your goals in life like Harry Potter, you need to know how to make drugs and take drugs in just the right way or else you are a 'dunderhead' and will never succeed." [http://www.fflibraries.org/Book_Reports/HarryPotter ; written by a physician and father who asked to remain anonymous].

The fact that this URL doesn’t lead me to that review is one of the saddest things I’ve faced all month.

The sections on spellcasting are far less interesting, reiterating a pretty simple refrain: all magic is bad, because the books say some magic is good then the books are bad, it’s all teaching children about Satanism. Rinse and repeat.

During final exams, teachers passed out special quills with which to write; these quills had been "bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell". The reason none of the teachers felt they could trust the honor of the students to not cheat is obvious enough; in Witchcraft, no Absolute Good and Evil exists. All objective, eternal standards of conduct and morality have been rejected. Therefore, teachers knew full well that all the students would cheat on their final exams if they thought they could get away with it. It is a sad commentary that teachers had to place an Anti-Cheating spell on the quills to prevent exams cheating. Christian parent, is this the "morality" you want your students to learn?

Now, it might just be my obvious Satanist addiction to witchcraft talking, but doesn’t it seem more likely that there’s an anti-cheating spell because sometimes . . . children cheat? And no amount of Good Wholesome Christian Teaching is going to completely eradicate the desire to cheat on a test, because of course it isn’t.

It’s not because the school has taught the students that cheating is okay and cool and sexy or whatever -- in fact, if you want evidence that there is an absolute moral standard against cheating, it would be that the teachers are actively taking steps to prevent it! If witchcraft really was all about how there’s no such thing as good and evil . . . well, for one thing they wouldn’t teach Defense against the motherfucking Dark Arts, but they also wouldn’t care if their students cheated enough to provide anti-cheating quills, because they wouldn’t consider cheating a bad thing, because they wouldn’t consider anything a bad thing!

Also, I’m not sure what listing all of the spells in the book and what they do really says about Satanism, except that . . . spells exist, and are used? Which I feel like you should really expect from the book about magic and wizards; if that’s an alarming surprise, then you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere way earlier down the road.

Part whatever: Seriously, Rowling is just ALL ABOUT Satan

This entire section is basically about how JKR must be a Satanist, because she apparently depicts the world of magic and the occult with perfect accuracy, and how could she do that except through being an active practicing witch herself?

Mirrors are believed to be a portal to another dimension, including Time. Occultists believe they can go forward or backward in Time with a mirror being one of the Dimensional Portals. Harry encounters a mirror, "magnificent ... as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet ... Harry stepped in front of it. He had to clasp his hand to his mouth to stop himself from screaming ... for he had seen, not only himself in the mirror but a whole crowd of people standing right behind him ... 'Mom?', he whispered. 'Dad?' They just looked at him, smiling ... Harry was looking at his family, for the first time in his life." [p. 208-9]

Intriguing theory, except of course for the fact that the mirror isn’t a portal to jack shit; unless you count the weird trick where he can get the stone (and only the stone) through wishes or whatever the fuck these idiots do, and all it does is show someone what they want. It’s not actually reaching into the past to find Harry’s parents or whatever, just like it’s not actually reaching into a parallel dimension future where Ron is the king of everything. It’s just . . . idk, reading their subconscious and throwing up a neat visual or something. With magic. It’s complex, but it’s definitely not what Cutting Edge says it is.

Not pictured: a portal to another physical, metaphysical or temporal dimension. It’s literally . . . just a mirror, but a mirror that reflects your insides instead of your outsides. It’s clever or something.

Do you realize Rowling has just made the creator of the Sorcerer's Stone 666 years old? Do you realize what this means? Since the number, '666', is a symbol of Antichrist and his Mark of the Beast [Revelation 13:18] and since Rowling ties this number to the Elixir of Life, Harry Potter is teaching children that the way to achieve eternal life [Elixir of Life] is to obey the Antichrist and take his Mark of the Beast!

Fucking. Yes. I don’t even have witty commentary for this, I’m just delighted by every word in that section. I’m smiling so much.

This is a gift and we’re reading it for free!

Wonderful! We have the forbidden practice of drinking blood in this Potter book, forbidden in Scripture [Genesis 9:4-5] but practiced regularly in Satanism. I wonder if Chuck Colson, Focus On The Family, and Christianity Today ever told their Christian followers about this? Have they even read this book, before they issued their acceptance of Potter?

Don’t you dare try to employ sarcasm. People who believe in the Illuminati and New World Order are not allowed to be sarcastic -- even if the thought of this faceless stranger typing that little clever “Wonderful!” and smirking to themselves about how witty they are is a very, very good mental image.

Also, what the fuck did unicorns do to deserve being associated with the Antichrist? I mean, I get the color green; it’s the color of nature and the outdoors, and that shit fucking sucks. (Fuck you, trees!) But unicorns?

Unicorns have never done anything to anyone, ever. Unicorns couldn’t be Satanists if they tried.

This means evil Lord Voldemort -- whose killing curse upon Harry, his Mom, and his Dad had rebounded against him when Harry did not die -- is near death, and is seeking to drink the Unicorn's blood to stay alive long enough to finally achieve eternal life through drinking the '666' Elixir of Life.

Yes, that is -- sort of -- the plot of this book.

This is the specific New Age doctrine being taught here: people will have to draw their temporary spiritual life from The Christ until the time comes when their individual consciousness will have been raised so much they will achieve their personal godhood, and live forever!

This concept is genuine New Age, is consistent with prophecy, and Rowling depicts it very well!

Christian parents, do you want your child to be taught this New Age doctrine? Can you see Harry Potter playing the Pied Piper and leading your children straight to the Mark of the Beast?

Pied Piper count: 1 (that’s not a lot so far, but it’s used in like every essay. It’ll come back)

I don’t know how to tackle this, because I’m not sure Cutting Edge really understands that Voldemort is the bad guy in these books. Children aren’t going to read this book and then go, “Cool! I’m gonna go stab a unicorn and drink its essence because my favorite role model You-Know-Who told me to!”

The unicorn blood thing is unilaterally portrayed as a pretty bad move. Voldemort’s goals in general are pretty obviously not great ideas. I know Cutting Edge doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight here, but Voldemort’s quest for immortality and how bad and wrong and fucked-up that is, is kind of one of the major through-lines of the entire story. It could be argued that it’s not Voldy’s desire to live forever that’s wrong so much as his whole, like, genocide thing, which is legit . . . except that all the methods to attain immortality involve killing someone, or stealing something, or otherwise being Not a Good Dude.

Voldemort is Not a Good Dude, and I don’t know how to communicate that any clearer than the books written for third graders already did.

Part 6: I don’t really know, I just wanted a chance to break this endless essay up and this seemed like a good place to do it. So let’s talk about spells some more

Many spells require both the taking of drugs and demonic possession, so it is a matter of gravest importance that Harry is actually going to learn to cast spells. When Chuck Colson dismisses the casting of spells as innocent and of no real importance, did he know this fact?

I seem to have missed the part where Harry goes off his ass on LSD and gets possessed by B’aal. Was that in the Silmarillion?

whenever a witch changes the physical characteristics of something, he or she is practicing very high-level witchcraft, has a high level of demonic possession, and has had to carry out human sacrifice themselves or have someone else do it for them.

“It’s fiction” is often a bullshit excuse to justify bad framing, but I feel like it applies here, because maybe in the “real” world spellcasting requires you to trip balls and summon demons, but it’s extremely obvious that it doesn’t work like that in Harry Potter! You can’t just say that’s what the books are teaching when the books aren’t actually teaching anything even close to that!

(I’m starting to feel like my emphasis italics are having a similar effect to Cutting Edge’s red bolded letters. Fuck if I’m gonna stop using them, though.)

If Harry and his pals were wearing goat heads and putting virgins into a giant blender or something I think you might have an argument here, but when the people reading your essay have eyes and can see that the things you’re describing aren’t anywhere in the books, you’re just lying. And it’s very obvious, and I still love you, Cutting Edge, but you’re being disingenuous and it’s starting to kill my joy-boner to constantly have to point out the ways you’re misunderstanding a children’s book, especially when I think you’re kinda doing it on purpose. So how about you chill just a little bit and we’ll all read some Harry Potter together.

Magical Drafts and Potions , by Arsenius Jigger. Some of the potions are very real, very deadly.

Wait, did Rowling publish this one, too? How do you know what’s in the book? Does the book list some real potions and how to make them, or is this another thing that’s only available in the Cutting Edge’s copy of the books?

Students were told they could also "bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad." [p. 67] These three creatures are important to an occultists. Satanists have always revered the cat because of its reputed "nine lives", which is a symbol of reincarnation. Cats are also symbols of a witch's familiar spirit.

They have revered the frog because his prominent bulging eyes represent the All-seeing nature of Lucifer. Frogs are also consistently used in many of the potions witches concoct. They revere owls as a symbol of occult wisdom and omniscience -- again because of their eyes.

So fuck cats, I guess. They’re being pretty unfair to owls and frogs too -- especially insulting their poor eyes. They can’t help it! -- but I’m a crazy cat lady and I’m not feeling this slander.

Actually . . . my cat looks pretty high right now. Maybe she is channeling Satan.

Okay, never mind. Fuck all these animals. They’re all evil. This article is entirely right, and I renounce all of my previous statements.

McGonagall has obviously mastered her Craft because she was the tabby cat seen by Uncle Vernon reading a map, back in chapter one. Remember that any time a witch or wizard practices transfiguration, they need expert spell-casting, and demonic possession. I bet no one ever told you that little fact, did they?

No, they didn’t, because it’s not even remotely relevant to the fictional book written for children.

Like, I’m trying very hard to not question anyone’s religious beliefs, so if you believe in the occult and magic and all that then more power to you, and maybe it’s totally valid to think that real-life magic spells requires demonic possession. That doesn’t make it true in the books, though! Stop making shit up!

Potions Class -- taught in one of the dungeons [p. 136] How disgusting must the atmosphere for this class, and others, taught in a dungeon, which was built to torture people to death?

If only the classroom, teacher, and overall environment for the Potions classes was meant to be as viscerally unpleasant as possible. Then putting them in the dungeons would be a really good idea, to reflect the Slytherins’ backwards beliefs and the misery of their intolerance.

Like, JKR isn’t this subtle. When you name one of your antagonists “Bad Dragon,” you’re not aiming for this subconscious-symbolism bullshit.

Part 7: Did you think this book had a good moral? Fuck you!

The fundamental occult/Communist philosophy

Well, I guess we’re talking about Communism now! Because if there’s anything Harry Potter is interested in above all else, it’s Communism.

My favorite things about these essays is how they will pull in other social ills -- abortion, public schools, communism -- and slap them into their argument regardless of if it makes any semblance of sense.

Anyway, Cutting Edge actually has a legitimate argument here, although they take it about 50 steps too far:

the "Ends Justify The Means" permeates this entire book. To achieve a goal deemed good, Harry and his friends consistently break rules, steal, and use Witchcraft against others.

It is true that Harry and his friends break the rules, lie, and otherwise do “bad” things in the service of an ultimate good, and that they suffer relatively few consequences for it. This is a legitimate point, and actual people who know things agree.

I’ve been struck speechless by this article before, but this is the first time it’s because I think they might have an actual point.

Hermione was very mildly punished [for her lie to the professors about why they were fighting the troll], but her lie cemented a friendship with Ron and Harry, leading a child to conclude that her lie served an excellent purpose, and could not be considered 'wrong'.

I mean . . . yeah? I don’t think it’s entirely reasonable to assume that children will take that lesson away, but I read it as a child and I certainly didn’t think Hermione was wrong to lie -- nor do I now, which I suppose proves just how powerful the Satanic conditioning was.

Professor Quirrell told Harry, "There is no good or evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it ." [p. 291] This is standard Witchcraft, and standard Illuminist doctrine. This doctrine is the guiding light to those Illuminists who are driving the world into the Kingdom of Antichrist. This doctrine is very seductive to those immature children trying to grow up in our current culture; since a child's inherent nature is evil, he will find such philosophy more appealing than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Christian parents, beware!

Oh thank God Satan, we’re back to the bullshit. I was getting seriously weirded out by the idea that they had good points buried in here somewhere, but now we’re just faced with the argument that the bad guy says . . . bad things . . . and is defeated because his bad ideas are obviously bad and wrong . . . and this proves that the book is teaching children to believe the bad things?

No one reads these books and wants to be the bad guys, Cutting Edge. Kids aren’t buying Harry Potter wands and robes to pretend that they’re Quirrell, trying to keep people from finding out they have a Dark Lord on the back of their head. (Though now that I’ve mentioned it, that sounds like a very fun game.)

Depicting bad things in a way that makes it clear -- to children, I must reiterate -- that they’re bad isn’t the same thing as romanticizing or promoting those bad things. This is basic stuff, CE.

Revenge Motive : "Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying, and Much, Much More , by Vindictus Viridian." [p. 80] Throughout these books, seeking revenge and attacking your enemies is high on the priority list of Harry, his friends, and other students. Do you want your children to adopt this most Satanic attitude? Notice the first name of the author of this revenge book, above, is named "Vindictus, i.e., Vindictive".

Students are taught to depend upon Witchcraft for every part of their lives . All food is conjured up rather than prepared, all the dishes are conjured clean, and even the hospital depends upon Witchcraft to get students well [p. 156]. Neville Longbottom, one of the more clumsy students, received a crystal ball from his grandmother called a Remembrall . The ball glows scarlet if you have forgotten something you should have done. [p. 145]

That’s . . . fuck, that’s actually kind of another good point. Stop kinda making sense, goddamn it!

A lot of the criticism is just that the things wizards do are cool, which will make kids want to become witches/wizards in order to do those cool things, too. And to be fair, the stuff Harry et. al. does are cool, and I did want to be a witch when I grew up. Fortunately, I was in third grade, and so my options for witchcraft were relatively limited; by the time I was old enough to pursue the endeavor properly, I was also old enough to know that it was actually nothing like Harry Potter. If magic actually was anything like those books make it seem, we’d have a lot more witches running around, zapping shit.

Possible reference to homosexuality . When I was first researching Harry Potter, I examined several pro-Potter websites. The author of one of the articles said that one of the probable developments she felt would occur in the latter books was the advent of homosexuality in the story theme. She said such activity was only hinted at in the first books.

Oh dear god, Cutting Edge found the shippers. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

(I wonder if this means they’ve also read the Draco Trilogy.)

I do have to take issue with one last point in this bit about morals, where they talk about how scarring it might be to a child to see Voldemort possessing the back of Quirrell’s head:

Rowling could not have created a better description of demonic possession by a dark and powerful demon! Christian parent, is this the type of thing you want your child to bring into their minds?

Thing is, I’ve been in a lot of Christian circles for most of my life, and this sounds exactly like the kind of dark, traumatizing thing many religious parents would be happy to put into their children’s minds.

Part Almost Done: Definitely Intentional Satanic Symbols, Really

Hey, did you know the number 11 was occultist? I didn’t, and when I Googled it, 4 of the front-page results were Christian or conspiracy groups making this claim, 2 were unclear, and 3 actually seemed to indicate some level of belief in the power of the number 11. Though I might’ve stacked the deck with the word “occult”; when I changed my search term to “magic,” I found almost exclusively positive articles about the symbolic power of the number 11, so . . . Cutting Edge isn’t necessarily wrong.

But boy, did you know how many times the number 11 shows up in Sorcerer's Stone? Not very much, but if we stretch our credibility a little bit, we might see something spooky!

Harry was eleven (11) when he was admitted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The number eleven is considered sacred to the occultist, as it is the first primary number. Occultists will also add up numbers to get an occult number that is sacred; thus, I was highly interested when the bank vault maintained for Harry by his Mom and Dad before their death was numbered '713' [p. 73]. When you add '7 + 1 + 3 = 11'. Then, we learn that, in the money of the Fantasy Reality, "twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle". When you add 2 + 9 = 11.

When Harry found the wand that was meant for him, it turned out to be 11 inches long! [p. 84]

The Hogwarts Express Train left at 11 o'clock from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. [p. 91]

Oh man, that’s some convincing evidence. Evidence of what, I have no idea, but it uses math and I’m sure it’s very alarming!

" Sorcerer's Stone " is also called the "Philosopher's Stone", and is very, very Satanic! Rosicrucianism teaches that an Initiate will pass through five stages to become the highest Adept possible, to be most proficient in exercising the power of Satanism. They call this process the "Five Stages In The Transmutation of the Soul". The final stage is depicted by the Phoenix Bird; the Adept is then said to have achieved the "Sorcerer's Stone". Thus, the fact that the term, "Sorcerer's Stone" is in the title of this book suggests that the ultimate goal of all students at Hogwarts is to achieve the Sorcerer's Stone.

Wow, that sure is an interesting interpretation of the rock that shows up in the book for like 6 pages and then is immediately destroyed! Alternate theory, if you’re open to it: It’s a rock, named the Philosopher’s Stone because the Philosopher’s Stone is historically the name of a rock, called the philosopher's stone, and it's literally just a rock and doesn't mean anything Satanist because it's a fucking ROCK.

(Pictured: A rock)

There’s a really odd part right after the long discussion about how alchemy and unicorns and whatnot are Satanic Illuminati symbols, where CE just takes a moment to explain the game of Quidditch. No commentary beyond a sassy little “[Even the Quidditch balls are 'enchanted'].” Just . . . sort of letting you know how the game is played.

To be fair, this is quite a valuable service, since I don’t think anyone actually understands how Quidditch works, but I’m not sure what it’s doing sandwiched between two declarations of Harry Potter’s obvious evil.

PART THE LAST THANK GOD: WHO THE FUCK NEEDS A SUBTITLE IT’S ALMOST OVER

The first few paragraphs are standard boilerplate conclusion stuff, reiterating the rest of the story, continued misunderstanding that bad things are done by the bad guys, no there really are drugs and Illuminati propaganda in here I promise, yadda yadda. Nothing noteworthy except for the fact that I found this sentence absolutely hilarious:

But, most horribly, we see depictions of Satanism that are truly End of the Age. We see the symbol of Antichrist, the Unicorn.

And so I leave you with this one final thought, because it’s all I can fit into the saggy mush that was once my brain:

From Genesis through Revelation, God demands His people separate themselves from the evil around them! SEPARATE! SEPARATE! SEPARATE!

S E P A R A T E

#harry potter #hp #rowling #jkr #this doesn't really count as fandom history does it?#i did discover this amazing site through f_w #tagging this as Christianity would be mean i think #but i'm ignoring the wank mostly and sticking to the FACTS #'facts' like 'harry potter's eyes are the color of satan'#WAKE UP SHEEPLE #this is the world's longest post and i'm not sure it's interesting to anyone except me #i got very tired at the end of this can you tell #i refuse to even consider editing this #you will take my thoughts as i have them #if the 'read more' doesn't show up IT IS NOT MY FAULT I FUCKING PUT IT THERE I SWEAR IT #quotes aren't showing up on mobile #can't do red text or fun fonts on desktop #this post is a goddamn disaster and it's what both i and this essay deserve

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ramblingguy54 · 5 years

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Okay, Here’s How I Feel

Originally this was gonna be a response to @sophfandoms53‘s post, but I felt it got too lengthy and didn’t want to hijack that post with what I had to say about everything going on currently, apparently. So, here’s my two cents on the drama. Okay, I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen much toxic drama so far in this community recently, due to my own dumb luck I guess, but that doesn’t mean it’s far from real, obviously. People who are suffering through this kind of crap have my serious condolences, for being given an unfair amount of flak just because they have a different perspective on characters or potential romantic relationships in this series about a big family of talking anthropomorphic ducks.

Like, I can’t preach this enough. This advice not only applies to the DuckTales fandom, but anyone’s unique takes on anything in general with anything within the entertainment media industry of films/tv.

No one’s opinions are 100% wrong or right. That’s the beauty of subjectivity toward fiction.

Not only does this apply to the Delpad shippers, but any people who have been going back and forth about Louie/Della’s chemistry being questionably handled in Season 2′s last episodes. We can debate all day until we’re blue in the God damn face, but no take is a “wrong” one here. I may strongly disagree with those who called Della mean spirited or unfair to Louie in Glomtales, trying to label it as “abuse” or “emotional isolation” when there are plenty of things in that episode, which I feel easily shoot down that argument, but I’m not gonna try to manipulate those into feeling differently about what they saw in these last several episodes. If you think Della was out of line here, fine. Preach to the heavens for all I care. It’s your own voice and I’m sure there are plenty of those out there, who feel the same as you do, too. Be proud of what you stand for, just please don’t shoot others down in the process of what you believe is “correct”.

You can use all your reasoning in the world to create, what you think is a strong perspective for yourself on something, regarding DuckTales character writing or story driven themes, but here’s the punchline.

Anyone out there trying to use words like “objectively speaking”, won’t cover up your own bias towards what you perceive as a correct or incorrect takes on this series.

This like a BIG pet peeve I have when people try to analyze stuff in their favorite shows or movies. You can try to be as unbiased or professional, as you can be with viewing stuff, but the reality of it is we each have our own biases that we can’t cover up, no matter how hard we try to. We’ve all got our own emotional experiences in life that have given us our own unique/defined perspectives on stuff. Whether you’re a professional critic trying to make a living off these said views or simply a passionate fan expressing their beliefs, you can’t hide that.

Which is completely fine, but please for the love of God don’t try to cover it up. That kind of stuff irks me beyond belief, even if people don’t intend to give off that impression with their reviews, using that phrase of objectivity and are just saying it because it’s a force of habit others have gotten, where they don’t realize the implications of what they’re actually saying that could rub others the wrong way.

It’s fine to have your own biases, but letting it blind you from others different two cents is where things need to stop. There’s healthy biases and unhealthy ones.

DuckTales strong themes of family are what brings people together in this community. Don’t let your own damn pride cloud your judgement. Lead by example, like Louie did in his Season 2 arc, by humbling yourselves when seeing a different take you might not agree with at all. If a freaking kid can do that, why can’t any of y’all, too, who are being toxic?

Here’s a strong piece of advice to cap this post off. You know what I refer to mentally a lot of the time for a mature discussion about my differing opinions with someone else? Anton Ego’s amazing speech from Ratatouille about the meaning/weight of opinions on anything in general. It’s one of the most beautiful mature scene’s I look back on fondly, as an adult in my mid-twenties to this very day, surrounding the topic of an individuals opinions and the faith put into them, too. It can do wonders for me whenever I get into a civil debate with someone. Hell, I’ll probably do an analytical post of my own on that brilliant scene sometime soon. Ratatouille is an excellent Pixar film that deserves a lot of praise for what it managed to accomplish with its themes and messages.

Anyways with those last statements outta the way, thanks for taking the time to read all this and please have a nice day everyone.

#ducktales 2017 #fandom discourse #my own two cents #ducktales season 2 #della duck #louie duck #delpad #ratatouille #anton ego #opinions #subjective views #debating #glomtales #i cant stress these ideals enough #ducktales discourse #ducktales

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imdoingthismspaintadventure · 5 years

Text

Worm 1.6 - In which we meet futuristic techno Dredd

II heard the cape arrive on his souped up motorcycle. I didn’t want to be seen fleeing the scene of a fight, and risk being labeled one of the bad guys by yet another person, but I wasn’t about to get closer to the street either, in case Lung was feeling better. Since there was nowhere to go, I just stayed put. Just resting felt good.

Yeah it’s better you stay and try to explain what went down. Fleeing after all this..wouldn’t be a good look. And let’s try to stay far away from the knocked-out fire demon while we’re at it.

If you’d asked me just a few hours ago about how I thought I would feel meeting a big name superhero, I would have used words like excited and giddy. The reality was that I was almost too exhausted to care.

You have experienced a loooot of things just today girl. It’s not everyday you get into a life or death fight and then meet some people of dubious character, all in the span of like 20 minutes. Shame your first encounter with a bona-fide superhero is in a situation like this.

It looked as though he flew up onto the roof, but the six-foot long weapon the man held kind of jerked as he landed. I was pretty sure I saw the tines of a grappling hook retreating back into the end of the weapon. So this was what Armsmaster looked like in person, I thought.

Armsmaster! So...master of weapons? He seems to have a pretty badass one in one arm, which seems to have multiple uses. Good old Grappling Hooks! The way for grounded super heroes to keep up with flight-types!

The largest superhero organization in the world was the Protectorate, spanning Canada and the States, with ongoing talks about including Mexico in the deal. It was a government sponsored league of superheroes with a base in each ‘cape city’. That is, they had a team set up in each city with a sizable population of heroes and villains. Brockton Bay’s team was officially ‘The Protectorate East-North-East’, and were headquartered in the floating, forcefield-shrouded island that you could see from the Boardwalk. This guy, Armsmaster, was the guy in charge of the local team. When the core group of the top Protectorate members from around Canada and the States assembled in that classic ‘v’ formation for the photo shoots, Armsmaster was one of the guys in the wings. This was a guy who had his own action figures. Poseable Armsmaster with interchangeable Halberd parts.

Wooaaah. So he’s a really big shot! Leader of the local Protectorate which seems to be this universe’s version of the Avengers/Justice League/big main hero organization. He lives in that badass flying fortess! And seems to be pretty marketable as well. Meeting him in the flesh like this in your first day, woah .

He really did look like a superhero, not like some guy in a costume. It was an important distinction. He wore body armor, dark blue with silver highlights, had a sharply angled v-shaped visor covering his eyes and nose. With only the lower half of his face exposed, I could see a beard trimmed to trace the edges of his jaw. If I had to judge, with only the lower half of his face to go by, I’d guess he was in his late twenties or early thirties.

High-tech superhero armor and professional gear! Sweet!

He’s giving me a mix of iron man and judge dredd vibes with that costume. Either way he seems to exude “veteran and skilled super” a lot.

His trademark and weapon was his Halberd, which was basically a spear with an axe head on the end, souped up with gadgets and the kind of technology you generally only saw in science fiction. He was the kind of guy who appeared on magazine covers and did interviews on TV, so you could find almost anything about Armsmaster through various media, short of his secret identity. I knew his weapon could cut through steel as though it was butter, that it had plasma injectors for stuff that the blade alone couldn’t cut and that he could fire off directed electromagnetic pulses to shut down forcefields and mechanical devices.

HE HAS A MASTER WEAPON WHICH CAN ACT AS ALL OF THE WEAPONS AT THE SAME TIME. THAT’S SO AWESOME

I knew he was gonna be technologically-focused, with that badass floating island and all!

A spear-axe hybrid strong enough to cut through steel, with plasma injectors and EMP blasts?? Fucking sweet.

“You gonna fight me?” He called out.

“I’m a good guy,” I said.

Stepping closer to me, he tilted his head, “You don’t look like one.”

Oof. That’s true. Miss looking-like-a-living-bug with dark colors and yellow lenses doesn’t seem very heroic at... all

Also I really like how that line was delivered for some reason. You don’t look like one

That stung, especially coming from him. It was like Michael Jordan saying you sucked at basketball. “That’s… not intentional,” I responded, not a little defensively, “I was more than halfway done putting the costume together when I realized it was already looking more edgy than I’d intended, and I couldn’t do anything about it by then.”

Your power is very hard to use in a kid-friendly way! You command a swarm of biting, stinging, maybe-venomous, maybe-flesh eating bugs! That grimdark look is actually apropiate

I wonder if this work will explore heroes who want to do good things but have characteristically “evil powers”. Taylor could easily be one!

There was a long pause. Nervously, I turned my eyes from that opaque visor. I glanced at his chest emblem, a silhouette of his visor in blue against a silver background, and was struck with the ridiculous thought that I had once owned a pair of underpants with his emblem on the front.

Pfft! Taylor your young fangirl self is adorable

Also gave me Deku flashbacks, as with the hero journals

“You’re telling the truth,” he said. It was a definitive statement, which startled me. I wanted to ask how he knew, but I wasn’t about to do or say anything that might change his mind.

Lie-detector?? God his suit just has everything

I love technology based powers by the way. When a hero stacks himself up to the teeth in sweet tech it’s a sight to behold

He approached closer, looking me over as I sat there with my arms around my knees, he asked, “You need a hospital?”

“No,” I said. “Don’t think so. I’m as surprised as you are.”

“You’re a new face,” he said.

“I haven’t even come up with a name yet. You know how hard it is to come up with a bug-themed name that doesn’t make me sound like a supervillain or a complete dork?”

Hmm that’s true! Swarm sounds villanous, same with Plague, Sting, Hivemind, Pestilence...

Bug is probably too simple. (Insect) Queen maybe? Eh Queen is so general that it’s probably taken already. Control? Probably taken and sounds villanous.

He chuckled, and it sounded warm, very normal, “I wouldn’t know. I got into the game early enough that I didn’t have to worry about missing out on all of the good names.”

There was a pause in the conversation. I suddenly felt awkward. I don’t know why, but I admitted to him, “I almost died.”

“That’s why we have the Ward program,” he said. There was no judgement in his tone, no pressure. Just a statement.

Hmm, what is that? Some sort of superhero training?

I nodded, more to give a response than out of any agreement with the answer. The Wards were the under-eighteen subdivision of the Protectorate, and Brockton Bay did have its own team of Wards, with the same naming convention as the Protectorate; The Wards East-North-East. I had considered applying to join, but the notion of escaping the stresses of high school by flinging myself into a mess of teenage drama, adult oversight and schedules seemed self-defeating.

Oooh so it’s like the Teen Titans, and other young superhero groups! Young teenage superheroes! Nice!

Also yeah, that would probably be similar to school, and you wanted escapism with this. I don’t think you would get bullied though, but I understand your reticence.

“You get Lung?” I asked, to change the subject from the Wards. I was pretty sure that he was obligated to try and induct new heroes into either the Protectorate or the Wards, depending on their age, to promote the whole agenda of organized heroes who are accountable for their actions, and I really didn’t want him to get on my case about joining.

He probably is obligated to ask, yeah. I suppose they don’t condone vigilantism. So changing the subject to the dragon man is probably a good idea!

“Lung was unconscious, beaten and battered when I arrived. I pumped him full of tranquilizers to be safe and temporarily restrained him under a steel cage I welded to the sidewalk. I’ll pick him up on my way back.”

“Good,” I said, “With him in jail, I’ll feel like I accomplished something today. Only reason I started the fight was because I overheard him telling his men to shoot some kids. Only realized later that he was talking about some other villains.”

Armsmaster turned to look at me. So I told him, walking him through the fight in general, the arrival of the teenage bad guys, and their general descriptions. Before I finished, he was pacing back and forth on the roof.

“These guys. They knew I was coming?”

Yeeah that was a pretty epic misunderstanding there.

Also they probably knew you were coming thanks to the kinda-omniscient know-it-all in their team soooo yeah.

I nodded, once. As much respect as I had for Armsmaster, I wasn’t in much of a mood to repeat myself.

“That explains a lot,” he said, staring off into the distance. After a few moments, he went on to explain, “They’re slippery. On those few occasions we do manage to get in a toe to toe fight with them, they either win, or they get away more or less unscathed, or both. We know so little about them. Grue and Hellhound were working on their own before they joined the group, so there’s some information there, but the other two? They’re nonentities. If the girl Tattletale has some way of detecting or tracking us, it would go a long way towards explaining why they’re doing as well as they are.”

Insteresting! So Regent and Tattletale are very well hidden! I imagine it must be easy for Tattletale to do so, but I still don’t know what Regent does... He’s definitely the most misterious of them all at the moment.

Heh, and he uses Hellhound for Bitch, he’s a hero so of course

It kind of surprised me to hear one of the top level heroes admitting to being anything less than perfectly on top of things.

“It’s funny,” I said, after a few moment’s thought, “They didn’t seem that hardcore. Grue said they were kind of panicking when they heard Lung was coming after them, and they were casually joking around while the fight was going on. Grue was making fun of Regent.”

“They said all this in front of you?” he asked.

I shrugged, “I think they thought I was helping them out. The way Tattletale talked, I think she thought I was a bad guy too or something.” With a touch of bitterness, I said, “Dunno, I guess it was the costume that led them to that assumption.”

“Could you have taken them in a fight?” Armsmaster asked me.

I started to shrug, and winced a little. I was feeling a little sore in the shoulder, where I’d tumbled on the roof after being blasted by Lung’s flames. I said, “Like you said, we don’t know a lot about them, but I think that girl with the dogs-”

“Hellhound,” Armsmaster said.

“I think she could have kicked my ass on her own, so no. I probably couldn’t have fought them.”

Yeah they didn’t really seem evil per se, they were pretty nice to us! Maybe because they confused us for a villain...

And yeah I don’t think you could have beaten them. Of the two powers I sorta know of them, hellbeasts and kinda-omniscience beat bugs, I’m pretty sure. So yeah.

“Then count it as a good thing that they got the wrong impression,” Armsmaster said.

“I’ll try to look at it that way,” I said, struck by how he easily he was able to employ the whole ‘take a negative and turn it into a positive’ mindset I’d been trying to maintain. I envied that.

Heroes tends to be more optimistic than most.

“That a girl,” he said, “And while we’re looking forward, we need to decide where we go from here.”

My heart sank. I knew he was going to bring up the Wards again.

Yeaah and he’ll put you in an awkward spot again...

What do you want to do Taylor? Start as a standalone hero and then work your way up through your acts and deeds? Could you even do that and still be well-regarded by the Protectorate?

“Who gets the credit for Lung?”

Caught off guard, I looked up at him. I started to speak, but he held up his hand.

“Hear me out. What you’ve done tonight is spectacular. You played a part in getting a major villain into custody. You just need to consider the consequences.”

“Consequences,” I muttered, even as the word spectacular rang in my ears.

Oh, so he wants to talk about who gets the credit? Huh, didn’t expect that. It could be a good first step for her hero career, but it could also be dangerous to let villains know about her existence, especially if she’s going solo

“Lung has an extensive gang throughout Brockton Bay and neighboring cities. More than that, he has two superpowered flunkies. Oni Lee and Bakuda.”

I shook my head, “I know about Oni Lee, and Grue mentioned fighting him. I’ve never heard of Bakuda.”

So he has two liutenants with powers! Oni Lee was mentioned before and now... Bakuda. Baku- makes me think explosions from Bakuha, so it could be explosions-based?

Seems to be a new member, anyways.

Armsmaster nodded, “Not surprising. She’s new. What we know about her is limited. She made her first appearance and demonstration of her powers by way of a drawn out terrorism campaign against Cornell University. Lung apparently recruited her and brought her to Brockton Bay after her plans were foiled by the New York Protectorate. This is… something of a concern.”

Damn, terrorism against a University and a conforntation with the New York Protectorate? She seems to have some infamy even before joining

“What are her powers?”

“Are you aware of the Tinker classification?”

I started to shrug, but remembered my sore shoulder and nodded instead. It was probably more polite, too. I said, “Covers anyone with powers that give them an advanced grasp of science. Lets them make technology years ahead of its time. Ray guns, ice blasters, mechanized suits of armor, advanced computers.”

Oh sweet

So tinkers are the inventors, the tech-based superheroes who use futuristic technology and all kinds of high-specs gear, and that is their superpower?

Oh I love technology-based powers so much.

“Close enough,” Armsmaster said. It struck me he would be a Tinker, if his Halberd and armor were any indication. That, or he got his stuff from someone else. He elaborated, “Well, most Tinkers have a specialty or a special trick. Something they’re particualrly good at or something that they can do, which other Tinkers can’t. Bakuda’s specialty is bombs.”

I stared at him. A woman with a power that let her make bombs that were technologically decades ahead of their time. No wonder he saw it as a concern.

So Armsmaster is a tinker! Makes sense with his impossibly-amazing plasma spear-axe, lie detector and super armor. I suppose a tinker’s threat can vary a lot depending on prep time and current gear. I like them!

Super-advanced explosives? Oh boy, that sounds like potencially a fucking nightmare

“Now I want you to consider the danger involved in taking the credit for Lung’s capture. Without a doubt, Oni Lee and Bakuda will be looking to accomplish two goals. Freeing their boss and getting vengeance on the one responsible. I suspect you’re now aware… these are scary people. Scarier in some ways than their boss.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t take the credit,” I said.

“I’m saying you have two options. Option one is to join the Wards, where you’ll have support and protection in the event of an altercation. Option two is to keep your head down. Don’t take the credit. Fly under the radar.”

Yeah I could see how Taylor could become the target of these two underlings, which would probably be more than she can handle.

So Armsmaster is offering her the possibilities of

a) Joining the teenage super-squad and take the credit for Lung or

b)Keep going solo but maintain your involvment in this a secret

I wasn’t prepared to make a decision like that. Usually, I went to sleep at eleven or so, waking up at six thirty to get ready for my morning run. At my best guess, it was somewhere between one and two in the morning. I was emotionally exhausted from the highs and lows of the evening, and I could barely wrap my head around the complications and headaches that would come from joining the Wards, let alone having two insanely dangerous sociopaths coming after me.

Aand one of those options is already giving Taylor a headache

On top of that, I wasn’t so ignorant as to miss Armsmaster’s motives. If I opted to not take the credit for Lung’s capture, Armsmaster would, I was sure. I didn’t want to get on the bad side of a major player.

....True, politics could be at play here

Athough I don’t know if Taylor has just a bad view of power structures in general, considering she thought that autobiographical book she read was probably all propaganda

...Which could be true, and the whole system could be corrupt at least a little, and Armsmaster is offering her two options where he hopes he gets the credit and the glory

“Please keep my involvement in Lung’s capture secret,” I told him, painfully disappointed to have to say it, even as I knew it made the most sense.

He smiled, which I hadn’t expected. He had a nice smile. It made me think that he could win the hearts of a lot of women, whatever the top two-thirds of his face looked like. “I think you’ll look back and see this was a smart decision,” Armsmaster said, turning to walk to the other end of the roof, “Call me at the PHQ if you’re ever in a pinch.” He stepped off the edge of the roof and dropped out of sight.

He seems very pleased at her decision, which reinforces my belief that he did want to get the credit after all. Or he’s happy she doesn’t get in trouble. Or both.

Armsmaster seems like an ok guy, probably a little vain, or glory-seeking, but in a way, all superheroes are a bit like that. I have defintely seen much worse examples.

You get a thumbs-up, cool plasma-spear man

Call me if you’re ever in a pinch. He’d been saying, without openly admitting, that he owed me one. He would take the lion’s share of the credit for Lung’s capture, but he owed me one.

Before I was all the way down the fire escape, I heard the thrum of his motorcycle, presumably carrying Lung towards a life of confinement. I could hope.

Oh true! Nice, you can call in a favour of a team leader of the superhero mega-alliance! Good start to your superhero career, Taylor!

And he just took away Lung so it seems she was indeed the push the situation needed to get him into custody! Yes!

It would take me a half hour to get home. On the way, I would stop and pull on the sweatshirt and jeans I had hidden. I knew my dad went to sleep even earlier than I did, and he slept like a log, so I had nothing to worry about as far as wrapping up the night.

It could have gone worse. Strange as it sounds, those words were a security blanket I wrapped around myself to keep myself from dwelling on the fact that tomorrow was a school day.

It could have gone worse is a good mentality to have!

Let’s hope the three bitches aren’t too insufferable tomorrow.

#worm #worm liveblog #parahumans #parahumans liveblog #worm parahumans #wildbow #worm 1.6 #arc 1

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legionofpotatoes · 4 years

Photo

Okay then, since both of y’all are just delving in I’ll try to keep things (relatively) spoiler-free and stick to story sense and semiotics! Few caveats:

Have not had prior experience with Kojima’s body of work and if that’s a prerequisite in how I “should feel” about it then yike on a bike (just getting this out of the way based on what I’ve had talked at me)

My read excludes the entire context of moment-to-moment gameplay; I basically watched chronological story cutscenes stitched together with NPC interaction vignettes sprinkled in-between. 9 or so hours in total.

I did this because the gameplay does not interest me at all - and not in protest of chill social games (I adore both No Man’s Sky and thatgamecompany stuff, for example, and try to champion anything without Gun in it), but because the setting and length did not align with my expectations for something to invest so much time into. Still, I was super intrigued by the story, and, to a lesser extent, the plot.

also I have a hard time writing in condensed English, so this may run quite long. I’ll put the rest under a break. Second language, sorry!

I’m trying to think of a good way to start this. Like I said, the story, or what the thing was ABOUT, was infinitely more interesting to me than whatever wacko packaging Kojima thought up for the narrative. Which was a complicated, thought-out piece of fiction shattered into many disparate pieces and fed to us in a mystery-box-filmmaker kind of way, making us reverse-engineer what essentially was a rather simple interpersonal uhh. family tragedy, I guess.

But to its credit the lore is visibly built solely to support whatever thematic messaging Kojima would want to weave in there - something I can respect. Meaning it gets as wacky and as nonsensical as it needs to be in order to reflect the high-concept allegories at play, aaand then it does so to a fault. I adore works of fiction that don’t give a shit about “tone” - I hate that word more than anything in modern media - but effective symbolism in storytelling, IN MY OPINION, requires a deft hand, nuance, strong authorial position, and a good grasp of social context.

I want to like, go through these four points individually and nitpick my problems with the game in their lens, because I think they cover pretty much everything I feel like saying:

1. A deft hand - to me means to selectively dramatize correct themes and plot points as you go so that shit makes sense in the end. I felt this was incredibly lacking here. It was like a symphony going for hours without a crescendo. The absolute wrong bits of soulless exposition would be reiterated THRICE within a single cutscene while necessary context of, hell, character motives or even plot geography would be left vague. Intentionally vague, some would argue, but their later function would never arrive. Other times, what would visibly be conceived as wink-and-you’ll-miss-it foreshadowing could overstay its welcome to the point of inadvertently spoiling a later plot point. My girlfriend sniped the (arguably) most important reveal of the game, which is left for the tail end of the final epilogue (!), in the first hours of watching. The symbolics and allusions were just too plentiful where they should have been more subdued. I am DYING to provide examples here but I’m keeping it spoiler-free. Again, if this is a Kojima-ism, too bad; but it’s not a catastrophic failure of storytelling by any means. There are very few masters of this thing working today. But what can be easier to navigate, I think, is...

2. Nuance - this kinda goes hand-in-hand with the upper point but is a bit more important to me and applies to what SPECIFICALLY you decide to heighten in order to slap us across the face with your deeper meanings. Certain characters - not all of them - feel like caricatures. The silly names and overt metaphors (wearing a mask means hiding something! connected cities all have ‘knot’ in their name!) are honestly, genuinely FINE as long as their function isn’t betrayed, but the lean into metaphor worship can sometimes wade into SERIOUSLY shitty territory as contemporary implications are ignored altogether, and that ties into my fourth point, which I’ll address before looping back to the third; needless to say, approaching sensitive subjects with broad strokes is not exactly the way to go. But broad strokes is almost exclusively what this game does, forgetting to incorporate...

3. Social context - and I feel like avoiding examples here will be difficult lest I end up sounding like a dogmatic asshole; but there is a right thing and a wrong thing to do when co-opting IRL concepts to fit fictional messaging/storytelling. I feel that a character “curing” themselves of a phobia by experiencing emotional growth that vaguely corresponds to what the disorder could have symbolized is a wrong thing. And I don’t even want to get into all the wacky revisionism the lore ended up twisting into, which was mostly honestly entertaining (the ammonite will be a good hint to those who’ve played it), until it decided to, again, lean a bit too hard into painting today’s reality as a crisis of human connection and imply some questionable things about why, uh, asexual people exist, for example. Yes it makes some sense within the context of the lore and what’s happening in the plot, but it’s completely lacking in social know-how of the here and now. In other words: a Bad Look. To me, this type of wayward ignorance is a much more serious issue that can historically snowball any piece of writing into a witless disaster. I don’t know if it quite does it here, but it’s not really my place to say. Still, you can have wacky worldbuilding that has no sense of dramatic tension, nuance, or awareness towards the audience, and yet containing one last vital glue holding it all together, and that would be...

4. Strong authorial position - or intent I guess, to speak in literary terms - and I still have trouble pinpointing how and where this exists in this game. A bullshit stance you say, and I hear ya; cause this here is a video game very pronounced in its pro-human-connection messaging, painting the opposite outcome as an apocalyptic end to our species. And as I understand the gameplay is all about connections too - leaning into that theme so hard it even renders itself unapproachable to most capital-g Gamers. I honestly respect the balls of that. But really, as an author who headlined the creation of this thing, what was it really about? What were you trying to say?

And beyond “human connection is real important to beat apathy” I got nothing, and I think that’s because of points 1 and 2 failing in succession, and then point 3 souring the taste. It just had to be apparent the moment the curtain fell, is what I find. You just have to “get” it immediately, get what it was trying to say, but that will happen only if it’s been articulated incredibly well up to that point. Maybe the entire punch of that message REALLY depends on you spending dozens of hours ruminating on the crushing cost of loneliness as you haul cargo across countries on foot and connect people to your weird not-internet? If so, I’ve missed a vital piece of context, and with this being a videogame and all, it’s honestly a fair assumption. But otherwise.. it felt like a hell of a lot of twisting and turning and plot affectations that only led to more plot affectations and sometimes character growth (which had its own bag of issues from point 3) and not a hell of a lot to say about human connection beyond the fact that it is. good and useful. It felt like a repeated statement instead of being an argument. Does that make sense? I understand the story optics here are zoomed waay out and set on targeting the human condition as a whole, but like.. if you’re committing to a message, you have to stand by it.

Why is connection good? it’s a dumb question without a DOUBT but since the game has set out to answer it then it.. should? Did I miss the answer? I may have, I honestly can’t exclude the possibility. My lens was warped and my framework of consuming storytelling is a bit rigid in its requirements (the four points I mentioned), so maybe I’m just too grouchy and old to understand.

I just think Pacific Rim did it better and took about 7 hours less to do it! And yet, it, too, involved Guillermo Del Toro. Curious.

If you made it this far and are interested in my thoughts on the technical execution of it all as well, uhm, it’s pretty much spotless? Decima is utilized beautifully, the Hideo vanity squad of celebrities all do their very best with the often clunky dialogue, the music is great, the aesthetic and visual design is immediately arresting, and it certainly does an all-around great job at standing out from the rest of the flock. I fell in love with the BB a little bit. It is also a game that is incredibly horny for Mads Mikkelsen, which almost fully supplants the expected real estate for run-of-the-mill male gaze bullshit. It is. A change.

That’s all I got folks

#death stranding spoilers #reference

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totallyrhettro · 5 years

Text

Ravenvale, Chapter 8

Word Count: 2338 Rating: This chapter: general; overall story: explicit Warnings: None Summary: On their way home from another case, Agent Seaborne and Agent Roach find themselves in the strange, fog-covered town of Ravenvale. Notes: Seaborne and Roach AU where, years after the events seen in the YouTube series, they manage to become FBI agents.

Also available on ao3

First Chapter Previous Chapter

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The two men sat on the floor between the science fiction section and the mystery section of the library, exchanging novels to see if their newest theory was correct. They sat opposite each other, a mountain of books between them and dozens more that they’ve tossed aside behind them. Very little was spoken, except to confirm whether or not a certain book had text inside. There didn’t seem to be much that needed to be said. They were both thinking the same thing and the same uneasiness was building in their stomachs.

“Blank,” Seaborne was saying. “Haven’t read it.” He tossed another empty book to the side.

“Text. Read it,” Roach noted, monotonous and tired. He threw it in another direction, though they had long ago given up on organizing the books by contents.

“Text. Haven’t read it.” Seaborne held up the book for his friend to add his input.

“Read it,” he confirmed. Seaborne tossed it aside before looking around with a sigh.

“I don’t think we’re going to find a single book that you or I haven’t read that has text in it.” Roach looked up from the next book he’d grabbed up to pay better attention. “I just wish I understood what was going on. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” Roach admitted. “Maybe someone is trying to tell us something?”

“That you read too much science fiction?” Seaborne joked. It was a knee-jerk reaction to kid his partner, but his humorless tone fell flat. He just wasn’t in the mood. He didn’t know what was going on, but from what he could tell, someone knew all the books he and Roach had ever read. Surely that was impossible. Yet there didn’t seem to be any other explanation. He simply didn’t like the implications.

“They’re reading our minds,” Roach concluded. Not exactly what Seaborne had been considering, but he was far too tired to argue.

“Who?” he merely asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

“The aliens,” Roach replied, as if it was fully obvious. “They must have probed our brains.”

“When?” Okay, but Seaborne wanted to argue a little. He was frustrated, annoyed. Plus, no matter how much he would have hated to admit it, he was scared. Roach was, too.

“I dunno,” he answered. “Maybe they’re scanning our brains right now.” He looked up at the ceiling as if he could catch the supposed aliens in the act. Of course, there was nothing there. Seaborne felt his bones pop in several places as he stood up and stretched. Checking his watch, he groaned at the time. The sun was probably long gone by now and he didn’t relish the idea of walking back to the motel in the dark.

“Well, as far as alien mind-probes go, this one seems fairly harmless.” Roach didn’t answer but looked back down at the books still littering the floor, his face scrunched in concentration. “Just wish I understood their motivations.” His partner stared at the books for a few more seconds as if everything would suddenly be revealed to him. Of course the books had nothing to say on the matter.

“Man, I’m tired,” he yawned, getting to his own feet. “I’ll have to come back tomorrow to investigate more.” Seaborne didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was hoping that they could leave right away in the morning. “Let’s get back to the motel; I’m beat.” Stepping around the books he patted Seaborne on the shoulder, his hand lingering a bit as he continued on towards the exit. Seaborne tried to ignore it as he had so many times in the past. This time, however, it gave him pause. “You coming?” Roach wondered, when his partner didn't follow right away.

“Uh, yeah,” Seaborne mumbled, trotting after him to catch up. “I’m right behind you.

~ ~ ~

The street lamp’s dim light did little to pierce through the fog that continued to permeate the city streets of Ravenvale. Neither the moon nor any stars could either, leaving the empty streets dark and gloomy. The unquieting silence had not diminished during Seaborne’s visit to the library; the only differences were the added footsteps of his friend beside him and the ceaseless thumping of his heart in his chest. Did Roach always walk this close? Normally if Seaborne found his friend too close he’d simply shift away. He just couldn’t take the risk. This time, though… Maybe he was more tired than he thought, or maybe it was the fear creeping into his bones pushing him to seek comfort in his lifelong friend.

The air was windless and yet Seaborne felt a chill on the back of his neck. He shivered and held his jacket closed tightly. The cool weather that had been so pleasant before now nipped at his exposed skin. Roach wasn’t immune to the crispness of the air, stuffing his hands into his pant’s pockets. The sun, though hidden, must have had more of an effect on the temperature than either of them could had assumed. Roach was glad for his friend’s company, he always was. He hadn’t expected the man to show up at the library. Maybe he was beginning to believe, too. Not wanting to get his hopes up, Roach tried not to let it go to his head. In the end, Seaborne would always find a rational explanation for everything. Yet, this time, how could he? What rational explanation could there be?

“I wanted to stop by the mechanic shop,” Seaborne noted, breaking the silence. “I suppose it’s too late, now.”

“I wish the diner was still open,” Roach lamented, his stomach rumbling in response. If only he hadn’t skipped supper.

“Too bad you didn’t get that elk jerky,” Seaborne quipped with a smirk. Roach playfully smacked the man’s side with an elbow in response. It was good to see him make a joke, and mean it, even if it wasn’t very funny. Seaborne’s smiles always made Roach feel better. It made him feel lots of things. Most he couldn’t admit. Running his fingers through his hair absent-mindedly, Roach turned his mind to more acceptable conversation.

“Maybe I’ll grab some before we leave tomorrow,” he suggested, letting his arms sway at his sides. He felt a little warmer now, and not because of the weather.

“Your brain really only has the two settings, huh?” Seaborne joked. “Thinkin’ about aliens and thinkin’ about food.” Roach chuckled along with his friend, though inside he was disagreeing with that statement.

‘Those aren’t all I think about,’ he corrected silently. They walked on for a few minutes more without another word, each just thinking to themselves. Neither wanting to admit exactly what they were thinking of. As they neared the motel, Roach noticed that his fingers were awfully close to Seaborne’s hand. He needed only to stretch them to make contact….

“Almost there,” he noted, after clearing his throat and jamming both of his hands back into his pockets. Now wasn’t the time for such thoughts. Seaborne didn’t seem to notice his discomfort, looking up to see the glowing motel sign looming into view. Roach never thought he’d actually be happy to see it. Despite his strong desire to solve the mystery of this town, a nice warm bed sounded perfect just now. Tomorrow he’d started again, with a fresh head and rested mind. A full night’s sleep would do his partner a world of good as well; maybe tomorrow he’d be more apt to stay and investigate together. Roach smiled at that.

The lobby to the motel was empty, though that wasn’t much of a surprise. It was still eerie, though, in its complete emptiness. The word deserted came to mind. Seaborne wasn’t used to not seeing some sort of staff, even at this late hour, stationed behind the lobby desk as one might see in a normal hotel. Of course, he had never stayed in a place quite like this. Whenever he and Roach went out of town on cases, they’d get booked in the finest hotels- all on the FBI’s dime. He’d never consider himself spoiled, he just enjoyed being comfortable. Of course Roach would say ‘picky’, but-

“Hey, do you want one of my pillows?” Roach suddenly asked. “I noticed the rooms only have two and I know how you like to have an extra one.”

“Oh! Uh, thanks,” Seaborne answered. His friend could be quite thoughtful sometimes. More often than many would notice or even guess. Part of his charm, Seaborne supposed. Upstairs they found their separate rooms and after courteously exchanged nods, they said goodnight and when inside. Roach found it exactly as he had left it, dull and uninteresting for the most part. He flipped on the lights without a second thought and plopped himself onto the bed with an audible groan. While his stylish shoes may have matched his suit perfectly, they weren’t exactly made to be worn for so long as they had been. Once he had removed them, he happily flung them across the floor, moving on to remove most of his clothing so they could take the same (or, at least, a similar) trajectory.

It was a ritual he had repeated hundreds of times over the years, every time he had to be on his feet all day. He learned long ago that the FBI kept awful hours. At least the pay was better than being a private detective. There was very little he missed about that job. The idea had been sound, although the execution had often left quite a bit to be desired, and the pay was terrible. The only reprieve had been the company.

Just as the thought of Seaborne crossed his mind, Roach heard a knock on his door. Thinking it might be a member of the motel staff, he grabbed up the comforter and wrapped it around his half-naked body before answering the door. It was his partner, the spare pillow Roach had given him wrapped in his arms.

“Uh, hey, Roach,” Seaborne began, as if he was surprised to see his friend at all. Years of practice kept his eyes far away from the chest that was now bare before him. Seaborne didn’t seem ready for bed at all, still fully dressed, much to Roach’s disappointment. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No,” Roach assured him, readjusting his improvised wrap. “Still awake. What’s up?” Seaborne hesitated, feeling silly now over his reasons for coming over. Not that he could take it back now. The time for come clean was now; now or never.

“I um… I was wondering if…” 'Now', sure, but his brain wasn’t going to make it easy. Finally he closed his eyes and forced out the rest. “If I could stay here tonight.” Yup. It sounded just as weird and stupid as he thought it might, at least to his ears. Roach, meanwhile, was having a hard time hiding his elation.

“Sure, yeah.” He said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Is there something wrong with your room?” He had to make sure there wasn’t something actually wrong that they should be worried about, of course.

“N-no,” Seaborne had to admit. “Not that I can tell it’s just…” He gestured behind him, towards his room, with his thumb. “That painting is back. Again.”

“Painting?” Roach asked, a bit confused.

“The demon-sitting-on-a-woman painting,” seaborne clarified. “I keep putting it in the closet but he keeps coming back. It’s kinda freaking me out. I don’t know,” he added, feeling even more sheepish than before. “Maybe I’m just tired but I don’t really want to be alone in that room right now. Do you mind?” Far from minding, Roach let him smile just slightly as he stepped out of the way for his friend to enter.

“Not at all,” he promised, motioning towards the bed. “Take whichever side you want. I’m gonna to brush my teeth.” Seaborne, who’d already done just that, nodded gratefully before stepping inside. The two of them crossed dangerously close to one another on their way to their individual destinations and, for Seaborne, it was a great deal more uncomfortable than it should have been. It’s not like they had never stood close together. They’d even gone swimming together so it wasn’t Roach’s state of dress that made things worse. It was the knowledge that they were to be sharing a bed. Silly though it may have seemed to an outside view, that it was terrified Seaborne most of all. Terrified, for it was during sleep that he wasn’t in full control and he didn’t very well trust himself.

Unlike his partner and friend, Seaborne removed his clothing with far less enthusiasm. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to seem with anything but his briefs on, and he dearly needed a full night’s sleep, but the fewer layers he had between him and Roach… the more dangerous this whole endeavor became. At last he lay beneath the sheets, tucking himself in tight, and tried to calm his mind. He reminded himself that his fears were unfounded, that this was no big deal. He could get through one night sharing Roach’s bed. Surely his body would behave itself for one night, right?

He was still busy mulling the whole situation over when Roach returned from the bathroom, the comforter no longer wrapped around his middle but dragging behind him. With one fluid motion he whipped it up and back onto the bed. It almost landed perfectly into position.

“Nice,” he whispered to himself as he went about tugging it into place. Seaborne couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Eventually Roach had the thick blanket just the way he wanted it and, without further ado, slipping into the bed opposite his partner. “Good night,” he offered, lying on his side facing away.

“‘Night,” Seaborne replied, locking himself into a firm back position. He closed his eyes, slightly hopeful that he could wake up, get dressed, and finally- finally- get out of this weird, foggy, godforsaken, town.

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#rhett #link #rhink #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #seaborne and roach #ravenvale

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jennycalendar · 5 years

Text

deliberate obstruction

read it on ao3!

“I have gone on multiple dates, all in completely different locations, and you have ruined every single one of them.”

(Giles is doing his best to get over Jenny. Jenny is doing her best to impede the process.)

for @worn-whorehouse-stairs!! i left a longer note for u on The Fic Itself but like...this is bc you tagged me in all those post-breakup au fics. so. this is your fault and also your fic. lov u bunches.

The first time it happened, Giles completely missed why it happened, for a multitude of reasons that would later have him somewhat wryly frustrated with himself. For one thing, dinner with Olivia was quite different than dinner with someone like Jenny; he and Olivia had known each other long enough that an interrupted dinner wasn’t too much of a roadblock in their relationship. For another thing, Giles would never have guessed Jenny to attempt something as underhanded and un-subtle as what she did. And the final, largest reason that Giles completely missed the subtext of Jenny’s intervention was simple: it had been a lonely summer, he had found himself thinking about her far more often than he’d care to admit, and every bloody time he saw her, all intelligent thought left his head.

As such, when Jenny arrived at their table, wearing the sparkly, satiny plum dress that nicely accented her figure, all Giles could manage was a sort of frightened noise before he did his best to hide his face behind his menu.

This didn’t work. “Rupert,” said Jenny. “Hi. Um, this is kind of awkward, but I think you guys are sitting at my table?”

Giles didn’t know what to say to that.

“You two…know each other?” said Olivia, looking between Giles and Jenny with a strange expression.

“Oh, yeah, he asked me to marry him one time,” said Jenny, as casually as if she were talking about the weather. “Whole big thing. So, you’re his new girl?”

Olivia was giving Jenny a thoughtful, half-amused look. Then she said, “I don’t know if I’d call myself that. Rupert, would you call me your new girl?”

Giles was very busy alternating between pretending to read the entrée section and pretending he didn’t exist.

“Whatever the term you kids use,” said Jenny with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I kinda reserved this table for a whole party-for-one dinner thing. Taking myself out on the town seemed nice.”

“We can move,” said Olivia helpfully, somehow entirely unbothered by Jenny’s presence.

“No, it’s okay,” said Jenny brightly. “I really don’t mind. Breakups are fresh and weird and maybe this’ll make things a little easier, you know? Call it exposure therapy. Rupert’s a great guy.”

“Isn’t he?” Olivia was relaxing, now, her smile becoming less contemplative and more genuine. “God, breakups can be the worst. My condolences.”

“I’ll have the salmon,” said Giles very loudly to the waiter, who had just arrived. Then, “Olivia, if you’ll excuse me,” and he got up, donned his jacket, and left, not bothering to look back and see whether Olivia was following. There were very few things that inspired him to make such an ungraceful, hasty exit; Jenny Calendar was absolutely one of them.

Olivia arrived at Giles’s place early the next morning, wearing the same floral-print dress she’d worn to the restaurant, her lipstick artfully smudged. Giles felt a sudden, violent surge of jealousy, looking at her, and was well aware that it was for all the wrong reasons. Jenny was an adult, he reminded himself. Jenny was an adult, who had made it very clear that he wasn’t what she wanted, and she had every bloody right to sleep with people she did want to sleep with—

“I’m sorry, Rupert,” said Olivia, and gave him a genuinely apologetic smile. “If it helps, the guilt did put a bit of a damper on the sex.”

“I’m sure it did,” said Giles, and tried to smile back. He honestly wasn’t that mad at Olivia. They’d been friends long enough for him to know that casual arrangements worked best for her, and this wasn’t the first time they’d gone out and she’d gone home with someone else. “Will you be seeing her again?”

“She implied that I could,” said Olivia, with a wary air of one testing shark-infested waters.

It wasn’t fair, Giles tried to remind himself, holding Olivia back from Jenny just because he was bitter and jealous. It wasn’t. “If you’d like to,” he said carefully, “I think I’m all right with that.” He wasn’t, he knew, but Jenny seeing other people was something he was going to have to get used to. He had no intention of impeding the process for her.

The second time it happened was when Giles really was on a first date. Joyce had set him up with one of her friends from book club: a soft-spoken woman named Maura with gently curling red hair. She’d gone for the polar opposite of Jenny, Giles thought, which was kind, but he liked romantic partners who were willing to tell him when they thought he was wrong. Maura simply got a hesitant, semi-disapproving look in her eyes and changed the subject. He’d made some disparaging remark about some book or other, one that she’d evidently liked, and now they were left in an awkward silence, waiting for their food to show up.

Giles, determined to salvage the situation, decided to make an effort. “That book does has its strong points,” he said, trying to smile. “I suppose I’m a bit overly critical. More fond of nonfiction, myself; I get too bogged down in plausibility when it comes to reading fiction.”

“Oh, I can understand that,” said Maura, brightening. “I can’t stand those vampire novels, can you? The concept of humans who suck blood…” She trailed off, making a face. “Apart from being ridiculously disturbing, it just doesn’t seem realistic.”

“Vampires aren’t actually humans,” corrected Giles without thinking. Maura’s warm expression faded. “Um—”

“Rupert!”

Giles turned, staring. Jenny was weaving through the diner, splattered with mud. What, he thought, are the odds that this should happen twice in a row?

“Hey,” said Jenny, waving to Maura. “Sorry to interrupt—”

“Do try not to sleep with my date this time, thank you,” said Giles before he could stop himself.

“Excuse me?” said Maura.

Jenny raised her eyebrows. “So that was a date?” she said. “Olivia seemed to be under the impression that you two were just old friends having dinner.”

“Olivia?” said Maura, who now sounded outright affronted.

“What do you want,” said Giles, well aware that this was most likely the last time he’d ever see Maura. He really would have to apologize to Joyce.

“My car broke down,” said Jenny. “I pushed it into the parking lot, but it’s getting dark, and, well, you know how the vampires get in this town.”

“Vampires?” Maura echoed.

“Is your thing just, like, parroting everything I say?” Jenny asked Maura, giving her a small, unpleasant smile. “Rupert, what’s the deal with her? She doesn’t seem your type.”

“Leave,” said Giles.

“Am I supposed to just walk home alone?” There was a challenging, combative tilt to Jenny’s smile, one that brought Giles back to those faculty meetings in Sunnydale High. She’d make some statement about the budgetary needs of the computer lab, he’d stand up to contest it just because he resented her asking for money the school shouldn’t be spending on those ridiculous machines—

“You are behaving like an utter child,” Giles informed her, “you are being intolerably rude to my date—”

“So this is a date,” said Jenny, sounding satisfied with herself. “Good to know.”

“You know what, Rupert, I think—I think I’m going to go,” said Maura uncomfortably, looking all but miserable.

“No, Maura, stay—” Giles began, feeling absolutely awful.

“No, I think—I should, I should go,” said Maura, and didn’t wait for Giles’s response, getting up from their booth and hurrying past Jenny without looking back.

Giles turned to Jenny, who looked absolutely unbothered by this turn of events. “That date was going badly anyway, wasn’t it?” she said.

“That is none of your business,” said Giles, infuriated. “You had no reason to—to show up, turn things upside down, hurt Maura’s feelings—”

“I gave her a reason to leave!” said Jenny, as though this should be obvious. “You should be thanking me! And anyway, I didn’t show up to sleep with your date, I showed up because my car broke down and I saw you through the window of the diner! So unless you want me walking home and getting killed—”

Giles threw a handful of bills down on the table and stalked out of the restaurant. He could hear Jenny following him, and didn’t turn to look at her until they were standing outside the diner. “You were terrible to Maura,” he said fiercely.

“You were terrible to me!” Jenny shouted. “Who the hell opens with don’t try to sleep with my date? If you didn’t want me to sleep with Olivia that badly, you shouldn’t have left without even paying for the fucking salmon!”

Giles stared at her, and felt suddenly, horribly miserable. This is the woman I love, said a small, terrible voice in the back of his head, and she is looking at me like I’m the bane of her existence. “You’re right,” he said, and pulled out his wallet. “How much?”

The furious expression on Jenny’s face flickered. “Rupert, no,” she said.

“No, I’m serious,” said Giles. His hands trembled as he opened his wallet, fingers fluttering over the small compartment that still held an old picture of her. “How much was that salmon?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Jenny. She sounded just as tired and sad as he felt. “Just—look, I can get home on my own, okay?”

“If your car’s broken down—”

“My car’s not broken down,” said Jenny, and turned on her heel, heading in the direction of her Bug. It took Giles a moment to realize what that might mean, and another moment to decide that he wasn’t going to follow her. This felt like the natural ending to things, he thought; whatever it was she’d been trying to accomplish, she wasn’t going to try and do it again.

She did.

The third time it happened was with another of Joyce’s friends, because ever since Joyce had found out exactly why Giles and Jenny had broken up, she’d all but thrown herself into finding him a lovely single lady friend to rebound with. Surprisingly, she had taken the setback with Maura in stride, saying with a light laugh that Maura was a little hard to handle anyway, and today Giles was out with a woman named Stacie who talked a mile a minute. He rather liked that quality in a person, even if it became difficult at times to get a word in edgewise.

“I don’t know if I personally believe in magic,” she was saying, “but the concept has, at the very least, always fascinated me. There’s something a little wonderful about imagining a world where logical improbabilities can just be called magic, you know? I used to go to a lot of magic shows when I was in college—I was dating a magician, long story—and the whole rabbit-in-a-hat thing was always just so cute to me, though you mentioned things that sound more in the tarot-cards-and-tea-leaves vein of magic, right?”

“Yes,” said Giles, who had completely forgotten what, if anything, he had mentioned.

“That’s pretty wonderful too!” Stacie beamed. She had a rather nice smile, Giles thought, and the fact that this date wasn’t a complete and utter disaster was making him feel a bit more optimistic about his romantic prospects. There wasn’t much of a romantic spark, but at the very least, things weren’t as going as catastrophically terrible as they had with Maura—

And that was when Jenny, walking by their table, very deliberately poured half a bottle of red wine onto Giles’s suit jacket. Stacie, in the middle of chattering away about her friend who read tarot cards, hadn’t noticed Jenny tilt the bottle just enough to spill it, but Giles had, and it shone a very new light on Jenny’s actions. Jenny mysteriously showing up and claiming that she had reserved Giles and Olivia’s table, Jenny’s car breaking down right outside the diner Giles and Maura were at, and now this—

“Oh no,” Jenny gasped, and to her credit, she really did manage to make her remorseful expression look relatively believable. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine,” said Giles through gritted teeth.

Stacie had stopped talking, eyes wide. “Oh no,” she said. “Red wine stains, Rupert, and you were just telling me that the washing machine in your house is broken—”

The washing machine in Giles’s house was broken because, two days before Jenny had moved out, she had tried to do a load herself and broken it. There was no way that Jenny’s wine spill hadn’t accounted for this fact. “It’s fine,” Giles said again. “Really, I-I’d hate to miss what you have to say on, on tarot cards and the like. You were talking about your friend Camille?”

“The washing machine in your house is broken?” Jenny echoed. “Look, you can see this lovely lady any time you want,” she directed a huge smile at Stacie, who beamed, “but laundry waits for no man. I think you should get those clothes to a Laundromat as soon as you possibly can.”

“Honestly, Jenny, I really think—” Giles began.

Stacie cocked her head, frowning. “Jenny?” she echoed. “How do you know her name?”

“I’m his ex-fiancée,” said Jenny, giving Stacie another huge smile.

That was it. “Stacie,” said Giles, well aware that Stacie was probably never going to call him back after this, “I am extremely sorry. Jenny, I would appreciate your leaving. And for the record, I am not going to pay for the salmon.”

“What salmon?” said Stacie, whose big grin had now vanished entirely.

“That was from a different date,” said Jenny helpfully, and left.

Giles watched her go. “Where in God’s name did she get an entire bottle of red wine at this hour?” he said, turning back to Stacie with a semi-forced smile. “She really is—”

“Rupert,” said Stacie, not unkindly, “I really don’t think this is gonna work.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re a sweet guy,” said Stacie, “but Joyce mentioned you were going through a recent breakup, and it seems like she’s still a really big part of your life. I don’t think I can compete with that.”

“That’s not—” said Giles helplessly.

“Call me if you ever get over her, okay?” said Stacie, and leaned across the table to kiss Giles on the cheek. “I hope the wine doesn’t stain.” With that, she set a few bills down on the table, then hurried out of the restaurant, leaving Giles extremely frustrated.

It did make sense, he thought, that the one decent date he’d have would be with a woman smart enough to recognize his feelings for Jenny. He really might call Stacie back at some point, but he resented the fact that Jenny had ensured it wouldn’t be anytime soon.

The fourth time was because a striking fellow named Sebastian had seen Giles playing at the Espresso Pump and asked him out in that tentative, half-furtive way that gentlemen tended to do. Giles accepted, mostly because he rather liked the idea of getting to have a date unimpeded by Jenny, and they were halfway through dinner when Jenny showed up and said, “Rupert—”

And Giles snapped. Without a word, he stood up from the table and grabbed Jenny by the arm, towing her through the restaurant and out onto the sidewalk. Letting go of her, he stared at her, infuriated. “This stops,” he said. “Now.”

“I don’t know what—”

“You know exactly what,” Giles retorted. “I have gone on multiple dates, all in completely different locations, and you have ruined every single one of them.”

Jenny’s indignant expression faltered. She looked away.

“You were the one who ended this relationship, Jenny,” Giles retorted. “You told me you wanted us to avoid each other, you wanted time and space and a clean break, and I respected that—”

“I know.”

“You have no right to show up in my life to humiliate me repeatedly in front of other people, just so you can ruin even the slightest chance that I’ll be going home with someone who isn’t you—”

“I know,” said Jenny, and tugged herself free of his hand, falling against the building with an exhausted, defeated look on her face. “Okay? I know I’ve been…” She trailed off. “God, I don’t know the word for what I’ve been.”

“I hope you’re not about to try and justify it,” said Giles coolly.

“No,” said Jenny, “no, I don’t think—I don’t think I get to do that.” She stood up, a little wobbly on her thin heels, and Giles noticed she was wearing the dress that she had worn to the children’s senior prom nearly a year ago. She’d even done her hair the same way.

“You broke up with me,” he said, and couldn’t help his voice from softening. It didn’t bring him any joy to know that this was just as hard on Jenny as it was on him, but…he could at least understand parts of what she was feeling. “You can’t try and win me back, Jenny. That’s not how that works.”

Jenny nodded, and nodded again. “Yeah,” she said.

“If you want to get back together,” Giles began, then stopped, thinking of Sebastian at the table and his own half-finished plate of pasta. “If you want to get back together,” he said, “it won’t be tonight, and it won’t be easy, and—and you’re going to have to tell me—”

“I don’t know how to do that,” said Jenny helplessly. “You proposed to me and I said no without even thinking. I don’t want to go back to that.”

Giles stopped. Slowly, he said, “Jenny, did you break up with me to avoid talking about what that proposal meant?”

Jenny didn’t answer. She drew her arms into her chest, looking down at her scuffed-up high heels.

Giles exhaled. “Whatever it is,” he said, “this won’t—it won’t sustain itself if you can’t just talk to me.” He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “And you don’t need to win me back, all right?” he said, quiet and tired. “You’ve won me a thousand times over, darling. You’ve won.” Letting his hand drop, he turned and headed back into the restaurant, unable to look over his shoulder. If he looked back, he knew he would fall into her arms, and that wasn’t the right thing for either of them.

The fifth time wasn’t a date in the strictest sense, but the more inebriated Giles got, the closer he came to thinking of it as one. This year had been awash in nostalgia and loneliness, and the fact that Ethan was still the same after all these years (still wanted him after all these years) had much more sway on Giles than it probably should have. Things were comfortingly blurry around the edges, and Ethan kept on touching Giles’s hand in a lingering, purposeful way, and Giles thought he might take Ethan home. That would be nice. His home was very lonely and it felt two degrees too cold because Jenny had done something slightly magical to the central heating during that heat wave last spring and Giles didn’t know how to fix it.

“We should go,” Ethan suggested, giving Giles a small, slow smile. “After you’ve finished—” and he nodded to Giles’s latest drink, the one that had arrived when Giles had stepped out to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face. He didn’t mind being drunk, but some sobriety was required if he and Ethan were going to—that is, Ethan wasn’t exactly the most trustworthy, and—

“Hey,” said a voice. “Hey.”

“Oh, look!” said Ethan, tilting his head up to grin broadly at whoever had just come up to their table. “Ripper, look, it’s that bird who wouldn’t marry you!”

God, Giles was glad he was drunk. “Jenny,” he said, and turned to look at her. She was lit up by the glow of the terrible, barely-working lightbulb behind them, and she was wearing that soft grey sweater he’d pulled off her after the Ascension. “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

“Ethan?” said Jenny. “Leave.”

“I’m Ripper’s moral support,” said Ethan seriously. “Also we’re going to go off and shag later.”

“Great,” said Jenny. “Cool. Well, can I talk to Rupert for a second outside before you two go off and shag?”

Ethan seemed to seriously consider the question, something that he probably wouldn’t have done had he not consumed an ungodly amount of alcohol. Giles decided to answer it for him. “M not going anywhere with you,” he informed Jenny. “You don’t want me, remember? You just want to show up and bollocks up all my dates.”

“Yep,” said Jenny. “That is exactly why I am taking you away from the drunk warlock who almost got Buffy killed on two separate occasions.”

“Thank you,” said Giles, gratified that she had admitted to her wrongdoing, and reached for the beer on the table. Jenny reached forward, trying to grab it from him, and Giles’s attempt to grab it back ended up spilling it all over Ethan, who jumped back with a screech as though he’d been burned. “S’ just beer,” said Giles, a laugh in his voice.

“It’s part of a spell!” Ethan objected with alarm. “S’posed to turn you into a Fyarl demon!” He blinked, then winced. “Fuck.”

Giles looked at Ethan, looked at Jenny, and felt a profound sense of exhausted heartbreak. Nothing ever really changed, did it? There were always strings attached, whether it was with Ethan or with Jenny. Jenny was here to ruin his date, and Ethan was here to fuck him up and fuck him over and fuck him in the process. “I should like twelve to seventeen more beers,” he informed a passing waitress.

“Cancel that,” said Jenny to the waitress, tugging at Giles’s shoulder. She smelled like lavender.

“You smell like lavender,” said Giles, letting her pull him out of the restaurant. He stopped a few feet away from the door, then slumped against the wall, staring out at the half-empty parking lot. “I’m going to be alone forever,” he said.

“You are very drunk,” said Jenny tightly. “Come on.”

“Jenny, I should have hidden the ring away and never asked you,” Giles told her. “It was my fault. I should have known—you were always scared of that sort of thing, you hid in a linen closet in my family’s mansion rather than meet my mum for the first time—I didn’t need to marry you, you know that, don’t you? I just wanted you to know, that, that it could happen if you wanted it—”

“You’re gonna be so mad at me if I tell you I miss you while you’re drunk off your ass,” Jenny whispered. “Please don’t make me tell you how much I miss you, Rupert, okay?”

Through the fog of alcohol and general misery, Giles recognized only that Jenny was hurting. Clumsily, he tugged on her hand, then pulled her into his arms, closing his eyes. He felt her hands grip the lapels of his jacket, felt her cheek against his shoulder, and how many times had they stood just like this? “You know I love you, Janna-Jenny-Jen,” he whispered.

Jenny sniffled. Then she said, “We have to go home, okay?”

“It’s too cold at home,” Giles told her. “You did that thing to the heating system and I don’t know how to fix it—”

“I’ll fix it, just, just, let’s go home,” said Jenny, pulling away from him and scrubbing at her face. She started walking in the direction of her car, except Giles didn’t follow—Giles didn’t want to follow her. She turned. “Rupert?”

“I don’t want to keep walking,” said Giles, staring at her and thinking about—dancing with her that first time, the way her hair fell out of its updo and her blue-and-black sweater bunched under his hands. “I don’t want to walk back home and go to bed alone, Jenny. I loved you so much, I don’t know why—I don’t know what I did wrong.” He swallowed, eyes bright. “I’d do it all over again if I knew how to fix what I did wrong.”

Jenny shook her head, fast and hard, dark hair flying out like a storm cloud. “Absolutely not,” she said, fierce and horribly sad. “No, okay? You didn’t do a single fucking thing wrong, and you know it. This one’s on me.”

“Nothing’s on you,” said Giles, taking a stumbling step forward and gripping her elbow to brace himself.

“You’re really drunk, Rupert, please don’t start a conversation you won’t even remember—”

“Tell me again in the morning, then,” said Giles very softly. “Tell me why I’m wrong and you’re right and you’re the only reason you left.” His chest felt tight with longing. “Tell me.”

Looking away from him, Jenny took his hand again, tugging him the rest of the way to the car.

Giles woke up on his couch with a headache and a distinct sense of regret. The house was the right temperature, which struck him as odd, and then a flicker of memory came back to him—holding Jenny outside a seedy bar downtown, her face buried in his chest. But that couldn’t be right. He’d been out with Ethan last night, hadn’t he?

“Hey.”

Giles almost fell off the couch. “Don’t do that,” he gasped, staring at Jenny, who was…wearing one of his button-downs, the way she’d always done on lazy weekends when she didn’t want to get dressed. She was holding a glass of water, and she looked gently disheveled, and he missed her so much it hurt.

Jenny nodded. Tentatively, she said, “Do you remember what happened last night?”

“I assume Ethan tried to poison me,” said Giles, letting his head fall back against the couch cushions. “That or turn me into a demon. It’s what usually happens when we go out drinking, though it was much more entertaining when we were young and in love.” He’d meant to say young and stupid, but that had slipped out instead, and something about it made him feel strangely better. He’d gotten over Ethan, hadn’t he?

You never proposed to Ethan, though, said that same terrible voice in the back of his head.

Jenny sat down in front of him, holding out the glass of water. Giles took it. “That pretty much sums it up,” she said. She hesitated, then said, “I don’t think I ever gave you a real apology for the horrible way I’ve been acting these last few weeks. I really think you deserve one.”

“It’s fine,” said Giles.

“It’s not,” said Jenny firmly.

Giles took a second look at her. The half-manic glint in her eyes, the one that had been present every time she’d crashed all of his dates, had faded to a tired sadness that he didn’t know how he’d missed before. “Jenny,” he said, “I meant what I said. I still want to be with you.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Jenny, and scooted closer to him on the floor, resting her head against his leg. “I wanna be with you too.”

It didn’t feel like all that much of a revelation. Giles handed her the water, and she took it, taking a sip herself. “So what now?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Jenny quietly. “I think I probably stop crashing your dates, and you maybe hit up Olivia again. Or that Stacie chick, she seems nice—”

“Jenny,” said Giles.

Jenny looked up at him, her mouth trembling. “I don’t wanna get married,” she said. “Not now. Maybe not ever. I never liked the idea as a kid and I don’t think I can like it even if it’s you, and I hate that. I don’t think it makes me any less of a person, but I don’t like that it’s something I might not be able to give you.”

“Relationships are always about compromise,” said Giles softly. “What on earth would make you think that marriage is a non-negotiable for me?”

“Because—” Jenny stopped, then sniffled, resting her head against his leg again. Giles reached down, carding his fingers through her hair. “Because it should be,” she said, almost childishly.

Giles smiled a bit wryly, sliding down to sit next to her on the floor (and doing his best to ignore hangover-related aches and pains). He set down the glass of water on the coffee table, reached up to tilt her face towards his, and kissed her.

It felt like the right decision, kissing her, especially when she kissed him back, raising her hands to tangle them in his hair. Every part of this felt shockingly simple, and it made him want to laugh; they were just so bad at this. He pulled away, cupping her face in his hands, and she bumped her nose against his. “You know we could have saved each other a lot of trouble if—” he murmured.

“I know,” said Jenny miserably. “And that’s kinda the other thing. I’m not good at talking these things out. Generally I just pull back from relationships when things get too real, but…” She kissed him again, then let her forehead fall against his.

“You never did that with me,” Giles finished.

“Yeah,” said Jenny.

“Well, you’re doing it now,” Giles pointed out.

Jenny exhaled, almost a laugh. “Yeah,” she said again. “Yeah, and…a lot of it is because of what you said last night.”

Giles thought back, finding only a few hazy memories. “That you smell like lavender?”

Jenny really did laugh at that, which warmed Giles. “That you didn’t know what you did wrong,” she said, her voice softening. “And—Rupert, you, you have to know that you didn’t do a single thing wrong, okay? This was all me having an extended meltdown and doing my best to drag you down with me.”

“You give yourself too much credit,” said Giles. “I went out drinking with my ex-boyfriend who has a history of poisoning people for laughs.”

“Still,” said Jenny.

Giles smiled a bit. “So what do you want to say?” he asked gently.

Jenny’s wobbly grin faded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, I am. I can make excuses for the rest of the day, but that won’t change the fact that what I did hurt you. I know I want to be with you, but after the mess of these last few months, I don’t know if that’s possible.”

Giles shook his head. “I’m not asking for an apology, Jenny,” he said. “I’m asking for you to tell me if my proposal has changed things between us in any way.”

“I feel like it should have—”

“But has it?”

Jenny smiled again. “No,” she said. “No, I—I still love you just as much, Rupert. None of that’s changed. I just…” She trailed off, biting her lip. “I was scared things would have changed for you,” she said. “You’re traditional, and British, and adorably romantic, and when you commit to something, you commit. I mean, god, the way you care about Buffy and those kids! I know I’m not the marrying type, but I also know that you soare.”

“I’m not the marrying type, Jenny,” said Giles firmly. “I’m the commitment type. It’s certainly easier to express through marriage, but all I wanted to establish is that I want you with me for the long haul.”

“That freaks me out,” said Jenny matter-of-factly.

“And that is perfectly fine, all right?” Giles kissed her again, very gently. “That doesn’t make me think any less of you. Understand?”

Jenny stared at him for a long moment, then said, very emphatically, “God, I am an idiot!” Giles tilted his head, smiling in agreement. “Shut up,” said Jenny, a sobbing laugh in her voice, “shut up shut up shut up,” and pulled him into a fiercely passionate kiss.

“You all owe me so much money!” Buffy shouted triumphantly at the next Scooby meeting. “Faith, fork over ten dollars, you said they’d stay broken up for six months. Willow, you said a year, that’s five dollars. Xander, you dumbass, you bet twenty bucks on them never getting back together, that was such a bad investment—”

“I bet twenty-five on three months,” Joyce reminded Buffy mildly, refilling her glass of lemonade.

“You sent Giles on all those bad dates,” said Buffy, “that so doesn’t count—”

“Those were…bad dates?” said Giles.

“Joyce,” said Jenny.

“Don’t Joyce me,” said Joyce reprovingly, “I didn’t spill red wine all over Rupert just to make a point.”

“Those were bad dates,” Giles repeated disbelievingly.

“We’re really stupid,” said Jenny, who was holding his hand. “Really, really stupid.”

“I am going to buy new boots,” said Buffy, and gave Giles a friendly shoulder punch. “So when are you two getting married?”

“Never,” said Giles, and tugged a grinning Jenny into his side.

#fic #calendiles #rupert giles #jenny calendar #spent most of my sunday ignoring responsibilities to write this #and tbh???? feels good

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haberdashing · 6 years

Text

By Any Other Name

Gravity Falls Avarice AU fic. Stan meets several reincarnations of his loved ones, all of which share one memorable trait.

on AO3

also on ff.net (no link because filters)

“So anyway, what’s your name, kid?”

The teenage boy in front of Stan was positively glowing, both metaphorically and literally, though the latter was only visible to the magically sensitive. Stan, of course, could see the vibrant pulsing colors clear as day, a reminder of an incident several lifetimes ago, of a soul forever altered by Stan’s actions.

(A reminder of power that burned not only its victims but its all-too-eager user, of a lifeforce whittled away slowly but surely with every use, of how she passed on far too soon and left behind two who had to spend long years without the one who shone brightest of them all- of how it was all his fault, in the end, because he was the one who gave her that power in the first place, he was the one who should have known better...)

“My name is Andrew, Andrew Alcatraz!”

Andrew Alcatraz... Why did that sound so-

And suddenly he remembered the name, remembered it being shouted at him many times over- inside a limo with tinted windows, in any number of poorly-lit alleyways, from the other side of iron bars... Stan could feel himself tense up instinctively before realizing that he wasn’t back there, not really. His prison days were long gone, lost even to living memory save for his own, and not a prison in the world could hold him now. The grimy streets that presently surrounded him were in Tijuana, not Colombia. This was the universe playing yet another cruel joke on him, nothing more.

“Why’re you giving me that look?”

The words slipped out before he thought them through. “Has anyone ever called you 8-Ball?”

“No, why? Should they? That sounds kinda cool, actually-”

“No!” As young Andrew’s eyes widened, Stan softened his tone. “Or, uh, maybe, I guess, no skin off my back either way- wait, do you even know what an 8-ball is?”

The long silence that followed would have been answer enough, but when Andrew squeaked out “...those things you shake and they tell your future?”, Stan let out a long sigh.

“Kid, the day you beat me at a game of pool is the day you get to use that name- and not a day sooner, got it?”

(Stan would learn to regret his phrasing three years, four months, and twenty-one days later, when Andrew refused to give up the nickname he had rightfully won.)

If Stan had had to guess which traits of his great-nephew would be passed along to his reincarnations, “wanting to be on television” would have been far, far down on the list.

And yet here he was, watching Steve on television (or... it had some other name now, something that sounded like it was taken from an old science fiction book- holoscreen? holobox?- but it was similar enough to television that Stan still thought of it as such), one of the lead actors in the newest reboot of Poltergeist Botherers.

Steve kept looking over at Stan as the episode played on, his expression toeing the line between nervousness and excitement, and Stan kept staring back at Steve, distracted by a strong sense of deja vu.

It wasn’t just the expression that was the same, or the soul behind it, either. A number of generations had passed, but he could still see it in the curl of his hair, the chestnut brown color of his eyes...

An old Pines soul in a new Pines body. It wasn’t often that the two coincided.

Though, truth be told, it wasn’t exactly a Pines body.

Not anymore, at least. Steve had been born with the surname Pines, had grown up with it, had used it for everything up until he realized his passion for acting and decided that his surname needed to be tweaked to better appeal to casting directors. Stan still called him Pines, though, when he mentioned Steve’s last name at all. It wasn’t that he forgot about Steve changing his name- he could never forget that- but that he preferred not to think of the memories that other name brought up.

The credits finally rolled, and Steve paused the television (or... whatever they called it these days) as it displayed the name STEVE PININGTON in large, blocky print.

“What did you think?” Steve’s eyes were wide, his hands fidgeting as he carefully watched Stan’s expression.

Stan coughed, though he hadn’t needed to cough for centuries, just to buy himself a moment in which to think before responding.

“Well, it’s not really my kind of thing...”

The smile on Steve’s face started to shrink.

“But you did a good job in it all the same.”

The smile on Steve’s face returned, and Stan matched it with one of his own as he playfully ruffled the hair of his... great-great-great-great-great-grand-nephew? Was that the right number of greats? Probably not, but hell, who cares, they were close and that’s what mattered, not the number of links separating them in the family tree.

“Nice work, kid.”

Stan was no stranger to prison cells by any means. He’d seen more than his fair share of them as a human, and as a demon he’d been called to a surprisingly large amount of makeshift summonings made by prisoners who figured they had nothing left to lose, who thought that nothing a demon could do to them could be worse than their current predicament. (An incorrect assumption, as it happened, but one Stan was generally willing to humor so long as it served his purposes.)

But it was rare that Stan entered a prison cell of his own free will.

Then again, the prisoner in this cell was no ordinary prisoner. Ordinary prisoners were locked up to protect others from them rather than the other way around. Ordinary prisoners didn’t have multiple hits out on them. Ordinary prisoners were either going to serve their time or be freed, not be stuck in some strange combination of the two.

And, of course, ordinary prisoners didn’t have souls with a spot on Stan’s family circle.

“I hear they’ve finally figured out what they’ll call me after the move to Milwaukee.”

Stan raised an eyebrow as he looked back at the scrawny, bespectacled man before him. He really didn’t look like the sort of guy who’d bring down half a town’s mob on his own- but then, looks could be deceiving.

“Oh yeah? Some nerd finally threw a dart at a baby name book for you?”

“I think a computer does it, actually.”

Stan waved his hand in the air dismissively. “Close enough. So? What’s it gonna be?”

“Stetson Pinefield.”

The name hung in the air for only a moment before the man soon to be known as Stetson added, “I know, a bit contrived, isn’t it?”

Stan managed to summon up a grin before responding. “Yeah, you could say that.”

The two of them were alone in the field, Stan floating under the branches of a tree while the human- who had short scraggly brown hair and thick glasses and kept scribbling things down in a notebook and really, all they needed was slightly worse fashion sense and the resemblance would be uncanny- had their back pressed against the tree’s rough bark.

“I need to pick a name already and be done with it,” they said.

Stan didn’t respond, unsure if the statement was directed towards him specifically or whether they were just thinking out loud.

“I mean, you can’t just call me ‘kid’ forever, right?”

Stan flashed the kid a grin. “Wanna bet?”

They threw a pen in Stan’s general direction, and both of them watched as the pen passed through Stan’s arm and fell onto the grass.

Stan watched as they wrote down one name in their notebook, then crossed that off and wrote another, which was in turn crossed off as well.

“You gonna change your last name, too?”

“No, my parents were good people, I owe that much to them. And besides, I’m having enough trouble thinking of a first name...” They rubbed one hand against their temple, their other hand tightly clutching their pen. “Nothing feels right, though. I mean, I want it to be leaning towards male, I think, but not- not too male, because I’m not male, not really, and- this doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

Stan considered his words for a moment before he spoke. “Well, I’m not gonna lie and tell you I totally get it, because I don’t- but I believe you, and I want to support you, and if that means figuring out a name that’s male-but-not-male I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

They sighed, writing another name down in the book and scratching it off after only a few seconds’ consideration.

“And hey, if it helps, I’ve had conversations that made way less sense than this.”

“I’m sure you have.” There wasn’t much levity in their tone, but Stan thought he spied the beginnings of a grin on their face.

A short silence fell, the only sound coming from the tree branches swaying in the wind and pen scratching against paper, before they spoke up again. “Actually, if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I don’t seem to be getting very far on my own here.”

It was then that Stan realized.

When he had first met the child that had then introduced themself to him as Becky Forrester, Stan had asked about relatives, friends, crushes, even baby names, waiting for the penny in the air to drop, for the universe to get on with it already, but nobody had had the name he was looking for.

(He had, however, managed to convince them not to name any future children Hephaestus or Mnemosyne, so that time hadn’t been entirely wasted.)

But now he knew what the universe had been waiting for. Now Stan knew what he had to do.

He tried to make the suggestion sound casual. “Well, er, how about the name Hal?”

“Hal, huh?” They wrote the name down in their notebook, pen hovering over the word as they spoke. “Hal Forrester... has a nice ring to it...” Pen hit paper once more, but this time the name was circled, not crossed off. “You know, I actually really like that.”

Stan tried to suppress a smirk as he muttered, “Of course you do.”

#gravity falls #avarice au #gf au #gravity falls au #gf fic #my writing #personal

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drinkupthesunrise · 7 years

Note

If you're still taking fic requests... Wedge/Lando, one-upmanship. Or, you know, any pilot and Lando. I'm not picky. :D

Yes, I am still filling my prompts from ages ago, they are nice to chip away at. This has so little to do with the prompt you gave, spooky, that I don’t even know – I know I’m not exactly great at sticking to prompts but this is beyond that :D Anyway, it hopefully has several other things you like instead?

General warning that Wedge is not entirely in the fittest state of mental health here; nothing bad happens but things are discussed which might be unpleasant for some. (also on ao3)

TheX-Wing. Incom’sfinest achievement; the Rebellion stalwart. An all-rounder, not quiteas fast as an A-Wing but with more manoeuvrability, fire power tomatch any ship of its size, and one sizable advantage on the TIEfighter so beloved by the Empire. Shields.

Asfar as Lando is concerned, the things are death traps. His opinion onthis extends not just to the X-Wings, but the Alliance’sentire compliment of snubfighters. The Millennium Falcon is justfine, and whilst Han is stuck in the blasted carbonite, his to lookafter. So it makes sense to use it whenever the Alliance sends himout on a mission.

Thereare plenty of daredevil X-Wing pilots in the service, but Lando keepsgetting stuck with the same one flying his escort. A dark-hairedyoung Corellian, in a battered X-Wing that has seen one too manybattles. Lando is no stranger to dark-haired Corellians in batteredships, but this one doesn’thalf worship the ground he walks on.

(Hanhadn’tdone that, not exactly,but he’dalways regarded Lando with a gleam in his eye, like he couldn’tquite bring himself to tear his eyes away. The feeling had beenmutual. When Han had left, Lando had spiralled; he’d done a lot ofstupid things in the months that had followed, including a run-inwith Hera Syndulla – which he guesses is one of the reasons whyAntilles doesn’t trust him. He’d come good there in the end.

Butit’sdifficult to shake that impression, if Antilles had been told thetale; how he’d almost sold someone into slavery because he was moreconcerned with his own ideas than with anyone else’s safety.He’smade plenty of mistakes since, too. He might be with the Alliancenow, accepted a commission as a General, even if he refuses to bow toall their rules and regulations, but he can’t fight the naggingfeeling that he should have been here from the start. He made contactwith a part of the Rebellion before the Alliance was even signed; nowhe’s rocked up late to the party.

There’sstill time to make a difference.)

It’sthe chancellor herself, Mon Mothma – who Lando likes, because shetakes very little shit when he attempts to charm her, merely rollingher eyes and sending him on his way – who keeps assigning Wedge toaccompany Lando. So Lando can’t exactly do anything to countermandher orders. He’s stuck with this by-the-book pilot – whateverhappened to X-Wing pilots’ reputation as daredevils? – who’sgot a stick up his arse, and seems devote on infuriating Lando to thebest of his ability.

Atleast he’spretty. Or Lando might have tossed him out the airlock already.

Itmust be said that Wedge Antilles has one other great advantage; he’sone hell of a pilot. He flies an X-Wing like he was born to it, likehe’d never dreamed of doing anything else but flying.

Rightnow, he’sdarting under the belly of a mid-sized Imperial cruiser, leading amerry chase for the four TIE fighters that are following him. Theships defensive cannons are firing, but Wedge is dodging every shot,heading straight and single minded for the shield generators.

Landois keeping a close eye; the pilots in the TIEs are idiots, not theEmpire’sbest by a long way, but they still present considerable danger ifWedge takes his eye off the ball. “Rogue One, are you sureyou don’tneed assistance.” From the co-pilot’s seat, Chewie growls anegative before Wedge manages to respond with one.

“Yeahyeah, he’s capable, still doesn’t mean that what he’s doingain’t hella dangerous,” Lando shoots back, silencing the commsystem once again. The Falcon is far enough away, and hidden behind amoon, and for whatever reason the Imperials haven’t detected it.

Intelligencesaid this ship was full of idiots, washouts from the lower Imperialacademies, but Lando hadn’tthought they’d be this slow. The Falcon and a solitary X-Wingshouldn’t pose much of a threat to a ship like this, not if it wasmanned properly, and if the X-Wing and the Falcon were piloted by menlesser than Lando and Wedge.

Aping from the sensors say that the shields are down; time for theFalcon to move. Two of the TIEs veer off Wedge as they spot theFalcon, deciding to pursue the larger target. To their peril. Onequick word to Chewie and he’son it, targeting the rear gun on them, and taking down one, and thenthe other as Lando loops over the cruiser. “Rogue One, how’re youdoing with those TIEs?”

“Fine,get on with your half Falcon!” Wedge’s words are short andcursory, like he barely has time to contemplate Lando’s existence,and that he dearly wants to get back to his own concerns.

Landorolls his eyes, whilst a snort from Chewie indicates that he agreeswith Wedge, and that Lando should get on. So Lando flicks on an opencomm channel, and says, in the steeliest tones he can muster: “Thisis General Calrissian of the Millennium Falcon, representing theAlliance to Restore the Republic, and given that myself and my friendhere could shoot you out the sky right now, can we have your fullsurrender?”

“Die,Rebellion scum!” is the immediate response, but it’s followed bysome hasty clattering, so Lando waits patiently until someone withsense comes to the lead comm station.

“Thisis First Officer Helen, I’m authorised to offer you a conditionalsurrender on behalf of the bridge crew, will that do?” It’s anervous, young voice, this time.

Landosighs. He never planned to blow anyone out the sky; this crew is tooinept to deserve it. But they carry Imperial clearance codes, onesthat the Alliance needs for another mission. “I’lltake it for now. I’m going to dock, and I warn you; I have an angryWookiee on board who doesn’t like to be crossed.”

Chewieregards Lando with just a hint of betrayal; Lando shrugs. Chewie isintimidating, at least to those who don’tknow him. “Of course sir,” is the response.

“Andspace for my companion in the hangar, please.” A quick check onsensor logs reveals that all the TIEs have long faded to dust, andWedge is hovering a short distance away, lasers primed and aimeddirectly at the bridge.

Theship holds no surprises; the First Officer greets them, alreadyhaving stripped her rank insignia and imperial crest from her uniform– she had no great love for the Empire, Lando soon gathers. TheCommander is knocked out cold, the only one with real objections. Itdoesn’ttake long for Lando to find what he needs, and reach an agreementwith Officer Helen about bringing her crew back to the Alliance. TheCommander – along with a few of the soldiers with families who fearImperial reprisals were they to defect – are stuffed into an escapepod.

Aftereverything settles, Lando finds Wedge in the hangar, inspecting theLambda class shuttle that they’vesomehow crammed on board. “Good shooting out there,” Landocomments, the easy praise of a man who is used to leading.

Wedgejust huffs, running his hands over cool steel, and Lando wonders whatthe hell is his problem.

Ona planet which Lando barely remembers the name of – something likeCrestia II, or maybe III – Lando picks the most inopportune momentto ask “Sowhat the hell is Antilles’ deal?”

He’sgreeted with a groan from Leia Organa, who is his partner for thismission. She’s an effective one, able to slink past the localImperials – who don’t seem to be paying any attention to their‘most wanted’ posters – with the sweetest smile. Only that parthas all gone wrong, and now they’re in the middle of a firefight.“You’ve got great timing.” Readjusting her rifle, Leia takesaim through the scope and unleashes three perfect shots, each of themtaking out a stormtrooper below. “Gonna elucidate on that any, oram I supposed to guess which one you mean? We’ve got a few floatingabout the Rebellion.”

“Onlyone of whom you interact with regularly.” The glare with which Leiagreets that statement makes him doubt the veracity of it, andindicates that Lando is wasting his time by not explaining thingsproperly. “Wedge. I can’t figure him out at all.”

“It’snot that hard,” Leia replies, tone perfectly casual. “He’s gota case of survivor’s guilt the weight of a planet, a sense ofhumour black as carbonite diamond, a sense of loyalty so strong it’sa wonder it hasn’t gotten him killed, and the best – and justabout only – way of making him see sense is to screw him into themattress. I’d give that a try.”

Leiapunctuates her statement with a shot. Another stormtrooper goes down,but Lando can’tconcentrate on that. He’s taken completely aback by the crassnessof Leia’s words. The blushing princess, the favoured portrayal ofthe holo news even now, when she’s been outed as a Rebellionfighter for four years, is a complete fiction, he knows that. Butthis is something else entirely. “What?” Lando stutters,completely unsure of what he just heard.

Surelythe Princess of Alderaan didn’tjust tell Lando she’d screwed Wedge Antilles.

“Ittends to make him relax. And if it doesn’t, then you get a damngood night of sex out of the ordeal, trust me. You’ll feel a littlemore charitable towards him after that.”

Landofurrows his brow. “Yourcoping strategy for dealing with one of your senior pilots is to fuckhim?” The Alliance is hardly known for its conventional rules, butthis is beyond that. They are still a formal military, and shit likethis doesn’t fly.

“Offthe record off course,” Leia clarifies. “The Alliance neverformerly encoded fraternisation regs, for which a million youngsoldiers offer their unending thanks.” Lando had, briefly, been oneof them. But no one has yet held his attention for more than apassing second. Except Wedge. Who doesn’t seem to be a big fan ofLando. Which is Lando’s lot in life, honestly, to fall for men whohaven’t got a jot of interest in return. Honestly, Lando wouldsettle for working out how to have a conversation with the guy. “I’mfairly certain Luke gave it a shot when he was Wedge’s CO, and Monhas a soft spot for him and I wouldn’t like to say she hadn’t—”

Landoremembers his aborted attempt at flirtation with the Chancellor.She’sa fine woman, one who Lando would be delighted to be invited to herbed, but she made it clear enough that she wasn’t interested. Hedoubts that she goes around inviting junior pilots to her bed.

“Idon’t want to know how to screw him, I just wanted to know how tomake him less ascerbic! Or talk to me in the first place!” Landothrows his hands up in frustration.

“Sex.”Leia is chirpy and unrepentant in her answer. She takes a moment tosurvey the ground below, where a new legion of stormtroopers isslowly gathering. “Better get going, or we’ll really be introuble.”

Landofollows her lead.

It’sanother two weeks before Lando sees Wedge again. In that time, hedoes manage to verify that he was entirely wrong about the idea thatMon Mothma is above inviting junior pilots into her bed, because itappears she’s currently sleeping with WesJansonof all people. Lando tries another piece of flirting on her, but it’sshot down immediately; it seems that her tastes run very specificallyto dark-haired men in orange, and whilst Lando can also appreciatethe look, it’s not something he wants to try for himself.

Wedgemight not have much time for Lando, but the other Rogues don’tmind him, so Lando’s invited to participate in the card game thatthey’ve got going on in the corner of the pilots’ rec room. Themood is miserly. A report crossed Lando’s desk that morning; theRogues lost a pair of pilots in their last mission, and a resignationhad followed. It had cited the Rogues’ dangerous working practices,the increased jeopardy that came with being a Rogue, and well. Landodoesn’t think it went over well.

Mostof the Rogues are hardly the best Sabacc players in the world, butthey’repassable. A bottle of something makes its way surreptitiously roundthe table. Lando declines it after taking a whiff. He wants no partof that toxic mess, that smells like it might have been brewed in anengine.

Oneby one the Rogues fall away, bowing out as their credit lines runout, until it’sjust Wedge and Lando playing. Wedge’s strategy is gettingincreasingly erratic, risky, a contrast to the man Lando has observedin battle. He mentions something to that effect, and Wedge merelyshrugs.

“We’reas likely as not to die tomorrow, so why not?” The words are thatof a man with a maudlin sense of his own mortality. He lays one finalcard down; his daring has paid off. Lando knows he can’t beat it.

“You’vesurvived this long, don’t be so quick to throw that life of yoursaway.” Lando tosses his cards on the table, face down, in defeat.“See, you won this one.”

Wedgeclears the credit chits to his side of the table, without theslightest hint of satisfaction. “Agame of Sabacc ain’t half as hard as surviving a battle.”

“Oddsare about the same.”

“Yeah,shit.” Lando raises his eyebrows. That’s not the Corellian spirit– how many times has he had to sit through Han’s ‘don’t tellme the odds’ speech? More than a few times, he’s thought that alittle more attention wouldn’t go amiss, but there’s somethingabout Wedge’s tone that unsettles Lando. “Yeah yeah.” Wedgewaves his hand with a false display of casualness that is so utterlyunlike him that the hair on Lando’s neck stands on edge. “Betrayingmy fellow countrymen by worrying in the first place. Well fuck them.This galaxy could use a few more people who give a shit.”

Wedge’seyes are dark, just a little hazy, and it’s clear that the alcohol,along with everything else, has gone a little to his head. He’snever been this candid in Lando’s presence before. “How about youdrop this maudlin attitude that you’ve been wearing all eveningthen, the one where you’re pretending that you don’t care aboutanything, because you aren’t fooling me, command, or yoursquadron.”

Leaningback in his chair, the barest hint of a smirk crosses Wedge’sface. The rigidity is gone, in its place – spurred on by the drink,no doubt – is a looseness that doesn’t quite suit. This Wedgecould be a whole hell of a lot of trouble in a completely differentway. “Yes sir,” he says with enough cheek to make even theeasiest-going senior officer stand on edge. “Didn’t know youcared so damn much. Should have joined us sooner, maybe, if you’regonna lecture me on my attitude – what right do you have to tell meshit? I’ve been through the wars, in this war—”

“Idid the best I could to keep the people I was responsible for safe.”Lando cuts Wedge off with a certainty that surprises even him. Heknows his words are right, the truth settling within him. He did allhe could. And Wedge is just trying to get a rise out of him, andLando won’t meet him. “And now I fight alongside you to try andbring them a galaxy in which they can be safe, and part of that meansensuring you are capable of doing your job.”

“I’mone of the best pilots in the fleet.”

“You’reno good to anyone if you’re constantly assuming you’ll go down inflames. That’s not bravery, or knowing the odds Wedge, it’s—”suicide.The word dies on Lando’stongue as Wedge stiffens.

Itwas the wrong thing to say. Almost say.

Itwas accurate, and that terrifiesLando.

“I’mnot—” Wedge can’t quite finish his denial. He can’t say it.It wouldn’t be true.

IfLando could prove it, if the Alliance wasn’tso desperate for Wedge’s skills, Lando would have him off theflight roster in an instant. But there is a war on, and that meansthey have to live with things that aren’t ideal.

“Forgetit.” Lando stands up, clearing the scant remainders of his creditback into his pocket. “Doesn’t matter. Go to bed, sleep it off,get up tomorrow and go back to being an X-Wing ace, not whatever thisis.” Lando gestures at Wedge. “I don’t like you like this.”

Lando’sexit route takes him past Wedge, and Wedge catches his wrist in astrong grip as he attempts to leave. “Does that mean you like me?”Wedge is on his feet suddenly, in Lando’s space, eyes shining thatdark colour that Lando is never sure about, and Lando doesn’t havetime to form a response before Wedge kisses him.

Hegasps into the kiss, in shock and surprise, and Wedge’stongue flicks into his mouth. Lando can taste the alcohol on histongue, cheap rotgut in an idiotic Corellian pilot’s mouth, Landohas played this game before and it has not ended well. In lettingWedge kiss him, he’s making a grave error in judgement, the sort ofthing which is stupidly reckless.

Wedgebreaks away. He regards Lando for a single, too-long moment, beforestepping back and releasing his grip. Lando is still too surprised todo anything. Another moment, and Wedge is walking away, and Landodoesn’tknow what he’s supposed to think.

“Whatthe hell did you say to Wedge?” Leia hisses at Lando in passing.

“Nothing!”is Lando’s reply, but he’s aware of the futility of it; you’dhave to be a fool to not notice that Wedge has tightened up recently,coming into his own as the commanderof Rogue Squadron, not just a fill-in who doesn’tthink he’s supposed to be there.

Leia’smouth pulls into a wicked smile. “Ahh.” There’s an assumptionthere, that Lando has followed the advice Leia gave him, and it’sfaulty; but Lando has thought about it, can’t stop thinking aboutit, ever since Wedge kissed him.

Sohe lets her be, because honestly, she’snot wrong. Screwing Wedge into the mattress probably would do him theworld of good.

It’searly morning – or at least, it is by ship’s time, not that thatmeans anything to anyone really. Lando is taking one last look roundhis office, attempting to commit the whole thing to memory beforehe’s cast out into the desert wastes, when Wedge slips round hisdoor. “I hear they’re sending you to Tatooine,” he says.

Information,barely a week old, had confirmed that Han was located in Jabba’spalace. It was from a reliable source, but Lando and Luke knew enoughabout Jabba that mounting an attack without inside information was afool’s errand; so, it’s Lando’s job, with the leastrecognisable characteristics of the four of them, to infiltrate. Heleaves in three hours. “If we’re gonna get Han back, someoneneeds to go, and it might as well be me.”

Wedgenods. He does it like he understands the responsibility of goingafter your best friend and dragging them back from hell itself. Maybehe’sdone that. Lando doesn’t really know him well enough to say.“Tattoine’s a shit hole.”

“I’maware.”

Uninvited,Wedge takes the chair in front of Lando’sdesk, swivelling it around so h can rest his arms on the back of it.“Yeah, Luke will have given you the salient points, but he grew upthere. He can’t really explain what it’s like. Whatever he’stold you, it’s about a thousand times worse.”

FromLuke’sdescription �� along with the scant information in the Alliance datafiles – Tatooine is only a step away from hell. But in some ways,so was Cloud City, built in the upper atmosphere above a planet ofTibanna gas. Tatooine is a habitable world, without any modifications– well, except the need to bring a bundle of vaporators along withyou – and there is food, water in the atmosphere, and it’s notlike the core of the planet wants to eat you whole. There are worseplaces in the galaxy, and Lando’s visited a bunch of them. Histolerance may be higher than the average person’s. “And you’rean expert?”

Fromwhat Lando knows, Wedge hasn’teven been to Tatooine, but he suspects he’s wrong about that too.“Not an expert, but Booster took me there once as a kid. Well,thirteen. He said I should see a bit more of the Galaxy. It was hell.I swore after that week that Booster was certifiable.”

“Booster?”There’s a man who Lando has heard of, who had dealings on Tatooine,but he can’t be the man who Wedge is talking about.

“Terrik.”Or he is.

Landolets out a low whistle. “Well,turns out there’s something interesting about you after all. How’dyou get tangled up with Booster as a kid and not end up a smuggler?”

“Hewas a family friend; my parents would have killed him if he evertried to recruit me.” Wedge is surprisingly nonchalant about hisconnection to one of Corellia’s famed smugglers. “And who said Ididn’t?”

Landofiles that piece of information away for later. “So,have you got anything useful to tell me, or have you just come hereto inform me that Tatooine is going to be hell to live with?”

Thatwas not the only reason Wedge came. He does turn out to have amoderate amount of semi-useful information, gleamed from his ownexperiences and from stories from Luke, and another pilot he knewonce, by the name of Biggs. Some of them even make Lando laugh. Thathelps. Dread has settled in his stomach, ever since he and the othersdecided that Lando needed to go to Tatooine, and Wedge’ssmile and quick words help lift it. It’s still going to be bad, butLando can forget, for just a little while.

AfterWedge finishes recounting a tale, he cocks his head at Lando. Hebites his lip, looking almost speculative, then asks: “DidI kiss you last week?”

Landojust – only just – keeps his mouth dropping from surprise. Hetries to play it cool. “Youdid. Was it that forgettable?”

Wedgeregards Lando with no small degree of scrutiny. Finally, he sighs.“Notat all. Thought I might have dreamt it though.” Lando loses all thewords he was going to say. Is that an admission that Wedge wanted thekiss, that it wasn’t some spur of the moment thing? “Look, I knowthat I have god-awful timing, but can we try that again when I’mnot drunk off my face and in a depression spiral?”

What—

Landoblinks several times at Wedge in quick succession. He’sstill there. Lando isn’t imagining things. But he heard right;Wedge wants to kiss him. “You really do have awful timing,” Landosays, because he is leaving,and who knows if he’llsurvive Jabba’s clutches, or if Wedge will still be alive when hecomes back. But they’ve still got a little time, so Lando standsup, making his way round the desk so he can drag Wedge out of hischair and tip his head up and kiss him.

Asoft moan emerges from Wedge’smouth, as he clutches his hands in the soft material of Lando’sshirt. Lando pushes him back against the desk, sliding a thingbetween Wedge’s legs and wondering why on earth he didn’t trythis sooner. Wedge’s mouth is sweet under his, kissing back with aquiet fierceness that Lando didn’t expect. It’s completelydifferent from their last kiss, which was uncertain and full of adegree of wild desperation on Wedge’s part. This time, it’smutual, wanted and appreciated.

Whenthey break the kiss, Wedge stares at Lando for a long moment,observing his entire face. A flush has coloured his cheeks, Landoknows that, almost embarrassing but not because he likes Wedge, morethan he ever thought he would, and he’sat a point in his life where that’s okay with him. “I know mytiming’s rotten,” Wedge whispers. His head fits into the crook ofLando’s neck almost perfectly. “How much time do we have beforeyou leave?”

Landochecks his chrono. “Notenough.” He strokes a hand down Wedge’s jawline; it’s sharp andstrong, and there’s the barest hint of stubble in a few placeswhere Wedge must have been in a rush that morning. A finger beneathWedge’s chin tilts his mouth up to meet Lando’s again. Landotries to memorise Wedge’s mouth, his lips, his taste; this entiremoment. It’ll be something to keep to himself, a memory totreasure, to remind him that there’s the potential for somethinggood in his life. “Force.” He exhales, lips not breaking apartfrom Wedge’s, breathing the words into his mouth. “You betterstill be here when I get back Wedge.”

“I’lltry and stay safe.” It’s all he can promise. Anything more wouldbe a lie, and Lando knows it. Wedge slips a hand round Lando’swaist, pulling him in close. “I’ll try. I’m not fucking aroundwhen I say it’s dangerous.”

“Iknow you’re not.” Lando sweeps a hand through Wedge’s hair;it’s surprisingly soft. “I just like to get a chance to see it…”He trails off. However he was going to end that sentence is too manywords, too soon. So he kisses Wedge again, silently counting down thelast minutes he gets to spend with this man he unexpectedly adores.

“Yeah,”Wedge mutters into Lando’s mouth, and maybe, just maybe, they’lllive to see it.

Alive– though only barely – Lando flies back to the Alliance fleet onthe Millennium Falcon, alongside Chewie, Leia, and an unfrozen Han,who seems to be recovering his wits at a pace. The Falcon docks withHome One, and Lando says his goodbyes to the rest of them quickly –Han needs to see a proper medbay before they all debrief, so he’sgot time – and heads to the Hangar.

RogueSquadron’sX-Wings are in the hangar, twelve of them, none looking the worse forwear. Lando breathes a sigh of relief. It’s no guarantee, ofcourse, but it’s a good omen. He rounds a corner and finds Wedge,sitting on a crate, consulting a data pad, biting his lower lip infrustration. A couple of the other Rogues are dotted about thehangar, decompressing in their various individual ways, but Landoonly has eyes for Wedge.

Wedgelifts his eyes at the sound of Hobbie’sindignant cry as Janson tackles him to the floor, and catches sightof Lando. He ignores his pilots, sets the datapad down and slips offthe box he’s sitting on, making his way over to Lando. Lando slideshis hands in his pockets, attempting to look nonchalant – he can’tlet his entire reputation go – but he can feel his mouth workingits way into a giddy smile, because force damn it, he really doeslike Wedge, and he’s missedthebloke, and it’sjust a delight to properly see him.

Wedge’space is just a little faster than ordinary; he stops a foot clear ofLando, appraising him. “You don’t look too badly off, for someonewho spent a couple of month’s in Jabba’s palace,” he says.

“Yeahwell, I’m pretty glad that Jabba’s dead.” Lando wants to reachout and touch, pull Wedge close. But Wedge is maintaining a distanceand they’re in front of not just Rogue Squadron, but dozens ofsupport personnel, and they never did have a conversation aboutwhether they wanted to make their relationship public.

Wedgeraises his eyebrows. “Dead?”

“ThePrincess. Things went a little awry.” Lando makes a motion with hishand, waving the details away. Wedge is familiar enough with theantics of Skywalker and co. “Glad to be back. Any hope of somepeace and quiet and a chance to catch up?”

“I’mbooked to run sims with the kids in half an hour, but my evening isclear and yours.” Wedge looks a little bashful, but Lando smiles inappreciation. That’ll give him a chance to get properly clean andhave some sleep. “And peace and quiet ain’t on the radar. There’sbeen no formal announcement, but something’s definitely up; Iexpect they’ll brief you on it first chance they get.”

Landogroans, just a little, though he didn’treally expect anything else. “It’s not the welcome home you mighthave wanted, but I’ve got a bottle of whiskey in my quarters andI’ve been looking for an opportunity to share it,” Wedgesuggests.

“Darling,”the endearment falls off Lando’s tongue with accustomed ease, butWedge’s eyes widen like he wasn’t expecting it, “your companyis the only welcome home I wanted.”

“Oh.”Wedge steps forward, into Lando’s space and says; “In that case.”His hands move to the collar of Lando’s cape, and he pulls the maninto a kiss. It’s a little rough, and they still haven’t quiteworked out the height difference – Wedge still seems unaccustomedto kissing people taller than him – but it’s niceand honestly? Lando really could get used to this. There’shooting echoing behind them – probably Wedge’s pilots, but Landocouldn’t give a fuck right now – he just concentrates on kissingWedge, long and slow, taking his chance because who knows if therewill be another, Lando is lucky to get this homecoming.

Theypart; Lando strokes a hand down Wedge’sjaw and looks him over properly. He’s smiling, eyes bright, and helooks a world away from the man who Lando left a couple of monthsago, who had darkness bleeding at the edge of his psyche. Landodoesn’t dare to hope that Wedge is completely shot of that suicidalideation, but he looks happier; Lando won’t have to worry abouthim, anymore than he already would, with whatever this thing that iscoming is. “It’s good to see you,” Lando whispers, leaning backin for another kiss.

Wedgeresponds by wrapping his arms around Lando’sneck and pointedly ignoring the loud jeers from his gathered pilots,and yeah; Lando likes this.

#spookykingdomstarlight #wedge antilles #lando calrissian #star wars #swfic #myfic #mine #ficlet #this is 5k it's not really a ficlet anymore OOPS

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digging-holes-in-the-river · 7 years

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I had some more thoughts on Toby from The Year of the Flood. (Spoilers ahead, but only about her character, not about the plot.)

While reading The Year of the Flood, I realized that Toby was one of the few female role models I’d encountered in fiction.

This isn’t something that bothers me; I can relate just as well to male role models as to female ones, so the lack of female role models never seemed like a big deal. But it’s interesting to analyze what makes Toby someone I look up to, and why I don’t normally see women like that in fiction.

(This post is absolutely not intended as a contribution to the discourse. It’s a comment on me, and the sort of characters that appeal to me. It’s not a criticism of our culture’s literary canon, or a moral statement about what we need more of in fiction. It’s just a personal post about my personal preferences.)

Anyway, the most obvious explanation is that I just don’t read that many books with female protagonists. (”Protagonist” is important because it’s easiest for me see viewpoint characters as role models.)

But even when I do read books with female protagonists, I don’t usually think of them as role models. I admire strong female characters, but it has to be a particular sort of strength; most “strong female characters” aren’t people I look up to.

I mean, most male characters aren’t people I look up to either. I’ve read... five or six works of fiction this year? And Toby is the only character I’ve encountered whom I think of as a role model.

There’s a very decent chance that, if I read just as many books with female protagonists as male ones, then I’d have equally many male and female role models in fiction. Which perhaps says something about my reading habits, or the amount of representation in the genres I enjoy, but that’s not the point of this post.

What I want to write about is... there’s a few “strong female character” tropes that I encounter a lot (either in actual fiction, or in stereotypes about strong female characters), and I want to explain why those tropes don’t appeal to me, but Toby does.

“Strong female character” tropes that I have encountered:

(1) The woman who is told she can’t do X because she’s female, so she puts on men’s clothing and does X anyway, and proves all of them wrong.

I enjoyed the Alanna books as a kid, and they were a very clear example of this thing. For those who haven’t read them, Alanna is a girl who wants to be a knight, but girls aren’t allowed to become knights, so she sneaks into the knight academy and masquerades as a man for many years, eventually achieving knighthood.

I also see a lot of real-world versions of this story, in social media posts about women in STEM. There, the story is usually “she entered this scientific field, despite the stigma against women doing that, and then she persevered and made great scientific discoveries, even in the face of considerable sexism”. The women in these stories don’t literally put on men’s clothing, but their entire story is about succeeding in a man’s world.

Anyway, despite being a woman in a male-dominated field, I’ve pretty much never encountered sexism. I don’t think of myself as a “woman in STEM” so much as just a “person in STEM”. And so I don’t really relate to the struggle of “a woman trying to make it in a man’s world”. Those stories can be interesting to read, but they’re not the sort of role model that applies to my life and circumstances.

(Also, for the record, if I was one of those early-1900s women scientists who appeared in social media posts, I would be so pissed if everyone telling my story just focused on the gender stuff. I’d be like “why can’t you tell a story of the scientific obstacles I overcame, and the long hours spent in the lab despite everyone telling me that my theory was crazy and would never work?” That’s the story that male scientists and inventors get, and it pisses me off that women scientists only ever get stories about being a woman and overcoming sexism. Like, sure, that’s a part of the story. But it’s not the whole story.)

(2) The strong female character whose “strength” is basically aggression, who revels in kicking ass and making snarky comments.

I can’t think of any specific examples, so maybe I’m only imagining this trope? But I feel like I’ve seen it in Hollywood movies, ones with a lot of action scenes where the strong female protagonist fights the bad guys and kicks all their butts.

This kind of woman (if I’m not just imagining this trope) is always heterosexual, and has some debonair love interest with whom she has a very combative relationship. They fight a lot (possibly violently) but they both seem to enjoy the fighting, and sometimes the fighting leads to sex.

Anyway, this trope definitely isn’t me, and it’s not something I look up to either. I don’t wan to be more aggressive, or more combative, or more snarky. In general, I don’t enjoy being around snark and aggression. I want to be calm; if I need to enact violence, I want to do it because “this is what needs to be done”, not because I actively revel in acts of aggression and revenge. And my ideal romantic relationship has basically zero fighting.

(Anyway, just because this stereotype isn’t my role model, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just not who I, personally, want to be. The only reason it would annoy me is if it were put forth as the only available model of female strength.)

(3) The strong female character whose strength is defined through leadership: she’s strong because she’s the boss, the manager, the CEO. She tells other people what to do; she makes important decisions; she interrupts men during meetings.

She’s the loud, assertive female lawyer who won’t let herself be intimidated by the male lawyer from the other side, who wins her case decisively even though the other lawyer is lobbing personal attacks in her direction, or playing dirty behind the scenes.

She’s the female policewoman (e.g. Clarice Starling) who catches the criminal and earns the respect of her peers.

Basically, she’s a woman whose “strength” is defined as career success, often in a traditionally male role. (I guess this is similar to point (1), but in my mind they’re different, because in (1) her strength is “succeeding in a man’s world” and in this one, her strength is “succeeding in a high-status, challenging career”.)

Anyway, there’s plenty to admire about this stereotype (bravery, not taking shit from anyone, taking on a challenge and then succeeding at it), but it’s not something that I personally aspire to. I don’t really care about career success (especially not in a “becoming the boss” kind of way). And... in a lot of ways, I’m more of a collectivist than an individualist, and... I don’t really look up to characters whose main strength is “pursuing personal success”. If they’re fighting for something greater than themselves, then sure. If they’re seeking a high position in the company because they honestly care about the company’s goals and want to improve its functioning, then sure. But if they’re just doing it for the sake of their own status, then... that’s not something I personally look up to.

I mean, Toby does eventually accepts a position of leadership, but it’s not because she aspires to a high position in her community. She doesn’t want a position of leadership, but she takes it out of loyalty to her mentor and duty to her community. The ideal she’s embodying there is “responsibility to others” not “a go-get-it attitude” or pursuit of success for herself.

(I don’t think Clarice Starling is just doing it for her own status, btw. I assume she actually does want to make a positive difference in the world. I admire her as a person, even if she’s not someone I think of a role model.)

(4) I don’t know if this counts as a “strong female character”, but there’s definitely the trope of the “empowered woman” who ignores society’s advice and pursues her own happiness instead. The woman who’s trapped in an unhappy marriage to a man she no longer loves, and who divorces him and travels the world in order to find herself and discover what makes her happy (even if she has three kids at home). In this story, she’s heroic for not letting herself stay trapped, and for not listening to society’s fuddy-duddy, prudish moral dictates about marriage; she’s heroic for recognizing that her happiness is important, and then pursuing it.

Again, I’m a collectivist, and I admire sacrifice for the greater good, not pursuit of self-interest. So this isn’t a trope that appeals to me.

(5) The woman who goes her own way, even though society is telling her not to, based on a firm inner sense of conviction that that’s the right thing for her to do.

I don’t know if this is a trope, but I’m including it because I want to emphasize that this isn’t what bothered me about point (4). I’m not looking for strong female characters who do everything that society tells them to do. If a character sees a better way to do something, or has some firm inner calling that carries her away from an ordinary life, then that’s actually something I admire. I admire people who have firm inner convictions and a strong sense of purpose / destiny.

My problem with (4) isn’t that the character is following her own way. It’s that her own way is selfish, it’s shirking responsibility, it’s prioritizing her own needs far beyond that of other people.

(6) The strong woman who doesn’t need no man.

This kind of character is defined by her independence, her lack of need for a romantic relationship, her preference to be on her own. Maybe she spends her whole life childless, or maybe she goes to the sperm donation clinic and becomes a single mother, but either way, she proves that she doesn’t need a man’s help to succeed in her life goals.

(I can’t think of any characters who fit this description, but I definitely know some real-life examples.)

Anyway, this isn’t something I personally look up to. I mean, I do want to be independent. I’m not in a relationship, I might never end up getting married, and I want to be able to function on my own. And even if I were in a relationship, I’d want to be able to take care of myself and not be an emotional burden on my significant other. But ultimately, I do want to get married, assuming I find the right person. And all of my independence comes from “don’t want to be a burden on people I care about / society”, not from “men suck, I don’t need them, and I don’t want anything to do with them”.

(7) The woman who wants absolutely nothing to do with childcare or having children. She’s strong because she’s not letting society tell her what to do. Society keeps asking “so, when are you planning to have kids?” and she keeps saying “fuck off, never”.

This is fine; I have no objection to this character; it just isn’t something I personally aspire to. I probably do want kids, and society (and friends and family) aren’t breathing down my neck saying “when are you going to have babies?”, so this trope just... isn’t something that’s relevant to me. (Though I can totally understand it appealing to deliberately childless women who are tired of putting up with well-meaning relatives’ invasive questions.)

Anyway, there is one specific “strong female character” trope that really does appeal to me, at a really deep level, and Toby is an absolutely perfect instance of that thing. That trope is:

(8) The woman who calmly, stoically endures everything that happens to her, and who works hard and accepts her situation, even if it’s not ultimately what she would have hoped for. The woman who embraces responsibility, and who focuses on her duties instead of on self-interest.

Throughout the book, Toby puts her own needs and emotions aside in order to help other people, and to do what needs to be done, and I find that deeply admirable. She doesn’t sit around pining over what she can’t have; instead she says “that emotion is not useful to me right now” and ignores it in favor of doing her duty. She has an unrequited crush, but it’s not tenable to act on, so she keeps it to herself and doesn’t let it interfere with her role in the community. Etc.

Like, you never hear Toby going through “what if”s, wishing life had turned out a different way. You never hear her lamenting her situation or complaining that life isn’t fair. If you asked her, she’s probably say “of course life isn’t fair, what did you expect?”

She’s stoic and practical and competent and resourceful; she’s good at doing what needs to be done. She’s the kind of person you’d want around in a crisis, because she stays extremely calm and knows how to help.

She’s stern and no-nonsense and doesn’t put up with any crap (either from the kids she’s teaching, or from herself).

I’m not very much like Toby, but... she represents something that I want to be.

(Another character like this is Katie Nolan, from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, whom I’ve written about before.)

Relatedly, I remember that, in a college English class, we watched Disney’s Snow White and then read a feminist critique of it, saying that actually, the witch was the real heroine (and a much better feminist icon) because she went after what she wanted, instead of demurely accepting things like Snow White did.

And I remember writing a grumpy essay, saying how I thought Snow White was a much stronger character than the witch, because she took a bad situation and made the best of it. She didn’t sit around pining for all the things she couldn’t have; she was practical and hard-working and focused on her duties.

(That year in college, I had a lot of fun watching old Disney movies, and seeing how clearly they fit into the decade in which they were made. Snow White was made during the depression, and contained a lot of depression ideals of making do with what you have. IIRC, the witch was the bad guy precisely because she was unwilling to do that.)

Anyway, maybe it’s not a good idea to be like Toby. Maybe she holds too much in, and needs to relax sometimes and let some of her emotions out. Maybe it’s not so bad to rely on other people, or to show weakness every once in a while.

(And trust me, I’m not nearly as strong as Toby. I show weakness all the time; I very frequently come to other people for help.)

But... multiple times lately, I’ve endured some difficult situation by thinking “what would Toby do?” Like, this sounds dumb, but a couple days ago it helped me get up the nerve to set a rat trap (I hate rat traps, I’m always terrified they’re going to snap my fingers off) because Toby would just take a deep breath and do it. (Well, Toby wouldn’t kill a rat. But she wouldn’t be afraid of the trap snapping off her fingers.) It helped me deal with a big spider behind my bed, and then sleep in the bed anyway, because Toby wouldn’t have been scared of that. It helped me maintain the resolve to work on my personal finances yesterday, even though I was really tired and just wanted to go to bed, because they needed to get done, and Toby wouldn’t have let tiredness get in the way of doing her chores.

So anyway, that’s the sort of strong female character I admire. (And it has nothing to do with being female; I also admire men who are like this. One of my work friends is like this and I admire the crap out of him.)

I think I had more to say on this topic (or maybe some more strong female character tropes to list), but luckily for all of you, I can’t remember what it was.

#comments on books #maddaddam trilogy #the year of the flood #margaret atwood #WALL OF TEXT

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