#i could also do all that but it feels disingenuous for me to cause major points without follower input

[gothamcity-official]

heyyyyyyyyy *totally not-sketchy tone*

so...on a scale of 1-10 how much do you value joker's life???

out of curiosity only ofc!!! :))))))

We are not legally allowed to answer any of these types of questions. -Mod Maxi

Not because we don't want to, of course, but for our own safety :) -Mod Rusty

#only in gotham #only in gotham rp #onlyingotham #Mod Rusty (OC) #Mod Maxi (OC) #op #dc #in character #ooc comment: congratulations! you found the loophole called 'Askers are the Citizens/Civilians in Gotham' #you can do things to Gotham City because you exist OUTSIDE OF IT! #You can fck up Wayne Enterprises or the Manor or the fckn Batcave if you wanted #all of the information that the mods get comes from civilians which is YOU #i could also do all that but it feels disingenuous for me to cause major points without follower input #asks

[irithnova]

I want to uh make a post about Mongolia's relationship with his history and I guess some fandom depictions I'm uncomfortable with.

I think nations who have imperialist histories have some complex feelings around them because their entire existence, despite their immortality or perhaps God like status, is at the mercy of their people and rulers. Nations are human inventions, the identity of the nation is what it's people makes it. They didn't exactly ask to be born or to be representatives of an entire group of people - they just are. Nations are also subjects to their "bosses", like whoever is the Leader, King, Queen, Emperor, President is at the time. The extent to which nations support said ruler and how much autonomy they had under them vary from ruler to ruler, century to century. It's not always wise to conflate a nation with it's politics however it can become incredibly disingenuous and runs the risk of imperialism apologia when it's ignored entirely.

It would be silly to say my analysis of Mongolia's particular relationship with his imperialist history fully covers every nook and cranny of emotions nations have about their own imperialist histories, however by explaining Mongolia's relationship with his it allows for me to explain a few different ways I think nations may look back on imperialist pasts and also allows me to air out some grievances about Mongol Empire depictions.

First of all - I think nations operate on a different moral compass. A lot of things they do seem extremely weird to most humans - like casual and open relationships. So nation morality would be different. For example, if a nation backstabbed (or even literally stabbed) another nation 400 years ago which in turn caused a lot of destruction, depending on what has happened in those 400 years, there may not even be a grudge there. They might even be friends. And that friendship could easily be broken depending on what happens in the next 400 years. A nation who was public enemy #1 1000 years ago may be well liked in the modern day.

Me saying that nations follow a different moral code does not mean that I am trying to justify wrong doing. However as literal... Gods perhaps, of course things will be different. I think all nations are in a morally grey area, as they are primarily driven by self interest. That ensures their survival after all. I believe all nations have done right and wrong, on global scales and interpersonal scales. No one is exempt from this.

My uncomfortable feelings stem from when exceptions are made for certain nations in order to downplay their assholery because of a bias - while other nations get the same old assholery treatment. I think you see where I'm getting at. I believe it is stepping into dangerous territory when one nations asshole status or imperialist past and even present/relationship with its government is magnified to such an extent that it becomes an offensive and stereotypical depiction.

If we talk about the treatment of China for example - magnifying the crimes of the CCP to the extent where your China depiction becomes nothing more than a Sinophobic caricature. A large part of Sinophobia is the assumption that a majority or even all Chinese people are part of a CCP hivemind - any warmth or humanity stripped from them as they are painted as cold, calculating and scheming orientals, every action having some sinister intent.

This over conflation of nations with their government is often reserved for China compared to the likes of the US or Russia. Again - it is foolish to not associate the nation with its government at all or only in very small parts and can lead into tricky territory. However over conflating a nation with its government and unsavoury actions committed on the nations behalf - especially when this is done selectively, quickly becomes offensive and in many cases even racist, and shows a persons prejudices against certain groups of people.

This is where Mongolia comes in.

This racialisation of the Mongols being uniquely evil in their imperialism isn't exactly a new invention so it's not a surprise that this depiction of Mongolia being a uniquely bad or evil nation personification compared to everyone else, even to other nations who have also engaged in imperialism/nation's who's engagement in imperialist ventures are far more recent or are still actually ongoing is a theme that's prevalent in the fandom.

You could take rochu fics for example where Mongolia is portrayed as the boogeyman they bond over their hatred for even 800 years after the fact (I won't even touch upon how incredibly historically inaccurate these fics are because we'll be here all day but just know - it's bad) and Mongolia has a terrible marauding personality still. However despite more recent and even currently ongoing Russian and Chinese imperialist ventures (even historical imperialism that goes way back with China before Mongolia even existed), including Russian and Chinese imperialism that has affected and still affects Mongols in the current day they aren't depicted so disgracefully.

In fact if anything, in the 21st century, Mongolia is at the mercy of both Russia and China, but people love to pretend that that is not the current reality because they need a token one dimensional "savage" nation to contrast against the more "virtuous" or "moral" nations.

The idea that the Mongols were somehow unique in their imperialism means that in turn, everything about Mongolia and it's culture and history is seen as inherently barbarous, almost as if they predispositioned to acting "backwards."

To say that Mongolia is 100% regretful of everything or 100% regrets nothing are both rooted in the racist notion that the Mongols were uniquely bad in what the Mongol Empire did.

I'm going to be talking about Western Exceptionalism here and how it relates to my point about "over conflating a nation with its government and unsavoury actions committed on the nations behalf - especially when this is done selectively, quickly becomes offensive and in many cases even racist, and shows a persons prejudices against certain groups of people."

You might have heard of the phrase "Conquerer (if you're) from the West, barbarian (if you're from the East)." It's basically a quote which summarises Western exceptionalism. In the West, the likes of Napoleon, Alexander the Great and Charlemagne are depicted as great conquerors and shrewd military commanders. They are almost universally viewed with this lense of admiration despite the fact that these men also had pretty hefty death tolls under their belts and established Empires.

Furthermore, people are willing to be more nuanced or clinical or objective if they do choose to speak on America or England's imperialist past in historical hetalia posts and circles. Not only that, but especially with the US, his "rise to power" is often lionised. America is not painted as some sort of bloodthirsty savage even if someone has a more critical take on him, and his technological developments are often highlighted. Meanwhile Mongolia has often been portrayed as a mindless brute, his people a faceless horde, and whatever advancements that the Mongol Empire accomplished are downplayed or downright ignored in order to fit the "Mongol barbarian" narrative.

As touched upon previously, the depiction of Mongolia that he regrets nothing often results in extremely racist depictions. Of course he has regrets - literally every nation does.

As a whole do I think Mongolia regrets the Mongol Empire? No. But there are certainly aspects of it that he finds regrettable.

I personally think a majority of nations who have had imperialist histories don't 100% regret it or at least aren't prostrating themselves begging for forgiveness over it - so no he's not unique in that aspect at all.

We need to remember that without Chinggis Khaan/the formation of the Mongol Empire, there would be no "Mongolia" as we know it or "Mongolians" as we know them. They essentially would have been another obscure group recorded a few times in Chinese chronicles and given little attention. He is essentially their founding father .

When I say that as a whole that Mongolia does not regret the Mongol Empire, that does not mean that I think that when he remembers those days, he gets a huge fucking boner thinking about how many people died under the Empire and that's the source of his happiness when he looks back. Mongolia's pride and fondness of his past is less to do with the death toll (despite what offensive fandom depictions and racists would lead you to believe) and more to do with what he was able to achieve at the time - this is not dissimilar to how other nations with Imperialist histories remember it.

For example, in England, Winston Churchill is almost venerated for his leadership during World War 2. A majority of British people don't celebrate Churchill because he was a raging racist who purposefully starved 3.8 million people in Bengal to death (that's not me justifying the insane Churchill worship that they participate in though), but celebrate him because of - again, his leadership during World War 2. Similarly, Mongolia/Mongolians don't celebrate Chinggis Khaan because they think his kill count was epic - but because it was Chinggis Khaan who solidified the Mongol identity and brought Mongolia onto the world stage after years of obscurity and the risk of simply being absorbed into neighbouring groups and forgotten. Just like how the US celebrates his founding fathers , Mongolia celebrates his own.

Mongolians are said to be a proud people - especially of their history. I mean they have a huge Chinggis Khaan statue for a reason. While I don't think Mongolia is always living in the past, he definitely remembers those times fondly. To regret it and prostate himself begging for forgiveness over it would essentially be him regretting the fact he's alive. What he was able to achieve was undeniably impressive - from a relatively obscure group of people surrounded by much more powerful and threatening neighbours and at risk of being absorbed to forming a strong, consolidated identity and creating the largest Empire to ever exist (before the rise of the British empire much later on. Sorry Mongolia you're number 2 how).

Does he think about the death toll? At times, yes. But like all nations with imperialist histories or even all nations who have been in conflicts - while he acknowledges it, there is little emotional investment in it. He doesn't look back at it in bloodthirsty pleasure but he also doesn't break down in hysterics. Perhaps it's turning a blind eye, sure. But again. Nations operate on a different moral code. And maybe it's even self preservation to an extent. If all nations dwelled on the numbers who died under them, they'd surely go mad.

I remember seeing a pretty funny comment on the r/Mongolia subreddit and it essentially went:

Did they deserve it? No

But are we proud of it? Yes

I think Mongolia agrees that yeah a lot of those people who died under his empire didn't exactly "deserve" it, but views it as a sort of necessary evil. And I think we need to remember that nations are not humans so nation morality is not going to be identical to human morality. This "necessary evil" mindset is a view that I think a majority of nations have when remembering a majority of the conflicts they participated in.

For example, with the destruction of the Khwarazmian Empire, sure, Mongolia isn't going to sit there and say "those kids deserved it", but he will say that it was something of a necessary evil, because Muhammad II (the ruler) decided to decapitate his envoys for no good reason despite agreeing to a peace treaty/trade agreement with the Mongols shortly before this. He'd give similar explanations for other scenarios. None of the explanations include "I did it because I just needed to kill 100,000 more people to reach my kill count goals."

This is not the only explanation he'll give. There are also instances where he will admit that yeah that was unprovoked or that was kind of shitty and I think that he owns it. Not own it as in "I'm proud of it I loved killing them" nor as in "wow I'm so irredeemable please forgive me", but he's pretty frank about it happening and won't deny it if someone asks. This is a pretty common mindset I've seen with Mongolians, they're not exactly in denial of what bad things took place during the Mongol Empire but it doesn't make them any less proud of what was accomplished.

And of course he does have regrets/ looks back and find things regrettable - as all nations do. I do think he is sore about certain things. An example of something that he thinks is regrettable was the burning of the House of Wisdom during the siege of Baghdad in 1258. There were perhaps certain cities that he would have actually liked to preserve but regrettably they weren't kept in tact. He thinks that perhaps the number of casualties could have been lower had X or Y not happened.

An example of something that I think he wholeheartedly regrets (while not to do with his empire but also in the past) was the Zhungar genocide. This regret over what happened with the Zhungars/Oirats (another Mongolic people) is a common sentiment amongst Mongolians and is quite a sore topic when discussed. This is despite the fact that Mongolia and the Oirat confederations were constantly at each others throats.

Mongolia is not unique in how he views his empire or imperialist ventures. It's pretty typical of how most nations with imperialist pasts handle it if you ask me. "I don't regret it entirely, however there are things about it I certainly find regrettable or unsavoury.", "It was something of a necessary evil, me and another kingdom were fighting over a piece of land so of course people were killed in the process", "I wholeheartedly regret this and wish it never happened."

The mindset and emotions depends on the conflicts, what happened, they circumstances surrounding them, the aftermath. Maybe nations are unjustified or even hypocritical in being upset about one conflicts destruction while pretty much turning a blind eye to another - I think a lot of them are somewhat aware of this themselves. However nothing about nations really makes sense. Perhaps nations need not question their actions.

What I'm saying this: No I don't think Mongolia is particularly unique in the way he views his imperialist history and I'm kind of tired of Mongolia being portrayed as uniquely evil because of his empire 800 years ago whereas nations such as the US and Germany are viewed much more favourably and conflated far less with government decisions and atrocities despite them being far more recent. It just shows me the way in which you view Mongolians, and it's not pretty.

Anyways other thoughts: No Mongolia isn't constantly thinking about his empire and I don't think he's emo about it. It is a source of pride and well there are lots of tributes to Chinggis Khaan around Mongolia of course hahah but like... He's definitely in the here and now and isn't "stuck in the past" malding and smoking 100 cigarettes a day about how powerful he used to be I mean look at how much Mongolia politically is getting involved in the international scene. I do think he does get fed up at his government but that's not the same as being depressed or hopeless over it - I think he rarely ever feels downright hopeless because if his broke ass could become an empire I guess anything could happen, but perhaps downtrodden at times. He doesn't see much sense in wallowing in pain. Not that he hasn't done that but from an objective sense he thinks it's dumb and useless so refrains from doing so as much as possible. Unless something happens to him that's so bad he's just thrust into that state of mind or something which has admittedly happened a few times but he tries to get back up quickly I feel. Anyways yeah Mongolia 👍

#hetalia #aph mongolia #hws mongolia #hetalia world stars #hetalia world series #hetalia world twinkle #hetalia mongolia #Historical hetalia

[chirpsythismorning]

Idk what’s worse, the fact that there are milkvans out there that believe El commissioned Will’s painting, or that a majority of milkvans believe she didn’t, but still think everything Will said to Mike in the van scene applies to how El feels about Mike as well. And honestly, how could they not? Mike looked very happy and emotional hearing Will's words in the van... no shit they're hoping that's how El feels.

But El never called Mike the heart. El never said she needed Mike and always will. Those words coming from Will's feelings for Mike, then being used to inspire Mike to give his monologue to El, was disingenuous bc it was never El’s feelings being responded to in the first place.

‘It only works if it comes from you’

That’s the whole problem. It didn’t work bc it was coming from Will, not El.

IF everything Will said applied to El, why not have it come from her?

No, but seriously??

Is s5 just going to open up to El apologizing to Mike for ignoring him after the monologue, followed by her just repeating everything Will said with her own twist and Mike being like cool!! That works for me!

The problem with making the narrative choice to instead focus on Will's feelings at the forefront, only to follow it up with El's identical feelings, does nothing but make the whole thing fall flat.

Instead of seeing this main couple voice their love for each other themselves, I gotta have her brother do it for her?? And only then after he does it, can I see her do it in like a 2.0 version of sorts????

So many milkvans are willing to acknowledge that Mike and El’s dynamic throughout the series is riddled frivolous conflict more than anything, with little to no time dedicated to showing the development that actually matters. They say they wish the show spent more time with them actually face to face acknowledging how they both feel verbally without the constant cloud of some other third party interfering, causing them to have issues. They say that this time though, they think the Duffers will magically pull through for them and go from what they believe is shitty writing to ‘good’ writing, based in terms of how they'll handle Mike and El's relationship in s5...

But that's not realistic on any front, milkvan, byler or otherwise.

And that's a big part of the problem, bc they know the pacing has not been great for them, and they NEED the show to just give them Mike and El so they can be happy, but that's not how you build up suspense for a love story. And dragging out Mike and El any more, would just be a repeat of every other season before. They reached their peak and so they can only down from here. That's kind of the whole point.

One thing to note is that the Duffers always create conflict for the incompatible couple early in a season, so that the audience doesn’t feel too uncomfortable with the idea of considering the other option that’s at the forefront for the rest of the season.

This will ESPECIALLY be the case for byler, bc Will already has home wrecker allegations as it is. And it's also a highly controversial queer ship, and so people are going to be making claims left and right that it’s wrong bc of xyz.

They just wont be able to have byler scenes loaded with romantic tension all season long, more than any other season, and with the story making it more obvious they want us to root for them, while also having Mike and El still be together. And it's simply bc the reality is the Duffers have a record of doing the complete opposite of that.

This is also endgame territory, so there is a serious pressure on the writers part to get their audience to be closer to rooting for byler than denying it even being possible. Meaning they NEED the audience to be watching their first kiss and, for better or worse, be thinking, FINALLY just get it over with already!

Also what's El's supposed to be up to while this is happening? Are we assuming she's just stringing along waiting for Mike to get his shit together? Like Jesus!

El has every right to say her piece and get that shit over with, by episode 1 or 2 at the latest. She could be a focused on Max and her family and friends, which if you'll note also includes Mike and Will, but instead this time without the pressure of her having to hope that something will turn around and suddenly Mike will decide he finally loves her... She doesn't deserve that.

Byler is clearly the route they are taking. If that is the plan, it's time to make this separation so that the audience is finally confronted with viewing Mike and El without the constant rose tinted love at first sight goggles, and instead give them a chance to be their authentic selves.

And I think El, being a character that could barely speak in s1, that her not getting her own voice in this situation is fucking serious. El not being able to say those words to Mike herself, like there's a reason for that. And so when she finally does get to say how she feels, there isn't going to be any room for subtext or misunderstanding, not on the audiences part nor Mike's. El has always been pretty clear about what she wants and I think that will apply in s5 now more than ever.

#byler #no but srs i try to imagine their version of the show and my brain sort of just freezes up #is their dynamic going to just completely shift and they'll communicate perfectly #after barely communicating at all at the end of s4? #like they know that milkvan need to be together by now to make sense and that's why their version has them happy right away #bc they cant allow themselves to see it any other way #bc it would just literally be a repeat of every other season... #somethings gotta give #give el her voice to say how she feels for herself #and don't be mad when it turns out her brothers feelings don't exactly match up with hers #you know.. the words mike smiled captivatingly too...

[scoobydoodean]

I see this held up as major proof of Dean's badness, but couldn't it also be proof of Cas having faith Dean can get past anything without Cas having to change his behavior? The way it's structured the onus is on DEAN to work through it, not others to change or make amends. ---- CASTIEL: You know, Dean, he – he feels things more acutely than any human I've ever known. So it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on.

I see what you mean in a general sense, and it's extremely possible that Cas is thinking about his own past fights with Dean and Dean forgiving him, and from the perspective of the critique you have in mind that you're refuting, I agree. But of course deancrit casgirls will forever insist that Cas has never in his life done anything harmful to Dean either accidentally or on purpose, so any time Dean might dare try to hold him accountable for anything, he's actually just making shit up and being toxic and controlling, so here Cas is just apologizing for his own abusive relationship. You can only get their take by being deliberately obtuse/disingenuous.

That said, the context of that line (from 15.13 "Destinty's Child") is Cas answering soulless Jack's question about whether Dean will eventually forgive him for murdering Mary.

CASTIEL: Hey, Jack. JACK: Cas, you know what's good about being dead? CASTIEL: Uh, as I recall, very little. JACK: Well, when you come back, you – you really get into all that life is. Hot, cold, sweet, spicy, funny, scary. CASTIEL: And are you? "Into it"? JACK: I want to be. But I don't... feel things the way I used to. Before I lost my... CASTIEL: Your soul. JACK: I used to feel things. In my bones. It was glorious, and sometimes unbearable. But I felt them. Now, I understand joy or sadness, but... I know those things aren't in me. I understand why Sam and Dean were angered by what happened to Mary... CASTIEL: By what you did to Mary. JACK: Yes. I see that I've caused them pain. And it's clear that things have changed. Especially with – with Dean. Will he ever forgive me? CASTIEL: You know, Dean, he – he feels things more acutely than any human I've ever known. So it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on. JACK: How long will that take? CASTIEL: I don't know.

And yeah—I have seen people refer to Cas's little speech here as "condoning child abuse" and other bullshit. Because how DARE Dean not forgive soulless Jack for murdering his mother (something soulless Jack is unable to actually really acknowledge he did). I mean clearly any time someone murders your mom because she made them mad and threatened their sense of security by asking if they're okay and saying their concerning actions can’t stay a secret… That’s just natural understandable stuff! You need to forgive the person who murdered her instantly and if you don’t idk you’re kinda overreacting don’t you think? :/ I mean your mom probably deserved it kind of anyway for reading the room so wrong and talking about getting a person help. And I mean if you don't forgive the person who killed your mom or do anything trying to stop them from hurting more people you're really a child abuser... toward an adult... who murdered your mother in cold blood and is unable to even understand why it was wrong in any sense other than an intellectual one like he read it from a book... preferring to refer to it as "What happened to Mary" instead of acknowledge it as something he himself did because he was mad and felt threatened—which is what he circled back to in "Jack In The Box" too. It's only when Jack gets his soul back that he's able to actually feel true empathy, acknowledge his real actions and the gravity of them, and give an actual sincere apology. Because his soul is actually important—something this fandom refuses, by and large, to notice.

Anyway, this fandom's take on Mary's murder and soulless Jack vs. regular Jack is overwhelmingly a bag of wet third grader vomit and feces so what can one expect?

#mail #soulless jack killing mary is popularly regarded as an accident... but it's pretty transparent that it wasn't? #or rather it was on purpose but he regretted it the second after it happened. but that is still. Something he chose to do. Not an accident. #He saw her as a threat to his relationship with Sam and Dean and he acted. #This is indicated right before he kills her. He admits it outright also right before calling it an accident which unravels that whole idea. #It wasn’t pre-meditated but in that moment he wanted her to die. She was going to tell everyone there was something wrong with him. #And he did not want that. #It wasn't an accident and he can't handle his own culpability because it threatens his belief that he can make things be the way they were #before it happened. Which is why he killed her to begin with! He didn't want anyone to know/think anything was wrong with him! #And just like soulless Jack just wants everyone to forget about it and act like nothing happened and he's fine... #Many fans want Dean to forget about it. They want Dean to believe and say and feel and think that Mary did not matter. #And that being upset at her literal murder (even if it was an accident—which it was not) is bad and evil. #And Sam's great capacity for numbness (which we already saw in season 13) strengthen's their own lack of empathy for Dean #in a situation that in real life they would understand unless they're actual psychopaths. #It's only because Dean is a character in a narrative representing the need/capacity to be loved and accepted at all #that these demands that his thoughts and feelings bend to everyone else's emotional needs become so disturbingly intrusive #dont feed the stans after midnight #and cas is my best friend #hot girl cas

[borealis-hopping]

((WARNING LMAO, this post turned out a lot longer than I thought it would, sorry. Autistic idiot rambles about Jack Stauber for multiple paragraphs.))

TLDR; Watching Jack get popular as a fan who was there before he went viral has been great, however, most people only seem to view his art as nothing but a vehicle for their own. Taking inspiration from other people's art for your art is wonderful and fine, however if you ONLY view someone's art as nothing but a vehicle for your own, it's not great. Doing so ignores the intention behind it, covers up it's original meaning, separates it from it's artist, and ultimately strips it of it's worth as an individual art piece, even if that wasn't your intention at all. ((Also pls listen to more than just the same 4 songs, he has a pretty big amount of music out there and it's all really good, give it a try and stop listening to nothing but "Buttercup"))

vv Thoughts below vv

________________________________

Look it's 1am so idk if I'll word my exact feelings on this as ideally as I'd want to but like, I have mixed feelings on the fan base that has formed around Jack Stauber's work.

While yes it is good he's getting popular, and yes it is good he's finding success after all his years of work, and yes I'm happy people are enjoying his music, I can't help but find the fan base that has formed around his music to be fairly disingenuous.

And by disingenuous I mean, most people don't tend to care about the art of the music itself, what any of it actually means, or the heart and intentions put into it, or really Jack himself. Now ik this makes me sound like a pretentious dickbag, but it comes from a place of care.

I love Jack Stauber's work because it's so interesting to me. Not cause "oh wow it's so weird and fucked up!! Jack must be such a fucked up edgy guy to make such surreal art LOL." But because of the amount of soul is in his work.

I think people are too fast to dismiss surreal art as meaningless or weird simply for the sake of being weird, completely missing any thought the artist put into it. Like, if you have the capacity to suspend your disbelief even for a second and look past his arts surreal aspects, you'll see just how /human/ Jack's writing and art is.

While I'm not generalizing EVERY thing he's made or is going to make, ultimately I think Jack's work is about humanity. Human struggle both internal and external, with relationships, grief, communication, and the complexities of self image.

If you pay attention to how he writes his characters, all the dialogue feels really authentic. Like yeah I can imagine passing a person in public who sounds like that or would say that, or I could totally see a person in that context talking like that. He seems to have a really good understanding of people.

The way he portrays them is honest but not nihilistic. They're just people, and sometimes people are a bit weird, or awkward, or just plain dumb. But they're still people and they're not evil for being that way.

Even in Jack's more surreal shorts or songs, if you pay attention to the lyrics and context clues, you can probably derive meaning from it that in one way or another is fairly human and sincere.

Ofc surreal art that is weird or funny or off putting simply for the sake of being so has plenty of worth as well, and I'm sure Jack has just had fun here and there making strange stuff for the sake of making strange stuff. (Think "Nerpo") and that's valid too!

But ig what I'm getting at here is that, more often than not the majority of engagement I see w/ Jack Stauber's work outside of his YouTube channel, is people simply using his work as a vehicle for their own characters or stories, or fandoms.

Now I'm in no way saying that doing that stuff is inherently bad. I do it all the time! Finding inspiration from other artists as a way to express and expand your own art is beautiful and extremely fun, HOWEVER-

That seems to be the /ONLY/ type of engagement there is. Which, sadly, isn't great. Using someone else's pre-made art, especially music, as a vehicle for your own fandom/art isn't bad, however, if you ONLY view that person's art as nothing BUT a vehicle, even if it's not your intention, you completely lose sight of the art you're riding off of. You separate it from it's artist, disregard it's original meaning, cover up the intentions behind it, and ultimately kinda strip it of its own individual worth as a piece of art.

Anyways! Enjoying Jack's work is good but I wish more people would appreciate his work for what it is on it's own, as well as who Jack is as an artist and look at his work with a more realistic and proper perspective even if it does look "weird" or "pointlessly creepy"

Also this is a bit more petty and just how I feel but PLEASE listen to more than just the same 3 to 4 songs. There's nothing wrong with having favorite songs or just listening to the same few songs from an artist and not exploring the rest of their work, and like idc if saying this makes me sound like a shitty hipster- if you're gonna do that just PLEEAASE stop walking around and telling people you're this BIG Jack Stauber fan when the only songs you listen to are "Oh Klahoma" "Coffee" and "Buttercup"

He has SUCH a big selections of tracks out there if you include both the extended and non-extended micropop songs, as well as his albums. My personal favorite album is "HiLo", it means a lot to me and is getting me through a pretty tough time in my life rn. I recommend ALL of his music! Even his very first album, and the stuff at the start of his YouTube channel.

There's even people trying to compile his "lost media" on SoundCloud. Old and unreleased music he never put on YouTube. It's a fun thing to look into if you feel up to it!

#Jack Stauber #music #long post #fanart #art #fandom #Adult Swim #HiLo #Pop Food #Ive had these thoughts in my head for a HOT minute #considering making a short video essay about it #Musicblr

[thebreakfastgenie]

Sadly that post you reblogged has a lot of the markers of being made with a less than healthy dose of anti-trans rhetoric, whether they meant to or not. The relating it to BLM as a movement is particularly disingenuous and a completely false equivalence. Your blog has been such a hotbed of Capital T Takes recently, and even though I think you are intelligent and genuinely want to come to these conversations in good faith, it sometimes just feels like you want to court controversy a little. Which. You do that at the expense of people who follow you. You take the time to tag Mash content but were openly begrudging when an anon asked you to tag hurtful discourse. I think you think you are somehow more open-minded or high-minded or less reactive than the average tumblr user, but yet you seek out replies on a post to ridicule… when you could just… not. You’re constantly fighting fights that don’t need to be fought - as if removing gendered language from discussions of bodily autonomy hurts the movement, or as if anyone actually needs you to say ANYTHING about what bisexuals deal with, or as if anyone wants to know what you personally think about this month being Disability Pride Month! Just stop! Please I’m BEGGING you, consider having these intellectual discussions in other spaces, or at least tag it all with SOMETHING. And maybe - though I feel you’ll ridicule all of this but I have to say it anyway - take the time spent ridiculing emotional reactions to posts in analysing and evaluating what caused it? You’ll take this as hate mail but it’s just… I think you are dabbling in intellectual curiosity at the expense of real people. You really are.

I'm not really sure what to do with this ask because there's a lot of personal stuff in here which, like, whatever, but I think the more important thing is sticking up for that post.

a lot of the markers of being made with a less than healthy dose of anti-trans rhetoric, whether they meant to or not

I've talked about this before, but I think it bears repeating. Looking for "markers" of anti-trans rhetoric is a fool's errand. Either a post is transphobic or it isn't. Acknowledging the connection between misogyny and laws that primarily affect women is not anti-trans. Equating acknowledging sex-based oppression with being anti-trans is actually what TERFs want.

I do not believe the BLM comparison was disingenuous at all. I also don't know OP's race or experience with BLM and I'm not going to make assumptions about it. I do think you have to be careful, because race and gender/sex are different, but there are legitimate parallels. It's well-documented that women are basically expected to put every single other marginalized group ahead of themselves. Pointing out that other marginalized groups are not treated the same way is legitimate.

I also believe that in certain contexts removing gendered language does hurt the movement. I recognize not everyone agrees with that. But the fact is that the people who are restricting abortion are doing it to restrict the bodily autonomy of women. It does also affect some people who are not women, but women are the target and the vast majority of people affected. Misogyny is gendered.

I did not seek out comments to get upset about. The comment I responded to showed up in my notifications, because that user reblogged it from me. I don't ever seek out comments to respond to. I respond to posts I see on my dash and to comments that people add to my posts and to asks I am sent.

I am making an effort to tag discourse posts because some of the people who have requested it are people I like and care about. I don't think I've expressed reluctance, just a hope that I won't need to use it. I tag mashposts because I was asked to and I've mentioned many times that I don't know why that one stuck and that it's the only tag I've ever used consistently.

You can believe me or not but I'm not courting controversy (except maybe with fandom nonsense sometimes). I used to do that. I'm surprised every time one of these things blows up.

I acknowledge there have been more Takes recently. This is just because I have happened to see more things that bugged me enough to post about them. I don't expect this to continue, but who knows? Also, I've gained more active followers recently, so Takes are more of an event instead of the 0 note posts I used to make in peace. I regret some of them. I don't think my feelings about disability pride month, specifically as I've seen it discussed on tumblr (since although I know it's been around from googling it, I have not seen it mentioned literally anywhere else this year), were out of line, but I do regret the post just because I don't think I was prepared to explain the nuances in the detail they deserved. But here's the thing:

This is my fucking blog. I have used it for, among other things, posting my thoughts, feelings, and opinions on a variety of topics for the last ten years. If you don't like it, you don't have to follow it, and neither does anyone else.

The "hatemail <3" tag is reserved for the messages calling me a fucking cunt.

[survivor-trinidad-and-tobago]

Episode 15: "ACQUIESCE BABY!!!"—Kaleigh

In this round: Everyone acquiesces to Kaleigh's spelling superiority when she wins her second individual immunity; Kaleigh steals Zee's vote; and Zee joins the jury

Zee

Whaddup my name's Jared I'm 19 and I never fuckin learned how to read

Michael

Honestly not much to report! I'm going to try and stay strong with Alex and Kaleigh. Tony left but I'm sure that's a big relief for him, he did great for his first game.

Jack

Hey babes, so I’m SOOO HAPPY to be back and I’m with my hot gurlzzz and I love them. Im so happy Tony got out cause he didn’t vote w me (that’s what he gets 😌). At this point anyone but me, champ, or zee going home is the best for my game cause it’s gonna be a 3-3 tie. IM READY FOR ROCKS☠️😈

Kaleigh

woooooo another immunity win, i woulda been so shocked if someone could beat me at a spelling bee. ACQUIESCE BABY!!! my deranged cobwebby brain is good at one thing and one thing only… and that’s spelling. i’m jk i’m good at other things too but wow lol ok. so i’m immune tonight. zee is asking me and alex to flip on michael, and its just condescending at this point :( like i know what i’m doing babe and idgaf if u think michael is gonna win. i’m fine with that LMAO why would i flip on my allies to be at the bottom of ur 3? like? no??? but i told her it’s a possibility but i think i’ll probably just steal a vote tonight and get zee out. please god don’t let her have another stinking advantage !! also i finished that book and it was extremely good. and it’s my niece’s 4th birthday.

Alex

Ugh, this vote still feels tenuous. Champ said today she wanted to take Zee out last vote (not that it would have mattered, ultimately - I KNEW she had a second idol lol). She's flat out lied to me so many times at this point, but she also knows how big of a threat Zee is. Finding the time to actually talk game with her feels like it will be impossible, though. I finally reached out to Zee last night to compliment her on still trying to unify the tribe like with the game night. She used the words 'icing out' to describe how quiet chat has been between sides, which is fair. I don't know if it was directed only at me, but even if that wasn't what I was trying to do I can see how she felt that way. It just felt like there was not even, like, pretended level of potential to work together and I didn't know how to bridge the gap of "hey even though we won't tell each other anything in-game, how's life?" and have it not seem disingenuous. So I'm glad that came out of last night. The Tony blindside definitely surprised me, and Jack coming back into the game over Colin. It really feels like it's Champ or bust with this vote but if we come to the risk of rocks, I see them possibly flipping. Now that I'm at Actual Final 6 I don't actually want to go to rocks anymore lol. It just feels like if we can get through tomorrow's vote we could get the rest of the way but who knows. If Zee has a third idol I'll lose my mind lmao. The way Kaleigh's still got her steal a vote and idol and I'm sitting over here with my flopped advantages. Sigh. Kind of incredible of her to only have one vote against her so far AND IT'S FROM ME. She's killing it. Wait. Do I have the most votes out of our 3? I do! Well, that's something I guess. Maybe I could have played a more fluid game, and tried to get the majority alliance to eat each other from the inside of it, but there's no point in thinking about that now. I'm at Final 6 and that's very neat.

Champ

I’m running late again for the confession, anyways here for a good time! Not a long time LMFAO

Zee

Haven't heard from Jack all day, Champ messaged once. I'm pretty sure I'm going home tonight

Tribal Council

Zee: LOST VOTE

Champ: Alex (ROCKS ROCKS ROCKS)

Kaleigh: Zee (IF YOU HAVE A THIRD IDOL ISTG)

Kaleigh (Zee’s Stolen Vote): Zee

Alex: Zee (You’ve played SUCH a good game, and for all I know, you could still be here after this vote. It genuinely wouldn’t surprise me lmao. But here’s hoping this works. I enjoyed our pre-swap talks.)

Michael: Zee (you’ve played a wonderful game, sorry we didn’t really play together but that’s how it goes 🤷🏾‍♂️)

Jack: Alex (sorry babes we ain’t working together)

#episodes #Youtube

[simplepotatofarmer]

technoblade: a takedown - pt. 1

(not clickbait)

aka i go over every argument people make against c!techno one by one and determine whether they’re valid, false, or a mixture of both. i rewatched every single stream/video, including those on his alt channel, so i could approach this with the most information possible. i’ll be breaking this up into parts because there’s just too much otherwise. all about the characters unless stated.

techno believes in a ‘dog eat dog’ world - false

this is an argument i see used a lot when people discuss techno so i wanted to address it first. luckily, the stream in which he says this is only his fifth stream on the server. there’s one major reason why this argument falls apart and one minor reason that isn’t objective like the first.

first and most importantly: techno has never acted on this. even at the beginning - which is when this comment was made - he was helping his allies, from building railings to keep them from falling, making a potato farm, and all the gear he grinded for to equip his allies in pogtopia with. moving forward, he’s also helped out plenty of people: giving tommy a place to stay and items, telling phil to reach out to ranboo after doomsday, as well as giving both tommy and ranboo food when asked. there’s more, of course, but the point is he’s never once followed up on this statement. he teamed up with quackity to stop the egg. he spoke to niki about how he was giving anarchy a bad reputation because of the violence and wanted to take a different approach which he has.

when people use this argument to insist that techno is the villain, it doesn’t hold up because it’s merely taking one statement he made and upholding it as a main part of his character when his actions and later statements have shown that he doesn’t actually believe in this randian view point. objectively, i can’t see how this argument can extend beyond ‘well, he said it’. regardless of what he said during the pogtopia arc, he’s said the opposite later - wanting everyone to live free with no oppression or imperialism - and has never acted on it nor brought it up later. this take honestly seems disingenuous and was in fact the driving factor of this post.

second and not as critical, techno mentions multiple times during each of his first streams that he’s not sure who all is on his side. this is a reoccurring point for him. he makes the comment about wanting a dog eat dog world during the red festival stream, while speaking to bad and sam. the first part of the conversation is techno asking about state secrets since they’re (as far as techno knows) on manberg’s side. bad mentions schlatt killing cats and techno launches into a spiel about massive anarchy and the weak being huddled in fear, asking them how does that sound. bad says as long as there’s no cat murder, perhaps. bad then asks techno what his ‘single issue’ is and techno responds that he wants to destroy the government. to me, the context of the conversation, who he’s speaking to and what his opinion of those people is, is an important thing to consider.

techno’s ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ comment means he was always going to betray pogtopia/l’manberg - valid but not how you think it is

i’ve seen people say that techno saying ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ is a clear sign that he was always intending to betray pogtopia/l’manberg which, yeah? 

but i wouldn’t call it a betrayal. 

he says the ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ line at the end of the ‘eve of revolution’ stream while he’s talking to quackity, ponk, and sam. the conversation is as follows:

techno, to quackity: i’m glad we could get to know each other. i heard you’re on our side now. i heard you betrayed schlatt.

quackity: yeah, that’s right. are you betraying anyone?

techno: no. i would never betray my personal ideals.

[some chatter from ponk and quackity]

sam: what does that mean? what if the people you’re fighting along [sic] have different ideals than you, though? doesn’t that mean you’d betray them?

techno: listen... we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

then techno states that he ‘said what he said’ when sam questions him about his choice of metaphor.

he actually uses the same malaphor at the beginning of the ‘revolution’ stream when they (quackity and tubbo) question him again and in that case techno definitely avoids the subject which isn’t a good thing but considering everyone was so worked up about the possible traitor, i can completely understand.

overall, techno is extremely upfront about his intentions. yes, there is definitely some miscommunication between all the parties because none of them were on the same page but that doesn’t make techno the bad guy here nor does it mean he betrayed anyone. he was upfront about his intentions from the start.

in his first two streams, he makes a joke that if they happen to set up a new government/president that he would just take that one down and it would be a never-ending cycle. over and over, he says that he wants to do destroy the government/manberg. when tommy mentions taking it back, techno says, ‘what do you mean, take it back?’ though this kind of gets lost in the middle of everything else - dsmp (lack of) communication strikes again. 

the takeaway that i see here a lot is that techno always intended to betray them because he knew tommy wanted to take back l’manberg and knew that he would go against them if they set up a new government. and this is true to an extent! he did know that tommy wanted l’manberg back and he did know that he would go against them if they set up a new government. but wilbur was also telling techno that he was on board with the whole anarchy thing. 

none of them were on the same page and that surely led to a big chunk of what happened and hurt feelings on both sides but that doesn’t mean techno betrayed anyone or that he was the bad guy for doing exactly what he said he would do from day one.

techno destroying (l’)manberg was wrong - it’s complicated

the first thing to address here is that for most anarchists, destroying a government isn’t a bad thing. in fact, taking down the government/state is basically our goal. now, i don’t speak for all anarchists, of course, but overall the general feeling is that violence in the name of overthrowing an oppressive government is not inherently bad. there’s no way to do a one-for-one here because it’s minecraft but the general sentiment remains. so while violence enacted against the state is a bad thing for people who aren’t anarchists, techno has no reason to and would not view it as inherently bad.  

but it did hurt people and techno himself acknowledges that fact. he’s acknowledged what he’s done when confronted about it. he hasn’t said he was wrong because understanding that it was hurtful doesn’t mean he believes he was wrong. to him, he wasn’t. destroying what he viewed as an oppressive system was the right thing to do, even if it hurt people.

(also this isn’t any kind of meta but i think it needs to be pointed out that wilbur had already set off the tnt and techno summoned two killable mobs which did plenty of damage but he didn’t say wilbur was the great who came before them for no reason.)

again, this is going to be the most controversial part of this post because i don’t believe destroying government is a bad thing and i don’t believe techno is wrong for believing that as well. there are better ways to address the problem and techno is adjusting his tactics but if another government was to be established, i don’t believe he would be in the wrong to destroy it because he’s an anarchist.

the tl;dr of this section honestly could just be summed up with ‘watch less marvel, read more ursula k. le guin’.

‘techno is the villain because he called tommy the hero’ - so very false 

this is a take i’ve seen that to this day i don’t understand.

techno calling tommy the hero does not mean he was setting himself up as the villain in any capacity. it was merely pointing out tommy’s habit of putting himself at the forefront of almost every conflict, trying to shoulder everything, no matter how it hurts tommy himself. the speech was directed at that and nothing else. it doesn’t mean techno is the villain, it doesn’t even mean there is a villain; there are more stories to be told than the classic hero-villain and the hero-villain narrative doesn’t always apply to stories. (i’d certainly argue that it doesn’t apply to the dream smp but that’s a different conversation.)

techno is to blame for tubbo’s death - false

i think this one has been done to death but what would a techno post be without it?

no, techno is not to blame.

he said over and over that he was outnumbered and believed that if he had done anything, everyone would’ve turned on him and ‘torn him to shreds’. even if that wasn’t the case, it is what techno believed. he had no reason to think that he could take the entire crowd out until he actually fired the rocket launcher. and remember, he tested the rocket launcher earlier during the festival on niki (who volunteered) and it didn’t kill her. when he realized the amount of splash damage it did, he gives a surprised laugh and then begins firing into the crowd. 

as for saying he was under ‘mild’ amounts of peer pressure, techno has a habit of minimizing. not just the things he’s done, but often situations that he’s been in that were stressful. he stated that he deals poorly with high stress situations and one of the cognitive distortions that can come with anxiety is minimization. techno doesn’t actually believe it was ‘mild’ peer pressure - it was a situation that caused him enough distress that he brings it up later at doomsday - but it’s easier to deal with a situation when you downplay it, it’s easier for techno to keep up that calm façade when he’s acting as if whatever happened wasn’t that big of a deal even if it was. again, the way he speaks about it on doomsday was clearly upset and emotional. 

the only person to blame for tubbo’s death is schlatt. he was the one pulling the trigger and techno was the gun.

if you made it this far, thank you for sticking it out! i spent so many hours rewatching all the streams, some of them multiple times, while taking notes to be able to do this. i’m extremely passionate about techno and i feel as if a lot of the arguments against him tend to miss the nuance of his character. this project is on-going and i’ll be going over the butcher army/retirement storylines next. feel free to submit any points you’d like to see addressed! 

#technoblade #dream smp #dsmp analysis #dsmp meta #tommyinnit #tubbo #quackity #dsmpblr #dream smp analysis #loyal does meta #this......is a lot #i spent so much time on it y'all

[jonthethinker]

So time for more wild speculation about Imogen, because Laura Bailey has crawled directly into my brain, which seems to be what she was going for with this character anyway.

I sort of reject outright the idea that Imogen is the sad character this campaign, or that she is more morose than the rest. How I would describe Imogen is tired. Just flat out exhausted. And more than a little frustrated.

She's quite polite socially, but in the way that suggests she was raised in an environment that sort of expected it, like many of the southern small towns and suburbs I assume her accent takes inspiration from. It's not necessarily disingenuous, but it definitely feels more instinctual than it does that it's some affect she's putting on to deceive. When she feels relatively comfortable, she's certainly willing to talk shit about people who have wronged or inconvenienced her, but she doesn't ever break from her manners in public or around strangers.

She also appears to have a taste for mischief, and is willing to use her not insignificant psychic powers to play pranks or get a little petty revenge here and there.

Most importantly of all, she seems incredibly driven. She always pushes forward, realistically judging her best options, and while occasionally optimistic doesn't seem the least bit naive about how things work, and freely admits when a topic is outside her depth. She is willing to take risks, even using powers that often have rather large drawbacks for her if it has a chance of getting her closer to succeeding at her goals. And despite her shyness, I don't think she's lacking entirely in confidence, although she does appear to occasionally become a bit self-conscious. A bit of an internal war between practicality and ambition going on here, I'd say.

So if I were to guess anything about her, I'd say she was fairly isolated growing up, probably as a product of her powers developing. Whether her parents/guardians deliberately kept her away from others I can't say, nor if that is the case, whether it was done maliciously or out of genuine concern, or possibly a combination of the two. But that does feel right to me. I can imagine a lot going wrong with a burgeoning psychic coming to grips with what they can do.

But if my instincts are correct, the pranking and other more playful uses of her powers, as well as her willingness to risk their use to get what she wants, are not exactly new developments for her. After the discovery of her powers, they probably played a major role in how she interacted with others, and probably not always with their awareness, or deliberateness on her end. It could have caused some trouble if people caught on, or if she somehow lost control.

All of this is to say boy howdy do I want to see where Laura takes this character. Like real bad. And I'm more than happy to be proven wrong if it means I learn anything new about Imogen.

#critical role #cr spoilers #imogen #long post

[olderthannetfic]

I'm a Chinese, nationally and racially. Racial projection seems to be a common practice in western fandom, doesn't it? I find it a bit... weird to witness the drama ignited upon shipping individuals with different races, or the tendency to separate characters into different "colors" even though the world setting doesn't divide races like that. Such practice isn't a thing here. Mind explaining a bit on this phenomenon?

--

Sure, I can try. But of course, fish aren’t very good at explaining the water they swim in.

Americans aren’t good at detecting our own Americanness, and a lot of what you’re seeing is very much culturally American rather than Western in general. (In much of Europe, “race” is a concept used by racists, or so I’m told, unlike in the US where it’s seen more neutrally.) Majority group members (i.e. me, a white girl) aren’t usually the savviest about minority issues, but I’ll give it a shot.

The big picture is that most US race stuff boils down to our attempts to justify and maintain slavery and that dynamic being applied, awkwardly, to everyone else too, even years after we abolished slavery.

There’s a concept called the “one drop rule” where a person is “black” if they have even one drop of black blood.

We used to outlaw “interracial” marriage until quite recently. (That meant marriage between black people and white people with Asians and Hispanic people and others wedged in awkwardly.) Here’s the Wikipedia article on this, which contains the following map showing when we legalized interracial marriage. The red states are 1967.

That’s within living memory for a ton of people! Yellow is 1948 to 1967. This is just not very long ago at all. (Hell, we only fully banned slavery in 1865, which is also just not that long ago when it comes to human culture.)

Why did we have this bananas-crazy set of laws and this idiotic notion that one remote ancestor defines who you are? It boils down to slavery requiring a constant reaffirming that black people are all the same (and subhuman) while white people are all this completely separate category. The minute you start intermarrying, all of that breaks down. This was particularly important in our history because our system of slavery involved the kids of slaves being slaves and nobody really buying their way out. Globally, historically, there are other systems of slavery where there was more mobility or where enslaved people were debtors with a similar background to owners, and thus the people in power were less threatened by ambiguity in identity.

Post-slavery, this shit hung around because it was in the interests of the people in power to maintain a similar status quo where black people are fundamentally Other.

A lot of our obsession with who counts as what is simply a legacy of our racist past that produced our racist present.

--

The other big factor in American concepts of identity is that we see ourselves as a nation of immigrants (ignoring our indigenous peoples, as usual). A lot of people’s families arrived here relatively recently, and we often don’t have good records of exactly where they were from, even aside from enslaved people who obviously wouldn’t have those records. Plenty of people still identify with a general nationality (”Italian-American” and such), but the nuance the family might once have had (specific region of Italy, specific hometown) is often lost. Yeah, I know every place has immigrants, and lots of people don’t have good records, but the US is one of those countries where families have on average moved around a lot more and a lot more recently than some, and it affects our concepts of identity. I think some of the willingness to buy into the idea of “races” rather than “ethnicities” has to do with this flattening of identity.

New immigrant groups were often seen as Other and lesser, but over time, the ones who could manage it got added to our concept of “whiteness”, which gave them access to those same social and economic privileges.

Skin color is a big part of this. In a system that is founded on there being two categories, white owners and black slaves, skin color is obviously going to be about that rather than being more of a class marker like it is in a lot of the world.

But it’s not all about skin color since we have plenty of Europeans with somewhat darker skin who are seen as generically white here, while very pale Asians are not. I’m not super familiar with all of the history of anti-Asian racism in the US, but I think this persistent Otherness probably boils down to Western powers trying to justify colonial activities in Asia plus a bunch of religious bullshit about predominantly Christian nations vs. ones that are predominantly Buddhist or some other religion.

In fact, a lot of racist archetypes in English can be traced back to England’s earliest colonial efforts in Ireland. Justifying colonizing Those People because they’re subhuman and/or ignorant and in need of paternalistic rulers or religious conversion is at the bottom of a lot of racist notions. Ironic that we now see Irish people as clearly “white”.

--

There are a lot of racist porn tropes and racist cultural baggage here around the idea of black people being animalistic. Racist white people think black men want to rape/steal white women from white men. Black women get seen as hypersexual and aggressive. If this sounds like white people projecting in order to justify murder and rape... well, it is.

Similar tropes get applied to a lot of groups, often including Hispanic and Middle Eastern people, though East Asians come in more for creepy fantasies about endlessly submissive and promiscuous women. This nonsense already existed, but it was certainly not helped by WWII servicemen from here and their experiences in Asia. Again, it’s a projection to justify shitty behavior as what the party with less power was “asking for”.

In porn and even romance novels, this tends to turn up as a white character the audience is supposed to identify with paired with an exotic, mysterious Other or an animalistic sexy rapist Other.

A lot of fandoms are based on US media, so all of our racist bullshit does apply to the casting and writing of those, whether or not the fic is by Americans or replicating our racist porn tropes.

(Obviously, things get pretty hilarious and infuriating once Americans get into c-dramas and try to apply the exact same ideas unchanged to mainstream media about the majority group made by a huge and powerful country.)

--

Politically, within the US, white people have had most of the power most of the time. We also make up a big chunk of the population. (This is starting to change in some areas, which has assholes scared shitless.) This means that other groups tend to band together to accomplish shared political goals. They’re minorities here, so they get lumped together.

A lot of Americans become used to seeing the world in terms of “white people” who are powerful oppressors and “people of color” who are oppressed minorities. They’re trying to be progressive and help people with less power, and that’s good, but it obviously becomes awkward when it’s over-applied to looking at, say, China.

--

Now... fandom...

I find that fandom, in general, has a bad habit of holding things to double standards: queer things must be Good Representation™ even when they’re not being produced for that purpose. Same for ethnic minorities or any other minority. US-influenced parts of fandom (which includes a lot of English-speaking fandom) tend to not be very good at accepting that things are just fantasy. This has gotten worse in recent years.

As fandom has gotten more mainstream here, general media criticism about better representation (both in terms of number of characters and in terms of how they’re portrayed) has turned into fanfic criticism (not enough fics about ship X, too many about ship Y, problematic tropes that should not be applied to ship X, etc.). I find this extremely misguided considering the smaller reach of fandom but, more importantly, the lack of barriers to entry. If you think my AO3 fic sucks, you can make an account and post other fic that will be just as findable. You don’t need money or industry connections or to pass any particular hurdle to get your work out there too.

People also (understandably) tend to be hypersensitive to anything that looks like a racist porn trope. My feeling is that many of these are general porn tropes and people are reaching. There are specific tropes where black guys are given a huge dick as part of showing that they’re animalistic and hypersexual, but big dicks are really common in porn in general. The latter doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing the former unless there are other elements present. A/B/O or dubcon doesn’t mean it’s this racist trope either, not unless certain cliched elements are present. OTOH, it’s not hard for a/b/o tropes to feel close to “animalistic guy is rapey”, so I can see why it often bothers people.

A huge, huge, huge proportion of wank is “all rape fantasies are bad” crap too, which muddies the waters. I think a lot of people use “it’s racist” as an easy way to force others to agree with their incorrect claims that dubcon, noncon, a/b/o, etc. are fundamentally bad. Many fans, especially white fans, feel like they don’t know enough to refute claims of racism, so they cave to such arguments even when they’re transparently disingenuous.

--

Not everyone here thinks this way. I know plenty of people offline, particularly a lot of nonwhite people, who think fandom discourse is idiotic and that the people “protecting” people or characters of color are far more racist than the people writing “bad” fic or shipping the wrong thing.

But in general, I’d say that the stuff above is why a lot of us see the world as white people in power vs. everyone else as oppressed victims, interracial relationships as fraught, and porn about them as suspect. Basically, it’s people trying to be more progressive and aware but sometimes causing more harm than good when those attempts go awry.

#Anonymous

[pokelec]

A Dead By Daylight Novice Reviews All the Killers' Trailers (and makes suggestions for what they'd change)

Reveal trailers are paramount for an audience's first look at new characters. First impressions are everything, so your trailer for your shiny new character needs to be perfect for what's in store for the video game! I started playing DBD a month-ish ago but watched all the trailers for the killers before I started playing, and watching some of them got me to thinking about how I would have changes some of the trailers. Some require no changes, while others I think need an overhaul.

Disclaimer: This is in my personal opinion, is not objective at all, and I'm only doing this because this is something I've been thinking about for a month and need some sort of release or else my brain will implode.

Under a read more bc this gets long.

The Trapper - The first trailer! For a first trailer, I think this one is pretty spot on. It follows a lot of beats of slasher movies, in terms of following a survivor that's gonna be killed, her encountering dead bodies, and the suspense of the killer looking for her. Considering Dead by Daylight is effectively a playable horror movie, I think this is a perfect intro to the game. As for what this means for the Trapper, aka our Jason substitute, I think it showed him off alright! We saw his bear traps and got a good look at him doing this thing. Pretty good, all things considered!

The Wraith - The Wraith, Hillbilly, and Nurse all features gameplay as the means of showing off what the killers can do. The Wraith's isn't too bad, since it does show off his Wailing Bell power enough for people to understand "This is a killer that can turn invisible, and you may not know he's right next to you until it's too late". I wish it has a more cinematic style, but I'll be forgiving here because DBD was still young when this was made. I also thing it showed the new map, Autohaven, pretty well. I'm not too big of a fan of ending the trailer with his mori, but that could be because I don't find his mori exciting.

The Hillbilly - Next is our Leatherface expy! This one feels shorter, still using gameplay to introduce our new killer but at least shows off his chainsaw wielding and hints at the map associated with him. I like the shot of him revving his chainsaw underneath the tree with the animal carcasses! I don't mind the ending with his mori here because even if it's off screen, getting cut with a chainsaw is brutal enough to leave a lasting impression. Again, I wish it had the cinematic style, but it's fine.

The Nurse - I think the Nurse's trailer is the weakest of the three gameplay-focused trailers. The text intro is... fine, but I honestly think it fits the Doctor more. It does an okay job of showing us her Blinking mechanics, but it also doesn't? Like we see her teleporting to Nea, but it feels lackluster. I do like the ending shot of dead Nea as the Nurse just blinks away. I'm not quite sure how to change this trailer to be more effective in my opinion, if I'm being honest.

The Shape/Michael Myers - Our first franchise killer, and a perfect trailer. The first second in, we hear John Carpenter's legendary Halloween score. Even non-horror fans will quickly pick up which killer this is. The suspense of Laurie see Michael, Michael coming up the stairs, and especially the shot of Laurie and Michael being on opposite sides of a door is *chef's kiss*. We see enough of the Shape to be satisfied and eager for his release. It's the perfect trailer for him AND Laurie imo.

The Huntress - Ah, the Huntress. She is my favorite killer to play as, and I probably have the majority of my playtime on her. Unfortunately, I think her trailer leaves a lot to be desired. It's the start of the 'let's look at the killer from different angles, have them turn around to the camera, and then attack the viewer' trend of DBD trailers. I call for a complete rewrite! Here's what I would have done:

The map is Mother's Dwelling. Two survivors (David aaaand idk Dwight?) are running and hides behind some trees. We hear the Huntress's lullaby get louder, and we see the bottom half of her and her axe as she walks past the survivors. The lullaby gets quieter, and the survivors take a sigh of relief. Then, a hatchet is thrown and lodged into Dwight's head! David screams and runs. We then see our full look at the Huntress as she picks up the body. Her signature lullaby continues as the trailer ends.

The Hag - The Hag's trailer also follows a similar formula to the Huntress' trailer. There is an animation bump, so we get to see the Hag's emaciated appearance in full detail. I'm not too mad about that, since the Hag's appearance is unsettling enough to cause viewer distress and curiosity more than the Huntress' would. However, because this is a DBD original killer, we need to see what her deal is with her trailer. Thus, I propose this:

On the swamp, Ace is repairing a generator but hears another survivor (Dwight?) get hooked. Ace goes to rescue him, but we see as he steps on a rune in front of the poor survivor. The illusion of the Hag pops up, jumpscaring poor Ace (and the audience) but disappears. Ace then rescues Dwight for real, but Dwight quickly runs away. Why? Because the real Hag is behind Ace and lunges at him, biting his neck. Trailer ends.

The Doctor - I now realize that my taste in writing DBD trailers is 'have the survivor do a thing, they think the killer is near, they then relax, and only then are they attacked by the killer'. It's a bit stereotypical, but again, we're dealing with a game centered on the horror genre, so that's why I'm okay with it.

I mention this because that's effectively the story beats the the Doctor's trailer follows. Instead of attacking Feng, however, the Doctor just looks at her run and stares menacingly. Even though we don't see the Doctor's shock therapy powers here, I think the long look at the killer is still effective because of his design. A first reaction I (and other reactors) experienced went from the initial "OMG the killer is here, run girl!" to "Why tf are his own eyes and mouth held open like that A Clockwork Orange scene?!". We also don't linger for too long on him either, so I think this trailer works well enough.

The Cannibal/Leatherface - Another franchise killer, this time good ol Leatherface! This trailer is a little different, using text to draw up suspense. I do like the reveal of "What is his mask made of? YOU.", but I would've loved to have seen some actual Cannibal action, or at least his in-game model doing his Texas chainsaw massacring thing.

The Nightmare/Freddy Kruger - Oh, c'mon, we got one of the most well known characters in horror in this little video game, and all we get for his trailer is some scratch marks and a 'killer does nothing but stand there menacingly and attack the camera' trailer?! I do like the detail that when we see him, it's DBD's version of the dream world, but we could've at least featured a survivor falling asleep and then seeing him for themselves.

(Also kinda sad it's the reboot version of Freddy instead of the Wes Craven version and the survivor is Quentin instead of Nancy Freaking Thompson, but I guess we should be happy he's in the game at all)

The Pig - Largely, I think this trailer is pretty good. I'm not too big of a fan of Amanda just standing there menacingly near Dwight, but I do like everything else. I especially love the security camera shot of the famous Saw bathroom and the cutaway when Dwight's reverse bear trap activates (but we still see a good bit of gore!). It feels very Saw-like.

The Clown - This trailer is pretty good! Even though we don't see the Clown in much action, we get a lot of visual storytelling with the bottles, the circus, and the ring of fingers, all leading up to the reveal of his face. The diagetic music from Kate is a nice touch, too.

The Spirit - This one is alright. There is a lot of focus on Adam, but it does build up tension to when the Spirit reveals herself. My biggest problem with it is the ending card that is used for her. Yes, I know that's traditional for the end of these trailers, but her pose and expression is kinda meh after the face she makes when she's about to attack Adam. Seriously, that couple of seconds haunts me (sorry) otherwise.

The Legion - My other favorite killer to play! It's so funny how I didn't like Legion when I first heard of them but now they're my favorites. I love how the trailer emphasizes that the new killer(s) looks similar to survivors and the brutality of when Frank reveals himself and stabs Jeff. However, the trailer does a disservice to the other members of the Legion. C'mon, that's their whole shtick!

My recommendation would be to end with a shot of Julie, Joey, and Suzie joining Frank (and obviously getting a good look at them) and surrounding Jeff right before they all stab him. This is a little disingenuous since you can't play as all four of them at once (unless you count that one Blighted skin...), but you also can't disguise yourself as a survivor, so... Yeah. They are The Legion! They act as one! Treat them as such in their trailer, dammit!

The Plague - The Plague's trailer is interesting. Even though we don't see her in action, I think it's fine because seeing her puke on people during her trailer might be a bit off-putting. Just a bit. We still get some storytelling with her whispered prayers, the candles and incense thingy, and, of course, her face. I think because the Plague's design is inherently unique among all the killers so far, she can get away with the 'let's just tease the audience by looking at the killer and nothing else' trend.

The Ghost Face - Not too much I can complain about with this one. I do like the wtf factor of 'wait, why is a DBD trailer at a modern day warehouse???', especially if you're watching a trailer playlist like I first did. It all makes sense when you learn it's Ghost Face, though! Also, justice for that poor cashier.

The Demogorgon - RIP Stranger Things DLC. I don't watch this series, but I really like the Hawkins Lab map and I'm going to be sad when it's gone. :(

I love this trailer! When I hear the Stranger Things music, it actually gives me chills. I'm legitimately so sad the DLC will be gone from the stores, but I do own them myself. I need to actually sit down and play Demo, Steve, and Nancy one of these days. Why am I crying? No, I'm not kidding, why is this trailer making me cry? Renew the contract, Netflix, please! I don't want this stuff to disappear forever!

(Is it weird that I've been nagged on for years to watch Stranger Things but it's Dead By Daylight that's actually convincing me to watch it?)

The Oni - This is an interesting case. The "main" theme of this trailer is the contrast of modern day Japan's Yui and her motorcycle vs the literal ancient samurai Oni. I think it works out, and again, I think the presentation makes up for us not seeing too much of the new killer.

The Deathslinger - Oh boy, do I love my cowboys! This trailer is nearly perfect. We establish the western setting quickly over the sounds of some poor bastard in pain. The reeling in of the chains and the closeup of The Redeemer is so great. My biggest complaint with this trailer is that we linger a bit too long on the Deathslinger's face at the end. Yeah, he's creepy with his eyes and his disjointed jaw, but you can only look at a horror for so long before you want to move on.

The Executioner/Pyramid Head - I like this trailer! I haven't played Silent Hills, but I'm at least somewhat familiar with the premise and Pyramid Head. I love the shot of him passing the classroom door window and the sword cutting a rift through the ground. Yeah, my lack of SH knowledge makes me unable to recommend any changes here.

The Blight - I have no changes to suggest. The Blight's transformation is super horrific, reminding me of the typical depiction of Jekyll and Hyde. Honestly, he is so much more terrifying in his trailer and in lore than in gameplay.

The Twins - No changes needed. BHVR is really starting to hit their stride with these trailers! Seeing Victor come out of Charlotte's body is amazing.

The Trickster - We depart from all of the other trailers by using an K-POP music video style. It does a good job at referencing some of his story beats (namely torturing/killing people, recording their screams, and using them in his music), but it doesn't really make me afraid of the Trickster. Sure, it fits with his theme, but I would have preferred seeing more of him, y'know, instead of just looking pretty and making faces? I still wouldn't change the art style of the trailer, though. It's fitting enough for him and a breath of fresh air from the doom and gloom.

The Nemesis - No change needed, mostly because I'm not too familiar with the Resident Evil series, but seeing Jill, the twink Leon, and Nemesis on-screen is a very cool moment. Also can we get an F in chat for Meg?

The Cenobite/Pinhead - This is a perfect trailer. We got the Lament Configuration, we got the chains pinning up Dwight, we got Pinhead himself! What more can I ask for?

If you actually made it this far, thank for reading? I don't think I really contribute anything to the fandom with this analysis, but DBD has been living rent free in my brain for the past month, so I may as well write something, eh?

#dead by daylight #dbd trapper #dbd wraith #dbd hillbilly #dbd nurse #dbd huntress #dbd hag #dbd myers #dbd michael myers #dbd doctor #dbd leatherface #dbd freddy #dbd pig #dbd clown #dbd legion #dbd plague #dbd ghost face #dbd demogorgon #dbd oni #dbd deathslinger #dbd pyramid head #dbd blight #dbd twins #dbd trickster #dbd nemesis #dbd pinhead #cyan hearted t&s

[trashcatsnark]

NGL I love how much you have embraced the silverv stuff here - its so nice to read. I submit for consideration, Rogue notices the tattoo while on the disaster date and both Johnny and V play it off as a joke and holy shit poor rogue stuck in a room with two morons.

Also - V getting dressed for that date and realizing they just MIGHT be a little jealous with a side of some thoughts of "Oh God Johnny Would NEVER Feel That Way About Me Gotta Bury This Deep So He Doesn't Know"

Johnny notices the anxiety but is very dense about the cause.

Oh hell yeah, I have fully embraced it and this ship; I was writing SilverV porn before the game came out, like I knew what my ship for this game was gonna be from the second I saw gifs of

“You’re a dick, Johnny” 

“And you’re a cunt, so maybe we’ll fit together after all.” 

That banter sealed my fate and I’m fairly sure I had named and created my V then wrote porn of her with Johnny literally a week later. The devil works hard, but my brainrot works harder and faster. 

Spoilers! 

Okay, so I’ve thought a lot about that date in both a silverv context (and largely how it fits with my V, Aidan and her fic) I’ll try to stay general though. 

Firstly, I whole heartedly believe Rogue sees through their bullshit. Not only is she just good at that, but Johnny even states she has MRE’s (?) and can see through people, like her eyes can pick up on signs of lying. And usually, thats not an issue for when V talks to her, but when she asks about Johnny and their relationship with him. Its a mess. And when Rogue asks Johnny about it, its a mess. 

And when Rogue notices the tattoo it’s like Oh... I get it . And Johnny is of course like, “hahaha, yeah I thought that’d be so funny, the kid hates it.” But Rogue isn’t stupid, she knows a lovey dovey heart with their names, something that looks like someone doodled it on their third grade notebook about their crush, is not really typical of Johnny’s “joking” She knows that if Johnny is not really the kind of guy to hahahaha its so funny to make it look like we love each other; he’d be more likely to get a dick tattooed on V’s arm if it was just to mess with them. For gods sake, look how many people didn’t pick “the other one” because they were convinced it was gonna be a dick. That’s a Johnny just trying to fuck with someone move. So, she doesn’t buy it, but doesn’t push it...with him. 

She asks V about and of course they play it off as “Yeah, Johnny thought it’d be funny, what a fucking asshole, its so fucking dumb, I totally fuckin hate it.” 

“So, why not get it removed?” 

“Uhhhhhhhhhhh, well you see what had happened was, um, I, just uhhhh, never been enough time, I guess yeahhhhhh.” 

Cause lets face it, in cyberpunk universe, getting a tattoo removed should be easy. If you can get blades in your arms and can have a completely newly reconstructed body in like an afternoon; you can get a tattoo removed in like twenty minutes. So, V still keeping it, says volumes about how they really feel.

Now, V’s jealousy and the date. 

I do absolutely agree that any anxiety or ill feeling V might have up until the date; Johnny is gonna feel, but not realize where it’s coming from. I think if anything, he’s gonna chalk it up to V being anxious about giving him control again and he’s gonna be like worried that maybe V doesn’t trust him as much as they let on. 

And I do think a V who has feelings for Johnny, would not be able to help feeling some jealousy regarding Rogue and Johnny. Just because jealousy is natural thing to feel and while you can debate if they were ever a good or healthy couple, you can’t debate they shared very real feelings for one another. And I think a lot of V’s jealousy would come from just how much Johnny seems to first think of/go to Rogue. When he needed to save Alt, first person he turned to, Rogue. When he wanted to bomb Arasaka tower (going by his memory of it and ignoring that the event was probably actually planned by Morgan Blackhand), who’d he go to? Rogue. When he becomes determined to get Smasher, who is he determined to get him with, Rogue. When he first decides to atone for his past mistakes, who’s the first person he wants to make up with, Rogue. When at the rooftop, who does he want to go grab to help him save V, Rogue. 

If you got feelings for someone, that’d hurt, I think it’s impossible for that not to spark some jealousy. And V if anything is also mad at themselves for having those feelings, because they like Rogue, she’s a badass, a legend, they respect the hell out of her. And of course they have feelings for Johnny and they wanna help him make shit right and they wanna give him a chance to enjoy himself. But this stupid reptilian part of their brain is screaming but i want to be the first person he goes to, the first person he thinks about, which they know is also stupid cause for fucks sake the man literally lives in their brain, they’re as close as two people can be and literally when Johnny has the power to go to someone for something, he can’t go to V because they’re reduced to sleeping essentially until Johnny hands back the reigns. Yet, feelings aren’t aren’t always, rational, sadly. 

And to Johnny’s credit, he probably doesn’t even give it that much thought. Rogue is a badass, someone he cares for, someone he can depend on and someone he hurt really badly. The two people he can and always has been able to depend on the most (other than Alt prior to her death) have been Kerry and Rogue. And, bless his heart, the fuck is Kerry gonna do? Kerry ain’t a merc, Kerry isn’t gonna bust into Arasaka Tower or plant a bomb. Kerry doesn’t have the connection to Smasher. So, of course, Rogue is gonna be his go to. And in terms of making things up to people...he literally cannot really do much to make things up to V, not the way he can for Rogue or Kerry. Cause, when him and V are both conscious, he can’t do much beyond touch and talk to them. Hell, even with Rogue and Kerry, he relies mostly on V to help him do anything. Even with people he can interact with and do something for; V is doing all the nitty gritty work for him. V drives Rogue to the theater, V breaks into the theater, V gets the projector going. V breaks into Kerry’s house, V disables the security. V gets in contact with Nancy. V gets Nancy out of Totentanz in one piece. 

Which probably if V actually thought about it critically, does mean he’s going to them and relying on them more than Rogue, but they’d probably dismiss it out of it being for necessity and not because he cares about them and feels he an depend on them. 

Anyhow, Johnny would probably love to do some nice gesture to make up for his bender to V, hell they probably were the first person he wanted to make things up since they are his catalyst for changing. But what feasibly can he do for them? Anything he’d want to do with/for them, would just be asking V go do this thing and i’ll also be here. Anything that would put them in public interacting is out, unless they want MaxTac called on V for looking cyberpsychotic. He can’t even do an at home date, because he can’t cook (engram or not) and he can’t buy them anything nice he has no money and also doesn’t technically exist. He could try to do so sneakily while he’s in control...but he’d be using V’s money so they might as well just buy it for themselves. he can play music for them,,. but that doesn’t seem too special and more than a little egotistical to think it’ll make V feel better about what he did... So... all he can really do, is prove he’s worth trusting by being on his best behavior and more importantly do what he can to save V’s life. 

Then there’s the date. And as usual, I have some opinions and feelings about a thing.  Like, okay, I’ve seen some people (aka Gamer Bros on Twitter) being like, Rogue is Johnny’s girl. Wanting to date either of them is wrong because they like each other. (then you also get the BUT ALT crowd, but rants for another day.) And I can’t help but ask, did we play the same date? Their entire date is about how they’re both desperately clinging to the past. Rogue is trying to reclaim 2013-2023 Rogue and Johnny just wanting for a night to feel like the world and his place in it haven’t been completely rearranged. And it ends with Rogue telling him, she is not that girl anymore, she can’t pretend to be, and frankly she doesn’t want to anymore. She wishes she could be, wishes she was still that tall haired street punk who’d never dream of working with corps or being a fixer, but she’s not. Her and Johnny are no longer the same people who met back in to 2010’s. Doesn’t mean they don’t care about one another and doesn’t mean what feelings they had weren’t real or important; but they’re just not those people anymore. Rogue more so than Johnny since he’s freshly on the course of change.   

Something else in regards to the date, that I think is important to talk about and how it relates to silverv and its something I personally have very conflicting feelings about. The fact that Johnny can initiate some physical intimacy with Rogue. See, I have never chosen the option to kiss Rogue during the date and actually did not learn until relatively recently, that if that choice is made it goes a biiit further than a kiss. I have watched the scene now.

And god I have mixed feelingssss. Like, I get it, but I’m not sure I like it. And I know full well, my silverv bias impacts my feelings on the matter, it’s be disingenuous to say otherwise. But I don’t think the ship is purely my reason for having these feelings. But at the end of the day, its all opinions. So, I get from a character perspective that Johnny and Rogue are trying so hard to reclaim their past and what they use to have that they get caught up in trying do what they would do if this was the 2010’s. And Johnny’s relationships as we’ve seen are very physical, sexual chemistry and attraction are major factors in his relationships because he kept things very superficial most of the time. He even says part of the issue with his relationship with Rogue is at the time he didn’t realize he could let her see the true him and still hid behind walls, kept things at a distance. So, the idea that’d they fall back into the old habit of trying to just be physical and ignore their feelings, isn’t out of character. 

However, and Johnny even seems to acknowledge this issue when Rogue interrupts it, they’re doing this with V’s body. V...who did not consent to sexual contact. They consented to a date and while one could logic that this would mean everything a date could entail up to and including physical intimacy; I would argue that that is something that would need further conversation to have clear consent. And like again, this might come down to boundaries and personal feelings. Because I go back to the bender and what’s been interesting to me is too see different opinions on it; some people weren’t actually bothered at all by Johnny’s bender in V’s body, some people were bothered by the drugs and alcohol specifically cause their V is straight edge. Me, personally, it was the sexual content and the endangering of V’s life. Like, it was mostly funny and oh yeah, I expected that it’s bad but eh I’ll move on, to me, until he started getting sexual with people in V’s body. Like that to me is not just crossing the line, it’s catapulting over it. 

And like I said, Johnny even responds to Rogue’s “this isn’t fair” with “what, you mean it’s not fair to V?” which she says she meant it isn’t fair to Johnny. (Which viscerally upset because you nearly used V’s body for sexual gratification without their consent and you’re worried about Johnny, which tbf Rogue has no way of knowing what V has and hasn’t consented to, so its not on her but that was my knee jerk thought). So, he has some awareness that maybe that was a bad move. 

And yeah, it definitely to me and my V would be a very bad move (unless he explicitly talked to them beforehand and got consent). And in general, it made me feel like, dude, you just promised you’d be better and not break V’s trust but again not a day later you’re nearly using them to have sex. It felt like a backslide, which isn’t necessarily unrealistic, cause change and growth is not always linear, people can commit to changing themselves and still fuck up and not get it right; in fact it’s rare for them not to have any sort of backsliding or repeating of mistakes. 

Again, I will also give credit that he could have been assuming that given V consented to the date, they assumed or were cool with their being physical intimacy between him and Rogue. He also generally, might not have really planned for it to happen, because I don’t think Johnny plans a lot of anything. It very well might have just sort of happened. Also, V doesn’t clearly communicate if the sexual component was an issue in the bender. All V really seems to have an issue with in game is the very general thing of; he misled them and used them. So, he might have assumed that wasn’t ever an issue. And hell, if you wanna go full meta, the player is technically the one who makes that choice and V is largely an avatar for the player, so that alone could be seen as whether or not V would/does consent. 

But, from a story perspective, removing the player choice element. I think how that’s handled would have a huge impact on silverv and where it goes from there. 

Because if V and Johnny did talk about consent prior and V did consent while having feelings for Johnny, god I’d have to imagine they’d still feel pretty hurt, but feel it’s irrational to feel that way and have put their own feelings aside because clearly Johnny cares about and wants Rogue and they should ruin what could be his one chance to make things right. 

If there like in game was no talk of consent and Johnny ends up kissing and touching on Rogue and V finds out or has memories of it surface,that could be devastating for them. Not only from their own feelings for Johnny, but this since of betrayal and hurt. Was the oil field conversation just a lie? A manipulation? V might feel like they were used; that Johnny never gave a shit about them or how they feel. And Johnny would have to deal with the realization that intentionally or not; he earned back V’s trust just to destroy it again. He fucked up again, he ruined everything again, he got his second chance and destroyed it…. And he doesn’t know how, if he can, or if he should bother trying to ask for a third. In general, I do think, V would come out of the date assuming (naturally so) that Johnny really only has romantic feelings towards Rogue, that they’re just a friend at best, a host to be used at worse. I even in my own universe with my V have them after everything is better, everyones got a body, expects Johnny to start pursing Rogue and trying to swallow their own feelings and be a supportive friend, try to encourage and push him to do it and Johnny’s just like please stop, Rogue is this close to murdering us both.

I was gonna add more funny stuff to this and include a shitposty interaction he has with my V over them dressing up for the date and shit, BUT HOLY FUCK THIS GOT LONG AND SAD????? I’M SO SORRY.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #johnny silverhand #silverv #cyberpunk 2077 spoilers #ieiwi

[thefreelanceangel]

Shadowbringers Is Finally Ended

With Patch 5.55 and the official end of the Shadowbringers story, setting up now for Endwalker in November, there are now a few months ahead to grind gear, finish content and reflect on the most recent expansion.

And, without any hyperbole, I can say definitively that I have never in my life been as impressed with a game's writing as I have that of Shadowbringers, both the original expansion and a lot of the patch content. I have... thoughts.

I'm a bit of an outlier; I skipped Stormblood (oops) and went straight from completing Heavensward (which greatly impressed me at the time and still does) into Shadowbringers because I wanted to get a max level character already.

Within the first few cutscenes of Shadowbringers, I was absolutely hooked.

First, let me just say that "monstrous angels" is 100% My Thing. I ADORE the reinterpretation of the standard "Renaissance art angelic figures" into something closer to incomprehensible beings taking on twisted, terrifying appearances. The human mind is a finite thing and comprehending an angel would be as difficult as comprehending infinity; these are things so alien to our experience that assuming they'd be easy to grasp and familiar feels disingenuous to me.

So the sin-eaters and the Lightwardens? SLAP.

Also, the intent behind the usage of "Light" in Shadowbringers was deliberate and purposeful. Our Lord and Savior, Yoshi-P, stated this clearly in his Forbes interview.

"The inception of this idea was very simple: in recent fantasy works, the perception that light equates to good and dark equates to evil is very set in stone, we wanted to shake this up a bit.

"Until this point in Final Fantasy XIV, our players have been Warriors of Light: the hero. However, with Shadowbringers, we leave the Source and embark on a journey to the First, and through this I want our players to discover the truth of the world, as well as think about the real nature of light and dark. That is the theme of Shadowbringers.

"In any case, a light too strong could potentially become evil. Darkness and night are also necessary for the world to maintain its balance; that's the kind of theme we will be shedding light on."

And the themes in Shadowbringers had such an amazing resonance that they were both painfully clear and masterfully executed. Not only was the theme of "balance" clearly executed in the "returning Darkness to a world flooded by Light" goal, but the desire for players to "think about the real nature of light and dark" showed in a multitude of ways.

The Warriors of Light (who we met as the Warriors of Darkness in Heavensward) are, in their home world, reviled. They directly caused the Flood which nearly destroyed their home and although they were able to save it with personal sacrifice, the populace at large is unaware of that sacrifice. The motives behind what the Warriors did is essentially lost to history; all that remains is the perception of their actions and the results thereof.

Motives, however, which you (player and WoL) are privy to.

"At long last, you see. To save our world, we gave our lives. We were just adventurers trying to make our way. An odd job here, a favor there—we never aspired to be Warriors of Light. But word of our deeds spread, and soon people were calling us heroes. They placed their hopes and dreams on our shoulders and bid us fight for all that was good and right. We fought and we fought and we fought...until there was no one left to fight. We won...and now our world is being erased from existence. We did everything right, everything that was asked of us, and still—still it came to this! You of all people should understand! We cannot—we will not falter. We brought our world to the brink of destruction, and now we must save it."

You had that fight with the Warriors of Darkness. You heard Ardbert explain exactly what happened, how they came to the point where they faced off against you, and you saw what happened when they were given the choice to hold back the Flood. And you were there when the one favor Ardbert asked was for the Warriors of Darkness to be taken home.

You see how the First remembers them and it's stark contrast to the heroes you met who were fighting desperately to save people who now spit on their names. History quite clearly has two sides and which you believe is dependent entirely on what information you have.

This becomes even more of a clear theme when you meet Emet-Selch and learn more about the Calamity which led to the entire Zodiark/Hydaelyn duality. Here, your previous experiences with Ascians has painted them solely as "villains." They are established enemies, manipulating events and people in order to attain goals which, to you, are nothing but Calamities.

And yet, as you learn more about the original Source and the Amaurotines that once lived on it, these goals are painted in an entirely new light. Instead of merely seeking to wipe out "the world" for no apparent reason or, at best guess, greater power for their deity Zodiark, the Ascians were striving to repair the damage done by the original Sundering. They, in a manner of speaking, were doing what the Warriors of Darkness were. What you, the Warrior of Light, have been doing. They were trying to restore what was lost.

Which leads into another of Shadowbringers' major themes: grief and loss.

The earliest touches of this are in Alisaie's questlines where you learn about what happens to people tainted by the Light. Families are destroyed, people are transmuted into sin-eaters and those who avoid that fate must stand by and watch as their loved ones fall to something far worse than death. "A Purchase of Fruit" shows you exactly what the end result is while also highlighting something very specific: with no hope of removing the Light's taint, knowing that all that awaits the tainted is a painful transmutation and existence as a sin-eater, those untainted make the best they can of those last days and end the tainted individual's pain before it begins.

Grief, yes. Loss? Absolutely. And yet, this is a loving, compassionate thing that those in Amh Araeng are doing. They face their own grief and loss. Rather than refusing to accept the actuality of their circumstances or refuse to weigh themselves down with taking a decisive action, they make the choice to face their grief and loss directly, even willingly taking on the guilt of their actions rather than leaving the tainted to suffer.

Magnus in Twine lost his wife and son, which immobilizes him. He can't find solance in anything save alcohol and brooding over their graves. It takes outside interference to pull him directly from his grief, to help him see past the loss of his family and look towards the future where life might once again be worth living. His struggle with grief is painfully familiar and so very, very close to many real life struggles that it's extremely poignant.

This struggle with grief is the fight the Ascians are, without question, losing. Let's set aside the "tempering" argument when it comes to Emet-Selch and Elidibus for the moment, largely because it's actually quite true that grief can spur people into committing horrific acts either as a desperate attempt to assuage their own pain (revenge) or make 'things right' in some way (vengeance).

Emet-Selch does not, in fact, properly grieve for Amaurot and the Ancients he knew. He clings to them, as Hythlodaeus tells us, weighed down by an aching sense of loss.

"And though he may carry himself with a certain glib ease, Emet-Selch is not a man to bear his burdens lightly. In fact, I imagine they have only grown heavier with every passing century. ...T'is truly a terrible weight he has chosen to carry."

Quite significantly is the word "chosen" in that. Grief is a process that involves, eventually, letting go of the pain and living with the memories of what was loved and what no longer is. Emet-Selch chooses not to do that. He does not grieve for Amaurot and his lost loved ones; he refuses, no matter how often he mentions his loss, to admit that what is gone is gone.

Elidibus, rather similarly, refuses to accept that the duty he took on when called upon to become Zodiark's heart is finally at an end. That the world he and Emet-Selch originated from is gone. Although he admits that he can barely remember why he's set on this path, he refuses to turn away from him.

One won't forget, one can barely remember--neither will grieve and let go.

Even the Ascians' characteristic arrogance and disdain for what they consider "lesser beings" is easy to read as their long-lasting struggle with grief. Considering the Sundering, all the beings that the Ascians are so disdainful of are, in fact, echoes of that which they once knew. If they acknowledged that, accepted those beings as what they are and perhaps even admitted they had worth... well... Rather like realizing abruptly that you've spent a whole day without thinking of someone recently departed, it feels like a betrayal.

To find value in the worlds as they currently are, to turn away from the duty they were asked to uphold, to choose to lay down the memories of the past are all, in essence, choices the Ascians will not make because to do so would be to let go of what's lost, to move into the acceptance of grief and that can feel like betraying those whose memories are slowly fading.

Emet-Selch's end--"Remember us."--is directly tied to his refusal to forget. To let himself have even one day without hoping for an eventuality that's highly unlikely regardless of effort, without remembering the Sundering and the Final Days. He remembered, forcefully and tenaciously, and wishes that legacy to live beyond him.

While Elidibus, in remembering, unable to deny failure any longer, finally expresses grief and loss. "My people. My brothers. ...My friends. Stay strong. Keep the faith. At duty's end, we will meet again. We will. We will. The rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it."

And coming from villains, quite specifically from villains that have been largely indistinct "puppet master" figures throughout the previous expansions, these story arcs were a punch to the gut. (Yes, I had to pause writing this to cry helplessly over Elidibus again because my gods, that last line just...) Villains are at their best in fiction when they're relatable. When it's so very easy to see that thin line between villain and hero.

Faced with the loss of everything you'd ever loved, with the faintest possibility of getting it back, what would you do? What wouldn't you do? Yes, the Ascians did terrible things and that's undeniable. Stopping them was necessary to save hundreds of thousands of lives. And doing so, being victorious, didn't feel like a victory and that is such a rare, rare thing in media. The Warrior of Light does the right thing, but in doing so, must face the fact that those they've been fighting have hopes and dreams and feelings and pain as real and as motivating as theirs.

And Shadowbringers does such an impressive job of turning those standard tropes around. Heroes are a dime a dozen because if you just awaken them, as Elidibus did with the starshower, well, there can be dozens of Warriors running around. Villains have heart-wrenching motivations and relatable reasons for their goals. History is multi-faceted and no one person knows what the "truth" truly is. Grief can spur people to helping others (i.e. the tank Role Quest ending) or it can fester and go unhealed and create nothing but more destruction.

There is so much that Shadowbringers did beautifully, I don't have the time to touch on all of it. The lack of "breaking the flawed system fixes everything" trope following Eulmore's liberation from Vauthry and the struggles that Eulmore faces in trying to build a functional, working social order for themselves. Embracing the value of childish dreams and tending to the smallest, most overlooked victims of trauma with the Pixie Tribal Quests. Dealing with a commander whose soldiers died and seeing Lyna's survivor's guilt. Seeing how having a single, unified goal can inspire and rally people into putting differences aside and helping each other.

Shadowbringers has finally ended with Patch 5.55. The story on the First ended with Patch 5.3. And all I can say is that this is a game that I will never forget.

#Shadowbringers #FFXIV #OOC #Yes I had A Lot of Thoughts

[canchewread]

Editor’s note: this post is part of the Recommended Reading series here on Can’t You Read; an ongoing and evolving feature that combines an easy to swipe info-graphic, a short journal, and a link to an important related discussion I’d like to share with readers.

A Culture of Predation Can’t Stop Fascist Pig Violence

In the wake of the frankly surprising (but extremely welcome) guilty verdicts in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, I’ve tried very hard to reign in my cynicism. After all, the conviction of a cop for murder “in the line of duty,” let alone a white cop who murdered an African American man with an impoverished background, is about as common as a goddamn unicorn fart, and on that account alone the verdict is worth commemorating, if not necessarily celebrating. 

While it would be unspeakably obtuse to suggest that the verdict represented some sort of positive justice, it’s also undeniable that many feel this moment may indeed be a starting point; a chance to at least begin to imagine what a positive justice for African Americans might look like. In particular numerous observers have pointed to the very public crumbling of the proverbial “blue wall” of silence, the fact that Chauvin’s fellow police officers passionately testified against him with the whole world watching, as a positive omen for the future of police reform.

Unfortunately I (and many other observers) have doubts about this position. I don’t mean to be a downer, but the truth is that nobody, not even immunized murderpigs and their commanders, can justify the horrifying video of Chauvin mindlessly executing George Floyd over the course of nine and a half minutes. Faced with the choice of openly embracing their own “little Eichmanns” in front of an outraged public, the Blue Meanies decided that ultimately it wasn’t worth protecting a fuck up like Derek Chauvin. The cost, both to his fellow thug cops, and the profession of policing as a whole, would simply have been too damn high to justify the reward. 

The sad and horrifying truth here is that if Derek Chauvin had simply shot George Floyd, instead of casually kneeling on his neck for almost ten minutes, he’d probably be a free man today; just like so many cracker murderpigs before him. Furthermore, even this smallest of concessions probably wouldn’t have happened without months of nationwide protests conducted under a state of constant assault by violent, openly rioting police officers. That last reality is certainly not lost on fascists and neoliberal authoritarians; why else do you think reactionary lawmakers are rushing to pass legislation that criminalizes mass protest against racialized police violence? 

Still, you can’t blame folks for hoping; hope can be a good thing if it gives you the strength and courage to continue a seemingly impossible fight for actual justice. Perhaps some long day from now we will look back on this moment and say “and the conviction of Derek Chauvin was the point when the wave ultimately broke, and the tide of cracker police violence finally rolled back” - even if it’s clear that these convictions, by themselves, do not have the power to enact the change we so desperately need. 

Where I can and will find fault however, is with those deluded and disingenuous souls who have used this moment to once again champion the doomed cause of police reform; blithely ignorant or willfully oblivious to the fact that police reforms already failed to prevent the murder of George Floyd, and so many others like him. The bald truth is that the current establishment movement towards police reform is about maintaining the power and funding of the very same violent uniformed thugs who’re murdering poor people on behalf of the capitalist state in the first place; that’s why nobody is talking about removing qualified immunity for police officers, and that’s why even some cops themselves are coming around to the idea of reform at this late a date. In many ways, the real importance of the movement to “Defund the Police” is that the mere threat of taking away the sweet filthy ducats that pay murderpig salaries has already shifted the carceral establishment’s position towards bargaining; albeit, in bad faith.

The road to neofeudalist hell is paved with dark intentions however, and what establishment reformers, even and perhaps especially those who’re prepared to acknowledge the fundamentally racialized aspects of police violence, aren’t prepared to discuss in the open is the nature and purpose of policing itself in a capitalist society. There is no public examination of why it is that we keep hiring folks who turn out to be violent white supremacists to be police; and there certainly will be no discussion about the ways class relationships intersect with race through the designed function of racialized policing.

Despite the pro-police propaganda you’ve been fed all your life to suggest otherwise, the vast majority of what police actually do in America is to protect the wealth, property, and feelings of affluent white people and the corporations they own. Far from solving major crimes and preventing violence, modern policing in the Pig Empire revolves around nuisance violations, so-called broken windows policing, and other methods of harassing poor people for minor infractions of the law; remember, the police encounter that lead to the murder of George Floyd started over the purchase of cigarettes and a dodgy twenty dollar bill. The reason murderpigs can get away with violently assaulting protestors and journalists who threaten the established order is because that is precisely what they’re being paid to do, and indeed what their predecessors before them have always been paid to do.

On the surface, this class and capitalism analysis may appear to create a tension with the narrative that white supremacy and racism are also driving the crisis of police violence, but that’s really just about the same old establishment spin. As I’ve discussed in numerous prior essays, you simply cannot separate capitalism from white supremacy, or even racism, because bigoted ideas are propagated and spread for the specific purpose of marking out certain marginalized groups for exploitation and highly-lucrative (for some) repression.

Do you want to know what systemic racism in policing really looks like? It looks like hiring murderpigs to repress the poor, knowing full well that due to centuries of slavery and exploitation, the nonwhite and particularly African American population will be vastly overrepresented in the targeted communities. It looks like a supposedly colorblind war on drugs, the ongoing use of demonstratively racist stop and frisk practices, and expanded powers for your community’s “gang squad” in pretty much any neighborhood that just happens to be predominantly Black. It looks like literally profiting from these practices in ways that are sometimes extremely brazen and obvious, but sometimes hidden from everyday sight; even if they’re hardly much of a secret. The fact that the police are ultimately enforcers for the capitalist ruling class, also makes them enforcers of the white supremacist order that capitalism is so dependent upon in our society; there is no contradiction involved here.

Look; you don’t get rid of fascist murderpigs and white supremacists in law enforcement by throwing more money at nazi cops. Joe Biden can summon up all the pretty words he likes, but you can’t address the racialized nature of police violence without fundamentally altering either the racialized nature of inequality in American life, or the very purpose of policing in our society; and he’s sure as shit not talking about doing any of that at all. Thus, no matter how surprised and hopeful I am after the Chauvin guilty verdicts, that sense of positivity is ultimately tempered by the realization that “nothing will fundamentally change” - and that includes cracker thug pigs executing unarmed Black men on camera.

Although they might finally be better than openly fascist Republicans, the Democrats still don’t have answers to the problem of racialized police violence because ultimately, they don’t have answers to the crisis of capitalism itself. It’s not a question of reform or changing the law; murder is already illegal, even if you’re a white cop. Inequality, and the security force violence necessary to maintain it, is a festering sore inside the American body politic, and there are indeed consequences for essentially ignoring a crisis now so obvious and enraging to the public at large. 

What kind of consequences? Well, let’s ask researcher and professor Temitope Oriola who provides one terrifying answer in the public journal, The Conversation:

“The United States is at Risk of an Armed Anti-Police Insurgency“ by  Temitope Oriola

Or, you know, we could just abolish the murderpigs first; your call really - but don’t expect Palooka Joe to be much help, either way.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

#Recommended Reading #Police #Police State #Essays #ninaillingworth #Derek Chauvin #Chauvin Trial #George Floyd #George Floyd protests #George Floyd was murdered #Guilty #Black Lives Matter #support blm #BLM #Social Justice #Temitope Oriola #ACAB #fascism #neoliberal authoritarianism #Defund the Police #abolish the police #fire em all #racial justice #crimes by police #murders by police #murderpigs #pigs #Police reform #anti-protest laws #GOP is fascist

[peemil]

☕evangelion 😳

y'all are killing me

the more time i spend apart from this show, the more i find myself kind of hating it shsjhl;hjsdhjso;d. i am somehow now in an even worse place mentally than i was when i first watched evangelion but even so i am NOT letting myself fall in the same traps of woobifying shinji and excusing the behaviors i shared with him and vice versa.

starting with my most general take, i don't like the rebuilds. like, at all. granted, i haven't seen 3.0 + 1.0 yet, and i will be avoiding spoilers until there is an official english translation, but i feel like the rebuilds are kind of what you get when you listen a little too hard to people who didn't get the psychological parts of eva and spent the latter half of the series wishing it would go "back" to being a regular mecha anime (which it never was in the first place). the rebuilds lack a lot of the same internal conflicts that drive the characters (especially shinji), and higher budget means the rebuilds can be more direct in their storytelling and less reliant on alternative ways of communicating ideas, which causes the rebuilds to lose some of the avant-garde present in the original series. as a result, it's jarring to see some of the attempts made at this in 3.0, and painful to watch these attempts fail, as they have no real precedent in the film series. the best way for me to explain the rebuilds is they feel like sterilized and polished, but hollow versions of the original anime series. but maybe i'm just biased, because none of the things i liked about the original are present in the films.

on to more minutiae... i've said it once and i'll say it again, asuka langley soryu is a LESBIAN and there's nothing anyone can do to make me stop reading her character in this way. the only male characters she is depicted as having any romantic feelings towards in the series just (unintentionally) so... comphet. her obsessive flirting with kaji is rooted in her need to prove her worth as an adult, i.e., to prove to others that she is something she inherently is not. plus, he's older, and he's conventionally attractive, so if she didn't have feelings for him (or at least publicly perform having feelings for him), she'd be out of her mind, right? asuka is also someone shown to pursue connections out of convenience (literally citing it as her primary reason for wanting to be friends with rei), and any intimacy she shares with shinji (i.e., their kissing scene) is done only because 1. she's bored 2. shinji is the closest person available. i find the notion that she's a tsundere hiding her real feelings for him laughable, because we've seen what asuka is like around people she genuinely likes and whom she wants to like: the hatred she shows for rei takes a different form from her hatred for shinji: whereas asuka is disgusted by shinji, she is resentful towards rei. her resentment towards rei curiously begins only after rei rejects asuka's offer of friendship, so i am inclined to believe that asuka's feelings of anger when she sees rei receives more respect than she believes she does at nerv are compounded by the fact that she wanted to like rei and have a connection with rei, but wasn't permitted to do so. we also get to see how asuka acts around the one person with whom asuka is able to form a meaningful connection with, whom she lets herself trust and open up to: hikari. asuka actually has fun with hikari and feels safe enough around her to not only seek refuge with her and her family in her time of need, but also to admit that her rage is mostly towards none other than herself. her behavior towards shinji is nothing like her behavior towards either of these characters, but it is not much different from her behavior towards kensuke and toji, two other boys in her class, so maybe... maybe she just doesn't like boys? lol. i'm aware that asuka is genuinely homophobic and awful in the episode 24 drafts, and that it was in no way, shape, or form the writers' intent to turn that into some sort of commentary on internalized homophobia. but with the canon footage that did get animated, i'm really not sure how else i'm supposed to analyze this aspect of her character.

similarly, i don't appreciate how many fans will treat headcanoning shinji as gay instead of bi is somehow "bi erasure." number one, shinji's behavior and attitudes towards the women around him is actually kind of appalling, so i wouldn't necessarily want to use his objectification of and acts of violence against their bodies as particularly strong evidence that he's genuinely attracted to women. number two, of course a show about a young man made in the late 90's is going to try to portray the people to whom he is attracted primarily as women. partially because they can't start from the get-go with him having his teenage sexual awakening with another male—for a mainstream anime, that wouldn't be profitable—and partially because this is an anime and showing women and girls in a sexual light is profitable. and given shinji's role of audience surrogate, of course he is going to be the one doing the ogling and sexualizing because he is us, and after all, it is the viewer who wants to see the anime tiddies, no? shinji's more sexual encounters with the women in his life are always either deeply awkward, uncomfortable, and even unnatural, or they completely obectify and commodify the bodies of the women in question. for this reason, i have always seen these moments as existing without genuine attraction: only either confusion (because these situations really are quite blatantly sexual) or simply a disingenuous performance of the attraction shinji thinks he should be displaying, manifesting as the same objectification of women he has seen men exhibit for all of his life—it's little more than a mimicry of the bad behavior he has grown up watching, because that's what he thinks attraction towards women is supposed to look like. conversely, his actions with kaworu, while skittish, seem to come much more organically. shinji is constantly and consistently drawn to kaworu, in addition to being willing to open up to kaworu in ways he doesn't let himself with any other person. granted, kaworu is the only person to give shinji the love he desperately needs and craves throughout the entire course of the series, but the fact that kaworu is the first person shinji genuinely acts like a kid his age with a massive crush in a way that doesn't feel blatantly scripted around, as well as the fact that shinji goes on to feel more slighted by kaworu's perceived betrayal than any mistreatment he experiences from anyone in the whole course of the series (save for his literal father)... idk. sus lol

been awhile since i've done a proper rewatch of this show so i can't speak super generally since i unfortunately don't remember too much. one thing i will say though, i LOVE how the series is very upfront about the fact that shinji's loneliness and trauma (and loneliness and trauma in general) are going to be core themes in the series from the start. people say the first 6 episodes are slow just because they don't have as much action as some of the episodes in the middle of the series, but i remember speeding through them in one sitting because i wanted to understand more about shinji and his inner workings; i was fascinated by his psychology. people famously refer to evangelion as a bait-and-switch, and maybe that's true to a degree, because i don't think anyone really saw the shift to more trippy animation coming, but the psychological themes present in the latter parts of the series are still very present in episodes 1-4. i'm also amused by people who say they're "caught off guard" by the last four or so episodes, because the major shift towards being a show primarily about psychology really begins in episode 16, when eva unit 01 is consumed by leliel and shinji has to confront the "self within his self" for the first time in the train car of his mind. i know it begins as just another angel fight but like... guys... how did you miss that... episode 16, because it really is where this shift begins, is actually my favorite episode in the entire series. that, and it was where i was first introduced to this hegelian concept of each person functioning both as an actor or operator who carries out actions, as well as an audience perceiving and observing their actions, their thoughts, and themself. which, to a degree, solidifies the notion that anything and everything technically could be considered performance. it's made my work much, much easier and my day-to-day life much, much more dramatic.

#nge #he scream at own follower #i'm sorry for talking so much about shinji and asuka. the worst part is that theoretically i could say even more #i haven't even started with rei #though she reminds me of someone i lost contact with so i get too emotional about her to say much of any real value

[bazypitchandsimonsnow]

Mages Don’t Meddle

Rating: M

Genre: Angst/Mild Fluff

Word count: 16091

Summary: In a world where magic users must fear each other, Baz Pitch, a British born hex hiding in the 19th century American southwest, is just trying to stay alive. But when he meets a fellow British hex, his world is turned upside down in the most awful, amazing ways possible. PLEASE READ FIRST AUTHOR'S NOTE!!!!

Read on AO3

AN: Alright some of you may know that my favourite book series of all time is The Hexslinger Series by Gemma Files. It’s a gory but brilliant horror/dark fantasy weird western trilogy about gay cowboy wizards fighting Aztec gods. (It's also where my AO3 username comes from). I've been writing this AU on and off for like two years now lol. So when I saw this event, I saw it as motivation to finally finish it. And I did! Idk how many people are gonna like this, considering the obscurity of the books. The mythos is a bit complicated so here are the basic rules of the Hexslinger world:

1. Magic users exist, called "hexes" or "hexslingers” by most English speakers. They’re commonly known of and feared by some humans because of their immense, usually unstable power. Their magic is usually called "hexation" and a common descriptor for anything to do with them is "hexacious." Being a hex can either be passed down from parent to child or appears randomly. Most are children of a hex man and a human woman as pregnancy for a hex woman can be very risky to mother and child, but it's still possible.

2. Hexes aren’t usually born having magic. Their powers manifest at some point later in their lives except in very rare circumstances. For women it usually appears after their first period, while for men it’s usually after some sort of grievous bodily harm, e.g getting hanged or beaten. Before manifestation, some hexes show no sign of magic at all, while others have hints like perfect aim or weirdly good luck. It depends on the person and their power level.

3. Hex magic varies between people based on personality, culture, family history, and power level/type. For example, an experienced Chinese born hex with refined power will have a very different kind of magic than a newly manifested American born hex with more chaotic power. (That’s literally just from the original books lol.) Even hexes similar in multiple aspects can be completely different in the way their magic is expressed.

4. The only universal trait between hexes is that they all have the urge to feed off each other’s magic. They’re like magic vampires (wink wink). If they get too close to each other, they have the immediate urge to absorb the other's power and kill them. It’s completely instinctual and very hard to resist. Hence why hexes can’t be around each other. Or, to use the common phrase from the universe, “mages don’t meddle.”Okay that's the basics. There's A LOT of other stuff but I think that's all you need to know for this fic imo.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: So there's some period typical racism scattered around due Baz being brown in the 19th century American south. It's not too harsh imo but I still want to warn people. I hope I handled it alright, considering I'm a white af Canadian Irish-Jew, but if I didn't I'm very sorry. There's also a bit of period typical homophobia at the start. The closest I get to slurs is the use of "red" and "Indian" in reference to Indigenous people, "queer" in a negative context, references to sand because Baz says he's Egyptian, and Baz being called "darker folk." I felt it would be disingenuous to not include bigotry of the past and pretend things would be all okay for a queer POC like Baz. Especially since Hexslinger itself has major themes of homophobia, racism, and not being accepted in the majority of society. A few mentions of suicide, self harm, and torture too in relation to hex powers emerging too, which is also major in Hexslinger. The series itself is pretty brutal and dirty with lots of bigotry, blood, guts, and death. So those elements have gotten in here. There is some flesh burning stuff but I don't think it's that graphic, feels pretty typical for Carry On imo. Hopefully this all works well/makes sense.

As always, big thanks to Raegan of @carryonmylovelies Now with that all out of the way, enjoy!

———————————————

I gingerly take a sip of my whiskey. It's a horrible rotgut shite, but there’s worse stuff out in the wild west. This Slipfoot Joe’s seems to be okay by my now very, very low standards for this area.

“Well well, if it ain’t a pretty red boy,” the man behind me croons. His voice makes evey inch of my skin crawl.

I let out a deep sigh. I’ve been expecting this, but I’m still not pleased. “Piss off, arsehole.”

“Oh! Didn’t know Indians could sound English!”

“I’m British Egyptian, you twit.”

The man leans on the bar, smiling wide. It’s easier to count the few teeth he has than guess how many he’s lost. “What brings your sandy ass to our great country?”

The Call. The unending Call that signals all of us to come here.

I take another long sip. “Your gorgeous face, obviously. How much do you charge? I’ve heard American men are cheaper here than in England.”

The man reels back scowling. “You think I’m some queer?!”

“Well, I assumed so. Considering you were just flirting with me, a man.”

He snarls, whipping out his pathetic little pistol. The barrel shakes nonstop. “You got some nerve, boy!”

I finish the whiskey and delicately place the glass rim first on the filthy bar. “And you’re a racist bastard. You don’t see me getting all pissy.”

The gunshot happens in slow motion for me. I don’t even need to turn. I simply hold one hand in front of me and let my magic pour from me like a dragon’s breath. It curls out in front of me, a circle of blacks and charcoal greys and burning scarlets. Every hex’s magic is different. Mine is like a constant roaring fire, always threatening to consume me.

The bullet hits the shield with a tinny clink. Racist Man is frozen with wide, terrified eyes. I turn to him, orange and red reflecting in my grey eyes.

“You- You’re... a hex?!” He splutters.

“Thought that was pretty bloody obvious. Now go, before I drink your blood.”

Racist Man and his buddy scamper out of the tavern. I let the force field dissipate, crackling and popping in the air like a dying campfire. Joe, the bartender and eponymous Slipfoot, sighs as he cleans another glass.

“You know,” Joe says, “I’ve met other hexes. They’re stupid reckless assholes but they ain’t ever drank blood. Just suck each other’s magic.”

I chuckle. “Well they don’t know that, do they?”

“No, lucky for you. What’s a Brit like you even doin’ here anyway?”

My mouth presses into a thin line. I envy him. He can't hear The Call from that damned Hex City. I heard it all the way in Washington, and before I knew it I was on a train southeast. The only reason I haven’t actually gone to the horrid place is sheer stubbornness.

“I’m a hex. Where else would I be going?”

Joe freezes. He stares at me with more concern than fear. “I’d be careful, son. Those hexes I met? One of them was Reverend Rook himself. He’s beyond bad news, ‘specially with that heathen goddess by his side.”

“I know.” I trace my finger on the old wood, trying to focus on that instead of the ringing in my head. “But what choice do I have?”

———————————————

1867, two years after America’s bloody civil war, and it seems they’re about to be plunged into a new one. Except it won’t be slavery versus abolition this time, but humans versus magic. 

The news has spread like wildfire. In the final days of the war, a confederate soldier and unofficial chaplain named “Reverend” Asher Rook was sentenced to hang for abandoning his regiment. But he survived, and the suffering of the ordeal caused his hex powers to emerge. Rumour has it one Bible verse from his lips can level an entire town. Rook decided to use his new powers to steal and murder his way through the west, aided by his ruthless gunslinging lieutenant (and rumoured lover) Chess Pargeter.

He should’ve been just another hex outlaw for those American Pinkertons to take down. But somehow, a mere month ago, Rook made a pact with an Aztec goddess. And together they’ve created New Azteclan, or Hex City to the common man. According to the magical homing signal I hear, that every hex hears, it’s a place where hexes can lose their insatiable urge to feed off each other’s magic. We’ll no longer have to be loners by nature, picked off one by one by humanity. We could be together. We could be safe.

But at what cost? Nothing in life comes without a cost. I know that too well. My magic cost me my home, my family, and a good part of my sanity. I’d do anything to not be a danger to others anymore. And the possibility is right there. All I need to do is go further south and cross the border into Mexico to reach Hex City. But once I do that, there’s no going back. The temptation of the Call will be too strong. And whatever price The Reverend wants, he’ll get it from me.

I sit at the fire, chewing on some absolutely horrific jerky. I’m trying to focus on the flames instead of the voice in my head. I’m not sure whose it is. Maybe Rook’s, maybe his witch goddess’. It doesn’t have a discernible tone, just sort of an indistinct everyman sound, or a thousand voices speaking the same thing. Either way, it’s very annoying.

Come, it whispers. Come seek out Ixchel, the Mother of Hanged Men. Come stand before Her priest-king, to offer up your service. Come to build the First City of the Sixth World- the world of wonder, the world of power. Come, and join New Azteclan.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I shout into emptiness, slamming the side of my head with my fist.

“I haven’t said anything yet,” someone replies weakly.

I bolt up. My magic roars to life inside me, a fireball forming in the palm of my hand. “Who said that?!”

The man slowly steps out of the darkness. He must be no older than myself, with his young, round freckled face. He has curly bronze hair, capped by an old second hand cowboy hat. His brown leather coat, plaid shirt, riding boots, and jeans are all filthy with desert dirt. A horse with saddle bags stands behind him. His blue eyes are wide and nervous. I notice a smell on him. Like green fire and smoke, with a strong scent of something brown and sweet. He smells like something I would gladly eat.

He’s a hex.

“Don’t you dare come any closer, you prick,” I say between gritted teeth. “I won’t hesitate to burn you to a crisp.”

The other boy shakes his head. “I’m not here to drain you. I...I just wanted to ask for some help.” He sounds British like me, but more rough and nervous, stumbling over his words.

“Yeah, right. Do I look that gullible? ‘Mages don’t meddle.’ We’d all drain each other dry if we were given the chance.”

He sighs heavily. “Well, of course I want to by instinct, but I’m not going to. I was just wondering if you had any food. All of mine got stolen by some angry humans.”

I consider just turning him away, or draining his magic and leaving his dried out corpse for the vultures. But he looks so desperate. How long has this young man been out here alone? My aunt had always warned me to be wary of all other hexes. We’re a bloodthirsty species, Basil. Never trust another hex, ever. Not even me. But I’m not my aunt.

I sit down again. “Fine. You can have some jerky. Just don’t come too close alright? I’d like to keep my magic and soul where they are, please.”

The man smiles (he has a nice smile) and sits opposite me at the fire. I throw a bag of jerky, and he catches in one hand. He shoves it in his mouth like a ravenous animal.

“So,” I say, “what’s your name?”

“Simon Snow,” he rep;ies, mouth still half full. “Your’s?”

“Baz Pitch.” Simon chuckles a bit, and I frown. “What’s so funny?

“Well, Baz Pitch is a pretty ridiculous name.”

“No more ridiculous than Simon Snow,” I snap. “What, were you named by circus performers?”

“Maybe. Not sure, actually.” Snow looks at the fire, but it feels like he’s looking right through it, his gaze very far away.

“Why’s that?”

Simon shakes his head. “Hey, are you going to Hex City?”

I huff, blowing some loose, dirty hair out of my eyes. I’m too tired to stop him from changing the subject. “I don’t know. Are you?

He shrugs. “Maybe. So far I am. The stories and Call do make it sound so wonderful.”

I scoff loudly. “Of course they do. Rook wants people to come. Then we’ll get there and be sacrificed to his bloodthirsty goddess. That’s probably what happened to Pargeter. No one’s heard from him lately, according to the locals.”

“But we’ll lose the hunger! What if the Reverend just wants us to be safe? Y’know, as a kindness to his own people.”

“No one does anything out of kindness, Snow. Least of all hexes.”

“You gave me food out of kindness, didn’t you?”

I glare at him over the flames. He shrugs with a faint smile. Fuck. He has a really nice smile.

 “I’m going to sleep,” I mutter. “But I’m putting a shield around me. Touch it and you’ll be burned alive. So don’t get any ideas about taking my magic.”

Simon throws his hands up in innocence. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I lay down on my pallet, throwing up my force field. The crackle and hiss of magic around me distracts from the beautiful mage no more than seven feet from me. Whom I’m not sure I want to kiss or kill. Maybe both.

———————————————

I wake when the sun's centre in the sky. I’m breathing, so this Simon Snow hasn’t drained me dry. That’s good, I guess. 

I sit up bleary eyed. Snow is passed out on his own cot, drooling profusely with his mouth wide open (mouth breather). He’s put up his own shield, of course, (at least he’s somewhat sensible). It sort of looks like an electrical explosion, white bolts constantly combusting around him in bubble form. He smells so powerful. It’s taking all of my willpower to not hurt him. To not submit to my basic hex desires.

I take my sweet time to pack my things and douse the fire pit, secretly hoping Simon will wake up before I run out of excuses. Luckily, with a very loud snort, Snow bolts upwards. There’s terror in his eyes, and his breath is uneven and shallow. I know that look. I’m no stranger to nightmares myself.

“A good morning to you, Snow,” I say.

Simon lets out a long breath, waving a hand to dissolve his shield. “You didn’t kill me.”

“And you didn’t kill me. What a miracle.”

“I’ll say. Are you leaving?”

“Obviously.”

“Where to?”

I sigh heavily. “Well, my map says, there’s a town southeast from here. I haven’t been there before but it probably isn’t too bad. I was going to hide there for at least a bit.”

Simon picks at his nail beds, even though they’re already ragged and bloody. “Can I...can I come with you? I haven’t been around anyone in so long, y’know. It’d be nice to have someone to talk to”

I look at him with the most neutral gaze I can muster. “Are you going to kill me?”

He shrugs. “Haven’t killed you yet, have I?”

“There’s still time.”

Simon stands up, brushing the dust off his pants. “Alright, then I’ll make myself very clear. Baz, I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to fight you at all, alright?”

I must admit that I’ve been lonely these few months in the desert. Hell, I’ve been lonely for the past few years. I’ve actually missed the company of others. But it’s not like humans or hexes want to be around me. Except for this one, it seems. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad. If we don’t kill each other first that is.

“Alright, fine. Just don’t try anything or I’ll burn you from the inside out.”

Simon keeps smiling. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

We mount our horses and ride off. I try to keep my eyes ahead instead of on Snow.

———————————————

“I can’t believe the food here,” Snow says. “It’s so much more spicy than in the North.”

“We are closer to Mexico, Snow,” I reply. I’m trying to figure out our route, while also listening to Snow when he’s more than six feet away. The hunger is manageable from this distance. Mostly.

“Well, yeah, but it’s so insane! Why can’t the north people get some spice from here? It would make their chicken more tolerable. London street food was awful but at least it had some flavour!”

That makes me snort out a laugh no matter how much I try not to. Snow grins at me, and his face is literal sunshine. Why must he be so perfect? It’s not fair. “London street food? You mean fish and chips? Those aren’t half bad, if I’m remembering correctly.”

Snow’s tawny face gets a little pink. He rubs the back of his slightly sunburnt neck. “Y-Yeah, they weren’t too bad. Just...other stuff was terrible...”

“Like what?” It’s not late at night now. I’m less inclined to let his dodging go. Call me crazy, but I’d like to know about the man I’m travelling with.

“Um...” He looks down at his horse’s neck. “I-I lived on the London streets, literally, until I was old enough to work for room and board. Finding anyone who would house a hex though, that was a challenge.”

His laugh is tinny and hollow. My heart, or what dark horrible mass we hexes have in place of one, twists at the words. I wish I was surprised. His story is all too familiar.

“You don’t need to be ashamed,” I say firmly. “We all have our own rough pasts. It’s practically required for hexes, in my eyes.”

Snow doesn’t look up, but his (pretty) plain blue eyes flick over to me. “Really?”

I nod. “Yes, of course. Hexes are usually shunned and harmed. Finding one who hasn’t been in a dire situation is more rare.”

“Have you met a lot of hexes?”

“Some. Mostly, I’ve heard stories. Far too many are like your’s.”

“Is your’s?”

My grip on the reins is so tight my knuckles are going pale. Memories rush through my head no matter how much I want to stop them. The darkness, the pain, the fire, then the stench of burnt human flesh, all capped off by years of trying to survive on my own.

“Unfortunately, ye-”

“What the fuck?!”

Simon’s screech is ungodly in volume and tone. His horse lets out a similarly panicked bray. She bucks up, but can’t get very high with the red vines tangled around her legs.

“Oh fuck,” I hiss. I try to pull back my own horse, but his legs are similarly wrapped up. The vines circle up and around us. I kick and stamp them with all my might. The blood red flowers look like the gaping mouths of monsters.

“What the fuck are these things?!” Snow bellows. He tries to rear his horse back, but nearly throws himself backwards off his saddle instead. “Fucking shite!”

“Don’t do that, Snow, it won’t help!”

“Then what should I do?!” 

“Just stay still!”

Thankfully, Snow does as I say. Not thankfully, I’m not sure what to do. I know that human blood gets rid of the Weeds, but even if I count as human in this regard, you need a relatively large amount of it. So unless I want to pass out, I’ll need to think of something else. But what else can curb evil bloodthirsty Aztec plants?

“Baz!” Snow’s horse pancis the more the weeds wrap around her, which makes Snow panic in turn. He looks at me with desperate wide eyes. “Baz, do something!”

Oh, fuck it. I’ll solve this the way I solve my other problems.

I reach deep within myself, down to the flames that burn in what’s hopefully my soul, or at least what hexes have instead. I grab that power and let it out through my arm. Fire roars to life in the palm of my hand, and I unleash the full force of it on the Weeds. A tidal wave of blackened-red flames engulf the plants.

“Jesus Christ!” Simon shouts. The plants don’t burn per se, I’m not sure they even can. But they still shrink away from us. I keep pushing more magic out until they Weeds a good distance away. 

“Run,” I say, “now!”

Snow and I both wrench our horses 180 degrees and run like the wind. We ride fast and far with no destination, but we keep each other in sight. Only when my pulse is no longer hammering in my ears do I start to slow down. Snow follows, and eventually we stop near a large tree. All four of us are breathing hard.

“Bloody hell,” Snow says. “W-What the fuck were those?”

“Red Plague Weeds,” I reply, dismounting my horse. “They’ve been popping up all around here. No one knows where they come from, but we’re all pretty sure they have something to do with Rook and his witch goddess. Just like every other bizarre thing nowadays.”

“How come I haven’t seen them before in the towns?”

“Because the way to get rid of the Weeds permanently is blood, Snow.”

Snow’s eyes go wide with horror. “Blood? Any blood?”

I sadly shake my head. “No, only fresh human blood. I’ve heard a bowl full collected from the townsfolk is good enough. I don’t even know if hex blood counts. No one’s ever tried, as far as I know. We’re extremely lucky we got away.”

“So I gathered,” Snow sighs. “Now what? We’ve gone a good way backwards now, if I had to guess.”

“Agreed. We’ll have to try and move around the Weeds. If we’re lucky, the town will still be reachable.”

“No one has ever called hexes lucky.”

We both laugh a little. Sometimes laughter is the only way to deal with our horrible existences. I pull the waterskin out of my bag and take a deep, long drink. “Let’s stay here for a moment, though. That blast took a lot out of me.”

“Y-Yeah, that makes sense. Um, I’ll just...”

He turns his horse to the side, trotting away from me. My stomach drops out. Where’s he going? Am I going to be alone again? I’ve only been with Snow for one day. That’s nothing compared to the last two years I’ve been on my own. But now I can’t imagine going back to that crushing, never ending loneliness.

“Heading out, Snow?” I keep my tone neutral, holding back the desperate tremor that threatens to bleed out. “Suppose I’ll see you around, then.”

Snow whips his head around. If I were a more hopeful person, I’d say he looks even more panicked than when we were tangled in the Weeds. “W-What? No, I was just gonna go a little further away...”

“Do I smell that bad?” I probably do. Hygiene is not a priority in these parts.

“No! The opposite, actually...” Snow looks to the side, a little red on his face. “You used a lot of magic before. I can still smell some of it. I, uh, want to keep my promise...”

Oh. Right. I should count myself lucky that he didn’t drain me the minute we stopped. “Yes, yes, of course, makes perfect sense.”

“Unless...you want me to go...”

I gulp down the massive lump in my throat. “Do you want to go, Snow?”

Snow scratches his neck. He points his thumb to the side. “I’ll be waiting over there, until we’ve both cooled down. Alright?”

I would never admit how much relief that brings me. “Alright. We’ll set off again in an hour or so.”

“Okay.” Snow trots over to a good distance away. His brown, sweet smell still lingers in the air, but it fades just enough for me to rest properly. I sit back against the tree, drinking a good portion of my waterskin. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Snow doing the same. I try to not watch him. But it’s very, very hard.

———————————————

Nightfall hits before we reach the town. Snow can’t ride very fast, and I’m still more than a bit drained. So once again, I have to sit opposite the man who will most likely kill me soon.

He fidgets endlessly, picking at his nails and sleeve. It’s infuriating. He gnaws on the jerky like a crazed cat or something. I huff and shake my head. Snow looks up at me.

“What?” he says through a bite.

“Do you ever stop moving? We’ve been sitting here for over an hour and there hasn’t been a single moment of stillness from you.”

Snow snorts. “I don’t see how that affects you.”

“It’s annoying.”

He snorts again, but there’s a small smile now too. “Maybe this is the real reason hexes don’t interact. We're all arseholes.”

“That is hardly a hex thing, Snow. I’ve known humans and hexes alike that I can’t tolerate.”

“Am I one of them?

I hope my face doesn’t flush too hard. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”

He chuckles quietly and goes back to eating his jerky, with far less fidgeting this time thankfully. We sit in silence for a while. I keep sneaking looks at him, then tearing my gaze away every time. The firelight makes Snow’s tawny skin almost glow and his bronze hair sparkle gold. He’s a constellation of moles and freckles. He’s a gorgeous mess. Just looking at him, I can almost forget that we’re supposed to be enemies.

“What part of England are you from anyway?” Snow asks through a mouthful of dried out meat.

“Hampshire. Though if you asked the people here, they’d say I’m from Buckingham bloody Palace.”

Snow throws his head back laughing. It’s a ridiculous, wonderful sound. “Damn true! I’ve lived on the streets of London for the past ten years and an American asked me if I’m related to the bloody queen! They have no idea about accent differences. They think every Brit is royalty.”

I freeze. Snow’s laughs slowly subside. He must notice the utter panic in my eyes. “You lived on the streets of London for a decade? That long?”

He pulls in, curling his thin body in on itself. This Simon is a hex like me, a terrifying being filled with unimaginable power, yet right now, he looks so...small. “Well, not the whole time. It’s been on and off. I found some places to live for a bit but they never lasted. Thank God for magic. Or thank the Devil, if the humans are right about us.”

He chuckles nervously. I shift uncomfortably in my spot, trying to hide the way his laugh makes me face heat up even more. “I guess so. It’s taken care of me since-”

There’s a crack. It’s small, far off, almost indistinguishable from the regular sounds of the desert, but it’s there. My aunt always said I have the ears of a bat. I swing my head around.

“What is it?” Snow says.

“Hush! I think I heard something.”

Slowly, I stand up, crouched over with my fists clenched. My magic sizzles and sparks inside me, begging to be used. I see Snow stand too at the edge of my vision.

“Die hex scum!”

The man launches himself out of the darkness, jagged knife in hand. He knocks me flat down to the ground. All the breath is forced out of me as my back hits the sand.

“Fuck!” I wheeze.

I push at him with both arms, thankfully keeping my pretty face out of his slashing range. He writhes and struggles like a rabid wolf. His dirty crazed smile, missing most of his teeth, looms over me. I recognise him.

“You,” I growl. “Did you really follow me all the way here from Slipfoot’s, you pig?!”

“Die!” He says that like it means absolutely anything, like I haven’t heard it a hundred times before.

Racist Man has no technique. He just screeches and flails with his knife. Aunt Fiona’s words come to my mind immediately. “Every self respecting hex needs to know how to defend himself, Basil.” She said just before pinning me to the ground in one move. I hook my leg around his and flip him onto his back. He gasps and lets out a rattling cough. I hover over him, knee on his chest, pinning his knife hand to the ground.

“You don’t deserve to live, you sand demon.” He spits at me, splashing against my cheek. I flick it off with ease.

“Such an original opinion.” I feel the fire blazing in my gut, threatening to consume myself and everything around me. “I should scorch off all your skin.”

“Course you would. All you hexes, just filthy murderers. No wonder y’all are fleeing to Rook’s heathen paradise. Your kind don’t belong around civilized folks.”

I growl again. First he despises my skin colour, then he thinks he knows anything about hexation. This bastard, so stupid and ignorant. We’re only monsters because we have to be. Because men like him come at us with knives and guns and nooses. There’s no holding the fire back. My hand heats up around his wrist. He screeches as his skin sizzles under my fingers. He drops the knife, but I don't stop. All my rage pushes out through my hand and onto his increasingly scorched skin.

“Get off me!”

I turn to see Simon, struggling against another man. His fingers spark and sputter uselessly as he pounds against the guy with a hand around his throat.

“Better save your man over there,” Racist Man hisses.

I give him one last good death stare. I see him shiver just slightly. At least he has some good sense. “Run fast and far. If you come near us again, so help me God I’ll melt through your entire brain.”

The look of terror in his eyes is enough of an answer. I jump off him and run towards Snow.

“Oi! Off him, now!” I roar.

The other man turns to look at me. He has the same crazed look as his friend. “Or what, you piece of devil shit?!”

“Or this.”

I turn to the fire. With only one hand outstretched, my magic wraps around it, and pushes my power into the very core. The flames shoot nine feet upwards, illuminating the vast dark in blinding light. I turn back to the terrified human. With one swing of my arm, the pillar slams into him. He’s sent flying in a shower of flames and skids on the ground, tossing up a cloud of dustin his wake. I start to march towards him. But Snow throws up his arm to stop me.

“Let me,” he growls.

The tone of his voice stops me in my tracks. Simon stomps towards him, his entire hand now covered in tiny sparks like fireworks. His assaulter sits up, panting heavily.

“You better run now,” Snow says.

He sneers. “Don’t tell me-”

“GO!”

Snow’s magic explodes like a fucking bomb. It’s a bolt of violent and powerful energy that hits the assailant square in the chest. He flies back even farther. I stumble from the sheer force of it. The magic disperses as quickly as it appeared. Snow is panting, bronze curls still staticy with stray sparks. The human scrambles and runs away into the darkness.

We’re left there, breathing hard in the darkness, the embers of the now dead fire our only light. Simon tries to pull out the crackling electricity still clinging to his hair. It curls around his fingers and won’t dissipate no matter how much he shakes his hand out. Finally, I find my voice again.

“That was...”

“Awful?” Snow mumbles. “Yeah, I know. Half the time my magic doesn’t work, the other half it explodes. Pretty fucking annoying.”

I turn to look at him properly, still trying to dust off the little sparks. “No, it was incredible. I’ve never seen magic that powerful, or beautiful.”

Oh fuck, why did I say that? I’m going to explode myself any second. Simon freezes, then turns to me. His lovely plain eyes are soft. Half of his mouth pulls up into a smile. My pulse is pounding in my ears. “N-No one’s ever called it beautiful before. And...no one’s tried to save me either.”

He starts to reach out to me with his spark kissed digits. I see the little bolts pulling towards me like I’m a magnet. My own magic flares to surface, reaching back towards him. Tiny flames from my fingers curl around the lightning. And a part of me, that horrible instinctual part, desperately wants to grab his hand and add his beautiful, terrifying energy to my own until his body is nothing but an empty husk.

I take a large step away, hands behind my back. Simon does the same. His eyes are wide with terror now. We both know how close we came to giving into temptation.

“We should go to bed,” I mutter.

Snow nods furiously. I speed walk to my side of the dead fire. We both lay down and pull the blankets to our reddening ears. The only sound for ages is the desert wind whistling through the cacti. Until Snow decides to speak up again, God help me.

“Baz?”

“What, Snow?” I snap. I can’t talk to him anymore, it’s too damn painful.

“Have...Have you ever actually fully drained anyone?”

Oh. I wasn’t expecting that. The question hits me in my heart. All that comes to mind is my aunt’s face as I saw her for the first time in weeks. Her happiness turned to utter horror in seconds. The memory still aches deep inside me. I can almost feel that horrible hunger when I first manifested. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath. “No. But I’ve come close. You?”

Snow pauses too. I can hear his shaky breathing clearly. “I had a hex friend back in London. Penelope. She was really good at magic, like you, so she tried to help me. We could only see each other for an hour a day for safety’s sake, and it worked for awhile. But one time, my magic got so out of control that I came this close to draining her.” He makes a loud sniffing noise. I hate imagining the tears I know are rolling down his face. “She told me it wasn’t my fault but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to hurt her. Next day I got on a boat to America. That was almost a year ago. I’ve been alone ever since, and it’s awful.”

“Is that why you want to go to Hex City?”

“Yeah. I mean, I just want to be able to have some choice, you know? Not make choices because of this power I never asked for. Don’t you feel like that?”

I think about my mother, who lost her life because of what we are. Or my six weeks of torture by that madman. Or how I had to run away from my family in fear of what I’d accidentally do to them.

“Yes,” I whisper, closing my eyes, “all the damn time.”

———————————————

We ride leisurely under the blistering sun. The desert has melted into more of a hot, grassy plain. Surprisingly, the climate and terrain actually gets less tortuous the further south you go in this awful state. I’ve only gone this far south once before. The Call somehow gets even stronger here. It threatens to fill every nook and cranny of my brain, but I beat it back. No disgraced Confederate chaplain or Aztec witch woman gets to decide what I do.

Snow is mumbling to himself about it being too hot. My head is whirring with a terrible, awful idea, but it won’t go away. My eyes keep drifting towards his beautiful face, and my mind keeps thinking of his beautiful magic. I got only a taste of the endless, consuming feeling of it, and it was exhilarating. If only he could control it.

I groan. “Snow, stop your horse.”

He looks at me confused, but does as I say. “What is it?”

“Get off. I’m going to help you with your magic.”

His eyes bug out of his skull. “What?! Why?”

“Because as incredible as your magic can be, I’d rather not have you explode when you sleep ten feet away from me.” 

It’s a convincing lie. Honestly, I want him to be able to protect himself. I don’t know exactly how long it will take to get to the south, or what could happen before then. Simon might’ve been killed if I wasn’t there. And I don’t know how long I will be with him.

I swing off my horse and Snow follows. We walk out into the empty plateau. He shuffles his feet nervously, chewing at his nails.

“Stay here,” I say.

I walk out and place my old empty flask on a cactus (it’s rusting anyway). Snow looks at it confused. I gesture to the metal bottle, then put my hands behind my back. “Hit that with a blast but avoid the cactus.

“O-Okay...” I watch his throat as he gulps. God, I want to touch that throat, I want to touch everywhere. But I’ll kill him if I do. It makes me hate my magic even more.

Simon raises his hand and takes aim. Small sparks dance between his fingers. One by one, they begin to increase. A small ball of lightning collects in his palm. Snow curls his fingers in, but they seem to be struggling. The ball starts to grow larger and Snow clenches harder. With little to no warning, a lightning bolt shoots out and hits the side of the flask. A blackened mark is left in its wake, but that’s nothing compared to the cactus. A massive chunk has been blown out of the top. It’s charred remains lay strewn on the gras.

“Fuck,” he groans. “Sorry, I was losing control, I had to let it go. Would’ve been much worse if I didn’t.”

“That’s alright, Snow. You technically did hit the flask.”

Snow scoffs, running a hand through his beautiful, sweaty hair. “Sure, I guess...”

I pluck the flask from the half destroyed desert fauna. Another horrible idea is coming to my mind, and I just might be mad enough to do it. “Maybe you need a greater motivator for staying in control.”

“Huh?”

I place the flask on my hand and hold my arm out to the side. “Hit the flask, but not me.”

Snow goes wide eyed again and inhales sharply like he’s been kicked. “A-Are you serious?! You just saw what I did to that cactus, right?”

“Well, you’re going to have to be accurate, unless you want me to end up like said cactus”

He pulls at his curls anxiously. The tiniest of parks fly off the ends. “I don’t know, Baz. I don’t want to hurt you...”

I try to ignore my rapidly beating heart. It’s been so annoying this past week, trying to get what it can’t have. I just flash a smirk at him. “Well, I believe that you won’t. Care to prove me right?”

A red colour spreads across his face. Part of me hopes that’s not just the sun affecting his pale, freckled complexion. “Alright, I’ll try.”

He rubs his hands together. His skin simmers with magic once again. It smells intoxicatingly good. Snow holds his right hand out, palm flat. The electricity builds on the surface. He keeps his hand clenched, but the energy threatens to spill over his fingers. I resist the urge to run in as fast as I can. I didn’t lie, I do trust him. But living on my own for almost three years has given me quite the self preservation instinct.

Sweat prickles Snow’s brow. He uses his opposite arm to keep the other one steady. “C’mon, Simon,” I whisper. “You can do it.”

The jagged white bolt shoots from his skin, far less formless than the last one. It zigs and zags, but in the end hits the flask straight on. The bottle explodes in a shower of jagged metal. I throw up a makeshift shield just in time. When I look at Snow, he’s flat on his ass, panting hard.

“Holy shit,” he says.

“‘Holy shit’ is right,” I respond with a chuckle.

He looks at me with a wide grin. It shines brighter than the midday sun. “I did it! That’s the most controlled my magic has ever been! Thank you, Baz.”

I nod. “You’re welcome, Snow. My aunt always said danger is a great motivator to learn. Especially when it comes to magic.”

Snow lays down on the grass, panting hard. It seems he’s not going to get up any time soon. “Your aunt, was she the one that taught you about magic?”

I kick at a piece of rusted shrapnel, my back to the resting Snow. “Yes, before it manifested, obviously. She wanted me to be prepared just in case. Her whole side of the family has a history of magic. It only appears every few generations or so. We both drew the short ends of the bloodline straw I guess.”

“You’re lucky with that, y’know. I never had anyone to teach me properly. Penny tried, but we never got far enough to make a difference. When I first got magic, this guy called the Mage offered to help. But it turned out he just wanted to drain me. I killed him by accident when he tried. I really didn’t mean to hurt hum, but he wouldn’t stop...”

I turn to him. There’s far too much pain in his eyes. “You had every right to defend yourself. Don’t feel bad.”

He lifts his head up. His smile is sort of sad, but it’s still gorgeous. “Thanks, Baz.”

I smile back as best I can. “You’re most welcome, Snow.” I place my hands in my pockets, desperately clenching my fists in hopes to keep my emotions at bay. “Unfortunately, I’m out of flasks. But we do have an oversupply of fauna. Want to try and not destroy a cactus this time?”

“Okay.” Snow nods, breathing steadily. “Okay, I’ll try.”

Snow takes his stance across from another unfortunate cactus. I watch him and give advice, but slowly have to back away as Snow’s sweet scent permeates the air. I try not to imagine being close to Snow, not having to fear him, him not having to fear me. Oh, what a life that could be.

———————————————

After another week of dodging the Red Weed, we finally get to somewhere. Covent Gardens, a town I suppose is named after the London borough. It’s sizable enough to have a slightly good inn; as in none of the panels are falling off and the sign is missing only a single letter. That’s practically a palace in these parts. I walk in with gusto, making the shutters rattle, Simon following behind me with his head.

Everyone looks at us. I’m not sure how obvious our hexation is, but I suppose we look enough like trouble. Plus my skin tone isn’t an asset here. Or anywhere, honestly. So I sneer and most turned away.

“They’re afraid of us,” Simon mumbles.

“As they should be,” I reply deadpan. I go straight to the barkeep, a bulky white man with truly horrific mutton chops. “I need two rooms.”

The man crosses his unnaturally large arms. “We don’t serve... people like you.”

I grip the bar lip, nails digging into the half rotted wood. “Like me how? Hexes or brown people?”

He sneers at me. “Neither.”

The fire blazes in my eyes. Wood blackens under my skin. “Now listen here, you stupid bastard, you better rent us a room or-”

“Now, now, Basilton,” a familiar voice says, “no need to be so rude. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

“Hello, Nicodemus.”

Nico moves to stand next to me. His suit is cheap, the stitches fraying at the seams. He’s still got that sort of menacing look, but he looks tired too.

“Fancy seeing you here, Pitch. How’s your aunt?” He smiles, showing off his missing eye teeth. It makes me want to punch him in his stupid face.

“Why would you care, Petty? You’re the one who left her after everything she did for you.”

He hangs his head back with a groan. “Still defending your family’s honour, I see. Ain’t my fault I wanted to realise my full potential.”

“What, by getting your teeth pulled out so you could get magic? Even when my aunt warned you what a curse being a hex was? You’re still an arrogant idiot then.”

Nicodemus growls and grabs my wrist. His magic reaches out to clash with my own. It’s slick like oil, wrapping around my fire like a snake. But there’s a roughness to it. A sort of mangy, wild energy that I remember all too well from the hex duel with my aunt. Now, I can smell the acrid tang of it too. It leaves a sour taste in the back of my throat. I’m not surprised his magic is as disgusting as he is.

“Looks like you went through some shit too, Basilton,” he hisses. “You’ve got the same fire as dear old Fi. What, the guilt of letting your mum die finally get to you? Try to end it all? Too bad, you just became the monster she never wanted you to be instead.”

His power gnashes at mine, trying to rip it apart and eat it. But Nicodemus has made a fatal assumption; that he’s more powerful than me. I push back against him hard. The fire rushes through my every vein. I revel in the way Nico’s eyes go wide. My hand shoots up to his throat and I shove him down so hard his back bends against the wooden bar.

“You bastard,” I growl. “After all these years you still don’t know how to keep your bloody mouth shut.” I hold his throat even tighter. His eyes bug out of his skull. “Maybe I should shut it permanently.”

I open the gates within, and his magic begins to pour into me. It’s the world’s greatest adrenaline rush. I’m invincible, powerful, a bloody god. Nico gasps and tries to push me away. But I’m still stronger. He could never stop me.

“Baz!” Snow shouts. “Stop it!”

I turn to him with burning eyes. Everything I see is cloudy, like a smoke screen or rippling water. “Why?!”

“Because,” his voice is desperate, and maybe even caring, “we shouldn’t be the monsters they think we are. Just look at them, Baz!”

I still have enough sense to hear what he says. The patrons cower in fear, eyes wide with terror as they look at me. It’s not an expression anyone wants to be subjected to, or cause. And though I hate him, Nicodemus is right. My mother never wanted me to be this. Another terrible, murderous, evil hex.

With all my strength and good sense, I find the will to let Nicodemus’ neck go. His power rushes back into him with a sputtering gasp. I glare at him as I pull away, fingers still trailing with flames.

“Leave,” I say flatly. “Now.”

Nicodemus runs faster than I’ve ever seen a man run before. I take a few deep breaths. It takes a moment for my magic to balance out. It still yearns for Nicodemus’ power, but I beat it back into submission. I won’t let the hunger control me. Then I walk towards the now terrified barkeep.

“Rooms still not available?” He shakes his head frantically. “Good.” I slap down some American money. “Two rooms, please. Also throw in some whiskey. I need a drink after all that.”

The man picks two keys out of a box, then a bottle and glasses from the shelf. He shoves them both forward on the bar and takes two large steps back. I snatch them up with a tip of my ridiculous cowboy hat.

“Cheers, mate.”

Snow and I take a table in a corner. No one dares to look at us. I pour drinks for both of us and shove his glass to the other side of the table. We’re as far apart as we can be but it’s still risky. My power is still hungry. And Simon still smells delicious. But I won’t hurt him. I can’t.

“So,” Simon says, vowel drawn out, “who was that?”

I throw back the whiskey. It’s sour and burns my throat, but it's better than Slipfoot’s at least. “His name is Nicodemus Petty. He and my aunt Fiona were friends growing up. They bonded over their mutual family history of hexation. But when my aunt and his sister, Ebb, manifested magic as teenagers, Nico was jealous. Fiona and Ebb both tried to tell him that hex magic was far more of a curse than a blessing, but he never listened. He wanted the power. When I was about nine, he finally succeeded in activating his own latent magic.”

“By having two of his teeth ripped out...”

“Mhm. First thing he did was stumble all bloody mouthed to my aunt’s flat.” I clench the glass so hard I nearly break it. “The bastard attacked her by surprise, and tried to steal her magic. He almost killed her, but Fiona got a lucky shot and threw him out the window.” I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “As you can guess, I was there. It wasn’t pretty.”

“I can imagine.” He pulls in, picking at his nails nervously. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking...w-what was he talking about? With your mum?”

I pour myself another helpful shot of whiskey. I want to drown my brain in the stuff, honestly. I’ve never talked about my mum, it’s too painful, like ripping out a fingernail. But Snow has shown so much of himself to me. It seems unfair to hide. “My aunt and I aren’t the only hexes in our family.”

His eyes go wide as the revelation hits him, “Your mum is a hex too?”

I nod slowly, then drink the alcohol in one gulp. The warmth tingles in my veins and loosens my tongue. I stare at the glass, watching the light refract through it’s bends. “She was, but my father is human. They loved each other enough to not be scared, I guess. They never meant to have children. I was an accident, but my mother wanted me in spite of the risks. My father said she cried with happiness when she saw I was a boy. She thought if she kept me safe, I’d never become a full hex.” I flick a paint chip off the table with more force than necessary. “Then she died protecting me, doing what she promised.”

“How? Was it another hex?”

“Even worse, scared humans.” 

Snow’s face falls even more. He takes a long sip from his own drink. “So they tried to kill her?”

“They tried to kill all of us. Someone heard of my mother’s hexation, and they rallied a group together to fight our family. It wasn��t a real fight though. The cowards snuck in and tried to stab us. My mother killed almost all of them quickly” My fists clench so tight it hurts. “The last one nearly got me, but my mother stepped in front. He burned to ash just after he stabbed her through the throat.”

“Oh. Not even a hex could come back from that kind of wound...”

“I know,” I say between gritted teeth. “I know that very well, Snow.” I delicately place the glass down with a strained hand. “I...I tried to stop the bleeding but there was nothing I could do. I had no magic then. Even so, I doubt my powers could’ve helped.” A little flame pops up in my hand with barely a thought. Making fire is more natural than breathing for me, after all. I watch the scarlet snake dance between my fingers. “My family’s abilities have always been better at destruction.”

Simon takes another long sip, polishing off his drink. “I don’t know what my family’s like, but I hope they’re not like me. This power...it’s too much for anyone to have. I’d give it up in a heartbeat.”

“We all would, Snow. That’s what the humans don’t get. Most hexes are just as scared of themselves as humans are.” I pour my third drink. It’s been awhile since I’ve drank so much in one sitting, but if I’m going to get sozzled, tonight is a good time. “But that’s not up to us. We’re born like this. Nothing we can do but try to survive.”

“Believe me, I know that. All I’ve ever done is survive. In the orphanage, on the streets, here in America.” He lets out a small, sad laugh. “Hexation is how I ended up on the street, actually.” Snow looks directly down at the table. “When I was 11, I, uh, had a dream that I was exploding. When I woke up, the entire orphanage had been blown to pieces. Luckily no one was hurt, but the matron couldn’t very well keep a hex among other children.”

“So she thought sending you to roam among other humans was safer?”

He shrugs. “I don’t think she cared as long as I was far away from her.”

I scoff, swinging the glass between two fingers. “Sounds about usual for humans. What made you manifest? A particularly bad paddling from the matron?”

Snow chews on his bottom lip. His fingers drum the wood slowly. “I, uh, actually didn’t have to suffer. I’m one of those rare cases of sudden manifestation, apparently. That’s what Penny called it anyway. She said it was rare but possible.”

My grip on the glass gets even tighter. A sudden jealous rage consumes my mind. So Snow just exploded one day at eleven. That’s awful, of course, I’ll never deny that. But all I can think of is the coffin. The endless night of being trapped in that box, waiting for a relief that wouldn’t come, until I finally broke and became the last thing I ever wanted to be. I went through absolute hell. Of course I assumed Snow had to, like all other male hexes. But he didn’t. He’s never had the acute kind of torture I did. It’s not fair.

“Excuse me,” I say more harshly than I mean to, “I’m tired. I think I’ll turn in.”

Snow’s pretty plain eyes go wide. “O-Oh...okay. Good night, then.”

“Night.” I snatch the bottle up and leave the key for his room. Then I stomp up the stairs with irrational anger still burning me up. I know it’s stupid, but I can’t get past it. Male hexes get their magic through suffering. It’s a well known fact. How could Snow be like me without the same kind of pain? How could he ever fully understand me the way I thought he could?

The second my room door is closed, I drink down the last of the whiskey bottle. I’ve tried to avoid alcohol over the past few years. It would be far too easy for me to drink away the pain, the memories, the horrible guilt. Eventually, I’d drown myself in a bottle. That’s not a way I want to go. But one night of indulgence will be fine.

I wobble towards my bed, shedding my outer layers as I go. I collapse face first onto the old mattress. Whiskey clouds my mind. And when I finally pass out, all I see is empty darkness. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than the nightmares.

———————————————

“...safe?”

“Out cold...”

The voices stay patchy as I slip in and out of consciousness. I try to force my eyes fully open, but the pounding in my head is too much. Indistinguishable figures move on the edges of my blurry vision. There’s little to no light. It must still be night, maybe only a couple hours since I passed out.

“Is..right thing?”

“Hex...Rook and Pargeter...dangerous...we...safe.”

“Fine.”

Something grabs both my wrists and my ankles. I try to struggle but I must still be too drunk. I can’t get my limbs to move save for some squirming. I try to summon my magic, but my mind can’t concentrate. It’s no use. Bloody hell, I’m trapped.

“Night night, hex,” a horrible voice says. Something soft is pressed hard against my face. I can’t take in air, I can’t breathe, I can’t fucking breathe. It’s like the coffin. No, I can’t do this again. I try to thrash harder and scream but it’s still no use.

Oh Lord, I’m going to die here. I wonder if I’ll see my mother on the other side. I wonder if I even have a soul to go to the other side. And I wonder how if Snow is okay. Christ, my last conversation with him ended in anger. If I had known, I would’ve said everything I’ve wanted to say this past week. But the first thing would be ‘I’m sorry.’

I’m sorry, Snow, for everything I said and thought. And I’m sorry for leaving you alone.

“Hey! Get off him, you bastards!” That voice is familiar even in my half drunken state. Thank whatever gods are listening that he’s okay.

“It’s the other one!” one of my assailants shouts. “Wasn’t Garth supposed to take care of him?!”

“That damn idjit fucked up!”

I hear the telltale signs of punches and kicks thrown about. One of the hands on me pulls off. All this excitement has thankfully sobered me up some. I kick some stupid bastard right in the stomach.

“Fuck!” they wheeze. The other humans are wise and let go of my wrist. I’m on my feet in a second.

“Bloody humans,” I growl out, still slurring slightly. “You can’t even let me fucking sleep?!”

The burly barkeep scowls at me. My would be murder weapon is still in his hand. “Eat shit, you demon.”

I scowl right back at him. “Oh, you want a demon? I’ll give you a fucking demon, love.”

The fire blazes up in me, all shining black and scarlet, and I make little effort to contain it. I let the flames fly out and encase the man almost completely. He screeches as his skin bubbles and burns under my powers.

“Stop it!” a woman yells. She comes at me with a knife raised. A whip of fire forms in my hand instantly. With one crack, it wraps around her wrist. She screams in the exact same way and lets her weapon clatter on the floor. She goes to her knees, clutching her blackened, blistered skin.

“You bastard,” she cries. “How could you?!”

“How could I!?” Even more fire plays over my hands. “I could ask you the same thing, human.”

“We’re trying to protect ourselves, monster!”

In that moment, in her eyes, I see every human who’s hurt me. The people who mocked me, who killed my mother, who turned me into this. All sense leaves my mind in an instant. “I’m a monster only because of you!”

With one wave of my hand, she’s thrown against the wall hard enough to make it shake. I spin around to see a man trying to crack Snow’s skull open with a butcher’s cleaver. One well aimed blast sends him flying as well. Another casts two aside. They don’t move much afterwards, but I find myself caring little. Let them die like my mother did.

“Baz, stop it!” Snow shouts. I ignore him as I send the last assailant against the wall, listening to their screams as I burn their chest. “Baz!”

“Fuck off, Snow!” I roar. “I- Ack!”

Pain rips through my shoulder. I clutch it and my hand becomes wet with what I assume must be blood. I fall forward. My nose cracks against the floor. I scream in pain and flames roar out of me in a massive plume They hit everything, including my shooter and the walls of the room. I can feel the whole space burning around us.

“Baz!” Snow’s voice is beyond panicked. I hear his footsteps rush toward me. His hands hover over me but won’t touch. He can’t touch me.

“Get out, Simon,” I rasp , turning my head to the side to look at him. He’s covered in bruises and ash. Yet he’s still so beautiful. “Run before more of them come.”

“Shut up, arsehole! I haven’t turned my back on you yet, and I’m not going to start now!”

If the world weren’t literally on fire right now, I’d find that touching. I close my eyes. At least my dying image will be of him. “Don’t be an idiot, Snow.” Surprisingly, the bastard fucking laughs. My eyes snap open again. The bloody back of his hand is pressed against his mouth as he giggles. “What the fuck is funny about this?”

“You,” he laughs, “called me Simon before.”

My face heats up, and it’s not from the fire. “No I didn’t.”

“We’re fucking dying and you can’t admit you used my first name?”

“I’m dying. You’re being an idiot and not running away like you should!”

“You’re too stubborn to die, Baz, and we both know it.” He jumps to his feet. “Get up, we’re getting out of here.”

“Snow-”

“Or are you too much of a yellow belly to get up and try?”

Oh, this bastard. In only two weeks, he’s learned me too well. I scowl at his stupid pretty face as I push myself up on my good arm. At the same time, thundering footsteps can be heard from the stairwell.

“That route is out of the question,” I say. “Where are we to go, Snow?”

“This way.” He holds his hand and in a mere two seconds, the opposite wall is blown to pieces in a rain of spark. “Now let’s go!”

“We’re on the bloody second floor!”

Snow runs towards the gaping hole and throws himself out. I rush to the edge, blood pounding in my ear. No, Snow cannot die, I can’t let him die. But to my utter shock and awe, Snow is floating his way down to the ground. He stops and starts and still hits the ground in an uncoordinated roll, but he’s okay.

“Oh, Snow, you brilliant moron,” I whisper.

“They’re probably still in there!” someone shouts from the hallway. I take a few steps back, breathe deep, and run off the splintered edge just as the humans burst through the door.

Instead of sending my fire outwards like usual, I keep it within me. I will my body to rise high like flames from a candle. My legs move slowly like I’m running in the air. Fuck, this is actually working. Slowly, I let my flame flick and die down, lowering myself along with it. I reach the ground with my own thud but stay on my feet. Snow grins at me. In all this horror, that is the greatest thing to see.

“Let’s get the horses and get out of here, Snow.”

“Agreed, Pitch.”

We sprint to the stables and thankfully find our steeds unharmed. I count ourselves lucky that our attackers didn’t consider them demonic too. Mounting is difficult with my left arm fucked up, but let it never be said that a human bullet could stop Basilton Pitch. I hold the reins with one hand as I spur him into a dash.

The wind whistles in my ears. Snow and I run even faster than we did from the Red Weed. Our kind is always good at running. It’s our natural state.

———————————————

Snow and I ride until it’s nearly dawn. The sky turns purple then crimson with the rising sun in front of us. When I see orange, my horse finally starts to tire out. Snow’s does the same. We slow down then stop.

“Think we’re far enough away?” Snow asks, breath short and strained.

“Yeah,” I reply, sounding the same. “I think they would’ve caught us by now if they were still after us.”

“Good point, good point.” Snow leans forward, putting his forehead on his horse’s neck. “God, I’m fucking knackered. I barely slept.”

“Me too. We should both sleep.”

“What if someone comes after us?”

“Point. Sleep in shifts?”

Snow nods. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Good.” I slowly dismount my horse, but get my footing wrong and start to fall. I grab the reins with my left arm and practically scream in pain.

“Baz!” Snow rushes towards me, but stops when I raise my good arm.

“Don’t...” I pant, “don’t come any closer. I’m injured, Snow, and my self control is severely weakened. So unless you wish for death now after just barely escaping it, back away.”

“Oh, yeah, right...” Snow backs far away just as he should, but my heart still aches. “What are we going to do about your shoulder?”

“I can fix it, but I’m going to need your belt”

Snow’s brows shot upwards. “My belt? What for?”

“Just throw it to me, Snow, for Christ’s sake.”

Thank God he doesn’t ask another stupid question. He just unbuckles the belt and does what I ask. I try to not let my hands shake as I fold the belt in half. The last time I did this was three years ago, when I sat in a London alleyway after a drunkard broke my leg, a mere four days after fleeing my home for good.

“Baz, what are you-”

“Snow,” I say firmly, “I need you to do me a favour.”

“Okay...?”

I sit on the ground, belt held tightly in my hand. “I need you to stay right there no matter what. Don’t move, don’t try to help. The best way you can help is to stay fucking still.”

“What the fuck is-”

“Promise me you won’t move, Simon.” I look him right in his blue eyes, my mouth a thin, serious line. “Promise me.”

Snow gives me a once over, then thankfully nods. “Okay, I promise.”

“Good.” I put the belt between my teeth. When I check on Snow, he looks beyond panicked. “If it makes it easier,” I say clumsily between the leather, “you don’t have to watch.”

“Baz-”

I slap my right hand over my left shoulder, and it feels like I’m burning from the inside out. My magic scorches my body as it wraps around my injury. The buck shot is pulled through my muscles and skin, ripping and tearing as they go, and I can feel every bit of it. I can also feel as my tissue and bone stretches to knit back together piece by agonizing piece. It’s an indescribable kind of pain. It’s what I imagine hell must feel like. I scream, I can’t help it, but luckily the belt is muffling as well preventing me from biting off a chunk of my tongue. Snow gasps in horror but he doesn’t move. He keeps his promises. I knew he would. He’s a far better man than me.

The burning fades as the skin finally seals shut. I cautiously move my hand, shaking off the shrapnel and gooey viscera that trails between my fingers. God, it's a nasty scab, mangled and uneven and horrifically inflamed. I can only hope the scar won’t be too bad. The one on my calf has faded overtime.

“Are you-”

“Not yet,” I say, cutting off a frightened looking Simon. “This one won’t take as long though.”

I touch my nose, feeling for where the breaks are. I squeeze my eyes shut, and with a horribly painful crack, I move it mostly back into place. I let out a short yell, but just pant and seethe as the bone and cartilage knit back together. I try to wipe the bloody snot from my hand but it's no use. Disgusting, but better than a broken nose. I feel around to make sure things are okay. Well, the tip is a bit crooked, but I can live with that. Right now, I’m thankful to be alive at all.

“Okay,” I sigh, finally taking the teeth mark covered belt out of my mouth, “now I’m done.”

“What the fuck was that?” Snow’s voice is somewhere between fascination and absolute horror. In short, a proper reaction.

“Something my aunt taught me. Hexes are essentially manipulators of energy and matter. And what are bodies but living energy and matter? With practice, you can fix any part of yourself.”

“But isn’t it painful?”

“Was that not obvious?” I snap. But Snow’s genuinely worried face softens my demeanor. “Yes, it’s excruciating. Hence why I try not to use the technique as much as I can.” I massage my still aching shoulder. “Today it was unavoidable, unfortunately.”

Simon runs a nervous hand through his dirty hair. “Fuck...”

I cough out a small laugh. “Yes, that sums it up pretty well.”

He laughs too, just as shaky and sad. “Sums up the whole night.”

The two of us keep chuckling softly in the wee hours of the morning. The ascending sun hurts my tired eyes. Using so much magic has taken everything out of me. I let out a long, deep yawn.

“You sleep first,” Snow says. “I’ll keep watch.”

“No, no, I can-”

“Baz.” He sounds firm, but also tired, and maybe even a little fond. I’m probably imagining that last one though. “Go to bed. I’ll wake you up in about eight hours.”

If I weren’t sleep deprived, magically drained, and recovering from grievous injuries, I would protest more. But Snow is damn lucky today. I simply sigh and stand up to get my cot from my saddlebags. I count our lucky stars we didn’t bring in too many of our supplies to the inn. Maybe God hasn’t completely abandoned us heathen monsters.

“I don’t have the energy to put up my shield,” I say, hoping my tone conveys enough.

“Okay,” Snow replies, “I’ll stay away, don’t worry. I keep my promises.”

My pulse flutters involuntarily. A smile creeps across my face no matter how hard I try to stop it. “I know you do, Simon.”

Snow gifts me one of his sunshine smiles. That’s the last thing I see before turning over and letting myself rest.

———————————————

Snow lets me sleep longer than eight hours. I’d be more mad if I wasn’t so exhausted. In return, I let him oversleep too. We’re both passed out by the time it’s dark again. Even hexes with all our inhumanity need to rest sometimes. Snow and I are lucky we get the chance this time.

In the morning, I reluctantly go to the next closest town. We did leave some of our things behind sadly, including most of our clothes. I’m damn well not going to keep roaming around the south of Texas in my bloody socks, and neither will Snow. I get us some new jackets, boots, and hats, ignoring the strange looks I get from the lily white shopkeeper. 

I grab us some more of that disgusting jerky too. If only good food could keep in these horrific conditions. When I reach the counter, the shopkeeper frowns at the things I lay out.

“You can pay for all this?” she asks. I scowl deeply. I’m too tired for this shit.

“Are people like me not allowed to have money here?” I snap.

“Ya can now, but in my experience, y’all darker folk are better at stealing my stock than paying.”

Bloody hell, I’m too tired for this racist shite. I slam two bills on the counter. “There. Hope I didn’t dirty these up too much for you.”

She glares at me hard. As she reaches for the money, I deliberately brush my finger on hers, and she yelps loudly. The edge of her index is red and inflamed. An undeniable burn mark, but far too small for anyone to believe it came from an evil, bloodthirsty hexslinger.

“Oh dear,” I say deadpan. “Your register must have gotten in the sun. Do be more careful.” I shovel the supplies in my bag as she looks at me wide eyed. “Have a nice day, ma’am.”

I can feel her scared eyes on my back as I leave. I get on my horse and ride out fast. No reason to stay in this shithole any longer. And I need to get back to Snow, where I belong.

———————————————

“Everything okay in town?” Snow asks.

I toss the bundle of clothes at him, along with a bag of jerky. “No one attacked me, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t get made for a hex. But I did get some flack for my skin tone.”

Snow’s face falls a bit. There’s something far too close to pity in his eyes. “Oh. I’m sorry-”

“Don’t, Snow. You’re in no place to apologize for some racist American bastards, it’s not your responsibility. Sorry from you means nothing.”

“But-”

“Would you accept an apology from me on behalf of all the rich men who have treated you like trash before?” Snow’s gaping mouth slowly closes. “Exactly. Now get those on. They’re slightly less dirty than our current garments.”

Snow nods and does what I say. I unbutton off my bloodstained shirt and wince as the tacky fabric peels off my skin. The scab has gotten a little better. That’s something I suppose. My eyes slowly move over to Snow without realising it. I steal a glimpse of his broad, bare back, golden like the rest of him. There are some jagged pink scars but they take nothing away how brightly he shines. I look away before I’m too tempted by what I can’t have.

“Much better,” Snow sighs as he slips on the new boots. “I’m surprised my feet haven’t been ripped to shreds yet.”

“Me too. I’m glad though, I didn’t want to do any more healing.”

“I don’t want you to either, fuck.” I hate how his concern makes me feel so good inside. “I’ll start setting up the fire. It’s going to get dark again soon.”

“By all means, Snow, do all the work. I won’t stop you.”

Snow snorts out a laugh, giving me a cheeky smile I can still see at this distance. Christ, I’m on fire, and for once it’s not from my magic. It’s so much better. I have to look away again before I do something ridiculous and deadly.

By the time the sun is down, Snow has made a wonderful small fire for the two of us. We both warm our hands from opposite sides. I don’t need to do it too much. My magic has almost fully replenished, for better or worse. And I’m so hungry that I actually enjoy the extremely salty bison jerky. Bloody hell, I’m turning into an American.

“Where are we going to go next?” Snow asks, mouth still full. “I’m guessing we should avoid any more towns.”

“Agreed. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not jump out of another building.”

“We certainly agree there. Christ, I was worried I was going to die.”

“Me too, Snow, me too.” I nervously fiddle with the string on my cloth bag. The words are coming out, and I can’t stop them. “I’m sorry, Snow.”

His brow adorably furrows. “Sorry for what?”

“Sorry for the way I acted that night, before I went to bed. I was very rude to you and I deeply apologize.”

“Oh...okay. Thanks.” He looks down, rubbing the back of his neck. “I-I was confused. Did I do something bad?”

“No, Snow,” I sigh, “you did nothing wrong. It was all me being stupid.”

“Okay...”

I sigh again. God, I can’t dance around it anymore. I have to tell him. After putting up with me for this long, he deserves to know.

“I was angry and...somewhat jealous of you.”

His eyes get very big. “Jealous? Of me?!”

“Yes, in a way. Because...you didn’t have to go through the same kind of suffering I did when I manifested. Which isn’t fair, because you lived on the streets while I grew up in a bloody mansion. It’s just not the same suffering I had, and I was angry I had to go through it when you didn't. Which is absolutely ridiculous, and I’m sorry I pushed that on you.”

“If you don’t mind me asking...what happened?”

I stare at him for a long moment over the fire. He holds my gaze, eyes round with worry and care. It hurts me in the most exquisite way. “It’s not a pretty story, Snow.”

His mouth pulls into a sad, slight smile. “Weren’t you the one who said that all hexes live through hardship, and we have nothing to be ashamed of?”

I chuckle and shake my head. “Using my words against me, a tactic of a true devious hex.”

He shrugs, still wearing that little smile. “What can I say? I can live up to our reputation sometimes.” Snow’s face falls again. “So what happened?”

With a deep sigh, rubbing my forehead, I start the horrid tale.

“My family always knew there was a chance I could be a hex,” I say. “But since my aunt couldn’t sense any magic on me pre manifestation, we assumed that I wasn’t too powerful, and manifestation could be avoided if we were careful. So I lived in the aforementioned secluded mansion all my life and I was never allowed to leave the grounds. All my time was spent reading, doing school work, or learning about hexation from my aunt, just in case. Everything in my life revolved around my mere potential to be a hex. I could never do or see anything. I felt like a prisoner. And when I was 18, I had enough.

“One evening, I snuck out of my room and went into the nearby town. I just wanted to see what was outside my home. But I was a naive sheltered kid. Of course I got lost on my way there and went into an area I never should have. Someone had knocked me out cold, and next thing I knew, I was in a cramped, dark box.”

“A box? What do you mean a box?”

I clench my fists tight until the shaking stops, then slowly let go. “It was a coffin, Snow. I had been trapped inside a coffin.”

I can almost feel the way Snow’s stomach must drop out at those words. I know, mine did the same when I realised where I was that night. “W-Why?!”

“It was hard to hear him through said coffin, but I got the main idea. He came from some old witch hunter family but had never caught an actual hex, until me. He’d heard the stories about my mother and had been secretly spying on me for months. When I escaped, he took his chance to kidnap me.”

“So he took you just to taunt you from outside a coffin?”

“I wish that was all he did,” I grumble. “He told me that the coffin was a test. There was a chance the hexation had skipped me over. If I was a hex, being stuck in the coffin would make me manifest, then he could kill me in good conscience. If I wasn’t and didn’t manifest, well, as he put it; ‘there are always casualties in the war for righteousness, boy.’”

Snow’s jaw drops to the grassy ground. “So even if you were human, he would’ve killed you anyway?”

“Mhm, mad bastard.” 

“How long did he keep you there before you escaped? A few days?”

I take long, steady breaths, beating back the old fear that creeps up my throat like bile. I can almost still smell that unique rotten scent from the coffin. I’ll never forget it. I never can.

“Snow,” I say slowly, “I was in that coffin for six weeks.”

And I thought he looked horrified before. Snow drops his jerky bag, hands shaking. I want to grab them, hold them still, comfort him in whatever way I can. The urge is almost stronger than the Call.

“S-Six weeks?! How are you still alive?”

“Thank the witch hunter,” I grumble. “He drilled very small air holes in the lid, and gave me enough food and water to keep me alive but starving. I think, hex or not, he wanted me to suffer because I was my mother’s son. A hex’s child was just as guilty of sin in his eyes.” I rub the bridge of my nose. It aches with the pain of my past. “At the time, I had no idea how long I was in there. It was just one endless night of torture. I begged and pleaded with the hunter to let me go, but he only laughed and called me pathetic hex scum. After six weeks, well, he finally got what he wanted.”

“You manifested.”

“Almost as violently as you did.” I trace the lines of my hand, the skin rough from my fire. I remember my mother’s hands being the same. “The details are blurry, but I remember enough. It started as just a tingling in my gut, but soon it became a burn. And then it spread as quickly as a forest fire.”

“Is it always fire with you?” The corner of Snow’s lip quirks up. The bit of teasing lilt in his voice makes me feel a bit lighter. I can't help but smile back a little.

“Usually, yes. It's always run very strong in my family.” I bounce a flame between my fingers. The movement is strangely calming to me. “I quickly learned I was no different. Before I knew it, I let out a massive ring of fire in every direction. It blew the coffin apart, of course, and turned my captor into a charcoal husk.”

Snow scoffs, a surprisingly vicious expression on his face. “Better than he deserved.”

“Agreed. I have no idea what happened to his body. I left almost immediately, though I wasn’t fully conscious. Six weeks in the coffin had deprived me of most of my mental faculties. Luckily, he kept me not far from home, and I could wander back on pure muscle memory. But going home turned out to be a terrible idea.” I grab the small fire and snuff it out in one go. But my fist stays clenched. “My aunt had been staying there while everyone searched for me. The second I walked through the front door, I could easily smell her. She was overjoyed to see me, until she smelled me too. And as I said, most of my mental faculties were gone.”

“So you attacked her on instinct.”

I chuckle sadly. “Quick study there, Snow. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I was just so bloody hungry all of sudden. I can’t even describe it.”

“You don't need to describe it to me, Baz.” He brings his knees under his chin. “I’ve felt hex hunger too. It’s...awful when you’re in the middle of it.”

“And when you’re not, you try to drown it out or distract yourself. But deep down, you know one day you’ll give up and listen. Then it will take over.”

Snow nods, looking at me in the eye. I’ve seen so much profound sadness in a person’s face. “And you’ll hurt someone, no matter how much you’ll regret it later.”

If I have a soul, it’s aching horribly. How could fate be so cruel as to give me Snow? So wonderfully brave and kind to a fault, and who actually understands what my life is like. The perfect man. And someday soon, he’s going to kill me. There’s no doubt I’ll be the one to die. I won’t kill him, not ever. I’d let him take everything from me before I’d kill him.

“Did you hurt your aunt?”

Thankfully, I can shake my head to that. “No, not at all. She was an experienced magic user, while I was a starving, half crazed newly minted hex. She took me down in seconds. When I woke up again, I was cleaned up and in my room. It took a second to regain my bearings, but I soon remembered what had happened...what I had become. There wasn’t any debate in my mind. Within an hour, I had packed my most practical clothes along with any small valuables I could pawn. Then I ran away and never looked back.”

“Which is how you ended up in America.”

“What better way to protect my family from me than by putting an ocean between us? At first, I stayed in an empty little corner of the American frontier. I just wanted to live out my lonely hex existence as long as possible. I didn’t expect the Call or this looming hex war.”

“No one did,” Simon sighs. “Hexes working together has never been possible before. Who could’ve imagined some American preacher would team up with an Aztec goddess to do just that?”

“Fair point. But now he’s made our existences much harder in a way. Look what those humans tried to do to us at the inn. They were even more scared because of Rook”

“Yeah...”

I groan, pushing my face into my hands, rubbing it up and down. “I never asked to be like this. I tried my hardest to avoid being like this. Then that choice was ripped away from me by some madman. Now I’m trapped between murderous humans or a bloodthirsty witch goddess. Why am I here? Why do I have to be here?!”

“Baz-”

“I don’t want this,” I choke out through my building sobs. “I want to see my family again. I just want to go home!”

I breathe hard and fast, holding back tears with all my strength. No, I refuse to cry. I swore to never cry again after the coffin, because I wasn't sure I could survive falling apart again. Yet here I am. I thought I had shed every tear I have there. I’m so pathetic.

“It’s okay,” Simon says. His voice is far louder than before. “Whatever you’re feeling is okay. It’s...it’s okay if you’re not.”

Slowly, cautiously, I lower my hands, blinking away the tears that had collected. I inhale sharply. Snow is less than two feet away from me. I can count the moles on his face, see the golden highlights in his bronze. But worse, his unbelievably delicious scent fills every cavity of my nose.

“You really shouldn’t sit so close, Snow,” I whisper. My eyes fall down and become completely fixed on Simon’s plush lips.

“I know,” he says under his breath, “but I don’t care.”

He touches my hand, and I feel his magic run through me. That explosive sensation pulses through my veins so hard it almost makes me gasp. The instinctual part of my brain goes fucking mad. It wants me to grab his throat and drain every drop of his magic, his essence, his very soul. My breathing gets shallow and laboured.

“Simon...” I say.

And then he kisses me.

It’s cautious and shy. His lips barely brush against mine, but I feel it everywhere else, especially in the way our powers rise to meet each other. The magic collides, but doesn’t clash. They meld and twist together at our points of contact, desperately needing to connect.

Snow opens his mouth, turning the kiss into one of pure heat and hunger. I gladly do the same. He grabs either side of my face and shoves his tongue down my throat. I grip his collar and push back against him. My entire body is filled with endless energy. I’m a star going supernova. And I want to explode with Simon. My nails scratch viciously across his neck. He clenches his fist in my hair, pressing our faces closer. I shudder as Simon bites hard on my bottom lip. I’m wrapped in cold heat, wrapped up in him. I feel so alive. It feels so right. But it’s wrong.

With all the strength I have, I shove Snow off me. We both fall back on the ground, breaking our closed circuit of feeding on each other simultaneously. Simon scrambles further away panting. I’m similarly out of breath. Both our lips trail white smoke, like they’ve been singed by ice. My magic readjusts after being sucked away and added to all at the same time. A bit of Snow’s explosive energy still sits in me, swirling around like a miniature star. We just stare at each other wide eyed for a long time.

“Shit,” Simon whispers.

I sigh heavily, running a shaky hand through my hair. “Well said.”

“We nearly killed each other.”

“Mages don’t meddle, Snow. We both know that.”

Simon groans, clutching his hair in his fists. “I know, I know. I almost killed Penny last time and I swore it would never happen again. But look at me now. Of course I fuck up.” I can see tears forming under his eyes. “What’s the point of being an all powerful hex if it means being alone forever?! I can blow up a building with my mind but I can’t even bloody kiss you! It’s not fair!”

I pick at my shirt sleeve with shaking fingers. “Maybe God is punishing us.”

“We didn’t ask to be like this, Baz!”

“That doesn’t change what we are, Simon! We’re freaks of nature, cannibalistic monsters!” I nearly rip through the fabric of my shirt. I'm so angry and so fucking tired. “Maybe we truly are devil spawn or something, like all the humans say. Maybe they’re right to be scared of all of us...”

I turn away from him, just staring at the fire. The sting of the smoke keeps me from sinking too low into my self loathing. Snow moves in my peripheral. We sit side by side. My skin prickles as he hovers his hand over mine. It takes every bit of my will to not try and drain him again.

“There’s somewhere we can go where we aren’t 'Devil spawn,'” he says.

I tense up. “Simon, that’s risky. It could all be a farce.”

“I don’t care if you think it’s just a farce, Baz! It’s still a chance. For you and me, for us.” He lightly brushes one of my fingers. I have to rip my hand away before I hurt him again. His pretty eyes are filled with pain. “See? Wouldn’t you like to stop doing that? Isn’t it worth the risk?”

I’ve been running for most of my life. I ran from my mother's legacy for as long as I could. I ran from my family when I feared my own hunger. And I could run now, from Simon and the fear of killing him. But I’d also be abandoning the chance for some sort of happy life. It may not be perfect, but it would be far more than my ancestors ever had before. Can I sacrifice that for fear?

“I’m tired, Snow,” I say weakly. “We should both get some rest.”

“But Baz-”

“Let me sleep on it, alright? Please?”

Snow takes in a deep breath, and lets out a long sigh. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

I want to kiss him so badly right now. Just grab his gorgeous, sunshine face and kiss him goodnight. Since I can’t, I smile as genuinely as I can at him. It’s not easy for me, but I mean it with him. “Goodnight, Simon.”

Snow stares at me for a long moment. But slowly, a smile creeps across his face too. The fondness threatens to melt me, “Goodnight, Baz.”

We keep our eyes locked for as long as we can. When I finally lay down, putting my crackling shield around me, the image of Snow’s wonderful face relaxes me into sleep.

———————————————

I bang my fists against the wood over and over, ignoring my already numerous splinters.

“Help!” I yell. “Someone help me! Please, get me out of here!”

All my pleas fall on deaf ears, as usual. No matter what I do, no matter how loud I scream. I’m stuck in this damned coffin. I scratch at it until my fingernails tear from their beds. Blood drips into my mouth, leaving an iron taste in the back of my scream sore throat.

“I’m not a fucking hex! I just want to go home!” I sob so hard I nearly choke on my own breath. “Just let me go home.”

My aching arms finally fall. I curl in on myself as much as I can within my confines. I close my eyes, but there’s little to no difference in the endless pitch black. Tears run hot down my face. They leave small trails in the dirt that’s accumulated over...however long I’ve been here. I don’t know anymore. Time is meaningless where there’s no sunrise or sunset. Life is meaningless in here.

“Baz?”

His voice is far away, but it still rings clear. My eyes slide open. “Simon?”

“Oh lord. Hang on, Baz! I'll get you out!”

I can only hear as Snow desperately tugs at the coffin lid. It should be impossible, the thing is nailed shut, but somehow Snow rips it open. The light is dim yet still hurts my eyes. I can't help but hiss at the pain.

“It’s okay, Baz,” he says in that unbelievably soft tone.

His hand reaches to me through the blinding light. Slowly, I reach back. And when I hold it, I know I’m supposed to be in pain, but I’m not. Instead, I’m just calm, happy, safe. Snow slowly pulls me out. His arms snake around my back, holding me up. He looks me over, taking in my decrepit, decayed state from ages in that damn box. And miraculously, he smiles. Even like this, he looks at me with such care.

“You’re alright now, Baz. I’m here.” He cups my face. “I’m here for you.”

Emotions clog up my throat and tears run down my cheek, but this time they’re for a good reason. I put my own shaking hand on his golden face. He’s so warm. “Yes, you are. And I’m here for you too, Simon.”

He’s still grinning as I lean forward, pressing my lips to his. But this time there’s no fear I’ll kill him. There’s just the utter joy of being with the one who understands me best, the one I want the most.

Oh, how I want this.

———————————————

I blink awake slowly. The morning sun is just rising over the horizon, turning the grassy landscape violet. I sit up and see the now familiar body on the other side of the fire. Snow sleeps in a knot, arms and legs pulled in. The furrow in his brow says he’s in the middle of a nightmare too. Though mine wasn’t one by the end. Not when he was there.

My mind is made up.

Once again, I’m packing my things lowly, waiting for Snow to wake. Luckily, he stirs while I’m only halfway through tying up the cot. He rubs the sleep from his eyes in such a terribly adorable way.

“Morning,” I say.

“Morning,” he yawns. “Are we going now? Or...are you?”

My heart seizes, but only for a moment. He’s right to be concerned. The fact that we’ve travelled together for two weeks without killing each other is a miracle among hexes. After last night’s close call, a sensible man would leave and never return. I was once a sensible human man. But I’m a deranged, bloodthirsty hex now. Why not act like one?

“You should get up and start packing, Snow. If we’re going to make it to the Mexican border before nightfall, we’ll have to ride fast.”

His eyes go rounder than a full moon. “You mean...”

I pull the pack tie tight. “We’re going to Hex City.”

“What changed your mind?

I sigh heavily, then walk over to him. I stay at a safe distance of course but Snow’s magic pulls me to him, my body begging me to take it. Instead, I simply hold out my hand to him. Snow stares for a moment but does catch on. He offers his own to me. Once again, our magics reach out to each other, wisps of fire and lightning twining together. It sends a faint whisper of that explosive adrenaline through my veins. So incredible and so wrong.

I snap my hand away, fists clenched hard. “Because of that. If I were a more selfless person, I would simply leave, but unfortunately I’m not. Are you?” Snow looks me over. His eyes pierce me in a way no one’s ever has before. He slowly shakes his head. “Exactly. I may be scared of Rook and his goddess, but I’m more scared of hurting you. There’s only one place where I won't.”

“Hex City.” He chews on the corner of his bottom lip. “What if you’re right though, and Rook’s price is too high?” 

“Then at least we’ll pay it knowing we tried to have a real life, instead of running like we’ve always had to.” I stand straight with my head held high. No matter the fear, I’m sure of this. “I think we’ve both suffered long enough, Simon.”

The way Snow’s face relaxes means the world to me. I love seeing that, seeing what he looks like without the heavy burden of hexation on his shoulders. Maybe I’ll be able to see that more in Hex City.

“It’ll probably be nice there,” he says. “I mean, a city made for hexes by hexes is going to be weird, but I bet it’ll look amazing in it’s own way.”

I chuckle and nod. “Agreed. Buildings and roads made by magic will certainly be interesting.”

“Penny would probably want to study them.” He sighs, but there’s a lightness to. “Maybe Penny will come one day, and I could see her again.”

“Maybe. I would love to meet her. I might be able to see my aunt again one day, too. I could introduce you to her.”

He beams so bright at me I fear I’ll get sunburnt. “I’d like that a lot.”

“Me too, Snow. So let’s get going.”

We finish packing very quickly. Snow gets on his horse as clumsy as he usually does. I snort at the way his American cowboy hat nearly falls off his head. The death glare he gives me has little impact, what with the way he’s grinning. He hasn’t stopped grinning almost since he woke up. I can’t blame him. I have trouble controlling my smile either.

“Ready?” he asks. As if he even has to. I’ve made my choice, and I’m sticking to it.

“Ready,” I say. “Let’s go.”

Snow and I both send our horses into gallops. We soar across the grassy plain, the Texas sun illuminating our way. The impending hex war still looms over us. But I will fight until my last breath to keep any happiness Simon and I can find.

I can almost see our future. Soon, we’ll reach the terrifying and wonderful Hex City. Rook will ask for his price, and we’ll pay, because it’ll mean a freedom we've never known before. We’ll be able to hold hands, kiss whenever we want, sleep in the same bed, simply be around each other with no fear of our hexacious hunger. It’s more than I could have ever dreamed of even a few months ago.

For once, I’m going to run towards something good, instead of away from the darkness inside me. I cannot wait.

———————————————

AN: And that's all folks! I hope people enjoyed that, even if y'all have never read Hexslinger. If you wanna read the books, I highly recommend them, tho be warned they require trigger warnings for all the stuff here and more. Almost anything that usually needs a trigger warning is in those books. I'm okay with reading it, but I also completely understand others not liking that shit.

In the positives, it's an extremely interesting and complex series dealing with survival, discrimination, identity, the pain that can come with love, and the unlikely bonds formed between people. The world building is amazing and the magic system is super cool. What I love the most are the characters, who are all very interesting and complex. No one is 100% good or evil, they're just people trying to find ways to achieve their goals or simply live. What actions they take are up for moral debate, but a lot of the time they're at least understandable. There's a lot of period typical bigotry, and it's much more vicious than what I wrote here, but what I love is that there a lot of diverse characters who say "fuck that" and fight back against the shit they get. You've got queer, Indigenous, black, latinx, Chinese, and Jewish main characters in a wild west story who are all well rounded and interesting. That's pretty awesome imo.

Okay enough gushing about Hexslinger lol. Hope this story was good. No guarantee when my next fic will be out. Work and school are killer. Until then, see you later!

#carry on #snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #hexslinger #hexslinger au #period typical homophobia #period typical racism #blood tw #mild body horror tw #canon typical vioence #mysnowbazfic #carry on through the ages #cotta 2020