#but its hypocritical + more than a little unfair to not offer other people the same trust + respect. why wont u take me at face value

[toastsnaffler]

prev post reminds me a friend told me last week she doesnt believe i actually struggle with emotional volatility/dysregulation like ive mentioned before bc shes never seen it firsthand...............

#i dont even know what to tell u girl. i couldnt even give her examples to dispute it bc i find it so shameful and difficult to talk abt #and it would probably be upsetting to her to hear the sort of things that have triggered me. and how ive coped with the outbursts #as if i dont structure all social interaction in my life around trying to swallow this shit down so ppl find me just about tolerable enough #genuinely hurtful thing to hear from someone i care abt. im not upset at her anymore abt it bc what would be the point man #i can understand why she thinks that + i cant control what she believes. but it did bother me a lot + some trust has been lost there. #esp considering she struggles w getting ppl to believe her when she talks abt how she feels bc she doesnt necessarily express it outwardly #in ways other ppl expect. like since ik that im always going to try to assume shes being honest so i dont disrespect how she feels #but its hypocritical + more than a little unfair to not offer other people the same trust + respect. why wont u take me at face value #and anyway why the hell would i say i struggle w controlling my emotions if i dont. what clout am i getting from claiming that #even admitting it is a hard thing for me.... and if thats too much for her to accept it just becomes a barrier in our friendship. #shame but i shouldve expected it tbh. anyway its ok ive moved on no point dwelling on it i dont want to bring it up again #bc theres nothing to gain from it. an apology wouldnt change anything since thats what she genuinely thinks #and whatever she wants to believe doesnt change the fact it is True and likely the biggest cause of strife I experience in my life #blegh stopping there bc im edging into rumination now #god im so tired. bedtime soon i think but maybe ill play a quick game or smth to make it to 10pm.... this week has been so long #.diaries

[mochikeiji]

Just Say Yes

↠ Pairing: Bokuto Koutarou x Akaashi Keiji

↠ Warning: Royal AU! Slight nsfw mentioned, angst to fluff, mention of death, Songfic! Love Story by: Taylor Swift

↬ Word Count: 2,235

Summary: In between saving your own kingdom and throwing away your freedom, wouldn't you rather run away and be free like all the birds you see fly from your window up in a palace? Would you dare take another's hand as they lead you to another chapter of your life? Or would you stay forever held against your will as young prince Akaashi Keiji?

⇢ Day 9: Royal AU @bokuakaweek2020

✎﹏

Being the only son meant a lot of responsibilities. Whether you grew up from the villages or up in the palace, it was always like that for the eldest and only child.

"You are to be married next week, Akaashi. Your bride is a true gem and will serve as our palace and cities security."

What more can be shouldered in the stoic males shoulder than being his own father's pawn to his own game.

Nothing truly mattered to the king other than his own entitlement and grounds. Having to force his own son take on more and more duties and him to sit down and watch as things unfolf according to his desire.

"I refuse, father. I do not want to single handedly marry someone whom I have never encountered nor have developed such feelings with. It is unfair."

If only his mother were here, she would've said the same thing to her husband. But upon the death of the kingdom's queen casted a dark void to their king. Leaving the poor prince to be his only way of letting all emotions out on such reckless demands.

"You will do as you are told. This is for the good of our people and our kingdom standing. Do you want to see all this fall out of your own selfish desire?"

Had his father have the nerve to talk about such topic.

A true hypocrite.

"No father."

"Then you are dismissed."

Despite the sadness now slowly forming into a dam that is yet to crack, Akaashi held his head high as he passes by the royal guards, bowing before him as he made his way up to his room, walking a bit faster as to know he was a ticking bomb.

When he shuts the wooden door behind him, he slouches down against it, unable to bottle up all the pent emotions years had held.

How he truly wishes he could trade anything to have his mother here holding him in her arms again. But he knows that not even the amount of golds and diamonds are enough to bring the dead back.

He lets his tear fall from the silver object that was wrapped around his finger. A cheap knock off ring that was on sale from the village not too long ago.

Recalling the time he had snuck out that night of an event held inside the palace. He couldn't help but feel overwhelmed from the surrounding of those who wished to have their boots kissed and princesses swarming around him just for his hand in marriage, he went out in full cloack and straight to the festival that was held in the village.

He could never understand why his father didn't want to invite these people inside their humongous ball room. They seemed more fun and outgoing than the ones in full boast of their attire. The chuldren held some kind of stick that was lit with fire sparkling from the tip, people dancing in some kind of folklore but jolly tune, and there were so many stalls of food he wasn't allowed to try!

But what really made that night more surreal was when he had stumbled upon a small bar. Deciding to take a break from all of his wonderings, he was lost in the sight of so many unfamiliar dish being told to him.

"You're not from here, are you?"

He can remember his face getting pale. It was risky to have the prince spotted outside the palace. His father's rules including, "If thy prince is to be found wondering out of the palace, return thee at once and you shall be given an award for escorting him safely."

That person grabbed his wrist and ran out of that bar. He thought he was done for but quickly surged into panic when they both ran into another direction that led underneath the bridge. Was he going to eat the dust now?

"Here, you should be safe here, your highness."

The man had sat down on the grass, placing the sack he had been carrying when they ran out beside him, opening it gingerly to reveal the amount of food he had brought.

"I don't mind sharing but," Akaashi flinches when his golden eyes were more prompt from the moonlight, giving him that kind of dangerous look in them, "I know for one thing the palace doesn't allow you to eat this. It might be rubbish for you, but dig in to whatever suits your likings!" grinning, Akaashi was baffled by his kindess. His father would tell him stories about the villagers and them being nothing but cruel and savages to one another. But he was different. Come to think of it, everyone he had his eyes on the village seemed too different from the stories.

"Um." he watches as he scarfs down a loaf of bread, dipping it into some kind of white substance thag had green litterings on them.

"Hm? Oh, you wanna try the bread? Its good when you dip it in sour cream." ripping half of his bread, he hands one gently on Akaashi's palm, sliding in the dipping he was talking about. He knelts on the ground in wary, before he gives his bread a little dip in the cream and nibbles on it.

Eyes sparkling a bit at the foreign taste, he dips it once more and this time takes a bigger bite. At this moment, he didn't realized he was already starving so much.

"Good right? You should try it with the potato, it's amazing."

He gulps on his meal, giving the kind man a smile, "Thank you, for being so kind to me, um.." he trails off bashfully when he was given another one of his captivating grin.

"Bokuto, Bokuto Koutarou at your service."

And from that day he had his first meal outside the palace. His first time to ever talk to someone outside the palace and spent the entire evening with.

The day he found love.

Since then, they both made a tradition. Once a week Bokuto would help him sneak out of the palace and out to the outskirts of town where they can enjoy some time alone and explore places Akaashi wishes he could see. And most of the time, Bokuto would make his way up from the tallest tree to meet up with him from the castles balcony below his room.

It was terrifying to get caught, but what made it worthwhile was Akaashi's happiness and both of their romance blooming to one another.

He smiles sadly as he raises his finger to his eye level. The ring he was given by Bokuto, the symbol of his undying love for him, next week to be replaced by some golden band and to be owned by someone whom he will never let in his already taken heart.

"Hey, Akaashi. Gimme your hand for a second."

Both males sat on their usual spot underneath the bridge outside of town. It had been their go to since no one comes out of night.

"Are you going to place your chin again, Bokuto?"

The last time he asked for this was when he wanted to tease the prince by placing his chin on his palm and whisper an I love you to him just to see his face bloom into a pretty shade of red.

"Nooo, this is something else, trust me. You'll like it!"

Sighing but smiles at him, he obliged to his request and places his hand onto his callused palm, awaiting for his next move.

"Atleast, I hope you'll like it."

He looks up to his golden eyes, taken back a little when he sees how flustered Bokuto has gotten before feeling a cold metalic like band slid on his finger.

"Is this?"

"It's plastic, I know." he scratches the back of his head as Akaashi stares in awe at the ring, "It's not really something that should be given to someone who's from the royal palace, but I promise you this will change into a gold one soon one day."

Akaashi's cheeks flushed. Was this a pre proposal?

"Here," Bokuto shows him his hand, "I have the same one as you. This'll be our promise ring together."

The amount of love Akaashi can feel in his chest was starting to swell it made his eyes a bit teary. Yet for some reason he couldn't help but smile widely at the thought of getting away from his palace and start a new life with someone who he truly loves.

"I'll be the one who'll marry you. That's a promise."

(Romeo, save me, I've been feeling so alone)

He sobs at the last line he has stuck to his head, "I'm so sorry, Bokuto." afraid of what his father might have done if he was to find out he already has someone. Let alone the opposite gender, he knows behind bars wasn't going to be Bokuto's consequence.

He fears that if he were to tell his father he loves a man. A man outside the palace he would meet with the same faith as those who defiled the king. Losing another person he has loved and clung on will be the last thing to snap Akaashi from his own sanity.

And for one moment, he actually thought of marrying the woman he was told to if it meant Bokuto would stay alive until the very end.

(I keep waiting for you, but you never come)

"Akaashi?"

His body jolts from the sound coming from his balcony windows he has forgotten to close a while back. Eyes focused on the silhouette that was squated down outside, looking warily for any guards that were on patrol for the night.

Just as all hope was lost, he had forgotten that it was that time of the night Bokuto would sneak in his room like he always does to check on him and spend a little time before he leaves at dawn.

(Is this in my head? I don't know what to think)

Bokuto sprints inside his room quietly, quickly kneeling beside the sobbing prince and places his hands on his cheeks.

"Y-you,"

"I know," softly stroking his cheeks, he swipes away the sad tears, "I heard. That's why I came."

The dam finally broken, Akaashi breaks into another wave of sobs, wrecking his body as Bokuto shields him away from everything the world can offer, whispering sweet nothings into his ear as he weaves his fingers in his tossled hair.

Knowing his story, his past, Bokuto vowed he would take him away from all of this misery that has chained him up from his freedom from the world. That he will be the one to take care of him and tend to him unlike now where he was being left in the shadows as a worn out doll.

"Let's run away."

(He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said, )

Akaashi's eyes widened at his words. The fear striking back at him stronger.

"R-run? Run where?" his voice strained, looking like a frightful deer to Bokuto, who held a stern expression and his grip on his shoulders tighten.

"Run far away from here, anywhere. I'm not letting you marry someone you don't love and have your freedom taken away."

Bokuto's breathing was calm compared to Akaashi's ragged ones. He was quivering in so much fear he almost let's a yell out, instead it was a cracked voice that held a small plea into them.

"But you'll get killed! Bokuto...I can't have that.."

Burying his face on this broaded chest, his cries muffled as he clutches on his cloak, afraid to let go and meet with his faith.

"I don't want this.."

Bokuto forces his face up gently to look into his eyes, nothing but love and determination in them. He wonders, why isn't he afraid to lose his own life? Did he want to die so easily?

His lips suddenly captured by his, letting him melt into his hold and peck even for a second as he feels the swarm of emotion rising from within Bokuto to him before he pulls away and spoke,

"Marry me, Akaashi.

You'll never have to be alone

I love you and that's all I really know."

He listens to him, taking in every word and body language he could see from Bokuto.

"That's all I care about and should matter. Everything will follow if we take a step away from all of this."

"But my father—

"Let go of your dad, and go pack up your stuff."

For a second, he thought he saw his mother right before his eyes. Telling him exactly to follow Bokuto with a small smile, wanting her son to be freed from the greed and power she has known from her husband ever since she too, was forced to marry him out of demand.

There were too many things happening in one night. Yesterday they were happy, spent an entire evening exploring ones body and littering kisses all over, spilling out each other's love speeches and now,

Now marks the day Akaashi leaves his hell hole alone and live the life his mother would've wanted for him and her.

"It's a love our story, please, just say, "Yes"

And he did, for he knows he wants to keep this story going until their last breath.

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenario #akaashi keiji #bokuakaweek #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu oneshot #haikyuu oneshots #bokuto koutarou #haikyuu bokuto koutarou #haikyuu bokuto #haikyuu akaashi keiji #haikyuu akaashi #akaashi x bokuto #bokuto x akaashi #haikyuu bokuaka #bokuakaweek2020 #bokuaka #akaboku #haikyuu ships #akaashi scenarios #bokuto scenarios #haikyuu angst #akaashi fluff #bokuto fluff

[keenerparkerstark]

All I see is green (7/?)

Ship: Harley Keener/Peter Parker

Summary: Peter Parker feels on top of the world! Getting good grades in high school, spending time with Tony Stark (!!!) on his weekends, and at night, he roams the city as the hero known as Spider-Man! Everything changes when a new student shows up at Midtown who seems determined to take it all away from him.

AO3 | FF.net It did not take long for Mr. Stark, Harley and Peter to fall into an almost familiar rhythm together. They moved around the lab gracefully, passing around tools at each other’s slightest of whims, and barely spoke as they worked diligently. Mr. Stark and Peter were both bent over the Spider-Man suit, whispering and humming as they worked on their respective tasks, and Harley had crawled under the hood of one of Mr. Stark’s more neglected cars, switching out the engine in what had to be a record time, in Peter’s uneducated opinion.

They must have been a few hours in their work session when Harley’s phone disturbed the flow by ringing obnoxiously.

“Please, excuse me,” Harley muttered absentmindedly, dropping his tools on the tray next him and taking the phone out of his back pocket. Neither Mr. Stark nor Peter missed the little grin that appeared on his face as he recognised the caller and picked up quickly. He walked out of the lab to take the call, but not before the others heard him say: “Hi, Flash!” Oh… Peter turned back to the web shooter he was fine-tuning and tried to ignore the drop of his stomach.

Mr. Stark hummed in thought. “Flash? Is that the kid you mentioned-”

“It’s nothing,” Peter interjected firmly. His issues with Flash were his own. It would be unfair to turn Mr. Stark against a boy he had never even met before, especially since that boy was Harley’s best friend. He had told Mr. Stark about Flash before, when questions arose around the fresh bruises on Peter’s arm. He still remembered the way Mr. Stark’s reflection turned from anger to furiousness when Peter explained that he did not play hooky in order to go on patrol during school time, but instead was repeatedly thrown into walls and lockers as he walked down the hallway. Mr. Stark had demanded the kid’s name, and Peter had given in but not before he made Mr. Stark swear not to do or say anything. “I can take it,” he remembered pleading, “if you make him stop, he might start harassing somebody who is decidedly less equipped to take it.” Mr. Stark had reluctantly given in, because God knows that man would be a first-class hypocrite if he got on Peter’s case about being self-sacrificing, on the condition that Pete would be honest with him if it got any worse. Peter, of course, hadn’t.

“Peter, is Harley friends with the kid who used to bully you?” ‘Used to’, Peter mentally scoffed.

“Mr. Stark,” he replied firmly. “Whoever Harley is or is not friends with is respectfully none of our business.” Mr. Stark looked taken aback by Peter’s bluntness, not used to hearing such seemingly unprompted defiance from the teen.

“Dully noted,” he responded, keeping his eyes on Peter as the latter turned back to his web shooter. A silence fell over the pair once again, before it was broken once more by Mr. Stark’s voice, uncharacteristically quiet.

“I know I’ve broken your trust over the past week,” he spoke carefully, as if weighing every word before letting it leave his lips. “And I know I haven’t done nearly enough to make up for it. I also know you’ve probably already forgiven me a long time ago, despite what you may be telling your Aunt May, because your self-preservation skills are arguably worse than mine. I know you feel let down by me not informing you about Harley and his arrival. I know you feel like I don’t trust you, and yet demand of you to trust me. I understand that that level of trust takes time to be build back up again.” Peter felt warmth bubble up in his chest and a familiar burning sensation behind his eyes. Mr. Stark saw straight through him. Although he seemed to be missing one detail… “But Peter, I ask only one thing of you in the meantime. Be honest. Either to me or your aunt. We need to know what’s happening in your life, kid. I know you like to protect everyone around you, but God knows we want to keep you safe just as badly, okay? Talk to us.”

Peter could only nod as he furiously wiped as his eyes, stubborn tears spilling over onto his cheeks. At that moment, the door to the lab opened back up again and Harley stepped back inside, grin on his face.

“Tony, I have a favour to ask- Woah, is everything okay?” Harley felt the smile slip off his face as he noticed Tony’s serious expression and Peter’s red-rimmed eyes. The latter nodded and turned back to his project, whilst Tony nodded and scraped his throat.

“What’s up, kiddo?” Harley shook his head a little. Not for him to know, then. He ignored the slight twinge of… something… in his chest at the reminder that Tony and Peter had such a strong emotional connection and focussed on his mission.

“Ah, not much. My friend called me to ask if I wanted to come to a party he’s hosting this weekend,” he replied, unable to stop the grin from spreading across his face at the memory, slipping his phone into his back pocket. “Apparently, it’s his birthday this week, and he invited the whole year group to come over and hang out at his place!” Tony grinned back at Harley, but behind him, Peter’s movements stilled for a split second, before resuming as if nothing had happened.

“That sounds fun! I’m glad you’re already making friends,” he responded, turning back to the Spider-Man suit as well. “Do you know if there will be alcohol involved?”

“I don’t know,” Harley responded honestly, “I don’t really know these people, what they’re like in that regard.” He picked up a tool and twirled it around in his hand, eyeing the car with scrutiny.

“Pete, you must know, right? What are the Midtown parties like?” Harley glanced over his shoulder to see Peter shrug in response to Tony.

“Fuck if I know,” he muttered, bending even further over his work. Tony gave him a light shove, which didn’t seem to affect Peter at all.

“Mind your language, kid! What’s gotten into you?” At Peter’s lack of response, Tony’s head cocked as if realising something, and he leaned in close to Peter, whispering something Harley couldn’t catch. Peter simply shook his head in response, and Tony sighed, backing away. Harley watched them for a moment, before clearing his throat.

“I’ll be responsible, Tony,” he emphasised. “I’ll stay away from any alcohol, and I’ll call you if I want to leave, okay?” Tony looked up from his work and offered Harley a wide smile.

“I know, Harles.” Harley nodded and smiled back. Both men resumed their respective tasks, neither noticing Peter’s eye roll, and the comfortable silence returned.  

It’s incredible, really. The bustling nature of New York City, with its screaming, ever busy and hurrying inhabitants, it’s loud, honking cars and pigeon shit, so in-your-face and unavoidable. Yet it all faded into background noise when Peter was swinging. The feeling of the breeze on his face, and the roaring wind in his ears was all-encompassing, yet freeing, allowing Peter to take a break from his overactive senses to just exist.

“Hey, Spider-Man! Over here!” Well, ideally, that is…

Peter’s head snapped in the direction from where the sound came, a dingy alley way, and instantly changed course. The person who called him over did not appear to be in distress, but Peter wasn’t in a hurry. No harm done if he made a pitstop to talk to a Spider-Fan. Peter cringed at his own thoughts. For nothing other than dramatic effect, he decided to stick to the wall before rounding the corner into the alley way. From his position, just slightly overhead, he noticed that the person calling out to him was none other than Flash Thompson, who, if his frantic looking around was anything to go by, had completely lost track of Peter after calling him over. Peter decided to crawl across the wall until his face was mere inches from Flash’ neck before speaking up.

“You called?”

The resulting scream sounded like a dog’s squeaking toy, and Peter couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped out in response. Flash turned around, dramatically clutching his chest, panting. He dropped his hands the second he registered who was across from him and took a deep breath, smoothing his hair and letting a sly smirk appear on his face.

“Hello, Spider-Man, I’m glad you’ve come.” Peter dropped to stand on the pavement in front of Flash as a show of seriousness. As intended, it spurred the latter on to resume talking.

“Uh, I was actually wondering if, uh… Would you like to come to my birthday party this weekend?” Under his mask, Peter’s eyebrows shot up. For a kid of a CEO, he is very bad at diplomacy.

“Your… birthday party,” Peter responded slowly, letting his voice modulator do its work. “Birthday… Wait, who are you again? Am I supposed to know you?” Peter is not proud of the satisfaction he felt when he saw Flash’ smile falter.

“Uh, maybe? My name’s Flash, I’m… You’ve saved my life, actually. You… you stole my dad’s… You know what, forget I said anything.” Flash turned around to walk away and Peter was surprised to find the satisfaction had grown heavy and now sat like a pit of guilt in his stomach. Oh, why did Ben and May raise me to be decent…

“Wait up!” Flash turned around to face Peter again, the look on his face still dejected. “I, I was just messing with you, Flash, of course I remember you!” The frown on Flash’ face turned into a blinding smile. “However… You gotta know, man, Spider-Man is not a party trick. You can’t book me, I’m not a clown-”

“No, I know,” Flash interjected. “I know, but I just…” He looked down. “There’s this guy I like… I’m trying to impress him, and I know he’s a big Spider-Man fan, and I’m hoping that seeing you there, and seeing us interact might-”

“You know what, fine,” Peter jumped in. “I can’t stay long. I’ll pop in, have a chat with you and I’m out, okay? I have better things to be doing.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Flash was practically jumping up and down with excitement. “Just in and out, that’s totally cool. Thank you so much, man!” Peter shook his head, envisioning Harley’s grin when he had come back from his phone call with Flash. He looked so happy. And if Peter can help him maintain that happiness… Well, he had something to make up for anyway. Peter sighed and jumped up against the wall again, crawling upwards, but not before turning around to Flash one last time.

“I’ve gotta be honest with you, man,” he spoke into the echoing alley. “If you want this guy to like you, just be yourself, okay?” Flash turned bright red and Peter turned around, vaulting himself onto the roof and off, slinging away.

#parkner #peter parker/harley keener #peter parker #harley keener #parley #fanfic

[badgersprite]

Fic: Desiderata (6/?)

Chapter Title: Cycles

Fandom: Mass Effect

Characters: Miranda, Samara, Oriana, Jacob, Jack

Pairing: Miranda/Samara very slow burn, friends to lovers

Story Rating: R

Warnings: References to past childhood abuse/trauma.

Chapter Summary: In 2186, Miranda takes in Jack’s students. In 2185, Miranda suffers a minor injury on a mission. At both different points in time, Miranda worries she’s acting too much like her father.

Author’s Note: The chapter in which Kelly Chambers knows all and sees all. Also you know that thing that happens where the characters don’t know they’re on a date except they’re totally on a date. That’s also in this chapter.

*     *     *

“I still can’t believe you’re actually doing this,” Jacob broke the silence.

Miranda sighed heavily, watching from a distance as Jack’s students approached, looking up at the building that would be their home for the foreseeable future. “Neither can I.”

It wasn’t that Miranda was completely devoid of human compassion for these kids (even despite her...deficiencies in the empathy department). If she was that cold and heartless, she wouldn’t have volunteered to take them on in the first place. But, with all of that being said, part of her had secretly been hoping Jack wouldn’t be able to convince them to say yes to this offer.

Few people knew it about her, but Miranda did have a small soft spot for kids. Little kids. Very little kids. That had come from being a big sister, even a distant one. But teenagers? That was a different story. At no point in her life had Miranda ever been able to understand adolescents. Not even when she was one. Especially not when she was one.

Living with her father meant she never got to be a teenager, much less have any friends her own age. Even when she’d escaped him at the age of sixteen, she’d propelled herself straight into adulthood as best she could, working for Cerberus to ensure her own survival, and that of her sister. Any attempts she’d made to ‘fit in’ with people her own age once she got out from under her father’s thumb had backfired horribly. She always got along better with adults, particularly in strictly professional contexts. That had never changed.

But, reservations aside, a promise was a promise. And it would shatter what little trust Miranda had managed to earn from Jack if she went back on her word now.

“This is going to be fun…” Miranda dryly remarked under her breath.

“You’re the one who signed up for this,” Jacob pointed out, not exactly sympathetic to her self-made situation.

“I know. But I reserve the right to be a massive hypocrite and complain about it anyway,” Miranda murmured. 

“What’s new?” Jacob quipped, evidently well-aware that he would be roped into listening to Miranda talk about those problems whenever they arose, by virtue of being her only available friend. 

It wasn’t long before one of the students recognised Miranda from their meeting only a few days ago, and the group began to make its way towards her. There were eight of them, most of them carrying small bags of belongings - most likely a combination of rationed personal care items handed out by Bailey’s people, and spare clothes given to them by the Zhu’s Hope colonists.

Seanne wasn’t with them, of course, given that she was still in the hospital. Her brother Reiley must have been with her, or paying a visit to Jack.

Well, Miranda thought, if this was happening then it was time to take charge.

“Alright, I see you’re all here. Everybody come forward,” Miranda commanded, her voice firm. Her instruction was met with some confused stares, but the students did form a loose bunch in front of her. “You do know how to line up, don’t you?” she questioned them, not impressed with the disarray. 

On second thought, of course they didn’t know the first thing about order and discipline. They’d been taught by Jack, after all. But that was going to change. If Miranda was used to one thing, it was efficiency. Perhaps she could instill some of those virtues in them.

Despite their visible hesitancy, the eight students did follow her instruction to form a line. It wasn’t even remotely close to straight. Miranda elected to let that slide.

“I’m Miranda Lawson. This is Jacob Taylor. He won’t be living with us, but he’s generously volunteered his time to help get you all settled in,” said Miranda.

Jacob raised his hand in a small wave, which some of the students returned.

“Jack’s given me all your names. I see that Reiley and Seanne aren’t here,” Miranda noted.

Jason Prangley cleared his throat. “We, uh...brought some of their things for them,” he said, indicating the heavy suitcase at his side. 

“Good.” Miranda nodded. “We’re in apartment 502. The elevator isn’t functioning yet, so you’ll have to take the stairs. I arranged delivery of bedding and other essentials. You’ll find them in your rooms. The beds still need to be unpacked and assembled. I trust you can handle that.”

“Sure thing. No worries, Miss,” Rodriguez spoke up. “We, um...We just wanted to say we really appreciate what you’re doing for us. It’s...real cool of you.”

“You’re welcome. However, let me make one thing clear before you all move in,” Miranda began, her tone firm. “This is not a halfway house. This is not a charity shelter. This is not Saint Miranda Lawson’s Sisters of the College of Mercy Boarding School. I am not your staff, I am not your tutor, I am not your housekeeper, and I am not your mother. My work in the reconstruction takes priority. I am extremely busy. I do not have time to clean up after you, and you are all closer to being adults than you are to being children. So I expect you to be self-sufficient and look after yourselves, and that includes taking care of the apartment in a manner that meets my standards. If you cannot do that, then this arrangement will not work, and I will end it,” Miranda stated sternly. 

As much as Miranda owed a debt to Jack for saving her life from that building collapse, her sense of obligation only extended so far. If these kids had any misconceptions that they could abuse the privileges Miranda had gone out of her way to secure for them, then they needed to be dispelled. Ideally, these new living arrangements would take effect with minimal disruption to her life. 

One of the students, Leah Brooks, raised her hand. “Um, are there any...specific house rules?” she asked.

“What part wasn’t clear to you?” Miranda bluntly replied, no inflections in her voice. Jacob silently facepalmed at her side. “Cook your own meals. Wash your own clothes. Keep the place tidy. Don’t damage anything. Don’t disturb me when I’m working. Do you have any objections?” Miranda asked rhetorically. Nothing she required of them was in any way unfair or unreasonable.

For a moment, she was met only with blank stares. “...No, ma’am. No objections,” Prangley answered, taking a second to exchange veiled looks with some of his comrades. “If it’s alright with you, we’ll, uh...head up to the room and get ourselves settled in.”

Miranda held out the keys. “You have three copies between you. Don’t lose them.”

“Right.” Jason took responsibility for the keys, continuing to establish himself as the unofficial leader of the group in Jack’s absence. When Miranda didn’t say anything further, he took that as their cue that they had been dismissed, signalling for his classmates to take their things and head on up. He shouldered his own bag, and moved to pick up the spare suitcase for Seanne and Reiley. 

“Don’t worry about it; I’ll take that up for you,” Jacob assured Jason, gesturing for him to leave the heavy-looking suitcase behind. “You can just call me Jacob, by the way,” he introduced himself, extending his hand to the kid, who shook it.

“Thanks, man,” said Jason, appreciating his help. With that, Jason headed off and the rest of the students followed, ready to get acquainted with their new home.

Once the students were out of sight, Jacob stared at Miranda, visibly not approving of her approach. “Were you trying to make the worst possible first impression, or does this just come naturally to you?”

“It’s important to set ground rules,” Miranda replied, intent on making it clear she wasn’t someone whose kindness could be taken advantage of. “I’ve led numerous teams before. You don’t get anywhere with people if they think they can just walk all over you.”

Jacob pulled a face. “You’re their caregiver, not their boss.”

“Caregiver is a strong word,” Miranda objected to his classification. “I’m giving them a roof over their head and making sure they’re safe and their needs are provided for. Nothing more.”

Jacob sighed and shook his head, realising that reasoning with Miranda about this was pointless. “Jack’s going to kick your ass…” he muttered under his breath, picking up the heavy suitcase and making his way towards the building, following the students.

Miranda limped along behind him, eventually catching up to the students in the stairwell. The one named Rodriguez lagged back, as though she’d been waiting for her, falling into step at Miranda’s side as the other students went on ahead.

“Um, pardon me, Miss,” Rodriguez began, climbing one stair at a time to match Miranda’s stride. Miranda really hoped the students didn’t plan on calling her that. It made her skin crawl for some reason. “I don’t mean to bother you, but...you know the city really well, so...I figured you’d probably be the best person to ask.”

“Ask away,” said Miranda, having no qualms with reasonable questions.

“We, um...I don’t know if you know, but we...Not everyone we came to Earth with survived,” Rodriguez uncomfortably admitted. Miranda was aware of that - Jack had indicated as much. “As if Cerberus didn’t take enough from us, we lost three more to the Reapers.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Miranda. It may not have sounded sincere coming from her, but it was. She’d lost people to this war too. “What do you need?”

“Well, some of us have been talking and...we were wondering if...are you...is there going to be a service? You know, to remember them?” Rodriguez asked, still wrestling with her grief over the friends she hadn’t had a chance to mourn.

Miranda hadn’t expected that question. She, along with everyone else, had been so busy combing through the ruins that she hadn’t even thought about grieving the dead. It wasn’t as though she had much experience with it, either. Not knowing what else to say, she figured the best course of action was to be honest.

“With the state the city is in, those kinds of sentimental displays aren’t a priority. We’re still trying to count the dead, and to put names to any faces we can. It’s a near impossible task, given so many of the fallen left nothing behind. Even if we could lay them all to rest, I’m not sure there’d be enough time in the world for everyone to grieve,” Miranda pointed out.

Rodriguez was visibly crushed by her response, her gaze falling to her feet. “...Oh. I...I understand.”

Miranda sensed from the girl’s reaction that she’d said something wrong. But how? She’d just been honest. Tried to be nice and word it gently, even.

She tried to imagine what Samara would have counselled her to do in this situation, or what she would have done if it was Oriana standing there beside her. Those inner voices told her that reality and facts meant nothing in the face of Rodriguez’s pain. She wasn’t asking the question so she could receive a yes or no answer. She was asking because she needed to mourn her friends.

“...You’re right, though. There should be a public service. For everyone we’ve lost. For those who are still missing. I’ll speak to Bailey about arranging it,” Miranda told her, seeing the potential benefit in giving everyone in London a chance to remember those who had passed, and to unite in their solace. “As for your friends, I don’t know what you would want, exactly. But there’s nothing stopping you from holding a private service for them. You don’t need my permission. You should speak to Jack about it. I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

Rodriguez appeared at least a little bit comforted by that, raising her sleeve to wipe away a stray tear. “Yeah. You’re right. Thanks, Miss.” Rodriguez picked up her pace and left her behind before Miranda could tell her not to call her that.

Miranda exhaled heavily, realising she was quite possibly the least equipped person in the galaxy to deal with the needs of emotionally vulnerable teenagers.

What had she gotten herself into?

*     *     *

Although every single squad member recruited to fight against the Collectors had seen their fair share of action since joining the Normandy, Miranda was far and away Shepard’s most common companion on field missions. It was common sense, really. In Miranda’s opinion, anyway. She was the leader of the Lazarus cell, and Shepard’s second-in-command. Further, due to her prowess with both tech and biotics, she was essentially the perfect choice to go into any situation. She could deal with any threat that arose, no matter how unexpected.

Miranda wasn’t surprised by the confidence Andrea showed in her by selecting her so often. It was exactly what she would have advised her to do. On the other hand, there were days when being Shepard’s right-hand woman felt like a curse. 

Getting swarmed by Collectors on Horizon had not been fun. Neither had it been an ideal day at the office when Miranda had to fight her way off of the Collector Ship. Now, Shepard’s leadership had brought Miranda aboard a derelict Reaper.

Given that Miranda was good at identifying patterns, things were going about as well as expected.

“Look out!”

Miranda ducked behind cover, reloading as the scion’s shockwave thundered past her. The Reaper IFF they needed was just beyond that door, and past that was the mass effect core. Unfortunately, two scions and a seemingly endless tide of husks stood between them and their destination.

Samara knocked back a husk with her biotics before it got too close. Miranda took aim and fired her pistol around cover, blowing off another one’s leg at the knee. Slow and lumbering though they were, those scions were getting closer. If they couldn’t take them out now, they would need to withdraw back to a safe distance. Otherwise, if a scion got close, it was lights out. Goodnight nurse. 

Noticing an opportunity, Miranda overloaded an explosive crate near one of the scions, concentrating fire on it while its armour burned. She was so focused on trying to take it down that she was completely unaware of the husks crawling out from underneath the platform, converging on either side of her, nor did she spot the one concealed from her sight by her own cover, charging towards her.

“Miranda!” Shepard called out, firing off her shotgun at some nearby husks, seeing her ally about to get swarmed.

Shepard’s call alerted her to turn and fire on the approaching husk, but it had already closed in and grabbed her. Miranda fought it off and was ready to shoot it in the head, but then a second one jumped on her from behind, causing her gunshot to fire off harmlessly into the air. She pushed as hard as she could at the creature bearing down on her shoulder, trying to keep its jaw away from her face and head. Its arms ripped and tore at her flesh, bypassing her shields, knocking the pistol from her grip, effectively pinning her in place as the third husk closed in.

All of a sudden, a wave of biotic energy cut through the twisted creatures, flinging them away from Miranda like ragdolls. Samara biotically pulled all three towards her with such raw force that their limbs detached in midair, killing them even before they tumbled off the edge of the platform into the abyss below.

“Fall back!” Shepard commanded, sensing they were outnumbered, and well aware that the scions were far too close to Miranda for comfort.

Miranda couldn’t argue with that order. She was very isolated in that corner.

She waited for the shockwaves to pass, then dove out of cover and across the divide to pick up her pistol, firing a warp at the approaching scions as she got back to her feet, joining Samara at her position near the back of the platform.

“Thank you for that,” said Miranda, grateful for Samara getting those husks off of her a moment ago. She winced, favouring her right shoulder and her side while she waited for her shields to regenerate behind cover. They were still forward of Shepard, who was concentrating fire from around the corner, already off the platform entirely. They needed to retreat. They had to get out from that position before the scions reached them.

“You are wounded,” Samara observed, keeping her eyes fixed on the scions.

Miranda blinked and looked down at her ribs on her right side, where it hurt most. Huh. There was a tear in her suit. And she was bleeding. Funny that.

“I’m fine,” Miranda assured her. She didn’t have time to bleed. “Ready?”

Samara nodded. She stepped out of cover, firing off a reave, catching several husks in her biotic field. Miranda followed suit, overloading another container, joining Samara in shooting off the knees of the deformed monstrosities. The scions were mere feet away. But neither of them let that be intimidating. They both got out of the way just in time to avoid the blast radius from the lumbering creatures.

Shepard charged one scion, distracting its attention from her squadmates, colliding with it in a blue biotic streak. She fired her shotgun directly into its face to keep it pinned down, backing away as it let off another area-of-effect wave. Shepard stumbled when the blast brought down her biotic barrier. 

“Move!” Shepard barked, sprinting back towards the next viable cover, not willing to be caught by a shockwave with her defences down. Samara and Miranda followed suit, escaping the scions before they closed in. They only fired back over their shoulders to pick off the final few husks, until they were able to find cover in a secure enough position to take aim at the scions from a distance.

Warps from Miranda and reaves from Samara took down the scions’ armour amid the hail of incendiary bullets from Shepard’s submachine gun. Eventually, both scions fell into a burning heap of ash, and it went quiet again at last. Too quiet, given the chaos of mere moments ago.

Miranda sighed. She hoped that was the last of them, but somehow she knew it wouldn’t be.

“I’ll take point,” Miranda insisted, clutching at her side as she moved to go and claim the Reaper IFF. An arm blocked her way before she could take a step.

“Not with that wound, you won’t,” said Shepard. Miranda glanced down. Her white catsuit was stained with crimson beneath her palm. “Here. Use this medi-gel. I’ll take point.”

Miranda rolled her eyes. Honestly, it didn’t even hurt. Besides, it wasn’t like she could stop and wave a white flag. There was no point in worrying about her injury until they made it off this ship. Nevertheless, the medi-gel would stop the bleeding. That was what it was for. So she applied it.

“Are you alright?” Samara asked her, staying at her side while she tended to her wound.

“Both of you should be focusing on the mission instead of worrying about me,” Miranda curtly replied, the medi-gel congealing around the gash in her side. She wasn’t weak. She didn’t need to be treated like a child.

“Do not take my query as an indication that I am doing otherwise,” said Samara, unfazed by Miranda’s stern response.

Miranda uttered a disgruntled huff. She was only stating facts. Nevertheless, she put that all aside as they moved to claim the Reaper IFF. Her wound didn’t stand in the way of taking out the husks that swarmed them in the mass effect core.

After that, they returned to The Normandy, along with the geth they’d found.

“Ugh. Ridiculous,” Miranda muttered to herself as she marched into her office, having switched to her black attire following the damage to her white catsuit.

She’d just met with Shepard and Jacob to discuss their new passenger. Instead of listening to her and sending the geth to Cerberus to be researched, Shepard had not only decided to keep the geth on board, but had set it up in the AI Core. Was there a worse possible place to put a potentially hostile machine?

Miranda sat behind her desk and opened up her laptop, intent on reporting all this to The Illusive Man. The door to her office opened. She glanced up.

“Hello, Samara,” said Miranda, going back to typing. “Can this wait? I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“I will not disturb you. I only wished to see how you were,” said Samara.

This again? Seriously? “I heal fast,” Miranda assured her. “I’ll be fine.”

“Very well.” Samara gave a nod at Miranda’s blunt response. Then, somewhat surprisingly, she turned to leave without another word.

“Wait,” Miranda spoke up, raising her hand and closing her laptop computer. Samara stopped and looked back. “You don’t have to go, Samara,” she said, regretting her sharp tone.

“I do not wish to impose,” said Samara, content to wait until Miranda came and visited her on her own terms.

“You’re not,” Miranda replied. She was the only person on this whole crew whose presence was never an imposition. With that in mind, Miranda got up from her desk and gestured towards the viewport beside her bed. After all, she was always sharing Samara’s view. Why not the reverse for once?

Samara accepted her unspoken invitation and followed Miranda inside, standing by the doorway with her hands clasped behind her back. Miranda was slightly ginger in her movements as she sat down on the small window seat. 

“...I appreciate that you showed concern for me,” Miranda began. “I know it may not have seemed like it at the time. But genuinely, I do. I’m just not used to it.”

“Is this something I should refrain from, or be more cautious about?” Samara inquired, willing to change her behaviour without argument, particularly if it was causing Miranda any offence or discomfort.

“No. No, definitely not.” Miranda shook her head. “It’s my problem, not yours. I know that, when you’re asking me if I’m alright, you’re doing it because you care. But, unconsciously, I reacted to it like it was a criticism - like you and Shepard were pointing out my weaknesses. Of course you weren’t doing that. I know you well enough to know that. But…”

“Your father would not have seen it that way,” Samara suggested on her behalf, understanding where this was coming from. 

“No, he wouldn’t,” Miranda acknowledged. She didn’t like that everything always came back to him. But it so often did. “If I was ever hurt or in pain as a child, I had to hide it. I had to endure whatever he threw at me without reacting to it. If I didn’t, if I so much as flinched, he would punish me for it.”

It was no wonder why she came across as emotionless and insensitive to others, Miranda thought. She’d effectively been conditioned to be both of those things - trained by her father’s cruelty to not respond to anything the way a normal person would, no matter what he did. To suppress her fear when he raised his voice, or raised a hand to her. Never to laugh or smile. Not to cry out when she felt pain. Being raised in that environment had made those things second nature, until she couldn’t remember a different way of being. 

“I, um...” Miranda paused and averted her gaze, uncharacteristically hesitant. She swallowed, curling her hand into a fist in her lap, relaxing her fingers only once she’d chased those thoughts from her mind - things she’d never revealed to anyone before, and wasn’t fully ready to open up about now. “I don’t like to dwell on it, but I have a lot of unpleasant memories from that age.”

Samara didn’t interrupt, letting Miranda talk at her own pace.

“The Illusive Man isn’t like my father, but even he has high standards. Cerberus will be critical of how I handled this mission. Believe me, it’s going to be marked down in my file that I made a mistake and got hurt.” Miranda sighed and turned towards the window, idly resting her chin on curled fingers while distant stars reflected in her eyes. “I hate that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Cerberus for it; they’re just doing what they need to do. But I hate knowing that every time I slip up, no matter how small it is, it’s going to be noted in my record, and follow me around forever.”

“I see…” said Samara, quietly. She paused a moment, giving thought to the words on her mind. “I find it interesting that it disturbs you when people know of your mistakes. I know that one of your duties is to report to The Illusive Man on every mission, and on all of us. Professor Solus once advised me to check my quarters, noting that he had located several bugging devices you had placed in his lab.”

“I’m just doing my job,” Miranda replied as she glanced back. Part of that job was to be distrustful of her squadmates and the crew, and to find any faults in their conduct, and to make sure it was duly noted in her reports.

“So were the people in your father’s employ, who were complicit in his cruelty towards you,” Samara calmly countered, elucidating her point.

“I…” Any words Miranda might have said to defend herself were quickly struck silent in her mind. Her gaze dropped. She hadn’t thought of it that way before.

All those hours she’d spent monitoring her squadmates suddenly took on a new complexion in her mind. Reading their private emails without their knowledge. Watching them through hidden devices in the ship. Analysing and criticising every aspect of their conduct, down to the most minute detail. Highlighting every single mistake and weakness. Those were all things her father had done to her.

“...I know I can be a control freak, but I’m not like him,” Miranda quietly professed, with a slight tremor in her voice, as if imploring Samara to see that she was better than that. “I swear to you, I’m not.”

Except she totally was. Much as she tried to deny it.

Without even realising it, she’d been replicating what she’d learned from him. Hell, when they’d first met face-to-face, she’d even told Shepard that she would have implanted a control chip in her brain if The Illusive Man had let her. Miranda hadn’t been lying about that. She’d seriously advocated for the idea. On more than one occasion.

For all the cruel things Miranda’s father had done to her, he’d never done that. Much as he probably would have if the thought had occurred to him. 

She was not only like her father, but...in some ways, she was on the path to becoming far worse than he ever was. Even more of a tyrant, despite knowing how it felt to suffer at the hands of one. And she hadn’t even thought about it.

That realisation made Miranda feel queasy. In retrospect, perhaps she needed to formally apologise to Shepard for the way she’d acted when they first met. She made a mental note to attend to that the next time Shepard dropped by.

“You do not need to defend yourself to me,” Samara assured her. This wasn’t an attack, or an argument. Just an observation. “I do not begrudge you for doing as The Illusive Man requires. It is merely something you may wish to consider in your own time, so that you may come to your own answer.”

“Ah. So, this is part of that whole ‘self-reflection’ thing we’ve been discussing,” Miranda intuited, letting her lip curl into a lopsided sort of smile. In light of the thoughts going through her head, the smile didn’t reach her eyes. It was entirely joyless. “I’ll...take it on board. But how am I doing so far? I’m new to this.”

Samara’s expression betrayed her amusement at Miranda’s search for approval. “Self-improvement is a long and multi-faceted journey. I cannot promise it will ever end, but it is a worthy pursuit. At times, it will be confronting and difficult. But you will find great meaning and fulfilment by taking that journey. In time, hopefully you will come to understand the burdens you carry, and make peace with them.”

“You really think so?” Miranda asked. Samara had been subtly guiding her in this direction for a while. The more she did, the more Miranda was seriously beginning to consider that Samara was right, and that there really was something to be said for mindfulness and meditation. 

“I do,” Samara confirmed.

Miranda sighed. “Well, then there must be some truth to it. You wouldn’t say it if there wasn’t,” she conceded. After all, Samara must have gotten her insight and wisdom from somewhere. If this was the key to it, then Miranda would have been a fool not to heed her advice.

At times like this, it felt like Samara knew Miranda better than Miranda knew herself, much as it was difficult to hear the truth sometimes.

“Do you wish to join me in meditation?” Samara offered.

Miranda pulled an apologetic face. “I really do need to get this report to The Illusive Man,” she said. She’d made an exception to talk to Samara, but only because she’d felt bad about her poor behaviour earlier. She couldn’t get distracted or set aside her work longer than she already had. “But, after I’m finished with this, I think I’m free this evening. I can join you then.”

Samara allowed herself a small smile. “I look forward to it. Until then, I shall not take up anymore of your time.”

“Samara…” Miranda stopped her before she could turn to leave. “...I don’t tell him everything, you know,” Miranda admitted, hoping Samara understood that. The conversations they’d had with each other in their private moments were just that - private. “I’m more than just The Illusive Man’s spy. I’m part of The Normandy too, and I’m loyal to this team. As much as anyone here.”

Samara held her gaze for a long moment, giving Miranda a silent nod of acceptance before taking her leave.

Miranda swallowed in the wake of Samara’s silence, oddly shaken by it. Miranda had been telling the truth about her loyalties lying as much with this ship and this crew as it did with Cerberus, but nothing had made her doubt herself more than the thought that Samara didn’t believe her when she said that.

If everyone else aboard the ship thought Miranda was nothing more than a snitch, she could have lived with it. But if her actions had caused her to lose Samara’s trust, then maybe she really did need to question her level of independence from Cerberus.

*     *     *

They told Jack. About Shepard. And about the Normandy.

She took it about as well as expected.

Jack’s eyes had burned with unshed tears as she’d screamed and shouted and swore at both Jacob and Miranda. She’d fought through the pain in her muscles to throw a glass of water at them, demanding that they get the fuck away from her.

Neither of them blamed her for her reaction. Shepard meant a lot to her. She meant a lot to all of them.

Miranda dragged her weary limbs up the stairs back to her apartment, the rest of that day’s events passing like a blur behind her. All the days were starting to bleed together lately. It didn’t help that she was averaging less than two hours of sleep a night because her fucking ear wouldn’t stop ringing. 

“Hey, Miss,” Reiley was the first to greet her when she opened the door. He and his sister had finally moved out of the field hospital, her condition having recovered.

“I have a name, you know,” Miranda replied, taking off her jacket. Her snarky comment fell on deaf ears, it seemed. Music emanated from the living room. Not too loud. Some of the students were gathered, playing cards.

The students had mostly been very well behaved, from what she could tell. They hadn’t quite adjusted to living with Miranda yet. Honestly, they barely interacted. That was largely because her role in the reconstruction kept her so busy that they hardly saw her. She was still little more than a stranger to them. That was probably for the best.

That being said, some of them had already proven more willing to test the limits of her kindness than others. Reiley wasn’t one of them, though. She had helped save his sister’s life, after all. That had evidently earned her the benefit of the doubt with him.

“Rough day at work?” Reiley asked her, innocently. 

Miranda wondered if she looked as tired as she felt. “No rougher than usual,” she answered. He was a child. Her burdens weren’t his to worry about.

“Nitin’s cooking dinner tonight. You want him to fix you up a plate?” he went on.

“I’ll make something for myself later,” Miranda replied, wanting nothing more than a moment alone to decompress, especially after breaking the bad news to Jack.

“Okay. Sure thing. But you’re welcome to join us, you know?” Reiley offered again, almost insisting.

“I know.” Miranda stopped herself as she turned to leave, having developed enough self-awareness over the past year to realise that response may have sounded harsher than she intended. “Thank you for asking,” she said, working on being better with people, and setting an example for her wards.

“No problem.”

With that, Miranda headed to her room. It was the smallest bedroom in the apartment, but she had it all to herself, which was a worthwhile trade. And it was big enough to serve as a makeshift home office. She sighed once she closed the door behind her, enjoying a moment of privacy.

The silence was undercut by the ringing in her ear. It always was.

Miranda leaned her cane against her bedside drawer, running her hand through her hair as she slumped down onto the bed.

Her datapad made a noise. She almost didn’t hear the ding beneath that constant, high-pitched tone. She looked over. And, for the first time that day, she had something to smile about.

One new message from Oriana.

Honestly, if Miranda had been a more emotional person, she could have cried from sheer relief. Who else but Oriana could transform a shitty day to an amazing one in an instant? This was exactly what she needed.

She lay down in the bed, propping up her datapad, content to let Oriana take her cares away for a while.

“Hey, sis,” her message began, the camera facing towards her as she walked, the scenery of Horizon passing behind her. “I know it hasn’t been that long since my last message. But every day I spend about...ten, fifteen minutes walking home from work. And I figured, that’s fifteen minutes I could be spending talking to you.”

Words couldn’t even begin to describe how much Miranda appreciated that. How much it meant to her. They were both in each other’s thoughts, all the time.

“With any luck, it won’t be long before we’re able to talk in real time. I mean, in galactic terms, we’re not all that far away. They have to fix the comm buoys eventually, right?”

They were making progress. It was one of many things Miranda was keeping tabs on. It was why there was so much less of a delay between sending and receiving messages now. Where once they’d taken weeks to get low-priority messages through the Extranet, Oriana had probably only sent this message yesterday. The gap was closing faster than ever.

“Not much has changed since the last time I spoke to you,” Oriana continued, freely voicing whatever thoughts came into her mind, in a way Miranda never could have. “I’ve kind of been thrown into the deep end as far as my career in local planning and colony development is concerned. Nobody has time to teach me, so I’m learning a lot on the fly. I’m enjoying it, though. Is it wrong of me to say that?”

Miranda smirked. No, it wasn’t wrong of her at all. Thriving in challenging environments was a trait they shared. One that they didn’t share, and one that Miranda greatly admired about her sister, was that Oriana always had a way of making the best of any situation. Putting a positive spin on things. Miranda tended toward the opposite. She wasn’t a catastrophist by any means, but it was fair to say she was a lot better at finding faults than appreciating the good that was already there. That didn’t apply to Oriana.

Oriana had lost as much as anyone to this war. Her home. Her friends. Her parents. Any of those things could have destroyed a person, and nobody would have blamed her if it had. But Oriana just...got on with life. She didn’t let loss harden her heart. She was still the same warm, loving, empathetic person she was before, and still by far the single most well-adjusted person Miranda had ever met. Although, in fairness, Miranda had few good points of comparison.

She didn’t know how her sister did it. She wished she had her strength, sometimes.

“You’ll love it here,” Oriana assured her, looking forward to the day they were reunited at last. “I know it’s not exactly what you’re used to, but you will.”

Of course she would. Miranda would love any place Oriana was.

“I already have my eye on a couple of places. I’ve had some ideas, design-wise. I won’t tell you what they are, because that would ruin the surprise. But you don’t need to worry about it. Everything will be all set up by the time you get here,” Oriana went on, afternoon sunlight following her as she made her way through the colony, which was about the size of a small country town.

Miranda made a mental note to remind Oriana that she didn’t have to spend a cent on any of this. Or on anything. Miranda had been extremely well-compensated working for Cerberus for the past twenty years, and she’d made some wise investments. She had enough credits squirrelled away in encrypted accounts that the two of them didn't need to worry about finances. Not for a long while, anyway.

“Stop and look both ways so I don’t get hit by a truck. Right. Good. See? No problems walking and talking at the same time. Not a distracted pedestrian,” Oriana lightheartedly remarked, continuing her walk home. “Welp, since I haven’t gotten any desperate messages from you begging me to stop yet, I’m assuming that means you want me to keep trying out my worst jokes on you. I’ve come up with a few more. They’re absolute garbage. So, here goes…”

It was no mystery why Oriana was so intent on telling these bad jokes.

“How do cakes handle break-ups? They ask if they can just be friands.”

Miranda had sent emails and texts since, but the last time Oriana had received a video message from her, it had been the one she’d sent from the field hospital. She’d been in tears, then, admitting how much she needed to hear Oriana’s voice to bolster her spirits. And Oriana had answered her prayers.

“I’d make a joke about how to use a knife in a black-out, but it would just be a stab in the dark.”

Ever since then, it was as if Oriana had set herself the personal mission of being Miranda’s ray of sunshine - a light to brighten up her darkest days. That wasn’t difficult for her to pull off, because that was exactly what Oriana had been for her ever since she was born.

“I invited a meterologist to a bar but he told me he couldn’t handle the pressure.”

Miranda couldn’t fathom why Oriana was the way she was. Funny. Kind. She certainly hadn’t gotten it from Miranda. Every time they spoke, every message Oriana sent, it was like discovering all over again what an amazing person she was, in every conceivable way.

“Everyone cries at weddings. Even the cakes are in tiers.” Oriana looked down at the camera. “See? Two cake jokes. I’ve got a theme going. Either that or I was really hungry this afternoon.”

Miranda had devoted twenty years of her life to protecting Oriana, and making sure her upbringing was safe and happy. But, right now, Oriana was the one checking in on her - making sure Miranda was okay, and cheering her up when she needed it. These messages were Oriana’s way of taking care of her.

“You know why batteries never come included with electronics? Because if they did, they’d be free of charge.”

None of the jokes ever made Miranda laugh. Oriana was no doubt well aware that they wouldn’t. But that didn’t matter. That wasn’t the point. Just listening to her voice and seeing her there on the screen was enough to bring a contented smile to Miranda’s face, no matter what Oriana was saying.

A knock at the door caught Miranda’s attention. She paused the video, straightening up. “What is it?”

Jason Prangley opened the door a crack. “Excuse me, Miss. I don’t mean to disturb you, but Mr. Taylor is here to see you.”

Much as she wanted to hear the rest of Oriana’s message, Miranda knew it would still be waiting for her later. “Send him in,” said Miranda, feeling far more relaxed than she had a few minutes ago. Jason didn’t appear to notice.

A few moments later, Jacob stepped through her door, joining her in her room. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes, but it’s okay; I can go back to it,” said Miranda, not bothered. She still had about five more minutes of video to look forward to. She intended to savour them all.

“It’s your sister, isn’t it? You’re only like this when it’s her,” Jacob pointed out, hardly oblivious to the change in Miranda’s demeanour since they parted at the field hospital. “She must be special.”

“She is,” Miranda confirmed. What more could she say? She adored absolutely everything about her sister, without qualification. She was the only person in the galaxy Miranda could say that about. The only person she truly, unconditionally loved. There was no indication that would ever change. “She’s quite literally the best person I know.”

“I can see that. I mean, she’s like you, but nice,” Jacob joked.

Miranda chuckled, electing not to correct him on that. They may have shared some traits, but Oriana was nothing like Miranda. That was the point.

“I’m assuming this is more than just a social call,” Miranda intuited.

“Actually, that’s exactly what this is,” Jacob corrected her, pulling up the chair by Miranda’s small desk, taking a seat. “I wanted to catch up with you, after what happened with Jack this morning.”

Miranda sighed. “We were on speaking terms for a grand total of six days. I’m guessing that’s no longer the case. Not that it’s unexpected,” she remarked. Ultimately, it had been too much to think Jack wouldn’t revert back to hating her again the first time something went awry.

“Nah, you give her too little credit.” Jacob dismissed the thought. “She’s mad. And she’s hurt. But just because she lashed out doesn’t mean she blames you, or me. There was nothing any of us could have done to change things.”

“I don’t agree with that,” Miranda spoke plainly. “There are always things we could have done differently. Those answers will materialise in time. We can’t change what happened. All we can do is learn from it. Try not to lose anyone else.”

Jacob regarded her with a sympathetic expression, recognising that Miranda’s calm, collected voice likely didn’t reveal the truth of her thoughts.

“I know what you’re like, so I know it may be pointless to ask you this, but...how are you doing with all of this? Not just losing Shepard, but...everything?” Jacob asked, leaning forward in his chair. “I mean really. Not what you tell the kids, or Bailey.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Miranda replied, keeping a rigid posture. “Like I said, I can’t go back and change the past, so there’s no sense dwelling on it.”

That was exactly what she tried to tell herself every time her mind stirred with thoughts of how she potentially could have saved the people who’d died under her command. How she could have avoided the shuttle crash entirely. Anything more she could have said to Shepard, when they spoke over that link.

“So...you reacting the way you did after we spoke to Jack had nothing to do with how you feel about losing Shepard?” Jacob sceptically surmised.

Miranda arched her eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware that I reacted a particular way,” she said, not certain whether Jacob was perhaps just projecting his own feelings into her, or whether he was waiting for her to feel things that simply didn’t mesh with who Miranda was as a person. “How did I react, exactly?”

“There’s no need to get defensive with me, Miranda. I’m checking in on you, like friends do,” Jacob pointed out, not appreciating her tone. “If you’re telling me you’re fine, then you’re fine. I’ll be happy for you. So, let’s have that conversation, then. Are you?”

“Am I what? Am I okay with the fact that I lost one of my closest friends?” Miranda rephrased his question, uttering a snort.

“You turned my genuine concern into a loaded question, but...yeah.” Jacob shrugged.

“Well, since it apparently interests you so much…” Miranda shifted her posture, leaning back slightly as she spoke, rhythmically rapping her fingers against the mattress by her side. “One the one hand, yes. I accept what happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, and if I still had my other hand, no. Of course I’m not ‘okay with it’. I’m never going to be ‘okay with it’ because I didn’t bloody want Shepard to die.”

“At least you’re being honest,” Jacob acknowledged. Miranda had been pretty staunchly committed to denial since she woke up from her coma, like she was trying to outrun that dark shadow before it could catch up with her and make her confront that she wasn’t anywhere near as fine as she claimed. “At least you’re not pretending you don’t care this time, or that you don’t feel anything at all.”

“I’ve never been devoid of emotions, Jacob. They’re just...not constructive,” said Miranda, somewhat uncomfortable with the subject. She wasn’t heartless. She had feelings, she just wasn’t good at processing them. They were messy, and hard to control, and she’d never learned how to navigate them in socially appropriate ways. That was why she tried to move past things like this and get on with her life. 

“They don’t have to be constructive,” Jacob told her. “Feelings are feelings. They just are. You don’t have to do anything with them.”

“Then what more do you want from me?” Miranda countered, a hint of frustration and confusion creeping into her tone. “Yes, I’m upset. Of course I am. Shepard’s one of the only people I’ve ever considered a friend. What am I supposed to do? Break down and cry? That’s not who I am. That’s not how I feel things.”

It wasn’t as if Miranda had chosen to be this way. Hell, if it wasn’t for Oriana having the unique power to bring them out of her, Miranda might well have gone her whole life believing she was physically incapable of shedding tears at all.

“No, I know. And, look, I’m not…”Jacob trailed off, realising he wasn’t expressing himself well if Miranda was reacting like this - like he was judging her. Of course he wasn’t. After a moment, he considered taking a different approach. A direct approach. “Honestly, I just wanted the two of us to be able to talk,” he admitted. “You’re the closest thing I have to a best friend right now.”

Miranda softened, beginning to understand where he was coming from. “I could say the same about you.”

Jacob’s foot bounced against the floor, his fingers tented together. “This is going to be easier for me, so why don’t I start?” he suggested.

Miranda gestured for him to go ahead. She wasn’t the best person to confide in, but she was happy to be there for him if he needed to get any thoughts off his chest. She couldn’t promise that she would be able to help, or offer any advice. But she wasn’t a bad listener, actually. She paid attention to things, when she wanted to. It was why she’d never forgotten what Jacob had told her about his father, long after he’d forgotten telling her about it.

“It hit me today that Jack is the first one of us we’ve seen since Samara pulled you out of the rubble,” Jacob began, staring ahead at nothing in particular. “Out of how many people we served with on The Normandy? Four. We’ve found four of us.”

“The number four feels a lot...smaller now than it would have a few weeks ago,” Miranda acknowledged, her voice quiet. It hadn’t been lost on her just how fast the light of hope was fading.

The uncomfortable truth was, it had been well over a month since the war ended. And there hadn’t been a single word from anyone about the fate of the Normandy, or any of its missing crew, past or present. Nothing from Zaeed. Nothing from Grunt. Nothing from Kasumi, even. If they hadn’t heard from them by now, then that was a fair indication that they were right to fear the worst.

Maybe there were no other survivors from the SR-2 or SR-3.

“As if we didn’t already know things were bad. Legion, Mordin and Thane are already gone. By all accounts, Kelly Chambers was probably still on the Citadel when the Reapers attacked. The Normandy has vanished without a trace. And we know Shepard didn’t make it,” Jacob recounted. They’d found Jack, but...other than that, nothing had really changed. Maybe they really had been in denial from the outset, believing there was a chance of finding more than a small handful of their friends alive. 

“...It could be worse,” Miranda broke the silence, deviating towards a stable medium. “Wrex is the sole confirmed survivor of the original Normandy. He has none of his crew. Although, he is a krogan. Outliving people might be something he’s more accustomed to coping with than humans like us. I imagine he’s taking everything better than we are.”

“What about Samara?” Jacob asked. From a human perspective, she was practically the same age as Wrex. In reality, she was several centuries younger, of course. But, still, she’d been alive long before Gutenberg invented the printing press. By Miranda’s best estimate, she was younger than Magna Carta, but older than Tenochtitlan. She’d never specifically asked. It had seemed impolite.

“I suppose that applies to her, too. But I don’t know…” Miranda brushed her hair back behind her ear on her non-scarred side, contemplating the friend she’d been longing to speak to again more than any other. She knew Samara on a far deeper level than Jacob ever had. With that in mind, the comparison just seemed...wrong somehow. “Samara’s not like Wrex. She grieves for the people she’s lost. Deeply. But I understand why you might think she doesn’t. She carries it with such tranquility, because she’s a spiritual person. But she’s far from unfeeling. It takes a lot of strength for her to bear the things she does. I admire that about her.”

“If you admire that about Samara, why not learn from her example?” Jacob offered.

“I’ve tried to. Extremely hard, actually. And with...varying degrees of success,” Miranda replied, frankly. “But I’m not Samara. Would that I were, but...No. On second thought, I wouldn’t wish for that. I know the things she’s gone through. She’s felt pain and sorrow I could never imagine, let alone withstand. I’d be too much of a coward to endure what she has. My father made sure of that.”

“Wow. There you go. That’s...probably the realest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Jacob quietly but sincerely enthused. If nothing else, he took it as a good sign that Miranda was willing to open up to him like that, even if only a little bit at a time. “One of these days, all of this stuff you think is a waste of energy is going to translate into you actually being in touch with your feelings for once.”

“I’m only just growing accustomed to having someone in my life who makes me genuinely happy, thanks to my sister. Maybe we could not put the cart before the horse and settle for taking this one step a time,” said Miranda, silently asking Jacob not to push her too far out of her comfort zone too quickly. The more he expected her to start having the emotional reactions of a normal person, the more painfully obvious it would continue to be to both of them that she wasn’t one, and probably never would function the same way as everyone else.

“I thought that’s what I was doing.” Jacob scratched his head, confused. He was being extremely patient and gentle with her, not to mention supportive. “How long are you expecting to take between steps exactly?”

“If we’re assuming regular intervals, that would make it thirty-six years,” Miranda answered plainly. Jacob stared at her, unimpressed. “...I’m going to live longer than any other human, so I could work my way up to...six emotions that I can process healthily. Seven is probably pushing the limits of my lifespan.”

“Is this you trying to be funny?” Jacob remarked, arching an eyebrow.

“No. Not on purpose, anyway. I don’t possess that ability,” said Miranda. Samara was the only person she’d ever met who’d disagreed with her on that.

“Clearly there’s a reason for that. I mean, who the hell still says ‘put the cart before the horse’ anyway?” Jacob joked, pulling a puzzled face.

“I do,” Miranda answered, unfazed.

Jacob smirked. His expression faded, though, faltering as his thoughts returned to the subject of their absent friends.

“Miranda…” Jacob tentatively broke the silence. “I hate to bring this up, but...with Shepard gone and everything…”

“I’ve been looking, Jacob,” Miranda quietly assured him, knowing exactly what he was asking of her. He didn’t see how hard she was searching for the missing, or their closest of kin. How many people she’d contacted. How many inroads she’d made. She didn’t want to trouble him with it until she’d found some answers. Even just a trace of someone they knew. But there were thousands of bodies to count. Tens of thousands. Not to mention all those that had been vaporised into dust. Maybe they would never know.

He could tell from one look at her face exactly how dedicated she was to finding answers. The silence wasn’t from lack of trying. Miranda was just...tired.

“Have you written to the families yet?” Jacob asked.

“And tell them what?” Miranda responded, feeling woefully inadequate to address those poor people when everything was still so...uncertain. “I was hoping I’d have something more to tell them by now. We don’t know anything more than we did a month ago.”

“Miranda…” Jacob hesitantly began, not wanting to come across as critical, but....

“No, I know,” Miranda cut him off. This was her responsibility. She wasn’t going to shirk it. “I’m going to start sending letters out. It’s the least I can do for them. At least for those who have anyone left to contact. It’s just...not my strength.”

“Hey, just do your best,” Jacob encouraged, certain Miranda’s efforts would prove far better than she was giving herself credit for. Miranda wished she could share his confidence.

“I’ve sent one message,” she told him, thinking he should at least be aware she hadn’t done nothing. “I tracked down contact details for Falere - Samara’s daughter. She deserved to know that her mother is alive.”

“What did she say?”

“‘Thank you,’” Miranda quoted. “Literally, that’s all she said was ‘thank you’.” Jacob gave a snort. Miranda glanced down. “Shepard doesn’t even have any family I can notify.”

“Her family already knows,” Jacob thought aloud. Miranda looked up. It was clear from his eyes that he was talking about the two of them. Plus Jack, Samara and Wrex. Everyone confirmed to still be alive who Shepard cared about.

Miranda managed a small, sad smile at the thought.

“While we’re being honest, how’s this whole thing working out with the kids?” Jacob asked.

“Surprisingly well, actually,” Miranda answered. Jacob just gave her a look. “...Oh. So it’s that bad,” Miranda realised aloud. “Wait, how would you know?”

“Some of the kids came up and talked to me,” Jacob explained. “They wondered if they’d done something wrong, because you were acting like you hated them.”

Miranda squinted. “I’ve never done that.”

“You have a tone, Miranda. You come off very harsh. Hell, if I didn’t know you so well, I’d swear you hated me right now,” Jacob pointed out.

Miranda thought about making a sarcastic quip but, ultimately, she lacked the energy. She sighed. “Great. So it turns out this was a horrible idea and I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing,” Miranda mumbled in admission.

Jacob smiled, moving to sit beside her on the bed, placing a hand on her uninjured shoulder. “I know. That’s why I’m here.”

“No, I’m serious,” Miranda persisted. Much as she despised failure, she wasn’t too blind to acknowledge it. “...I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone else. Nobody except The Shadow Broker knows this about me, but...a few years ago, I tried to conceive a child. It’s how I discovered I can’t.”

“Wow.” Jacob blinked. That was a lot to take in. Miranda was nothing if not candid when she wanted to be. “With anyone specific, or…?”

“No. It wasn’t about a man. You know firsthand I don’t do relationships. It was entirely selfish. It was about...trying to feel something. To feel that same unconditional love I felt the day I found Oriana.” Miranda swallowed, her throat dry. “In hindsight, I’m glad I can’t conceive. I would be a terrible parent. This is just proving it.” She gestured towards the door, and the children beyond it.

“Don’t say that,” Jacob protested, refusing to hear Miranda beat herself up over making a few mistakes.

“It’s true.” Miranda shrugged. It wasn’t up for debate. “You know me. You know I don’t have those maternal instincts. I wasn’t nurtured by a loving family. I’ve made a lot of strides in trying to be a better person than I was back then, but...when it comes to this, I’m too much like my father.”

“No, you’re not,” Jacob insisted, shifting around and gently grabbing her by the arm to make sure Miranda looked him dead in his eyes. “The fact that you’re even worried about this proves you’re nothing like him. Besides, I’ve seen the way you treat your sister. You have a great relationship.”

“That’s because I gave her away, Jacob. By the time we met, she was already a normal, well-adjusted adult,” Miranda pointed out. “If I’d raised her, I would have messed her up the same way I’m messing things up with these kids. Probably worse,” Miranda trailed off at that. It wasn’t fun to acknowledge just how screwed up she was emotionally, and how it was affecting her interactions with Jack’s battle-scarred students. But facts were facts.

“Come on. You’re Miranda fucking Lawson,” Jacob encouraged. “It’s not like you to sit around and declare a problem unsolvable. Let’s focus on what you’ve been doing, and see if we can’t figure out a way to make things better,” he suggested, sensing that nothing would change unless he redirected Miranda’s focus away from criticising herself.

“I don’t know. I just...I was never like them. And you know I struggle with empathy,” Miranda began, at a loss. “I’ve tried to understand their frame of mind intellectually, based on what I know about them, but obviously that hasn’t worked. I can’t...put myself in their position the way a normal person could.”

“Is that why you’re avoiding them? Because you don’t know how to communicate with them? Or because you’re afraid that you can’t help them when you don’t understand how they feel?” he asked, getting to the nitty-gritty.

Reluctantly, Miranda nodded. “Both. When I’m around them, I start sounding like him - controlling, cold. So I’ve been keeping my distance, giving them space. And apparently they all want to leave no matter what I do.”

“Go easy on them, Miranda, and on yourself,” Jacob comforted her, recognising that she was genuinely making an effort, even if she didn’t know how to pull this off. “They aren’t good at expressing it because, well, teenagers aren’t, but they do seem to want you to like them. I think the problem is they don’t know that you already do care about them. I’m not sure you know that either.”

“Of course I care. As much as I can. I wouldn’t have taken them in at all if I didn’t,” Miranda answered. Low empathy didn’t mean no sympathy.

“So, why don’t you try to show it a little more?” Jacob suggested with a shrug.

Miranda sighed uncomfortably. “Jacob, this is literally the best I know how to do. I’ve just confessed to you that I’m aware I have the emotional intelligence of a dustbin most of the time. What more do you want from me?”

“In all seriousness, you’re a hell of a lot better now than you were. Even a year ago, it could be a struggle being around you sometimes,” Jacob admitted. Miranda couldn’t disagree with that. “I mean, back then, if I’d brought any of this up to you, you would have just said everyone who had a problem with you being forthright and direct was stupid and wrong and needed to get over it.”

Miranda managed a small smile. “I know. I know I’m improving, and that I’m slightly more tolerable to be around than I was before.”

“Slightly?” Jacob idly queried, pulling a face.

“But, when it comes to these students, that progress I’ve made doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have a loving parental figure to model myself on. I don’t really know how to…” Miranda gestured emptily instead of finishing that sentence, more than a little frustrated with herself, and at her lack of emotional competence.

“Well, in that case, why don’t you think back to when you were their age. Think about the things you needed from your Dad that you never got,” Jacob offered.

“That’s the thing - I never got them,” Miranda pointed out. “I can’t even say I know what it’s like to be their age. I wasn’t allowed to be a teenager. By their age, I was already a Cerberus operative, fighting batarian terrorism.”

“And they’re soldiers who just fought in a war,” Jacob countered. Miranda’s expression shifted. She’d never thought about it that way. She’d been so focused on what made them different, she’d completely overlooked potential points of commonality. “Sometimes, trying with people means a hell of a lot more than being good at talking to them. Seriously, make an effort, and they’ll see it. Even if you’re not a natural at doing the emotional stuff, at least they’ll get where you're coming from. And it’ll show that you’re not...unapproachable.”

Miranda frowned. This probably wasn’t going to work. But, damn it, the last thing she ever wanted to do was be as aloof as her father was. She knew how terrible it felt to be treated like less than a full person. 

“I’m going to regret this,” she said, getting up from her bed and picking up her cane, intent on following through with this while Jacob was still there to give her support, or to intervene if things went terribly wrong.

Jack’s students had finished making dinner, gathered around the kitchen counter and table. Miranda cleared her throat to make her presence known, eliciting glances from all of them. Some of the kids moved to politely stand to attention on instinct, but Miranda raised her hand to stop them.

“No, no. Don’t get up. I just...wanted to check in with how you’re all getting on. Living here, I mean.” Miranda paused momentarily, leaning on her cane. “So...are you settling in okay? Is there anything you need?”

“We’re, uh...I think we’re good,” Seanne spoke up on behalf of the group, looking around to make sure that she was correct on that consensus.

“Yeah, your pad is pretty tight, Miss,” said Rodriguez.

“...Right.” Miranda elected not to object to her choice of words.

Jacob gave her a gentle nudge with his foot, urging her to keep going. It must have been obvious to him that this was painfully awkward for her. It ran counter to everything that had been programmed into her from birth. But fine; if he wanted her to keep trying, she would.

“I’m aware that you’ve been through a very difficult time lately. We all have, with the war. I know you’ve...lost people close to you.” Miranda swallowed, not finding it easy to let her guard down. “I’ve lost people too. People I fought beside. People I care about. And I know how it feels to be lightyears away from the ones who matter most to you. So, if any of you need someone to talk to about what you’re going through, you’re more than welcome to come to me,” she said honestly.

Suffice it to say, the students were surprised to hear her say that. Even Jacob was impressed. “We don’t want to impose,” Jason Prangley was the first to respond.

“It’s not an imposition.” Miranda shook her head. “I know I’m busy a lot. And I can’t guarantee I’ll always be available. But, if you really do need me for anything, I’ll make time,” she promised.

“Thank you, Miss,” said Prangley, seeming reassured by that offer of unconditional support. “That’s genuinely really nice of you.”

“No, it’s not. It’s...normal,” Miranda replied, recognising that she wasn’t owed any thanks for what was essentially the bare minimum of human decency that these kids deserved to be treated with, which she’d failed at so far.

Jacob smiled at her in approval, happy with her effort.

*     *     *

Miranda’s lips were pursed. She sat with her arms crossed, one leg folded over the other, her foot impatiently bobbing in the air.

“Shall we begin, Ms Lawson?” Kelly Chambers cheerfully asked her. “First—”

“I’ve been sleeping fine. My diet hasn’t changed. I haven’t experienced any sudden downturn in my mood. I don’t get tired. I don’t hear voices. I don’t feel anxious. I don’t experience mood swings. I have no problems concentrating on my work. I don’t experience intrusive thoughts. I don’t have nightmares. My sex drive is normal. I’m confident and well-adjusted. Are we done?” Miranda rattled everything off in a single breath, keen to get this waste of time over and done with.

Kelly Chambers tried to hide her amusement. “Um, well, it’s wonderful to hear that you’ve read the latest edition of the DSM. But the purpose of these sessions isn’t to diagnose you with a mental illness. I’m not actually qualified to do that.”

Miranda snorted, rolling her eyes. “That’s useful.” Honestly, she still didn’t understand the purpose Yeoman Chambers served aboard the ship, or why she couldn’t have been replaced with someone more qualified. “So why am I here?”

“Because you sustained an injury aboard the inactive Reaper. We’re talking about it. Besides, it was about time for me to check in with you anyway,” Kelly replied. 

“Already?” Miranda snorted derisively. The last time they’d had a session was after she got hurt in the fight against the Shadow Broker. That had been, what, three weeks ago? “How often do you need to check in with someone?” Miranda dryly remarked, starting to feel singled out. 

“As often as I can. It’s what I’m here for. Which is why I find it funny that you never talk to me about my work. Or ask me about people,” Kelly observed.

“What do you mean by that? I chase you up for your reports every single time you do one of these...therapy sessions.” Miranda dismissively waved her hand, feeling she was being generous by deigning to give them that moniker.

Kelly stifled a laugh, glancing down at her lap. “You are aware why The Illusive Man hired me, aren’t you? I was given a directive to report to two people. One of them is Shepard. The other was you. My explicit instructions were to assist both of you in gaining some insight into the people you would be working with, and to assist you in navigating their disparate personalities. Shepard asks me for my thoughts all the time. You...never have,” she noted, somehow not surprised by that.

“What’s there to know about the crew that I haven’t already gleaned?” Miranda shrugged, failing to see the utility.

“A lot, actually. Maybe you should talk to them sometime. Or ask me about them,” Kelly replied, far sharper on the comeback than Miranda gave her credit for. “To the extent that it doesn’t violate anything I’ve been told in confidence, it’s...literally my job to tell you what I know, and what I think. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m pretty sure that’s precisely why The Illusive Man thought someone like me was needed here - to help you specifically.”

Miranda furrowed her brow. “To help me what?”

“You know...work with people, and understand them better,” Kelly stated frankly, shrugging her shoulders. “Don’t take offence to this, but you and I are both cognisant of the fact that Shepard doesn’t exactly need any assistance in that area. Whereas you, on the other hand...this is not your expertise, is it?”

Miranda resisted the unconscious urge to bristle at that. She never liked being confronted with the fact that she had weaknesses, even weaknesses she was self-aware enough to realise she had, and not too arrogant to deny. 

“Yes, well, I suppose it’s too late for that, now, isn’t it?” said Miranda.

“I don’t agree with that.” Kelly gave a small shake of her head. “We may be a few months into our mission, but learning about people is a process that never stops. I can give you far better insight now than I could have when I first met everyone. So maybe things have worked out for the best. But I don’t mean to talk your ear off. All I wanted to say was that I’m here to help you get to know the crew a bit better, if you want me to.”

Miranda paused. It was funny. A few weeks ago, that opportunity would have triggered a very different feeling in her than it did now. A need to feel in control. A need for knowledge, because knowing things was power. It meant certainty. Security. Protection. Stability. Back then, she hadn’t hesitated to download files from the Shadow Broker, and had never thought twice about spying on her squadmates, reading all their messages.

And yet, a single conversation with Samara had suddenly changed all that.

In a way, Miranda knew that Kelly had a point. She hadn’t tried to get to know most of her squad. At all. She didn’t care to. She wasn’t there to make friends, after all. But...what was the line between learning about people and being like her father?

Now that Samara had brought that comparison to her attention, it was hard not to feel like a monumental fucking hypocrite for monitoring every single person on the ship and reporting on their every single fuck-up, the same way her father had monitored Miranda and scrutinised her every mistake. But, maybe if she went in with less adversarial intentions, maybe if she went about things the right way and for the right reasons for a change, that would be a good place to start.

“...Okay. I see what you’re saying. Perhaps I have been...distant from other people on the ship. And it couldn’t hurt to get a second opinion,” Miranda reasoned. She wasn’t sure she would agree with anything Kelly said. But would it hurt anyone for Miranda to know what Kelly thought about them?

“Ask away, within reason,” Kelly gave her an open invitation.

Don’t be controlling. Don’t be controlling. Don’t be controlling.

“...What do you think about Commander Shepard?” Miranda started with the most obvious name, since that was as good a place as any to begin. 

“Andrea is remarkably well-adjusted for what she’s gone through,” Kelly answered upfront, without falsity. “She’s highly empathetic, and cares a lot about other people. It’s no wonder she’s such a remarkable leader, and why she’s such an expert at resolving situations through words rather than violence. She gets people. She understands them. But, even though I feel like I should know her so intimately by now, as I’m sure many of us feel we do, I also feel like I know so little about her. She’s always asking about us, never talking about herself.”

“Hmm.” Miranda had to admit, that was a rather astute assessment. She couldn’t fault it. “What about Jack?” she asked, not forgetting their recent clash in her quarters, and the discussion she’d had with Samara about it.

“Jack has grown up in an unfathomably traumatic environment. Her experiences have conditioned her to see others as hostile and to view her own survival as a zero sum game. But she’s young, and she’s never had the opportunity to seek treatment for post traumatic stress disorder, or even exist in a healthy environment,” Kelly acknowledged. “She has the potential to make a lot of progress. It’s just a matter of finding the right environment for her, and providing her with the support she needs.”

Miranda disagreed. It was hard to imagine Jack would ever become a well-adjusted member of society. Nevertheless, Kelly was entitled to her opinion.

“How about me?” Miranda inquired. 

Kelly’s eyes widened in alarm at that. “...Honestly?”

“You must have thoughts. I’m curious to know what they are.” Miranda shifted her posture, casually flicking her hair back over her shoulder. She was trying to do this whole...self-reflection thing, at Samara’s recommendation. She needed to start somewhere. “There’s no reason to be nervous. Frankly, you couldn’t hurt my feelings if you tried. So don’t worry that I’m going to be offended.”

Kelly chose to take Miranda at her word. “Alright. Where to start?” 

Miranda arched a brow. Oh, so it was like that? She glanced at the clock, wondering how long this would take, and whether she should have brought some coffee with her.

“You’re a brilliant woman, but...not when it comes to other people,” Kelly stated, electing to begin with the uncontroversial. “I don’t believe you have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but you do show some narcissistic traits, such as a sense of superiority, an expectation for others to comply with unrealistic demands and a tendency to exploit other people without feeling guilt or shame. Honestly, though, that’s not surprising. By all accounts, it sounds like you were raised by a narcissistic sociopath. And it’s not uncommon for children raised in those situations to learn and replicate toxic patterns of behaviour.”

Miranda consciously said nothing, listening to Kelly’s opinions and letting her speak without interruption.

“You have difficulty reading other people and knowing how to react appropriately in social situations, beyond the extent to which you’ve developed social scripts to aid you in your professional life. To my knowledge, you’ve never formed meaningful, long-lasting connections, platonically or romantically. Perhaps this is partially out of a lack of interest on your part, but...if I had to hazard a guess, I also suspect it’s because you genuinely don’t know how,” Kelly speculated. “However, because you’re...stunningly attractive and extremely self-confident, people don’t recognise your social awkwardness for what it is. Instead, they interpret your behaviour towards them as deliberate rudeness and animosity.”

Miranda would have been lying if she said she didn’t recognise a grain of truth in Kelly’s words. It wasn’t exactly easy to just sit there and take it, but it was what she’d asked for. So she remained silent, allowing her to continue.

“I imagine that, when you were younger and first left your father, you most likely had several experiences where people reacted to you negatively for reasons you didn’t entirely understand. It makes sense. I mean, you had gone your entire childhood without developing normal social skills, and you would have had little to nothing in common with any of your peers, not that they had any way of knowing that. These negative responses would have further alienated you from other people, and reinforced your belief that you were superior to others, and that there was nothing to be gained from talking to them. That would go a long way to explaining why you seem to genuinely prefer being alone, and why you seem to lack any desire to socialise and interact with others,” Kelly reasoned.

Miranda shifted in her seat, the tip of her tongue tracing the top of her teeth, even as she kept her mouth shut. Okay, so, she had undergone a few unpleasant social experiences when she first joined Cerberus and met people her own age. But anyone could have guessed that. Getting lucky didn’t count as insight.  

“You’re also frequently wrong in your predictions of how others will act or react in any given situation, because you don’t understand people well enough to read their motives,” Kelly continued. Miranda had to will herself not to impatiently roll her eyes, realising Kelly still wasn’t finished. “From what I understand of your mission two years ago, you thought you would have to blackmail or bribe Liara T’Soni into helping recover Shepard’s body. It never seemed to occur to you that bringing the woman she loved back to life would have been motivation enough.” 

“Okay, in my defence, I didn’t know her then,” Miranda spoke up, raising a finger in objection, unable to remain silent on that.

She noticed Kelly studying her face a little nervously, searching for any signs of anger in her response. “...I didn’t just ruin this session, did I?”

“No,” Miranda nonchalantly replied, unperturbed. She didn’t care enough about Kelly Chambers of all people to be bothered by what she thought of her. But, that being said, she wasn’t so full of herself as to pretend Kelly hadn’t given her a few things that were worth thinking about. Just because she didn’t particularly care for her as a person didn’t mean she couldn’t learn something from her comments. “...I don’t agree with all of your assessments, but there was some legitimate criticism in there. And if that’s the case, I suppose I’m better off taking it on board than getting defensive about it,” Miranda admitted, somewhat humbled.

Being open to that level of criticism rather than taking it personally was certainly something new for her. The fact that Miranda hadn’t instantly rattled off a hundred different reasons why Kelly was wrong about her was definitely Samara’s influence. That and Miranda wasn’t stupid. She knew she didn’t relate well to others. And, if everyone was constantly giving her the same feedback about the way her demeanour came across, there was probably some truth to it. Maybe there was something to be gained from listening to them for once.

Kelly seemed relieved that Miranda had taken her comments constructively, even though she clearly wasn’t thrilled about them. “I’ve noticed some changes in your behaviour lately. I had my suspicions that you’d begun to realise some things about yourself. Maybe things you’ve known on a subconscious level for a long time. Either way, it’s been nice to see that happen. And it’s not just from reuniting with your sister, either, although that’s obviously made you a lot happier. Working so closely with others on the Normandy has been good for you, I think.”

“Perhaps,” Miranda conceded. “It’s funny. A few weeks ago, Shepard told me I have a tendency to interact with people like they’re objects, disregarding their thoughts and feelings, because I’m only concerned with my own goals. I disagreed with her at the time. But, in hindsight, I’ve realised she had a point. I do have a habit of only taking my own perspective into account, and treating others in ways I’d never want to be treated myself.”

Miranda neglected to mention that Samara had practically had to spell it out for her yesterday before she understood that, and that she’d felt...uneasy about her past behaviour ever since.

“This is all learned behaviour,” Kelly advised, believing that knowledge would both aid and comfort her. “Like I said before, you were raised by a narcissist, who possibly suffered from other personality disorders as well. As a direct result of being raised in that environment, knowing nothing except his treatment of you, you were taught not to empathise with others. You had no model to learn empathy from. In a way, becoming self-centred and emotionally closed-off was also necessary for your own survival. But this can all be unlearned, if you choose to.”

“Hmm.” Miranda paused to consider that, giving it some thought. It made sense that her problems relating to others were a result of nurture rather than nature, given that Oriana was her polar opposite when it came to those things. So why couldn’t those things be changed later in life, given enough time and effort?

Really, in a lot of ways, it wasn’t news to her that the way her father had raised her had affected her. She knew it had. She’d always known she didn’t fit in socially. The thing was, up until now, Miranda hadn’t cared. The prospect of working to improve those aspects of herself was one she would have scoffed at a few months ago - changing herself to appeal more to people she didn’t like, so that she could be better at faking conversations she found tedious.

Before the Normandy, Miranda hadn’t done friendships. She hadn’t done relationships. Jacob had been her only exception on both counts, and that had fizzled in a few short months. She didn’t go out for drinks with people after work. She didn’t want to, or care to. She’d seen how social other people were, and brushed it off as a massive waste of time. Something that didn’t interest her, or appeal to her in any way. So what had been the utility in working to become better at something she had no intention of doing anyway?

If the old Miranda had had her way, she would never have interacted with anyone unless there was a purpose behind it - getting something she wanted out of that person in return. Conversations were like transactions, or else what was the point of them? She valued others for their usefulness, just as her aptitude and her skills were what others always valued in her.

But none of that was true anymore.

On the Normandy, Miranda hadn’t been able to continue the same patterns of behaviour she had in the past. For as long as she’d been with Cerberus, nobody had ever really cared about her closed-off personality, as long as she’d gotten the job done. And her hypercompetence had quickly led her to rise through the ranks, into positions of authority.

She didn’t have to deal with people’s quirks. She was in charge, and she reported directly to The Illusive Man. So, when Miranda told people to do things, they did them, no matter how much they didn’t like her.

Miranda hadn’t been able to get away with that on the Normandy, not that she hadn’t tried. She’d issued commands and expected them to be followed, and it hadn’t worked the way it used to. Her squadmates weren’t Cerberus. Even the members of the crew weren’t really. They’d been recruited specifically for this mission. That made most of them fundamentally different from the diehard Cerberus agents Miranda had worked with in the past.

People didn’t respond to her the way she’d expected them to respond. They’d been difficult, and complex, and often baffling to her, like puzzles that had to be solved before they would heed her instructions and advice, which was something Miranda had no time for. Most of them would still begrudgingly do what she said, but it wasn’t lost on Miranda that she didn’t command anywhere near the same level of respect that Shepard did.

Being this close to so many different types of people had forced Miranda (however unwilling she was) to step out of her comfort zone. She still hadn’t learned how to talk to people, or figured out what wasn’t working with her regular approach. But, for almost the first time in her life, she’d formed actual bonds with people, made real friends. With a select few in particular, but, really, even the weaker social connections she’d formed on the Normandy were a huge leap compared to where she’d stood a few months ago - where she’d considered every single person under her command disposable. Shepard didn’t lead that way, for good reason.

For the first time in her life, Miranda had finally started to concede that she might have been wrong all those times before - that maybe she had actually been missing out on something for all those years that she’d dismissed the idea of pursuing friendships with people, or working to become more social.

Needless to say, there was one specific person who entered her mind when she thought about that. The one person who had been more responsible than any other for changing her perspective.

“Enough about me. What do you think of Samara?” Miranda prompted next, ready to change the subject.

“Samara…” Kelly trailed off, a slightly pained smile crossing her lips. “Samara is actually the person I’m most worried about on this ship.”

Miranda instantly straightened up, surprised to hear that. “Oh?” She shifted in her seat. She wasn’t sure if that might have been because Kelly had somehow accessed Samara’s old medical records too. Miranda still felt uncomfortable about having gone behind Samara’s back like that, and she knew she had to apologise for doing it, although it was a question of finding the right time to admit to her wrongdoing. “...Why, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Because I haven’t seen any signs of progress with her mental health, and I can’t foresee a path to recovery for her at this time,” Kelly conceded. “I mean, think about it. She’s been in pain for four hundred years. She’s taken the life of her own child. That’s unfathomable to either of us.”

Miranda’s brow creased. Kelly wasn’t wrong, exactly. She knew Samara still carried a lot of grief from her past. But ending Morinth’s killing spree had caused a fundamental change in her. Samara had been so quiet and reserved before that, so focused on the task that lay ahead of her. Since Morinth’s passing, she’d been so much more open, and conversational.

“You really don’t see any change in her after Morinth?” Miranda asked, unable to let that slide.

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Kelly shook her head. “Killing her own daughter may have closed a chapter in her life, but it hasn’t healed her wounds. She’s a strong woman, but she still carries that shroud of sorrow with her everywhere. I don’t think she knows how to live without it. And I’m not certain she wants to.”

“It’s not always there,” Miranda spoke up, much to Kelly’s surprise. “Most of the time when I talk to her, she seems perfectly fine to me. Happy, even. I imagine Shepard would say the same.”

Kelly was visibly intrigued to hear that. “You talk to Samara a lot?”

“Is there any reason I shouldn’t?” Miranda shrugged in reply, not sure why that warranted comment.

“No, no, not at all,” Kelly assured her, shaking her head and waving her hands to clear up any misunderstanding. “Samara did mention that you’ve been training together. Even meditating, which I admit I found difficult to believe at first. I just wasn’t aware you spent so much time with her. Do you...talk with her a lot?”

“Most days,” Miranda replied. Actually, she couldn’t remember the last day she hadn’t seen Samara. “I enjoy her company. She’s a very intelligent woman.”

“You have that in common,” Kelly acknowledged.

Miranda paused and glanced down, thinking about their connection over the past few months. “Samara’s...helped me a lot, actually. Sometimes it seems like she knows me better than I know myself. Those things you observed about me before, she’s the one who’s been...encouraging me to do more self-reflection, and reassess my perspective on things. And those changes you said you’ve seen in me, she’s a big part of the reason why I’ve taken those steps. Or tried to.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” Kelly enthused, genuinely happy for her.

A small smile came to Miranda’s lips. “I’ve learned a lot from her. I’d say she’s been like a mentor, but it’s never once felt like she’s talking down to me. She’s never treated me as less than an equal. She’s simply offering her point of view, as I offer mine to her. But I’d be lying if I said I haven’t benefited from her advice far more than she’s benefited from mine. But I suppose wisdom and insight come easily to someone nearing a thousand years old.”

“You like her a lot, huh?” Kelly mused, idly resting her head on her hand.

“Of course. For as different as we are, we share a lot in common. And I know I’m supposed to be neutral and unbiased but, let’s be honest, she was always going to be my favourite person on this ship,” Miranda remarked.

Kelly chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“I don’t know what I expected her to be like, but she’s so...non-judgemental, for someone whose role is to be judge, jury and executioner,” Miranda remarked, still trying to wrap her head around Samara the person and Samara the Justicar. The two were so intertwined that it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began, but there were definitely distinctions. The interplay between her personal views and this rigid Code were fascinating to ponder, particularly for someone such as Miranda who had never been religious or spiritual.  

“I suppose I can understand where you’re coming from, though,” Miranda continued, reflecting on Kelly’s earlier observation. “She does have a sorrow that she carries with her. I wish I could say that I fully understand it. I’ve tried to but I don’t. I think she’s used to dealing with it alone, not sharing it with anyone, which I respect. But the day after she killed Morinth, she even told me that she wouldn’t hold it against me if I didn’t want to be around her while she was grieving, and that she wouldn’t think any less of me for abandoning her at such a dark time. I was blown away. I virtually had to tell her, Samara, I’m not here out of a sense of obligation or a sense of pity. I’m here for you because I want to be.”

“But she accepted your help?” Kelly prompted.

“Yes, if you can call it that,” Miranda acknowledged. “I’m not a...sensitive person, by any means. I’ve never claimed to be. I couldn’t pretend that I know what to say or do when someone is going through something so...horrible. But I’ve tried my best to be there for her. Keep her company, when she’s needed it. I’d like to think that’s been of some comfort to her. I suppose it has, because she hasn’t kicked me out yet. I mean, there was one time where I said something that crossed a line, but I apologised for that and she accepted it.”

“What did you say?” Kelly asked.

“Ugh. I barely even remember,” Miranda lied. She remembered perfectly. “I made some flippant remark about Zaeed having a crush on her, and asked her if her Code allows for...dalliances. I realise now that was inappropriate, and she’s not comfortable with me joking about that. I certainly won’t do it again.”

“Good for you for owning that,” Kelly enthused, genuinely. That was progress.

“Yeah, well...” Miranda shrugged, rubbing the back of her neck. She didn’t feel comfortable admitting to Kelly that there was another, much greater sin she still needed to apologise to Samara for which she hadn’t owned up to. She couldn’t tell Kelly that, because it involved secrets that weren’t hers to share.

“So, uh...is that all you think about Samara, or...?” Kelly idly probed, as if trying to keep an unreadable expression. Miranda glanced back at her, curious. “Hey, you asked me for my opinion. It only seems fair that I get to ask you for yours.”

Miranda couldn’t exactly argue with that. “I don’t know where you want me to start. There’s a lot I could say. And a lot that I’ve said already. I mean, she’s an incredible woman. She’s strong, and she’s kind, and selfless almost to a fault, although she’s far from being a doormat. She’s patient, and understanding. When you see her in battle, she’s so graceful and precise. She can literally float on air like a feather. I’ve never seen anyone use such powerful biotics so elegantly, and so effortlessly, like an extension of themselves,

“One thing that’s really amazing about her that I don’t think a lot of people know is that, even though she’s been travelling around the galaxy for centuries, she still has this...youthful sense of curiosity and adventure. Honestly, I think she was secretly more excited about getting to meet and travel with humans than I was the first time I went into space. You’d expect her to be jaded, but she’s not. She really isn’t. Despite everything she’s been through, and all the injustice she’s seen, she believes the universe is fundamentally full of good people,

“There’s so much that I admire about her. Her wisdom. Her humility. How principled she is. Her honesty. Her tact. I wasn’t expecting it at all, but...frankly, it’s been an honour and a privilege getting to know her, and to be able to call her a friend. Everyone could stand to learn something from someone like her. And I think the galaxy would be better off if there were more people like Samara in it.” 

Miranda trailed off, not even really paying attention to what she was saying. It was a stream of consciousness, really. Thinking aloud. She only lifted her gaze after she realised several seconds of silence had passed with no response. She looked up to find Kelly grinning at her in a manner Miranda could only describe as disconcertingly cheerful.

“What?” Miranda asked, regarding her with an odd look.

“Nothing. It’s just...that was very sweet.” At that answer, Miranda tilted her head in confusion, not sure what that was supposed to mean. “You know, hearing you...say nice things about someone else,” said Kelly, waving her hand as if trying to downplay her reaction. Miranda wasn’t sure she was being entirely honest with her as to why she was so interested all of a sudden. “Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make you self-conscious. You know what? Forget I said anything.”

“I do that every time you say anything,” Miranda dryly quipped, suddenly remembering precisely what it was about Kelly that she didn’t like. To her credit, Kelly only snickered at Miranda’s snarky comment, not taking it personally. 

“You know, this is the sixth session we’ve had together, and this is the first time we’ve actually talked,” Kelly pointed out, very pleased with that.

Miranda rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll never make that mistake again. Am I free to leave?”

“Aw, I was really enjoying this…” Kelly playfully remarked, sensing that Miranda’s apparent disdain lacked most of the bite it once used to possess. “I swear, this stays between us. I won’t tell anyone you have a heart. I promise! It’s our secret!” 

The door had already shut behind Miranda before Kelly finished calling out to her.

*     *     *

Living with tinnitus was straight up hell.

If Miranda managed to get to sleep before 2am, it was a fucking luxury. Some nights, she didn’t get to sleep at all. When she did, there was no rest waiting for her.

The sounds of bullets and biotic blasts and banshees shrieking in the dark echoed in her head, unpleasant dreams drowning out the ringing in her ear. Every night when she closed her eye, the battle began all over again. She was back at the barricade. Back in that shuttle. Back to hiding from people who would track her down and kill her if she put a foot wrong.

Every night she ran from Cerberus.

Every night she felt Kai Leng stab her in the stomach.

Every night she went to war, and led her whole team to their deaths. 

Every night she watched husks, marauders and banshees tear her team apart.

Every night she woke up to the disemboweled corpse of the shuttle pilot dripping blood onto her face.

Every night the impaled soldier begged Miranda for help she couldn’t give him. Every night she left him to die.

Miranda rolled onto her back and pressed her hand to her forehead, not sure whether it was worse to lay awake with that piercing sound blaring like a siren in her soul, or to revisit the ghosts that were waiting for her in her nightmares, and that made her wake up in a cold sweat.

One way or another, it was a deafening cacophony. Louder than a hurricane. She couldn’t even remember the sound of silence anymore.

When was this going to stop? When was she going to be able to sleep again?

Sometimes, it was too much to face. So she just didn’t. She didn’t go through the torment of trying to block out the ringing in her ear long enough that she could go back to the harrowing memories that awaited her there.

Sometimes, she would slip out and climb up to the roof so she could breathe. Other nights, she would limp out onto the street and go somewhere near the water. The flow of the river was one of the only things that could drown out the ringing for a while. She would head back when the sun began to rise, before Jack’s students noticed she was missing.

Miranda had played Oriana’s messages on loop so many times in those restless nights, she knew them word for word. She would never get sick of listening to her talk about her day, and telling bad jokes to try and make her laugh. Miranda never did laugh. Not these days. But that didn’t matter. It was the thought that counted.

Miranda had taken the time to respond back, recording a message in the cold night air on the roof. She’d told her about the status of things on Earth. About finding Jack. About taking on responsibility for her students, at least until Jack recovered. Hopefully, she would get a response in the next few days.

She’d thought of Samara, and tried her hand at meditating. It hadn’t helped. She couldn’t focus. Couldn’t meditate. Because that ringing her ear was so loud. And it wouldn’t. Fucking. Stop.

Other days, she just stayed up and worked. She had a list of names. Everyone aboard The Normandy. Past and present. All the missing. And the scant few who had lived.

It wasn’t easy to track down next of kin, with how long and how widespread the war against the Reapers had been. But it was her duty to do it. With Shepard gone, and The Normandy missing, Miranda was the only thing left resembling a commanding officer.

She had to write to them eventually. She knew she had to. But how could she when she had nothing to say?

Why hadn’t they heard from them yet?

Miranda sat up and grimaced, running her hand through her hair. She couldn’t keep thinking about The Normandy. She couldn’t. Because, if she did, she couldn’t keep living in denial.

She would have to acknowledge the fact that nothing could ever be changed or remedied or healed. She’d gotten a second chance with Jack. A chance to rectify past wrongs, and admit her faults. But what about Shepard? Tali. Garrus. Doctor Chakwas. Kelly Chambers, who’d most likely died on the Citadel. Zaeed. Grunt. Kasumi. Not to mention Mordin and Thane.

It was too late. No apologies could ever be given for her mistakes. She’d never be able to tell them that she’d changed from the person she was a year ago. That she understood now why they hadn’t liked her. That they’d been right about her. Things that never bothered her before now curdled in her throat with the bitter taste of impotent regret.

Miranda’s jaw clenched as her fingernails dragged against her skin, her hand tightening into a fist, that incessant ringing growing louder and louder. 

No. She couldn’t lose her cool. She wouldn’t. Getting frustrated, getting emotional, it felt like admitting defeat - letting that damn ringing win. She could do this.

Miranda drew a deep breath, trying to will herself to let go of her thoughts, and to stop letting them eat away at her. Beating herself up wouldn’t change anything. It was pointless to stew on the fates of her crewmates, or the team she’d led to Earth, or the soldiers who’d died in the shuttle. So why couldn’t she chase those ghosts from her head?

She rubbed her palm across her eye, trying to compose herself.

Not for the first time, she wished Samara was there. She was the only person Miranda could have talked to about something like this - the only person whose advice ever helped her make sense of what she was feeling, and the only person who knew how to guide Miranda to put things into perspective. Never patronising. Never condescending. Honest, but fair. A confidant.

But this wasn’t like the old days. She couldn’t just walk into the Starboard Observation Deck when she needed Samara’s advice. Miranda had no way of contacting her now, wherever she was. No way of knowing if she was ever coming back. Whether she was still alive.

She had to deal with this alone.

And, despite being surrounded by people, she’d never felt more alone in her life.

A knock on the door disturbed her restlessness. For a moment, she thought it was a hallucination. But then it happened again. “Who is it?” Miranda grumbled. She felt sick. Her head was throbbing.

The door opened a crack. “Sorry, Miss. I didn’t want to wake you up,” Rodriguez’s recogniseable voice apologetically began.

“It’s alright,” Miranda murmured as she sat up, cradling her blaring forehead, concealing her grogginess. It wasn’t as though she’d been sleeping anyway. “What do you need?”

“Yeah, um. Reiley’s been coughing a lot. Think he might have caught something. I was wondering if you had something to give him for it,” Rodriguez asked, shifting back and forth between her feet.

“Check the middle cabinet above the sink. There should be a blue bottle with cough medicine,” said Miranda, fingers perched against her forehead in a futile effort to fight off the headache attacking her skull from the inside. She’d tried to use cold medicine as a sleep aid before, to little success.

“Right. Thanks, Miss,” said Rodriguez, turning to leave. 

The door clicked shut. A bleary-eyed glance at the clock beside her bed told Miranda the time. Four o’clock in the morning. She hadn’t slept a wink. It didn’t look like that would change anytime soon.

With a heavy sigh, Miranda pushed herself up and headed to her desk. She had nothing but time. She might as well use it constructively, and address one of her problems. Something she had been putting off for too long.

She began to type.

To Admiral Shala’Raan vas Rannoch,

To Castis and Solana Vakarian,

To Feron,

To Abby, Lynn and Sarah Williams,

Regarding the status of

your husband

your daughter

your mother

your brother

I regret to inform you that the whereabouts of

Samantha Traynor

Steve Cortez

James Vega

Greg Adams

are still unknown.

I had the pleasure of serving with

Gabriella.

Ken.

Karin.

Jeff.

They were fine people. Among the finest.

Rest assured that I will do everything in my power

will personally see to it

will not abandon this cause until answers are found.

I will not stop until I can give

Ensign Copeland

Private Campbell

Private Westmoreland

Diana Allers

the justice of knowing what happened to them.

I will continue searching until I find out what happened to

Rupert Gardener

Sarah Patel

Zach Matthews

Jennifer Goldstein

Kelly Chambers

I understand this is a difficult time for you, as it is for all of us. I know that there is little that I can say that would ease your pain. But I hope it is of some comfort to you to know that not one soul who has ever served aboard the Normandy, past or present, has been overlooked.

That is my oath to you; that none of these names will ever slip through the cracks. If there are answers to be found, I will find them. No one will be left behind.

As long as I am alive, they will never be forgotten.

Yours sincerely,

Yours faithfully,

Regards,

Miranda Lawson.

*     *     *

“See, this is why I don’t understand Shepard’s obsession with collecting fish,” Miranda commented, taking another salmon nigiri in her chopsticks. “Every time I look at that tank, all I can think about is which one of them would taste best with wasabi. And, yes, I am aware that makes me sound like a krogan; they’re not right about many things, but we see eye to eye on fish being delicious.”

“Did you never have a pet?” Samara remarked, finding it very difficult to believe Miranda legitimately didn’t understand Shepard’s attachment to those fish.

In response, Miranda merely paused and stared at her.

“...That was an uninsightful question,” Samara acknowledged, shaking her head at her poorly judged query. Of course the answer was obvious. Miranda’s father had deprived her of anything resembling joy.

“No offence, but part of me is glad that you’re capable of making mistakes. I was starting to wonder for a while there. It’s nice to remember that you’re still human,” Miranda light-heartedly told her. She blinked, catching her own error. “...Figuratively speaking,” she added belatedly.

Miranda didn’t fail to notice the glimmer of amusement in Samara’s eyes at that comment.

It was a nice change of scenery, spending time with Samara on the Citadel. Shepard had granted everyone some shore leave while EDI was busy installing the Reaper IFF. Shepard was off somewhere in Zakera Ward, probably looking to purchase some more upgrades. Everyone else had been left to their own devices.

Samara had been curious to see how much the Citadel had changed since her last visit, which had been many centuries ago. Miranda had been only too glad to follow along at Samara’s invitation, watching as she wandered the Wards, listening to stories of what used to be there, and hints of the memories they held.

She’d pointed out a bank that used to be a nightclub. The mercenary group that Samara used to travel with frequented it. Apparently, they’d had some...interesting times there, in her youth. Samara hadn’t elaborated beyond that, but Miranda certainly wasn’t naive to the implication.

That clothing store in the corner used to go by a different name. It must have changed hands dozens of times in the intervening years. One of Samara’s sisters used to work there, and eventually became the owner of the store. Samara had wondered aloud what had ever become of her half-sister - if she ever did realise her dream of becoming a fashion designer.

Over by that fountain, Samara’s father had nearly gotten arrested there. All a big misunderstanding, of course. Evidently, she hadn’t realised the hanar would take the comment so personally. The young Samara had been mortified, and had apparently yelled at her father for a solid three hours for being so thoughtless, earning comparisons to her mother. 

It had been a refreshing change, seeing Samara so relaxed and casual. It wasn’t lost on Miranda that this was probably the closest thing Samara had had to a ‘day off’ in four hundred years. She was clearly enjoying it, nostalgic for happier times.

Once it started to get late, Miranda had invited Samara to visit her favourite sushi joint. She hadn’t been keeping track of how long it had been since they got to the restaurant, but the time they’d spent there had just flown by. Tables that arrived after them had already finished their meals and left, but Miranda and Samara were in no hurry to join them. Not a moment went by where they didn’t find themselves comfortably drifting into some new and interesting conversation.

“If I may ask, how old were you when humanity first made contact with other species?” Samara asked her. 

“Seven,” Miranda answered, cleansing her palette with ginger. “Why?”

“Being among the crowds and diversity of the Citadel reminds me that, however quickly humanity has adapted, this is still a novelty for your species,” Samara observed. “I have known many things, but I have never known a time when asari were alone in the galaxy.”

“Well, we knew there was other life in the galaxy because of the Prothean technology uncovered on Mars. That discovery wasn’t terribly long before I was born. We had already begun to colonise other planets by the time I was aware of the world. We just didn’t know how long it would be before we met you,” Miranda explained.

“I am not particularly familiar with human aging, but seven would be more than old enough to have distinct memories and some comprehension of The First Contact War, would it not?” Samara asked, curious. Miranda nodded. “What do you remember of that time?”

Miranda paused. “...It was the first and only time in my life I ever saw my father afraid of anything.”

“Intriguing. What did he fear?” Samara prompted her to elaborate, levitating a piece of sushi towards her with her biotics.

“That we had been foolish, delving out into space,” she answered. “That any aliens we made contact with would be hostile conquerers, and that the skirmish on Shanxi was just a prelude to a turian armada finding their way to Earth and wiping us all out.” Given his response, it had been no wonder why he had become a Cerberus supporter once The Illusive Man published his manifesto. “Your species helped calm things down pretty quickly, though. I respected that. My father didn’t.”

“It is not an unfounded response,” Samara acknowledged. “The Rachni Wars and the Krogan Rebellions were long before my time, but they are evidence of how contact with new species is not without danger.”

Miranda’s expression darkened at her response. “You agree with my father, then?”

“No.” Samara shook her head, at ease. “My experience of the galaxy, and that of my kind as a whole, is that meeting new species is most often a beneficial and positive experience, and rarely a negative one. We would all be lesser without the galactic community. However, it would be arrogance to simply dismiss alternative points of view. They are not entirely unwarranted.”

“I don’t really need you defending my father’s views on anything,” Miranda somewhat curtly replied. There was no anger in her words, just a frank statement of fact. Samara blinked, mildly taken aback. “I was exposed to them relentlessly. He tried to control me and make me think the same way. I was never allowed to disagree. So, suffice it to say, if I hold a different opinion, it’s not for lack of ‘seeing his side’,” she muttered, turning over a piece of sushi between her chopsticks before picking it up.

“...Forgive me.” Samara bowed her head slightly, in respectful deference. “I am aware you did not have a...pleasant relationship with your father. It should have occurred to me to be mindful of your history with him, especially after I have advised you to do the same for others in the past.”

Miranda sighed, realising how she’d come off. “No, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s not your fault. But a lot of things remind me of him. And it’s never in a good way.”

“Nevertheless, I apologise,” said Samara, unfazed.

Miranda frowned. If she was being entirely honest, the ‘father’ issue had been more of a raw nerve with her than usual ever since Miranda had been forced to confront just how much her own behaviour echoed that of the man she despised. 

“Did you have a good relationship with your parents?” Miranda asked, changing the subject.

“Yes, although I was often unappreciative,” Samara told her, floating another piece of sushi towards herself.

“Again, very hard to imagine,” Miranda commented, accompanying that with a pointed finger from the hand that held her chopsticks. Young Samara really did sound completely unlike the Samara of today. Most of the time, anyway. The parts about lecturing people on the virtues of independence and self-sufficiency Miranda could totally believe.

“As you are aware, both my parents were asari. I was raised by both my mother and my father, though never at the same time,” Samara explained.

“Were they separated?” Miranda intuited.

“They were never bondmates. But yes. Their relationship was brief, and I was the only child of their union,” Samara answered. “I primarily lived with my mother. My father was adventurous, often absent-minded...”

“Prone to getting arrested in front of fountains,” Miranda added, dipping another piece of sushi into some soy sauce.

“Yes,” Samara acknowledged, which almost made Miranda snort. “She was by far the more permissive parent. She did not believe in structure or discipline. She was also, shall we say...very generous with her affections.”

“Is that why you have so many half-sisters you probably don’t even know about?” Miranda wryly remarked, remembering their prior conversation about that.

“It contributed,” Samara conceded, perhaps missing Miranda’s half-joking tone. From her demeanour, Samara clearly didn’t bear any negative feelings towards her father for that. Miranda wondered if she once felt differently, or if that kind of sexual freedom was so normalised for asari that it simply wasn’t an issue. “In contrast, my mother was stern and strong-willed, which meant we often fought. From an early age, I yearned to travel the galaxy. She...did not encourage that ambition, and wanted me to focus on my studies. It was only later in life that I realised her strictness had been born from love, and that her desire for me to remain close to her on Thessia was the only way she knew how to express it.”

“Reminds me of someone I know,” Miranda observed, regarding Samara with knowing eyes. Samara didn’t deny the similarity. She definitely took after her mother, even if she had inherited her father’s adventurousness. “I remember you mentioning before that you felt like you lost your opportunity to reconcile with her.”

Samara’s eyes glistened wistfully. “That is correct.”

“What happened?” Miranda asked, curious to know.

“The last time we spoke, we had a terrible argument. I was young, and fed up with her restrictions. I told her I was going to come here to live with my father. She insisted I was making a terrible mistake and that, if I left, I would not be welcome to return. I took her at her word,” Samara relayed. 

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Miranda commented, in an effort to be comforting.

“That is because I am skipping over the part where we each said some very hurtful things to one another,” Samara pointed out.

“Oh.” Miranda’s shoulders sank a little.

“Forgive me. This must sound trivial to you.”

“No. Not at all.” Miranda shook her head. That was the opposite of true. “Why didn’t you reconcile earlier?” Miranda asked, shifting the subject away from herself. Based on her mental timeline of Samara’s life, Samara and her mother could have gone as long as three hundred years without speaking before her death.

“We were both too proud to apologise. But I did love my mother, and I know she loved me, in her own way. I am fortunate that I have many happy memories with her,” said Samara, at peace with that aspect of her past. 

“What about your father?” Miranda prompted, listening intently.

“I was not with her when she died, but we parted on good terms the last time I visited her. It pains me to say it, but...I honestly cannot remember what the last words I said to her were, nor her to me,” Samara confessed.

“If it’s any consolation, at least you know they were better than the last words my father said to me,” Miranda offered.

“What were they?” Samara queried.

“’Shoot to kill. Don’t let her escape’,” Miranda bluntly replied. Samara didn’t react, which helped Miranda feel a little less like a freak due to her abnormal childhood. “I suppose that was technically a command to his men, not to me.”

“Does it make you uncomfortable to hear others talk about their relationships with their parents?” Samara asked, well aware that she had enjoyed privileges Miranda had not in that regard.

“No,” Miranda answered honestly. “My childhood was what it was. I don’t begrudge anyone for having a better one than mine.”

“You are not envious?” said Samara, genuinely impressed if that was the case. 

“Well, I didn’t say that, but it’s also hard to envy what I never had. My father was never a father to me. And I never even had a mother, or any kind of maternal figure. Just some altered genetic sequences taken from dozens of women I never met,” Miranda contemplated aloud.

“Do you wish that you had met them? Or that you had been raised by a mother figure?” Samara asked.

“That’s difficult to say. I might be a completely different person, if I had been. Unless she was exactly like my father. In that case, no - having one of him was bad enough,” Miranda muttered. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought about this, but there had never been a clear answer. “It’s complicated. Part of me obviously wishes I hadn’t had these experiences, and that I’d had a childhood more like yours instead. That’s why I made sure Oriana never had to go through what I did. But, at the same time, if I’d been raised differently, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I don’t know if I’d be better or worse. But I wouldn’t be me.”

“And I would not be who I am today had I not weathered great tragedy,” Samara replied. Miranda felt a sliver of guilt, well aware of the devastating events she had endured in her past. More so than Samara realised. “Would you tell me that I was wrong if I wished my life had been otherwise?”

“No. Of course not,” said Miranda. The agony Samara had suffered was...soul-crushing. Miranda wouldn’t wish that upon her worst enemy. “But I’d rather confront reality than dwell on things that could have been.”

“And you are right to. It is folly to deny that which cannot be changed. But that which befell you was not what created the woman I see before me today,” Samara assured her. “You do not owe your character to any aspect of your father’s mistreatment of you. That you have grown into a capable, determined and resilient woman in spite of his abuse can only be attributable to your own strength. And that cannot be accredited to him. Your response to those events came entirely from within you. That is what truly makes you exceptional.”

Miranda’s lip curled into a small, lopsided smile. “I don’t know whether I can believe that, but thank you for saying it. I appreciate it. And everything you’ve done for me,” Miranda added. This mission had been far less tolerable before Samara came along. So had Miranda herself.

“And I am also grateful that events transpired to allow the two of us to meet, just as I am content with the person I have become,” Samara concluded, her expression as peaceful as her voice. 

They both sat in contented silence for a moment, each grateful for the rapport they shared in their own way. For Miranda, this was the first time she’d ever formed such a meaningful connection with another person. For Samara, she was savouring a genuine friendship for the first time in over four centuries.

“If I may...” Samara began. “I do not know why you chose to spend your limited shore leave listening to this foolish, tired old woman prattle on about the distant past, but...thank you, for accompanying me. I have enjoyed this a great deal.”

Miranda smirked. “First of all, there’s nothing tired or foolish about you. So jot that down,” she said, gesturing as she spoke.

“I am flattered. Although, you greatly misjudge me,” Samara replied.

“Secondly,” Miranda leaned forward conspiratorially, “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve had a lot of fun today too,” she half-whispered, as if it was their little secret. “And I would gladly listen to you prattle on about the distant past again any time.”

Samara’s smile reached her eyes. “Now I know you are flattering me.” 

Suddenly, Miranda’s communicator beeped, disturbing the moment.

“Operator Lawson,” EDI’s voice came out, “The Reaper IFF is nearly online. Commander Shepard has requested all crew return to The Normandy. We will disembark in approximately one hour.”

“Thank you, EDI. Samara and I are on our way,” said Miranda, ending the transmission. For as much fun as they had been having together, the mission always took priority, for both of them. “I still can’t believe we have a geth crewmate now,” she remarked, paying the tab remotely from her omni-tool, leaving behind a generous tip as she always did for this place. “If someone had told me that a few days ago, I would have sent them for a psychological evaluation.”

“You should speak to Legion, if you have the time,” Samara recommended, getting up from the table and following Miranda out of the restaurant. “I found him very enlightening, both as an…’individual’, and because he provides fascinating insights into a species we know little about.”

Miranda was sceptical, but she gave Samara’s opinion of Legion a hell of a lot more credence than she would have done for anyone else. “I’ll think about it.”

As they approached the cab terminal, a holographic advertising board lit up.

“Waiting for a cab, Miranda Lawson?” asked the digital projection of an asari. “An elegant woman like you with an education in -DATA UNAVAILABLE- and an income of -DATA UNAVAILABLE- should be taking charge of your own destiny. You could be showing Justicar Samara the sights of the Citadel in your very own luxury, hand-crafted skycar from Tennekont. Now, wouldn’t that be an impressive way to end a night out on the town?”

Miranda snorted and shook her head as the billboard rattled on through a series of commercials. “I hate these personalised ads,” she said, hailing a cab.

“Do not worry. If you ever did wish to impress me, I would not recommend you follow that advice,” Samara remarked. “Aside from the fact that Justicars eschew personal possessions, in my experience, Tennekont have never been able to manufacture skycars the way they used to four hundred years ago.”

Miranda smirked. Either she was just imagining things, or Samara was...actually funny for a second there. “Did you just make a joke?” she asked.

“I would never joke about something so important,” Samara assured her, a glint of humour in her eyes. That time, Miranda did crack up just a little bit.

*     *     *

#fic #mass effect #miranda lawson #samara #femslash

[sherlolo-land]

Okay, we’d like to go over some of our favorite parts of this post. Now, we’re not here to tell you that you absolutely have to hate Mary with every fiber of your being, because that’s an opinion for each person to decide on their own. We are just here to talk about why some of the reasoning in this particular post is laughable.

1. Right off the bat, it compares Johnlockers to the obnoxious boy in the scenario raising his voice at someone who disagrees. Lmao. We know what you guys think of Johnlockers. We don’t need to waste time proving that the hate against us is both hypocritical and blown out of proportion. For more info, simply search this blog. It’s just funny how ya’ll can never make any arguments against us without resorting to ad hominem attacks at least once. Or in this case, from the very beginning.

2. Mary’s “unforgivable sins.” The examples you give of us searching for any reasons to demonize her are…. not the best. You picked examples that made it easiest for you to say “See, look how reaching your arguments are!” You basically said we think she’s evil because she playfully teases Sherlock, tries to keep her family safe, and doesn’t reveal her identity right away. I think you know that there are much better examples to argue that Mary is not a good person, but you intentionally didn’t use them. You went for the smallest points in our argument instead and presented it like it was the core of it. To me, this shows that even you see the weakness in your own argument. And regarding Mary’s abandonment, John himself thought it was incredibly selfish of her to run off instead of working things out with him. His words, originally, not ours.

3. Mary’s smile. Now its my turn to call the argument reaching. I’d say, claiming Mary was smiling just so Magnussen wouldn’t have another pressure point on her is one interpretation you could use if you were desperately trying to make her actions in these scene less detestable. If you love Mary and want to think this to make yourself feel better about her, go right ahead. Make it your fanon. But claiming that it’s a cold, hard fact? Nope, nice try. There’s nothing in that scene to suggest that that smile was only for Magnussen. That’s your personal headcanon, and there is a difference between that and canon.

4. “A large number of people claim they hated Mary before His Last Vow…However, if she was disliked before she actually deserved that, what does it say about those fans?” It’s not a crime to dislike a character. Johnlockers are held to this ridiculous standard of not being allowed to speak a single negative word about any character (esp. a woman). Why aren’t other fans held to the same standard? Why is it okay for Sherl0llians (and sometimes Adl0ckers too) to vehemently and openly hate John with everything in their soul? They are never accused of hating someone for getting in the way of their ship or being biased in their opinions. On the flip side, how come no one is making this same argument about ppl who loved Mary? There are people who loved her right from the start, and throughout everything afterwards (the assassin reveal, the shooting, the lying, the abandonment, the belittling, the selfishness…), she remained a saint in their eyes. How is this different from someone disliking Mary from the start and holding onto that opinion no matter what?

5. “Nothing an antagonist can do to be redeemed, it seems. I don’t want to say a female antagonist, but I am thinking that (Irene Adler, for instance, is still described as a villain.)” *claps for you* Omg what an original argument to make against the big, bad misogynistic Johnlockers! I’ve never ever heard that one before! … Shucks, and here I was thinking I was reading a well-written, organized post that for once didn’t resort to calling Johnlockers sexist for no reason. And about Irene, she may not have necessarily been a villain, but she was an antagonist. She was a force working against Sherlock throughout ASiB. She worked for Moriarty. She was a adversary for him. Does that make her a horrible, evil person? No. But don’t act like it’s a crime to call her what she is. An antagonist. And chances are, if someone uses the word “villain” instead of antagonist or adversary, it’s probably just a word preference. It’s not that deep fam.

6. “It’s best, I believe, to look at the facts and try to be objective.” Okay, then let’s look at all her crimes and despicable acts that you left out of your earlier arguments. Wait… but that would tear apart the point you’re trying to make.

7. Before she shot him, she clearly warned him not to come closer and expressed her remorse. Aka: It’s okay to shoot your friend (who is offering to help you) in the chest just because they bet on you having a conscience and decided to take a step closer to you. And afterwards, it’s best to express your remorse by threatening to shoot them again when you think no one is looking.

8. “Sherlock clearly forgave her and they remained friends” See here’s the thing. We were never actually shown this. We were shown Sherlock escaping dying at her hands a second time, then John making up with her with that ominous, carefully worded, possibly double-edged “The problems of your future are my privilege.” Then Sherlock shot Cam to keep John and Mary safe (yes, John too). Then we got TAB, where Sherlock solved the mystery of a bride who shot people and envisioned John’s marriage going downhill. It was sublte, but throughout all that, there was always the very plausible possibility that there was something more going on. After all, it would’ve made a much better story than Mary trying to kill her supposed friend twice and John forgiving her, despite that decision going against all his previous character development. So yeah, it’s not a surprise (nor the viewer’s fault) for scratching their head when TST aired and Sherlock and Mary were suddenly besties. Something else to understand here re: s4: The question isn’t whether or not he forgave her. They made that pretty obvious. The question we simply have is why?? It’s not a crime to wonder about this instead of just accepting whatever the writers give us, especially when it has no consistency or sense behind it.

9. “She’s been criticised for her sass in HLV, after the shooting, when she dared not to grovel at John’s feet, begging for his forgiveness.” Ask yourself, does her little quip in HLV make you see her as a funny, quirky badass? Why? Genuinely ask yourself why. Why shouldn’t she ask his forgiveness for trying to murder his best friend in cold blood, and apologize like any semi-decent human being would have done? Why is it so “uwu cute and badass” that all she had to say about the situation were some snarky sarcastic comments? See, this is an example of Mary being able to do literally anything, and still be worshipped for it. She’s a woman and can therefore literally commit murder and its uwu so cute. I don't understand how saying “omg wow she tried to kill her friend and DARED to not apologize for it, you go girl!” is helping your argument that she’s really not so bad of a person. (It does, however, help the argument that she would have made an incredible, very interesting, and entertaining villain, so thanks for that).  

10. “Regardless of Mary’s actions and her motivations, she was bound to be hated, simply because she was in a relationship with John.” *claps again* Ohmygod wow you are so smart, I have never heard anyone say that before. Jesus, can ya’ll simply make your argument for once without resorting to calling us sexist? Or insulting our intelligence by implying that we can’t tell the difference between someone getting in the way of our ship and someone being a despicable person who should not be worshipped and praised? And it’s  funny cause i double some of ya’ll would love and stan her so much if she wasn't in a relationship with John. You guys just love being able to use that excuse. You love that she blocks Johnlock and you love her for existing to do just that. If she was just a random side character who shows up in S3, makes some snarky comments, becomes friends with them, and then tries to kill Sherlock, I doubt you guys would still feel the same about her.

11. “But when people demonise her and twist her every word to make her look like the evilest woman on earth, I have to disagree.” / “Mary is not as evil as some people think.” Listen, I agree. I don’t think every single thing she does is horrible. People can often be unfair when talking about her. Both in defending everything she does, and villainizing everything she does. I get it. But hating Mary or interpreting her as a villain is not a fucking crime. There are numerous reasons to support this reading, as you said yourself. I personally don’t see any redeeming qualities in her that make her a character worth forgiving or liking. If you want to argue that she’s not so bad of a person, go right ahead. But seriously, if you’re going to try to justify your reasoning for doing so, try to come up with some better reasons, because these are weak. As I said before, I don’t think every single thing she does is horrible. But I do think that, objectively, the bad about her far outbalances the good. Just try making a simple good/bad list of her traits and actions, weigh them fairly against each other, and tell me what conclusion you come up with. It’s really not a surprising thing (nor a crime) to dislike Mary or see her as a bad character. It’s common sense. At least that’s how I see it. But I’m just a stupid Johnlocker who is only interested in seeing dicks touch. What do I know

#mary morstan #mary wank #sherlock #double standards

[gch1995]

I want to watch new Drama/Fantasy TV series on Netflix and Hulu to get the bad taste that OUAT and TWD left in my mouth.

Here is what I want:

• A show that is more strongly driven by the characters consistently and believably, rather than half-cocked convoluted plots, and/or the creators/writers abrupt, blatantly biased, hypocritical, petty, and unfair preferential treatment of their favorite characters/ships, who they destroy other great characters/ships that they don’t care about as much to prop up their pet characters/ships up onto pedestals that they don’t deserve-

I dealt with six seasons of the continuity and logic of every rule of magic, relationships, storylines, and most of the timeline from S1 getting deliberately retconned left and right more and more inexplicably at the drop of a hat every season afterwards for (oftentimes disappointing) random plot twist convenience, and the writers completely stopped trying in 3B when they broke the rule of magic not being able to bring back the dead and decided “Fuck all the rules of continuity and realism in characterization and organic development in any of our remaining main characters, and fuck any and all sort of sort of storytelling integrity in writing a canon that consistently sticks to its timeline and rules of magic! We’re just going to reframe the entire narrative around Hook’s “redemption” arc and CS by ruining/retconning everyone else’s original characterization and development from S1-3A, and do whatever the hell we want with magic and the timeline on this show now because LOL, BOLD STORYTELLING! We’re really just too afraid to admit that we’re a team of horrible creative writers and show-runners, who didn’t know how to write more than two-and-a-half seasons of satisfying and original character development, who, thus, ran out of good new ideas for what else to do after 3x11, and who, thus,, would have done a lot better just ending the show with that episode because that’s clearly all we could handle before ruining everything that made this show genuinely entertaining to fans in the first place with our plot fuckery and character/ship favoritism!”

I quit watching OUAT after S5, but I still dealt with watching roughly four seasons of Rumple, Belle, Rumbelle, and Emma getting made OOC, and later on, outright destroyed in favor of cheaply emotionally manipulative “Gotcha” plot twists, and A&E and their team of hacks petty and hypocritical favoritism that led them to prop up Zelena, Regina, and especially Hook/CS onto pedestals that they didn’t deserve in their favor by ruining them to make them look better by comparison without really doing much to change them, or making them sympathetic characters in their own right, especially post 3A. I still kept up with the spoilers post S5, so I know about what they did to ruin all my faves to prop up Hook/CS, Zelena, and even the dark half of the EQ some more in 6A, past the point of no return this time around, basically.

It would be one thing if Hook/CS had always been a main character/ship on the show, and Rumple, Belle, Rumbelle, and Emma had always been framed/written as unsympathetic characters and a ship that the GA was supposed to consistently root against from day one. But that’s not how it was set up, no matter what A&E and these writers try to insist otherwise.

Hook was meant to be a guest villain, but A&E and these writers got distracted by him so much so that they decided to make him a regular by setting him up with Emma out of nowhere, having him take Neal’s place in the series, retconned the beauty of everyone else’s original characterizations, developments, and storylines on the show to make him look more “sympathetic” without actually doing anything to build him up that way organically post 3A, and made him the entire lead of the show.

Emma started out as a badass, compassionate, selfless, and sympathetic underdog for the little guy and the main protagonist on the show from day one until they forced her together with Hook, and ruined her to set them up post S3.

As for Rumple, he had always been written as a problematic fave from day one. I acknowledge that he had done horrible things that I could never realistically excuse, but from 1x08-3A there was a deeper sympathetic motive for why that was always explained on screen. He quickly became a fan favorite who the GA quickly sympathized with and rooted for as a sort of anti-heroic underdog, who with had a genuinely beautiful, believable, and consistent characterization and struggle for redemption that we saw, and expected to continue to see regularly once we saw his tragic and unfair backstory, and we learned about his love for Belle and particularly Bae and saw how everything he did he did out of love for them. We saw that he had a bizzarely adorable friendship with David, and we saw that he, Belle, and Neal were always willing to offer advice, compassion, emotional support, and understanding when he brokenly and honestly opened up to them for it by offering it in without enabling his bad choices, mercilessly judging him with negative assumptions without asking questions first, or giving him a chance to open up to them honestly, acting hypocritical, acting like they were so above him and incapable of having their own flaws and making mistakes, or making him feel guilty for not giving up magic for them. Belle had always had the short end of the stick on the show when they made her a regular because she often got fridged for Rumple’s man pain from S2-S3, but they outright destroyed everything that made her a great character to begin with from S4-S6 to prop up Hook/CS, Zelena, and Regina by turning her against Rumple, even when it didn’t make any sense for her to do so. When Hook/CS became the lead of the show, Neal was killed off. Rumple and Belle’s consistently sympathetic and complex original characterizations and development/redemption arcs in the narrative got so horrible butchered, and the two most important relationships in his storyline all got abruptly thrown under the bus and trashed on this show by A&E and these writers for roughly five seasons with bad writing, even in the final season when they decided not to fuck up Rumple’s redemption arc halfway through, just so they could prop up Hook/CS, Zelena, and Regina by shitting on him.

I don’t want to have to deal with watching another TV series where beautiful, complex, and relatable fictional characters and ships are abruptly made OOC, and/or outright destroyed in favor of stupid plot twists. I don’t want to deal with watching another show in which the creator(s), writers, and/or network have Gary Stu/Mary Sue pet characters/ships, who abruptly get unfair preferential treatment from the creators and writers in the narrative on the show with my personal favorite characters/ships getting abruptly, cruelly, and unfairly thrown under the bus for their benefit.

• A show that is run and written by a team of people, who don’t offensively enable, encourage, or casually dismiss ableism, abuse, rape culture, incest, racism, and sexism in the tropes they use in the writing for their individual characters, the relationships between them, the plot devices they sometimes make them use, especially if they let them get away with using them, and the plots they set them up in-

I had to watch every character and relationship on OUAT get tainted in canon with all of these offensively problematic issues in the the tropes in the writing for them in one way or another more and more from day one of this trash show of wasted potential in ways that disgusted me, including all of my faves, such as Emma, Rumple, Belle, and Rumbelle, just because A&E and their team of writers never learned from their mistakes, and refused to do so.

I don’t want to deal with that shit again on another show, or try to justify it, especially not in characters who often don’t get how problematic what they did or said is because the creators and writers behind them refuse to understand how problematic their writing for some of the things they make them do and say actually is in canon, and refuse to address it, no matter how many times the fans call them out for their shit.

I don’t want to have to deal with watching another TV series where beautiful, complex, and relatable fictional characters and ships are abruptly made OOC, and/or outright destroyed in favor of stupid plot twists. I don’t want to deal with watching another show in which the creator(s), writers, and/or network have Gary Stu/Mary Sue pet characters/ships, who abruptly get unfair preferential treatment from the creators and writers in the narrative on the show with my personal favorite characters/ships getting abruptly, cruelly, and unfairly thrown under the bus for their benefit.

• A show that is run and written by people who understand how to portray realistic reactions and fallouts to trauma and untreated mental illness in their characters by acknowledging that it exists and that it happened in the narrative, and allowing them to get help for it when they reach out for it. Instead of pretending that it never happened to vilify a character by refusing to allow them to get help, or emotional support from loved ones, even when they do try to reach out to them for it honestly, or work on being better to constantly make them feel like they have no choice but to revert back to self-destructive behavior, trying to prop up the character who traumatized them, or simply because the characters, who were traumatized in their narrative are the “good guys,” and the “good guys” aren’t allowed to have realistic reactions to trauma and mental illness because they are “strong” and the “bad guys” are “weak” from the ableist show-runners and writers point of view-

I dealt with watching this shit on OUAT for five seasons from season one, and from the spoilers I read about season six and seven after finally quitting, it didn’t get any better because A&E and these writers are hacks.

• A show run and written by people, who don’t make it so blatantly obvious that they are emotionally manipulating you with false hope by dangling a carrot before your eyes, only to abruptly snatch it away with a cruel “shock” value twist in their storytelling that becomes incredibly and disappointingly predictable when dealing with it as a viewer for five to six seasons-

Look, I get it, bad things happen in life. However, it becomes predictable bad writing and cruel storytelling when it becomes obvious that you are being emotionally manipulated by show-runners and writers with false hope for your faves. It becomes predictable bad writing and cruel storytelling when there is an increasingly obvious pattern in the narrative of the types of characters/ships that these writers abruptly and inorganically screw over out of nowhere after giving their fans false hope for them in the narrative, only to deliberately and cruelly screw them over for cheap “shock value, and/or to prop up their faves by displacing all of their shit onto their default scapegoat character through making him or her look bad without actually doing anything to have their Gary Stu/Mary Sue faves truly do anything to prove that they are reformed.

Were D&D and Scott Gimple too stupid to think to think that fans of their shows would ever realize that they often tended to abruptly kill off the purest living cinnamon rolls cruelly and abruptly in their show’s universe every season for shock value out of nowhere after giving their fans false hope on Game of Thrones and TWD?

Were Adam and Eddy too stupid to realize that Dearies/Rumbellers would ever realize that they abruptly and cruelly mostly turned their narrative against Rumple and his loved ones to prop up all their lame ass faves and CS after they killed off Neal and brought him back from the dead to make him an on-and-off-again trickster, even after spending the first two-and-a-half seasons of OUAT building up Rumple as a consistently sympathetic, emotionally complex, and redeemable character on the show?

• A show that is written and run by people who understand how to give their endgame romantic couples and familial relationships realistic, consistent, complex, healthy, in-character, and well-written conflict and resolution-

A&E and their team hacks often lacked the desire and ability to write realistic, consistent, complex, healthy, in-character, and well-written conflict and resolution between their characters, especially in later seasons. The only main living romantic couple, who remained mostly untainted in canon by their increasingly OOC, gross, unhealthy, and unrealistic character assassinating plot fuckery romantic soap opera angst in canon post 3A by S6, was Snowing, and that’s only because A&E and their team of writers didn’t care enough about them to give them any significany screen time, or any interesting storylines post 3A.

#looking for new tv shows #anti ouat #anti kitsowitz #anti ouat writers #anti cs #anti regina #anti zelena #anti hook #anti twd #anti scott gimple #anti twd writers #anti game of thrones #anti d&d

[dicecast]

The Core Realms of the Outer Planes

-Introduction of the Planes, as written by Sigil Scholar “First Dawn” as punishment for a great crime she committed against nature itself.  She can be found in Sigil University giving extremely grumpy lectures about the multiverse until her community service is entirely over.  

Part 1: The Core Planes

The most famous Planes are of course, the Outer Planes, so much so that they are quite frankly, over done, and I find this assignment to be entirely beneath my time and dignity to have to explain.  The popularity of these monuments to limited imagination isn’t surprising, after all each of them represent a facade of a simplistic, reductive, and all together uninspired morality that shackles this world to the corpse of absolutes.  Each of them is dramatic and superficially excited, and for the average prime I imagine it must be quite exciting to discover that not only is Hell real, but that it is build upon metaphorical representations of Lawful Sins. But for those of us wordly enough not only see the larger framework but also to challenge base assumption, the unimpatnative nature of these 9 planes isn’t just uninteresting, it is actively detrimental to true planar study. These 9 planes are so overly studied so that all other fields of Planar examination are left woefully understaffed, with more and more time and effort being dedicated to 9 realms which frankly weren’t very interesting to begin with.  This is similar to how the four “Classical” Elements (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water) have become popular that there are more scholars dedicated to the Plane of Water than their are to all of the other 17 elemental planes combined.  This planar brain drain is not just frustrating and tedious, it’s also dangerous as the denizens of say, the Middle Planes are actually just as threatening as Demons but lack the symbolic residence to have people make the proper preparations.  There are more paladin demon hunting orders than I can caught, but the designs of the PLane of Dreams can evidently walk freely, as their machinations are not laced in the mask of objective morality.  Even within the Outer Planes, the vast majority of scholarship goes to the Lower Planes, the realms of Evil, likely because of how ultimately simplistic they are.  Discarding cultists, nobody likes demons, and so there are book upon tedious book written about their evil, their depravity, and their lack of complexity, all of which boil down to “Demons are bad, we should kill them.”  The Upper Planes, far more challenging in their conceptions, have little in the way of scholar, because defining what is evil is easy, defining what is good is challenging.  Seriously can I write about anything other than this, I mean god, this is child’s play stuff?  

Ok Fine

   There are 9 “Core” Planes, which embody, as you might imagine, personify one of the Night Alignments.  I might as well mention now, the Outer Planes have a creepy obsessive fetish with symmetry, which will get tiring very very quickly I assure you.  These nine planes can be subdivided into the “Upper” “Lower” and “Central”  Planes, personifying Good, Evil, and Neutrality respectively, and it’s all very nice and neat and infantile.  Let’s do the Lower Planes First, which as the personification of evil, are utterly overdone in terms of the popular imagination.  There is nothing more tedious than the many many texts on the Lower PLanes, so I will try to sum them up as quickly as possible. One thing first, these planes are the largest infinite planes in the multiverse ,because evil is the most powerful force in the multiverse, luckily they are always fighting each other in The Blood War so we don’t have to deal with it, and I’m sure you know this already.  

   The most overrated of them all are The Nine Hells of Baator, Home of the Devils, Beings of Law and Evil, and every layer of it has been so particularly scrutinized that I suspect many of the scholars (such as those who wrote the Gates of Hell manuals) are actually in the pay of the Nine.  Hell is a land of rigid unyielding law, but I want it duly noted it is not in fact, fascist.  It isn’t absolute, mindless dehumanizing law, instead it is the most evil aspect law can possibly have, namely Feudalism.  The Law of Baator is strict, unyielding, and inhuman, but above all it is unfair and arbitrary.  The laws are contradictory, inconsistent, and utterly self destructive but they are literal law, even if they make no sense.  This is law to such a demented degree that they don’t make any sense, a hypocritical system which is absolute in its incompetence and inhumanity and yet stills frustrate continues to exist.  The Hells are not realms of absolute obedience and conformity to an absolute law, they are an incomprehensible set of rules and obligations that pretends to be a realm of absolute obedience and conformity, which is even worse.  The Hells are ruled by the “Lords of the Nine”, 9 freakishly powerful Devils who serve as Feudal Lords, lead by the “Lord of the Nine” the enigmatic and entirely overplayed Asmodeus, who if you read his news briefs, is the most clever, intelligent, funny and sexy entity in the world, but everybody else sees him as a prat.  

        The opposition to the Nine Hells is the realm of Chaos and Evil, The 666 Infinite Layers of the Abyss, is a realm of absolute paradox, staying with the fact that it supposedly has infinite layers but in fact has 666 (scholars have counted 667).  Populated by the Demons, this realm is crawling with every horrific evil imaginable and is the largest plane in existence, for every one Devil, there are at least a million demon, likely more.  A single Lawful Evil Mortal soul can create 9 devils, while a single Chaotic Evil soul can create a huge amounts of demons.  This is fundamentally and explicitly unfair...and that’s the point.  The Abyss is a realm where rules don’t work, in fact any attempt to even conceive of rules are folly, and trying to put it into a box is futile in itself.  All generalizations are proven wrong and all trends fail because the Abyss actively rejects it, and the plane itself almost seems to delight in thumbing its nose at conventional understanding, occasionally producing good demons just to confuse everybody else.  As a rule demons are sadistic, cruel, and anarchistic but of course...that’s a rule.  The Abyss is forever in a war against themselves, each layer has a Demon Lord who wishes to claim the title of “Demon Prince” but only three really have a shot and they have fought for millenia, Grazz’t Lord of Lust and the Triple Realms, Orcus the master of Undeath and Divnity, and of course Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons.  However combat is tedious and so is the Abyss, so let’s move one.

   The least appreciate Lower Plane is Abaddon, the realm of the Daemons, who are in many ways the more moderate evils and thus less focus is paid to them, which I think is largely unfair, because that makes them the most human.  Daemons are oriented around 4 principles of evil, Hypocrisy, Bigotry, Vindictiveness, and Ignorance, and individual Daemons will drift between these as if they were wearing hats. It is very hard to sum up Daemons because they are evil in a very relatable way, they are most famous for their vast corporations of soulless bureaucracy, but Daemons also can have a great deal of personality individually, though almost always in as needlessly dickish a way that they can.  Daemons are all hypocrites who lack any core or foundation other than circumstances, and so what type of viciousness they represent varies from moment to moment, and unlike their extreme counterparts, it’s never ideological.  Daemons are at their core nihilists, and are evil without justification, logic, intention, or even knowledge, they are the random everyday evil of your average man.  Which is why I find them superfluous and am going to move one.  

Editor's Note: I have to also mention they are ruled by The Four Horsemen. There, moving on.  

Moving on to the perpetually overlooked “Central Planes”, these are the realms of neutrality and really don’t have the scholarship they deserve.  They are not in constant war, while Law and Chaos disagree, each mostly acknowledges the necessity of the other, but instead try to find a balance, which is of course, extremely difficult.  

    First are The Outlands, the great patchwork that connects the Outer Plane, and at the center of this infinite plane is the Spire, on top which lies Sigil.  Every square mile of the Outlands is different, almost a patchwork of aspects of other planes, and you could walk through a forest into a desert into a great mechanical wasteland in the span of three minutes.  This plane has the largest mortal population, and is responsible for many of the fundamental rules of reality, and keeping the Balance of the Planes intated.  Ruling over this are The Aeons, mysterious cosmic entities who keep the illusion of the world intact, or possible weave a new one, enematic and unknown.  Their ruler the Monad has as far as I can tell, never been seen and likely doesn’t exist.   

   Next to the Outlands is The Maelstrom, supposedly the origin of life, and an ever shifting realm in its own right, but this is a realm of creativity, language, and the senses, things that fundamentally reject any limitations placed upon them.  The realm is one of potential good and bad, independence and free will, and the native Proteans, strange snake like creatures who seem to wish to push against all restrictions, and offer up radical visions of what could yet be.

      Next one is Mechanus, the realm of Gears, which maintains the universe itself.  This gigantic endless system of  gears and systems is the realm of math, shapes, physics, and systems, consistency and understanding. It has little interest in societal rules, which it finds all together too inconsistent and self serving, but instead cosmic rules, like the notion that 1+1=2 unless you can prove otherwise mathematically.  The natives are known as Modrons, and each resemble different forms of law, most look like shapes (Cubes, Pyramids, squares) but other are equations, and the greatest resemble strangely enough different forms of dice.  

Next are the Upper Planes, where the forces of good dwell, and are some of the smallest realms in the world, for here dwell the forces of absolute good.  And as much as the edgelords out there like to claim otherwise, they aren’t well intended extremists, they cannot be anything other than absolutely good, they are defined by their very good nature on a fundamental level incomprehensible to a mortal.  These planes are on the verge of destruction, barely holding their own against the vast hordes of evil, but despite this, they stayed strong and part of that is through their unity, these planes have difference but they work together and help each other, their differences make them stronger and allow them to prevail over the forces of evil.  Also i want to make this clear, they are not ruled by Gods, Gods are entirely different things, these are secular realms.  Just assholes.  

The most famous are the Seven Heavens, where Law and Good come together as one, ruled by the Archons.  Built around a Celestial Mountain, the seven layers are all built around the theme of betterment of the self, souls come here and improve steadily, ascending the layers.  The natives here believe strongly in goodness as the result of governance, and hope to build institutions, orders, and structures to allow good to flourish.  Militarily, they are armies, which is why they get the most attention, the Archons go forth in hoards to try to stymie the forces of evil where they can, and when they do show up, it is indeed magnificent.  

Next is the Realm is the Blessed Fields of Elysium, ruled by the kind Aasimons, creatures of love, relationships, and community.  This realm is idealism, understanding, and goodness as the result of personal happiness.  The souls here try to find joy in themselves and those around them, for those who are happy will turn away from cruelty.  The Aasimons are the least known of the Good Exemplars, for they focus not on dramatic heroism whenever possible, but instead on the smaller acts to try to make good have a chance.  Childcare, helping broken homes, providing medical aid or psychological care, first responders to disasters, grief counselors, or simply a mysterious women in a bar who is willing to lend a sympathetic ear, Aasimons go often in secret the Material Plane to help keep the spark of hope alive in what little way they can.  To them, depression is where evil emerges, and joy is what allows the goodness within you to come forth.  

The Transcendent Glades of Arborea is where Chaos and Goodness come together, with the Azatas serving as its manifestation.  Aborea is a vast wilderland except more wonderful and magical than any that exists, colors, sensations, and pleasures exist as no mortal co comprehend them, and seriously they throw the best fucking parties you have no idea.  This is a realm where man’s base nature is good, and without limitations and restrictions placed upon it, they can come forth and enjoy the morality that lies within us, and Azatas hope to tear down the institutions and systems to force mortals to choose selfishness rather than compassion.  Azatas, like Archons, go forth and fight evil ,but they do so as individuals or small bands, of scouts and infiltrators.  Many times a force of evil has suddenly fallen apart due to the secret machinations of the Azatas, and more than a few times villians have found they prefer getting really high in Arborea than taking over the world.  

Once these 9 realms were balanced equally but ever since the actions of mortals have determined their power, evil has been winning, and so much so that Good as a force is no longer a factor.  If the legends are to be believed, this new circumstances was created by the Upper Planes themselves as the price to give mortals true choice of their actions, thus condemning themselves to their own destructions.  The Upper Planes by all right should have been wiped out long ago, destroyed by the forces of evil, and yet they prevail, because in a world seemingly resigned to darkness, there is just enough kindness that the light stubbornly refuses to go out.  

There you go, 9 overdone, over analyzed, over handled bullshit system which isn’t worth any respect, and I think that the whole thing is a colossal waste of time.  

#introduction to d&d #Nine Hells #the abyss #Abaddon #Seven Heavens #Elysium #aborea #Mechanus #Maelstrom #Outlands #Outer Planes #Central Planes #fixer upper #lower pl #Aligniment #Good #Evil #Chaotic Neutral #Law #Chaos #Lawful Good #Neutral Good #Chaotic Good #Lawful Neutral #True Neutral #Lawful Evil #Chaotic Evil #Neutral Evil #Exemplars

[enchantedxrose]

A present for @princeadams, Merry Christmas from your Secret Santa!

This is a short ficlet inspired by the song “Home” from the Broadway BatB musical because you mentioned it was your favorite (mine too!). I wanted to explore a little more of what was going on both in Belle’s and the Beast’s minds during that point in the story. I hope you like it!

“You will join me for dinner—that’s not a request!”

The door slammed shut behind Belle, her calm façade crumbled and her knees gave out beneath her. Now alone and away from the Beast’s sharp gaze, she could afford to release her fear and despair.

How had she managed to parley with that creature and bargain for her father’s freedom less than an hour ago? Trying to replay that conversation in her mind, it felt like she was watching another person’s life, not her own. She didn’t feel brave at all, not now. Crumpled on the floor, crying, she was just a lost little girl, far from home.

Drying her tears with shaking hands, she forced herself to look around the room. It wasn’t as dark and eerie as the castle corridors the Beast had led her through. A thin ray of moonlight between the silk damask curtains illuminated a spacious, luxurious bedchamber, dominated by a four-poster bed and a massive wardrobe. She supposed, dully, that it was the kind of room fit for a noblewoman, but the heavy coverlet and thick Persian rug didn’t make her feel any warmer. She kept shivering, as if permanently chilled.

“Well…I guess this is home now,” she told herself weakly. “It’s better than being locked in a tower, anyway.” Her voice, and the hope in it, sounded thin and fragile to her own ears.

Home. I want to go home.

Even as she buried her face in a down pillow to muffle her crying, she longed for the humble homespun quilt her mother had made for her, so many years ago. It still smelled like Mama, or at least she imagined it did. The echoing silence of the castle made her yearn for the familiar sounds of home, of Papa tinkering in the cellar, the occasional small explosions and mild oaths when he broke something. She even missed that village with its shabby half-timbered cottages and small-minded people.

She hadn’t appreciated her simple, quiet, harmless life until it was yanked out of her grasp.

You asked for adventure, Belle, and you got it, she thought bitterly. Somehow it’s not as wondrous as I imagined. Is this all some kind of cruel lesson in being careful what I wish for?

For a moment—half a moment—she considered what might have happened if she had just accepted Gaston’s proposal a few days ago. But even now she shuddered at the idea. That wouldn’t have been a prison of stone walls and iron gates, but a prison all the same.

But at least I wouldn’t have been separated from Papa forever, the devil’s advocate in the back of her mind countered. What’s done is done, you’ll never know what might have happened.

With a sigh, she quieted the argument in her own mind. It was all a distraction from the inevitable reality. She had bartered away her own freedom, and was bound by her word to this cheerless gilded cage.

Though she felt safer in here without anyone watching her, she couldn’t stay locked up here forever. She would have to venture out sometime for food, and risk encountering her monstrous host.

The thought of him made bile rise up in the back of her throat. What kind of person flew into a rage over an accidental trespass, and demanded a life sentence for such a petty crime?

The castle is your home now, he had told her. It was almost laughable. This dank, cavernous castle, with its twisted gargoyles leering at her from every parapet, how could she ever be comfortable here? She couldn’t imagine even finding her way around.

Home was supposed to be welcoming. A place full of memories. A worn woven rug that she had learned to walk on. An apple tree that she used to climb, where she could read undisturbed. This castle was empty and alien and too stately to hold any personal memories. Did the Beast even comprehend that? That home was far more than just a place you inhabit?

He wasn’t a monster, she realized, just a bully trying to feel more powerful by making other people feel small. Somehow, thinking of the Beast in these terms made him less mysterious, less of an inscrutable mythical creature and simply a mundane brute of a man, one that she could have encountered at Gaston’s tavern. An amused smile briefly flickered across her face.

Granted, the enormous protruding fangs and razor-sharp claws were…disconcerting. She couldn’t deny that. Still, she was resolved to deal with him as if he were any other mean-spirited bully.

He can keep me trapped in here as long as he wants, but he can’t control what I think and feel. Nobody can. And I’m not going to be afraid of him.

Or, at the very least, she didn’t have to let it show. Righteous anger was the best replacement for fear—it spurred her to action instead of paralyzing her.

Her knuckles clenched to white over the down pillow. She wasn’t going to bow to his whims. The next time he came to her door, she was going to stand up to him, and she wasn’t going to let her voice quiver.

Then a soft knock at the door set her heart racing again. Did she really have to confront him again already?

“It’s just Mrs. Potts, dear,” came an unfamiliar voice—gentle, matronly—from behind the door. Belle felt her tense muscles slacken, laughing at herself for being so jumpy. “Thought you might like a spot of tea.”

Taking deep breaths to compose herself, she crossed the room and opened the door.

What have I done? What have I done? What was I thinking?

The Beast paced the West Wing frantically, wondering how this afternoon’s events could have spiraled so out of control. In hindsight, maybe he had reacted…irrationally. Again. The old man probably hadn’t meant any real harm, so why had the Beast flown off the handle?

Truthfully, he had been dreading that moment for ten long years. An outsider finally coming face to face with the monster. He had long braced himself for the hatred and disgust that normal people would surely react with, but somehow the old man’s terror of him had taken him by surprise.

And when that girl had suddenly offered herself in her father’s place—it had seemed too good to be true, like fate. 

But maybe this was actually a cruel joke on the Enchantress’s part, because the girl was stubborn and strong-willed and damnably, unarguably beautiful. He knew he was being unfair and hypocritical, but he resented her for that—for being so beautiful, even when she was pale and trembling with suppressed fear. And so he had snapped at her.

How was he supposed to talk to her? He hadn’t had contact with the outside world in so long, he honestly felt helpless approaching her.

He stared at his claws, clenched over the table, illuminated in the dull pink glow of the dying rose. He had always told himself he was still human underneath all that, but maybe his monstrousness had really sunk into his heart after all.

The longer he thought about her, the way she had wept in the tower and reproached him for not letting her say goodbye to her father, the more he felt a sinking, burning shame.

It wasn’t her fault the Beast was cursed like this, so why was he taking out his frustration on her? It wasn’t even really her fault that she was too beautiful and graceful and charming to ever give him a moment’s notice. He could try, in his awkward, homely way, to make amends for his behavior.

He’d been acting childish. You can’t just order someone to be hungry, it doesn’t work like that, she had retorted, and her reasonable argument in the face of his temper made him feel rather ridiculous.

She wasn’t really going to go hungry, was she? She already looked a bit underfed (or did all peasants seem that way? He couldn’t really remember).

Swallowing his pride, he decided to bring her some dinner on a tray. A proverbial olive branch. He tried to keep Lumiére’s and Cogsworth’s and Mrs. Potts’ advice on repeat in his mind. He was supposed to be gentle, charming, witty, complimentary, sincere. Would any of it do any good? But the rose was already half-wilted; he had to try.

At her door, he paused, hearing low murmurs inside.

“The master’s really not so bad, once you get to know him,” said one female voice reasonably.

The Beast froze in his tracks, his blood running cold. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but he was compelled by dire curiosity.

“I don’t want to get to know him,” the girl insisted. “I don’t want to have anything to do with him!”

He gritted his teeth, feeling horribly foolish all over again. He barely resisted smashing the tray on the floor. Who was he trying to dupe, pretending he could act human and charm the girl?

She would never see him as anything but a monster. Why bother trying to be anything else?

#my fic #princeadams #batbhge #beauty and the beast (1991) #broadway

[svenjafangirlt]

Prom Queen (Pt.4)

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Jones! Reader

Warnings: Alcohol (underage drinking)

Words: 1.893

5 Minutes later you arrived at the warehouse. You could already hear the music and some People. “Before we go in we need to set some Rules.” You never heard Sweet Pea so serious, it was intimidating and the look he gave you wasn’t helping. “Rules? You do know that this isn’t my first Party?” you asked looking around, trying to avoid eye contact with him. “Y/N this is a serpent Party, things are different here. So Rule 1: If someone offers you drugs you say no and if he still doesn’t leave you alone after you declined his offer, punch him! Rule 2: Do NOT make out with some Serpent, don’t make out with someone in general! You are FPs daughter, hell would rise if I would have to punch someone because you made out with him and if someone touches you without your permission, you punch him!” Sweet Pea declared “And please don’t drink too much, I don’t want to bring you home and have Jughead lecture me about protecting you.” He added. “First of all, your second rule is bullshit. I understand that you’re Jealous, I would be too if I was you, but making up some stupid rule that doesn’t even make sense is not helping you. And second, I’m definitely not going home tonight.” After finishing your little speak you grabbed Toni and went inside with her. After getting your first drinks Toni was the first to break the silence “You know that you’re the only one that can talk to him like that.” You raised your eyebrow showing that you had no clue what she was talking about. “Sweet Pea. He never lets people talk to him like that, usually nobody talks back to him or even questions what he says or does.” “Why is he different with me?” “I don’t know Y/N. At first I thought it was because you’re a Jones but he treats Jughead like everybody else so that can’t be it. But he probably has some plausible explanation for his behavior towards you.” An hour later you already felt slightly tipsy, not that it was stopping you from drinking more. You spent the last hour talking with Toni and a few other Serpents while emptying one bottle of whatever it was after the other. You couldn’t stop thinking about what Toni told you so you decided to ask Sweet Pea about it, which was way harder than you thought. You walked around looking everywhere for him when you finally spotted Fangs. “Hey Fangs, do you know where Sweets is?” The nickname slipped from your tongue like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Uhm, I’m not sure. He said he was going out for a smoke but never came back. He’s probably still outside.” He told you giving you a small smile. You thanked him and went outside to search for him and you found him, pretty fast. He was making out with some random girl. She was sat on top of his bike while he was standing between her legs. You were angry, not because of jealousy, because he broke the rule he made for you. You turned around and went inside again, grabbing another drinking before walking towards Toni and Fangs. “Who does he think he is?! Making out with someone while telling me that I can’t? Fucking hypocrite.” Toni let out a chuckle at your sudden outburst “Let me guess, Sweet Pea?” you nodded while drinking “Are you Jealous Y/N?” Fangs asked you while holding back a grin, nearly spitting out your drink you stared at him. “No, I am not jealous! It’s just unfair!” you took another sip of your drink. “Why is he allowed to have fun and I have to remain the eternal Virgin?” Now it was fangs time to spit out his drink while Toni was choking on hers. “You’re a Virgin?” They asked in unison. I have to say, being drunk and angry wasn’t the best mix and that definitely didn’t stop you from spilling your Secrets. “I know he’s fucking Handsome and he probably could have any girl but I’m attractive too, so why don’t I get some boys? Or is it because I’m Ugly? I always thought I wasn’t but that’s maybe just what I thought” You asked your Friends, now sounding more sad than angry. “Y/N you are even more than attractive, the most boys simply don’t deserve you.“ Toni tried cheering you up. “I want to Dance.” You said looking at your Friends, mentally making a note to never drink again. You hated being drunk, you got so emotional, talked nonstop about everything and everyone and had the most random wishes. But at the same time you loved it, telling people stuff you always wanted to tell them, doing whatever you want , just letting your feelings flow and if it got to embarrassing you would blame it on the Alcohol. “I don’t dance.” Fangs simply stated, which didn’t stop you from dragging him and Toni towards the group of dancing teenagers. 20 minutes later you had completely forgotten about sweet pea, and another 20 minutes later you had danced with everyone in the room who was willing to dance with you. You laughed and had your fun, the people being way nicer than your old friends. At the moment you were dancing with Toni, until you felt the famous feeling of Alcohol making its way up again. You quickly stopped your dancing with Toni and sprinted towards the Bathroom, Toni following closely behind. Once you both reached your destination she held up your hair with one hand while texting fangs and Sweet Pea that you had to leave and that you guys would meet at the bikes. Toni had her arm around you, nearly caring you towards the two boys. “What happened?” Sweet Pea asked with concern laced in his voice. “She got drunk Sherlock.” Toni spoke out the obvious. “When?” You were drunk but Sweet Pea asking these questions was a Pain in the ass, that boy was Hot but definitely not the smartest. “You are an asshole Sweets.” You looked at him while spilling your guts “An attractive dumb asshole. God can’t you be ugly and an asshole? Why do you make this so hard?” You asked him while walking up to him. The three serpents were positive you are going to slap him. Instead you hugged him, wrapping your small arms around him while nearly drowning in his huge frame. While the two boys were confused and shocked Toni already pointed out your next Problem. “She can’t drive on your bike, she will fall off at some point.” They all thought about it, discussing different Ideas. You were still hugging Sweet Pea, not participating in the conversation. “Toni, you will take my bike, you two drive to my trailer and I will carry her and be there in like 5 Minutes.” Without another word the two Serpents sped off. Sweet Pea took you bridal style and carried you. You had your eyes closed and you two were walking in silence, comfortable silence. Fangs and Toni were already waiting, leaned against the bikes when you arrived. Sweet Pea gave Fangs his keys and they entered the Trailer. Sweet Pea slowly dropped you on the couch. “Thanks, you are still an Asshole” You opened your eyes looking at him. “I get it but could you tell me why? I didn’t do anything wrong Y/N” He was confused and hurt but he didn’t let that show. “You kissed someone! You had your fun while I wasn’t allowed to had fun. I want to have fun too! I don’t wanna be the eternal Virgin. I wanna be loved!” He started laughing, the other two joined him. “You’re a Virgin?” You Punched him, having enough. “Stop laughing! I’m serious!” You felt like throwing up and you did. Rushing to the next best thing you found, the trash can. Toni held your hair up again. “I’m never letting you drink again Sweetheart.” She stated and you nodded. You went to the bathroom to clean yourself up. “Sweets can you give me a Shirt?” Your Voice was quiet and you looked at him with pleading eyes. “Sure.” He gave you one of his shirts and you started to get undressed when Toni turned herself and the boys around. The shirt fit you like a dress, it was comfy and you couldn’t figure out what that smell was but it smelled good. You were trying to form a sentence but nothing came out as the waves of alcohol and tiredness took over you. Fangs and Toni said their Goodbyes and left the two of you alone. “I’m tired.” You mumbled and Sweet Pea carried you to his bedroom, laying you down on the bed and making sure you were okay before he left to sleep on the couch. You woke up with the sun already shining through the window. You searched for your phone just to see that it was 1pm and you had like a thousand missed calls and text from your brother and his friend. You made your way into the kitchen seeing Sweet Pea, Toni and Fangs already sitting there. “Morning sleepyhead” Toni greeted you with a hug, Sweet Pea looked at you and you could see the hurt in his eyes. You felt bad for everything that happened yesterday and you needed to apologies. “Guys, I need to apologies. Yesterday wasn’t the best day and Archie gave me the rest so I got drunk and I just get so emotional when I’m drunk. I’m really sorry for yelling at you and for punching you Sweet Pea.” I looked at my hands not wanting to see their Reaction. Suddenly they all started laughing “It’s okay Y/N, we all get drunk and let out our anger. You don’t have to apologies, we’re a Family and which Family is perfect without screaming and throwing Fists?” Sweet Pea hugged me and in that moment everything seemed perfect. “But now you need to get dressed, your brother is waiting.” Wow, thanks for killing the moment Toni. I took my clothes and got dressed, tried to fix my hair and my face before walking back to the others. “Bye guys, will see you on Monday.” You quickly got out the Trailer and walked towards Tonis bike. She dropped you off at home and hugged you “He isn’t angry, believe me, he was just worried about you” and with that she left you alone. You stood in front of the door taking a deep breath before opening it. As soon as the door was opened Jughead came walking towards you. “Thank God you’re safe. I was so worried, please don’t ever do this again. I get that you’re angry but please, I was so worried Y/N.” he whispered while hugging you tightly. You two talked until it was afternoon, you told him everything that happened he wasn’t too happy about it but when you mentioned that you punched sweet pea he couldn’t hold back his laughter. He tried to stay serious but the thought of his little sister punching the walking doorframe, as he called him because he was literally as huge as a doorframe, finally broke him. Everything was okay again, not perfect but okay.

#riverdale #riverdale imagines #riverdale fanfiction #riverdale fic #riverdale jughead #riverdale sweet pea #riverdale fangs #riverdale toni #riverdale archie #prom queen #imagines #imagine #riverdale imagine #sweet pea x reader #sweet pea fic #sweet pea #toni topaz #fangs fogarty #jughead jones #jones!reader

[jacksvnshine]

Thank you for answering my ask about the manners 🤣 actually I have neither Virgo nor Libra placements but have wondered whether my Leo moon could have something to do with it. Like if maybe the necessity of a Leo to have a perfect image kind of projects on to the partner so it is expected that they too want to be the best version of themselves if you know what I mean 🤔

But glad I'm not the only one for who lacking manners are a huge turn-off 🤣

Omg your response was so quick, thank you😂❤️ Projection is definitely a thing so it wouldn’t surprise me. Aren’t we supposedly attracted to people similar to us? I’m not sure if its just in terms of appearances but sharing the same values - such as wanting to present the best version of yourself and make good impressions - would make sense too! That’s why Moon conjunctions are so treasured in synastry, because we understand those subconscious behaviours and emotions🥺

Manners have different purposes for each person and its nothing to be embarrassed of if a lacking is a big turn-off for you! For some, manners convey social status and they might associate mannerly people with being posh or well-raised and that they might provide stability. For others, they might be seen as a form of chivalry or a way someone is expected to care for others, especially towards women hence the gentleman title. Some people might just view manners as second-nature and that it should be standard across the board for everyone regardless of your gender or social class. Either way, manners are more often than not, a good thing! So if someone hasn’t got them, I don’t think its unfair to be turned off by that at all😚

Are there any mannerly behaviours you find yourself turned on/off by, or that you display most? I get VERY flustered if someone pays for me so if I’m on a date with a stranger then I’ll pay for myself, or if its with a boyfriend then I’ll insist on paying for both of us. Idk I just don’t like guys paying for me, I guess? I feel like I’m in debt to them rather than flattered😂 When I went out with a former friend though, she would always want to pay first and then when I went to pay next, I’d realise that she’d actually got both our bills and I’d feel so embarrassed but charmed that she never let me pay for her even when I tried to argue or wrestle her out of the way🥺 It was either she paid for herself or both of us, and hypocritically, I’m the same with paying for myself or for both the guy and I🤡 I really like when a guy offers to help me with little things though, like carrying some of my books or helping me put on my coat. I suppose I’m more into small gestures?😊 I’m always horrified when people don’t use their verbal manners. I say “please”, “excuse me” and “thank you” for EVERYTHING, so its a huge turn-off to me when someone doesn’t do the same. I’m likely going to say yes to whatever you were going to ask, but please ask first!!😖 I take a lack of verbal manners quite personally even though they aren’t usually anything personal. Would you say the same for yourself?😂

#ask #answered #manners towards my family is also really important to me! #if someone doesn't show their manners to/in front of my family then i feel ashamed as though its somehow my responsibility lol #alice🦋

[breathingwithdifficulty]

im so fucking done of being stuck in the house with my own sister and it’s becoming very clear that her abusive tendencies haven’t really gone away. she has been commenting on what i eat and what i do during the day (which is not a whole lot but... it’s quarantine. sorry for actually listening to social distancing rules unlike everyone in my house and most of the people in my town). she knows im depressed but her constant negativity and criticism isn’t helping. the whole unfairness of our relationship has become really clear. i basically wait on her hand and foot and when i don’t do something she asks of me, she gets pissed and calls me “lame” or berates me like “its not even that hard” or just “seriously? it’ll take two seconds” like damn bitch do it yourself then. im not your servant just because im your nice little sister.

i don’t ever ask anything of her. literally can’t remember the last time i asked her to do anything for me. i only ever tell her to do stuff like “leave me alone” and “stop messing with that” and “please stop, seriously” and “that hurt” (physically or emotionally) and she NEVER i mean NEVER fucking listens. she doesn’t care. she thinks it’s funny to tease me and torment me and irritate me and then blames me for being too sensitive when i finally snap at her because im pissed off. damn, maybe if you weren’t making it hard for me to breathe by suddenly jumping on me and refusing to get up and leave me alone, i wouldn’t have to push you on the floor and yell at you to get out. maybe if you weren’t constantly hypocritical, i wouldn’t be so irritated with you all the time.

we both have to do our homework at home now which isn’t that big of a deal for me since i can focus a lot better than she can and i know that. but she’s so incredibly inconsiderate. she needs complete silence when she’s doing her homework and says it’s distracting for me to even walk past her when she’s working. so i stay silent. i put headphones in to listen to videos or zoom calls and i warn her if i have to record or talk. i try not to get up and get food or use the bathroom too often. im more than considerate.

however, whenever im doing my homework, she’s facetiming her friend, being on zoom calls without headphones and with the volume on high and her talking at full volume (EVEN AFTER i offered her to use my headphones for her calls multiple times because it’s distracting for me and she was like “of course im not gonna use headphones, that would look silly” like bruh) and singing and talking and literally SCREAMING. like wordless, just screaming because she gets frustrated with her work. bro, i get it. but shut the hell up. god, she would kill me if i did some of the things she does to me while she was working. id literally get cursed and yelled at.

she asks me pretty frequently if i think she’s a good person. i think she’s a good person sometimes. i think she’s too sensitive and can’t take any sort of criticism and lashes out at me because she thinks im pretentious and bratty. she’s straight up told me that she used to resent me (starting from when i was literally a BABY) and still kind of does. she says im much better than i used to be. the only reason she thinks that is because i stopped putting up as much of a fight against her. if i ever say something sassy or rude or even just defend myself, she claims im a dickhead brat who’s spoiled and has a bad attitude. really she’s just a sensitive little bitch.

ive lost four pounds in the past couple weeks because ive been eating less by tracking my calories. i haven’t really been eating a whole lot better but i think four pounds is a pretty good start considering how this is the first time ive really tried and committed to losing weight. but even my sister doesn’t think that’s enough.

i eat a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. she walks up and says “you know, a bagel is equal to like 5 slices of bread.” yes i know. you’ve told me already this week. you told me a month ago. you keep telling me. im just trying to eat, dude, back off and stop trying to make me feel bad because im not eating fruit smoothies and salad and avocado toast like you are. i get it, you’re skinny and healthy and like to pretend you don’t know it but you and i both know that you do. call yourself fat all you want, but my friends have literally asked if you’re a model, you have maybe an inch thick of stomach fat, i can feel the bumps of your spine when i touch your back, and i can see your ribs when you stretch your arms up.

she knows it makes me feel bad when she calls herself fat and she does not care in the slightest. she’s like “oh im getting pretty chunky oh boy” and then ill make a comment about feeling fat and she’ll be like “oh you’re not fat” like bruh i know you think you’re chunky and i have a lot more fat than you do don’t lie to me.

she told me it makes her feel worse about her hairline when i comment about how im insecure about mine. so i stopped saying anything about it. i told her it makes me feel bad when she comments on how im not doing basic things right (cutting an apple, cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming, sweeping. all real examples of things she says im not good at and calls me stupid. how the fuck is someone BAD at sweeping? the floor’s clean now isn’t that what matters?) and she said “well practice makes perfect” and i told her it makes me feel even worse about myself and she was just like “well you don’t know how to clean and you need to learn.”

i know how to clean. ive cleaned my room. ive cleaned the kitchen. ive cleaned our shared bathroom (she came home when i was just finishing up after deep cleaning it and even doing the parts she said she would do because i was just that nice. she immediately criticized me and said i had cleaned with the wrong cleaner and needed to reclean the whole thing again. i said no because that’s ridiculous and it was about to turn into a fight so like the pushy i am i gave in and cleaned. the whole. bathroom. again. but with a different cleaner that wasn’t “greasy” and “only for oil and grease, not bathrooms” and “smelled bad” because that really matters in the long run i guess). i just don’t do it the quickest or maybe the most efficient or the way she would do it but literally WHO CARES. if the floor is swept why does it matter that i didn’t do it as fast as you would. goddamn.

she came into my room while i was drawing on my digital tablet today. i showed her how it worked and everything and she asked to see something that id drawn and i said no (ive never been comfortable showing my art to other people that aren’t strangers online (lol) and she has consistently taken sketchbooks directly from my hands or gone through them when i was in a different room despite me telling her multiple times not to) and she kept asking for a reason and i just said i didn’t want to. she kept interrogating me and i was like “i don’t know what you want me to say” and she was like “i want a logical answer why you won’t show me” and of course i didn’t really have one and so i was just like “i don’t really have one, i just don’t wanna show you because it makes me uncomfortable” and she got pissy and left. fine, leave, don’t want you in here anyways. stop being so offended that you don’t get unfiltered access to everything in my life.

she’s a biology major. im trying to decide on a vague idea for my future major and i can’t remember how it was brought up but i said something about going into STEM and possibly biology and she was like. “aw don’t do that. i mean if it really makes you happy then go ahead but ill be upset and probably a little pissed.” which okay i get that a bit (eh) but ive never even thought about going into bio so she doesn’t have to worry and i told her as much. and then i asked why she wouldn’t want me to and she was like “because everyone knows you’d be better than me at it and i just want to have like... my thing” (i get that too (but maybe if you did your work on time and actually went to class then you’d be better at it. but whatever)) and i said i probably wouldn’t be better but i get that or whatever. and then i think she made a joke and i laughed and she was a few seconds later like “why do you look so smug? like you’re happy about the fact that i think you’re better than me” and i was like “that’s literally not true” and she was like “everyone likes feeling like they’re smart and you feel like you’re better than me and you’re smug about it” (or something like that) and i had to convince her that not i literally do not and am not smug. damn bitch, insecure much? that pissed me off that she would think that low of me to assume that i ENJOYED her insecurities and felt like i was smarter than her. wow. ive told her countless times in depth and with detail that i believe we both have strengths and weakness and neither of us are better than the other, and she still doesn’t believe me. but whatever.

it’s constant, little things like that. ive always managed to let a lot of them slide and that is one of the only reasons she thinks im such a good sister. that and i lie to her a lot about how i feel about her. she says stuff like “im surprised you haven’t killed me in my sleep yet, you’re too good to me, ive been terrible to you” but still continues. but whatever. ive only been waiting for her to move out for four years now, i guess i can wait a few more months (hopefully only that).

she says she’ll get pissed if i don’t call her every week once we aren’t living together and so i say i will but. i don’t want to. i don’t want to tell her about my life and my worried just to have her criticize them or say im being ridiculous. i don’t want to have to live like this forever. im so tired. so so tired.

im not saying it’s all bad. sometimes our donut runs at 2am are nice. and sometimes she is interested in what im doing when no one else is. sometimes, she gives good advice. sometimes we talk for hours on end. she’s one of the first people i go to when im having problems with me my mom. i trust her with somethings. it’s not all bad

but her constant emotional and verbal abuse has shaped me into a scared, pushover little girl with insecurities, trust issues, and guilt. she’s always said i was the favorite and laughs now and says “i think me being mean to you when we were younger was good for you, it too you down a few pegs so now you’re not so spoiled.” it also traumatized me and gave me self esteem issues, but yeah, haha, at least im not a spoiled brat (but to you, i still am, but only when i don’t do what you want or say what you want me to say). thanks for that.

anyways, it’s been a while since ive made a long rant. it’s past 4am and i woke up at 2:30pm today so it’s probably time to sleep and dread waking up in the morning. nice.

4.18.20 4:22AM

#food mention #ed tw #not specifically mentioned but i talked about weight and body image #body image tw #depression tw #emotional abuse #abuse tw #sisterly chronicles #.mine

[demialwrites]

That's Touching Ch 10

Link to AO3 Page

After a few strong drinks, you poured your heart out to your friend. When you were done being sad, you got angry. Jesse lent you change and let you beat your anger out on the pachimari machine. You smacked the arrow buttons over and over. The bartender ignored your violent enthusiasm. The owners of the bar probably didn't care about the machine; it stood neglected, covered in a layer of yellow dust. To your surprise, you won a pachimari, and a large one at that. It seems passion was the key to winning at these unfair games.

"Yes," you exclaimed, punching the air. It was the best thing to happen all day, second only to Jesse coming home from his mission.

A very welcome hug ended the night. Even though you fought it at first, it was such a relief to tell someone who cared. You made your way back to your room, intending to as politely as possible get Zenyatta out the door of your room as soon as possible, because you were exhausted again. Thankfully, it was way past Genji's bedtime, and you just had to give him a goodnight kiss and fall in bed. You periodically squeezed the large pachimari while walking down the hallway to relax. You hoped Genji would take to it.

You opened your door, and the scene inside your room put a stop to your plans. You saw the orbs dancing over Genji's crib. They cast a soft, flickering, yellow light all over the room. They orbited around an invisible centre, spinning like a mobile. Genji slept peacefully below, the light giving his skin a gold tint. Zenyatta was meditating when you arrived, but he floated off the bed towards you when he noticed you were there.

"Whoa," you said, still staring at the floating lights.

"Greetings, Shifter. I can tell your evening has lifted a weight off your shoulders."

Zenyatta gazed up at you from near your shoulder. He looked innocent enough, but you knew he was wiser than he let on.

"Uh, yeah."

"Genji was a joy to take care of. Much better than the first time I met him."

The little joke slipped past you, because you were still in awe. Zenyatta waited patiently next to you. You remembered yourself and your manners.

"Thank you! I really appreciate you taking care of Genji. Especially since he's very...human right now, and you're not."

"It may surprise you to know that I know how to take care of children. It was only natural to want to learn about it, given my interest in aiding others."

"You're amazing, Zenyatta."

He tittered.

"May you sleep as well as your ward, there."

He took each orb, one by one, because taking them all and snuffing their light might wake the baby. After he left, you placed the pachimari next to your bed, intending to show it to Genji in the morning. You fell asleep easily that night.

The next morning, McCree joined you for breakfast. His last mission was long enough that he had earned some time off. You almost wished you'd been on the mission with him, if it didn't involve a certain woman.

Genji mindlessly waved an arm at you. You glanced down at him. It was amazing how round his dark eyes were. In fact, each facial feature was adorably round, or adorably soft, and not to mention, tiny. Especially since he was behaving and not currently having his little butt being wiped during a diaper change. You grabbed the pachimari off the table and held it against his stomach. His grabbed a tentacle with each hand.

"You look like you never seen him before."

Before you knew it, your hand flew up to smack McCree's shoulder.

"Shut up. He's cute. Cuter than you."

"No one asked yer opinion on my facial features," he shot back, nevertheless grinning.

Looking at Jesse grin at you like the friend he was, you were reminded of the mission he'd recently been on. You weren't stupid; you knew you had have to deal with this Dr. Ziegler thing sometime soon, because Genji needed his physical exam. And if you were going to not run away from the entirety of Overwatch like you originally wanted to, you had to deal with this head-on eventually. Normally, you would have run back to your room and hid, avoiding the issue altogether. Having Genji to take care of changed things. What a little jerk, you thought, pinching the tip of his nose gently, making me be an adult.

"Hey, Jesse. Can we talk about something?"

McCree seemed pleased that you wanted to move forward with this. It seemed that the 'good' doctor wanted to get this over with, as well, because you were able to see her later that day.

Sitting on the exam table, your feelings screamed at you that this was a mistake. It was too sudden. You didn't want to be here. You brought the pachimari toy again, holding it against his tummy again. You told yourself it was for the baby, but really, you wished you brought fifty of them, buried yourself underneath them all, and hid. Maybe Mercy wouldn't find you and leave.

"I'm dumb; why do you like me," you asked Genji absentmindedly.

Jesse had suggested she might take the opportunity to apologize to you, for what it's worth. "She'd fucking better," you replied. You didn't want to hear her voice or see her face, really, but the least she could do was acknowledge that she did wrong. The nasty bitch. You were only going for Genji, but he seemed just fine. Did you really need to put him in her corrupt hands?

Dr. Ziegler entered the room and shut the door wordlessly. Genji fussed at you when you unconsciously squeezed him too hard. As a way of an apology, you offered the hem of your shirt for him to stuff into his mouth. He took it and kept one hand on the pachimari. You really needed him to behave right now.

"If you please, I would like to examine Genji," Dr. Ziegler requested, in her most careful, gentle tone.

You were stunned. You couldn't believe that was all she had to say. She didn't apologize or try to defend herself. She didn't even acknowledge what happened. A number of emotions ran through you, and at the forefront was anger. You were angry that she was behaving as if your feelings weren't important. For all you knew, she was going to keep it all a secret from as many people as possible. Keep it a dirty, little secret, so she could continue to do good out in the world with as much freedom as possible. What a hypocrite.

You would like to believe that Genji would support you if he was aware of what was going on. You didn't want to let go of him. You holding onto him was the only thing keeping you from either screaming at Dr. Ziegler or running away to cry. You really did not want to be here right now. Tension was starting to creep its way up through your body, making your muscles go stiff.

"No."

She wore a serious face. The kind you would see on a person experienced in working in customer service. It was fake, and it alarmed you that she was hiding behind a metaphorical mask.

"Please-"

You immediately stepped back and glared murder at her.

"No! Get away from me!"

The tension in your body was building to the point that your heart pounded frantically, making it feel like your blood was trying to burst from its vessels. McCree opened the door and strode into the room. He must have heard you yelling. He also must have seen some strong emotions on your face, because he pulled you out into the hallway to calm you down.

"Hey, hey. Take a breather."

"I don't think I can do this," you told him, shaking your head. Your body was still buzzing with tension.

"I thought you said you would try to get along with'er. What in tarnation happened?"

"I tried! She just...she acted like nothing happened! I don't understand," you said, shifting Genji onto your hip. You held him ever so gently, as if you were worried your anger would hurt him, "Why did she do this? You want me to give Genji to her?I almost hit her. That bitch is lucky I'm holding a baby!"

McCree looked like he wasn't ready to let this go just yet. You weren't surprised. This didn't seem like it was going to be a cut and dry issue.

"We need her. Overwatch needs her. All the innocent...the world needs her."

"You saying the mother-fucking world needs me to forgive her? You're really saying that? Are you fucking kidding me?!"

"Listen to me! I..."

"That is bullshit. What did Winston have to say about this?"

He shifted his cigarillo to the other side of his mouth before continuing. He walked a step forward to stand adjacent to you and put his hand on your arm. He really wanted you to listen to what he had to say. You really wanted to grab his wrist in a vise-like grip and pull it away.

"I'm not supposed ta tell you this, but there's trouble brewin'," you scrutinized him with narrowed eyes, "Talon has been making inroads into Spain, all secret-like, and I'm hearin' that Gibraltar's next."

"Fuck."

"You know what that means."

The conversation started to chip away at your anger.

"Arrrrgh. That means battles."

"Yeah."

"That means we'll need a field medic."

"Yeah, and...?"

"And that's Dr. Ziegler," you answered in a defeated tone.

"Bingo," he said, quietly and seriously.

You took a deep breath in and out. The situation had you feeling trapped. You couldn't get the closure you wanted; the punishment for Dr. Ziegler that you wanted. You weren't even sure what kind of punishment you think she deserved. You were angry and you wanted something done to her. But you couldn't deny what McCree was saying. You were suddenly more aware of the weight of Genji in your arms. A secure Gibraltar means a secure watchpoint, and a secure watchpoint means a safe baby Genji.

"I guess this is one of those times where you can make an adult decision. Or not."

"I'm sorry, Shifter," he said sympathetically.

He sounded like he really meant it. As if he wanted to do more for you but couldn't. Why did he have to say something like that? Now you couldn't answer without choking up.

"Y-yeah."

"C'mere," he said, taking Genji from your arms while you kept hold of the toy. He lifted the baby up to his side with one arm and took his cigar from his mouth, making space in front of him. With his free arm, he brought you in for a hug.

"I can't do this," you sobbed into his serape.

You pressed your face to it and took in the smells of McCree. The twin scents of cigar smoke and old coffee, coupled with slight body odor and something else you didn't recognize. Still, it was your friend, and it felt familiar all the same.

"Then let me."

You took your face from the fabric to look at him. He stared back seriously, but his eyes shined, as if he wasn't sure you would start to freak out again.

"...what?"

"Let me take Genji in."

"You mean...you mean..."

"You can't hang onta him all the time."

That was true. How did you end up so attached? He wasn't your baby. You stepped back from Jesse, and he turned around to walk into the examination room. Moderate panic set in when the door shut. You refused to leave. You sat down on the floor with your back against the wall to wait. You squeaked the pachimari, but the sound seemed to mock you instead of giving comfort.

#genji x reader #gender neutral reader #fluff #angst #my shit

[the-single-element]

Good morning. I had a chance to attend that drive-in Mass yesterday, and it went well. But it seems I'm back this morning to talk about the weekly readings regardless. :)

In today's Good News, we begin the second phase of the Jerusalem Debates. The authorities whom Jesus embarrased with that question about John have decided to use the same tactic against Jesus - that is, ask a question where the only possible answers are either embarassing or dangerous.

The result is a famous exchange that has been interpreted... many different ways, over the years. Jesus's answer to the question is often deployed in arguments about the relationship between Church and State, and about how or whether to bring our convictions about God into politics. It's a bitter sort of joke, given that the answer in question was carefully crafted by Jesus to sidestep a thorny political debate of his own time.

But that's not the only thing it was crafted to do.

So let's begin with the context of what this controversial tax even was. Israel, at the time, was an occupied territory under the thumb of the Roman Empire. Rome had a "poll tax" where every person (other than Roman citizens) was supposed to contribute a denarius (the "laborer's daily wage" mentioned elsewhere in the Good News).

This was blatantly unfair, and very unpopular. More to the point, the fact that the money was going to an emperor who styled himself divine... well, for some, there was the issue of idolatry, right? Of offerings to foreign gods. By Jesus's time, there had already been one failed rebellion over it, where the revolutionaries tended to burn down the houses of people willing to play by Caesar's rules.

So this was the kind of question that, if you said the tax was illegal, could get you arrested... and if you said the tax was legal, could get you ostracized.

But Jesus is used to this particular type of trick question. He's been asked one before - about the woman caught cheating on her husband, where his critics tried to get him to choose between either openly going against Moses, or else advocating for religious capital punishment (which, by that time, Temple authorities usually tried to avoid imposing in practice, and anyway would be illegal under Roman law).

In cases like these, Jesus's favorite technique seems to be to thread the needle by deriving his answer, not from Torah, but from the behavior of the very people who asked the trick question. "Let the one without sin throw the first stone" seems on its face to go along with the law being quoted, but in practice prevents the punishment from being carried out - which ends up in a very similar place to what Jewish folks were doing anyway. Simultaneously, he manages to make the event yet another warning against knee-jerk condemnation.

This same technique is what Jesus deploys in today's Good News. By pointing out that the coin is already Roman - already has a graven image of the Emperor - he turns the question back on the ones who asked it: "if you have an objection to paying taxes to Caesar, where's your objection to using his coins?" This strikes me less as the invention of a separation of Church and State, as some see it, and more as an option select - to the Herodians, it would sound like an endorsement, but to a Zealot, it would sound like a call to divest of the Roman denarius entirely. Rather than resolve the question explicitly, he challenges his opponents to at least be consistent - to "be hot or cold" (as we once heard via John of Patmos), not hypocritically lukewarm.

But then - just as in the case of the adulterous woman - Jesus takes this answer one step further, and swings it back to one of his central teachings. The Roman denarius, after all, wasn't the only coin in circulation at the time. The Roman tax wasn't the only collection. It's only a little later, in Mark and Luke's Good News, that we'd have the chance to see a poor widow willing to pay a much higher rate - perhaps even high enough to touch the Kingdom. And to take it one step further than that... if you can tell that the Roman coin is Caesar's because Caesar's image is on it, then what bears God's image? If Jesus is invoking the same logic here, it can only be an exhortation to return ourselves to God... that is, the same "metanoia" of John the Baptist's ministry, who has once again paved the way for Jesus's steamroller performance in this debate. Indeed, we're faced with a call to return to God whether or not we're on good terms with him today - because, just like the Roman poll tax, the logic holds either way! And either way - whether we're strangers to God like Cyrus was, or enthusiastic supporters like the Thessalonians were, it's the first step to God doing wonderful things with our lives.

[jobsearchtips02]

Authorities rioted this weekend, validating the entire point of the demonstrations

In cities across America this weekend, lots of cops devoted acts of violence, callously violated people’ rights, and abandoned the guideline of law.

There’s an institutional rot at the heart of policing in this country, which stems from benefits paid for to police officers that permit them to break the law, abuse their authority, and hurt innocent people.

The Supreme Court has the chance to squash “certified immunity” for law enforcement officer, however even that wouldn’t suffice.

Police unions almost widely resist any steps at openness and responsibility, and it is far too easy for bad police officers to either remain on the job or find new law enforcement tasks after they have actually been fired.

Democrats need to overcome thir reflexive pro-union posture and Republicans ought to drop their knee-jerk fealty to armed authority– and safeguard the civil liberties of Americans.

This is a viewpoint column. The thoughts revealed are those of the author.

Go to Company Insider’s homepage for more stories

In cities across America over the past several days, lots of cops rioted.

Wanton acts of violence were devoted. Rights were callously breached. The guideline of law was deserted.

To be sure, there were plenty of excellent and worthy acts by cops this weekend. Some police chiefs marched peacefully with protesters, others made it a point to directly take part in discussion with their neighborhood. Numerous officers secured innocent individuals, their residential or commercial property, and likewise did their finest to make sure as safe an environment as possible for peaceful protesters.

No police officers should have to be attacked with projectiles. This should not be questionable.

The violence and home damage connected with the ongoing civil unrest is untenable, the robbery is indefensible. Both do amazing damage to any cause seeking justice, specifically ones combating to end police cruelty and reform the criminal justice system.

None of that makes examining the occasions of the previous couple of days, the underlying causes, and the motivations of the individuals any easier. Far from a binary excellent versus bad decision, there are myriad concerns to unpack. Any discussion focused only on the riots and looting, but which does not deal with law enforcement’s fondness for excessive force and institutional resistance to accountability is both disingenuous and unserious.

For the minute, I’m going to concentrate on the institutional rot at the heart of policing in this nation, which the opportunities afforded to police officers allow them to break the law, abuse their authority, and harm innocent people.

It’s these benefits which are codified into cops union contracts with governments, and supported by the conservative analysis of a 1871 law called Section 1983, which they believe supplies “qualified immunity” to law enforcement officers from dealing with liability in civil courts for violating citizens’ civil liberties.

Police rioted

In Minneapolis— the city where the nationwide discontent was sparked by the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who passed away on May 25 after Derek Chauvin, a white authorities officer, knelt on his neck for over 8 excruciating minutes– members of the cops and national guard marched through a peaceful neighborhood as if it were Fallujah in 2004.

The militarized police barked orders at citizens, commanding them to go back into their houses.

They were on their front patio.

Another Minneapolis officer carried out a drive-by pepper-spraying of tranquil protesters and media in broad daylight.

As violence erupted in at least two lots United States cities, some of the worst instincts of police were on screen.

In Louisville, authorities seized and damaged a considerable amount of bottled water being used for the relief of peaceful protesters.

In Salt Lake City, an armored law enforcement officer who had no crowd to distribute still felt compelled to stroll straight towards a senior man with a walking stick and shove him to the ground

In New york city, two NYPD automobiles raked through a barricade and into a crowd of protesters. A young man with his hands in the air had his mask took down by an NYPD officer, who then pepper-sprayed him at point blank variety. And a minimum of throughout one effort at crowd clearance, officers manhandled and attacked anyone in their way

In Charleston, a young man amongst a group of kneeling protesters offered a tearful speech at the armored polices opposite them. After pleading with their humankind, even informing them the cops he liked them, a group of officers charged toward the protesters and pulled the speaker into custody. He was arrested while quietly opposing and exercising his flexibility speech

Authorities can typically face mortal risk and severe stress in their type of work. With the government-sanctioned power to deny residents of both life and liberty, they are required to swear an oath that they will be responsible, truthful, and lawful in the use of such power.

Law enforcement officer, by and large, attempt to maintain that oath. Police unions and many authorities departments do whatever in their power to make that oath just empty words by fighting any genuine efforts at transparency and responsibility when it pertains to the use-of-force.

This has needed to change for decades. Now could be the moment it must.

The Supreme Court ought to squash “qualified immunity” at last

George Floyd’s death won’t fail if it results in the Supreme Court finally eliminating the “certified resistance” analysis of Area 1983 of the US Code– which essentially provides an armored guard for officers to avoid being held responsible in civil courts for breaching citizens’ civil liberties.

Clark Neily, the vice president of criminal justice at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute composed in The Bulwark that the general conservative interpretation Area 1983 is a rare– and I ‘d say cynically hypocritical– instance of the best deserting its “originalist” technique to the Constitution.

As Neily puts it, victims of cops violence have little recourse in the court system “unless they can discover a pre-existing case in the jurisdiction with almost similar facts” to their own event. That puts the onus on the victim to show that their rights were in fact breached, because a standard interpretation of the Constitution will not do.

Floyd’s family would essentially have to find a case where a police killed someone by kneeling on their neck for an obscene length of time to get Chuavin’s qualified immunity waived.

Originalists have to twist themselves into pretzels to analyze the statute’s language so that it gives law enforcement the special advantage of the doubt in nearly every circumstances.

But that’s not the only systemic concern preventing any significant reforms of cops accountability.

Cops unions all over the country have worked out into their contracts all sort of unsuitable and unfair protections from facing justice for their actions.

The Black Lives Matter-associated group Campaign No created an extremely important database of police union agreements that shows “72 of the 81 cities’ contracts imposed at least one barrier to holding authorities liable.”

A few of these include a grace period of approximately numerous days after a fatal police-involved shooting prior to an officer can be spoken with. Others essentially keep disciplinary records from public view permanently.

The militarization of authorities– fueled by the Department of Defense’s “ area 1033” program which hands over surplus military devices to regional police departments– was reduced near completion of the second Obama administration however restarted in force by the Trump administration.

And then there’s the reality that in this country, it is disturbingly easy for a law enforcement officer fired for abuse, corruption or other causes to discover another job in law enforcement In some states, it’s more difficult to get a license to braid hair than it is to be licensed as an armed representative of the state

Thanks to a confluence of public sector union power, a federalist system of government, and the hesitation of many regional and state governments to keep and share databases including the names of bad polices who have been fired for cause, bad polices keep working.

Policing isn’t a basketball video game

According to Teresa Nelson, the ACLU of Minnesota’s legal director, the Minneapolis PD’s union manager Lt. Bob Kroll informed her in 2015 that he saw problems versus officers as comparable to fouls in basketball.

” If you’re not getting any fouls, you’re not striving enough,” Nelson says Kroll informed her, as reported in The New York Times

Chauvin had at least 18 problems. That’s enough to foul out of 3 NBA games.

Kroll, according to public records, has actually had at least 29 problems made versus him.

Lest it required to be said, policing is not a game and allegations of abuse are not basketball fouls. Policing, when done improperly, destroys life and liberty.

Throw in all the occurrences of heavy-handed to outright criminal behavior by law enforcement throughout this dreadful weekend in American history and it’s clear that modification is needed.

When the dust settles, we don’t need a “law and order” bootheel to make things much better, we require the political will to require that the law enforcement community reform itself away from its inhabiting army posture and make its disciplinary records transparent to the public.

Find Out More:

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The allegation versus Joe Biden has Democrats discovering the worth of due procedure

Forget Twitter, the Trump project’s pointless lawsuits are next-level threats to the First Change

Coronavirus hero Cuomo helped develop New york city’s disaster

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from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/authorities-rioted-this-weekend-validating-the-entire-point-of-the-demonstrations/

[davewakeman]

Taylor Swift's Ticket Sale Slump Highlights A Number Of Industry Challenges

  The efforts to spin Taylor Swift’s Verified Fan sales has been spun a number of different ways, but yesterday’s effort to boost sales by offering seats with “no fees” attached highlighted a number of issues with the program that should draw a lot of attention from artists, their management, and anyone that touches the entertainment or ticketing industry.

Let’s take a quick look at a few of them.

Discounts will kill you: 

Discounts have often been the go-to move for the lazy marketer or the marketer that is bankrupt of other ideas.

Why?

Any number of reasons come to mind like, but in most cases, the discounter is assuming that the only objection to spending money on a show, a product, or a service is the price.

This goes right to the heart of not understanding your market very well.

Which draws us back to this week’s “no fees” promotion from Ticketmaster and Taylor Swift.

In the buildup and throughout the sales process, everyone involved in selling the shows has made it very clear that they wanted to reward fans for their loyalty, which you showed by taking actions like sharing on social media, buying albums or merchandise, or some other action to share your devotion to Taylor Swift.

This idea is pretty good. You reward people for taking actions that you desire.

It is great. Pearl Jam has been doing that with their fan club for decades.

The problem here is that in conjunction with the no fees promotion, it appears that new seats were released that were considered better and cheaper than the ones that were offered to the people that bought early.

Which gave the people that previously bought tickets the impression that they were getting screwed on both location and price. Which if you bought the line of reasoning behind the boosts, was meant to reward Taylor Swift’s most devoted fans.

As we called that in marketing, a double whammy.

This is obviously a bad look for everyone.

A much better idea would have been to find some way to increase the perceived value of the tickets and the sale.

Off the top of my head, maybe you could have created an incentive program that offered fans that previously bought tickets and people that bought tickets this week a chance to find themselves in the front row. Or, you could have offered some sort of free tax day t-shirt as part of buying tickets this week. Maybe packaged several tickets together and created some sort of bundle.

Whatever…once again, discounts are destroying. This time, it is Taylor Swift’s reputation as a hot act.

Taking your fans or customers for granted or treating them like rubes is always a bad idea:

I get the grand American tradition of the svengali salesman that can sell ice to Eskimos and such.

This idea often masks or is used in conjunction with talking about someone that is willing to spin, dupe, or cajole in any manner necessary to make the sale.

The underlying concept here is that customers are just dummies to be taken for their money and moved on their way.

Taylor Swift’s ticket program has the feeling of a similar view of her own fans by everyone involved.

About 2 or 3 weeks ago, Seth Godin did a podcast where he described a conversation he had with the concert promoter Bill Graham about the price of Bruce Springsteen tickets. In the story, Bill Graham shared his view of entertainment as cultivating a community and that if you look to squeeze every possible penny out of your customers at every turn you can do it, but at what cost?

As Seth pointed out, this is the definition of the “infinite game.” Not taking every penny from your customers and treating them with the respect and dignity that you want them not to just spend money today, but for many more days to come.

That’s the challenge with the combination of strategies employed to help Taylor Swift sell her tickets.

The boost system felt a little sleazy to me from the start. Not because I have any problem with rewarding people for taking the right actions, nor because I want people to buy less merch; it felt sleazy because it felt like a blind money grab that was likely to leave her most loyal fans feeling disgruntled.

From the looks of it, that is exactly what happened.

As with the discounts, there is likely any number of creative ways to achieve the same thing.

Again, not to belabor a point I make regularly, but look at the way that Pearl Jam sells tickets to their tour through their fan club.

That’s one way that could have been employed to show fans you care, reward them for taking your preferred actions, and, likely, ensuring that tickets went to people that you wanted to get them to.

If those were your true intentions.

Trying to play both sides of the ticket market is a bad idea: 

The premise behind “slow ticketing” is that Ticketmaster wants to eliminate the need for the secondary market.

Anyone who offers up that idea as an explanation is lying to you…full stop!

The reasons for this are so many that it would likely require a piece all its own.

The real reason that this “slow ticketing” program is being offered up is that it seems like the best way to maximize revenue. Which I am all for…look at my brand, I love revenue!

The problem with maximizing revenue in a manner like this is that it tries to break Wakeman’s Law of Tickets, which says:

If you pay $500 for a ticket on the secondary market to a hot show, you almost always feel like you won something and are exhilirated by the experience of getting into a hot show. If you pay the same $500 for a ticket on the primary side, you feel like the artist and the ticketing company are abusing you and treating you like a mark. Even if the price remains the same.

This feeling is unfair, but it is real.

I saw it constantly when I was working with American Express and their Centurion Card concierge program on the project that helped Centurion Cardmembers have access to tickets anywhere in the world.

The reason this happens is simple: it is all based on the stories we tell ourselves.

Look at the seminal study that Robert Cialdini did with the United Way where they went out to see how they could boost donations to the United Way.

The messaging they used was “anything you give will help, even a penny.”

This did something crazy. It doubled the money they received and increased the number of people that gave.

When they went back to study why this happened they found out two things:

Lots of people couldn’t see themselves as the kind of people that wouldn’t give a penny to the United Way.

When you had decided that you weren’t the kind of person that would give anything to the United Way, you also decided that you needed to give an amount that was consistent with how you saw yourself.

Stories shape the actions we take.

This is why trying to play both sides of the market is bad news.

Because everyone comes to the world with a worldview and trying to change it is often impossible. For most people, paying the same amount on the primary side as they would on the secondary side is as much about the story they want to tell themselves as it is about the price or the ticket.

It is as simple as, “If I pay Taylor Swift $500, she’s greedy.”

If I pay a broker the same $500, “How lucky am I? I got a first-row ticket to see Taylor Swift.”

Unfair, but reality.

Verified Fan, despite the hype, has dinged every artist’s brand that has come in contact with it:

Some of the criticism is warranted, some of it is not. Isn’t that true of almost everything?

But in the case of Verified Fan, I’ve yet to see any performer come out in a better position with their fans than they came in.

Pearl Jam had the fiasco with tickets to the Montana show where you were forced to buy 4.

Taylor Swift is dealing with her challenges now.

After Justin Timberlake’s Verified Fan on-sale, consumers were scratching their head, asking “Is Justin Timberlake big enough that brokers would even buy up his tickets?”

On and on this seems to go.

Partly, there is always going to be fans complaining that they didn’t get tickets and/or the tickets were too expensive.

But the justification for the program has always been to keep tickets out of the hands of the secondary market…as far as the success of that goes, let’s call that debatable.

If I check StubHub for Pearl Jam tickets, there are hundreds at each of the stops in Missoula, Chicago, and Boston. As a pretty avid Pearl Jam fan, I can say that’s a lot higher number than I typically see on the secondary market for them.

For Springsteen on Broadway, every show there is seemingly an ample supply of tickets available.

Taylor Swift shows a moderate amount of inventory, but she’s having issues selling out at all…so I’m not sure this is indicative of much.

I point these things out because they fly in the face of the justification of limiting the secondary markets’ ability to get inventory to these shows.

If anything, looking at StubHub, even quickly, seems to prove just the opposite.

This becomes a big deal because of a few things:

As far as justifications go, it is pretty ham-handed to talk about shutting down brokers while generating so much revenue from the secondary market resale arm of the business. It comes off as hypocritical and customers aren’t stupid.

While not empirical evidence, a quick look at StubHub says brokers are doing just fine. And, by looking at social media and the news reports, the consumers that are being “protected” are complaining much more than they are talking about being satisfied. Might be just the nature of customers, but, also, not a good look.

Almost everyone I have talked to about Verified Fan has had a bad experience with the program and that dings Ticketmaster and the artist. Take me for example, I’ve gone through the process of trying to get my lady a pair of Springsteen tickets on a presale, used my code, picked tickets, and tried to buy them only to have me receive an error several times that my code is no good for this presale. That’s me…and that’s a lot of other people too.

The biggest reason all of these issues are a problem is because as customers and fans have more and more options for their entertainment dollar, they are going to ask for more and expect more.

If you try to be deceitful, you will be found out.

If you lie, you will be found out.

If customers feel like you are toying with their loyalty, they will turn their back on you.

These are challenges that anyone that is involved in entertainment needs to be thinking about…because as much as we might feel that we have a monopoly on the tickets and entertainment, we don’t have a monopoly on people’s attention or their mindshare.

Once we lose their attention, we’ve lost everything.

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Taylor Swift’s Ticket Sale Slump Highlights A Number Of Industry Challenges was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

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