#but also acting... a misplaced attempt to protect his friends and world? not feeling like he can share his 'true' self? augh

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

something i've been thinking about:

Wally is set up as a sort of "main character" by the whrp. he's said in the site's description of the show to have introduced the main theme/lesson of the day's episode, and then the rest of the neighbors join him on his escapades. but then we have our first glimpses of everyone's actual dynamics and characters through the audios and you look at Wally and its like

first of all, thats an npc. second, nearly everybody else has severe main character syndrome

but its fascinating how Wally is just kind of... There. he doesnt talk much. he doesnt contribute beyond a couple of lines. its more like he joins the others on their shenanigans. he fades into the background. he's off to the side while everyone else holds conversations & leads the moment

Wally, despite being described as Thee character, is borderline background.

& whats even more interesting, within his individual secret audio files and interactions - he's almost chatty. not only that but the way he talks is more confident and faster paced. he's taking initiative. he can be kinda pushy. when talking to the qa/whrp/Us, he acts more like the character his descriptions portray. he acts more like a person instead of a puppet waiting for his next cue

I cant tell if - when around the neighbors - his tepid milk behavior is a purposeful act or if he's masking. and if he's masking, is it deliberate or involuntary? and in regards to both, why is he acting so different? It could be tied to what he's trying to accomplish. if he's trying to "restore" Welcome Home, it would make sense for him to act as he does around the neighbors - he wouldnt want to clue them in that he knows so much more than he's letting on, would he?

but then that begs another train of thought - what if he isn't acting or masking? if there is a time discrepancy between Wally's interactions with the qa/whrp/Us & the more 'official' audios, that could explain the difference in behavior. we could be getting glimpses into "future" (read: current) Wally, who's had much more time to figure himself out since we can safely assume he started out as a blank slate. we could be seeing a more experienced Wally than the one seen with his friends.

of course that line of thinking loses some merit when considering the 14 "bug" audios. or it could lend to it... if we're seeing a more experienced Wally but his friends are only seeing what he allows them to. it's still him, just... a carefully curated version.

in general it could really tie into the themes of identity and change and being other, to me. when you're so different - or you feel so different - that you can't bring yourself to be your most authentic you around your friends. when you feel like you have to hold back and be who you think they expect you to be, or what would be most palatable. most normal. will they accept you as you really are? there's always the fear and terror that the people you consider closest to you won't. or when you're so scared of change that you'll shove down & lock away parts of yourself so that you can keep things as you are. because once they know you've changed, so will they. and really, do you want to even accept that you've changed? what if that's what scares you most of all - that you're different, you've metamorphosized, you can't go back to the way things were because you yourself are no longer the person you were before. there is no reversing this no matter how much you try or pretend

#its just so fascinating #the whrp: wally's The Guy! #wally (with his friends): the most lukewarm dude ever #then he's alone or alone with home and its like Hi My Name Is Wally Darling & Welcome To Jackass *off-tune guitar riff* #bbg has ✨problems✨ #and like - im giving all of his stuff a re-listen to make sure im not misremembering or completely talking out of my ass #but his phone call? the way his VA is delivering the lines seems So fuckign different than in the shared audios #his tone is flatter. he sounds more sure of his words and himself. he Sounds like he's in control and knows it. #immediately going from that to a shared audio where he puts more inflection in his voice & doesnt talk much #and when he does talk its slow. meandering. his lines are more befitting of his audience surrogate role #which only makes me feel more like he's acting/masking (again: if that time discrepancy does indeed exist) #which - as someone who kinda compulsively masks around Literally Everyone no matter how much i want to Not - it kinda hits hard! #i suspect that he Is masking instead of acting. he's The Most Autism as we all know so it would more than fit #and that could add an extra layer if it's automatic and he can't turn it off. or if he doesn't want to turn it off #but also acting... a misplaced attempt to protect his friends and world? not feeling like he can share his 'true' self? augh #wally darling you make me unwell. i want to dissect you #wh speculation #welcome home speculation #homebogging #and then listening to his little record audios #he starts out talking like he does in the shared audios and then slowly gains confidence until he's speaking more like he does in the call #just. wally not being talkative in the neighborhood to the point where everyone's like 'yeah wally isnt much of a talker' #vs him chatting away to the qa/whrp/Us #of course it could be because he has to carry the entire conversation on his own #But. but. you can still carry a one sided conversation and be hesitant or awkward or um. missing the word rn but short-sentenced #brief? succinct? concise? #wally's fully trying to make conversation with someone he knows can't reply. which is interesting #so many ways to take that. well. three #maybe he doesnt feel listened to in his day to day life / he feels more comfortable and can relax / hes been alone for a long while #anyway there may be more ways to take this but this is all my tiny poppyseed brain can reach atm

[icequeenbae]

Desert Flower (m) Ch. 2 | BBH

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader x Baëkhyun

Characters: EXO and X-EXO (not all of them mentioned)

EXO vs X-EXO dynamics, complicated relationships, angsty, action, smut (as usual)

Warnings: sorta mingling with your ex’s ‘evil twin’, mentions of blood/ violence (nothing too graphic… I suppose), Y/N gets teary a lot(?), explicit content, rough sex, unprotected sex

Word Count: ~13.5k (full), ~3.4k (Chapter 2)

Summary: Baekhyun, your beloved boyfriend of three years, suddenly breaks up with you and disappears from the city in an attempt to protect you. But leaving you alone and clueless means trouble will surely find you. For it is easy to spot a flower in the desert.

Masterlist   >> One >> Two (m) >> Three (m) >> Four (fin)

Author’s Note: This chapter is going to be a little different! There’s angst, there’s drama, there’s smut... You will find out what I meant by ‘complicated relationships’ 🤭 Don’t forget to share your thoughts^^

Tags: @blahblahblah-boo​ @baeklightsx​ @wooya1224​ @baekklove​

Chapter 2. Get him back

The day he left you it was pouring, and in your mind, it rained ever since. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, and weeks flew by. You did everything on autopilot, without thinking or differentiating between tasks. Everything around you was a grey mess, and you couldn’t maintain a single thought in your head, not one thought that didn’t have something to do with the breakup.

Was it even that? He just left, telling you that it was ‘for your own good’. Asking for no opinions. Frankly, you were angry with him. You would've been furious, but it was hard to tap into your irritation when it hurt so much in your chest. For the first time in your life, you realized that you were gone too far. So far, that you felt like a piece of you was missing now. The one you’d possibly never get back.

You also realized that you belonged fully to that friend circle as well — there wasn’t even anyone for you to talk to anymore, or wallow with, which made your sorry ass feel even more pathetic. Your entire world revolved around your protective boyfriend of three years, and now that he was gone it felt as unsafe as ever. Who knows, maybe it was your sixth sense alerting you as to what was to come.

It happened over a month after your last encounter with Baekhyun.

You were lounging in the campus library, mostly because your weeks of heartbreak caused you to miss a few deadlines, so now you had to take additional assignments to do well at the finals. Having no inspiration, or better yet, no one to hurry to, made you stay there for long hours, barely managing to get one task completed at a time.

The space was almost empty since it was rather late, and looking around you suddenly felt a tinge of nostalgia. Muttering that you should get ahold of your stupid self, you walked slowly towards the tall aisle with your useless book. In the labyrinth, you wandered for a bit, reminiscing of the first interaction with your… now ex? Your first boyfriend? Your first love?

The thought left a bitter taste in your mouth, and you opted for walking further as if surrounded by books you could somehow block your bubbling feelings out.

A strange sound caught your attention.

No idea why, you kept walking towards it, soon stepping around the corner and freezing on the spot.

Only a few feet away there was a couple making out. The girl was pressed harshly into the shelves and grunted, as her partner shoved one hand underneath her shirt to squeeze her breast, and his other one grasped her neck, adding to the obscenity of their misplaced passion. You were ready to flush tomato red and vanish on the spot when you noticed something… familiar.

That side profile.

You would never mistake it for anyone else’s.

Wide-eyed in shock, you almost jumped when the male turned around, dark irises foreign to you. His eyebrow raised slightly as he took in your distress with half-lidded eyes, not even bothering to stop groping the girl.

‘B- Baekhyun?’ You said in such a tiny voice that you barely even heard yourself.

The sound of your book dropping to the floor ripped you out of the stupor, and you turned around. Out of the labyrinth you ran, not even bothering to put your belongings back into your bag neatly. You simply grabbed everything from the table and kept running. The surroundings were blurry, but you could see one thing clearly – his lustful eyes, mocking your naivety.

It hurt too much. Unable to hold your tears till you make it home, you found yourself locked in the stall of the nearest bathroom. The way you cried there was almost physically painful, and you struggled to catch enough air as you did. Nor did you care enough to prevent yourself from making noises. Your whole body was shaking with your sobs, and you weren’t entirely sure you hadn’t gone crazy just then. From seeing what you saw. From reopening the still-hurting wounds and seasoning them richly with salt.

However long it took you to dehydrate yourself with the seeping sorrow, you managed to stop, hiccupping only every now and then. Finally shoving your laptop and notes into your bag, you got out of the stall. Walking up to a mirror on wobbly legs, you gasped at your puffy face and red swollen eyes. Not that you really cared, but it was quite late, so you had good chances of sneaking out and getting home unnoticed.

Unless someone would be purposefully waiting for you to show your face, of course.

You took notice of the dark figure across the hall momentarily after exiting the bathroom. Turning the other way, you increased the pace of your steps, almost breaking into running speed to put some distance between the two of you.

‘Hey,’ a voice called from behind, and you felt a hand grabbing your upper arm to stop you.

The nerve he had.

‘Don’t fucking touch me!’ You barked at him, ripping away from his grasp fiercely.

He blinked, letting go, and you almost hiccupped again at the sight of his hair – even more silvery-white now than when he left you, slightly unkempt (from the prior activities, no less). As he opened his mouth to say something, you beat him to it.

‘Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me. You make me sick!’ You spat, wanting to both claw at his beautifully sculpted face and to snivel pathetically again. Instead, you turned around and took off before he gathered himself enough to try initiating a conversation again.

Because… What the fuck was he thinking?

***

You fell ill. It probably wasn’t unrelated to what happened at the library, but you became so feverish that your roommate was on the verge of driving you to the hospital. Three days later your fever finally broke, however, you felt weak and drained and depressed for another week afterwards.

Staying at home, you kept rewinding back to the ‘event’. How could he? Coming back like that, and not even having the decency to not screw around right under your nose. You were repulsed by what you saw, and it was almost hateful how the heaviness in your chest only worsened. The bitterness of the situation added to it – he lied to you, just to be with someone else weeks, or, perhaps, even days, hours after. Maybe all of it was a lie, you didn’t know anymore.

This Baekhyun… You didn’t think you’d ever known him.

The subsequent week you avoided all of the crowded areas of the campus, dreading that you’d have to face him again. It would be impossible to maintain your calm in that case, so you took all of the possible precautions. But what could you have done if he was looking for you?

Upon your following encounter, you failed your attempt to vanish out of his sight the way you did before. It was essentially you walking into a trap, as you headed home rather late after finally squeezing your last important assignment out on paper. Not giving the outside world a single moment of attention, you stopped at the top of the stairs to put your phone into your bag and zip it up.

‘Aren’t you a mystery woman, Y/N,’ the voice almost made you drop your stuff.

You glanced up, taking notice of the murky figure, leaning onto a nearby tree. As he began walking in your direction, you turned on your heels and took off. It felt stupid to run from him like this, but you absolutely did not want to break down in front of him. You wanted to preserve at least some dignity.

As you flew down the stairs, you stumbled and almost dove headfirst to the ground. Thankfully, a swift limb wrapped around you before you could do that.

‘Are you dumb?’ He exclaimed into your ear.

‘Let go of me!’ You writhed in his hold, trying to free your body from the illusive familiarity of his touch.

‘You’re a danger to yourself! What the fuck,’ he swore under his breath, releasing you at once.

‘I told you to leave me alone. Do whatever you want, just stay out of my freaking life, Baekhyun!’ You yelled in his face, fuming from his shameless behavior. Why was he acting like nothing was even wrong with this?

‘Unbelievable. Your twin screws someone over, and you’re the one held accountable,’ he rolled his eyes.

Twin… what?

‘What are you talking about?’ You asked in bewilderment.

‘I believe, introductions are in order. I’m Baëkhyun, nice to meet you.’

***

That was… embarrassing. So embarrassing.

You had no idea there was, well, a live copy of Baekhyun walking around. And even though your ex-boyfriend was secretive, you couldn’t believe he left something like this out. Were you an actual joke to him?!

Baëkhyun said they weren’t particularly close. He explained to you that he hadn’t seen his twin in years, and his friends helped him obtain the little knowledge of his whereabouts that led him here. Thinking he could find Baekhyun by asking around he… got ‘involved’ with a girl or two. Or a dozen, who knows? But, apparently, your reaction the first time you’d met piqued his curiosity. When you flushed at the memory, apologizing profusely, he only said that he found it odd and strangely cute, the way you got upset with him.

‘I’m not as great of a guy as Baekhyun,’ he shrugged. ‘Not that I’m trying to be, anyways.’

You frowned.

After the way he left you, Baekhyun was not at the top of your ‘greatest people of all times’ list either. You could understand why your new acquaintance mentioned this, you had witnessed enough to gather that he was not at all well-behaved. Also, his ways of extracting information… Not very professional, to say the least. But who were you to judge? Now that you’d learned that he wasn’t your ex, you were genuinely ashamed of the hysteria of the past couple of weeks.

But Baëkhyun was different.

When he got your number and promised to text, you didn’t think much of it. You hummed and rolled your eyes – as if that was going to happen. Yet he surprised you by sending a quick message the following week. And then… you just kept talking. Which went on for a while, whilst you’d grown slightly addicted to it. Somehow, Baëkhyun became the only person who could take your mind off of his twin. So, even when you finally went on the long-awaited summer break, you stayed in touch with him. And not only via text – you’d been seeing each other on a regular basis.

Randomly at first – you’d just bump into him somewhere around the university premises, and he’d then suggest grabbing coffee. But as it progressed, you ended up inviting him over for dinner. Partially because you felt acutely lonely with your roommate gone, and partially because… you missed him. It was hard to put a finger on it – you’d initially thought that it was just misplaced longing for Baekhyun that pushed you towards his twin, and it felt so wrong. Almost like you wanted to use him to soothe the ache in your heart that had been bothering you ever since your ex-boyfriend had left.

Yet Baëkhyun seemed so magnetic. He hypnotized you with his blue eyes, which changed from the icy light color to dark, almost black, and were just as sharp as his twin’s. And his sassy smirk – the one he had plastered across his face almost always. Baëkhyun wasn’t warm like Baekhyun, yet there was still something about him that had you walking willingly into his trap. Maybe it was the mysterious glint in his eyes as he looked down at you or the way he sized you up whenever he caught a glimpse of you, like you were his prey. Being alone with him felt both dangerous and exciting, and you kept fooling yourself, basing your blind trust on nothing but his relation to your ex.

You never noticed how quickly he managed to build trust between you. And how you didn’t even know much about him, yet you did tell him a lot. Like that one time, he asked you where you thought Baekhyun was.

‘Wouldn’t I like to know,’ you chuckled, sadness in your voice. ‘He just left. I don’t think he even kept his phone.’

‘I always said he was the dumb one of the two. And to think that he’s the strategist,’ he snorted, splayed on your couch comfortably.

You looked at your hands in your lap, subconsciously calming yourself by playing with your fingers.

‘Stop,’ you shivered as his palm covered your fidgety hands. ‘Stop thinking about him.’

Eyes traveling to his face, you caught a glimpse of the frown that formed there.

And then he kissed you. Out of the blue, giving you no time to think or pull away.

And you let him. Grabbing at the soft leather of his pants, you allowed him to do as he pleased with you. Baëkhyun tasted familiar, though his kissing was anything but – rough and messy, lots of tongue and teeth, making your head spin with flaming passion. You didn’t resist when he pulled you into his lap, or when he ripped your clothes off, item by item. He was not asking and you were not thinking. It didn’t feel like something you should stop at the time. Rather, you thought you would’ve cried had he paused for longer than a second, so you kept clinging to him in response.

The demanding grip he had on your thighs only made you crave it more, lust seeping into your system as you wrapped your arms around his neck and rolled your hips into his. He emitted a deep sound, helping you grind on him.

‘Good girl,’ he gritted into your lips, landing a slap or two on your ass along the way.

As you kept going, your bare breasts grazed his skin, and your panties became soaked and sticky. You were probably flushed rosy red as you chased the tight feeling in your lower abdomen, his eyes hungrily taking in your frenzy. He slapped you again, a sharp hit resonating through you like electricity.

‘Baëk,’ you half-moaned. ‘Please fuck me-’

You couldn’t even believe that you were begging him like that, out loud. But the desperation grew as your body threw itself at him, demanding release.

He moved your panties out of the way, fingers instantly getting wet with your arousal.

‘Such a needy little slut,’ he murmured, making you shiver.

It was all new. The name-calling, the manhandling, the way he bit harshly into your lower lip and tugged at your hair. And somehow, it was exactly what you needed.

He didn’t waste much time to prep you, opting for taking his already hard length out and running the tip between your folds, making you jolt and cry out, nails digging into the back of his neck.

‘Sink on my cock and take what you want. Like a bad girl would.’ He addressed in a low voice, smearing the remainder of your lipstick over your mouth with his thumb. ‘Wanna be a whore for me?’

‘Yes,’ you muttered, and he smacked you on the ass again, emphasizing that you needed to be louder. ‘Yes!’

He let go of your hips, hands resting on your legs, allowing you to slam down on your own. You whimpered at the slight burn but kept going. Moving this fast wasn’t the way you were used to doing it, but all the more exciting for that. Using his shoulders to steady yourself, you worked your hips hard. A sheen of sweat on your chest glimmered as you increased the pace, wailing as his tip nudged at your cervix. He watched you with his dark blue eyes, hands kneading your ass, and filthy mouth guiding you.

‘Squeeze your tight little hole.’

Meanwhile, you struggled to maintain the tiresome pace, yet held onto the sensation of his girth pressing against your walls as he glided in and out of you.

‘Ah fuck, Baëkhyun!’ You moaned, feeling the tickle of perspiration making its way down your abs.

‘I know you’re close.’ He licked his lips seductively. ‘Want me to help?’

‘Yes, yes, please,’ you keened, leg almost cramping from the uncomfortable position.

‘Leave your begging for another time, baby. Like I said, if you want something, you should take it.’

You whined, head spinning at the suggestion. His eyes, expectant, traced the stubborn crease between your brows while you kept rocking your hips. Then, you did the first thing that came to your blurry mind. Your hands reached up to grasp his hair and pull hard, tilting his head back and leaving the long column of his neck exposed for the attack of your lips. Sucking a bruise on it harshly, you then used your teeth to ensure he’d have a bright mark in a few hours. Creeping up his neck and his jaw, you licked at his lower lip, and then into his mouth – like an animal would.

‘Oh,’ he smirked, hands seizing you and holding you down, with him snug inside you. ‘So, my good girl is not as innocent as she seemed?’ He teased, the lustful glint in his eyes boosting your confidence to the level of insolence.

‘Shut up,’ you replied firmly, sliding off of him and flopping backwards to finally get some circulation in your legs. ‘Stop slacking off and make me come, you asshole.’

His eyes flashed at your brazen words. Shoving you roughly until you were flat on your back, he grabbed onto your thighs, dragging you closer to him. Instantly you cried out as he landed two consecutive slaps on your pussy, holding his heavy hard-on at the base. Pleased with your reaction, he did it again, not saying another word before he bottomed out inside you. A new wave of arousal washed over you, and you clenched around him, eyes fluttering shut. He didn’t even think to spare you the morning soreness as he nailed you like an actual whore.

‘Ah right there, right there- oh fuck, Baëkhyun,’ you sobbed, clawing at his flexed arm, when he placed one of your legs over his shoulder and leaned forward, basically stretching you open for himself.

This position made you feel vulnerable, like you had no choice but to take everything he was giving you, but it was what you needed. His every thrust resonated inside, making your muscles clench, and ripping more curses and moans out of you. Even though his pace was rather brutal, there wasn’t too much pain along with it – Baëkhyun knew all the right spots.

Mouth agape, you arched your back in silent agony, and a few more hits of his thighs later came so hard that it almost made you pass out on the spot. The hand over your mouth muffled your scream, and he let your leg slide off of his shoulder, pressing his palm against it to keep you in place and prevent you from closing your knees.

Muscles contracting uncontrollably, you whimpered at his continued thrusts as you became too sensitive from the drawn-out pleasure, tears soaking your lashes by the time he finally pulled out.

Baëkhyun grunted lowly, and you opened your eyes to witness him jerk himself off at the sight of your swollen, fucked out pussy, not even blinking until thick ropes of his semen painted your lower belly.

Despite having just performed a thorough fucking, he lowered himself on his elbow slowly and brushed the rogue strands of hair away out of your eyes.

‘You’re a naughty one. I love it,’ he murmured, positioning one of his hands on your neck as he kissed you deeply. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to be in control.’

And so, you let yourself fall down the rabbit hole. And there was no telling what you’d gotten yourself into.

>> Chapter 3

A/N: Whooo, Baёk is here, stirring some kind of trouble, isn’t he? 🤭 Our poor Y/N-ie is walking on thin ice. What do you think of their relationship? Feels a little bit like cheating, right? Technically it isn’t. But still, the darkness is always pretty seductive...

#baekhyun smut #byun baekhyun smut #baekhyun x reader #exowritersnet #baekhyun x you #icequeenbae fics #Desert Flower #exo smut #baekbaёk

[faelune-home]

FFXIV Write 2021 #1: Foster

(a/n: I’m looking forward to spending this year’s FFXIV Write fleshing out Fhara a lot more, especially since I feel like I’ve gotten her a bit more in line with how I want to write her lately ^-^ The individual events I wrote last year still apply to her character, but from here on, I’m gonna be a bit more attentive with the writing and tying it into her overall character and backstory and relations with other characters.

This first piece is a backstory piece, using the meanings “to care for” or “to raise a child that’s not their own” from Foster, relating to the people Fhara knew most in her time growing up in her village.

None of the seeker names used here have a clan marker at the start, partly to denote the closeness Fhara would have for them...and partly me as the author cheating so I don’t have to worry about what seeker clans live on Thavnair :’D Seeker folk are spread out enough that I could probably choose any one and it’d fit, but I’d rather wait till we go to Thavnair and see what kinds of folk might live there first.

Word count: 1172)

~~~

The fleeing remnants of her birth village were graciously taken in by a small seeker village in Thavnair, nestled in the rainforests. Originally only offering temporary aid until the Ilsabardian folk could regain their strength and recover from their ordeal, the two tribes quickly built a rapport together, and the arrangement grew into a permanent home for the dispersed keeper families.

It was the life she grew up in; primarily a hunter village with trading connections to other towns, and more distant connections with the larger city of Radz-at-Han further away. Many of the people Fhara knew there would come to be like family to her, especially when she had so little family as it was.

Fhara never knew her parents. Her aunt, Khona, became her caretaker in their absence.

Khona gave her niece love. She gave Fhara comfort and warmth, protection from the shadows that frightened the girl, and laughter to lighten her spirits through thunderstorms, and bandages and kisses to make Fhara’s scrapes and bruises ache no more. Khona gave her a nickname, cute and small much like the girl herself when she was young, one that Fhara carried with her throughout her life.

“Your mother would call you her little Fufu, even when you were only a scant few hours old.”

Her aunt gave her memories and tales of a mother Fhara would never know. Aching confessions that she was always so much like the woman, from her image to her mannerisms. Fhara’s desire to run around helping 5 people at the same time until she stumbled and got lost in the rush, or the way her ears flattened against her head when she was in trouble alongside a little guilty pout - “You remind me so much of your mother.” 

Fhara was never certain how she felt about those stories, having minimal connection to the woman in her aunt’s recollections. She let her aunt have those reminiscent moments, more for Khona’s own sake to remember a lost sister than Fhara’s desire to know of her mother. There were rarely any tales of her father, other than that her mother thought fondly of the man, a rare fifth son to his family - “She would call him her darling Sae.”

Then there was Leytai, the woman that acted as a wet nurse to Fhara when the keepers first arrived, providing for the newborn where her aunt couldn’t, having had her own child only a few scant weeks beforehand. Even into Fhara’s toddler and childhood years, Leytai was someone Fhara considered a mother figure other than her own aunt, always gladly taking the energetic child into her own home and caring for her whenever Khona was busy. 

Gifts of flower hair clips and cute dresses, and later her more practical training gear for hunting practices were common from the woman. Leytai was a mentor to Fhara, teaching her basic stitching skills and organisation habits, helping her to make her first quiver, and then later teaching her how to write alongside Leytai’s own son.

(Attempts at cooking lessons were put on hold after a fire almost broke out, an overenthusiastic Fhara terrified away after the ordeal.)

Khuba was the finest hunter in the village, an often not misplaced pride evident in his swagger and his smirk whenever he walked through the village. He had a tendency to tease any of the young ones that he taught, and Fhara in her eagerness to work hard and learn was often at his mercy. Yet beneath the playfulness was a serious yet kindly tutor. Familiar with the forests and their creatures, as his many smaller scars across his arms and knicks in his ears would attest, he would never leave the children he trained to hunt without his supervision. A good catch would get a reward from him. A good attempt would also get a reward. Perhaps he was getting soft in his older age, the other hunters would joke.

Fhara received bows with delicate carving along the wood, and fine leather boots always stained to match whatever armour she best favoured that season. Much of her skill and care for hunting came from the man, as well as the capability to safely navigate the humid forests. He was the closest thing she could consider to a father figure in her life.

The keeper elders kept to their own part of the village, yet they would always share tales and traditions from their years when asked, despite their feigned insistence that they would prefer solitude. Grouchy old cats that complained of the heat and the toughness of the local meat, that never quite took to the spices of the island cuisine. Yet there was always a softness behind their bite to all the children in the village that would ask of stories long gone. They weren’t quite like grandparents, but they were the closest thing Fhara could consider to such a thing.

The other children her age were harder for Fhara to relate to, both the keeper children that arrived alongside her as babes and the seekers that she came to grow up alongside. Fhara’s enthusiasm to aid around the village brought her cold shoulders and petulant glares from her peers. She didn’t have many friends.

Instead, whenever Fhara wasn’t preoccupied with her bow training or helping another villager with an errand, she would care for the younger children. Fhara felt like an older sister to the young ones, always surrounded in her free moments by the litter of young ones. She would try to pass on the same lessons she was taught in turn or keep them entertained. They would play hide and seek in the morning, then tag after lunch, until a frustrated adult would chastise them for getting under foot. So to wind down, they would gather in a corner and Fhara would regale them with stories. 

Tales of heroes and adventurers travelling the world over, aiding strangers with whatever ailed them. Noble knights, daring swashbucklers, and honourable mercenaries, any old fable or legend she had heard of or that she could dream up on her own, re-enacted for the children’s entertainment. Even when the night fell and the moon was high, the young children would beg for another story, beg their parents to let them stay for one more bell, so entranced were they by the stories. Eager to please them, she promised them more stories, stories of her own making someday.

Fhara was a full grown woman when she left to make good on that promise. No longer a child, yet shaped by the people that guided her in her life to that point. Her kindness, her prowess, her joy and playfulness, forged by her time growing up in the village.

The day she left the village for her own adventures, she was waved off by most everyone in the village. Those she would consider family, that raised her and cared for her. She was their child, their sister, their loved one. She would return someday, with more stories to regale.

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2021 #fhara laali #my writing #my wol #keeper of the moon miqo'te #ffxiv #Final Fantasy XIV #character building #character backstory

[linkspooky]

See You Later, Eren

With all the time travel shenanigans lately we still have not got an explanation for the first scene in the manga, despite these chapters having already been connected to the present day (to you, 2000 years from now, from you, 2000 years ago). Due to the structure of the final arc paralelling the first arc, I believe that the meaning of Mikasa’s words will be revealed in either the final chapter, or the penultimate chapters leading up to the final. In other words these are Mikasa’s first words to Eren in the manga, and they will also be her last. Because these are the words she’ll say to him right after she kills him. 

EXPLANATION UNDER THE CUT.

1. Mikasa and Eren

There’s a reason that I believe it will be Mikasa to deal the final blow that stops Eren, that puts him down before he destroys the world and not Armin even though Armin is the “hero” of the story. The reason is Mikasa’s arc has always centered around Eren in a way that Armin’s hasn’t. Armin will always care more about the world then Eren, because he has things he believes in besides fighting the titans and survivings, he has dreams and the ability to see the greater picture. 

Armin’s role also isn’t to grow into someone like Eren or Mikasa who can take the big titan down all by themselves. In fact, him acting like this with Bertolt is something that while it won them the battle almost got himself killed.

It’s actually not that much of a change to his core character for Armin to sacrifice himself and fight head on with his own hands. In fact, he’s even willing to do this around people he considered his past friends. He was the one to expose Annie and suspect her first. The only real significant change is that Armin will have to break his denial over who Eren is, but if the choice was between Eren and the whole world from the start Armin would have always chosen the world over Eren. Armin’s not supposed to grow into a hero in the same sense that Eren and Mikasa want to be, by fighting things head on himself. He’s always been set up to become a demon like Erwin, that is make choices that will get other people killed and have confidence and live with those choices rather than constantly waffling and second guessing his chioces. 

Armin has regressed to his worst traits, that is letting his low self esteem constantly make him question his own decisions. At his worst he’s afraid to choose anything, because he doesn’t even want to decide, because deciding makes him responsible for the people he lost as a result of his decision. Armin killing Eren in a physical fight won’t really fix any of that. What he needs to do is lead, not attempt to do everything himself, or sacrifice himself so he’ll be the only one hurt. He’s the hero of the story, but he also needs to grow into a demon in a sense. 

Whereas, Mikasa’s arc has always centered around Eren for better or worse. Armin would choose the world over Eren, Mikasa would choose Eren over the world. 

To phrase this in terms of “Wants and Needs” which is one of the most basic ways to express the central tenets of a characters arc. Usually a character starts the story wanting something, only to get denied what they want and realize instead what it is they need. Or sometimes a character is given what they want, only to have it cause them to regress because it’s not what they need. 

Eren wants to stop being a person and exist for the idea of freedom. What he needs is to learn to be a person and accept the love of the people around him and see them as their own individual people too. In that sense, Eren is given what he wants after the timeskip, he’s powerful and cunning enough that he finally can win almost every fight he enters, takes other people’s agency rather than having his own taken, and powerful enough to stand up on his own and he becomes the major mover of the world rather than being moved by it, however that also means he severely regresses as a person and loses what he needs, his friends who used to surround him. 

What Mikasa wants is to always be close to Eren and never be separated from him. What she needs is to be her own person. This is set up as early as the Trost arc, and no Mikasa is not being slow in her character development because literally every single character is regressing to the major problem set up in the Trost arc, Eren wants to fight alone, Armin has no confidence in himself, Mikasa has to learn how to live even without Eren. 

Mikasa wants to live for the sake of Eren, to live vicariously through Eren as he was the one who showed her that the world was beautiful but that’s not living. Mikasa’s want has been denied to her again and again throughout the story.

Ironically the reason Mikasa is so capable, the reason she is strong and confident in ways Eren just couldn’t be at the start of the manga was because she never made any decisions for herself, and therefore never struggled with her choices or her decisions. It’s easy to do things if you say you’re doing them for the sake of others and therefore never have to hesitate. Mikasa believes the person who gives her a place to live in the world is Eren, and therefore she cannot survive without him. All of the beauty of the world and all of its ugliness are all tied up in Eren.

Eren and Mikasa’s relationship is beautifully complex. It’s not just onesided on Mikasa’s part, they are both codependent to each other in a way. The current Mikasa and Eren would not exist without one another because they have always relied on each other to survive. The thing is, while Eren always runs off, he’s always subconsciously relied on Mikasa to follow him and cover his back. He rebuffs her and pushes her away, but Eren also knows that she’ll chase him. From eren picking fights with bullies only to have Mikasa cover his back, to Eren ambushing Marley and knowing Mikasa would show up and save him and trusting her to do that when he started losing the battle fighting on his own. 

Eren loves and needs Mikasa to see himself as a person. She has always been the relationship that connects himself to his own humanity. Mikasa not only humanizes him, but she’s also the only one that can make him second guess his actions and what becoming the enemy of the world means he can’t be a human or by Mikasa’s side anymore. Mikasa makes him realize his own desires to be loved and accepted for the weak coward that he is, rather than having to be someone strong who always fights alone. However, at the same time Eren also resents Mikasa for making him feel this way, for making him feel so human. He hates that he always has to rely on someone, that he always has to be around her because it makes him feel inferior. I would say the resentment is mutual too on Mikasa’s part, as much as she loves him there’s a lot of negative emotions built up. She resents him for always running away from her, for not giving her what she wants. 

At the same time Eren is the person who first showed Mikasa there was warmth in the world, and treated her like a human when she was about to be sold by slavers. Mikasa wraps up all her personhood in Eren, but at the same time that makes her see Eren less and less as a person and more as a symbol. Which is why she can’t ever come to term with her feelings, she’s so afraid of losing their current relationship she can’t risk any change at all, even if it would be a positive one with her feelings being returned. It’s almost like Mikasa doesn’t want Eren to love her back in the same sense, because she doesn’t need it in her own mind, not really, she’s always been content loving him at a distance. Loving the idea of Eren has been enough to motivate her up until now.

But if Mikasa does not live on as a person, for her own sake and not Eren’s she can’t love him properly. She can’t really love him as a person separate from her unless she first takes that step back and realizes. Mikasa is so confused about her own feelings because she doesn’t want to think about them, doesn’t want to experience them, she just wants to feel for Eren, not herself. But that stands in the way of what she wants to do which is love Eren and be loved. What she’s wanted ever since the day he wrapped that scarf around her was the genuine human connection that that scarf represents.

It’s something that she realized all the way back in Trost, that she has to find a way to live without Eren. That’s what she needs. However, Mikasa doesn’t want to. Which becomes the source of her regression. 

Which is why the decision to kill Eren is so central to the development that she needs to go through. It’s even been set up by several different foreshadowing. One, Eren calls MIkasa a slave and the only way for slave to be liberated is by killing their masters, the people who seek to control them. Which is what Eren is doing right now, robbing her of her own agency and not letting her make decisions in the name of protecting her.

Eren is the one who called her a slave. Eren is the one who will die, freeing her. The breaking of their relationship is so necessary for Mikasa as a character that she’s already completely reevaluated the way she views things just from being separated from Eren. Mikasa, the one who wanted to believe in Eren the most is the also the first one to realize how misplaced her feelings for Eren were. 

This is exactly where her arc is taking her, realizing Eren is not the person he thought she was. Mikasa is coming the closest to realizing that Eren’s true form and that she has been seeing a different side of him all along. 

Which is why Mikasa has been reevaluating and remembering the first scene where they met. Their relationship is written so the begnnings and ends parallel one another. 

Eren showed her two things, the first being his violent murder of the two men attempting to enslave her, and the second being the beautiful connection. The world is ugly, and yet beautiful. This time Mikasa is having her agency stolen again, but not by slavers, but rather by the boy who once rescued her. This time Eren has taken the place of the slavers, trying to steal away from freedom of others for his own goals.

Therefore, to free herself Mikasa needs to do what Eren encouraged her to do in the scene. To take the knife, and fight back, fight for her own freedom by killing the enemy in front of her. Even if this time the enemy is the person she loves. No, because she loves him she must be his enemy. The scene is a reversal of their first meeting, instead of being the helpless girl Mikasa must take knife in hand and show Eren the cruelty of the world and also it’s beauty. 

2. An Ugly, yet Beautiful Relationship

The story has always framed Mikasa’s love for Eren as a complex thing. Despite it being the source of her strength, it is also, something that denies her from accomplishing what she needs to. Mikasa always fails in critical moments with consequences because of how she rushes after Eren. She cannot stop Annie from kidnapping him and it results in Levi getting hurt, she fails to stop Reiner and Bertolt from taking him. Mikasa’s desire to put Eren before everything else in the world is something the story consistently denies her and that leads to her failure. Her codependency with Eren, has never been a good thing and always is framed as a flaw. As beautiful as the connection between them is, it’s also ugly. It’s a metaphor for the pain, but also the comfort of all human connection itself. Mikasa’s desire is to connect, Armin’s is the world, Eren’s is freedom from everything. 

The same way what Eren wants is naive, a freedom that means he’s allowed to do absolutely everything and he’s so strong he has total control over everything and therefore never has to lose another person again, Mikasa is just as naive. What she wants is a connection that will never hurt her, and never fray or break. The reason the red scarf represents the red string is because it’s just as naive, it’s a fantasy about being destined to be with another person and always be by their side, and always following them no matter where they go or how you are separated. Mikasa’s desire is to be always tied to another person, but that comes at the cost of being her own person. 

That’s why the idea that her love for Eren is not her own, but rather a product of being an Acerkman shakes her so much. Because Mikasa deep down knows she needs to love Eren as a person, and also needs her feelings to be her real, and owned by her alone. Even when she was on the brink of death she realized that if she died, the memory of Eren would not be able to live on with her. 

Which is why Mikasa parallels Levi so heavily, because Levi also had to make this choice as well. He had to be confronted with who Erwin was as a person, the good and the bad and choose to let him die instead of continuing to be by his side. 

The only way Levi could ever understand Erwin such an important person to him was not by forever being by his side, but instead telling him to die and continue to live on in Levi’s memory. 

Levi lost the person most important to him, but he also gained understanding for who that person truly was. He was finally able to reconcile his feelings for him. Levi finally saw Erwin as a person, and not just a demon he had to rely on. He also realized that everyone was actively making him into a demon and denying him as a person, and Erwin himself was responding by diminishing his own personhood. 

Erwin is given solace and allowed to die as his own person, rather than having to continue to be the devil. Which also, parallels Eren’s own situation greatly because Eren WANTS to become the devil because at this point he believes it’s the only way for him to protect his friends. He no longer allows himself to be his own person the same way Erwin did, and no longer lets himself be loved as a person. 

The reason the only deaths in the series that are shown to be freeing are Erwin and Kenny’s is because they literally spent their entire lives NOT BEING PEOPLE, the same way that Eren is trying so hard to deny himself as a person right now. The only choice they get really is the choice of death, because they made all their other choices for the sake of other people. 

Which is where we return to Eren once more. Eren denies himself as a person and wants to become a devil, a special existence that can hold the fate of the world in his hands, but at the same time he needs, craves, to be loved as a person. To be accepted for the weak person he is rather than the strong person he pretends to be. Which is why Mikasa sees this moment as so cirtical. 

It’s entirely possible that Eren had made up his own mind at this point, that he was already going to commit to the plan, but the reason Mikasa believes this to be the critical juncture where the path split off is because what Eren is asking here. He’s asking her specifically, do you love me as a person? or do you love me out of obligation? The one person who loves him as a person, Eren is having doubts and is trying to reconfirm his humanity in the face of everything he is about to throw away to become a devil.

The same way Mikasa bases her entire personhood around Eren, Eren’s humanity and his connection to the beauty of the world has always been in Mikasa’s hands. She has always represented the connections he needs, but the one he denies himself.

Which is why Mikasa sees this as the critical point, regardless of whether or not what she had said would have made a different. Because Mikasa realizes now, all along she wasn’t seeing Eren as a person. Wasn’t loving him as a person. Which prevented her from truly loving him or acting on his feelings. 

The only way Mikasa can love Eren as a person is to be his enemy, to confront him for what he is now, and what she realizes he’s been all along. She has to confront the ugliest side of Eren, instead of only looking at the beauty of their bond. 

Both Eren and Mikasa are blind now. Eren has forgotten about the beauty of the world that Mikasa represents, and Mikasa has forgotten until just now about the ugly and violence of the world that Eren represents by only focusing on the beauty, which is why they need a confrontation with each other to be able to see both. 

Mikasa needs to remember Eren violently murdering those slavers like they were not even human beings and the fact he went out of his way to kill people. Eren needs to rembmer the action of himself wrapping the scarf around Mikasa and how that connection did more to save her than his violence for her sake ever did. 

3. See You Later Eren

This is going to be a short conclusion to my post, and also offer a prediction. Why do I think “See you later” is going to be said after Mikasa kills Eren. For two reasons, one Mikasa has been the one to deal the final blow on two of Eren’s biggest foils, Annie and Reiner, and this is also exactly how she says goodbye to them before killing them.

Mikasa fights two Eren foils. Armin takes down Bertolt. Armin’s enemy is himself. Mikasa’s enemy has always been Eren, which is why choosing to oppose him, and therefore choosing her own personhood is so central to her arc. 

As established by Eren, the Ackerman’s are connected to and can open the paths in the same way that the royal family, and those connected to the control coordinate are. Which is why I believe, in conjunction with Mikasa’s literally directly stating that she could have chosen to take a different path that after killing Eren, the two of them will be dragged into the paths the same way Zeke was with Eren after Eren lost his head.

That by killing him first Mikasa will show Eren the ugliness of the world, it’s violence, but at the same time she will be the one to comfort him and give himself peace and reassurance that while he was alive he was loved as a human. Which is what she needs to do to become her own person, because all along she has asserted that her strength is not hers alone, but Eren, her decisions are not hers alone but done for the sake of Eren.

Mikasa has to tell Eren once again that there is a kind boy still inside of him, he’s still the one who promised to wrap the scarf around her, and helped her out when she was cold. But the only way for her to do that is by finally confronting his ugliness and letting go of him. 

Mikasa will kill Eren, but then in the paths remind him of the beauty of the world he tried so hard to destroy. Allowing Eren to die as himself, as a person who was loved instead of the enemy of the world. Allowing Mikasa to finally love Eren as a person like she’s always wanted to rather than loving the idea of him. Eren will die but Mikasa will finally be able to live on as her own person. 

Which is what Eren should truly desire ultimately. The freedom of the ones he loves. Their happiness. Even if he can’t be around in their lives. Mikasa’s last words for him are “See you Later” not “Goodbye” because even if Eren is no longer in her life, she’ll be able to see him again, her love for him, her memories for him will not disappear but rather continue on in the world even after his death. 

#aot meta #eren jaeger #mikasa ackerman #levi ackerman #attack on titan meta #shingeki no kyojin meta #eremika #the paths #snk 123 #aot 134

[ciceroprofacto]

Song of Alexander Summary

For those of you who can’t/don’t have time to re-read:

Prelude and prologue-2

Alex realized Washington’s the most likely leader to win the war and becomes an aide for his ability to conduct vital intelligence work virtually unnoticed.

He convinces Washington to take John Laurens on staff because he needs support against political rivals like Gates and Mifflin.

John is an idealist with a muddled history of misplaced guilt and homosexual tendencies.

3

John is attracted to Alex. Alex plans to exploit that by seducing him.

John and Lafayette get along- instant bros.

Victory at Freeman’s Farm hints at General Gates’s campaign’s coming success

Alex tries to get John to have sex with him at the celebration, but John resists because of previous breakup with Francis and guilt he’s associated with that ‘sin’.

He offers friendship instead which makes Alex feel threatened.

4

Despite Alex’s hesitation, they’re on the path to becoming real friends because they share a lot of interests and Alex is actually Soft. 

Besides, John has unrealistic abolitionist ideals which makes him seem less-intelligent and less threatening. So, when Alex has the chance to continue his seduction, he doesn’t follow through with it.

Battle of Brandywine- Lafayette saves John’s life.

5

Alex was sent to burn supplies and is suspected dead by Captain Lee’s detachment

John’s connection to Congress is used to urge them to evacuate Philadelphia.

John White comes to camp. Makes Alex nervous again because he’s jealous.

Victory at Saratoga makes Lafayette a vital ally for Washington, but John is already closer to Lafayette than Alex. 

Since John resists seduction, Alex extends work to him in a show of friendship.

Alex and Lafayette both leave- to heal injuries and prep Philly for evacuation.

6

John’s developing as a soldier and has moral conflict over his own violence. Alex returns to camp and soothes that while introducing him to reconnaissance work.

Alex leans into John’s offer for friendship. He reveals information about himself in a system of bartering for information and supports John’s command in skirmishes leading up to the Battle of Germantown. He shows more and more of his influence over Washington and his involvement in intelligence work.

John’s judgment at the Chew house extends the effort beyond their culminating point, expending resources, time, and ultimately leading to John White’s death.

7

John’s guilt over White’s death and his inability to return to work with his injuries lead him to a depressive spiral. He takes it out on Alex.

Shrewsberry and Tallmadge attempt to intervene, Tallmadge taking John out to drink with the intention of having Alex there.

They start a fight over insults to Washington’s command, favoring Lee.

After the lecture for fighting, Alex makes the case for John’s official appointment.

8

John continues his downward spiral over White’s death, fearing his own apathy.

Tallmadge gives him the opportunity to interrogate a prisoner and he shows Washington he can be useful for this type of work. Alex doesn’t discourage it.

Alex confronts John on the way to the Delaware fort. He’s invested himself in this friendship and feels adrift and threatened by John’s emotional retreat.

They meet the Marquis de Fleury and John starts his work supporting this effort. 

9

Washington informs John of the reputational risk of his mistakes at Cliveden and offers to protect him while asking John to reinforce his connection to Henry.

Alex conducts a subconscious campaign aimed at either proving John’s unworthy of his attention or getting John to prove his own investment in their relationship

The way that Wilkinson reported General Gates’ victory at Saratoga then received an unmerited promotion, and now increasing signs of mismanagement in the Quartermaster Department are starting to reveal collusion between high-ranking officers in the army.

Alex and John disagree over how much to trust Washington with his reputation

10

Alex left to take the minutes of Washington’s Council of War without saying goodbye. 

Lafayette returns to camp

Alex falls ill on the road. 

11

John meets Major Clark- General Greene’s aide and Washington’s primary informant in New York City. The only spy who’s successfully remained undercover there.

Alex’s letters indicate that he’s dying.

John goes on a raid with Lafayette. Reuniting with the man shows him how much he’s changed since Germantown. Lafayette doesn’t mind.

He’s nearly killed by a former-slave militiaman before an earthquake interrupts.

12

Hamilton returns to camp and is seen by Doctor McHenry.

Laurens reads a letter from Ned Stevens and starts to realize how much he doesn’t know about Alex He feels more evenly-matched to Alex now, understanding his job..

They argue over how much or how little to tell Lafayette about the cabal.

A committee of congressmen comes to camp to collect Washington’s reports of the things the army needs. The lineup of representatives is obviously a political move. Alex brings John to talk with them while Lafayette’s going to ask their opinion of the assignment he’s received to lead an expedition into Canada. 

Alex plays his illness to a political angle and John snaps at him about how worried he’s been. Alex survived his illness to accept John’s friendship and he meets John halfway.

John finally overcomes his hangups over comparing Alex and Kinloch

13

Alex nearly dies and John saves him.

Alex provides constructive feedback about the Black Battalion from his sickbed.

John cares for him through his recovery and they develop their ability to be physically-affectionate, but Alex is pushing things along too fast in order to avoid feelings while John wants it to be loving and honest

Alex is jealous over John’s interest in Clark and John keeps his concerns over Alex’s link to Cope secret. When that truth comes out, they fight.

Alex realizes that Washington is sending Lafayette to Canada without knowing about Gates’s part in the Cabal so that the expedition will fail and he’ll blame Gates for it.

They have no choice but to allow it. Washington needs Lafayette.

14

John suggests Washington give Alex work to apologize for their fight. Washington assigns him to Lee’s exchange- with unspoken ulterior motives.

Tench gives Alex a court-martial case about sodomy in Aaron Burr’s unit- Alex is concerned about what that will do to John psychologically. He’s also worried about why Tench gave it to him. He compiles arguments to defend their relationship logically. John doesn’t need that. He needs Alex to slow down his push for physical intimacy while he figures himself out.

Conway leaves camp, expecting to be Lafayette’s second in command in Canada

Alex has a tense relationship with Martha Washington, but John wants to use her to make him the Quartermaster General. She doesn’t bite. Alex is unknown to Congress. She suggests General Greene instead.

Alex pushes for a definition of what they are to each other, but John doesn’t know.

If he isn’t going to mean it, Alex would prefer John stop flirting with him.

John’s father rejects the Black Battalion plan and John is upset, wants to challenge the world with it, but he doesn’t have the resolve to do so without his father’s support. Alex would stand by his side with or without and he’s disappointed by John’s hesitation.

John latches onto the idea of establishing the position of Inspector General- using that as a way he and Alex can be partners.

15

Everyone on staff has doubts about the major role John wants for the Baron von Steuben 

John tries to convince Martha Washington to help them push for Steuben’s position as Inspector General, but she’s unhelpful. Instead, she makes John question whether he understands what influence Alex wants.

As Alex and John train each other in drill and fencing, John still wants Alex and can’t help flirting. Even if Alex has asked him not to, Alex still flirts with his body language and John recognizes the difference between flirting with Alex and flirting with Francis. It’s emotionally safer with Alex who doesn’t see his feelings as shameful.

John realizes that Alex has grown to expect his retreat every time they flirt physically. 

Baron von Steuben is blatantly gay in a way that makes John uncomfortable.

Alex notices John’s discomfort and is worried about it and frustrated with it. He’s also frustrated with the lack of action against Gates after the Genl. tried to trash his reputation.

Gates accepted a challenge to duel from Wilkinson- beneath him and embarrassing.

Steuben is intelligent- more difficult to control than John expected, but better-suited to the post of Inspector General than he could’ve hoped. The congressional committee and Washington like him- Alex also likes him. John’s intimidated by him.

John starts giving up on the Battalion idea and Alex is upset with him.

Alex starts pulling away from helping John with drill and John is upset with him.

Alex is nervous that the Enslin trial will not be conducted fairly. He goes to Steuben for advice about it. Caty Greene is there and she’s already made friends of Steuben. 

John communicates to Steuben that he doesn’t need to like him, he’s determined to work with him. Steuben communicates that he knows John is gay.

Meade is suspicious of Washington’s motives for assigning Alex to Lee’s exchange.

John sees sex marks on Alex’s back and jerks off to the thought of Alex being with a man, feels bitter at Francis for making him feel ashamed of such a thing.

John delivers Steuben’s unofficial appointment from Washington for Steuben to act as Inspector General.

16

Discussing philosophy with Caty, Steuben’s staff believes camp is the place to test ideas of self

Steuben’s making a good name for himself in camp. Alex thinks John should be reassigned to work with him and sends an old friend, Nicholas Fish to deliver that message.

Alex creates a rumor that he’s sleeping with a married woman so that will be reported to Washington and keep everyone from investigating who he’s really sleeping with.

Alex is only sleeping with another man to divert his desires for John, but John insists that, if he does this with anyone, it should be him. Alex thinks he’s saying that out of pity.

John tries to confront him about the misunderstandings by bringing him to one of Steuben’s parties but they only make things messier and start dragging other people into their drama.

John gets one-on-one time with Joseph Reed and considers the differences between a political and a military career

Alex gets drunk and tells John he misses training with him. John admits he wants to have sex, but Alex thinks he’s only saying that because he’s also drunk.

After the Enslin trial is completed, John confronts Alex again, offering another chance to work together on Steuben’s position as Inspector General. Alex forces John to answer for the internalized homophobia he projects onto Steuben, but John forces Alex to answer for the way he’s avoided their unfinished discussion of what kind of physical relationship they want. Alex is overwhelmed when John doesn’t retreat from their physical flirting.

Alex admits why he suggested John for Washington’s staff.

17

Intelligence has arrived that General Howe is being replaced by General Clinton

Alex tells John that even if he initially suggested him for his political connections to his father, John remained politically useful by creating connections to Lafayette. John refuses to let Alex point to that as the sole reason he wanted him to stay on staff.

Enslin is drummed out of camp. Steuben insists that John watch it and confront the fact that this man deserved punishment- not because he’s gay, but because he preyed on a subordinate.

John seeks comfort in his new physical dynamic with Alex.

Washington wants to fight Howe on the retreat even if Steuben’s not had time to train the army to professional order and John’s worried about the political implications of that. Alex isn’t as concerned- doesn’t believe the full utility of John’s plan.

John meets Kitty Livingston and gains more of an understanding why he’s a good match for Alex.

Washington is increasingly frustrated with his inability to get his generals and the French to support his idea for a plan on Howe before the change of command and he starts working on another plan to capture Clinton who is to replace him.

Alex and Clark are involved in the planning and John confronts him after seeing hickeys on his neck. Alex jerks John off to avoid explaining the mission he’s being assigned to.

Alex goes to observe the Baron leading drill but refuses to stay and be of proper use and John is hurt by that. John focuses in on his work with the model company and Steuben.

Alex packs to leave on his mission without telling John what it is, but John figures out that Clark is involved and tracks him down. Together John and Clark chase Alex down and John convinces him not to go through with a mission that would solidify his place as a spymaster over an aide de camp- a mission that would kill his political potential.

John finds Enslin’s friend, Lieutenant Fairclough trying to hang himself in order to avoid being caught in the same crime as Enslin and he’s shaken by their brand of homosexuality. He searches out Alex to feel that he’s separate from them.

#this is slightly less-painful than trying to get back into the story just to read 18

[undignifiend]

Theme Ramblings - On Evil, Honesty, Violence, and Better Ways to Rule Number Two (Local Windbag Spends All Night Pontificating Again)

I really like Trollhunters and Tales of Arcadia. I feel like it addresses important themes that I also want to address in my own writing, and I feel like that is part of what makes it an awesome world and story to explore, through the original stories, and through fanfiction. I find exploring ideas within an already established world is very helpful and therapeutic. So here are my current thoughts on some of those themes, which have also been informed by various other stories. Narrative is one of the ways through which we process the world. And one of my goals is to learn how to do that with clarity, practicality, and compassion. So here’s a bit of what I think I’ve learned so far.

Warnings: Talking about violence, with pain and trauma. Stay safe. Also, spoilers for Tales of Arcadia - Wizards, and for the film You Were Never Really Here.

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‘Evil’ is not a word that holds a lot of weight with me, at least not the way I feel it’s commonly used, especially in stories. Some bully without any redeeming qualities beating someone up for a power trip is a common motif, but I don’t find it a compelling or useful model of how or why some people act shitty, or how to possibly fix it nonviolently. As something of a determinist, I don’t believe our decisions just pop out of a vacuum - rather, that they are informed by our experiences, which we react to in healthy or unhealthy ways depending on what we think we understand and what we want to protect.

Or at least I think that’s a nice idea, but I don’t know how practical it actually is. For instance, maybe there are actual people who are just idiots, cowards, or cruel and nothing more, and interacting with them in a good-faith manner is an entirely hopeless waste of our limited time - especially when those mofos are actively threatening people. “They’re complex people, too!” seems kind of irrelevant when they’re calling for killing those who disagree with them, for example.

Maybe I’m having trouble with this idea because I haven’t actually recognized such mind-numbing simplistic malice in anyone directly involved in my life. I’m starting to think I might be spoiled that way.

I also want to emphasize that I’m not even remotely claiming “Everyone is right in their own ways”. Some mofos out there are objectively incorrect. I’m currently convinced that we all think we’re right, but not that we all are. Or that even when we realize we’re wronging someone, we tend to spin narratives that twist the situation to make ourselves look better, or even like we’re “The Real Victims! D:” to justify and excuse something we may otherwise deem tragic.

What horrifies me (what I’ve witnessed) is when harm is done by people who think they’re doing the right thing, or that they’re justified, or that it’s normal. People who otherwise have potential to do good, making a selfish call out of fear, anger, apathy, a misplaced sense of righteousness, or even just a desperate and ill-advised attempt to feel seen or important. The ‘evil’ that scares me most is a loss of perspective that leads to (and justifies or excuses) tragedy. That loss of perspective, I also think, is a key part of what makes propaganda possible. Calling someone ‘evil’ is often intended to deface them and simplify them into a problem or obstacle to be rid of - no longer a complex individual, but a symbol of all that is wrong with the world - a bully or ‘monster’ without redeeming qualities. (Often represented as something “subhuman” that we supposedly don’t have to feel bad about killing.) An external threat to vanquish in favor of facing whatever horrible truth we’re running from, or what conditions led to people acting in these harmful, tragic ways. (And if we can understand those conditions, perhaps we can guard against them and hopefully even save some lives and change them for the better?) I think calling someone ‘evil’ is not only impractical (and useless when it comes to diagnosing why someone is behaving a certain way, or how to effectively either help them grow up or maybe at least help prevent them from causing more harm), I think it opens the door for otherwise good people to do horrific things, all the while avoiding the root of the problem, and calling themselves justified and heroic.

That’s part of why I’m so excited about Wizards. (Finally got to ToA!) I appreciated Arthur as an example of what’s familiar to me, and the kinds of thinking I want us to learn to recognize and avoid. His grief was relatable - we’ve all lost someone, and we all have people we want to protect. But it’s monumentally important that we don’t commit Arthur’s tragedy, and take our pain out on others. And it’s also important that we don’t dismiss the pain that others are struggling to cope with, as Arthur dismissed Morgana’s and the trolls’ when he called them evil. And part of why I genuinely like Arthur as a character (not just an antagonist) was that he came around and admitted that he was wrong, and wanted to repair the damage he did.

At least until his Green Knight chapter, the motivations of which I’m still unsure of. I’m not the sharpest crayon in the shed, but it seemed like a non sequitur to me... after a certain point. If you have some insight into what’s going on with him, I’m all ears. I’m a little worried I might just be projecting my issues again.

So far, here’s what I think I can glean: I relate to the lines “How can I be at peace when the world is still broken?” and “He awoke to a legacy of a violent and awful world.” I don’t want to get into the specifics of my own experiences, but I understand the horror of “waking up” to a horrifying reality, and the motivation to try to change it somehow. The all-consuming restlessness of it, and the inability to escape or reconcile it, and the constant, never-ending tension that slowly rips you apart and isolates you from everyone and poisons your faith in humanity because you’ve looked into the abyss so long you now recognize that it’s where you’ve lived all along. Because no matter what kind of new equilibrium you scramble for, the truth remains that terrible, unnecessary harm is being done, and will continue to be done (and justified and excused and even laughed at) by otherwise good people until we all die out - and that will be our legacy even as we continue to squawk empty platitudes about how intelligent and compassionate and special we are, and nothing makes any of that okay.

In my worst, most melodramatic moments, I even understand the ‘Let it all burn, if it can’t be saved’ mentality. But I don’t have a lot of patience for defeatism, so it’s not a mentality I can take seriously for long at all, and that’s where my understanding (if I may be so pretentious?) of the Green Knight stops. Because I know there are many others who have seen what I’ve seen and feel the same way I do, and believe that a better way is possible, however distant, and who have done loads more than I have to change it. And (perhaps more importantly) I know that even those who perpetuate some of the same harms I want to stop, and even crack jokes about it, are still good people who mean well, and have their own pains to cope with.

What I want is for us (and our heroes) to recognize when we are being dishonest or unfair, and to call ourselves out, even when it’s inconvenient (or when it feels impossible, like when we’re scared, angry, or hurt). I love and admire people who can face their feelings and uncertainties honestly, and I want to be like them, because I believe that’s the most important, constructive kind of courage there is, it’s part of growing into a stronger, kinder person, and this stupid world needs a lot more of that in it.

And I think the whole topic of Evil is connected to our fascination with violence, and those who are skilled at it. (Though I’m not here to say ‘Violence Bad’. I know it’s not that simple.) In some situations, no other method has a chance of saving you or those you want to protect, and if you find yourself in such a situation, it pays to be good at violence, and to have friends who are, too. The stakes are high, so it makes for great drama, and is prevalent in stories all over the world. This also makes it a rather dramatic delivery system for Justice - or the Retributive version, anyway. Retribution is visceral, and easily understood, and speaks to our instincts of promoting and preserving status (teaching others not to screw us over or They’ll Pay), and discouraging harmful behaviors by harming the perpetrators...

I consider myself a rehabilitationist. But I understand the draw of retribution. I really do. The vast majority of my intrusive thoughts revolve around it, in particularly violent manners. It’s not fun, and it doesn’t feel powerful, and it feels weird to me to see stories that portray it as powerful, rather than as a failure or a loss. I understand the emotional desire to punish someone who has hurt an innocent. But I also understand it to a degree that transcends its original feelings of righteousness, takes itself to eyebrow-raising extremes, and makes me sick. Retribution has been glorified all throughout our history, and it scratches a primal itch, and yes, sometimes it may be the only available answer in order to prevent further harm. (Rehabilitation requires far more resources than Retribution, often making it impractical or overly risky in contexts of scarcity. I think that’s a huge factor in why ideals like Law, Justice, and Decency break down in a lot of Post-Apocalyptic story environments. It’s not just that our sense of Order has collapsed, it’s that we no longer have the infrastructure to support the ideals that Order was established to protect - though I would Not say that our current “justice” system in the US is rehabilitative or even ethical, but that’s a whole other rant.) But beyond that, I don’t believe Retribution is practical or productive. I believe it’s tragically ironic, loses sight of context and systemic issues, lends false-credence to the idea that people are the way they are due to innate, immutable qualities rather than taking their environment and experiences into account, and as a result, opens the door for good people to, again, do and justify horrific things.

It’s a hard, brutal film to watch, but I recommend You Were Never Really Here. The violence in this film feels far more real than the violence I’ve seen in any other because they don’t dress it up, or make it flashy. It’s more like something you’d see in a hidden-camera documentary. And their honest treatment of it was a visceral reminder of what violence actually is.

It puts a gut-wrenching twist on the ‘revenge fantasy’ and what it actually means to watch someone suffer and die. Even someone who had it coming. There’s a painful empathy to this film in its treatment of the characters and all the rituals (harmful or not) they use to cope with the violence they in turn have suffered. And the climax of the film centers on the awful realization that, despite his efforts, the protagonist was unable to protect someone from violence, or having to inflict violence of her own - like him, she’s marked by it now, too. She absolutely did it in self-defense, but the fact that she had to do it is still tragic. She has to live and cope with it now, as he does. And in the final scene, there’s this hellish sense of separation between them as they are, and the comparatively bright, happy lives they might have lived if they had not had to go through such horrific experiences. It’s unstated, but there’s this intense feeling that they’re haunted. Like they can be near that bright, happy life, but never cross the veil to reach it, themselves. The film ends with the girl deciding to try and find some happiness anyway. (“It’s a beautiful day.”) It’s not a happy ending, but it’s a hopeful one. It’s not a Good Triumphs Over Evil story. It’s a painful confrontation with an awful reality, and the struggle to find a way to carry on somehow.

And that resonates. Because we all know to some degree or other what it’s like to confront something awful, something we can’t just deny or forget or reconcile, and to try to find some way to cope with it. That tension can be so painful that it’s understandable (but still not excusable) why people sometimes try to pin it all on a scapegoat - so they can take something insurmountable, and turn it into something they can fight and triumph over. It’s a form of processing our grief, but it’s unfair, dishonest, and harmful, and inflicts more grief on others.

Anyway, in this fanfic I’ve been puttering around on (and trying to explore these themes through), Jim tries to solve things non-violently (as he often tried to do in the show, which I really like). Someday/night, he might not have the option, or can’t see any other way out. He knows that he (or someone else) is being seen as an outlet for someone’s frustrations - they’re using him as a symbol to project their own problems and issues on - something external they can beat up and triumph over in place of something intangible.

If he’s going to fight this outlook, I think he has to understand it - on more than a theoretical level. He has to go there himself. Maybe he punches Steve after all. (Maybe in the 2nd draft - or maybe later in the current iteration.) And he hates it. He’s changed forever, but not the way he expected to be. He feels capable, and righteous, and he doesn’t regret standing up for Eli or himself, but he doesn’t feel good. Because even if it’s easier to just dismiss Steve as a bully, and even if it occurs to Jim to do that - and even if he can feel it viscerally for a moment, Jim isn’t going to lie to himself. He can still see what Steve is, past his own anger. Steve is lashing out because he feels wronged and powerless, and he’s acting like his dad because that’s who made him feel that way, and that’s who showed him how to deal with those same feelings. Steve is a kid trying to process what he’s been through. It’s easy to forget that when Steve is trying to beat Jim down - when Draal has been trying to beat him down, too - and he’s had enough of all these angry people twisting their ideas of him in their heads and taking their anger out on him. He fought back because he couldn’t see any other option for handling it, and Steve was not willing to give him one. But from this, Jim knows how it feels to be demonized (seen as a manifestation of someone’s problems, some enemy to vanquish). And it becomes monumentally important to him never to succumb to that way of thinking, himself.

He’s not a crusader. If he has to fight and hurt or kill someone, it’s not because he thinks they’re a manifestation of evil. It’s because he does not see any recourse in stopping them from hurting or killing others. To him, violence is a tragedy meant to prevent another tragedy. And whether that justifies it or not is a question he will have to carry.

A lot of the combat we see in media, I would classify as “action”, and not violence. The vast majority of the time, it’s a choreographed dance that’s fun to watch, full of cool stunts that look like they’d be fun to do. It’s more like competitive eye-candy than anything else.

It’s fun, and I like the idea of writing that, but only in the context of sparring, or play. I don’t even want to call those “fights” or make a distinction between those and a “real fight”, because fighting is violence, and I hope to write about violence as honestly as I can. That’s part of what I like and admire about a lot of Guillermo del Toro’s other works, too. It’s not a dance, and it’s not glorious*. It’s ugly, terrifying, and it hurts to watch, and it makes us worry for his characters all the more, because it forces us to acknowledge how vulnerable they really are.

*Or, glory as it’s often treated, I think. If there really is any glory to be had in real violence, I think it’s in the willingness to act in a crisis to protect others. Terror is notoriously paralyzing, so this is where the value of training comes in - as a kind of autopilot mode to fall back on, and suppress our panic in the moment. The emotional fallout and trembling will come after the crisis has passed, but in an emergency, not knowing what to do, and feeling helpless, can be one of the most devastating weapons against us.

Sparring and training can be a fun and exhilarating test of skill, where no one intends to maim or kill you. It’s completely different from fighting. In a fight, the goal is not to learn or grow or compete, the goal is to either kill someone, or hurt them so badly that they can’t try to hurt you (or anyone else) anymore (or enough to give you time to get away). It’s very stressful and often traumatizing. One wrong move will have lasting consequences, if you’re lucky enough to survive to put up with them. Even if you win, odds are, you’re going to get hurt - maybe permanently. It’s the visceral understanding that someone has decided to disassemble you, and the only way to stop them is to disassemble them first. It’s an ugly reminder of the components of our bodies, and how fragile they really are.

“There are better ways to finish a fight than punching someone in the face.”

I agree with this - there are better methods of conflict resolution, and we must use them. And I really like how Jim carried this forward in sparing Chompsky and Draal. But I also felt like Claire fundamentally failed to understand what she had witnessed (and maybe I’m the one who misunderstood). I just didn’t appreciate what I felt was a lecture from someone who didn’t get it. Not that I’d wish for her to get it - it’s a horrible position to be in. When someone is actively trying to hurt you, it’s hard as hell to remember those better ways, and there’s no guarantee that they would work - at this point, you have to get the attacker to stop quickly. Steve resisted all other attempts to defuse the situation, and I don’t think it’s fair to blame someone for fighting back.

“A hero is not he who is fearless, but he who is not stopped by it.”

But I’m also not going to put down someone who still seeks to defuse a situation, even despite the risks. That’s a huge gamble, and it requires a massive amount of courage and good faith in the other party, and it won’t always pay off. But when it works, I believe it can open up possibilities that might not otherwise exist, because to demonstrate good faith in someone is to demonstrate that you are Not The Enemy. I think Douxie demonstrated this marvelously with the Lady of the Lake in Wizards. He gave up the most powerful weapon he had - or what was left of it - to free Nimue rather than fight her when it looked like she was about to End everybody. Once he realized the truth of her situation, he took action to alleviate it - because he wasn’t going to beat up a prisoner, and he did not consider her imprisonment acceptable in the first place.

Jim is not a pacifist, in Trollhunters canon, or in the AU idea I’ve been messing with. He will fight to stop others from killing, and he might end up having to kill in the process if all other attempts fail. But (at least in this AU thing) he will see it as a tragic failure to bridge a gap. He refuses to succumb to the way of thinking that presents his opponents as evil, even if that would make it simpler for him to process their horrific actions. They’re living, complex beings, not symbols of everything wrong with the world. And often, the reason they’re trying to hurt others to begin with is because they have succumbed to that “seeing their opponents as evil” way of thinking, themselves. As Jim sees it in Building Bridges, that Lie is everyone’s greatest enemy. It’s part of what allows otherwise good people (like Arthur and Morgana) to do, justify, and condone horrific things.

He will fight if he must, but he will do his best to reach others first, to show them the truth, and try to find a way to effectively address whatever underlying pain is causing them to lash out. If Maria Edgeworth has a point about how “The human heart opens only to the heart that opens in return,” Jim will transcend “human” by taking the risk of opening his heart first (whether or not he also becomes a half-troll in this AU idea). I currently think that’s the most profound way to prove that “evil” view wrong.

This is not to say that he will do so incautiously. Jim takes his role as a protector seriously, and he will do what he must in service to that. But he sees potential in others, and values it. He’s not a saint, but he strives to be understanding and compassionate. And that’s damn hard work. It takes effort to be good, and to see the good in others, especially when you’re hurting.

#rambling thought-barf #theme talk #fanfiction notes

[rosethornewrites]

Fic: The Rebellion of Adrien Agreste, ch. 8

Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Luka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Luka Couffaine, Lila Rossi/karma, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/aneurism, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi, Plagg & Tikki

Characters: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Lila Rossi, Jagged Stone, Plagg, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine, Penny Rolling, Anarka Couffaine, Rose Lavillant, Juleka Couffaine, Kagami Tsurugi, Alya Césaire, Chloé Bourgeois, Wayhem, Nadja Chamack, Nathalie Sancoeur, Sabine Cheng, Tom Dupain, Tikki, Fang, Principal Damocles, Caline Bustier, Ms. Mendeleiev, original minor character, Alec Cataldi, Lila Rossi’s Mother, Sabrina Raincomprix, Roger Raincomprix, Mylène Haprèle, Le Gorille | Adrien Agreste’s Bodyguard, Nino Lahiffe, Nooroo

Tags: Lila Rossi salt, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Teenage Rebellion, Swearing, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Crack Treated Seriously, Lila Rossi’s Lies Are Exposed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Luka Couffaine Needs a Hug, Paparazzi, Parentification, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Gabriel Agreste Needs an Aneurism, Uncle Jagged Stone, we’re all queer here, the spirit of punk is sometimes just being allowed to be yourself, Kagami Finds Her Groove, punk rock fashion, Savage Kagami, Marinette protection squad, Good Parent Sabine Cheng, Good Parent Tom Dupain, Protective Kagami Tsurugi, Protective Luka Couffaine, Bisexual Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Pansexual Luka Couffaine, Sharing a Bed, Pet Names, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Instagram, Bullying, Social Media, Anxiety, Makeover, Hugs, will cure your acne, Face Punching, Bad Ass Juleka Couffaine, Rumors, Protective Juleka Couffaine, Protective Adrien Agreste, Lawyers, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Holding Hands, accountability, mental health, Jagged Stone’s well-paid pet shark, How to Make the Evening News, Sexy eyeliner for days, one fish two fish Lila is a screwed fish, How to have fun and piss Gabriel off, Fuckery, sweet litigious karma, Alya sugar, lawyer shark doo doo doo doo doo doo, Schadenfreude, Bad Ass Alya Césaire, Gaslighting, abuse denormalization, Jagged likes his lawyers like he likes his pets: toothy af, Blood in the Water, Everything you didn’t know you wanted and some things you did, Gabriel Agreste is shark bait, Denial, Consequences, Principal Damocles salt, caline bustier salt, the impotence of Gabriel Agreste, snarky Nooroo, lies and the lying liars who tell them, Lila’s brain is a narcissistic hellscape, Lila’s mind is built like an Escher piece, Alec Cataldi salt, Adrien Sugar, wholesome salt, Fu Salt, Kwami Shenanigans, Nooroo is a little shit

Summary: The Parentification Computation

Notes:  Luka’s characterization is somewhat based on a conversation with some folks  about the possibility of Luka having Atlas personality due to parentification, which is basically the impact when a child has to act as a parent, sometimes to their own parent but also to their siblings.

AO3 link

Chapters 1-2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7

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Adrien had felt a bit guilty when he took advantage of the rush to return to the suite to disappear to transform—he knew they’d worry, since the Akuma was likely going to look for him, but he had to help Ladybug defeat it.

The Akuma sucked the color and joy out of whatever it touched, the power turning into clothing and accessories that resembled Luka’s. It made an odd amount of sense, if the Akuma was a fan upset by Adrien’s fake relationship. So far it had leather pants, ornate boots, a leather jacket, kohl around its eyes, black fingernails, and hair that was black with… rainbow tips?

As Chat Noir got closer, he realized he recognized the person under all that.

“Wayhem?”

The Akuma turned toward him, face contorted in a sneer. “That’s Fade-Out to you! No one else can be happy until I am! Give me your Miraculous!”

He’d figured it was a fan, but had never imagined Wayhem would be the one, that he’d harbored feelings like that for Adrien. He’d been completely blind to it. What else had he been blind to?

Chat barely dodged when Fade-Out tried to grab him, then was pulled out of danger by Ladybug’s yoyo.

“I think the Akuma is in his glove,” she said as Fade-Out tried to find a way up to them.

When Chat peered, he could see on his right hand was a black fingerless motorcycle glove; embossed on the back was Adrien’s face. It was probably the face from his life-size cardboard cut-out he’d signed for Wayhem after he’d acted as Adrien’s body-double when Gorilla was Akumatized.

“So I need to let him get close enough to touch me, make sure I hit the glove.”

Ladybug frowned. “It’s too risky. Let’s see what we get with Lucky Charm!”

A red-and-black postless pillory fell into her arms, and she grimaced at it.

“I guess we need to immobilize him?” Chat asked.

Ladybug sighed. “You know my Lucky Charms aren’t that simple, chaton.”

She glanced around, seemingly looking for an answer, then pointed at a road sign, the one to rue du Chat-qui-Pêche, the smallest street in Paris—or, rather, the narrowest.

“The pillory will just barely fit in there, and with the drainpipes…”

Chat grinned. “Shall we pillory an Akuma, m’Lady?”

It took less than a minute of cat puns to get Fade-Out chasing him, and the moment the Akuma was in the alley, Ladybug snapped the pillory around his neck. His forward motion was halted so abruptly when it caught on a drainpipe that he lost his feet and wound up with his hands splayed on the pavement. Chat was able to Cataclysm the glove quickly and with no danger.

Then it was just a matter of Ladybug purifying the Akuma, unlatching the pillory, and tossing it in the air to release the Miraculous Cure, and Wayhem was on his hands and knees in the tiny street.

Once they’d fist-bumped, Chat turned her way. “I’ll handle the young man—I’ve more time before I detransform.”

Ladybug smiled and nodded, then yoyoed away.

Wayhem was staring up at him in dawning horror. “Oh, no. I was Akumatized?”

Chat offered him a hand. “Yeah. You okay?”

Once on his feet, Wayhem leaned against the wall with a sigh. “It’s so dumb. I was just a little jealous. I didn’t— Well, there’s this guy who’s a model, Adrien Agreste?”

He nodded, figuring he was expected to.

“Well, I was a ridiculous fanboy for a while, and kinda obsessive, and then he asked for my help when he was targeted by an Akuma. We became friends. And he… well, he just announced he has a boyfriend.”

Wayhem winced, rubbing his neck, his expression embarrassed.

“I didn’t even know… that was an option.”

Chat patted his shoulder; he felt badly that Wayhem had gotten caught up in this, but it was over and done with—and Adrien wouldn’t go back and fake-date Lila even knowing this.

“Honestly, maybe it wasn’t, though. You don’t know how he met his boyfriend or the circumstances,” he finally offered.

“I know.” Wayhem sighed. “It was just a moment of disappointment, you know?”

“And Hawkass took advantage.” Chat offered him a smile. “Just try to be happy for your friend, then. There’s someone out there for you.”

That got a little smile, just as the Miraculous beeped at him.

“That’s my cue to skiddoo!”

He gave the boy a little salute and was gratified when he got the same back, then he vaulted away, back toward the hotel.

Once he found a place to detransform and give Plagg some cheese, he snuck in and back to the suite, only to find Luka in the midst of pacing, Marinette and Penny looking concerned, and Jagged looking a bit irate.

When Luka saw him, he immediately stopped, and something in the older boy’s body language eased. It struck Adrien suddenly that Luka had been worried, something he hadn’t figured would happen.

“Sorry, wound up getting stuck downstairs. Figured I’d stay put until the Ladyblog put out the all clear.”

“Same thing happened to me,” Marinette offered.

Luka dragged his fingers through his hair. “It’s fine. These things happen.”

Jagged snorted. “You’re not fine, kid. You’re a bloody mess. Practically chewed all the polish off his nails. It was like when Penny misplaces me, only worse.”

“I don’t misplace you,” she muttered. “You wander off and terrorize people with Fang.”

A glance at Luka’s nails confirmed Jagged’s words, though. Most of his black nailpolish was gone.

“Oh. Well, we can get the spa folks up again. I kind of want mine done, too,” Adrien commented.

Luka frowned, then nodded. “Sorry… I just… I’m responsible for Juleka, and you both went missing, and the Akuma attack, and…”

Marinette stood, putting a hand on his arm. “Hey. You’re not responsible for me, or for Adrien.”

“But I’m his boyfriend now.”

Adrien blinked. “Is that how it works?”

Maybe it was—sometimes in movies and TV shows that was how it worked.

“No.” Penny’s voice was almost deadly. “That’s not how it works. You’re not his caregiver.”

Luka looked uncertain, like he was ready to argue.

Jagged scowled at him. “Nope, kid. I know Anarka’s a free spirit, but you’re not responsible for the world.”

Marinette offered Luka a hesitant smile. “You’ve got an independent boyfriend, Luka.”

The smile Luka attempted back looked very feeble.

“I’m sorry I worried you, Luka,” Adrien said, scratching the back of his head anxiously. “Most of the time my father keeps me shut in my room and forgets about me. So I didn’t think to let you guys know… but I didn’t have my phone on me, either. Whoops.”

Jagged turned the scowl on Adrien. “Okay, that’s gotta be addressed, too. So not okay. Social media blitz.”

Penny gestured to the computer. “You have a picture to post, anyway. Might as well fire some shots while you’re at it.”

Marinette and Luka exchanged a dark look, and then Luka drew himself up. “Okay. Your dad’s an asshole. Let’s air some dirty laundry?”

Adrien grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanfiction #my fanfiction #The Rebellion of Adrien Agreste #adrien agreste #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #wayhem #luka couffaine #penny rolling #jagged stone #uncle jagged #ml fang #juleka couffaine #ml salt #miraculous salt #gabriel agreste #gabriel agreste’s a+ parenting #lila salt

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 26: back in the courtroom, and everything’s coming up as a shitshow, which is honestly how it always goes. Welcome to hell, Athena.

The second trial day of Themis is one of my favorites because there’s both Blackquill being entirely done with everything, and him showing for the first time that he’s got a bit of a heart left. Good shit.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

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Juniper sits on the lobby couch, her hands cradling a lone large sunflower that Athena brought her, watching Athena interrupt her pacing with jumping jacks. “Shouldn’t you take it easy, Thena?” she asks. She was rather green about ten minutes ago, but assured them that it was just the iron and stress of jail that left her that way, and that she would look properly human by the time she would stand before the judge and gallery. And in the elapsed time her skin has settled in its hue, if paler than she was yesterday, her fear still apparent. 

Athena whirls around with a wild glint in her eyes. The tired bags beneath them accentuate her crazed appearance. “I’m taking it easy! I’m fine! I’ve gotta get - be - ready to go!” She jogs in place; she hasn’t had both feet on the floor since she arrived. 

“Did you get enough sleep last night?” Apollo asks, knowing the answer is no. 

“Sleep? Huh?” Athena finally stops moving. “Yeah, sleep! Yeah I totally sleep! I’m fine!”

She sounds like him on his worst days. “That’s not exactly what I asked,” he says. Juniper stares back down into the center of the sunflower. “Maybe let’s just drop it. We’re not inspiring much faith in our client.”

“No,” Juniper says. She looks up. “I have complete faith in you, Thena.”

“O-oh.” From Athena’s face, she’s wondering if that faith is warranted. Apollo will make sure that it is. For both the girls’ sakes. 

“Guten Morgen.” All three of them jump. Klavier chuckles. “Ready to put on a show?”

“Do you have anything about the tape?” Apollo asks. Despite his best efforts, he had found himself wondering when this was all going to come crashing down - if somehow Prosecutor Blackquill would find out and put a stop to it, or if somehow it couldn’t even be proven that the tape was fabricated—

“And not even a ‘hello’ to start with!” Klavier says, still cheerily; he can’t really have expected anything else from Apollo, could he? There’s a trial starting in fifteen minutes and Apollo doesn’t know anymore who he thinks is the killer. “A bit rude, don’t you think? And nonetheless, I have a good-luck present to you both.”

“Guten Morgen, Prosecutor Gavin!” How did Apollo end up stuck with two people like this? Apollo’s probably more fluent in Khura’inese than they are in German (and for Athena, Spanish or Italian or French…), but he doesn’t go around flaunting it like he’s so worldly and cultured. (And he wouldn’t do that even if Khura’in wasn’t something he wishes he would forget.) “Do you have something for us?”

“Of course I do, Fräulein. I could hardly just leave one as lovely as yourself hanging, now could I?” Apollo rolls his eyes, hoping Klavier sees it. Klavier offers to Athena a small stack of papers. “There you are. A summary of the voiceprint analysis, proving that the voice in the tape is most assuredly, exactly the same clip as spoken in the mock trial.” Athena rifles through the pages. “You’ll also notice that there’s still analysis ongoing - hoping to discover what was originally on the tape before it was turned into fabricated evidence. It might give us some other clues, ja? But unfortunately we don’t know much more at this point than the length of the prior recording.”

“Well, maybe that could still help out, somehow,” Athena says. “Thank you! And—” She frowns. “Is this a second copy of the same thing? Wait, this one’s got more information about—”

“About the logistics of the analysis and who precisely down at the precinct was working it,” Klavier interrupts. “That packet is for Herr Samurai. I did not think you would appreciate me tipping your hand to him beforehand, but I imagined there might be more that Herr Prosecutor would like to know to be sure that you are not the ones inventing this wholecloth.”

Klavier made the same warning yesterday when they first discussed this. “Do you think he would?” Apollo asks. “Accuse us of that?”

“Hm.” Klavier considers the question for longer than Apollo would like, idly snapping his fingers. Athena retreats to the couch to discuss their new evidence with Juniper. “Truly, I do not imagine so. He plays a very threatening game, but when it comes to it he seems quite reasonable.”

Apollo thinks about Mayor Tenma’s trial, Blackquill’s dirty tricks that nearly forced the mayor into a false confession. “You and I have different standards of reasonable,” he says. Maybe he means relatively reasonable, that there’s so many other prosecutors who are even worse. 

“Perhaps,” Klavier agrees, “but Herr Samurai could be the most reasonable man and I would nonetheless leave you with this document trail.” His eyes, stormy blue and unwavering in their hue this entire conversation, but Apollo doesn’t remember whether or not this color is the Sight, harden. “I would hate to see your integrity as a lawyer called into question, especially over evidence that I offered you as assistance.” His jaw tightens, thinking, no doubt, of what Apollo has continued to think about since he arrived at Themis. With Phoenix.

This also seems like the most emotionally honest Klavier has been all week. “Thanks,” Apollo says. “I—”

—appreciate it, the sentence means to end, but movement behind Klavier catches Apollo’s eye, and the doors that lead out into the hall thump suddenly shut. “Hey!” Apollo calls. “Who’s—”

“What’s going on?” Athena asks. “Who’s there, did you see?”

“I don’t know,” Apollo says. “It might have been Hugh.” He thinks he saw a bit of the dark blue of the Themis uniform there. “Eavesdropping to figure out our strategy, no doubt.”

“I would expect him not to be the only one,” Klavier says, glancing back over his shoulder. “The cardboard paparazzi and the prosecutor Fräulein are rather nosy themselves, wouldn’t you agree? I’ll go chase them down and make sure they cause no further trouble for you.” He flashes a casual grin, as light and easygoing as he ever tries to be, but it is undercut for Apollo, and Apollo alone; Vongole materializes from the air next to him, red ears pricked and nose pointed at the door, her head held level with her shoulders. A creature ready to stalk, ready to hunt, to pounce, and Klavier barely turns for the doors and she springs, plunging through the door like it’s just a projection. But Klavier, when he gets to the door, without much haste, has to open it, reminding Apollo that it’s Vongole who doesn’t adhere to the physical world, not the door.

What’s she going to do, herd the wayward Themis students back around toward Klavier? Can she even do that if they can’t see her? Can she make them see her? God, Apollo hopes that corralling them is all she’ll do; Klavier’s got control over that hellhound, right? He does, Apollo’s seen that. No need to worry about that. Focus on the case.

(Apollo’s still going to worry about that.)

“Apollo, you ready?” Athena asks. 

“Yes!” Focus on the moment, the evidence, the trial. Forget Klavier and his haunted dog. “I’m Apollo Justice and I’m fine!” He feels better already, and a shaky grin draws across Athena’s face. “Okay, your turn. Ready?”

“I’m Athena Cykes! And I’m fine!”

-

“Ms Newman and Mr O’Conner have recanted their confessions made before yesterday’s adjournment, but you may expect, Your Baldness, to see them again in this courtroom, as I intend later to determine if they should be charged with perjury.”

Apollo has come to think that most of Blackquill’s lauded so-called psychological manipulations are really just brute intimidation that he pretends has more finesse than he actually does. Despite that, the question he finds himself with now is whether or not Blackquill is in as cheery of a mood as he is acting, grinning as he catches the court up on all that has progressed on the prosecution’s side of things. “Ms Woods likewise attempted to recant her confession, claiming it was made in the heat of the moment to” - he rolls his eyes, as if the disdain dripping through his voice wasn’t already making his opinion on the matter clear, and Athena’s expression hardens - “protect her friends, but given that she is already and continues to be the one on trial, that changes little of our situation.”

She did confess, didn’t she? In the midst of Robin yelling and Hugh interrupting, Juniper confessed too, trying to stop her friends from ruining their lives for her. And if he presumes Juniper is innocent, which he has to, because she’s their client, then that means when she confessed to murder, she lied; plainly and wholeheartedly, she lied. Which means that even someone half-fae can lie. 

“Very well,” the judge says. “And the photograph submitted yesterday of the victim and the defendant together minutes before the—”

“Unfortunately, we will find that evidence no longer relevant,” Blackquill interrupts. He is still smirking, even while forced to refute the hand he played yesterday. If this is an act, to unnerve Apollo, it’s working. Or if he’s genuinely amused, then it’s probably because he’s got something new up his sleeve that makes him not concerned with all the ways his case collapsed yesterday. “The art room clock runs fast and will not give us an accurate measure of the time. ‘Tis a pity for our time to have been wasted as such, but the bungling oaf of a detective responsible for overlooking this fact will assuredly be paying for his failure.”

Athena winces. “Poor Fulbright,” she whispers. 

Is Blackquill angry that he thinks Fulbright should have seen it - or is it misplaced anger, Blackquill sure that he would have noticed had he been on the scene investigating and angry that he has to rely on Fulbright, instead. (Is that why they keep spotting traces of Taka around? Blackquill thinking he can’t trust the observation skills of the detective? Taka didn’t notice the clock, either, for whatever that’s worth. Probably not easy for the bird to get into a building. How does it get out of jail?)

“Now,” Blackquill says sharply, and the flashes of mirth he showed a minute ago have vanished. “Today, I intend to prove to you that the accused is the only person who could have moved the body. And to that end, the prosecution calls its first witness.”

-

Hugh O’Conner did assure Athena that he would be testifying today, and true to that word, he takes the witness stand first. His claim is that he saw Juniper moving the high-jump mat that would’ve been needed to move the body without bruising it; he claims to have seen this from a vantage point that would have been impossible, until Blackquill obliquely reminds them of the crane that was present the night of the murder, as involved in the stage setup. This makes sense - the weird thing about it isn’t the statement itself, but Hugh’s reaction to it. He looks pained, clutching the side of his neck in a way Apollo has come to notice him doing each time he is stressed and struggling to regain his footing in an argument. 

“That’s - you’ve said enough, Prosecutor Blackquill!” Is Hugh trying to plead with him or threaten him? Neither, Apollo thinks, is liable to work. “You promised!”

Blackquill laughs, a harsh sound from the back of his throat. “Did I?” he asks. “I recall nothing of the sort. What I do recall is that you came to me blubbering about making a deal that I would keep quiet in exchange for information, but you should have taken care to extract that promise for me before you went ahead and offered me your every secret like a blithering fool.”

Blackquill has a way with words that leaves Apollo incredibly worried about the fates of everyone who is in any way involved with him. Like he’s just waiting for the opportunity to snatch away the souls of anyone who isn’t careful who dares speak with him. Is that part of who he is - what he is - or is it one of his actual psychological manipulations? And is it the witness he means to scare with his phrasing, or the defense? 

“Ah, well, if Golden Boy will not take the chance to lift the weight of truth from his shoulders, then I will tell you,” Blackquill says. Hugh, with his hand still clapped tight to his neck like he’s trying to staunch the flow from a wound, makes a kind of undignified whimpering sound. “He was up in that crane, and not simply mucking about there for fun. He does, rather, work part-time as a crane operator.”

“A high school student!” the judge exclaims. “Operating a crane!”

“No!” Hugh snaps. “The prosecution - there’s no proof that I was operating the crane! The prosecution might be lying!”

Blackquill laughs, and makes no move to argue. “I don’t know where this is going,” Athena says in a low voice, “because this is the point that Prosecutor Blackquill wants to make, but…” Louder, she adds, her voice ringing across the courtroom, “I bet we can prove it was you.”

Which they do, for whatever good it may or may not be about to do them, and the judge is still hung up on a high schooler operating a crane, rather than what Hugh would or wouldn’t be able to see from the vantage point of the crane, but Hugh splutters and protests about how brilliant and talented he is and that’s why. Blackquill watches him, smirking, waiting for his failure of an argument to trail away into nothingness. Hugh goes silent halfway through saying something about practicing archery one-handed, and Blackquill’s smirk splits open into a grin. “Dispense with this inane charade, Golden Boy.” He doesn’t wait for Hugh’s response and continues speaking over the witness’ begging. “Now, we will establish, for the sake of argument, that the age range of high school seniors ends at the upper limit of nineteen - still, legally, too young to operate heavy machinery. That, however, does not apply to Mr O’Conner, does it, now?”

“But he is a high school senior,” Athena says. “Are you saying he’s not around that age?”

Blackquill slams his palm on the bench. “Indeed, he is not. Golden Boy here is twenty-five.” The serious expression that he held on his face for a fraction of a second breaks down into raucous laughter, punctured by his further slapping the bench in uncontained amusement. Apollo really doesn’t like seeing him in a good mood. He’s only ever entertained by someone else’s bad fortune. “He took a seven year break from his schooling!”

They all had secrets - Juniper, Robin, Hugh. The courtroom is quiet; is it ever this quiet after a revelation, without a breath of murmured shock. “Eh?” Athena utters faintly. “Come again?”

“Twenty-five,” Blackquill repeats gleefully. He nods to Taka and the hawk snatches up a paper in its talons, launching itself into the air and making straight for the judge. “All in the school’s official paperwork, as you will find.”

“Twenty-five?” Apollo echoes, sure they’re all going to ask this in turn, a round-table of disbelief. “He’s - he’s older than me?” He’s not good at eyeballing ages, he knows that, and he knows that everyone always thinks him baby-faced and younger than he is, and Hugh could be like that. People in their twenties all look all over the place. How’s anyone to know? But on the other hand, what twenty-year-old, after taking a gap year for seven successive years out of high school, would want to go back to high school all over again? Apollo sure wouldn’t. But maybe instead of going to college to be a lawyer, Hugh went back to a lawyer high school because those teenagers are at his same maturity level.

(Solid burn. If he didn’t get heckled every time he was the slightest bit snide to a witness, he would say it out loud.)

“Seven years?” Athena asks. Blackquill might as well just go over the entire situation again, if they’re all going to ask for clarification on each and every tiny point. “But since you’re such a genius” - she does a remarkable job of not sounding wholly derisive when she says it - “wouldn’t taking a seven year vacation make you boring real quick?” She pauses, frowns, playing her words back in her head. “Make you bored.”

Her first one was probably correct, too. Does Hugh know how to have a conversation that isn’t about his own greatness?

“Heh.” Hugh’s recovery from his shock tips him back into the smugness he always seems to carry. “There’s the dull mindless vacations you ordinary plebians take, and then…” He falters, for a moment. “Even geniuses make mistakes,” he says, resuming with an entirely different thread of argument. “The ones I make just, you know, lost me seven years.”

Rising in Apollo’s stomach is the same kind of fear that Blackquill’s particulars of phrasing invoke. “Er, Mr O’Conner,” he begins, ignoring the shock that Athena sends his way, and bracing himself for the way everyone in the courtroom is going to respond to the utterly insane question he is about to ask, “are you actually, like, actually twenty-five, or just - you know, legally, that it’s been twenty-five years since you were first - you were born.”

He knows that at least half of the gallery is going to think he’s an idiot, have some perception of theirs confirmed about how lawyers are all schooling and no sense in their heads; even Athena stares like he’s just lost his mind. Hugh, though, blanches, his whole body tensing and his shoulders drawing inward. Blackquill’s cuffs clank as he hits the bench and Hugh flinches and nearly falls over with fright. Apollo jumps, too. He’d forgotten that Blackquill as much as anyone would hear this question and would get to respond to it in his typical magic-denying ways.

“What a question, Justice-dono,” he drawls. Apollo raises his chin defiantly. It’s a good question, because all the world around them is crazy. “No doubt a matter first brought to your attention by the rather unique situation of some other golden boy of our acquaintance.” His eyebrows raise and his mouth twists in amusement. Apollo’s heart skips and then stops. How does Blackquill know? It seems unlikely - though technically possible - that Klavier would have told him; the alternative is that Blackquill knows enough to know, to realize, when it took even Phoenix several strokes of luck and coincidence to piece it together. Blackquill shouldn’t be saying this. He shouldn’t know. And why of all times choose this as the moment to drop his pretense of disbelief? To psych Apollo out some more? To give Klavier, up in the gallery, a slap in the face for helping Apollo and Athena?

“But suffice to say, we will find that an irrelevant question,” Blackquill continues. “What matters is the legal age of the witness, that has so allowed him to work the discussed job as a crane operator. He was, therefore, up in the crane with the vantage point to see the accused dragging the mat in preparation to move the body. You must agree how clear this is, and that there is no need to deliberate this much any further.”

Oh. Right. Juniper. This is, after all, her trial, and the reason they have gone down this strange road still has to do with her case, and what she did or didn’t do, and Hugh did or didn’t see, on the morning that the body was discovered.

Back to the fight.

-

Hugh lied about ever seeing the body on stage.

It’s an utterly incomprehensible lie, in Apollo’s most just and honest opinion; it’s also one of a host of shady moves Hugh has made. Though the blood Juniper saw on his hands was his own, from trying to sneak a look at the mock trial script and instead finding Myriam’s spring-loaded razor blade-protected script envelope, and her suspicion against him in that regard can be discounted - well, there’s still his grades, and this, about the body.

If the body was moved during the mock trial - moved in fact at the moment Phoenix and Athena heard the shattering of the statues on stage that drew them outside to discover the body - then Hugh and Robin have airtight alibis, on the floor in front of a crowd for the whole mock trial. Apollo had his eyes on them the whole time. But Juniper, ever-multitasking Juniper, the conductor of her show, the only person alive at that time with all the secrets of her script, was not always down on the floor playing the defendant. She was up at the back of the hall in the sound booth, moving back and forth even during Professor Means’ speech. At any of those times, she could have slipped out to the art room, to send Courte’s body to the stage down the banner wire.

All they’ve done is help Blackquill build a more convincing case against Juniper, so convincing that Apollo can’t find within him a single point to dispute. They missed something; he knows it, he has to know it, he has to believe it to the end. But where? Can he object on the grounds that they need to know why Hugh lied about seeing the body? Would Blackquill let that stand?

Hugh starts to laugh. Hugh starts to laugh in the broken, hysterical way of a killer cornered, except he’s about to get away free with Juniper’s verdict. “Behold my brilliance!” he cries, his words breathless and interrupted by his own frantic, frenzied laughter. “Listen well as the rare genius of Hugh O’Conner reveals to the world the secrets of his perfect crime!”

Apollo looks at Athena. Athena glances back at Apollo. “Er,” she says. “What? Why’s this - why again?”

Because this, the wild confessions, happened yesterday too. To hell with this trial. Hugh appears feverish, his hair matting to his forehead and neck with sweat, his eyes darting all around the courtroom, jumping from Apollo and Athena to Blackquill to Juniper and never settling on any of them. “The murder, moving the body, the cover-up, all my works of genius! My great and perfect crime, bow in awe and stand to arrest me! I am confessing, am I not? You have your killer here!”

“Is he serious?” Apollo asks. He’s afraid he is. He’s seen too many other people unravel in this same manner, but the game was up for all of them. Hugh’s game - what the hell is his game?

“I think he’s serious,” Athena says. “Serious, and seriously suddenly cracked.”

“Enough!” Blackquill snarls. Taka shrieks in an angry echo. “You have a perfect alibi, not a perfect crime! And you dare to stand here and further act the mad fool to delay this trial from its inevitable outcome!” He fixes Hugh with his dark eyes, but this time, Hugh doesn’t shrink away. That is definitely stupidity, not bravery, on his part. “I will have no mercy for you should you not this instant stand down.”

“I will never!” Hugh shouts back. “I have testimony that will prove to you, the utter perfection with which I always act! You’ll doubt me, but in truth I used a body double at the mock trial! It wasn’t me at all, not about to lose and not with the alibi! I, the real me, slipped out and had the run of the campus! I moved the body, I’m the killer, and Juniper’s innocent!”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Athena says. 

“I must ask of both the defense and prosecution,” the judge says. “Does this testimony make any sense at all, in the slightest?”

“No,” Apollo answers. 

“Oh, good,” the judge says. “I thought I had just become suddenly, extremely confused.”

“The witness is the one suddenly, extremely confused,” Blackquill says. “And it would be charitable, to call him confused, instead of saying, for instance, that he is a bloody lunatic.”

“You’re a witch, aren’t you?” Hugh demands. As though to make the point for him, Blackquill’s eyes flash silver. “Don’t you know anything about doppelgangers? You know, changelings getting switched for people? You think creatures like that are not okay with being an accessory to crime?” A sour taste gathers in Apollo’s mouth. He thinks of Vera, of Kristoph, of Klavier in the gallery, that life-shaping trauma turned into Hugh’s latest desperate lie in the service of - what? To what end? “I had a—”

“Enough!” Blackquill roars, and it is, indeed, so much more of a bellow than his usual low snarling interruptions. Athena lets out a small scream and stumbles back into the wall behind them. Even Hugh shrinks toward the witness stand, seeming to recognize that he’s taken this impossible declaration a step too far. “That you know such words to use them does not mean you have the damndest understanding of what they truly entail!” He slams both fists in tandem on the bench, and Athena clasps both of her hands over Widget to muffle its surprised swearing.

“You claim familiarity with the concepts as part of your mad gambit, make a mockery of the gravity of such matters, and call me to my face a witch as though that would convince me of the veracity of your statements - yet you never pause to think that perhaps whatever I am, I also bear the ability to see through your pernicious bullshit.” Hugh’s mouth flaps open, and he shuts it without a word. “Spare this court your lies,” Blackquill continues. He has stopped yelling now, his voice merely as low and deadly as it ever is. “There is only one of you, as there ever has been - as is most fortuitous for us, as you the sole dunce as you are have made more than your share of trouble, and another of you would be far more than unbearable.”

Hugh’s mouth opens again like a fish deprived of water, but it seems to Apollo that Blackquill’s outburst has drawn to its close. “Shit,” Athena whispers, her and not Widget this time. “I’ve never heard him that angry.”

Have they? He has been furious at Fulbright, over stupid witnesses, over cases. Professional anger. This is different; this seems a personal chord, and a very disharmonious one, struck, and painfully enough to drop the game he’d made of it prior, denying right to Apollo’s face that monsters, yokai, and magic could ever exist. And is it painful to him the way it infuriates Apollo, on behalf of someone else, or is this another clue in the puzzle, the question, of what is Prosecutor Simon Blackquill?

“Now,” Blackquill says, his calm and his smirk returned, “Your Baldness, where we left off. The verdict.”

“But it’s - hey! Defense!” Hugh, gripping the witness stand, turns on them next. “You have that weird device, don’t you? For crazy testimonies like mine?”

“Widget isn’t weird!” Athena protests. Apollo could object to that. “And I’m not going to waste him on something this plainly ridiculous—”

“We don’t have any objections otherwise,” Apollo reminds her. “The only thing left otherwise is the verdict. There’s nothing worse that can happen from giving this a shot.”

“Oh,” Athena says, blanching as she realizes that she was about to let the trial reach its verdict and damn Juniper to prison. She clears her throat. “Well,” she says loudly, “against some of my better judgment, I would like to conduct a short psychoanalytic session with the witness.”

“As a judge, I feel this to be beyond my better sense as well, yet I also do not feel as though I should deny you.” The judge glances around the courtroom, pondering what must be yet another in the Wright Anything Agency’s long, long line of unprecedented incidents. “Well, then. Prosecutor Blackquill, I will ask your opinion. I trust you have no object… ah.” 

The courtroom doors slam, seeming to rattle the whole room, and rattling Apollo even more is the empty prosecution’s bench. “Ah, Your Honor,” says one of the bailiffs by the doors, eyes still blankly fixated on where they closed. “The prosecution said, and I quote, ‘Rubbish! We will be out on a stroll’ and left, Detective Fulbright with him.”

At least he isn’t loose unsupervised, but holy hell, is there nothing that Blackquill can’t get away with? (Nothing short of murder, anyway.)

“I must suppose he would have lodged an objection in his parting words if he took issue with Ms Cykes’ plan.” The judge nods once, and decisively. “Very well. Ms Cykes, you may proceed with your therapy session-slash-cross-examination.”

“You’re up, Widget.” Athena draws up the emotional analysis screen and over her shoulder, Apollo watches it load. He can’t help but find the whole process fascinating, no matter that he’s seen it before, and he wonders how many times he’ll have to see it until he gets used to it. Knowing that Athena has the little gadget taking pictures almost constantly doesn’t change his amazement with the way she can compile it all into new mock-ups of scenes discussed in the testimony, or how seamlessly she does it. A large part of him still isn’t sure that there’s not magic involved, somehow woven into the technology. “Now, Mr O’Conner, please repeat your testimony!”

Hugh inhales deeply, his eyes still darting about, like he’s suddenly trying to remember the spur-of-the-moment co-called “testimony” he blurted. “All right,” he says. “I’ll say this simple enough that even mouth-breathers like you can understand. I used a body double! That wasn’t really me at the mock trial! And it wasn’t really me who was about to lose, of course. I slipped out while my doppelganger handled the mock trial, and I had full run of the campus. So it’s me who’s the killer, not Juniper. She’s innocent!”

“Well, he sure wasn’t kidding when he said it was crazy testimony,” Athena mutters, swiping through the pages on which she lists each sentence of Hugh’s testimony and the associated emotions. All of Widget’s projected screens flash bright green, as it blares out the alarm that warns it is overloaded by the emotional input. How Athena, with her sensitive hearing, tolerates that sound, Apollo will never know. “Right now, we’re getting an overflow reading on happiness, which is weird, considering he’s confessing to murder.”

“Maybe he’s just delighted by how the rest of us can’t understand his brilliance,” Apollo says. “But I’m guessing you think there’s something more going on.”

“Mhm.” He can’t tell if Athena was listening or is just mumbling to herself. She flips back and forth between two parts of the testimony, too fast to actually be reading over the sentences again; her eyes follow the images that she has placed with the words. Then she finally looks up. “So, Mr O’Conner, yesterday you told us that you didn’t care at all about Ms Woods anymore.”

Apollo glances to the defendant’s chair, where poor Juniper looks distraught, red-faced from crying and now wide-eyed with shock, staring at Hugh. “That’s right,” Hugh says, about as smoothly as he’s managing to say anything now. A silent sob shudders across Juniper’s thin shoulders. “She told Professor Courte my secret, and I know she wants nothing to do with me now.” 

Juniper shakes her head, her mouth moving, whispering something Apollo can’t make out across the courtroom, but Athena probably could, were her attentions not rightly fixed on the witness. If he had to guess, had to bet on it, from the rest of her body language, she’s probably saying, that’s not true. 

“So now I don’t care about her either.” Hugh laughs dismissively, but his eyes still move uneasily, and his hand clutches his neck. He’s still lying. “What, you think my confession has something to do with her? It doesn’t! It’s about one thing, and that’s the truth, the truth that everyone in this courtroom was too inferior to figure out!”

“No, objection!” Athena slaps her hand to the bench, through Widget’s hologram screen. “This whole testimony, you’ve felt great joy - so much that I can barely hear anything else! You’re happy that you could play a part in setting Juniper free.” She draws her hand back and props her hands on her hips. “People usually don’t feel like you do when they’re broken down enough to confess to murder.”

“So then, this is another confession trying to protect Juniper?” Apollo asks. Meaning it’s a false confession, meaning Hugh isn’t the killer after all. Like Phoenix thought, against all the evidence, on a hunch.

“It is,” Athena says. “He does care about her, without question.”

But if not Hugh, they still don’t have any evidence of anyone else, and they’ve looped back around to—

The courtroom doors slam again. “Figured it out, have you?” Blackquill asks. He whistles sharply and Taka returns to his shoulder from wherever it was hiding. Taka was still in the courtroom, then? Apollo glances around, wondering where it went, wondering if Blackquill’s dramatic timing is perfect because he was following the whole conversation via the hawk left behind. He makes his way back to the bench, without any great haste, and scratches Taka beneath the chin as he continues, “That testimony was naught but a great tangle of lies. May we agree now that the killer is the one person permitted to move freely out of sight in the lecture hall - that is, the accused herself. We need not waste more time deliberating this nonsense.”

“But you haven’t figured it out!” Hugh protests. Blackquill’s face darkens. “The trick behind my body-double stunt!”

“Would one even presume it to be true,” Blackquill says dryly, but lacking even an ounce of amusement in the hard line of his mouth and his shadowed eyes, “you did tell us in the beginning how it was that you claimed to have a doppelganger.”

“I think I’m gonna agree with Prosecutor Blackquill on this one,” Apollo says. A small kernel of doubt has dug its way through his prior certainty, and he wishes that Phoenix had been the one to watch the mock trial, instead. He could have noticed - if he’d thought to look, and he would have, right? He’s that cautious or paranoid, right? - whether or not Hugh was the same person, and human, the whole way through. Apollo just knows that the Hugh in the mock trial didn’t stray from the bench, didn’t seem to disappear or slough eyes off of him for even a brief moment - and still, still he doesn’t trust himself to be sure. Not when the fae could be involved. “But if we quit here, then Juniper is found guilty.”

“So the best of the bad options is to play along,” Athena says. She quickly taps out a few commands with her gloved hand on the screen. “Okay, let’s see here. What else can we find out?”

Hugh’s continues testimony is just as rambling and confused as before, tripping over itself and tangling itself up in knots that will only snare Juniper deeper. It’s pathetic to watch him falling apart as he is: certain that Juniper is innocent but too afraid of the corruption in the legal system to believe that the plain truth can ever win out, and desperate for some affirmation that despite his grades being bought (without his knowledge, which Apollo notes is definitely interesting) his friends could still possibly love him. This is not Apollo’s field of expertise, but he has Athena, Athena with her ears and Widget, and she manages beautifully. He’d tell her that he’s impressed, but Blackquill has been waiting to pounce, and with Hugh recanting his confession, pounce he does. 

“This roundabout trial has returned us once again to the point I have been making: that the only person who lacks an alibi is the accused.” Blackquill folds his arms and taps a finger against his head. The chains rattle. “Consider that, Cykes-dono, and finally realize that your friend’s guilt is the truth you have so valiantly sought.”

“Did we really spend all that time getting nowhere?” Apollo asks. He casts his mind back over Hugh’s testimony. Doppelganger nonsense and more doppelganger nonsense; such useful information, all around. “This is exhausting.”

Athena isn’t listening. She frowns down at Widget’s Mood Matrix screen, which has updated to show that all of the emotions in Hugh’s voice have been cataloged and cleared, and it winks out of existence, only for Athena to immediately bring back up some of her case notes. “Hold on a minute, Your Honor, Prosecutor Blackquill.” She swipes the screen to display a floor plan of the lecture call, with the balcony seats for Courte and Means clearly marked. (Does the head of the prosecutions’ course not have enough seniority to join either of them in the balcony seating? Didn’t Phoenix say they all got fired a few years back?) “If we have someone else who doesn’t have an alibi, then we need to continue the trial, correct?”

“Of course,” the judge says. “But after so much thorough investigation and debate, can such a person even exist?”

“Where are we going with this?” Apollo asks Athena. He feels like someone scrambled his brains. 

She rests her finger above the marked defense’s bench in the lecture hall diagram. “Remember how Hugh has been insistent on seeing this balcony seat empty?” She moves her finger diagonally to point to the seat noted to be Means’. “He thought that was because it was Courte’s, and she was dead at the time. But it isn’t.”

“So if Professor Means wasn’t where he was supposed to be—”

“Your Honor!” Athena calls. “However roundabout this testimony has been, we have arrived at one statement of truth. That balcony seat was empty, meaning that Professor Means wasn’t where he was supposed to be during the mock trial!”

“Oh please,” Blackquill sneers. “The whole of the lecture hall heard him give his speech!”

“It bored me half to death,” Apollo adds. He doesn’t remember what was actually said, just that it became a buzzing in his ears within about forty seconds, as some leftover instincts from college assured him that there would be nothing worth remembering.

“It could have been pre-recorded, right?” Athena says. “Then the professor could have given his speech, while he was wherever else on campus!”

“Wait!” Hugh interrupts. “You don’t - are you seriously accusing Professor Means? He’s been trying to help this whole time!” Apollo doesn’t believe that, but he can’t tell if Hugh believes it, or if his nervous habits are now simple shock at where Athena has taken this case. “It’s crazy to say that he - I mean, he was the one who gave me the tape recorder to take to the police!”

“The tape?” 

Apollo asks at the same time Athena does, and they stare at each other; understanding and alarm start to dawn behind Athena’s eyes. “Athena,” Apollo says. “We have to get Professor Means on the witness stand.”

She purses her lips and nods decisively. “Mr O’Conner, did you just say that Professor Means gave you that phony tape?”

“Phony?” Hugh echoes. “No, I - he gave it to me and told me to go to the police and say I found it in the art room, but it’s not - what do you mean, phony—”

“And it didn’t seem suspicious for him to tell you to lie?” Apollo demands. This goddamn school, he swears - Hugh probably wouldn’t even have an issue with the lying, would have been sure that it meant instead that Professor Means had some kind of shady-but-ultimately-justified plan for Juniper’s defense, and who was he to question?

“Apollo, this isn’t the time,” Athena warns, her eyebrows drawing together. He follows her narrow-eyed gaze to watch Blackquill, his hand on his chin, smirking to himself, pondering something. Maybe whether he can add that to Hugh’s perjury charges. 

“Defense, please refrain from hurling unsubstantiated accusations as you are by calling the evidence ‘phony’,” the judge says. “Unless you can—”

“We can prove it!” Athena interrupts, smacking her palms on the bench like she’s about to try and vault it. “This tape we discussed yesterday, the voice of our client shouting ‘You’re a goner!’, was faked by reusing audio from the mock trial video! We have evidence about the, um, about the evidence!”

Taka lands on the bench, its head twitching back and forth, expectantly waiting. “Hang on, which one of these is which - here!” Athena offers one of Klavier’s evidence packets to the hawk, which blinks at her in almost acknowledgement before it returns across the courtroom to Blackquill. He intently studies each page in turn, the seconds passing in excruciating slowness as they wait for his response. On reaching the end, he tosses back his head, hair falling in front of his eyes, and lets out a loud, sharp laugh.

“Is there an issue, Prosecutor Blackquill?” the judge asks.

“There is not,” Blackquill says. Could’ve fooled me, Apollo thinks. The prosecutor makes a dismissive flick of his fingers and Taka, still with the papers clutched in its beak, heads off to the judge. “I concede that, as asserted and evidenced by the” - he forces out a cough and then loudly clears his throat - “defense, that the evidence on the tape was falsified.” Apollo has to stop himself from turning his head to glance up toward the gallery, wondering where Klavier sits. “However, are not the odds greatest that our lying dullard of a witness merely overlooked the professor in the balcony?”

“We can’t know for sure until we ask him!” Athena fires back. “We can’t overlook any possibilities!”

The judge strikes his gavel twice. “My opinion on the matter,” he says, when they have both fallen to silence, Athena glaring furiously at Blackquill, and Blackquill unbothered, watching Taka preen its wing feathers, “is that it would be premature to pass a verdict without having properly examined a possible witness oversight. And to answer that question, I believe it would be best to ask Professor Means himself, and therefore to call him as a witness.”

Apollo lets out his breath, but the tightness in his chest remains. This is the one guiding piece of advice that Phoenix gave: if you see the opportunity to get him on the stand, take it. 

Now they’re on their own. 

-

“Good afternoon. I would like to thank you all for being here today. This mock trial, the crown event of…”

Means’ speech was ten minutes long. 

Apollo forgot about that, honestly. 

They’re searching for some sort of hint that the speech was pre-recorded, some kind of discrepancy between his words and what they know to be true of the day. Athena assured Means that they weren’t accusing him of anything now, just wanted to be sure of the truth of the matter of the speech and the balcony seating - and she said it with her face drawn solemnly across, her shoulders held stiff and her hands squeezing into fists at her sides. She lied. She suspects him. They’ll be accusing him later. And Means at the witness stand loses his trademark smile to glower at Athena whenever she looks away. 

Blackquill pays no attention to anyone, his back to the court, his elbows propped up on the bench behind him, his head slumped forward. He had said - not really directed at anyone in particular - to wake him up when this was concluded. Apollo no longer thinks he’s joking, watching his shoulders rise and fall with the slow, steady breathing pattern of someone asleep. Taka, in imitation of its master, ducks its head beneath its wing.

Are neither of them actually going to listen? Blackquill not even try to assess the details for himself?

Apollo tears his eyes away from the opposite bench. The speech, focus on the speech. Athena’s hand flits over a blank Widget screen that she intended to use for notes, doodling flowers and swirls all across the edges. There’s a shape that Apollo presumes to be a bowling pin until she adds the beak to the penguin. She isn’t keyed in to the speech, either. It’s testimony, the worst kind of testimony, where they have to make it through an untold number of minutes of Means reminiscing about his own long-ago days as a Themis student, and how what he learned there became critical in his days as a real lawyer, before he returned again to Themis to instruct a new generation.

Was it in school that he learned that forging evidence worked, or was he like Phoenix, in a real trial back to the wall, nothing but that or losing? Are monsters born or made, and how are they made? What does it take to break an honest lawyer, if ever he began that way?

The video was to record the mock trial, not the speech before it; the camera in the lecture hall is fixed on the floor, the benches where Robin and Hugh stand, and the witness stand that Juniper travels back and forth from. They obviously can’t see the balconies - otherwise there would be an easy answer to this matter - but the audience is visible, students restless whispering to each other or leaning their heads in their hands or on their desks. Apollo wonders where he was sitting, if he can see himself. 

The judge’s head droops and snaps back up, guiltily glancing around to assess whether anyone else noticed.

Professor Means, on the recording of the speech that may have been pre-recorded, interrupts himself to snap at the audience to wake up. The judge’s eyes pop open, and something clatters like he knocked his gavel to the floor; Athena’s arm jerks across her notes page, scribbling across her penguin drawing. “I’m awake, I’m awake!” she yelps, turning panicked to Apollo. 

Blackquill doesn’t twitch.

This still isn’t even evidence that the speech wasn’t pre-recorded. If this is how Means always sounds, he would have known at this point, about eight minutes in, students would be nodding off. He easily could have scripted that for authenticity.

Athena adds angry eyebrows to her drawn penguin and adds what looks like a ball of lint next to it. Is that supposed to be a fluffy baby penguin? 

The audio ends with a click. Apollo registers that the words that ended the speech were words that heralded the end of a speech, and already he doesn’t remember what. He shakes his head to clear out the static. He was supposed to find something useful in there. Something that meant it was pre-recorded. He glances at Athena. Her eyes are huge. So she didn’t hear anything, either.

“Listen well, Cykes-dono - if you subject us to this torturous tedium without due reason, I shall have your head.” Blackquill still hasn’t moved. He slowly tips his head back and turns to cast a cold stare onto Athena.

“Didn’t he nap the whole time?” Apollo mutters, but Athena doesn’t seem to be in the mood for humor. And Apollo shouldn’t be, either. They’re this close to a turnabout, and this close to a loss. Trucy calls it his “tightrope defense act”, and he hates the descriptor even if it isn’t wrong.

“Hey! Apollo!” someone hisses. He expects it to be Trucy, just thinking of her, but when he turns, and Athena with him, there’s Phoenix, hanging over the edge of the gallery. “Catch!”

“Wh—” Apollo fumbles with the object Phoenix just tossed at him, finding the magatama in his hands. “Why—”

“Mr Wright!” the judge scolds, whackling his gavel several times in swift succession. “I’m sure you must want to be behind the bench, but please, this court does not want any liability should you fall and crack your head!”

Yeah, liability for the ankle injury he’d probably incur from that. “Sorry, Your Honor!” Phoenix calls back with a sharp grin, but he only leans further down. “Listen to the end again, Apollo. The last minute or so.”

“But why—” The magatama is for glamours, and glamours are on people, and they’re listening to a recording of Means’ speech, not him speaking directly to them.

“Exactly why you think - I’ll explain the details later, when—” Phoenix jerks backwards as Taka dives, talons outstretched, for his face. Several gasps and shrieks arise from the gallery around him. “When this bird isn’t around! Good luck!” He scrambles away, Taka in pursuit.

“So,” Athena says. “What—”

“Listen to the ending again,” Apollo says. He squeezes his fingers tightly around the magatama. Please, please, he thinks, without any idea who he is appealing to, give me something—

The words hit his ears with a sharper clarity than before. He can think now, his brain no longer buzzing. Even in this little bit, Apollo understands that most of Means’ speech was all fluff and no substance, all inane and nothing meaningful. And then the sign-off: “Once again, our pure white Lady Justice will watch over all of you today. Pay attention now and one day, with the wisdom of our grand academy and your own experience, you may make a difference. Now, let the mock trial begin!"

What’s this Lady Justice that he’s referring to? That was the statue Athena put back together on-stage, with Klavier, but there’s a very similar statue standing very apparent in the center of the lecture hall floor, right in front of the mock-up judge’s bench. A statue that is, however, very much not white.

“Athena,” he says, and her head snaps around in a startled way that says he just knocked her out of another boring speech-induced reverie. “I’ve got something.”

-

Not enough on its own, but together with Klavier’s evidence, and that only breaks Means down into a new set of lies, and worse ones than ever.

“Fine, yes. I had pre-recorded my speech, but I assure you, the reason was not that which you think.” Athena’s eyebrows disappear beneath her hairline and she casts a doubtful side-eye Apollo’s way. Means peers over his glasses at them and continues, “Ms Woods came to me asking that I should do so - record my speech - and come speak with her in the audio room during the opening of the mock trial. There, she told me that she had committed murder and wished that I would defend her. She told me as well that this would happen - the suspicion you cast upon me - as I lose my alibi with the pre-recorded speech, and thus become an accomplice or suspect.” His stony features relax. “But when I said that I would defend Juniper as her attorney, I meant it, because it was the humane thing to do.”

“He can’t be serious,” Apollo says. “There’s no way. This is all too contrived. But he’s good at coming up with bullshit on the fly.” Unless he thought ahead far enough, to this eventuality, and pre-planned the best lies to cover his ass.

“Juniper would never!” Athena shouts. “There’s no way! This is all a bunch of shit.”

“Allow me to be perfectly frank.” Means lightly taps the end of his staff on the floor. “Juniper has taken my teachings to heart. That I would prove her and her two friends innocent was the result she sought, and two that end, she threatened and coerced me, her professor, to do her bidding.”

“And I may only imagine that you found such ruthless tactics to be impressive and admirable,” Blackquill says dryly. Shouldn’t those underhanded strategies be right up his alley; shouldn’t he himself be impressed? As far as Apollo knows, he’s drawn the line at falsifying evidence, but there’s a litany of shady shit that he’s toed the line of. And the murder, of course. The murder that he did and was convicted of.

“Oh, yes,” Means agrees. “What she did was most clever of her, which is why I agreed to defend her. Her capacity for deviousness surprised me, at first, though the more I think on it the more I understand that I should have seen this coming.”

Athena folds her arms, glaring daggers at Means, but she’s gone strangely quiet taking in the lies rather than yelling back. What’s she thinking? What’s she waiting for? Apollo isn’t sure what he’s waiting for - Means to keep digging his own grave talking about his corrupt methodologies, maybe. Get him brought up on additional corruption charges after they prove him a murderer.

“It’s really the hallmark of her kind, is it not?” Means continues, and Athena’s mouth presses even tighter together. Blackquill tilts his head just ever-so-slightly to the side, barely more than a twitch, studying Means, and waiting. “This sort of cunning self-serving cruelty, so typical of the actions of - well. We shall say that anyone may be cruel, but there is a particular and exemplary manner of it displayed here that you will also find to be quite… fae. And rather more than in half as one could first assume of this defendant.”

“Pardon?” The judge blinks in shock. “I am not sure I understand the relevance that this remark holds.”

Does he not realize? Does he know, or somehow have these things passed him by every trial? Juniper shrinks into herself, her hands covering her face. “It has none, Your Baldness,” Blackquill says, his disparaging gaze turning from Means to Juniper. “And before your protest I had been about to lodge my own objection, that the witness had best stick to discussing what it is that the defendant has done, and leave aside that which she is.”

Juniper lowers her hands, her eyes wide, but Blackquill isn’t looking at her anymore. Was it her honor that he was defending, or that of the fae in general? His responses to fae-related remarks have seemed - like he’s taking them personally.

“Objection sustained, then,” the judge says. “Defense, I believe it is time for your cross-examination.”

“You’ve been rather quiet now, haven’t you, Cykes-dono.” Blackquill can’t resist one last taunt. “Something the matter?”

Athena inhales deeply. She places her hands back down on the bench, her shoulders squared and her eyes flinty. “I’m not going to argue on principles,” she says. “Some long-winded idealistic speech. I’m going to let my evidence, and my victory, do the talking.” She lifts her hands and this time slams them down. “You claim that you were lying to cover for Junie, but that’s a load of hot shit!”

“That language, in our fair court of law!” Means interrupts indignantly. “Your Honor, it is an outrage!” Apollo personally finds Means’ guiding philosophies about the uselessness of the truth, and his forged evidence, a lot more of an outrage, but what does he know.

“Ms Cykes. Having adjudicated your mentor’s first case back, I understand where this unfortunate habit of yours was picked up, but please, do try to not make this such a frequent occurrence that I must penalize you for it.”

“Of course, Your Honor.” She takes that better than Apollo expected, though Widget still glows red. “Now, if the court would please recall the audio recording, presented as evidence yesterday, that today we have established to have been faked. It was Professor Means who gave that to Hugh and whispered to go take it to the police. If you had Junie’s best interests at heart, Professor, why would you fabricate evidence that uses her voice? That is, it’s an incredibly damaging piece of evidence that shouldn’t exist if you had wanted to defend Juniper - as it is, it seems like you’re trying to pin the crime on her instead!”

Means lowers his eyes. Apollo isn’t naive enough to think that means he’s chastened, or is going to do anything but dig in further. “You’ve done nothing but lie, and you’ve taught nothing but lies!” Athena shouts. “Your road to hell has no good intentions!”

“How dare you!” There it goes. Means’ head snaps back up. He grits his teeth in a snarl. “Themis Academy is an honorable institution with a proud name and how dare you slander it!” He grinds his staff against the ground. The sound sets Apollo’s teeth on edge, and Athena claps her hands over her ears.

“I’m not slandering the whole academy!” she protests. “Just your terrible teachings! You—” Means reaches into his pocket, producing a piece of chalk, which he flings at Athena. “Ow! What the helllleck, heck, was that!”

“Pay attention, Athena!” Means speaks like this is a lecture hall, like he’s the professor in charge of a classroom and not a witness on the stand, and she some wayward student of his and not a defense attorney on a cross-examination. “You’re disappointing me! The murder occurred on the twenty-third sometime between six and eight pm. I was already home at that time! How could I have killed her?”

“Can you prove you had gone home by then?” Athena asks.

Apollo knows what the answer will be before Means says it - the shifting burden of proof, always to the defense. “Can you prove that I was still at the school then?” he asks, a furious pointer finger waved in her direction.

Apollo casts about for any option, and he watches Athena slowly lose hope, her confident posture falling away, her hands sliding off of her hips and her shoulders slumping forward until she lets her elbows hit the bench and prop her head back up. “No,” she admits.

“Very good! I appreciate your honesty, even as it fails your case.” Means is still in teacher-mode, and now Apollo wonders if it’s some sort of mocking of them that he’s attempting to do. “But given that—”

“Hey! Hold on a second, man!” 

Robin’s shriek could be an impressive rival to the Chords of Steel. She stands up in the front row of the gallery, leaning forward and peering down the drop to the floor, weighing whether she should just vault down, and deciding against it. She raises one hand and then rushes aside, leaving silence for several moments until she properly reaches the floor of the courtroom, where she places herself beside the defendant’s chair. Throwing her arm out in an imperious, pointed objection, directed at Means, she shouts, “I can’t believe I’ve let you lie to me all this time!” The Professor sputters indignantly, and Robin drowns him out with a roar. “I’ve got a confession to make! I can prove it!”

-

Of the statues on the stage, Klavier and Phoenix, Robin only had time to actually make the Klavier statue, the one that they put back together yesterday. Then the late bell rang, and Robin, without permission to stay on campus, asked Means if he could make the other statue for her. This puts him still at the school at the time of the murder, though he claims with the intensive work it would have taken to finish the artwork in an hour and a half, there’s no way he could have taken an instant to go to the art room and commit the crime. (Couldn’t there have been time after? Couldn’t the autopsy report’s window be off, have that wiggle room?)

Or there’s Athena’s objection, offered up without a thought, and then a few seconds after, she has invented a possibility. “What if we were all wrong about where the crime was committed?”

That’s one of Phoenix’s classic turnabout tactics. Apollo sees where she’s going; Means scoffs that she’s lost her mind, but Blackquill, glowering around the court at everyone in equal measure, very slowly says, “Continue.” When Means sounds about to protest, Taka alights from Blackquill’s shoulder and brings its fly-by so close that its talons rake through Means’ hair. 

The murder took place on the stage, the blood spilling onto the banners lying there. The Gavineers banner soaked up most of the blood, was wiped on the art room floor to create the other crime scene, and then burned to hide the evidence. The white Lady Justice statue they repaired during yesterday’s investigation came from the art room, sent down the banner wire to make some noise and lead someone to the body. The body, therefore, was hidden on the stage somewhere. 

How? At least a hundred people passed the stage on their way to the mock trial. What did it look like? Was there a crawl space under it that could be counted on no one to notice? What about behind it? Did they see it from other angles? Athena only has partial photographs, from up on the stage, nothing with the right angle, the wide shot. All of the pieces, these strange inconsistencies and bits of evidence collected, fit perfectly together with this theory.

There’s just no place for the body. 

And that’s going to sink them.

They’re sinking, and Means just laughs. “Don’t you understand yet? There’s no killer other than Juniper Woods! There never was any other possibility, and there never will be!”

“But…” Athena falters. Apollo needs to help her, if he can just come up with somewhere, anywhere, that the body could have been. There were bruises on the victim’s wrists from being tied. Was she tied in some contorted position to allow her body to fit somewhere strange? Every second that he doesn’t say something, he’s failing their client, and he’s failing his friend.

“Poor Juniper must seriously regret asking for your help now - choosing you over me! And not just for herself, but for the way you nearly had Hugh wrongly convicted for murder! Surely you haven’t forgotten that big mistake of yours, too?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Apollo says. Though really, he’s not sure if Athena is listening to anyone, her face gone slack and her eyes glazed over, lost somewhere that isn’t here. “Athena?”

“You’ve not only failed to defend your client, but you brought false charges against her friend!” Means is positively gleeful tearing into her, a shark that’s scented blood and gone into a frenzy, and Apollo remembers what Phoenix said last night, about Athena, about accusing Hugh, wonders what he’s thinking now watching his best-laid plans to shelter her fall apart. “You don’t deserve to call yourself a lawyer!”

“No.” Athena hugs herself tightly, clutching her arms across her stomach like she’s sick, or trying to staunch the flow of blood from a wound, and doubling over herself. Her hair falls across her face, but not enough that Apollo can’t see her eyes, wide and hollow, and Widget’s screen, gone straight black. “No, I - wouldn’t let an innocent person be - I wouldn’t let him be convicted for - something he didn’t—”

“Athena! Hey, Athena, look at me.” Her shoulders start to shake. She doesn’t lift her head. Apollo reaches for her shoulder and stops; she flipped a mann larger than Apollo over her head the last time someone unexpectedly touched her, and if she’s already breaking, the last thing she’ll need is to hate herself more if she lashes out and injures Apollo. Means grins in satisfaction; Apollo glares at him and wishes, horribly, cruelly, for an instant, that he was fae, that he could kill with a look, literally, and then the wish turns his stomach over. Even if this man is a monster, even if he’s getting a laugh out of hurting Athena—

It’s not - it’s probably not a curse, is it? Some kind of spell Means put on her? It’s probably just - a regular mundane breakdown, right? Phoenix is up in the gallery watching, and if something had happened, he’d already be on his way down to let Apollo know. For Athena’s sake, surely, he’d break his habit of staying frustratingly silent on these matters.

“Breathe, breathe,” Athena hisses to herself. “Breathe in, breathe out—”

Blackquill crosses his arms over his chest. After watching him for three trials, Apollo still wouldn’t say he’s got a read on him at all, wouldn’t say he understands if the man has any tics - but maybe Apollo just hasn’t seen them yet. Because Blackquill’s mouth twists, his nose twitches; it might be disgust, and it might be barely disguised fury, and maybe it doesn’t have to be exclusive, one or the other, because those are related emotions. He doesn’t turn his glare from Means but closes his eyes instead, face slackening, like he’s trying to calm himself.

“Hey, shut the hell up, man!” Robin yells. She starts forward for the witness stand, her hands in fists, and Hugh grabs her by the upper arm. “Athena’s a great lawyer! She saved the friendship between Hugh and Juniper and me! And she figured out the secret I couldn’t tell, so I can live my life as a girl again! She is G-R-E-A-T and I don’t wanna hear another word against her, you lying meanie!”

“But I did,” Athena says. Her voice rings out clear and steady despite the way that her body trembles. “I did raise false charges against Hugh. And that - I could have - I could’ve done something unforgivable - I would have—”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Hugh says with a shrug. He still hasn’t let go of Robin, and that’s probably the better choice. “It happens. There wouldn’t be defense attorneys if it didn’t. It’s not like I’m mad - it’s really more like you’ve given me a chance to reevaluate. You’re an honest lawyer and I didn’t think it was possible, for an honest lawyer to do all you’ve done.”

Athena blinks. Apollo hopes that’s a good sign, considering she hasn’t for the minute prior. “But I still haven’t done - what does it matter if I can’t save Juniper?”

“I believe in you, Thena!” Juniper stands from her chair, her hands clenched at her sides. “I haven’t given up! You can’t either! And I know you won’t! I know you can do this, Thena.”

A strangled sound emerges from Athena’s mouth, like a wheeze interrupting a hiccup or sob. “Athena, breathe,” Apollo says. 

She tips forward and braces herself against the bench with one hand, the other arm still pressed tight against her stomach. “I c-can’t.” Her valiant attempt at inhaling breaks down into uneven, shuddering gasps. “I c-can’t. I—”

“Perhaps it would help you breathe if you were to cease this pathetic bleating of yours.”

Apollo is ready to yell at him, because someone has to and Robin has already laid into Means, but Athena finally slowly raises her head. “Prosecutor Blackquill?” she asks in a faint, broken whisper.

Blackquill shakes his head. “No more of such foolish words as you have just now spouted.” Is this - is this Blackquill’s attempt at reassurance? Has the world and the court finally gone mad? “You became a lawyer for a reason, did you not? What would come of it should you give up on all of the work that you have done thus far?” He slams his forearm on the bench and leans forward, his eyes sharp and his mouth pressed in a tight frown. “It would hardly do for you to quit now and disappoint a certain someone who has been waiting for you all this time!”

“I—” Athena stares at him, her mouth hanging open, but her breathing has begun to steady from moments ago, and she slowly straightens up, drawing her shoulders back from the way she curved in on herself. 

“Ha!” Means’ laugh isn’t a very convincing one. “Isn’t this a precious little waste-of-time effort you’ve undertaken! But it is, I assure you, meaningless. You have nothing on me, and no plan to create anyone else’s guilt! Your case ends here.”

“Oh shut up,” Apollo says irritably, deciding that if Phoenix and Athena are going to be swearing in court on the regular now, he can definitely get away with that. Ignoring Means’ indignant sputtering, he turns back to Athena. “You okay?” She nods. “You’re doing fine, I promise. We’re still going to prove that the truth can win against people like him, all right?”

“But how?” Athena asks. “What am I supposed to do now, Apollo? He’s right, we don’t have any evidence against him!”

No evidence. That’s the problem that Phoenix kept running up against. What does it take to break an honest lawyer? For Phoenix, it was no evidence. But god damn it, Athena has only been a lawyer for six months and when Apollo had been a lawyer for six months, Phoenix gave him the Jurist System to solve that one particular issue. They don’t have the Jurist System now. They might never have it again. Evidence is everything now, and all Athena has is Apollo, and Apollo doesn’t even have a theory. If they can pull together a plausible theory, they can look for evidence in the places their theory maps out. But they need the theory. 

“Take a deep breath,” he says - she’s started to look frantic again. Not on the cusp of breakdown, thankfully, but frantic, and that won’t help her think clearly. “And we’ll look back over the whole case. There’s still truth to be found, and I believe in you that you can find it.” The sickly expression remains on her face. Is there something he can do about that, too? “Hey, Athena. Remember what Mr Wright says?” That saying that she in particular so enthusiastically took to. “ ‘The worst of times—’”

“—‘force their biggest smiles’,” Athena finishes. Okay, so maybe they skipped a bit in the middle there. “Right. I’ve got it.” She shakes her head back, her ponytail swinging behind her shoulder, and props her hands on her hips. She doesn’t actually smile, which Apollo can’t blame her for, but even with Widget glowing bright fierce angry red, she appears more at ease than she has for a while. “Think it over.” She squeezes her eyes shut and her whole face scrunches in concentration.

The body was moved in the midst of the mock trial, but didn’t have to be moved far, because the murder took place on the stage and the body had to have been hidden on the stage. What was moved via the banner wire was the other statue, so that Means could draw attention to the body and have it discovered when he wanted it to be discovered. It had to have been on the stage, and it can’t have been suspicious. It’s possible that there could have been some other objects involved in stage-setup that would have been capable of storing a body, but if they weren’t on the stage when Phoenix and Athena got there, then Means had to move it away, and that would have increased the time he spent there and increased his chances of being caught. Seems unlikely that there was anything more. So then, what was on the stage when they got there? Apollo didn’t get much of a glimpse of the initial scene. The mockup benches on stage - what were those made of? Could they have hollowed-out insides, possible to be lifted and have a body dragged beneath? What did the rope bruises on Courte’s wrists mean?

Athena’s eyes snap open. “I’ve got it!” she says. “Apollo, you remember how when we were repairing the statues” - more like when she and Klavier were and Apollo was just kind of there, but sure - “and we couldn’t find any chunks of the boss’ statue large enough to put it back together?” He nods, with no idea where she’s going with this. “And the court will recall how remarkable a feat it seemed that Professor Means could finish the statue of Mr Wright so quickly, when it took Robin so much longer on the other statue. And I can tell you why that is!” 

Yep, Apollo has no idea where this is going. “He never built the statue!” Athena continues triumphantly. “It was all an illusion - he hid the body by making it look like the statue of Mr Wright! And with the statues covered by cloth, no one would know what was actually beneath!”

“Wait, what?” Apollo asks. 

“Now this will be interesting,” Blackquill says.

-

What Apollo has come to realize is that he could not be a prosecutor. Not for any reason of principles - arrests have to be made, people are guilty of crimes, and an honest prosecutor is as important to the pursuit of justice as an honest defense attorney, even if both seem in unfortunately short supply these days - but because the prosecution don’t seem to be able to operate with a co-counsel. The closest they get is working as a team with the same detective, and that wouldn’t suit Apollo. What he needs is someone at the bench with him who can come up with utterly batshit theories that escaped his brain because they were, as stated, utterly batshit. 

This is going in his journal as the weirdest thing he’s done in a trial. Because certainly weirder things have happened in trials - Kristoph’s shimmering, flickering glamour as it broke, or Blackquill starting to transform to a nine-tailed fox - but Apollo did not hold an active part in those incidents. Apollo is taking a very active role in helping to turn Athena into a sheet-covered statue mockup of the corpse at the crime scene. 

Apollo is actively facilitating Athena’s outlandish theory - and less outlandish every second judging from Means’ face, furious instead of laughing it off. The trial takes a ten minute recess to hunt down the props that Athena will need to display her theory: a large sheet, a chair, some rope, and just in case, some duct tape. It feels like preparation for one of Trucy's tricks but if she were here it would be easy, and the Magic Panties would provide, but instead Apollo breathlessly rushes back into the courtroom at the end of ten minutes with a large pink sheet that’s going to have to work one way or another. 

What is a co-counsel for but to help you fill in the gaps of your mad ventures? Athena figures out why the professor’s hands were tied and how they were positioned behind her head; Apollo reminds her that Courte had an arrow sticking out of her body and duct-tapes it to her side; they test those two facts together and find that the arrow isn’t long enough to make a convincing statue arm, but Athena notices that Means’ staff certainly could have. Reluctantly, Means hands it over; Athena holds it in place and Apollo shakes out the sheet to toss over her head again. Somehow even that is an ordeal. She got stuck in it last time she removed it, to swap the arrow for the staff, and now Apollo can barely get it tossed up over her head. Fabric doesn’t throw very well. He shakes it out and tries again and this time a cold gust of wind catches beneath it, billowing it upward spread like a parachute to drape neatly over Athena’s head.

Apollo glances at Blackquill. He has stood silent watching - it seems promising that he hadn’t been heckling them - and his arms are crossed, but he slowly lowers the hand he had just slightly raised up off from where it rested on his upper arm, like he made a little wave to direct the wind. Seeing Apollo watching him, he raises an eyebrow.

The courthouse has time and again seen manic laughter within its walls. Athena’s at least is different, triumphant, from underneath the pink sheet where her hands behind her head make the form of a large spiky head of hair, and the staff an extended pointing objection arm. All they’ll need to do now is test the staff for traces of blood, and Means’ guilt will be ascertained.

The proud, proud professor falls apart the way criminals all do, begging and pleading and wheedling for a way out, any loophole or last desperate reason that it isn’t them; cursing the names of everyone involved in their downfalls, everyone but themselves. And Means falls apart, literally, his words becoming more incoherent in his desperation, until they don’t sound like any words of any language Apollo has ever heard. They’re just noises from a man who has finally lost at every game he has played for years, and his voice grows softer and the clack of his teeth together, a horrid sound that makes Apollo acutely aware of all of the nerves in his own teeth that would be giving him pain if he were the one doing that.

He should just steel himself for what Clay calls “Fair Folk fuckery” at the end of every trial. He should expect it by now. And maybe he does, but with the myriad possibilities of their curses and consequences playing out, how does he brace himself when he doesn’t know what’s coming?

He assumes this is fae. What else could it be? Maybe an accident, the first time that Means’ mouth snaps shut and then he opens it and there is blood on his teeth and a chipped white piece of one falling into his hand. Maybe he just spent most of his life putting too much stress on those bones and one of them was already breaking apart before today. But without catalyst a second tooth cracks apart and drops from his open mouth, and another, and Apollo glances away from the spectacle, can’t close out of his mind the blood streaming down Means’ teeth. 

“Ugh,” Widget groans, and Athena presses a hand over her mouth. Juniper, sickly green, covers her eyes with her hands. Only Blackquill has the stomach to not turn away, his narrowed eyes fixed on the witness stand and gleaming silver, equally cold and piercing as the yellow glare of the hawk on his shoulder.

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles

[matildainmotion]

On Staying Put in the Pot of Life as Far as Possible

No, I don’t have a cure for the Coronavirus, though I hope there may be something helpful for our collective health in here. The virus was not the bug that started this blog. It was something, someone else.

Recently a woman, six years younger than me, mother to three children at my son’s school, died of cancer. I did not know her. I do not know her husband or her children, but I know plenty of people that do. Such a loss is felt across the whole community. I think of her, and of her family, daily now. Alongside the love I send them silently, is the thought that it could have been me, that it could be my husband, my children, left behind.

This is not a new thought. I have heard other mothers talk about it too, the sudden sense of responsibility they had on becoming mothers to do their level best to stay alive. “When I go to cross a road,” a new mother once said to me, “I now tell myself I mustn’t mess it up.” For me the thought pre-dates even motherhood because my maternal grandmother did not make it across the road – she died of Lupus when my mother was eight years old. The night after her death my grandfather committed suicide. As children do, I absorbed this story in my mother’s milk, in the smell of her, the sound of her. My father was a jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, so I had a dose of loss from him as well. Consequently, despite the fact that I have lived an incredibly privileged and protected life to date, I have a hidden ‘loss alarm’ inside me.

My loss alarm is like one of those annoying, over-sensitive smoke detectors that goes off every time you burn a bit of toast, as if the house were on fire. Except toast is not the trigger. Every time I hear a story of untimely loss, it goes off. Panic follows. There is no handy ‘re-set’ button on my loss alarm – it can sound out, keeping me awake, for weeks. The stories that trigger it can be newspaper headlines: terrorist attacks; aeroplane crashes; gun men; refugees who lose their lives as they attempt to flee. Or they can be more personal: a friend of a friend I knew who died in a fall at work; a boy near our village who slipped into a grain silo; someone’s sister hit by a car – each of these sets off my loss-alarm.

Let me be clear, the kind of panic I feel is not the same as that which is currently sweeping the world and causing the shelves in shops to empty of hand sanitizer and ibuprofen. I am not afraid of death. I feel nervous about death, but in the way I feel nervous before stepping on to a stage – a slight excitement about not knowing what is going to happen. At the moment bath bombs are all the rage in our house, and my latest fantasy of death is that it will be like fizzing away until there is nothing tangible left of me, whilst the ether around where I was turns a funky, joyful colour. The panic I feel is not about death, but loss – what those left behind will have to undergo. Before I became a mother I was afraid of the grief that I might feel. Now, whilst that still scares me, the loss-alarm sounds loudest when I think of my children, left bereft.

I have tried many different tactics over the years to shore up against this loss, different ways to try to muffle or mute the wailing of the alarm. Obviously, the best way to avoid it is to do what I can to help myself, and those I love, to stay alive. Just looking both ways and crossing the road with care does not seem good enough. There is still the risk of error, of bad luck, of reckless drivers, misplaced banana skins, or thunderbolts out of the blue. I am making light of it because it is hard to write about – it feels unbearable. I understand why the king and queen in Sleeping Beauty did not want to invite the thirteenth fairy to their baby’s christening, and then, after the fairy had gate-crashed with her curse, wished to rid the kingdom of all spinning wheels, to make misfortune, as far as possible, impossible. No needles allowed anywhere, so that their daughter may stay forever safe, awake, alive.

How to live with the knowledge that survival is not guaranteed? In fact the reverse is true – death is definite. Life, not so much. When I was younger I felt that if the facts were against me, I would have to resort to magic. ‘Magical thinking’ is a strange phrase – it sounds rather wonderful but it can refer to a form of mental disorder. On Wikipedia it is defined as “the false belief that one's thoughts, actions, or words will cause or prevent a specific consequence in some way that defies commonly understood laws of causality.” If I burn all the spinning wheels in the land, my daughter will be safe. If I count to ten and touch wood twice before I cross the road then I won’t get run over. When I was eight, in the mornings before school, I would ask my mother to promise me that she would not die that day. I knew she could not do this – there are dangerous roads to be crossed every day - but I hoped the promise had a magical power that might ensure her survival. As a teenager, my years of anorexia were another magical-thought practice, a way of starving to stay alive: if I can control my weight, eat impossibly little, then loss will never touch me. In my twenties I moved from magical thoughts to magical acts, training as a circus aerialist. Often aerialists are aligned with angels, people perfecting the art of flight. Not me. I was training in the art of holding on hard, with hands, toes, backs of my knees, neck, the fold of my hips. If I could get magically good at gripping, I would never have to lose myself, or anyone else.

The problem is, it doesn’t work. These are frightened magical practices. They put you under a spell of fear. The part of me that still engages in magical thought, believes that writing a blog like this is tantamount to suicide, that if I admit the possibility that loss could happen, then it will. It feels like signposting Sleeping Beauty towards the spinning wheel. But there are plenty of stories in which the protagonist’s very attempt to escape the feared fate, brings it about. Banish the fairy and she is sure to haunt you forever. Such a haunted life is not much of a life. I know - I’ve lived it. It’s not very magical. So here I am, a mother in my forties, still aware of that loss-alarm, wondering what better ways I could respond to it than by self-isolating, trying to avoid the many spinning wheels, sharp and whirring, in the world. And there is so much danger and loss around these days, loss of people, animals, entire landscapes, loss of life as we know it. So much loss that my alarm has been sounding almost constantly for months now and I have not been sleeping. I am tired. I’d love to sleep for a hundred years. But I can’t and anyway it’s not the answer. What’s to be done?

As ever I think the answer is right here, beside me. My daughter is on the bed, scribbling on my notebook as I type this. My children are beginning to teach me some other, more helpful responses to loss. Motherhood is fraught with loss. It comes with the territory. I don’t think you can make a life without becoming intimate with the possibility of losing it. Infertility, miscarriage, childbirth, still birth. I have been very lucky. I remember looking over my midwife’s shoulder as she filled in a form, after the birth of my daughter: ‘Infant born 10.08pm,’ she wrote in one square, and then in the next square, she noted down the word, ‘alive,’ and I thought at once of how it might have been a different word. One of our first jobs as mothers is to give birth. If we survive and the children survive, I think our last job is to die, to make way for them to step into the role of being the generation in charge. From start to finish motherhood is a glorious, dangerous business, not for the faint-hearted, which is not to say you need to be tough-hearted. It is, I hope, slowly teaching me instead to become more whole-hearted – to be able to hold the whole lot.  

A passage that has always helped me accept the spinning wheels and their sharp needles is the one in Kahil Gibran’s The Prophet on joy and sorrow, in which sorrow is framed as a creative act:

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?....”

Carving, containing, holding are the verbs used here for understanding and processing loss. An alarm instructs you to leave the building, evacuate the vessel. Here is a different response: stay put, Gibran says, create a container, to hold the joy and the sorrow. I think good art is just this - a container. Be it a story, a painting, a poem or a pot – each is good at holding things. At bedtime my daughter listens to the teachings of another great spiritual poet: Winnie the Pooh. In one Pooh story the sad, grey donkey, Eeyore has a rare moment of joy when Pooh gives him, “A Useful Pot to Keep Things in” for his birthday. “You can keep anything in it,” Pooh explains, even sad things, like Eeyore’s other present, a burst balloon, and Eeyore is delighted. So that’s what I need then. Not an alarm, but a pot. A pot, not only for loss, but for the lot. Spending my life, however much I have of it, making that kind of pot feels like something I can do. That is what the novel I am writing is meant to be. And when I have finished that one, I will start on another totally impractical, utterly vital pot, a holding vessel. This is a braver magic. 

I wonder also how I might integrate such a pot-making process consciously back within my mothering. Most evenings, as soon as it gets dark, my son declares that he is sad. He starts a count down, “By the time I get to ‘one’, I will have sadness overload,” he says, “You have to do something before that happens!” He starts the countdown, “Ten…nine…eight…seven….six….”  What can I do? I only have six seconds left! I am tempted to rely on frightened magic, to pretend that I can keep all the bad things away, banish the beasts and the viscous fairies. I can’t. “Two…one…zero.” My son collapses on the floor.

“How are you doing?” I say.

“I’m so sad I can’t move,” he replies.

“Can you move your toes?”

“No.”

“That’s bad. I’ll have to carry you upstairs.” And, for now, I can still carry my great long-legged eight year old, and he rather enjoys it when I make groaning noises to show how heavy he is.

“Can you make it up the last two steps?” I say.

“Just about.”

Bit by bit, day by day, we practice our pot-making, bearing the things that seem unbearable, overloading with sadness and discovering that actually we can hold the load. This is not a fire drill. We are staying in the building. I am grateful for every day we get to practice.

I am still determined to do what I can to stay alive. But I believe that actually writing a blog like this, letting loss come to the party, inviting the thirteenth fairy, leaving the land whirring with spinning wheels, is my best chance at surviving. Not because my words will immortalise me, but literally, that my writing helps me keep on living, just right here, sitting on the bed, after another sleepless night, with the sun falling over my left hand typing this, and my right in shadow. So by all means wash your hands for twenty seconds, the current advice for the prevention of the spread of the Coronavirus, but as you do so, also for twenty seconds, ask yourself this: What helps you not just stay alive, but stay put in life? How do you hold it all? What useful pots do you have or are you making?

Mothers Who Make is itself meant to be a pot – a place for women who already hold a lot to come together and help hold one another. We have, in turn, put out a ‘pot’ to the world recently to ask for help in our work as we are currently unfunded. I’m busking here, online. If you like this blog and want to support me, and other MWM-ers, to sustain us in our pot-making, then please go here, and for £3 per month, become a ‘Matron Saint’ of our cause. And ultimately, for me, the cause is as grand and as simple as the need to practice holding everything - both life and the loss of it.  

[queens-collection]

Protect yourself from those who live to see you FAIL !! *****

Jealousy stems from laziness and a lack of motivation to change your circumstance AND I’m seeing it manifest itself more and more and more in this digital age. There are people out there who see what you have or what you’ve accomplished and instead of working towards earning that thing or learning that skill, they’d rather work towards tearing you down or annoying you to the point where you retaliate and lose everything you’ve worked so hard for.  These people relish in the sadness, misfortune and discomfort of people who THEY feel are too confident, nurtured, happy, emotionally stable, etc.

I was recently put in a situation where I simply didn’t have the tools to resolve anything without blowing up and starting a fight. I’ve experienced jealousy before, I’m sure we all have but it typically comes from people we know who are around our own age so it’s not that hard to combat but I feel the game has changed. Now it can come from folks twice or three times your age who you may know nothing about and have never met before. Plus, the intensity is so severe now! Total strangers will try and come for your entire life if you let them so here are a few things I’ve jotted down that have helped me and should help you too: 

1) Don’t blow up!

Keep your cool and try not to tell too many people. I know you want to read this person for filth and tell them all about themselves but this person wants nothing more than to see you upset and wants to hear from others how much they’ve hurt you so don’t give them the satisfaction.

2) Protect your boundaries!

Jealous people need to be close to the person who is the object of their obsession so they watch them up close. Protect your boundaries. Do not divulge too much information. Don’t ever let jealous people find out what your goals and plans are, don’t let them find out what your weaknesses are either. Jealous people like to know as much personal information about you as possible so they can use it as a source of motivation to compete against you. They may use your information for malicious purposes to try to mock and de-motivate you to give up on your goals. They will use your plans to copy and try to outdo you - this gives jealous people the greatest satisfaction and purpose in life. In other words, the nature of a chronically jealous person is misplaced competitiveness. Their biggest desire is to put you to shame so it’s wise to keep your plans to yourself and deny jealous people the stimulus they desire to embarrass or “one up” you.

3) Don’t throw it in their face!

Never try to prove to them that you are who you are: successful, creative, popular, whatever it is that’s causing them to act out like this. Egging them on  will only encourage them to get more jealous of you and compete harder. Retaliating in a passive way by showing off your things or taunting this person can actually be quite dangerous. People are really unstable outchea and they will stop at nothing to prove just how wrong you are and how they’re so much better than you... while they copy everything you say and do. The key is to maintain a low profile and keep it pushin’ which leads to my next point...

4) Distance, distance, distance!

Do not allow them to disrespect you ever again. Distance yourself from this fool as much as you can as fast as you can. We are always taught to fight and physically confront people who bother us but that only works up until a certain age but we pay taxes and have things to lose now so what will you do if this person takes it too far and you get arrested?? We are too grown to be fighting out here, friend. Unless they threaten your life or attempt to cause you any bodily harm, run do not walk away from this joker. If they are stalking you online, make sure to unfollow and block them. If they want to call you weak, so what? You can be weak living the life they’re so jealous of. Don’t lose focus! This isn’t about “winning.” This is about protecting yourself so you can continue to be great and leave this person to wallow in whatever is eating them up inside. 

***** This does not apply to life threatening, racially charged situations. This only applies when someone who often looks, sounds and acts just like you can’t stand to see someone else be great and wants to dim your shine. *****

How to Deal with a Jealous Family Member or Close Friend:

1. You can only change yourself.

When dealing with people, always remember that it’s not about changing others, but about changing yourself. You can try to change others, but you may not succeed doing so. The best way to address the situation is to change how you perceive it and how you react to it. By changing that, everything else will subsequently change as well.

2. Draw your boundaries.

Be clear on what you will tolerate and what you will not tolerate. Then stick with it. You have your own personal space and it’s your prerogative to protect your space. By drawing the boundaries, even if just mentally, you are clearer of the kind of behaviors to expect from others. If you don’t do so, it’s easy for you to be pushed over by others, especially since such people tend not to be conscious of personal boundaries. You’ll wind up shrinking in a corner and feeling miserable, and you wouldn’t want that.

3. Be upfront about where you stand.

If the person has a history of spilling into your personal space, then let him/her know where you stand the next time you communicate. People aren’t mind readers, and sometimes they may not be aware that they are infringing on your space. Giving the person some indicators will help. If he/she tends to take up a lot of your time, then let him/her know that you have XX minutes at the onstart of the conversation. That way, you are being fair by informing him/her in advance. If you prefer to communicate via email/text/chat/other channels, then let him/her know too.

4. Be firm when needed.

If the person does not stick within the boundaries, then enforce them. Give a gentle reminder at first. If he/she still does not get the hint, then make a call and draw the line right there. I used to be very relenting in my communications. I would attend the person for however long it took. In the end it encroached on my personal space, and I wasn’t sure if all that time and energy I spent ever did anything too. As I gradually pushed back and became firm on my boundaries, I was a lot more fulfilled. I realized if I wasn’t meeting my needs, I couldn’t be helping anyone with theirs.

5. Ignore them.

Ignoring is effective in the right moments. When you respond, you give them a reason to continue their behavior. If you just ignore, they don’t have a choice but to seek out someone else. Not only that, it also hints to them about their behavior and helps them do some self-reflection.

6. Don’t take it personally.

Most of the time, these people behave the same way around others too. I had a friend who was very negative. She always had something to criticize whenever we were together. At first I thought she had something against me, but after I observed her interacting with our common friends, I realized she was like that with everyone else too. Realizing it wasn’t anything personal helped me deal with her objectively.

7. Observe how others handle them.

Watching others deal with the same person you find annoying can be an eye-opening perspective. Even if the person may be at his/her wits-end handling the individual, just observing from a third party’s point of view can give you insights on how to manage. The next time you are with this person, get someone else into the conversation too. Take a back seat by broaching a topic that’s relevant between the two of them, then play the silent role in the situation. Observe how the other party handles him/her. Try this exercise with different people – from savvy networkers, someone you find difficult to deal with as well, someone similar to you, etc. You will get interesting results.

8. Show kindness.

Often times, they act the way they do because they are looking for an empathetic ear. Hear what they have to say, and be empathetic towards them. Give them some friendly act of kindness. Don’t impose on them, but just be there and empathize. It might well do the trick.

There was once when I had a long talk with a client on an issue she was facing. Later in the week, I sent her an sms telling her that ultimately it boiled down to her, and as long as she believed in herself, there was nothing insurmountable. Many weeks after that, we were catching up, and she told me how the message was really encouraging for her. She normally deleted all her smses but left that one in her phone. A little kind act from you may take little effort on your part but mean the world to others.

9. Help them.

Beneath the facade is really a cry for help. Check with them if they need any help, or if there is anything you can do to help them. Sometimes, it’s possible they require help but they don’t know how to articulate it. Help them to uncover their problem, then work with them to analyze the issue and discover the solution. It’s important to still let them take charge in the situation, because the end outcome is you want them to learn to take control of the situation, and not grow dependent on you for help.

This only applies if you’ve decided to maintain a relationship with this person.

And for those who find themselves on the other end of the spectrum...

Channel your energy in a positive way that will actually benefit you! 

I love this quote:

“Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.” 

~Joan Borysenko

Choose growth and peace instead of buffoonery that won’t get you very far.

#jealousy

[orangedodge]

Incoming tag game post, where I'm going to be very indecisive about half of my responses.

I was tagged by @eldritch-crone

Thank you for that, I don't get to do these often.

Rules – Answer 11 questions from the person who tagged you, then ask 11 questions of your own and tag users to answer them.

Sadly I must confess that I thought about what 11 questions I could ask, nonstop, for almost two days.

1. If you could get two characters in asoiaf to switch their narratives with each other, who all would it be? Arya and Sansa is probably the standard reply, but I think switching Arya and Sansa's locations, while keeping the overall trajectory of their characters the same, would be really interesting. By which, I mean Sansa's circumstances would be radically different than Arya's, since Sansa's gender presentation isn't going to allow her to fake being a Night's Watch recruit, but an earlier version of the Brotherhood arc would still work and they'd make a good contrast to the tourney knights she met in the first book. So we'd get Sansa in contact with the commoners and petty nobles of her mother's homeland, while traveling with a band of outlaws, and getting her eyes opened to how false the codes of knighthood and nobility are along the way, instead of via Joffrey and his band of thugs, which I think would be neat. While meanwhile Arya is off surrounded by Lannisters, sneaking in and out of the city via the secret passages that only Varys and his spies know about, in a tamer version of her Harrenhal and Braavos arc both, as she develops the skills needed to restore justice for the people of King's Landing and reuinite with her family. There's also a good chance that Syrio lives, if Arya just gets arrested right away, and that Varys starts employing Arya as a spy if she naturally begins developing that skill set anyway (as in OTL), so she could have a fun list of mentor figures.  

2. What is your endgame prediction for your favourite character? The prophesied betrayal “for love” is going to be Drogon, betraying Daenerys by disobeying her, in order to save her life. Prophesies like that always have to be the person their subject least expects and would most dread, so I feel like Drogon is the most satisfying option for Dany's final betrayer. And I like the idea of the betrayal for love being something meant genuinely as an act of love, that helps her.

3.  What’s the one food item from asoiaf that you’d like to taste? I can't really think of any foods in Westeros that stood out, that didn't sound incredibly bland, and the meat and lamprey dishes probably wouldn't appeal to me anyway. Oberyn's chef makes an egg and pepper dish for Tyrion and Sansa that sounds like menemen, but that's about it, and it's not really unique to asoiaf. I've never really been clear on what Martin is describing when he talks about lemon cakes, though, so I'd be happy to at least see one. I'd be willing to try the locusts if they came in a non-poisoned variety.

4. What’s your favourite song in Westeros, and why? Rains of Castamere. I just think it sounds nice, and its structure seems to have lent cover artists more success in turning it into a real song than with the others.

5. If you could bring back one character from dead, who would it be? Oberyn Martell. I've always thought his early death was a mistake in light of the importance his family plays over the next two books, and I believe his presence in the fourth book would have made the way Martin thrust us into the Dorne plot less jarring for a lot of readers.

We would have also been spared several weird attempts to replace him with off-brand knockoff versions.

6. Which house’s words is the most iconic? Why? In universe, I think House Targaryen's words are treated the same way as we, as fans, tend to treat House Stark's. Between what we see in the fourth novel's prologue, the Dorne arc, and Brienne's adventures in the Crownlands, I see the Targaryen house words having taken on an air of grim promise to one another in the hearts of the masses. We, as readers, might find vowing “fire and blood” a bit strange and off-putting, but it's not any more extra than “winter is coming”/“the North remembers,” and it represents the only hope of justice and liberation that 90% of the people in this setting have.

7. If you could bring one fashion/stylistic choice from Essos to Westeros, what would it be? I love the hats they have in Braavos.

But I also really like how most of Dany's faction shaved their heads between books, presumably because they noticed she didn't have any hair either. In the end I can't really see that catching on in Westeros though, so I have to go with my initial instinct for more nice hats.  

8. If you were a character in asoiaf, what do you think your occupation would be? There are some depressing similarities between jobs I've worked in the past, and what the assistant pyromancers are seen recounting of the hazardous chemicals their guild is always losing track of. Right down to some poor sub-auditor doing a routine inventory of a bunch of closets and storage cabinets, and incidentally finding misplaced explosives, pyrophoric liquids, and radioactive materials in strange and unexpected places. = /

9.  What’s the one ship in asoiaf, that you wish didn’t happen?

I could live without the Arya/Gendry hints in the books. I can enjoy the show version of Arya/Gendry for their chemistry, but I would definitely be happier without the books' hints that Arya is destined to be romantically involved with a man that she smiled at when she was nine.

10. What’s your favourite quote from asoiaf? That's a bit difficult, upon realizing that most of my favorite lines were actually show only. I enjoy Martin's style of writing, but part of how easy he is to read, I think, prevents many individual lines from really standing out to me as particularly memorable. I liked most of Varys and Ned's last meeting, Ned tried a swallow. “Dregs.” He felt as though he were about to bring the wine back up. “All men must swallow the sour with the sweet. High lords and eunuchs alike. Your hour has come, my lord.” [...] “For fifteen years I protected him from his enemies, but I could not protect him from his friends. What strange fit of madness led you to tell the queen that you had learned the truth of Joffrey’s birth?”

“The madness of mercy,” Ned admitted.

but there's no one line in there that I'd be able to take apart from the whole, and still recognize.

Jon has one line in the first book that stuck with me for how creepy it was, “You’ll be sewing all through winter. When the spring thaw comes, they will find your body with a needle still locked tight between your frozen fingers.”

but it's inseparable from the source material; it doesn't really work as a quote of its own. The show, on the other hand, had “What do we say to the god of death?” and “That's not a monster, that's just a baby,” which I find more quotable.  

11. If you could change one pre-asoiaf event, what would it be? Not a single event, but I would have Daenys the Dreamer be far more active, rather than being limited to a side character in her husband and father's stories, and then vanishing without a trace once she has children. It's really strange to me that a prophet-sorceress, who lives inside of a magic volcano, doesn't turn up in history more often; particularly since, unlike her husband and father, she's actually an important historical figure within the actual asoiaf narrative. Daenys seems to just get shuffled off to her room by the men in her life as soon as she finishes her prophesies, even though dragons were meant to be the great equalizer, among her people, that prevented that kind of thing from happening. The same should go for all of the pre-Dance women of House Targaryen, but given that Daenys played an important role in saving the world, I'd have really liked to have her be active in navigating the post-Doom of Valyria fallout.

My eleven questions:

1. Whose point-of-view do you think is most extraneous to the novels, or whose interiority is least necessary to the story?

2. If you could elevate a supporting character to a secondary point-of-view status, in what book would you have made this change?

3. Which coat of arms/achievement do you think is best designed?

4. Which is your favorite scenery/location description?

5. What would be your favorite city or town to visit?

6. Who is your favorite obscure character? (i.e. that doesn't appear in the show, or that most people would need the wiki to identify)

7. What is your favorite world-building element?

8. Show question: Is there any member of the cast that you'd cast as a different character?

9. Which minor house would you like to know more about?

10. How many books long do you think asoiaf should be in total?

11. What is your favorite religion?

Open to anyone who wants to participate, because I only know five other people who like asoiaf and I don't know if any of them like tag games!

#asoiaf #tag game #game of thrones

[ethod-reo]

Zutara week day 2 (and 1..)

Well, while i totally forgot to post for the first day, i did write for the two prompts. So here is a link to the ff.net version of this. And here, second prompt. Which consists of letters exclusively because i liked it x) (if you want the first one, it’s on ff.net sorry about that)

@zutaraweek

Zutara week 2018 day two- Letters

“Dear Zuko,

This is the first letter I attempted to write since Aang and I left after the coronation. I cannot tell you how sorry I am for not writing sooner. We just kept travelling and travelling, you won’t imagine the lengths I had to go to in order to keep Aang still for more than two days. I have not much to say, I am roaming the earth, but as fantastic as it has been, I must confess that I miss the comfort of one place. I think it will ease with time. How are thing back in the Fire nation?  I hope you are not frightening too much your poor servants.

With love,

Katara”

“Dear Katara,

Your letter surprised me, but I did miss having a friend to talk to, even through letters. As you must know, Sokka and Suki retuned to the Southern Water Tribe a few days after your own departure. He lacks a certain talent in redaction, but he did make the effort to announce me his engagement to Suki. Although their wedding should not be officiated until at least next spring. But I am guessing that you are already planning a visit soon.

You should not worry too much about your seeming aversion to the nomad lifestyle, I am positively certain that it will grow on you. And my servants are perfectly happy thank you very much.

With love,

Zuko”

“Dear Zuko,

You mean Sokka wrote you before I did? What a terrible friend I must be if even my brother is more on point than I am… I heard about the engagement, but it slipped my mind to ask Aang for a detour, I shall do so soon. I hope I would get to see you before the wedding, it’s already been almost a year and I think I am actually missing you.

With love,

Katara”

“Dear Katara,

Sokka being the man that he is, he did not write me more than two letters, I think you don’t have to worry about him looking more devoted than you. I am sure Aang wouldn’t mind, you two are now free as the wind, right?

Last but not least, you are missing me? I never lived to think such a thing possible. Does this mean that I have earned your liking? It wasn’t that hard, a little lighting here and there did the trick.

With love,

Zuko”

“Dear Zuko,

I am not in the best mood to answer you, but I didn’t want to risk a greater delay due to my travels. Aang did mind, he planned some travels during this autumn and because of the celebrations that took place during this time, he wouldn’t hear anything. I don’t think that he realizes how childish he’s acting, you must know that past a certain date, the poles are unreachable, as the weather allies with the absent sun, to make any travel impossible. I feel exhausted after all the flying he did. Can you believe that I haven’t bended any water in days? I’m sorry for letting my emotions take control, I could use a vacation. How is the Fire nation at this time of the year?

Of course you earned my liking you Firefool, but when did I earn yours?

With love,

Katara”

“Dear Katara,

If you were suggesting a vacation in my humble country, I will be most happy to provide you living quarters, for as long as you wish. This applies to Aang as well. I can’t really comment on your couple issues, as you might have noticed, I am not the greatest expert in that field. But I do think that you should bend daily, it is not a luxury it is a necessity. Aang might not understand this, being surrounded by his element at all times, but water to a waterbender is as vital as sun to the firebender.

And if I can be blunt, I must confess that you earned my liking long ago, in a crystal-lighted cave, this was followed by one of the greatest mistakes that I ever made, as you know.

With love,

Zuko”

“Dear Zuko,

I was delighted during every second of my stay at the palace, I just regret having to leave so soon. I might ask Aang to leave me there alone for a little while, so he’ll be able to travel to his liking. Your palace seems well-managed. I don’t know what to say, I feel as if I only left you yesterday. I deeply missed the food, and the coast is so beautiful at sunset! You live in a haven that I envy. You know what? I will stay longer. Aang is facing dreadful meetings with the Earth ministers and I always hated this forsaken city that is Ba Sing Se. This letter should arrive a few days before me.

Perhaps I should also tell you that you don’t have to carry that cross no more, I have forgiven you a long time ago and you repaid me in more ways that I thought possible.

With love,

Katara”

“Katara.

I think there are some things we have to discuss. You know how happy I was to see you again a fortnight ago. And as much as I appreciate your presence, I believe you would agree that our last meeting did not end in the most fashionable way. What happened the night before was greatly influenced by the Fire whiskey as I am sure that you acknowledge. I am simply hurt by you sudden departure, in a boat of all things! I will have to face Aang and explain him why his girlfriend ran away. I do not like to lie to my friend, but I think I have no other choice for now. In order to protect your relationship and my crown.

I don’t know how to appropriately greet you anymore,

Zuko”

“Dear Zuko,

Do you think that your façade fools me? I see through your walls, you know as well as I do that the events previously discussed were displayed by two sober persons. And as much as I regret the pain that this will cause Aang, I can’t hide it either. I know you, I see what you try to hide behind your stiff words and outraged sentences. I am sorry, sorry that I didn’t realize sooner what I felt. I still don’t know. But I know that Aang did not so much as cross my mind during the two weeks that I spend with you. And I know what I felt when Mai appeared in front of you. I did not have my full senses that night, but if they were blurred by something, it was not Fire whiskey.

Katara”

“Katara,

You are so talented at piercing through my shields and even now I can’t be certain of what hides behind yours. In regard of this, you can see the following words as the desperate prayer of a long-lost man.

I can’t express my feelings very well. Karata, dearest Katara for dearest you’ll always be, I can’t feign my indifference any longer. Since a day that I can’t quite identify, you have held a particular spot in my heart. I never wished to act upon it, I did not wish for anything other than your happiness. And I was convinced that Aang was the best of the persons that could suit you. As I wrote to you, I started to feel guilty, wasn’t I betraying my friend? Not that I had any misplaced intentions, still, I couldn’t help but doubt my heart, too weak and too smitten maybe, to be reliable. I was confident in my own restrain though, during your stay here, I was convinced that nothing could go wrong. But you did not make things easier for me and I must now confess what I have dreaded for so long, how I am simply and desperately in love with you.

Zuko”

“Zuko,

I am sorry, so sorry, for putting you through all of this. I did not clearly see myself until the days that you know. I won’t lose myself in long declarations as you did. I could express my feeling with better accuracy, were they not so powerful. I shall see you soon, and then, I hope we will not have to part anymore.

With love,

Katara”

“Dear Katara,

As I am writing this letter, I know that you are sleeping in your room. You will probably receive this in the morning, I will be in my study. I should have chosen a more special way to do it, I know, but letters helped us get where we are now, which is why I ask you know, without further ado, will you, Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, do me the honour of becoming my wife?

With love,

Zuko”

“You might think that such a trick you keep you from facing my father, if so, you are mistaken.

Expect some shouts from Sokka, but I think the rest will go just fine.

Surely you must know what my answer is, as you know that I could not stop loving you, should the world go up in flames.”

Yes this is full of fluff, i have no shame. i hope you enjoyed it though! The formal language was a bit special i know but it was really fun to write

#zutara week #zutara #zutara week 2018 #letters #prompt #zw2018

[revpauljbern]

This week’s ongoing Bible study will be part 3 of Acts chapter 19

The Lucrative Business of Fake gods

Acts chapter 19, verses 23-31

For a website view, click here :-)

Last week when we finished part 2 of Acts chapter 19, the apostle Paul was performing many miraculous healings after his arrival in Ephesus, which we also discussed the previous week in part 1. After traveling all through the province of Asia, which took may months of arduous walking since Paul had no transportation, he arrived at Ephesus and made it his home for the next 2 years. This week as we begin part 3 of this 4-part series on Acts chapter 19, the effects of Paul's long stay in Ephesus are beginning to be felt far beyond their base at the lecture hall of Tyrannus (see verse 9). As a result, the leaders of other pagan religions there in Ephesus began to feel that Paul is encroaching on their 'territory'.

As time goes on, the growth of Christianity (called “The Way” back then, see verse 9) is spiking to the point that the other religious leaders feel threatened by the activities of Paul, and indirectly the other Twelve as well. But for now we will continue to focus on Paul's missionary journeys, with this being his second of three, not counting his journey to Rome, which was his last and which cost him his life. Concern is running so deep among those whose businesses were associated with all these various pagan religions that an emergency meeting has been called by a man who we would call the foreman, or maybe “lead craftsman”, for those who were associated with this pagan industry. So let's take up where we left off last week, beginning at verse 23.

“23) About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. 24) A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. 25) He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: 'You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. 26) And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. 27) There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.'”

Here again in verse 23, we have an example of the early Church being called “The Way”. I wish that it were still so, since the name makes a lot more sense than all the various denominational names, which are like grains of sand on a beach. But Jesus Christ is The Way, the Truth and The Life, as John's gospel relates it to us, and that's where that name came from. So we have this individual Demetrius who makes silver shrines for their pagan god Artemis, and you can be sure he was charging a premium price for each and every one of those idols. He says in verse 25 and 26, “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. 26) And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all.” To these people, Paul's activities had become intolerable in much the same way as the activities of Christ Jesus had infuriated the Jews in Jerusalem more than a decade earlier.

The apostle Paul, it seems, had “led astray large numbers of people” (according to Demetrius) by convincing them that “gods made by human hands are no gods at all”. How dare he do such a thing! After all, if their pagan gods were as fake as Paul said, then why were their businesses so successful? After all, they reasoned, we can judge things by the fruit that they bear. Since their idol-making enterprises were doing so well, that counts as 'bearing good fruit'. This, of course, was what I would now call defective reasoning, but never mind all that for the moment. Those who had been worshiping false gods, or none at all, found themselves being introduced to the real God, whose only Son died for us all. Some believed Paul and some did not, and those who didn't opposed Paul vigorously.

“27) There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.” Today we have a goddess that is worshiped throughout the Western world, in all the capitalist countries, and that goddess is material prosperity and the things it can buy, including the world's largest military to protect it all. The driver of all this prosperity is the stock market, which is funded by banks. The banks, in turn, run on credit, which runs on confidence which keeps the whole thing going. But if everyone loses confidence (in their ability to repay each other), then the whole thing comes unraveled and falls apart. That's what happened during the 2008 crash on Wall Street that started the Great Recession.

So Demetrius and his cronies were afraid that Paul and The Way were going to destroy 'confidence' (the misplaced faith of their customers) in their businesses and cause them all to crash, sort of like what happened in 2008, except with religious overtones. And they were all livid with Paul and his helpers to such an extent that a mob scene and a riot unfolded, as we will see in part 2 of today's lesson. “28) When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!' 29) Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia, and all of them rushed into the theater together. 30) Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him. 31) Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater.” (Acts 19, verses 28-31)

Understand that when the text says, “The whole city was in an uproar”, Ephesus at that time had a population of about 225,000 men, women and children. So it's easy to see that this crown easily numbered into the tens of thousands, possibly in excess of 100,000 people! Paul didn't stand a chance of being heard over all the noise and confusion, and yet evidently he wanted to try anyway. But as you can see, any attempt to do so would have cost him his life, and it wasn't Paul's time to depart this earth just yet. God had lots more work for Paul to do. That's why he was stopped by his associates and helpers from doing so. They were simply doing God's will. So how does the riot finally end? What will become of Paul and his helpers? To find out, you'll all have to come back next week for the conclusion of Acts chapter 19.

#the Book of Acts #the apostle Paul #Progressive Christian #Real Christianity #fearlessness #dedication #determination

[recentanimenews]

POINT/COUNTERPOINT: Why Do Subaru and Emilia Succeed While Other Couples Fail?

  Editor's Note: This is the first of dueling articles analyzing the best relationship of Re:ZERO. Rem fans check in tomorrow for Part 2.

  The characters in Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- go through a lot of hardships, but there's one that doesn't get enough attention: It sure is hard to fall in love, huh? We start the series by having Subaru meet and fall for Emilia right away, which predictably doesn't go well for him for a while. As the series goes on we find plenty of similarly one-sided relationships: Roswaal to Echidna, Ram to Roswaal, Garfiel to Ram, Rem to Subaru. Why are all these characters getting caught up in unrequited love? Well, it turns out they all have one thing in common: unrealistic expectations.

  Infatuation is a strong feeling. When Subaru meets Emilia for the first time, he is instantly head over heels — obviously because she is beautiful, but also because she is kind and assertive. She also happens to be exactly his type, if the light novel merch of girls with silver hair and purple eyes we see in his room is any indication. Subaru immediately puts Emilia on a pedestal, vowing to protect her at all costs and defending her against all criticism. Early on, his efforts backfire spectacularly as Emilia feels constrained by his possessiveness and showers of praise, giving him a piece of her mind on more than one occasion. His heart's in the right place, but by dedicating himself to the image of Emilia he has in his head instead of the real person in front of him, he stops short of ever being able to really connect with her and ends up inadvertently pushing her away. By performatively acting as her “knight,” he isn’t winning over her real feelings as much as trying to blackmail her with his “good deeds” into loving him back.

    Here's the thing, though: Just about everyone in this show has this problem. They may express it in different ways — not all of them are stupid enough to get into an actual fight with Julius like Subaru did — but the core issue of seeing their romantic interest as much more than they actually are remains. Garfiel attempts to woo Ram by showering her in compliments, despite Ram clearly not being the type to appreciate all the unsolicited comments. Ram in turn is slavishly devoted to Roswaal, valuing his life over her own despite him clearly seeing her as little more than a tool to be used for his grand plans. Which is ironic, because Roswaal himself has an attachment to Echidna that is itself based on an uneven level of care he doesn't see, either. Like in all of her relationships, Echidna is in it for herself, will say anything to anyone if it gets her closer to what she wants — and Roswaal fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

  But no one in Re:ZERO has it as bad or well-documented as Ram and her undying, possibly misplaced devotion to Subaru. Yes, everyone loves the blue-haired maid, it's undeniable that she is kind and deserves all the happiness in the world. But her image of Subaru is skewed intensely toward him being a more selfless, heroic person than he actually is. This is a natural result of Return by Death allowing Subaru to more or less choose the most ideal outcomes in every situation, so it's not really Rem's fault that she sees him this way, but it does both of them no favors. Rem's offer of love to Subaru, if he had accepted, would have cut his growth as a person short, because it would have absolved him of feeling any responsibility for the mistakes he made that led to that moment. Similarly, Rem is a very capable person herself; the only thing holding her back is her guilt toward her sister driving most of her decisions, and shifting that devotion to Subaru instead would only move that problem laterally when what she really needs is to spend more emotional resources caring for herself. As heartbreaking as it is, Subaru rejecting her was the best thing for both of them at that moment.

    Why, then, do Emilia and Subaru end up working out so well, when earlier it seemed like Subaru was just blowing it with her? The answer lies in the core of Subaru's evolution in the story so far: reconciling his desire for everyone's respect with the reality that he — and no one else for that matter — will ever be perfect. Growing up in the shadow of his dad caused him to develop a complex about his failures, ironically leading to him shutting himself out from the outside world. Subaru found the pressure so high that he thought it would be easier to try to fail so spectacularly that his parents would disown him, freeing him from his expectations of himself. As he realized during his Trial, though, his parents cared more about his well-being than any perceived success, and he finally felt empowered to move forward in life knowing he can, and will, make mistakes, and that he isn't a failure for it.

  The kind of strain he was under because of the pressure he felt to live up to his dad mirrors the strain he put Emilia under by insisting she could do no wrong. By realizing he could be a worthwhile person without being perfect, he fully realizes that everyone else, including Emilia, is imperfect too. When the time comes again to root for her as she goes through the Trials herself, he learns from these revelations and doesn't try to sugarcoat the hardship she will be going through. Instead, he sympathizes with her, helping her acknowledge that she might not yet have the courage to face the past that pains her to think about, or the future that threatens to scare her further. He offers her support as a friend, telling her he believes in not only the person she is, but the even greater person she can become, warts and all.

  This respect for the person she is, not the person Subaru imagines her to be, allows him to finally get through to Emilia. And for Emilia, that grounded support — not the kind from a parental figure like Puck or an uncritical retainer like Subaru used to be — is something she's never really had before, giving her the strength to carry on. Emilia reciprocates, playfully criticizing Subaru while propping him up and encouraging him to do his best as he faces his own hurdles. That mutual respect is the foundation of a real relationship, one that helps them both to save Sanctuary in their own ways, knowing that they have each other to lean on when times get tough. This culminated with Subaru officially becoming Emilia's knight at the end of Season 2, a moment that feels earned because of the real bond that has finally formed between them.

    In addition to Emilia and Subaru, we've seen happy couples in the form of Subaru's parents as well as Wilhelm and his deceased wife, the previous Sword Saint Theresia. While it isn't likely we'll see a whole lot more of Mama and Papa Natsuki, Wilhelm is still around, and it would be interesting to explore his relationship with Theresia more, especially since he has an extended family including the current Sword Saint Reinhard. From what we've seen of them so far, it seems like they had a reverse dynamic from Subaru and Emilia. While Wilhelm was crude and disrespectful, Theresia's blunt nature eventually broadened Wilhelm's perspective on himself and the world. It would be interesting to explore their past together more as the story progresses if we get the chance.

  With Subaru and Emilia's success thus far, other characters in Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- could stand to learn from them if they want to find more fulfilling relationships in the future, romantic or otherwise. Like most things in this story, the lesson is simple to articulate, but difficult to practice: self-respect leads to mutual respect, and we all in turn become stronger by supporting each other through our strengths and flaws. Now that Subaru has been knighted, it will be exciting to see what he and Emilia can accomplish working together.

  Which anime couple do you believe in the most? Let us know in the comment below!

      David Lynn can be found obsessing over Fate/Grand Order on Twitter @navycherub.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: David Lynn

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

[youngrevolutionary]

Misplaced heroics and the tragedy of Seifer Almasy

[ This is an article published by Electric Phantasms but the website is dead. (Original link to article by Andy Astruc & Published 28 May 2014.) ]

So there’s this tall fellow with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He’s a student at Balamb Garden — a training school of sorts for young mercenaries in a world oft shaken by civil wars — and he’s dedicated to joining the Garden’s elite fighting force: SeeD. He wears a silly coat to match his silly hair, and his weapon of choice is a Gunblade, which is exactly what it sounds like. A training session with a rival student gone wrong left him with a nasty facial scar that marks the boy Handsome Yet Dangerous. He falls in love with a beautiful girl named Rinoa and, with the help of his quirky friends, offers to help with the lady’s resistance movement. This boy travels all over the world becoming stronger, making powerful friends and enemies along the way.

Now go and kill him, hero.

The above description fits both the main character and one of the primary villains in Final Fantasy VIII, of course; Squall Leonhart and Seifer Almasy, respectively. Villain might be overstating  Seifer’s role, however, as he acts as more of an unfortunate antagonist much of the time. It would be easy to dismiss Seifer as yet another JRPG rival, a simple mirror to hold up to the protagonist and an easy way to add some home-grown emotion to a large scale battle against evil. But Seifer is more than that; he’s the main character, stymied. He is the would-be hero, but for a tragic collection of external and self-inflicted circumstances.

From the start of the game, we’re encouraged to develop a mild distaste for Seifer. The opening cinematic shows a battle between the two SeeD cadets, in which Seifer cuts Squall’s face open. Squall retaliates, which gives them delightful mirrored scarring, and it becomes apparent that this was just practice between two lunatics with boundary issues. This scene serves to set Seifer up immediately as a bad guy — although, at this point, not THE bad guy — and the difficult bug bite which Squall just can’t help scratching. His smug smile, the way he always seems to be a step ahead and his abhorrent turn as the head of the Balamb Garden Disciplinary Committee are all factors in your immediate dislike of the man. But it’s all about perspective, and, all things considered, Seifer’s bump from party leader to party pooper is mostly Squall’s fault.

Right from the word go, Squall is more of a thorn in Seifer’s side than the reverse. Their SeeD exam in Dollet ultimately succeeds because Seifer decides their mission to secure the square isn’t as important as finding out why Galbadian soldiers are so insistent on heading up a nearby mountain. While the act of defiance is presented as a reckless response to boredom, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s because of Seifer the Garden so successfully repels the invaders and learns of their nefarious plot to reactivate a powerful communications tower — a piece of information vital to future events. On their return, Squall and Zell are deemed to have passed the exam for their impressive ability to not die at the claws of an invincible spider robot; meanwhile, Seifer is reprimanded, punished and told he failed the exam thanks to his insubordination.

It isn’t limited to professional hindrance. At the graduation event, players meet Rinoa, a pretty young thing who is looking for help from the school principal, Cid. She’s also dating Seifer. Since Seifer isn’t a SeeD, Squall and friends are sent to help Rinoa’s resistance movement instead, and so begins that messy journey from hatred and indifference to the truest of true love. Nobody ever apologizes to Seifer for this whole girlfriend-stealing business, either, because he’s evil by the time it matters, and we don’t apologize to evil people.

Seifer’s clear devotion to Rinoa is obvious from his actions. No matter how irresponsible someone is, they don’t hold the president of an entire country hostage on an international television broadcast just for kicks. His extreme solution to Timber’s independence solution is a result of the Garden authorities tying his hands, and let’s remember that our hero was involved in a plot just as crazy and illegal; it just had more steps. On top of that, Seifer was acting out of genuine, selfless love and a desire to — at least in his own mind — do the right thing. His reward for such actions is a swift execution. Squall’s reaction to the death of his rival-slash-soulmate and the subsequent emotional breakdown of Rinoa is to shout at everyone like a spoiled child after a lengthy period of selfish internal monologue. Squall is the poster child for stunted emotional growth in Final Fantasy 8, a theme which touches all the younger characters in one way or another; more on that in a moment.

Seifer wasn’t actually killed, of course, as he reappears shortly afterward on a neon-lit parade float as the second-in-command of Sorceress Edea, suggesting that reports of his death — initially assumed to be a way to placate the Galbadians — were an elaborate farce set up for someone’s amusement. This moment, where Seifer becomes the enemy, is a junction point for quite a few fascinating facts about the character. Seifer is now the Sorceress’ Knight, a term which seems rather goofy and idealistic given the seriousness of the situation.

It ties into comments made by the character earlier in the game about his “romantic dream”. We’re talking about the more broad use of “romantic” here — the expression of love towards an idea rather than the pursuit of a person — and the subtext also suits the slightly derogatory second definition: “of, characterized by, or suggestive of an idealized view of reality.” The romantic dream Seifer alludes to before his betrayal turns out to be the rather specific desire to become a Sorceress’ Knight. Not only is it specific, it’s rather strange given that in modern times sorceresses are hated and feared. So why would a boy growing up in this social climate idealize evil witches? A lot of it has to do with a small detail that the game merely implies: Seifer is a huge fan of the old stories about the sorceress who successfully defended her country against invasion many, many years ago.

Searching the Balamb Garden library records shows he has checked out the none-too-subtle book The Sorceress’ Knight, but a more compelling fact was confirmed in the Final Fantasy VIII Ultimania, a book only ever published in Japan which includes plenty of information on the world and events of the game. In its pages, you can find confirmation that Seifer was also a huge fan of the film version of The Sorceress’ Knight, and presumably modeled his aspirations and demeanor around its contents. Seifer even bases his gunblade fighting stance on the knight from the film; we know this because the star of said motion picture was none other than Laguna Loire, and the player participates in the filming during a very odd time travel segment. Laguna isn’t a swordsman, of course, and his stance in the film is utter rubbish, which is yet another sad footnote in the story of Seifer and his blockaded attempts to be the hero. Mercifully, we never get to see the awkward moment when Seifer realizes his cinematic idol is actually Squall’s father.

So it would seem that Seifer is simply the product of his own reckless ambition and a tantrum-like disregard for authority. But a lack of control and choice over one’s own destiny is a strong theme across every part of FFVIII — cities are subjugated by powerful nations, children are recruited into armies, people’s minds are controlled by witches from the future — and Seifer’s destiny is no less directed than anyone else’s. In fact, the very people charged with protecting him as a child are the worst influences in his life.

All the main playable characters in the game, along with Seifer, grew up in the same orphanage. It’s not everyone’s favorite twist, and it comes across far neater than it should be given they began working together seemingly at random, but it does explain why Seifer, in particular, seems drawn to the group. That he is the only other character included in this backstory suggests we give its meaning more than a little thought with regards to his character. Around the time the memory sequence occurs, the characters write off Seifer’s unusual hatred of Squall as a product of jealousy. Squall monopolized the attention of another character, Ellone, on top of generally being the emotional wasteland we all know and love. But we learn at the end of the game that Squall’s involuntary time-traveling after defeating Ultimecia was the catalyst for creating SeeD. His appearance at the orphanage on that day, as a fully-grown man, crystallizes his destiny; from that point on, Cid and Edea treat him as the eventual savior of the universe.

This explains why he makes it into SeeD and is promoted to such a high level so quickly, it explains why he is sent on particular missions, and it answers any questions players might have had about why everyone thinks Squall is so damn special. Now imagine you are a child in the same orphanage, a child without a home or a family thanks to the war. Imagine you have something to prove, and reading about heroic knights and witches makes you feel a little less powerless. Imagine another child, very similar to you, is given preferential treatment. He gets more attention from your surrogate parents, and you have no idea why. You act up, and they still focus on him. When you’re all encouraged to join SeeD — mostly him, though — you see a chance to finally prove yourself. You work incredibly hard and fight to become the best, but that same person is still there, being given all the advantages. He graduates while you get punished; despite a total lack of social skills, he makes friends easily while you’re seen as an annoyance; when your well-meaning actions lead to everyone believing you’re dead, he moves in on your girlfriend.

Seifer is the one who works, and Squall is the one who wins. Earlier I said Seifer’s troubles were mostly Squall’s fault, but that’s not the whole story. Just as our perception of Seifer as an obnoxious fool is simply a mask for the twisting of his genuine intentions, so too is his distaste for Squall actually a distaste for what Cid and Edea did to both men.

Other Final Fantasy games have had characters that either should have been the hero (Basch from FFXII, before focus testing decided he was too old) or are more heroic (Auron from FFX, who only steps aside because he’s simply too well adjusted to get wrapped up in the melodrama of the plot), but FFVIII manages to set up a character that is certainly the hero, while setting him up to consistently make choices that contradict that. He isn’t a mirror for Squall, he’s the guy who has to sleep outside because Squall needed a bed. To his credit, Seifer remains an upbeat and forward-looking character to the very end. He never claims that the world is out to get him. It is, of course.

#final fantasy viii #ffviii #seifer almasy #headcanon // seifer #long post #i can't believe i've gone this long on this blog without having this posted. #because this is the perfect analysis of seifer's character #it gave me so much validation after seeing the fandom portray seifer as a 'troublemaker' #and before anyone asks no #i will never not reblog/post this #Viii // discussion

[fuckthe10essays]

Desdemona and Emilia are both weak characters who fail to gain our sympathy.

As important as it is to view history through a lens of historical context it is also important to understand it from a modern-day perspective, this is why Desdemona and Emilia are, today, seen as weak characters whereas back then their actions might have been more understood and appreciated. Female characters are not exactly Shakespeare’s forte, especially, in tragedies. This can be seen through plays like King Lear or Hamlet with the likes of Cordelia or Ophelia. But for Desdemona and Emilia what they do they do for men; this is why they are not only weak but do not gain our sympathies. This is a pitiful excuse to live your life but it is how Shakespeare chose to write these characters and, in this essay, I will dissect in more detail how this came to be and why.  

Perhaps the quintessential example of Desdemona’s weakness, in character and in strength, is when Othello physically assaults in front of her family and her response is ‘I will not stay to offend you.’ Desdemona entirely blamed herself for Othello’s misplaced anger and her only retort was to leave. She doesn’t ask why he hit her or what has made him so angry as to assault her, but quietly takes this violence, blames herself and leaves. Her cousin Lodovico even takes the time to say, ‘Truly an obedient woman.’ when Desdemona takes her leave and he’s right. She is an obedient woman, obedient and weak, ready to accept whatever anger Othello will take out on her because her innocence has chosen to interpret this as love. She is such a foolish character, to not fight back, to not question him. She is resigned to him and violent whims, this is a sign of her weakness. The reason Desdemona fell in love with Othello was for his stories of war and battle, how he brutally fought the enemy and won, but when that outright violence was turned onto her, she chose to apologize and shoulder the blame, a burden not meant for her. This weakness and inability to fight back makes Desdemona a weak character but an unbelievable one at the same time. For who could make such a grave mistake as to mix up vicious, unforgiving jealousy and love?

Of all of Desdemona’s weak moments the most damning is without a doubt the last scene of the play, where she meets her untimely demise. Desdemona loves Othello, we can see this in every aspect of her character, she loves him when he hits her and she defends him to Emilia, she loves him when he accuses her of being unfaithful and she innocently asks if ‘There be women who do abuse their husbands in such gross kind.’ She loves him when he’s suffocating her, and she tries to absolve him by claiming to have killed herself. ‘Nobody; I myself farewell.’ Desdemona loves Othello so much that she doesn’t scream when he admits that he’s going to kill her, but her love does not excuse her from being such a foolish character. She has just learned that her beloved husband is to kill her, and she doesn’t shout for help, she doesn’t try to escape instead she’s asks about Cassio’s health. ‘What! Is he dead?’ She’s such a weak character, with so little self-esteem or common sense, that her own death means nothing to her, she’d rather ask about Cassio. She is an entirely unbelievable character who when faced with the nearing certainty of her death just chooses to accept it and then tries to take the blame. A weak, unbelievable character, full of naivety and lacking any sense. Desdemona is weak physically, mentally and as a character. Her actions are incredulous, her beliefs too innocent and her willingness to die and still try to protect her husband is just wrong.  

Emilia is the unfortunately married to Iago, a manipulative scoundrel who doesn’t think highly of his wife at all and has no qualms against using her for his own gain. But alas Emilia is willing to do whatever it takes to please him, even if it means betraying her friend to do so. Iago asked Emilia to steal Desdemona’s handkerchief, a first gift from Othello, and give it to him. Emilia knows that its loss will upset Desdemona ‘Poor lady she’ll run mad when she shall lack it.’ but gives it to him anyways in an attempt to please Iago no matter the cost. Emilia is desperate for Iago’s affection even though he has no love for her. Emilia knows that losing the handkerchief will greatly affect Desdemona but does it anyways because she’s a weak character. She’s weak because she’d rather try to appease a man who treats her badly and insults her ‘To have a foolish wife’ then stick with her friend. She’s weak because when she asks Iago what he wants with the handkerchief she lets him brush her aside ‘Be not acknown on it, I have use for it.’ and when she does stand up to him to reveal all of his lies it’s too late, Desdemona is already dead.’ She makes bad choices and chooses not to see all of the rotten things that her husband could do with the handkerchief, she doesn’t put two and two together when Desdemona tells of her Othello’s accusations of infidelity ‘He called her a whore; a beggar in his drink.’ and her stealing of the handkerchief. Her weakness when it comes to Iago is damning to all of the characters and it all ends with her lying dead next to her lady whom she betrayed for the man she tried in vain to love.

Not only a weak character but a pitiful one too. Emilia is so used to being put down that she makes no move to defend herself when she is insulted. Othello had just finished interrogating Desdemona on whether or not she’s a whore in private and when he comes out, he gives Emilia some money ‘We have done our course, there’s money for your pain.’ as if he was paying a prostitute. Emilia had just been considered a whore, but she made no more to defend herself, to fight back or challenge Othello. She is so used to being belittled, most likely by her husband, that when someone else does it, it means nothing to her, she just accepts it and moves on. Perhaps even worse in insinuating that she was a prostitute was that he also insinuated that Desdemona was one too and Emilia made no move to defend her either. Emilia meekly takes this verbal abuse with no retort. She doesn’t think highly enough of herself to defend herself or Desdemona, instead she chooses silence. Her lack of self-esteem and her inability to defend herself paired with a desire to please her husband is what makes Emilia a weak character, who only discovers her voice when it’s too late.

As much of an innocent victim that Desdemona is, I cannot say that I feel much sympathy for her. She died an innocent death there is no denying that, her nagging of Othello about Cassio is not a cause for murder, but she is so idiotic and so incredibly naïve that I almost resent her for how she acted, especially in the last scene of the play. Desdemona is not having an affair with Cassio, but it sure does look like she is. Her constant badgering of Othello about him, while not deserving of death, was such a stupid thing to do it is no wonder that Othello was convinced of their affair. She is so innocent to the point of stupidity that she had to ask Emilia do wives really cheat on their husbands. ‘Tell me Emilia that there be women do abuse their husbands in such gross kind.’ and still didn’t believe her after Emilia said they did ‘I do not think there is any such woman.’ She accepts her death too quickly, doesn’t try to call for help and asks about Cassio just after Othello said he was going to kill her she has no sense and is completely unaware of the consequences her actions have. She died an innocent death, but she didn’t exactly help in disproving the rumours of her infidelity. I have no sympathy for a character so half-witted as to ask of their supposed lover’s health after their husband threatened to kill her. ‘What! Is he dead?’ She helps to dig the grave that buries her, and I have no sympathy for someone that blind.

As for Emilia she is as blind as Desdemona is in her own way. She portrays herself as this worldly-wise woman who teaches Desdemona how the world really works. In response to Desdemona asking would wives ever cheat on their husbands Emilia says, ‘Who would not make her husband a cuckhold to make him a monarch?’ Meaning that she would be willing to cheat on her husband if it brought him more power, she also says that ‘It is their husbands' fault if wives do fall.’ Blaming any infidelity on the husband. She presents herself as someone who knows which way the wind is blowing but yet she was completely blindsided by Iago and his schemes. For someone so wise she was completely unaware of Iago and his plans for Othello. Her own husband and she had no idea. She was married to the man, did whatever it took to try to please him, but she still couldn’t see what was right in front of her. How could she be so stupid? And when he did realize what had happened, what Iago had done it was all too late, and she died in her efforts to honour Desdemona and her purity. I cannot understand how such an informed person could be so blind as to what was happening right in front of them. I bear no sympathy for Emilia, especially she could have averted this entire dilemma had she not stolen the handkerchief in an inane attempt to please Iago. It was her stupid and most unwise actions that helped to damn Desdemona and for that I have no sympathy.  

In conclusion I find myself agreeing with the above statement. While Desdemona and Emilia cannot be blamed entirely for their circumstances, they must be held accountable for the part they each played in helping Iago’s schemes along. It is for this reason I find I have no sympathy for them. On the question of ‘Are they weak’ Shakespeare isn’t exactly known for his strong female characters, especially in tragedies, and Desdemona and Emilia are fine examples of this, so yes, they are weak characters who do fail to gain our sympathies.