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somedrunkpirate · 3 years

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learn the dead | Arthur/Eames

Read here on ao3 or continue below Tags: Presumed Dead, First Time, Angst with a happy ending, pining Rating: T Wordcount: 5,4k

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Everything checks out.

The hospital records, the police report, even the fucking local news because, to quote scruffy looking anchor, with a stutter no less, “There has— sn’t been an lethal acc—sident for over ten years on this s—street.”

The information is bare-bones, but that isn’t remarkable for an open and shut case like this: drunk driver meets tree trunk. Happens a thousand times a year, and will continue to happen whether you make a fuss out of it or not. Write down the licence plate, try (and fail) to inform relatives, do the paperwork and get home on time for dinner for once. Simple as pie.

Except. Except Arthur wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have driven drunk. His stick reaches too far up his ass to do something so utterly reckless in reality.

That thought is what had spurred Eames to begin his search— there had to be something, anything, that could explain the whole bullshit situation. Even if that something is a hit, covered up like an accident. Then at least Eames would have some to blame— Someone to kill.

But everything checks out.

Even that initial discrepancy. Arthur couldn’t have been drunk, but after many phone calls and bribes, Eames had learned what Arthur could have been.

He could have been high.

His last job had been an experimental trial. Not with a chemist Eames knew. An academic who had shit his pants when Eames barged in with a smile as sharp as a knife— and a knife in his hand, of course. Wouldn’t do to be less than intimidating in this case. The chemist had spluttered into a rant Eames had understood half of, so he’d called Yusuf and held the phone up without responding to the cursing at being awoken in the middle of the night. But he’d caught on quickly, started to ask questions Eames wouldn’t have thought to ask. Then more, sharper. With a hiss.

“What is he saying?” Eames had asked, after the chemist had run out of breath.

“Eames—“

The way Yusuf sounded, a sigh more than an utterance. The tone of his voice as it tried to fold in pity— badly. Yusuf was never quite made for compassion. Though the attempt had been enough to haunt Eames’ nightmares since.

“Eames. He’s dead.”

The confirmation had come without fanfare in the end. Eames didn’t even kill the chemist, after. It hadn’t been his fault that the mix Arthur had taken voluntarily turned out to suppress reflexes when tired. Not tired as they would call it— after a rush job, when exhaustion nipped at your heels. Just tired; about to drink a cup of coffee tired. Arthur probably hadn’t even felt any different until it was too late. But it had been raining, and he’d been driving for more than six hours. It was no one’s fault that Arthur had lost control over the vehicle just in front of the only tree in a three mile radius.There had been a rabbit flattened between the car and the bark. He’d probably been trying to save it.

A fucking rabbit.

Eames had hung up on Yusuf without a word. It had been the last time he’d spoken to anyone for a long time.

Except that isn’t quite true.

“Well, darling, you’ve gotten me in quite a pickle.”

The grave doesn’t respond. It never does.

— — — — —

If someone had told him that his reaction to Arthur’s death would be to stand before his grave every day for a month straight, he'd have laughed his lungs out of his chest.

It would’ve been sad, of course, to see such a talented colleague go. He might even have gone on a bender for a week— drinking away the sorrows that come with a lost acquaintance— maybe a friend. But he’d have better things to do than indulge himself for longer than that. He’d been indulging himself with Arthur for far too long, and death should have been the end to it.

Because he had been thinking about it, sometimes, when he was feeling fanciful. You would have had to be blind not to see the chemistry. The push and pull that led to delicious flirtation — as much as Arthur wanted to deny it — and even more delicious dreamsharing. They made each other better and that was honestly the only thing Eames ever looked for, when, if ever, he thought about that nebulous concept of ‘settling down’.

So yes, there would be something more to losing Arthur. Eames had known even then. It was losing that slight hint of potential. Though that is always a treacherous word.

Because he never truly believed he’d make it that far— not just with Arthur, who would’ve laughed even harder if Eames were ever to confess his vague future plans for them — but with life in general. Why plan for something that would be cut short anyway? Even if Arthur could be persuaded to make something out of the spark between them, it would’ve been cruel to do so. Eames knew himself well. He wouldn’t have stopped taking risks, stop wanting more-- craving freedom like a drug. The idea to set Arthur up for inevitable heartbreak had been enough to avoid thinking about practical steps. A fantasy was fine. Eames got paid to live in them. He didn’t get paid for reality.

So, Arthur’s death would of course be sad. But it shouldn’t have been more than another scar on his back— the punishment of the trade he chose, along with a whisper of nostalgia at losing a construct of his imagination. Even he wouldn’t have had the heart to keep the fantasy of a dead man alive for his own entertainment. A week, a few drinks, and it should’ve been over.

It shouldn’t have destroyed him.

“I just never thought I’d be the one left behind, darling,” Eames says to the wet dirt below him. It feels off to tell the headstone itself— the name is fake. Aaron Fister. Arthur had thrown a knife past his head when Eames had shown him the forged papers. To say he regrets the joke now is an understatement.

“In all fairness, it should’ve been you here, it would make more sense for you to fall in love with me, once I’m not there to bother you anymore. Absentia makes the heart go fonder, hmm?”

The dirt seems to be judging him. It’s good that some things never change.

“I know— I know it's hypocritical. I didn’t even— I didn’t even love you. It was just a game. A fun thing to theorise about when the goings got tough. Would you be as snappish if we lived together? Would you forgive me faster if I sucked you off? Would you kiss me goodbye in the airport?” Eames stops himself, and rubs a hand over his face, groaning. “It’s humiliating, darling. I should’ve just gotten off at the thought of you like half of the dreamshare community was doing. Hand on or in their whatever and imagine you moaning next to them. But I had to be pathetic about it. Though this is reaching new heights, I must say.”

He leaves, abruptly sick of himself. He comes back the next day, as always.

Some days, though, Eames doesn’t devolve into confessions that make the little old ladies passing by their lost friend’s grave raise their eyebrows and linger by a random grave to listen anyway.

Some days, Eames is angry.

The first time, he breaks his toe in the process.

“You bloody cunt!” He’s aware that he’s shouting, but he doesn’t stop. “Never experiment alone! Isn’t that what you fucking say to the newbies? You need someone to be a baseline. Someone who can bring you home safe. You fuck. Why didn’t you call me. Why didn’t you fucking—“

Kicking the gravestone had not been his best idea, but the pain of it brings a rush of satisfaction. There is— so much, inside of him. Eames is drowning in it, and the throb in his feet cuts right through it. Clarity. He kicks again.

“You fucking bastard.”

The old ladies have gone from curious to concerned now. Eames hobbles away, hissing, before he gets a restraining order on a grave.

The next day he’s back, a bottle of whiskey in hand, and finds himself apologising.

“I know— I never made it quite clear that you could call me, for stuff like that. That I would pick up. Maybe I wouldn’t have. Or no, I would have, but I might not have bothered for that. The jobs— I knew how to handle you on the job. But outside of that. I don’t think I would’ve had the courage. I wouldn’t think that way then, of course. Convince myself that I’m above errand runs like that. Throw you a bone recommending some up and coming kid I knew or something— intern type, for all that we have those here. But I don’t think I would’ve come. So it isn’t your fault. You made a mistake, not getting back-up, but it isn’t your fault. You didn’t know you had any. And I didn’t dare to believe I could be yours. That you would let me. That it wouldn’t end in disaster.”

Eames leans against the cold stone and sighs. “’Suppose it has, already. Would’ve been too good to have it end any other way.”

— — — — —

When Eames isn’t in a graveyard, or in a bar, he’s in the warehouse.

It had felt too… personal, to get a hotel room for this. To do his research in a living room, as opposed to the dreary, dusty and echoey spaces where most of their professional relationship had flourished. It’s too big for a one-man job, but Eames had managed to fill it up anyway. Boxes upon boxes of information, any trace of Arthur he could find. Every email, record, police report, college paper— printed and archived. Eames can find his way through the documents blind and drunk. Arthur has taken over every nook and cranny of the warehouse— and every nook and cranny of Eames’ mind. Eames has read everything, twice over.

If Arthur had been alive to know, he would’ve killed him.

Because Arthur had always been a private person, for all that he pries in the lives of clients and collaborators both. He was the one who asked the questions and rarely answered them. It had always been a luxury— a rare reward, to be thrown a scrap of information. He’d always said something with that slight subtle smile, like he knew the power his breadcrumbs of personal life held over others. Everyone ravenous for more intel on one of the greatest pointmen of their generation.

How horrible is it then to revel in the mountains of information that Eames had been able to gather after his death. He’d always known he’d had enough pull to find something, and after the inception job he’d had more than enough cash to buy the rest. But he’d never done it; at first because of the wrath that would quickly follow. Then because he’d known it would tarnish Arthur’s trust in him— something he’d wanted to protect at all costs. And then lastly — but maybe from the start — because it was so much more thrilling to learn bit by bit, piece by piece. To earn his knowledge of Arthur, and to ensure that his curiosity would never run out. He’d become slightly addicted to the feeling.

But now, with no one left to tell, it had only taken the excuse of the suspicious circumstances of his death for Eames to turn into the hoarder he’d always known he could be. It had gotten to a point where new packages arrived every so often— criminals even beyond dreamshare having caught wind of an individual willing to invest heavily on any information. Someone had even hacked the pentagon to get classified documents. From the message on the box, the hacker thought they were helping a spy of some kind. Eames had sent him enough bitcoin to blow wind in the direction of that particular fire hearth of urban legend. He’d rather have people think there is a whole network of people digging into this, than anyone realising it’s in truth only one pathetic man.

So Eames drinks. Eames talks to a grave. And Eames reads. It only takes him two boxes until Arthur makes him laugh for the first time since the car crash. It was due to a spirited essay on the importance of open source information that was clearly written to spite the professor leading the course, who’d been forced to give it an A+ regardless. Eames had chuckled, imagining the self-righteous satisfaction of this young Arthur as he got his grade back, and then began crying. Not to grieve the loss of a future he hadn’t realised how much he wanted, as is his wont, these days. But from the unfairness of it all. That a person like this, who had so much to say in this world, should’ve been taken so early, and in such a meaningless way.

Arthur would’ve denied it, but Eames knows he’d only be content with a death from sacrifice . He’d shown that side of him clearly when he jumped into Cobb’s mess headfirst and without hesitation. If Arthur had died from a bullet taken for Cobb, Ariadne, or maybe even Eames, he would’ve been at peace— or as much as you can while bleeding out.

Eames had known that, but as he learns more and more of Arthur, he realises how true it is. How, despite everything, Arthur cannot stop himself from being a silent hero. There are so many instances where Arthur, behind the screens, helps someone. Whether it was connecting the right people to each other under the mum of a potential project, or taking jobs way below his pay grade because he sympathised with the client, Arthur did not let their line of work destroy the possibility to be kind, every once in a while.

It’s not like he advertised it. He didn’t do it in a way people would recognize his actions— which was smart, as it could be seen as a weakness in their circles. But whenever the chance came along, even if it was to his own detriment, Arthur chose the rough road home if it would ease someone else’s way.

And this, Eames realises, is the secret to his competency. All other pointmen are expert researchers through and through, but no one had the reach Arthur had. Arthur knew everything, and if he didn’t know, he knew someone who knew— and most importantly, someone who would tell him. Eames doesn’t even know if Arthur ever realised that it was his kindesses, in and out the community, which led him into such a position of power. His actions are too random and inconsistent to be a strategic scheme to build an empire. Some of his biggest successes are results of a nicety five or ten years ago, something that he might have forgotten doing, but the people receiving it definitely haven’t.

On the surface Arthur had been known as cool and effective— someone with a distance to the rest of the world that resulted in a highly detailed overview of any situation, even if it brought a side of professionalism to even the most informal of interactions. The people who witnessed a more casual side of him were few and far in between, but even those came away with the impression that to Arthur, doing the job in the best way possible was the only drive to his actions.

No one had seen every little thing he did that had no other reason at all besides that he could do them for someone.

Eames maps out everything on the walls of the warehouse. And when he stands back to take it all in, he realises that more than anyone, the person Arthur had silently helped was him.

Everything he’d done for Cobb had been grand and obvious, but more out of loyalty to Mal and her children than kindness without any other motivation. And Ariadne’s training had been as much for the inception job than for herself— maybe introducing her to the life hadn’t been a kindness at all. Continuing after could be seen as one, even if you could argue that her honing her raw talent would directly result in better and more stable dreams in later jobs.

But Eames— what Arthur had done for Eames—

Eames can’t think of a single reason besides just being plain nice.

Because it hadn’t been like he needed to. Eames had made him very clear that he’d be down for almost any job Arthur put in front of him. Just him being himself had always been enough, he didn’t need to do him any favours to persuade him like everyone else did.

And maybe Arthur had gotten the memo, because he’d done Eames favours without ever telling him, and those you can’t pay back. Eames had no idea the reason he got out of that trouble in Chicago was because Arthur bailed him out— it was presented to him as a procedure mistake. And then there was the Telula job, with an extractor-architect team Eames had wanted to work with for ages, but the chemist they’d been looking to hire was someone from Eames’ not so smooth first years of dream-share and he’d almost cut out of the job to not be forced to confront that past. That was until the chemist suddenly dropped out with an offer he couldn’t refuse— an offer Arthur had been behind.

There were so many things like that. Little things, small things— warehouses next to Eames’ favourite restaurants; nuggets of information given anonymously through the channels of dreamshare gossip to hit Eames’ ears right on time before a betrayal; a job a week delayed because of Eames’ mother’s funeral.

It’s not like Eames had been the only one, but he was by far the most frequent of all of them. More and more so over the years, like Arthur had been finding more reasons to be nice to him, while Eames had still been stuck in his pathetic imaginations, blind to what was already in front of him.

A friendship.

He’d been so preoccupied with his own flights of fancy, that he only realises how close they had been all this time until it was too late to experience it. Too late to thank Arthur for everything he’s done.

The agony of it— the longing. His heart thundering with the sudden need to have Arthur in his arms, alive and real and—

“Oh god. I love him.”

Eames drinks until he can’t remember. He manages to avoid the grave for a little while, but he doesn’t last long. Inevitably he’s pulled back to the grave yard, whiskey in hand, ready to talk to the love he lost again.

— — — — —

His cemetery routine— because he has one of those now — is usually to be at the grave around noon. Late enough to roll out of bed reasonably comfortably after a long night of drinking and/or reading, but early enough for there to be time left to check the new documents coming along and pay the right people before they send thugs to his hideout.

But this time the afternoon light shines golden over the rows and rows of headstones and Eames shivers in the Autumn breeze. The old ladies are all dressed in fur coats. He recognizes some of them, and wonders if they noticed he was gone. None of them greet him as he passes, so he assumes not.

Eames takes another sip of his bottle, allowing his feet to lead him over the familiar path up the hill, and then he drops his bottle all together.

A man is standing before the grave.

Tall, hunched a little in the wind. Long coat and thick black beanie. Nondescript. Anonymous.

He does not turn as Eames nears.

“You’re late.”

Eames’ hand is on his gun at the first syllable, but before he can put it on his temple a leather gloved hand snatches it from his fingers. The clip ejects with a decisive click.

Arthur gives him an unimpressed look. “Don’t be dramatic. We don’t need a scene.”

His face— a little gaunt. His eyes— tense, intent, darker than they should be. Eames doesn’t recognize the coat. But he’s there, pressed in close to hide the gun between their bodies. His breath— warm, hits Eames’ cheek. It isn’t— It can’t. He can’t be breathing because he’s—

Eames squeezes his eyes shut and thinks of metal against the palm of his hand, the smell of gunpowder.

A sigh falls between them. “It won’t work. This isn’t a dream, Eames.”

The hell it isn’t. “Experimental somacin, three levels.”

Raised eyebrows shouldn’t be audible only through speech. “Do you remember how you got here?”

Eames opens his eyes and says, “Deep immersion dream.”

Arthur huffs at that. “Do you really think they’ve been keeping you under for years? Fine. When have you last lost memories?”

Oh, that’s easy. “Two days ago.”

There is a pause, and Eames hates the fact that he can see the exact moment of tension in Arthur’s jaw that signals him suppressing a question. It’s too detailed, too precise, too re—

“Later,” Arthur murmurs under his breath, almost to himself. Like later is a given between them. He seems frustrated. His eyes keep flicking to the side and his hand hovers near Eames’ arm, like he’s trying to keep himself from hurrying Eames along and is annoyed that Eames is stalling them.

“I’m sorry darling,’” Eames drawls, “but in case it has escaped your notice: we are having this discussion on your fucking grave, so forgive me for being reasonably sceptical about the reality of this situation.”

Arthur breathes out a deep sigh, clenched teeth. “Eames, think about it, is there any forger you know capable of forging me in a way you can’t see through it? Or for that matter, is there anyone who would dare to try steal from the fucking person who invented the craft?”

No. The answer is no. It hits Eames with a muffled weight. He wonders what his face is doing, but whatever it is, Arthur responds to it with a curt nod. It suddenly strikes Eames as absurdly hilarious, in the way only the most traumatic experiences can.

“You know, complimenting me really doesn’t help with the reality argument. Never mind doing it twice. Death changed you, darling.”

Arthur stills in the middle of putting the clip back in Eames’ gun. There is the slightest flicker of his lips, and he huffs. “Maybe it did— can I trust you not to shoot yourself the moment I hand this back?”

“Come on now Arthur,” Eames says, “Don’t be so dramatic.”

And there— there it is. Arthur rolls his eyes as he presses the gun into Eames’ waiting hands, and a part of Eames’ breaks with it. Still muffled, still numb, but something is lumbering closer. He can almost hear its laboured breaths.

“There you are,” Eames says, smiling. “You don’t know how much I missed that.”

It is a miracle he doesn’t choke on the words.

“Glad to be remembered for something,” Arthur is saying, and now he’s pushing Eames— gently but with intent, away from the grave. “And I’d like to keep it that way, so we need to talk before your insatiable curiosity ruins everything I worked for.”

Eames doesn’t know if it's the words, or the press of Arthur’s hand against his back— barely sensable beneath all the layers but even the slightest hint of pressure sets him alight— but all at once everything falls into place.

“You faked your death.”

“Have you always been this slow on the uptake?”

Eames barely hears him. Reality is roaring and there is space for nothing else. Arthur isn’t dead. Arthur isn’t dead. They’re standing on Arthur’s grave— an empty grave. A lie. A trick. He’s been fooled because Arthur isn’t dead, he’s right here. He’s touching him because he isn’t—

Arthur isn’t. He isn’t.

He’s alive.

Eames doesn’t say anything the rest of the way to wherever. If Arthur speaks, he doesn’t strain to listen. Because Arthur isn’t dead and if he hears anything at all he’s either going to scream or kick the shit out of him just like he did on that stupid fucking grave— just to check that this one isn’t made of stone but flesh and blood and he is alive.

His fists hurt from clenching by the time they enter a hotel room. Something of the turmoil must have reached Arthur because he’s gone quiet. The roar lets off the very moment the door clicks closed and Arthur stands before it, uncertain, almost as if he regrets closing off his only exit. His expression is one Eames knows very well— preparing himself for a fight he saw coming too late. But he isn’t reaching for his gun. He just stands there.

He’s just waiting to take it.

Eames kisses him.

He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s—

A heartbeat feels more real when it’s underneath your lips. A pulse against a jaw— up, up to feel breath against breath. To hear the rush of it— a hitch of— of surprise.

Strength— dead people don’t have strength and Arthur is pushing him so he can’t be dead.

“Eames—“

Alive, alive, alive.

“Eames! Wait!”

Eames pushes closer. He places his forehead against Arthur’s, presses them both against the door. Arthur isn’t pushing him away anymore but his hands are still on his chest. Eames wonders if he can feel the beat of his heart. He hopes, quietly insane for a moment, that Arthur will never forget to make his heart beat as long as he is feeling one. As long as he’s given an example on how to live.

“Eames,” Arthur says. A word, a question, a name. All in one. His eyes are wide. Breathing heavy— breathing, breathing, breathing— and he’s flushed. Sharp cheekbones stained red. Lips wet.

Eames’ hands move of their own accord and cradle each side of Arthur’s face.

“Let me, darling. Just let me.”

Arthur breathes again.

Eames trembles, trying to hold himself back. Trying to breathe. But one more moment and he will collapse and he can’t— he can’t risk it. He can’t risk losing another chance. He needs this as much as he needs Arthur to be alive. He needs to stop regretting not having done this when he could and now he can again and how can he let this undeserved second chance slip through his fingers. He has to. Please. He has to.

Arthur’s mouth falls open. “Eames. Eames, it’s okay. You don’t have to— You don’t have to beg. It’s okay.”

“Let me, Arthur,” Eames repeats, “Let me.”

Arthur lets him.

Arthur lets him do everything.

— — — — —

It’s after when Arthur whispers, “I didn’t know.”

His head is on Eames chest, moving ever so slightly when he breathes. In and out. Eames has his fingers tangled in his hair. The strands slip away when Arthur turns around to look up at him.

“I didn’t know,” he says again. There is a rasp in his voice and his eyes are wet. Eames has never been apologised to like this before. Arthur sounds as if he believes sorry would be an insult, the word too small to encompass his regret. There is guilt there, in the flush of his cheeks, and the way he can’t seem to hold eye contact. His pupils flickering, microscopic twitches of shame.

Sometimes he’d dream of this. Arthur’s return. A fantasy, a different one, yet still addictive like a drug. He’d expected to be angry, to want to spill his pain onto Arthur’s feet and watch him try and walk through it; burn in it. A stimulation of the magmatic life Eames has been living since his death.

But now, face to face with an Arthur who is alive, Eames doesn’t want any of it.

So he leans down, and kisses Arthur on the forehead, like a benediction, trying to extract the regret from his face. And he tells him, honest in a way he’s learned to be in the last scant weeks, “I didn’t either, darling.”

Arthur doesn’t relax, but there is something about his misery that is easily pushed to the side for curiosity.

Eames smiles at him and continues. “You were— you were a fantasy. A what if. Something amusing to think of when I was bored, or something life saving to dive into when reality drew a knife and stabbed me with it— literally, sometimes. But it was always a fantasy. An escape. It— it couldn’t have become real, if you’d given it a chance back then.” Eames takes a breath, shakes his head.

Arthur reaches up with a hand, frowning, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“But the trouble is, darling, it is incredibly hard not to fall in love with you the more I learn about you.” Eames smiles under his finger tips. “That is what changed. You never let me learn you. But who is to stop anyone from learning the dead?”

Something flickers over Arthur’s face— guilt, again, but different. “I didn’t know you wanted to learn about me— I thought you only gave a fuck about what I could be for you.”

Eames lays his hand over Arthur’s. “You’re right. I was blind— too blinded by the possibilities and too selfish to do anything about it. Maybe I needed to lose you in order to learn how to see .”

“No— No I should’ve,” Arthur shakes his head sharply. “I should have told you. There would’ve been another way without— How long have you been drinking?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to darling.”

“Eames.”

Arthur takes his hand off and moves off of Eames’ chest, sitting up straight. Eames follows him, struck by a sudden vision of Arthur slipping out of bed— out of his life, dogged by misplaced guilt and regret. He curls his hands around Arthur’s wrists, as gently as he can. Don’t trap him. Don’t chase him away.

“No. It’s fine. We’re fine,” Eames hurries to say. “Why would you tell me? I was a colleague at best, bane of your existence at worst. I had— I have no right—“

“I should have told you because I did know you,” Arthur interrupts him. “I was supposed to know. You said possibilities? I am supposed to be the one who sees them— all of them. I’m the one who has to prepare for all scenarios, know the players, do the research and put the pieces together. That is what I do, Eames. And I missed something.” Arthur takes a shuddering breath, looking forlorn and tired. “I’m so sorry for missing the most important part.”

“You can’t apologise for missing something that wasn’t even really there yet.”

“Yes, I can. I’m sorry for missing our potential. For underestimating us. Underestimating you.” Arthur laughs. “I’m so fucking stupid. I thought you kept searching for me out of— curiosity. Or that I fucked up, left a trail somewhere and you wanted to prove to me that you found it, you figured it out. Fuck. I never thought it was because you missed me.”

“I did,” Eames says, and it almost chokes him. “Every day.”

Arthur looks at him then, eyes flicking to the side, his hair covering half of his face, but his smile is visible. “You know, I did too. That’s why I knew you were looking for me. Kept tabs on you, even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t.”

Eames swallows at the sight— at the hope it instills in him. Arthur let him, yes. It could have been a kindness. But this smile, shy and bashful, and the words that follow it. Maybe potential comes in twos. “I didn’t keep looking because I missed you,” Eames tells him, because he has no time for secrets anymore, no time for regret, for either of them. “I kept looking because I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t bear it. Darling.” Eames slips his hands from Arthur’s wrists and puts them on either side of Arthur’s face instead, bracketing the smile. “You’re my future. You couldn’t be dead.”

“I’m not,” Arthur tells him, like a confession of his own. “I’m not dead, Eames.”

“Good.” Eames pulls him in closer, and Arthur lets him. He lets him trace the smile with his thumbs, lets him breathe close against his mouth and whisper, “Next time darling, when decide to you kill yourself. Kill me too.”

The grin that blooms doesn’t fit between Eames’ fingers, so he kisses Arthur instead. Deep, possessive. Loving. Arthur lets him, and he never stops.

#arthur/eames #fanfiction #fanfic #inception #inception fic #inception fic rec #arthur/eames fic #dreamhusbands #dreamhusbands fic #im back to writing?#honestly from all the wips and ideas that i have #no clue why this one ended up being the first #but i like how it turned out

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shinygoku · 3 years

Note

very intrigued to see what you think of Henry!!! ^v^ (character ask!)

Another day, another Big Green! (The others are Piccolo and Thunderbird 2 lmao)

First impression

"Green ver of that one big creepy dude" (Look, when I was Babby I saw a Gordon picture somewhere that minorly spooked me lmao)

Impression now

Ahh, Henry! In some ways, very much like Duck! Green, long nose, popular with the fans and I'm here like Yeah he's a good fixture of the series lol

Ok well, maybe I should disclaim that he's not one of my favourites, which is partly as I guess it's a bit hard to nail down his personality.

His, for lack of a better term, Illness Arc is fascinating and oddly Real for a series about machinery. Something's genuinely amiss with him, but the lack of a clear cause (at least, to the other engines, who presumably don't know he was built from stolen, incomplete plans and the logical issues that would arise from that) and his frequent complaints turn the other characters off wanting to hear about it, thinking he's exaggerating. Then the Welsh Coal stopgap is found! Then the very next story he has a horrible crash but it was a blessing in disguise because then he's rebuilt as a Black 5 and his health issues are gone forever! (ain't we envious of machines now?) Until Lazy Writer Disease sets in Meta-wise, but more on that later.

I think it's safe to say that it's Entry Level RWS Knowledge to know Awdry's frustrations with the character, and it is kind of hilarious how much he tried to write him out, and iirc Henry wound up with the most appearances and 'his' book has 5 stories instead of the uniform 4 for some reason. But it seems it takes further Lazy Corporate Mandates to actually write him out in BwBa which really sucks and is doing such an iconic lad horribly dirty.

Pictured: Henry as seen by Awdry/Mattel, who are about to just shove him out of the story with varying degrees of success.

Well yeah, for me I can't really settle on an opinion because he never seems to have anything solid after the Rebuild. He's kind of the nicer one out of the Terrible Trio, but sometimes he's as bitchy and obnoxious as Gordon without prompting. He seems to be pretty unlucky and sometimes his misfortunes are self inflicted, but they don't commit to this bit. He gets his (in)famous forest, much to Awdry's chagrin, but it does offer a nice gentler side to him. He also seems to be the main Fast Freight engine, particularly more Fish shipments, but this doesn't really inform his character. He all too often feels like a Spare, Green Gordon who's less full of himself (but still gets boughts of Envy and inflated self importance, like Tenders for Henry), and that's a shame because this nebulous lack of anything concrete seems to be why Bad TatMR Writing diagnosed him with Need Welsh Coal again for quite a long time (dunno if that only changed when Mattel/Brenner came in or not). But then the US dub makes him sound like w--dy all-n and that's the worst treatment of all! I kind of understand the temptation to make him the resident worrier but HUUURGHGHH NOT LIKE THAT

So yeah, the better characterization of him needs to strike a good balance of him being ...I guess a Gentle Giant, who enjoys nature and maybe is a smidge prone to bouts of feeling jealous. Maybe catches the engine version of colds more than the others because the early morning runs in the freezing air? I dunno, I'm trying to combine several traits that have been in Henry but never seemed to stick. But done properly, I could really get behind a nice, faceted character like that~

Favourite moment

It feels a bit mean to say, but it's due to the strength of the episode itself with the fantastic visuals, godly music and shocking drama (with a nice bonus of Correct Head Codes!) that put Flying Kipper at the top of this list!

Another part of this ep, is the beginning where the Driver is saying "Don't tell Gordon, but if you pull this nicely, the Fat Controller may let you pull the Express!". Like, that really squeezes my heart, because his driver is rooting for him, the prospect of a better regarded job is floating there, and knowing what eventually happens, it's like... oof! But in a good way.

...Also I think that must have been something Awdry added after deciding not to kill him off because having that bit and for it to all go up in flames would have made children and me extremely upset and he would have been buried under letters of complaint from angry mothers of the time.

Idea for a story

Other than the overly simple and grimdark "he was in fact killed that day" type coma inducers, I suppose the Two Henries theory being explored could offer some interesting interactions.

Like, what if the Henry who rolls back into The Big Station is instantly accepted and in fact, liked more than og Henry? What if the other engines instead couldn't fully relax around him? Were his memories perfect? Too Perfect?

And what would happen if OG Henry were later discovered... (and in what condition?) Dun Dun Dun dododo Dun!

The thing is, it is hard to really explore this because it's innately such a dark, heavy concept. I don't enjoy the 'Authoritarian Hellscape" lameass interpretation by normies. I like my silly workcom on the rails with warm fuzzies and funny antics, thank you very much!

Unpopular opinion

Some of his faces (even before the worsening first inflicted by Magic Railroad) are pretty weird looking! Maybe cause his forehead is so huge and smooth, but maybe just the odd mouth shapes. I like the variety, but they aren’t what I’d call cute... I find myself thinking ‘Moon Face’ looking at him [even with the lack of craters lmao] and oops I think I missed the weirdest grin of all, but here’s a small sample anyway

Favourite relationship

Not a favourite, per say, but some of the more friction-ish interactions he has with Thomas or Percy are pretty funny. With Thomas’ immortal flippant disregard to viaduct safety, Percy retorting that engines with Proper Funnels do, in fact, need scarves, something Henry wouldn’t know about, and that Henry somehow manages to dismiss Bill and Ben, a feat Gordon needs to take notes from. Even the Something in the Air exchange with Thomas, which isn’t really stellar writing just has a funny lame argument vibe.

For some nice Wholesome interaction, Bear is hands down the winner! Easy pick maybe, and it makes me wonder if Bear’s complete absence in the TVS is part of the downward spiral because he’d offer a lot more Plotlines.... hmmm...!

Favourite headcanon

Other than the universal fandom acceptance that He Digs Nature, Baby is the notion I’ve seen a few times that his “fear” of the rain, or what it would do to his paint, isn’t actually why he stopped in the tunnel, and it had more to do with his mechanical failure and/or him having something of a nervous breakdown. He does come across as something of an ass if you take the episode at face value, but there having a secret deeper meaning is way more interesting 👀

#this is TTTE #TTTE Henry #TTTE #Thomas the Tank Engine #Henry the Green Engine #ttte talk #I also mentioned Gordon several times but I won't properly tag him lol

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magioftheseas · 3 years

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The Capital Magical Defense Force

For @oumota-events

DAY 1: Magical Boys AU

Rating: T+

Warnings: Violence, blood, death mentioned, darker implications. Yeah it’s one of those magical au. The daaaaark subversions.

Notes: This is the longest one because we’re starting off with a big bang~ It’s not that long though. It’s just not a ficlet unlike the others. I did really enjoy writing this though. It’s a pretty...fun...au. Yeah. Haha.

Ao3 Link

In just about every world, there are unseen forces to make sure a system works a certain way. That the cogs in the machine turn without fail and that any disturbances are dealt with promptly. These unseen forces can be mundane and dull—but they can also be fantastical...while still incredibly dull.

In this instance, there are two worlds. The dull, mundane one and the dull, fantastical one. The only way to transverse is through contracts between the respective denizens, and it turns out that said contracts are necessary to keep everything in order.

There are benefits, truly. If one world collapses, the other is taken with it. It is within everyone’s best interest that the denizens work together—even if certain manipulations need to be made. After all, the greater good is such a vague and nebulous concept. It’s more encouraging to offer personal gains.

Like, for example, keeping someone alive, be it from sickness or the aftereffects of a horrible, terrible, despairing accident. The desire to live is a powerful force shared among many, both dim-witted and intelligent. It’s an efficient deal to make, especially when the other side of the exchange is not only responsibilities, but special, magical abilities to deal with those responsibilities.

Shame, then, that one particular being blessed with those abilities, those responsibilities, that gift of survival...doesn’t seem to fully appreciate it. Certain arrangements have been made. That being has been assigned to the same areas as another being of a similar caliber, but far more keen to do what must be done.

This is as much an experiment as it is an effort to keep matters under control. Observations are to be as follows...

“In the name of the stars, I’m gonna kick your fucking ass!!”

The town hero known as Starboy was being filmed again. Floating about, sending so-called comet punch after comet punch. The monster squealed under the abuse, but it didn’t squeal as much as that fucking eyesore that tailed the magical boy around as he cursed colorfully under his breath.

“This jackass just doesn’t know when to quit!”

“S-Starboy-kun,” the thing whimpered. “Please watch your language! Kids idolize you!”

“Sorry!” Starboy exclaimed, focusing more on the fight thankfully. “It’s just—let me protect the city first!!”

With a battle cry, Starboy summoned all his strength for a starstorm, pummeling the monster more and more until it fizzled out of existence. Starboy was left slumped on the ground and gasping for breath, but still found it in him to whoop for joy.

Unfortunately for him, that moment of victory was short-lived.

“Geeeez, Starboy-chan, I thought you’d really get trampled this time! You didn’t even need any help!” Another magical boy landed on the scene, right next to where the monster had once been and plucking up the fragment which was all that remained.

“H-Hey!” Starboy shouted, more like wheezed. “What the hell—that’s not yours to take!”

“It’s payment for making me worry so much,” he cackled. “You really should be more careful! You don’t want to be killed in the line of duty, now do you?”

Weakened as he was from the fight, dodging Starboy lurching towards him was child’s play.

“D-Dice!!” that eyesore shrieked. “You and Starboy-kun should be working together! Why are you doing this?!”

Dice gave that thing a cold stare, but grinned in Starboy’s direction.

“Because I like you. That’s a lie. I like messing with you. Also a lie! I really—love you, Starboy-chan!”

“Quit messing around!” Starboy gasped. “Y-You—if you need those damn fragments, you don’t have to steal them! You’re a magical boy, aren’t ya?! You should be helping me defend the city! And then I’d split them with ya even!”

Aah. This guy...

“Oh Starboy-chan, I actually, truthfully loathe you,” Dice sighed.

“D-Dice!” the thing shrieked and without looking, Dice had fired a beam that knocked the pitifully contemptible creature out, much to Starboy’s dismay.

“S-SHIROKUMA...!”

Before he could go to help, however, Dice had seized the bow of his uniform, yanking him to not-quite eye level.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’d stop bothering with that thing and join me instead.”

Starboy only scowled.

“Why the hell would I join you when you act like a villain! I-If I could, I’d beat your ass too...!”

Such a remark gets Dice shoving him back, knocking him onto the ground. Starboy glared up at him defiantly, his stare only darkening as Dice grinned.

“It’s a joke, obviously!” he chirped. “After all—what sort of desperate loser would want to ally with an idiot like you?”

Starboy shouted at him, but whatever he shouted, he was already long gone. Starboy shouted again but, being the justice-obsessed type, he switched gears to muster up the strength to go stumbling after the fainted Shirokuma. Scooping the pitiful bear head-looking creature into his hands, Starboy avoided the incoming paparazzi and gracious civilians and rushed off to safety.

The ideal worker. Starboy will be a great boon of energy in the future once his limit is reached.

“Dice is such a fucking dick,” Kaito grumbles, rubbing ointment onto his bruises. “We’re both working for the same thing but for no reason at all, he’s self-serving and a piece of shit.”

He observes himself in the mirror, rubbing at the circles under his eyes. He’s been going at this whole magical boy hero thing for almost a year. It’s getting harder and harder, but for the sake of the city, he can’t give up. He’s its protector, after all.

Still, it’s getting difficult. His wastebasket is filled with bloodied tissue and bandages. Shirokuma, at least, is currently resting in a bucket of warm water. Dice’s attack had been as sudden as it was vicious, and for what?

“Why is he such a dick?” Kaito asks, but Shirokuma hums.

“Some people...are just bad. It can’t be helped. I’m sorry if that sounds despairing, Momota-kun.”

“Bad, huh.”

It’s not the first time he’s gotten that answer. When he describes Dice to his sidekicks, he more or less gets the same response. Harumaki even goes out of her way to call Dice a supervillain, which Shuuichi agrees to, but...

Here’s a secret that no one else knows. The crack in the foundation so painstakingly paved for black and white heroism.

Dice has saved his life more than once. When blood rushed up his throat and his knees buckled in, Dice would swoop in and let him save face. It would be passed off as Dice once again taking advantage of the situation...but it always, always happens when Kaito is facing death head-on.

Dice is a dick. A self-serving piece of shit. Possibly a supervillain.

He’s also definitely looking out for Starboy. It’s happened too consistently for Kaito to be convinced it’s unintentional.

If Dice insists on helping him, then surely he can’t be a bad person...except he still acts like a bad person most of the time.

What a headache.

“Feeling better, Momota-kun?” Shirokuma chirps up at him in that big sweet voice that Kaito can’t say no to, even when he probably should.

“Never better!”

A thumps-up. A wide grin. Doing his damnedest to pretend like his lungs don’t want to collapse in on themselves.

“Starboy-chan is such a fucking idiot.”

Ouma slams his chest of fragments shut. He still hasn’t figured out what the damn things do, but Shirokuma insists on collecting them so they must be important in some sense. Sure, Shirokuma says that it’s something to do with negative energy and restoring balance, blah, blah, blah—but Shirokuma is a piece of shit liar. And Ouma hates liars.

But he thinks he hates Starboy the most. Or, at least, he finds Starboy to be the most frustrating dumbass in the galaxy.

Because it’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s obvious that Shirokuma is shady as all get out. It’s obvious that there is something deeply wrong with the magical boy system. There have been so many disappearances and it’s suspicious as all get out how Starboy in particular is being worked to the bone and pushed to the brink.

There’s something seriously wrong with all of it.

Ouma just needs to figure out what before everything goes wrong.

To become a magical boy, one needs resolve. To encourage magical boys, a wish is often granted to sweeten—and seal the deal. Ouma’s was a cowardly, stupid wish that he’s still kicking himself for to this day, although in hindsight he should be glad it was so simple. The worthless wish to live as everyone else was dead around him.

He’s still haunted by their faces. He should’ve wished for them but couldn’t. He was targeted and tricked, and now he’s stuck. But the least he can do is make everything difficult for those monsters along the way.

Starboy—aka Momota Kaito...well. Ouma doesn’t know what his wish was, but he suspects it’s as stupidly noble and short-sighted as he’s come to expect.

Oh, yes, he knows that Starboy is Momota Kaito. Who wouldn’t know that? They look the same—although Ouma suspects that magic is at play since no civilians have made the connection. Not even Saihara Shuuichi, a would-be detective.

It’s clear, however, that Saihara-chan has noticed the effects.

“This is the fourth time you’ve had to clear your throat, Momota-kun.”

Momota clears his throat again. He musters up a laugh.

“It’s just been dry. No big deal. You worry too much.”

“Gooooooodness, Momota-kun!” Ouma crowed, skipping in. “Are you dying?! Please, please don’t die! I haven’t even gotten to tell you how much I love you!”

Momota recoils when Ouma jumps on him. Saihara shrieks in surprise but Momota only growls as he tries to shake the brat off.

“Let—GO!”

Ouma does, but not without jabbing the back of Momota’s knee and causing him to topple over. Saihara rushes to steady him, shooting Ouma quite the ugly look. Ouma shrugs that off.

“Whatever it is you’re doing is killing you,” he merely states. “So, you should stop lest you traumatize my poor Saihara-chan.”

“I...” Saihara swallowed, looking like he’d hate to agree but when it came to Momota... “You shouldn’t overwork yourself, Momota-kun.”

“I’m fine,” Momota slurred. “Totally fine. I’m a goddamn Luminary, Shuuichi...” He says he’s fine while learning into Saihara. It’s a bright sunny day. People are no doubt stealing glances, and Momota no doubt has to hide his exhausted face in his sidekick’s shoulder. It’s a good thing Harukawa isn’t here.

Ouma scoffed. Saihara shot him another glare.

“If you’re just here to mess with Momota-kun, you can leave.”

Saihara’s hands tighten on Momota. Goodness, it really is like Ouma is the supervillain tormenting the tired hero.

How boring.

Ouma turns heel, smiling as he waves them off.

I shouldn’t bother. I shouldn’t have to bother.

No matter how many times he’s thought that, he ends up in this situation. With Starboy exhausted on the ground and a fragment pinched so firmly between his fingers that it’s this close to embedding itself in the skin. Shirokuma floats around Starboy.

“He’s getting close,” Shirokuma is saying. “He won’t be able to take much more. How despairing. So despairing.”

Ou—Dice swats the thing to the ground. It giggles up at him.

“You can’t save him, you weren’t able to save your other friends. Just give up, Dice-kun. Give into despair.”

It’s laughing, its laughter resounding even as Dice stomps the thing to bits. It’ll just reshape itself and find Momota again. No matter what he does, he can’t get rid of it. It’s part of a damn hivemind after all.

Sighing, Dice goes to Starboy once again, and Starboy is lying there almost prone. Looking painfully pale. His breathing is shallow. At least he’s still alive.

But for how much longer? And what am I even doing wasting my time with this idiot? No matter what I tell him or how bad he gets, he refuses to back down and Shirokuma just eggs him on.

He gets down, rolling Starboy onto his back. Starboy groans and for a moment, he blearily comes to.

“Di...ce... You...again...” There’s a couple of missing words. It’s clearly difficult for Starboy to speak. He groans, eyes screwing shut. When Dice helps him sit up, he coughs and there’s a thin stream of blood that trickles down his chin. “U-Urgh...hurts bad.”

“Well, yeah. You don’t take breaks, idiot.” Ouma tutted him. “Some of the monsters you take are mooks. You shouldn’t waste your time.”

“S-Shuuut,” Starboy slurs. He coughs again. “I’m...s’posed to be...a hero. A-A... Luminary.”

It’s because of shit like this that made it was so easy for Ouma to find Momota in the first place.

And Starboy—fucking laughs.

“Even through that stupid mask of yours, I can tell you’re disproving.” He musters up a bit more strength to speak, for all the good that’s doing him. “You’re really worried, huh?”

“I don’t trust Shirokuma,” Dice said simply. “You shouldn’t either.”

Starboy swallows. No doubt swallows back blood. He sucks in his breath. He shakes. He tries to shake his head specifically. Ends up slumping against him. Dice isn’t as gentle with him as Saihara was, but Dice still has little choice but to help him up.

“Stay with me,” Dice ordered. “You’re not allowed to die.”

He’s wasting his breath. Starboy’s definitely going to die at this rate even if it’s not today. All because—

“I’m a hero,” Starboy is slurring. “Heroes don’t—take breaks...they don’t leave people to die.”

“You’re not a hero,” Dice snapped. One step at a time. “You’re just an idiot.”

“It’s not...not about trust...” Starboy huffs at him next. “Not that...you’d understand that... Ouma.”

Dice doesn’t pause. Far from it.

...idiot.

Ouma Kokichi wonders if it’s a coincidence that he and Momota ended up in this situation together.

...

That’s right. Momota Kaito is going to bring you down. The hero! The Luminary! Won’t that be the Ultimate Despair?

(That’s how she would respond.)

Ouma Kokichi, always so close and yet so far, can’t focus on that right now. He has to save the life of a dying man after all. The results are sure to be favorable.

And yet, also so very—predictable.

Boring.

#oumota #oumotaweek2021 #Magi fics

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themountainsays · 3 years

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Is anyone else curious about why exactly did Sylvie change her name? I mean, I suspect it’s mostly a narrative device, because telling a story in which the two main characters have the exact same name is a bit difficult, and Sylvie having a different name does emphasize her individuality, thematically, but what are the in-universe explanations? I have a few theories:

Sylvie has met other Lokis in her travel, and she dislikes them so much, she tries to distance herself from them as much as possible, to the point her chosen name is not only a sound, but a way to distinguish herself as a different person. I find this a bit strange because, if I met an alternative version of myself from a different timeline, I wouldn’t change my name lol. Why do I have to change because the other me is an ass? I wouldn’t let myself be moved aside by some asshole. If they’re so much worse than me, then that proves I’m the superior variant. Case closed. If Sylvie is denying her original identity (because remember, being Loki was her true, genuine identity before she decided to change. Being Loki wasn’t imposed on her), then she must believe there’s nothing good in being Loki, and the only way to be good and rise among the other Lokis is... to not be Loki. Which is pretty sad. In order to be good she has to stop being herself, even in name. I don’t doubt “Sylvie” becomes her true, genuine identity in time, but... Loki was also a true and genuine identity before. Ironically, all Lokis seem to want to rise above the other Lokis lol. President Loki wants to rule over them all, Boastful Loki and all others were planning to betray him and take over anyway, Classic Loki and Kid Loki want to change and become morally superior to them, and our Loki repeatedly refers to himself as the Superior Variant. Sylvie wanting to Not Be Like The Other Lokis is a bit counter-productive, but he still gets a gold star for originality imo. This option does open for some interesting character development when she meets a Loki who is good and whom she loves even though he doesn’t want to give up his identity, because if he can be a Loki and be good at the same time, then what does that mean for her?

Similar to the previous theory but not quite, Sylvie believes what the TVA said about Loki, that is, that they’re destined to cause pain and destruction in order to support others’ character arcs, and rejecting her Loki identity is her way to forge her own destiny. In this case, Sylvie changing her name has less to do with comparing herself to other Lokis and more with trying to escape what the TVA dictated she should be, and then “Loki” is an abstract concept, and not a concrete person (er, group of people?) she wants to reject. Which I still think is pretty sad too, because then she’s always the flexible one. She’s always the one changing to avoid condemnation. Again, she believes there’s no hope for Loki, and if she wants things to go well for her, she needs to stop being Loki. I mean, again, I wouldn’t change my name and identity if I found out me from a different dimension was doomed from the start, so this must be really shocking and painful for her, so painful she wants to become a different person. In time, she succeeds, especially as she becomes an adult and and her identity as Sylvie is solidified.

Sylvie’s backstory as Loki is much longer than we thought, and she did some fucked up shit as Loki. Changing her name is her attempt at starting over. This is the most basic option but the one that makes the most sense to me, though something this important should probably be clarified in the show. Posibly in Season 2? That would fit in nicely. Basically, in this theory Sylvie isn’t comparing herself to other Lokis or to the TVA’s Ideal Loki, but to her past self. The line “That’s not who I am anymore” comes to mind. It sounds like something someone on a redemption arc would say, rather than a victim of kidnapping who found out her alternative universe self was a little shit. I like this theory the best, because it’s the one that grants Sylvie the most agency. In the other two options, she’s changing for the sake of others, even if she doesn’t think so, because she’s trying so hard to not be what they want her to be that she’s abandoning parts of herself in the process, like her own name. A name that, again, wasn’t imposed on her! She was Loki, 100% genuinely and truly and she decided to change. Now she’s... still Loki, but a different Loki. Not Like The Other Lokis. And I do like to think she’s doing it for herself and not for the TVA or for other versions of herself she met in her travels.

Now, I don’t think her identity as “Sylvie” is fake or not genuine at all! She is Sylvie, definitely! But that wasn’t the identity she started off with. It’s something that took her some time to build, and I want to know why. Why, exactly, does she reject being a Loki so badly? What did the Idea of Loki do to her? Why does she hate who she was as a child? Why does she try to remove herself from the narrative instead of changing it? For someone so determined to rewrite her own destiny, changing her identity sounds more like trying to escape from it.

And I’d understand if “Loki” was... a title, for example. Like “God of Mischief”. I can see her rejecting that title if it didn’t fit her. But... in-universe, “Loki” is just a sound. There isn’t a specific etymology behind it. It’s not even a gendered sound. The word doesn’t mean anything in itself, it’s up to the bearer. Sylvie could have redefined it as anything she wanted, but instead, she abandoned it and choose a different name on her own. And that’s certainly very rebellious of her! Very thematically profound! I love it! But in-universe... you have to admit it’s a pretty odd thought process. Though I’m 95% we’re meant to suspend our disbelief a little. Sylvie changed her name because the writers needed her to, and it also happens to be thematically fitting even if it was an odd choice from part of the character, but who cares. Lokis are pretty eccentric anyways.

And speaking of that, something I love is that Sylvie doesn’t fully reject her identity as Loki, either. She still dresses like one, her magic and battle strategies are similar to all the others’, and she shares certain personality traits with all other Lokis, like being very ambitious, cunning, a bit manipulative, and liking knives, as well as being bisexual and possibly genderfluid. She doesn’t dress like Loki because she wants to imitate Loki - she’s dressing like herself, and all these things that make her Loki are part of her true nature. if anything, she could say the others are imitating her. She rejects the name, but being Loki is still who she is. There’s still a constant that prevails through all variants. Which leads us to the question - what makes a Loki a Loki? And I like to think the range is pretty wide. You share this Temporal Aura thing? Congrats you’re a Valid™ Loki, you don’t need to stop being who you already are to be... you. If you need to change your name and identity to be you, then that reinforces the idea that there’s only one allowed way to be Loki, which is, to cause pain and destruction just so Thor and Iron-Man and idk who else can have character arcs.

And... I don’t know if this interpretation is correct, because the story isn’t over. The show repeatedly asks the question, what makes a Loki a Loki? And it never reaches a concrete answer, other that a nebulous Not Dying Thing. And I think that’s because both our Loki and Sylvie are pretty confused right now. Especially Sylvie. She denies being a Loki time and time again in Episode 2 and 3, but in Episode 4, she says something around the lines of “Do you think what makes a Loki a Loki is that we’re always destined to lose?”, literally refering to herself as Loki. Later on in Episode 5, she loudly proclaims she and Loki are the same (not to mention Loki describes the other variants as “Us in the future/as a kid/as an alligator”, and later says “We’re stronger than we realize” after watching Classic Loki’s great display of power, and Sylvie doesn’t bat an eye). In Episode 6, she looks at Loki in the eye and tell him she’s not him. These contradictions are very interesting because... I think they show her trying to figure out what this whole adventure means for their identities. She seeks comfort in the similarities and sameness between her and Loki and tries to distance herself from him when he does something she dislikes. She’s heartbroken when he goes against her wishes and wonder why can’t they see eye to eye, after taking comfort in “being the same” for the past two episodes. Given the context, I think her final line in Episode 6 shows her thinking Loki only cares about her because he sees her as an extension of himself. Whis is obviously wrong. He doesn’t think that. I assume future installments will show her learning her judgment here was wrong. And that makes me wonder this question will be revisited in Season 2.

Obviously, Sylvie’s character arc isn’t going to be about her abandoning her individuality, but I’m curious to see if Season 2 explores the nature and origins of her identity and what her relationship with Loki means for it.

EDIT: something I can't understand is why on Earth would she refer to her chosen name as an alias. That's weird. Was that an unimportant off-hand line or is it Thematically Significant? Does it hint at a future identity crisis or am i Looking Too Deep Into It?

#character analysis: sylvie #sylvie laufeydottir #loki tv #loki spoilers #2 am thoughts #ahhhhh lord who art in the sky #please keep the discourse away from this post

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365days365movies · 3 years

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April 8, 2021: Swiss Army Man (and Black Comedy) (Review)

Let’s look at the week’s other black comedies, shall we?

I’m a bit behind on the reviews (and the Recaps, but that’s a little easier to fix at the moment), but I decided to give something a shot. While I’ve still got full Reviews for each of those films, it occurred to me that the ones left to review are the black comedies. The Great Dictator is technically a part of the category as well, but I’m letting it skate by under satire. Plus, I already reviewed it. And, since Swiss Army Man is the last black comedy I’m covering this month, what better time than now to summarize the rest! Again, I’ll be giving more comprehensive reviews in due time. But until then...

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), dir. Frank Capra: 90%

Wow, I get why this movie is so very loved, by everybody and my mom! Told her I watched it the other day, and she was very happy to hear it! This is a VERY funny movie, and while it is a black comedy, it’s more of a straight-up comedy than any of these other films! The acting’s a little cheesy sometimes, yeah, but Cary Grant is goddamn AMAZING in this movie. It’s mostly his supporting cast that serves the cheese platter (Raymond Massey especially). Plot and writing by Julius and Phillip Epstein are spot-on smooth, but directing isn’t one of Frank Capra’s best in my completely uninformed opinion. Production and art design is great, especially given that we’re mostly only in one place for the whole movie. Still, that place looks good regardless. Finally, the music by Max Steiner is also pretty fantastic, although it’s not going on my playlist anytime soon, to be honest. Editing by Daniel Mandell is also great, and the pacing of this movie’s plot is...mostly perfect. Lags a little when Jonathan comes in, I think. Anyway, highly recommended, and a must-see!

Recap (Part One | Part Two)

Withnail and I (1987), dir. Bruce Robinson: 86%

OK...this one is kind of hard for me. Because I think I was supposed to get more out of this film than I actually did. Maybe that’s because I’m a filthy American and all that, but this film came off as good dramatically, with some ribald humor in it...but not really that funny. But, OK, to briefly go through the points here: Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, and Richard Griffiths all turn out fantastic performances here, and they’re extremely memorable. Plot and writing by director Bruce Robinson is very good as well, and it’s also autobiographical to an extent, which is interesting. Very wittily written and performed, so no complaints there. Directing is...fine? It’s fine. Nothing to write home about, although there’s one nice scene on a mountainside which sticks out. Same with Charles Lang and his cinematography, although that fares a little more memorable for me. Production and set design is great, and the music (by Adolph Deutsch)...leaves a little to be desired. In that I don’t remember it at all, not gonna lie. Editing by Arthur P. Scmidt is fine!

Recap (Part One | Part Two)

In Bruges (2008), dir. Martin McDonagh: 90%

Take my feelings on the humor for the preceding two and combine them, then make the tone WAY darker than either, and you have In Bruges. And HOT DAMN, I love it! All of the performances are ridiculously strong here, from Colin Farell and Brendan Gleeson, to Ralph Fiennes and Clémence Poésy. Although, Jordan Prentice and Jérémie Renier are mostly just OK, to be honest with you. And that was nothing to do with the writing and directing of Martin McDonagh, because GODDAMN, those are spot-fucking-ON. Seriously, if this movie has nothing else going for it, it’s some fast-paced writing and delivery that’ll knock your socks off. Love it. And Bruges is framed like a painting, and a nice one at that! It’s also a good looking movie, even if the color palette leaves a little to be desired sometimes. Production and art design is...well, it’s the city of Bruges, for the most part, let’s be honest. It looks good. And finally, music by Carter Burwell is...fine. It’s OK, it’s definitely not very memorable for me, to be honest. But, uh, this is a grizzly, dark, rough movie...and totally worth watching again, hot damn.

Recap

Swiss Army Man (2016), dir. Daniels: Well...keep reading!

Recap is here and here!

Review

Cast and Acting: 9/10

These two, Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe, are a hell of a pair...kind of. Fact of the matter is, Radcliffe is heavily restrained in his role until the very end of the film, but is also VERY GOOD with these restraints. I mean, is this one of those “disappear into the role” moments for him? I mean, it definitely is for Dano, but for Radcliffe...I was watching Harry Potter. Never didn’t see the boy who lived, ironically. But, that’s not really on Radcliffe at all, to be fair. Like I said, dude is legitimately fantastic, seriously. He does a fantastic job in the role of...well, being a dead body. And Paul Dano’s Hank is a genuinely interesting character, and one that I’d like to know more about, honestly. He does a great job with what he’s given. Oh, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead was there, too!

Plot and Writing: 8/10

Look...this is a weird-ass concept for a movie. I mean, come on, it’s a movie about a guy with intense social anxiety who makes friends with a semi-resurrected corpse that has multiple abilities and is slowly coming to terms with an new life. And yes, there’s definitely some symbolism in here, whether you see this as a story about depression, coming out, coming to terms with yourself, social anxiety, friendship, existential crises, personal development...dead bodies. Yeah, this film can be read in a LOT of different ways, it turns out. And is that a bad thing? No, of course not. But it is a little nebulous as a result, and you end up focusing less on the sybolis, and more on the whole “dead-body-Victorinox” thing. That plot and the writing, both by the Daniels (Daniel Schinert and Daniel Kwan), are well-done and very funny in a lot of instances (MOST instances, to be honest; this is a very funny film), but I can’t say that I think the plot itself is perfect. But then again, this may have just gone over my head.

Directing and Cinematography: 8/10

I mean...it’s good. Both the directing by the Daniels and the cinematography by Larkin Seiple are both quite good. Lighting is usually pretty great, framing is consistently good, I really don’t have any major complaints...or major comments. There are some good shots, to be clear, but I’m not going to say that it’s perfect or anything. To be fair, this is the Daniels’ first feature length film, so that’s interesting. But yeah, like I said, it’s good!

Production and Art Design: 9/10

This is a great looking movie! And that also comes down to the fact that there’s a pretty realistic looking Daniel Radcliffe puppet in here, and I genuinely didn’t notice until after the fact. It’s pretty great, though, and Radcliffe’s makeup is especially good. The setting of the Pacific Northwest woods is fantastic as well, and the whole thing is simply a great looking film overall. Not much comment outside of that!

Music and Editing: 9/10

MY LORD I love the music in this movie! I meant it when I said I’d be putting some of this on my playlist, because it sounds great. And it’s not just Andy Hull and Robert McDowell’s orchestration, but how the score is integrated with the plot and characters of the film! Look...I love it. Go back to my recap and check out the links embedded within to listen to my favorite tracks, if you’re curious! So, if I love the music so much, why not a 10 here? Editing. There are a few moment where the editing is a little weird. Faster cuts than needed, scene with the bear’s kinda weird, that kind of thing. Nothing huge, but it did come to mind when I was rating this section. Still, Matthew Hannam did a great job; just saw a couple spots I thought were weird.

86% for this one! I had a really good time.

This is the last straight-up black comedy I’m covering this time around, and it’s one hell of a film to end on! So, let’s go back to...well, the ‘50s, this time. Let’s start at the most imfluential comedy of the time period. And hey...might as well start with a near-certified banger, huh?

April 9, 2021: Some Like It Hot (1959), dir. Billy Wilder

#swiss army man #daniel scheinert #daniel kwan #daniel scheinert and daniel kwan #the daniels #paul dano #daniel radcliffe #mary elizabeth winstead #comedy april #user365 #365days365movies #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #userhayao #userskashi #classicfilmblr

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ckret2 · 4 years

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So I've been deeply pulled into the Radiosnake pairing bc of your fantastic writing! Problem is, now I have fic ideas but no knowledge of the Hazbin background. Can you tellI me where I can get more Hazbin info? I've only watched the pilot and read your stuff. I heard there were comics??

That is an excellent question anon, because right now it is really hard to get Hazbin background easily.

Okay, so, the canon info on Hazbin Hotel can be sort of sorted into four tiers, from most to least canon.

Tier 1: The Definitely Canon

There is, of course, the pilot. And then there is an Angel Dust prequel comic, only seven pages of which have been released so far. We’ve been told it’s gonna be finished and we’ve had glimpses of in-progress prequel comics for a couple other characters—most prominently Alastor’s and Charlie’s—but so far that unfinished Angel Dust comic is the only one that’s been officially released.

Finding the in-progress comic pages is... a challenge. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has been specifically collecting all of the pages we’ve seen so far. I was able to scrounge up:

Couple more Angel pages

some Alastor pages

another Alastor page

a random Alastor panel

another random Alastor panel—I’ve seen the full page of this before, Alastor goes “Hello ladies!” and they go “HELLO ALASTOR~<3″ but I can’t find the full page now

There’s a smattering more canon panels on the artist faustisse’s twitter, but I haven’t dug them all out, and some of the posts I’m gonna link in a lil bit have a glimpse of another panel.

If you haven’t already heard of Helluva Boss, I recommend looking into it as well. It’s a second series being created by the same folks, different cast of characters but set in the same version of Hell, so any canon details we learn in Helluva also apply to Hazbin.

Helluva’s pilot is here. Plus a cute music video here.

Earlier this month, during a BLM charity stream hosted by show artist Ashley Nichols—she runs regular streams under the title “HuniCast”—they released a few sneak peaks of future Helluva scenes, all compiled here.

And that’s it for canon. Two pilots, a music video, a smattering of future scenes, part of one comic, a few WIP pages/panels from other comics.

Tier 2: Pseudo-Canon

Everything else we currently know about Hazbin (and Helluva) are things that the creators have told us. Consequently, they’re all pseudo-canon—and likely subject to change in the future as the shows and comics are further developed and released. Some details that were released/described in the past have been contradicted at other times, or else radically changed by the time the pilot came out.

(For example, when Alastor was first created years and years ago as an OC with no plans for Hazbin, he was a demon deer who could shapeshift into a human shape—now he’s a demonized human with a few deer traits. And Charlie and Cherri Bomb used to look very different.)

So until and unless they make it into canon, all these pseudo-canon details are subject to change and should be taken with a grain of salt—but, they also comprise most of what we know about the characters’ backstory and the as-yet-unaired characters.

Pseudo-canon info on Hazbin is scattered mainly between two sources: the creators’ twitter accounts, and livestreams where they take questions and talk about the making of the show. If you and livestreams do not get along (my ADHD and livestreams do not get along), or if you don’t want to wade years and years back into twitter accounts to dig up every scrap of info on the characters the creators have ever mentioned, collating all the pseudo-canon info is gonna be hard. (It’s gonna be hard even if you do want to sit through the streams and dig through all their tweets.) Lots of fans, me included, depend on the absolutely heroic work of various fans who are willing and able to watch hours-long streams and collate a list of canon factoids released during the streams. I’ve reblogged as many of these posts as I’ve been able to find:

Alastor’s sound design (on twitter)

Alastor's Sound Design (post I made with screenshots of weird—but very interesting—subtitles slipped into the aforementioned video)

Sir Pentious and Cherri Bomb’s sound design

Niffty and Husk’s sound design

Charlie, Katie, and Tom’s sound design

Intro song’s sound design

Happy Hotel’s sound design

details from Faustisse (including a pic of a couple costume designs. Most of these posts come from zatyrlucy, who’s been doing a fantastic job of going stream-by-stream to get lists of details from the regular streams by Ashley Nichols and by comic artist Faustisse.)

more details from Faustisse (including a pic of the Von Eldritch family dining room)

Faustisse 3 (better look at that table)

Dollymoon’s Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART ONE (Shoutout again to dollymoon for compiling these, we’ve never spoken but I am eternally grateful for this service. Dollymoon’s posts are THE single most reliable compilation of Hazbin Hotel’s nebulous pseudo-canon facts that I have found to date, including both links to the sources and timestamps where applicable. Dollymoon’s URL has changed since making this post so the “read more” link doesn’t work but the “source” or “reblogged from” links direct correctly to the new blog. Incidentally, the risk of other blog creators deleting their blogs/posts or changing their URLs is why in info posts like these, I always link to my own reblogs rather than their original posts—their original posts might vanish without warning, but I know I ain’t gonna delete my posts, so these links will still work in the future.)

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART TWO

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART THREE

Faustisse 4

HuniCast - Australian Wildlife Relief charity stream

I think this was a faustisse stream (the original source deleted these posts, so the comic pages that were originally behind that read more cut are now gone.)

Faustisse stream 6?

And those are all the masterposts of factoids I’ve managed to collect. If anyone has more masterposts, chuck ‘em at me.

Even this isn’t all the knowledge that’s been released about the show. The posts that dig the farthest back are Dollymoon’s, and even they don’t comprehensively cover all of Hazbin’s production. A couple of these characters, Vivziepop created as a teenager, so there’s some truly ancient concept art floating around out there that will have details that probably aren’t canon anymore... but might still be until something happens to actively contradict them.

Tier 3: The Wiki

The wiki is kind of an absolute mess. It’s a chaotic blend of things actually seen in the pilots/comic, things mentioned at some point in some stream somewhere, and wild fan speculation based on what they headcanon as plausible based on the above, all mixed together with very little indication for which is canon, pseudo-canon, fanon, or speculation. Most of the statements on the wiki don’t have citations.

(And, on top of that, half the main characters’ info gets split up into separate tabs instead of just having a normal-ass wiki page, AND their image galleries are on COMPLETELY SEPARATE pages that are linked to in one of the tabs, and the most important characters all have TWO SEPARATE GALLERIES. Which doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the facts hidden underneath those tabs, but nevertheless drives me up the wall.)

Some things on the wiki were added according to info released so long ago it’s probably changed by now. Some are possibilities that got reported as facts. Other things on the wiki have unambiguously changed, or else are just flat-out incorrect. (For instance, at this moment Alastor’s page still lists him as an overlord, even though it's been confirmed that Alastor is not an overlord despite his power level because he isn’t interested in and didn’t pursue that position, per this stream. For a little bit, somebody’s fanart of their headcanon human Alastor got added to the wiki as concept art.)

tl;dr: the wiki should never be trusted as a primary source. The wiki’s better than it used to be. Even so, at this time, it’s only trustworthy to fill in the gaps of what you already know is true from other, better sources.

The thing it’s good at is it more or less compiles all the known info all in one place. Trying to figure out who the hell this Vox guy is is really hard if you’re reading for mentions of him in compilations of a dozen different streams, much less if you’re trying to comb through those dozen streams yourself, plus a dozen more, plus three different artists’ twitters. In comparison, it’s really easy to, say, just go look at Vox’s wiki page, where all the trivia is compiled. (And Vox’s page is actually one of the better cited on the wiki. Look at all those numbers!)

So, if you need to find out who this character is you’ve never heard of before, if you want to see a full list of the thus far named characters, if you don’t remember whether Alastor likes coffee or tea, if you want to know what Angel’s twin sister looks like, if you need a reminder of Sir Pentious’s death year... check the wiki. It’s an okay starting point.

But, if you see a “fact” on the wiki that you yourself don’t remember from straight out of the pilot, and it doesn’t have a citation that links to a tweet or a stream... regard it suspiciously. And do not trust it unquestioningly as fact until and unless you have seen the source.

Tier 4: Noncanon Creator Shitposting

I’ve mentioned Ashley’s HuniCast streams a couple times. The biggest draw of them is that she usually gets several of the voice actors in the streams, where they’ll happily say nonsense in their character voices. For the most part, they’re not sharing any actual canon info they’ve been given on their characters, just goofing around pretending to be their characters. Nevertheless, a lot of the things that happen in streams get accepted as broad fandom headcanons, like Alastor being into dad jokes. (My favorite, for obvious reasons, is this one.)

It’s easy to find the source audio for all this wonderful nonsense by searching youtube for “HuniCast highlights,” and then rummaging around for animatics people make out of the audio. The only one noncanon video of this sort I can think of that didn’t originally come from HuniCast is a lone one from Alastor’s singing voice (who’s a different voice actor than his speaking voice).

So, obviously, none of these are canon. But they do come from some of the people actually involved in the creation of the show, and they are in the characters’ canon voices, so a whole lot of people treat them as semi-canon anyway. (Even the wiki lists “dad jokes” among Alastor’s likes, which to my knowledge hasn’t come up anywhere except for HuniCast streams.) Since they’re so broadly-known, they’re worth knowing about as important sources of fanon, even if you don’t want to adopt them into your own headcanons. They’re basically the same level of canon as blooper reels.

#anonymous #ask #hazbin hotel #reference #helluva boss

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mychildrenneedwine · 3 years

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I’ve been wanting to read more film-philosophy this summer, especially articles. I want to feel out how this approach gets applied on a smaller and more concrete scale, close conversations with particular films or particular images. I find my ideas get lost in their generality and have a hard time coming back down to specific encounters with film. Reading the latest volume of Film-Philosophy, I seemed to hear an echo of this concern.

There are three featured articles, and the first two are heavy hitters: Jeff Fort’s essay attempts to re-read Bazin’s entire ontology (I’ve only read the abstract on this one, but it sounds very promising), and Jiri Anger develops an elegant account of ‘accidental aesthetics’ within the context of new digital technologies interacting with the materiality of filmstock. Both are grappling with film’s ontology, and both are trying to develop new ideas in relation to old traditions. Then, there’s the third article, by Silvia Angeli and Francesco Sticchi. At first glance, it seems far humbler in scope, simply applying concepts form the good old Deleuze/Guattari toolbox to a couple of European arthouse films. But there’s a germ of an idea nestled in this seemingly simple textual analysis, which might too easily be dismissed as a mere application of philosophical concepts to some films, and this idea interests me.

The idea has to do with how we experience a film, and, while it gets expressed succinctly at a few points within the article, it never seems to move to the foreground and become the point of what we’re reading. Textual analysis always occupies this centrality, and the notion of experience merely hovers around this analysis. Maybe the idea isn’t foregrounded because it’s been developed elsewhere, or maybe its significance is meant to be obvious. Whatever the reason, I want to foreground the idea for myself, if only to get a better grasp on it, to work through what it might mean for the film-philosophy relation.

The article looks at two films with explicitly Christian themes, Moretti’s We Have a Pope and Rohrwacher’s exquisite debut Corpo Celeste. It applies the concept of a ‘line of flight’ to these two films in order to argue that each film ruptures with itself, opening up a line of flight that allows it to produce change and move in new directions. Because of each film’s theological themes, these lines of flight are seen as challenges to established traditions of understanding reality. So far so good. We have films that play with thematic preoccupations, and they seem to be leveling critiques or advancing a worldview. Good for them. But the idea of experience that the article wraps around this account seems to push these films past merely representing a pattern of thought. These films also provide viewers with the experience of these ideas, they “allow the audience to experience a major problematization of the institutions surrounding the two main characters” (4). This emphasis on experience seems to link the lines of flight that exist within each film’s formal construction with the viewer, putting that viewer through the very process of these lines of flight.

This idea might sound trivial, but it strikes me as a fundamental part of the film-philosophy relation. We experience films; they are objects of sensation that carry us through an (often-times) allotted unit of experience. This motivates some of my interest in the connections between viewership and ritual, but here I’m more interested in how this frames film as a specific kind of object, one that does things and takes us places.

At this point, my mind jumps to Sarah Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology, which I read recently and will doubtlessly misremember here. But what brings me back to this text is her interest in objects that can take us places, specifically ones that can pull us into new directions. She talks about how queer objects can manage such a pull. What makes these objects queer isn’t so much the objects themselves. Rather, it’s about our reaction to an encounter with these objects, which itself has to do with how we’re oriented toward them, and how this can give them a queer quality. Basically, a queer object is one that manages to pull us off the ‘straight line’ at the moment of encounter. In a simple sense, this is a process of estrangement, of suddenly noticing how everything we take for granted is in fact ordered in a specific way, rather than simply being given naturally. When something, an object, is out of place, we tend to rearrange it into place, to pull it in-line. But the out-of-place object also has the ability to reverse this process, pulling us off-line by making us suddenly aware of the strangeness within the order we intuitively maintain. Now, none of this sounds very queer, not yet. But, for Ahmed, these seemingly natural arrangements of objects in space are often constructed around heteronormative assumptions, which subtly reinforce the naturalness of such heteronormativity through arranging our bodies in particular ways around such objects.

As the title of her book evokes, Ahmed gets the notion of a ‘straight line’ from phenomenology, specifically Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception. This line actually starts out as an issue of perception, with Merleau-Ponty’s observations about how we tend to straighten our perception along a vertical axis in order to bring order to that perception. From there, Ahmed develops an entire analysis of how this process of alignment continues throughout other facets of experience. The family unit, with its basis in an assumed heterosexual line of procreation and continuance, structures much of this cultural alignment process. So, we’re in-line when we’re experiencing reality from the starting point of – and moving along the trajectory of – heteronormative reproduction. Anything that takes us off this trajectory, even for a moment, pulls us off-line.

Film can be such a queer object, without a doubt. I still remember noticing Steve McQueen’s ass, in pristine white pants, from The Sand Pebbles. That was a sudden encounter, somewhere in the nebulous mire of middle school, that could be said to have pulled me off-line, if only briefly. The pull of desire is just that, a pull. It opens up new trajectories, sometimes followed and sometimes not. However, this would be an account of film as a kind of brute queer object, something that evokes a sudden response to singular moment of encounter. But the way that films take us through an experience with their structure, as touched upon by Angeli and Sticchi, is more complex than this. It takes into account the formal properties of the film and, more importantly, how they interact to create a more prolonged experience. When I think of films that could be thought of as queer objects in this way, my mind turns to Claire Denis and Beau Travail.

The main conflict is between Galoup, a French Legionnaire of some mid-range stature, and one of his soldiers, Sentain. The nature of the conflict remains ambiguous throughout the entire film, but it’s interesting that Galoup feels this conflict immediately after his first encounter with Sentain. Sentain sticks out to him, and Galoup then talks about a ‘vague and menacing’ feeling that takes hold, which will drive his obsessive resistance to Sentain for the rest of film. But what’s really at the root of this feeling, so suddenly evoked? Given the way Denis films the sensual rhythms of male bodies, a homoerotic tension is clearly foregrounded, but there appears to be something more to it than that.

Ahmed’s notion of being pulled off-line comes with the complementary idea of being maintained on-line. She talks of ‘straightening devices’ that function somewhat in opposition to queer objects. Such devices work to keep us on the straight line by both maintaining our on-line position and erasing off-line alternatives. In Beau Travail, Galoup seems to take on the function of an ever-active straightening device. His role is to train the troops and keep them ready for combat. As such, he is constantly ordering and structuring their bodies according to his regiment. He leads them through single file runs across the deserts, and he makes sure the pleated lines of their uniforms are ironed to perfection. In one particularly intense scene, he leads his men in a push-up routine that repeatedly maintains their bodily alignment to a simple up/down momentum. So, Galoup literally keeps his men in line. While this process seems to serve a merely military function, the film works to infuse this military context with a constant sexual tension. This tension reimagines the military apparatus as a sexual one, and Galoup’s functional straightening begins to be seen in a different light.

Sentain’s arrival seems to pull Galoup off-line, creating the vague and menacing feeling. But instead of becoming a story about a man who can’t handle his homosexual desire, the film’s form makes it more of an investigation into the failure of the straightening process. Ahmed stresses that the process of maintaining straightness comes at a cost, the cost of systematic denial (some big and some small). Here, it’s helpful to remember that the film is told retrospectively, from Galoup’s memory. What’s interesting to me is how the film differs so much from the rigid linearity of Galoup as straightening device. Denis films male bodies from every angle imaginable, constantly adopting new orientations of vision that work to create potentially threatening positions. The film is always looking through new angles to see what might pull things off the straight line, while Galoup is fighting to maintain this very same line. It’s as if we’re seeing Galoup’s work in the state of orientational flux that Sentain’s pull of desire causes, a state that he distinctly remembers. This is the tension of the film, and it constantly works to pull us off-line, while producing a narrative about the failure of the straightening process.

youtube

So, along our initial lines, Beau Travail gives us an experience of being pulled off-line. This isn’t the kind of accidental experience that The Sand Pebbles gave me, but rather an experience designed into the form of the film. The question then becomes: what does this experience amount to? Is Beau Travail just a handy example of ideas articulated by Sarah Ahmed? It seems to me that focusing on experience takes the film in a different direction than this reduction. There’s a difference between reading and understanding the logic of Ahmed’s idea of being pulled off-line, on the one hand, and actually being pulled off-line, on the other hand. Beau Travail gives us the experience of Ahmed’s idea, rather than trying to articulate it. How significant is this observation? I’m not sure yet, but it does highlight one of film’s interesting philosophical capabilities. What I like is that it takes us away from ideas of ‘cinematic thought,’ pulling us instead toward an understanding of the thoughtfulness of cinematic experience.

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blubberquark · 4 years

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Accessibility

The German word for “accessibility“ in a disability context is Barrierefreiheit, literally a “freedom from barriers”. This word frames stairways without ramps or elevators as semi-permeable barriers that let people through who can walk on two legs. In software development, this kind of accessibility often abbreviated as “a11y” internally (i.e. in the source code, not in the user interface).

Accessibility features like rebindable keys, alternate control schemes, subtitles, colourblind mode, and separately adjustable volume levels for sounds, speech, and music.

The other German translation of “accessibility” is Zugänglichkeit, which literally just translates back to “accessibility“. Inaccessibility as the opposite of the concept of Zugänglichkeit would be elitism or high-context artwork. A book or a game can be inaccessible if it requires familiarity with a broad pool of literary or ludic references, or when its use of heavy symbolism prevents people from aking sense of the story on a literal level, or when it is full of bilingual puns, to the point where the basic plot and themes of the work are unclear if you are unfamiliar with the prerequisites. Hiding important information behind modal user interfaces, in optional sidequests, or behind significant time commitments can also diminish accessibility.

A game is accessible in this sense if it is low-context, legible, and straightforward. Undertale and Dear Esther can be considered inaccessible in this way due to their layered narrative and post-modern mode of storytelling, as can complex systems-based games like Europa Universalis IV.

If we talk about a book being written in an accessible style, we don’t mean that it’s printed in large, legible type.

There is a third concept, difficulty, that some people put under the umbrella of accessibility.

It certainly doesn’t help that Dark Souls is inaccessible in all the ways: The default control scheme takes some getting used to. There is a lot of deep lore presented in a way you can easily miss, and many sections of the game require either trial and error or a look at the wiki/strategy guide. On top of all this, the game is also considered difficult.

Some people make a distinction between accessibility as disability accommodation and difficulty, lumping Zugänglichkeit with difficulty. These are not the same thing! Game designers often aspire to the ideal of “easy to learn, hard to master“, a combination of Zugänglichkeit and difficulty.

If you look over the shoulder of somebody silently playing Tetris, A Good Snowman, The Secret of Monkey Island, Need for Speed Underground, Super Mario World, or Cuphead, you can sort of understand what’s going on, even if you never played that particular game. If you look over the shoulder of somebody playing Rainbow Six Siege, Escape From Tarkov, The Witness or Persona 5, it’s much less clear. In the case of The Witness, you’re missing many rules, even if you see the correct solutions, because you don’t necessarily understand which hypothesis is being tested. If you see half an hour of Persona 5, you’re not closing the dungeon-combat-pokemon-school-story-visual-novel feedback loop. If you watch a match of Smash Bros or Skullgirls, you can see what’s going on and who is winning, but you don’t understand any of the decision-making, which moves are available and how a different move would have would have worked.

If you’re playing Dear Esther for the first time, you yourself don’t even know what’s going on.

I’m using backseat gaming/stream watching as a measure of accessibility because it’s entirely orthogonal to difficulty. The difficulty of the game affects only the player (or streamer), but the accessibility affects both the player and the viewer, and it applies equally to game mechanics, story, themes, literary/pop culture references, and symbolism.

This test for accessibility is multi-layered and subjective! If you look at somebody play Smash Bros, might see that Pikachu is kicking Donkey Kong’s ass, but you don’t understand the gameplay. If you watch somebody play Dear Esther, neither you nor the player may know what’s going on, besides what you see of the island right then. If you watch somebody play DOTA 2, even the moment-to-moment gameplay may be opaque to you.

In Fez and StarCraft 2, there’s a world of difference between the early and late game (Fez) or between campaign and competitive play (StarCraft). Fez is a pretty accessible game until you get to 100%. StarCraft 2 has a rather accessible single-player mode.

An average Joe could just pick up the controller after work and a bottle of beer, and play FEZ for an hour or so. Compare this to Dear Esther, where you can play it, but it’s not clear whether you’re getting the intended experience, or DOTA 2, where you immediately know you’re not getting the right experience when you don’t understand what’s going on.

A game is accessible if the total effort to understand the core loop and core aesthetics of the game (including effort spent learning other games first) is low. Once you understand a game, it can still be difficult to beat.

In some games, the line between difficulty and accessibility is easy to draw, but in games like Chess, Go, or Magic: The Gathering, it’s not as clear-cut. It’s not enough to know how the pieces move, how to capture a stone, how to play your cards in one turn of Magic. In order to understand what’s going on, you should know your openings and endgame, joeski and life-and-death problems, or the current card pool, deck archetypes and their play styles and win conditions.

This makes some people draw the line between accessibility (Barrierefreiheit/a11y) and difficulty (execution skill + metagame + common gameplay dynamics + common tactics). The lack of accessibility (Zugänglichkeit) is indistinguishable from difficulty when you don’t understand the game. Other people draw the line between accessibility (Barrierefreiheit/a11y + Zugänglichkeit) and difficulty. Sometimes (depending on politics), the idea of disability accommodation is broadened to include the absence of jump scares, references to traumatic or tragic events, or age inappropriate content, as these can be a barrier to entry for certain demographics. Where to draw the line around the nebulous concept of “accessibility” usually becomes politicised when everybody agrees that accessibility is always good; then people can argue that a certain feature is good or bad, and thus it is or isn’t accessibility.

I don’t think their stance on the accessibility debate is downstream from political opinions for most people (thankfully!), but mostly determined by which games they played and enjoyed. Whatever game you spend your time playingshapes your mental model of what “a game” is whenever you think of “accessibility in games”. If your platonic ideal of a game is Magic: The Gathering, then the metagame and the number of cards are making it inaccessible. If your model game is StarCraft, the game is easy to play with a mouse only in single-player, but online multiplayer is a inaccessible (a11y) to one-handed people, and understanding the game requires knowledge of economy, strategy, and build orders beyond the single-player game, and on top of that, you meed high APM. If your model game is Sunset, accessibility is not connected to difficulty at all, but to political ideas and obscure literary references.

Drawing the line between accessibility and difficulty is easy if you further distinguish kinds of accessibility and difficulty. If you don’t, you risk talking past the people you want to reach - you might make your point inaccessible (in some way or other) to the people who need to hear it.

#game design #accessibility #philosophy #words words words #are games art #on the shortness of games

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worryinglyinnocent · 4 years

Text

Fic: Of Comic Books and Sushi

Summary: When his dad’s visit to him at college clashes with an important class, Neal asks his roommate Belle to look after his dad for a few hours. Belle takes it upon herself to introduce Neal’s father to the wonders that Boston has to offer.

Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: Trying something new for the first time.

Rated: G

=====

Of Comic Books and Sushi

Belle would admit to being somewhat nervous about meeting Neal’s dad properly for the first time. She’d met him in passing, obviously, over the course of the two years that she and Neal had been roommates, but this would be the first time that she was meeting him without Neal there as well, and she was anxious to make a good impression.

Especially since the very first time that she had ever seen the man, she had been wearing a bright pink fleece onesie with ‘Princess Fabul-ass’ embroidered on the butt, with her hair in a towel turban and a bright green mud mask on her face. She had never fully forgiven Neal for not warning her that his dad was coming that day, and the onesie, a gag gift from Ruby, had never been worn again despite its cosiness.

She didn’t even know why she was so nervous; it wasn’t like she was dating Neal.

In fact, it was probably quite a good thing that she wasn’t dating Neal, because if she remembered correctly, having got over her initial mortification, Mr Gold was really rather attractive. Ruby had said that her liking for older men would get her into hot water one day, and if having a sort-of crush on your roommate’s dad didn’t constitute hot water, then she didn’t know what did.

She had the sudden urge to kill someone in the art department, because it wasn’t Neal’s fault that he was leaving her alone with his dad for three hours. One of his presentations, a pivotal one which counted towards his final grade, had been rescheduled at the last possible moment, and since he couldn’t cancel it, he’d had to draft in Belle to keep his dad entertained.

How on earth was she supposed to do that? Neal had probably already shown his dad all of Boston’s usual tourist attractions on his previous visits, and it would be awkward indeed for them to just sit in the apartment for the entire time.

There was a knock on the door and Belle gulped. It was zero hour. She checked her appearance in the mirror. Although he had, thankfully, seen her looking much better than she had been for their first meeting, Belle was still acutely aware that she had never seen Mr Gold himself looking anything less than pristine.

Finally, she opened the door; it wouldn’t do to keep him waiting after all. When she got a good look at him, Belle had to double take, and she was sure that she stood gaping at him for at least five minutes before either of them spoke.

“You cut your hair,” she said. As greetings went, it could have been worse.

“Yes, I decided that it was time for a change. And hello to you too, Miss French. How are you?”

“It looks great. I mean, you look great. I mean, I’m great, thanks for asking. Do you want to come in for a cup of tea? Has Neal explained the situation to you?”

She stepped aside to let him in, aware that she was gabbling but unable to stop herself.

“Yes, he told me that he was leaving me in your capable hands. Tea would be lovely, thank you.”

Belle busied herself with kettle and teabags, deciding to break out the teapot since was an occasion - well, a guest - that merited a bit of class. Hopefully, making the tea would distract her enough that she wouldn’t do or say anything that she might regret after the heat of the moment had passed.

Because Mr Gold did look great, as did his short hair. If she’d found him attractive before, then he was practically sex on legs now. Good God, had she actually thought that phrase, and in connection with her roommate’s dad, as well? She really shouldn’t be thinking of him in that way. Neal was like a brother to her, which meant that Mr Gold should have been like a father to her, and…

Nope. She brought the teapot over and poured two cups. Nope, the feelings that she was feeling now were definitely in no way familial.

“So, did you have any plans for today, Miss French? I know that this isn’t exactly how you were anticipating spending your Friday.”

“You can call me Belle, Mr Gold, honestly. And no, you’re not interrupting anything. I was going to go to the comic store and treat myself to some sushi for lunch, but that’s probably not your thing.”

“Believe it or not, Miss French, I have never actually done either of those things before, so I wouldn’t know if it was my thing or not.” He paused, and there was the smallest hint of a shy smile on his face. “If you don’t want an old curmudgeon cramping your style, then I completely understand, but I’ll happily tag along with you if I may.”

“Sure, of course.” Well, at least that solved the problem of what they were going to do whilst they waited for Neal. “You’ve seriously never had sushi?”

“Never.”

“Mr Gold, you are missing out. Let me just get my coat and we’ll head out as soon as the tea’s drunk. You’re in for a treat, I promise you.”

“Lead on, MacFrench.”

If Mulan was alarmed when Belle brought Mr Gold into the comic store then she didn’t show it. Unlike some (mostly young, white, and male) comic store proprietors that Belle had met in her time of frequenting them, Mulan didn’t care who read comics; the more the merrier in her opinion. She would always try to convert any newcomer who walked through her doors, from any walk of life.

“Do you come here a lot?” Mr Gold asked Belle as she browsed the racks. She wanted to find something that he would enjoy and that he could bond with Neal over. Belle knew that their relationship had been very strained during Neal’s high school years and they were both working hard to recover it. Which was probably why she shouldn’t be throwing a spanner in the works by being attracted to Mr Gold.

“Yes, it’s like a second home. Well, a third after the library. Neal and I met through this place, actually, I don’t know if he’s ever told you. There was a tiny little comics convention up on campus and Mulan had a stall there. Neal and I were both looking and tada, the perfect partnership was born.” She paused. “We’re trying to make our own comic, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m writing and Neal’s drawing.” It made sense, after all. She was studying English and library science and he was studying art.

“He’s never mentioned it to me.”

“You should ask him about it. The concept sketches he’s done for it are amazing.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing them.” Mr Gold still sounded rather mind-blown by the concept. “What’s it about?”

“It’s an Alice in Wonderland story, with a twist. All of the characters are human, but it’s still set in a fantasy psychotopia. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it’ll be great if we ever get it finished.”

“I’m sure that it will, with you two at the helm.” It wasn’t just a polite platitude Belle could tell that he really meant it, and something in her heart turned a somersault at his words.

She turned back to the racks of comics before she could do something that she regretted, hoping that Mr Gold wouldn’t notice her blush. She grabbed the latest Harley Quinn for herself and a new Thor for Neal, holding it out to Mr Gold.

“That’s one of the ones Neal’s reading at the moment,” she said. “After the morning that he’s had, I’m sure that he’d be glad to see it.”

Mr Gold nodded, picking up on the unspoken suggestion as he took the comic from her. “Thank you, Miss French.”

“It’s Belle, really.”

Mr Gold shook his head. “Only if you call me Andrew.”

Belle was about to protest that she couldn’t do that, that he was her friend’s dad and she needed to address him with the appropriate level of respect, but something stopped her. They were both adults after all, and on an equal footing. And he had offered her his first name, so presumably he was fine with her using it.

“Ok… Andrew.”

It didn’t feel as weird as she thought it might, and she was rewarded with his shy little smile again.

“Thank you, Belle.”

She watched him go over to the cash desk, where Mulan immediately started regaling him with the best reading order for the series if he wanted to get into it himself, and Belle had to take a moment to take stock of what had just happened.

She was on first name terms with Neal’s dad now. They’d definitely turned a corner in their relationship, and if she wasn’t very much mistaken, then he’d definitely wanted to turn that corner with her.

What on earth would Neal think?

Forget Neal, well, for the next couple of hours at least. She could deal with him when the time came, and if he was her best friend then he might be weirded out for a couple of weeks but would hopefully come around to the idea, and honestly, nothing might come of it after all.

Belle really hoped that it would, though.

Her stomach gave an aptly timed growl, reminding her of the other object of their trip out today, and she hurried to pay for her own title, steering the now somewhat overwhelmed Andrew away from Mulan and out into the street.

“Sushi?” she asked hopefully. Andrew nodded.

“It’s certainly a day of new experiences, that’s for sure.”

“Mulan’s harmless really. She just wants to spread her passion around.”

Belle and Neal’s favourite sushi restaurant was only round the corner from the comic store, a little hole in the wall place that was all but hidden away unless you knew where to look for it. Belle was happy to take charge, ordering all of her favourites and the usual things that she would start beginners with, and the talk turned back to the nebulous Alice idea whilst they waited for their food to arrive, with hilarity ensuing as Belle tried to teach Andrew how to hold chopsticks properly.

It was only when she was holding her fingers over his on the slim wood to adjust his grip that she came to a frightening realisation.

They were basically on a date.

She paused for a moment, letting her head get around it, weighing up the pros and cons. On the one hand, Neal was probably going to kill her, but on the other hand, she really couldn’t bring herself to care. She was having a good time, and even if this was the last time she saw Andrew, she wouldn’t regret it. She didn’t even regret it when Neal called, breaking up the moment.

“Hi Belle, it’s all over now, thank God. Where are you?”

“Hi Neal. We’re in Kokoro. How did it go?”

“It was fine, I don’t get the result till Monday… Wait, did you say that you were in Kokoro?”

“Yes.”

“With my dad?”

“Yes.”

“My dad is eating sushi?”

“Well, he’s attempting to, his chopstick skills need honing.”

“I…” There was a stunned silence at the other end of the phone for a long time. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to see this to believe it.”

Belle just laughed as Neal hung up. Knowing that their little moment would be over soon, she raised her cup of tea to Andrew’s in a toast.

“To discovering new things.”

“Yes.” He paused. “Thank you, Belle. I’ve had an unusual, but very pleasant, morning, and I can’t fault the company.”

Belle smiled. “Thank you. The same goes for me.”

It was an open invitation for the both of them, the knowledge that they had enjoyed spending time together without Neal, and they would take the opportunity to do it again some time.

She had to grin as she saw Neal staring at them from outside the restaurant, and she waved. Only time would tell, but she was very confident that something could happen from this.

#rumbelle fic #A Monthly Rumbelling #rumbelle #Belle French #Mr Gold #first date (ish)#meet cute #college #Fic: Of Comic Books and Sushi

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lichlover · 6 years

Text

it is the nature of dreams to end

The rules of Fate are as follows: Soulmates are born with each other’s last words on their bodies. When they find each other, they know, as simply and intrinsically as a law of the universe itself.

In this world, there might just be an exception.

In another world, there are no exceptions.

“Have you ever looked?” Taako asks him.

They’re sitting across from each other at a restaurant just pretentious enough to suit their tastes, picking over some sparse-looking appetizers and sharing the odd critique. Right now, it’s the garnishes, feathery and orange and vaguely tentacle-shaped (which, of course, had spurred immediate teasing as soon as Kravitz made the mistake of pointing it out). They sit unsettlingly at the corner of Kravitz’s plate as he pushes his fork into an oddly hued fruit slice, although the prospect is abandoned when Taako speaks. His eyes don’t quite meet Kravitz’s. They’re trained on the space beneath, singling out each thin eyelash one by one. There’s nothing in his voice to suggest anything other than a casual curiosity as he says, “Y’know. At somebody else’s, I mean.”

There’s nothing casual about the question itself, and they both know that, but Kravitz keeps his tone offhand as he says, “A couple times. You?”

“Once,” says Taako, and then, “just for kicks. We were drunk and getting super morbid, I think. That was, uh… that was it.”

“Huh,” is all Kravitz says. Their conversation falters as the waiter arrives with their entrées, and he takes a sip from the wine they’d decided on solely for its absurd price. It’s nowhere near as good as anything of that expense should be.

He’s grown comfortable in their silence, which is something he never supposed he’d do with anyone—then again, this isn’t the first time Taako’s shaken up his entire world. Even this, their first date night in the aftermath of Story and Song, is almost too far-fetched to believe if he thinks about it too much. (Because if he thinks about it, he thinks about how there is no day and night in the astral plane; only the Raven Queen’s enormous sundial casting a shadow where there should be none.)

And yet here they are, passing the salt without having to ask; making fun of the waiter’s absurdly long coattails; coming up with stories about the patrons around them. They’ve decided that the couple opposite them is a pair of long-lost lovers separated by wartime (Kravitz’s idea) and their differing opinions on whether pineapple belongs on pizza (Taako’s, which he’d proposed while looking Kravitz directly in the eye). Every so often Taako tips his chair back on two legs and breaks into light, ridiculous laughter, or recounts a story to Kravitz just above socially acceptable volume, and earns them the critical stares of the lovers, among others. Kravitz can’t bring himself to give a damn.

He’s idling in the residual quiet, wondering exactly how overzealous garnishes are allowed to be, when Taako says, “I wanna make a pact.”

Kravitz pauses with a forkful of entrée halfway to his mouth. “Oh?”

Taako’s gaze ricochets off his and hits the ceiling, which is when Kravitz knows this is serious. “Oh, y’know,” he says airily, gesturing with a glass dangerously full of wine. “Something—iunno, pact makes it sound really—real serious. Not what I meant. Just, uh, that we don’t look. Not until we’re ready.”

If we make it that far. It goes unsaid, but they acknowledge it without a word.

After a pause, Kravitz says, “You know, it’s funny that—well, whoever mine was, they’re long gone, obviously.”

“Yeah,” says Taako, and reaches for his wineglass. “Ain’t that a trip?”

(He remembers sitting in a classroom, listening to a teacher speak in the native cadence of their region because back then, Common was taught as a secondary language.

“Does everyone know what soulmates are?” she says.

The girl next to Kravitz raises her hand. She has long hair and tapered ears and has lived for about as long as his mother and father. “Someone you spend your whole life with,” she says.

The teacher nods. “Most of you have words on your arm,” she continues. “If you do, it means you have a soulmate, that person who you’ll spend the rest of your life with.”

“That means you’re gonna fall in love,” someone whispers behind him, and the classroom breaks into nervous giggling and a few disgusted squeals.

“No,” says the teacher, with a smile twitching at her lips. “Not necessarily. They might just be your best friend forever, and you’ll still be soulmates. Now, who can tell me what those words mean?”

Kravitz raises his hand. “They’re your soulmate’s last words to you,” he says, because he’s heard it from the priestesses at the Temple of the Raven Queen, who tell him it’s not something he has to worry about just yet. The concept of last words to him is nebulous at best, because words don’t end, as far as he knows. He supposes he’ll find out when he’s older.

At the head of the classroom, the teacher nods again, this time in his direction. “It’s a very special thing,” she says, “because Fate is trusting us to find our soulmates on our own. If those words are your soulmate’s last, you’re not going to know until then, right? So you need to treasure every moment you have with the people in your life. Put your faith in yourself, and sooner or later, the words won’t matter. You’ll know.”)

Nearly a month after that night, Taako pushes Kravitz back against the wall of their lavish bedroom and kisses him so hard he sees stars. Kravitz’s hands slide through Taako’s hair and tug at his scalp, prompting a low moan that he feels against his spine, and in the hollow of his stomach, and everywhere. He curls his hands around Taako’s hips and tugs him closer, because they can never be close enough—because his heart is throbbing and his breath is stuttering in his throat, and it might be because Kravitz’s body is out of practice, but it also might be because of Taako. If so, this is a thing he’s going to have to get used to. (He’s perfectly alright with that.)

The moment envelops him and blurs the world around him into a haze of color and heat, and he thinks Taako might have said something, but it immediately falls victim to his fogged-up brain. And then Taako steels himself against him and pulls away, lips parted and gaze half-lidded as he meets Kravitz’s eyes.

“Don’t—don’t make a big deal, okay?” he says, and his voice is satisfyingly hoarse as it skirts Kravitz’s jaw in a rush of hot air. “But I think—I think, uh—I think I’m ready.”

“Oh,” says Kravitz, softly. “You sure?”

“Yes, I—” He scoffs, which is his go-to move to cover a break in his voice. Kravitz doesn’t say anything. “Of course.”

It’s just as casual as his question from so many weeks before, but Taako’s ears are pulled almost flat against his head. Kravitz reaches up and thumbs over his cheek, and with a pleased little rumble, Taako leans into the touch.

“Only if you’re sure,” he murmurs.

Taako looks at him steadily. “I’m sure, Kravitz.”

“Okay, then. I guess, uh…” Somehow he’d expected this moment to come with more fanfare. In the past, there was always an aspect of pomp and circumstance—some grand gesture, a proposal, a long and thoroughly emotional conversation. (And yet this fits them better than anything Kravitz could imagine.) “On three?”

“On three,” Taako agrees.

Kravitz starts to say, “One, two—” just as Taako says, “Three, two—” and then, “Whoops, shit.” He titters, bright and full of anxiety, and shifts his weight where they stand. “Uh, you count.”

“Taako, are you sure you’re—”

Taako yanks up his sleeve, and without thinking, Kravitz does the same. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, and when they do, he can barely make out the tiny words printed on Taako’s forearm. What tumbles from his mouth, absent any sort of a filter, is, “It’s in Common.”

“Really? Elvish for ch’boy.” He rattles off the familiarly melodic phrase with ease. “Kinda saw it and thought, damn, that’s—that’s just a cop out, universe didn’t even try with that one. Alright, c’mere, I can’t fuckin’ see.”

Kravitz wants to say something. He doesn’t, because his mind goes blank as Taako snatches his wrist and pulls it close to his face. He doesn’t and he regrets it as soon as Taako says, in the smallest voice he’s ever heard from him, “Oh.”

The silence between them hangs heavier and more uncomfortable than ever before.

“Well, that’s—that’s funny, huh?” he says, at last. “What’re the odds?”

“Pretty good, I expect. I mean, I love you isn’t exactly a weird thing to say to your soulmate.”

“Neither is, uh… I love you too,” says Taako. His ears start to loosen and relax back into their neutral positions. “Okay, well, uh… cool. Now we know.”

Kravitz takes a deep and entirely unnecessary breath. “Now we know.”

His boyfriend sighs, pushing the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Well, fucking hell, that was a real mood killer, wasn’t it? Leave it to my dumb ass.” He leans forward, into Kravitz’s chest, flicking his ear against the tailored lines of Kravitz’s jacket. “Gods damn it. Not gonna lie, I was really—super lookin’ forward to getting laid tonight.”

“That’s obvious enough,” Kravitz teases, and Taako’s ear swats his sternum.

“Shut the fuck up,” he mumbles. “Next—uh, next best thing, then. Fantasy Chopped marathon?”

“With homemade popcorn?”

“You’re such a spoiled brat,” he says, affectionately. “Maybe if you carry me to the family room, because ain’t no way Taako’s getting up from this.”

Kravitz raises an eyebrow. “Who’s the spoiled brat now?”

“What did I say? Shut up.”

(The first time he shows anyone is on a dare. It’s early summer, just as their final year of secondary school is winding to a close, and she’s sitting next to him on the swings. Where they go next won’t have any swings. Kravitz is savoring the moment.

The girl’s tapered ears flick as she says, “Bet you ten gold you won’t show me.”

Kravitz snorts. “You don’t have that kind of money.”

“Yeah?” She reaches into her pocket and retrieves a velvet pouch, then tugs on its drawstring. Kravitz just barely catches a glimpse of something warm and glittering before she yanks it shut again and stares him down. They’ve all grown a little apathetic, which he’s told is one of the developments of adolescence, but she’s mastered the art of expression without actually expressing anything. “I’m not a fuckin’ liar.”

“Where’d you even get that?”

“That’s for me to know,” she says, “and you to find out. Anyway, you won’t, because you’re not gonna show me.”

“Really?” says Kravitz. “You’re on. Ten gold says you won’t show me.”

The girl shrugs. “You first.”

He pulls up his sleeve and thrusts his forearm at her. She gives no indication of surprise other than a nearly imperceptible widening of her eyes, but that’s enough for Kravitz. “Ten gold,” he says. “I win!”

She keeps looking at his mark with a slightly critical furrow to her brow, and his heart unexpectedly leaps into his mouth. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she says. “That’s just really sappy.”

“Gross,” says Kravitz, with feeling. “Anyway, pay up.”

She shrugs again, rifles through the pouch, and picks ten coins out of it. Kravitz takes them with a triumphant grin and weighs them in his palm. “And I think you owe me another ten, right?”

She doesn’t say anything. Then, in a flash, she turns her arm to expose the underside and shoves her sleeve up, revealing the tiny set of words that sit darkly against her skin. Kravitz nearly falls off the swing. “What the hell! It was just ten gold!”

“My ten gold,” says the girl, and holds out her hand. “Looks like you’ve got just enough to pay me.”

He groans, and does, and can’t help but steal a glance at her mark as he sits forward. It’s scribed in the elegant whorls and Runic angles of Elvish, which he can read, of course; the half of his family that speaks it had made it a point to teach him as soon as possible.

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

“I dunno,” she says. “I’ll know, I guess.”

They sit in silence for a few moments, and then he says, “This wasn’t—uh, you weren’t—?”

“Dude, no,” says the girl. “You wish I was into guys.”

He smirks. “You wish I was into girls.”

She doesn’t respond, but her mouth twitches.)

The credits are rolling on their fourth episode. Next to him, tucked into Kravitz’s side, Taako’s eyelashes flutter as he shifts blearily and blinks at the light of their projector—Miller issue, of course, with a world saviors’ discount.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is thick with sleep. “ ’S… ’s really weird, ’bout the whole… soulmate thing.”

Kravitz’s gaze snaps to him, although he doesn’t look any more conscious than he’s been for the past half an hour. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Taako murmurs. “You said, uh… you said ’ey’re dead, right?”

“Who?”

“Your soulmate.”

“Dead and gone.” Kravitz gives a thin smile. “One of the perks of immortality, I’m afraid.”

Taako shifts again, burrowing into the crook of his arm. “Mm,” is all he says. “ ’S what I thought.”

Of course his soulmate is dead. Kravitz’s circumstances are nowhere near normal—he’s met Fate, luminous and ethereal and arm in arm with his Queen, and knows her jurisdiction no longer applies to him. His mark is a remnant of his former self; nothing more. (It’s the closest thing to cruelty he’d ever dare accuse the gods of.)

It is funny, in the sad way that these sorts of things are, because the odds of them bearing similar soulmarks are nothing special. The odds of them bearing similar soulmarks and meeting in the way they had, crossing planes to establish a rapport—those have to be astronomical. Kravitz has to admit it does sound a little like Fate at work.

But that doesn’t matter, he thinks, carding a hand through Taako’s hair and relishing the tiny purr he gets in return. His soulmate is dead, and besides, Taako isn’t the type to say I love you.

(Kravitz’s peers grow up and blossom into beautiful, spirited souls, chasing after each other and comparing last words, trading romanticisms like overpriced wares.

Compared to them, he dies young.)

Taako walks in while Kravitz is sitting at the piano, improvising a wandering melody to take his mind off the paperwork waiting for him at the office. Knowing Lup and Barry, about half of it has been (accidentally or not) burned to a crisp, and the rest is just missing altogether. He knows he’ll find it bookmarking large, ominous tomes that look like they belong at an attempted resurrection. Knowing Barry, he will admit, they probably do.

His fiancé sets an enormous box on the coffee table. Kravitz recognizes it, of course, overflowing with glossy wedding magazines and seating plans and invitation lists more intimidating than the attendees of the monthly ethereal plane poker night. He’s surveyed them all one too many times.

Still, that doesn’t keep him from halting the melody mid-crescendo to say, “What’s that for, love?”

“Looking for somethin’,” is Taako’s muttered response as he digs through the box, flinging aside outdated articles about seasonal color palettes. He gets up to his elbows, shouts, “Aha!” and pulls a bit of stationary out with a flourish. It’s accompanied by a thin layer of dust, which flies into the air and makes Kravitz sneeze.

“Taako,” he says, blinking tears out of his eyes. “What are you doing?”

Taako wags a finger at him. “Top-secret vows shit. Restricted access, my man. This—it’s gonna hit you like the Rockport Limited. Oops,” he interjects, and snickers. “Too soon. Anyway, you, uh… you dropping the L-bomb in yours?”

The question falls nonchalantly from Taako’s mouth and hits the carpet. Kravitz stares at it as he fishes for a response. “What happened to restricted access?” he says, and looks up, and Taako is fidgeting. He’s leaning from side to side and drumming out a rhythm on the stationary, which wobbles under his assault.

Something is wrong, or is about to be.

“Oh, uh—” He so rarely allows himself to show discomfort, even around Kravitz, who’s seen him at his worst and maddeningly best. Right then, Taako looks as if someone’s trapped him in his own skin. “Nothing. Nothing, it’s just, uh… I thought we should probably, uh. Avoid that.”

Kravitz’s defunct heart is ready to plummet until Taako holds up his forearm. The mark is in plain view, as it so often is when they’re together; they have very few secrets from each other, now. “Y’know,” he says, and offers Kravitz a placating, distinctly uneasy grin. “Just in case.”

“Just in case,” Kravitz echoes, and returns the smile as best he can. “That’s… that’s fine.”

“Yeah. Uh. Except it’s—fuck, Krav, it’s not.” Taako sighs and tries to push a hand through his hair, snags it in his braid, and curses under his breath. “We have the most ridiculous fuckin’ marks in the plane. And it’s not—I don’t—forget about actually saying the words for a sec, don’t you ever get paranoid?”

Kravitz blanches, not because the outburst is unexpected—spontaneity is kind of Taako’s thing—but because he’s talking like Kravitz has never thought about this. “Of course I do,” he says, and can’t keep the sharp edge from bleeding through his voice. “I don’t want to scare you, and honestly, I don’t want to scare myself, and if that means never saying the words, that’s just—that’s how it’s got to be.”

He expects Taako to shoot back with I never said I’d say them, or something along those lines. Instead, his fiancé says, “We should figure out some sorta alternative.”

“What?”

“Like an alternative, to—to the words. Y’know.” Taako’s fidgeting is getting worse. He’s starting to wrinkle the stationary between his fingers.

But the answer is so simple, so glaringly obvious, that Kravitz almost forgets to say it aloud. “That’s it.”

Taako stops short of tearing the paper in half. “That’s what?”

“That’s what we’ll use. You know.”

“You know,” he repeats. “And the other—uh, the other person would say…”

“I know,” says Kravitz.

He releases a shaky breath. “Yeah, okay. That works.”

The silence only lasts another few seconds before Taako crosses the space, turns on his heel, and leans back on the body of the piano. He’s almost completely turned away from Kravitz, but his ear is pulled back and set at a tiny decline, and the paper crumples softly in his hand as he says, “Way to, uh—way to overreact, huh? On—on my end, I mean?”

Kravitz raises an eyebrow, even though he knows Taako won’t be able to see it. He’s sure it’ll come through in his voice nonetheless. “You want to tell me you were overreacting, and I won’t, because you weren’t. Don’t do that to yourself.”

“Fuck off,” says Taako, by which Kravitz knows he means the opposite. “I was. Doesn’t even matter. I’m just—iunno, in a weird mood, I guess.”

After a certain point, Kravitz has decided, there’s no point in countering Taako’s objections. He just hums and turns his attention back to the keys; taps out a few short, high-flying stanzas from a piece he’d composed a few months back. The notes resurface easily in his mind, as do the sudden, staccato motifs and the unexpected changes in tempo. It’s all committed to memory, of course, which he supposes is appropriate. Taako, as he’d titled it, has always been unforgettable.

It does take a few moments, but as he follows a chord progression, Taako tips his head with feigned nonchalance. “That sounds familiar.”

“As it should,” Kravitz says, and continues to play.

He’s started to fall headlong into the music when Taako’s arms encircle his shoulders and his chin presses into Kravitz’s head. “Y’know something?” he says. “This soulmate shit is exhausting. I mean, we’re so—so fucked over in that regard. Yours is dead, mine’s probably in another plane—makes sense Fate would get it all tangled.”

From where it rests on Taako’s wrist, a finely woven, iridescent cuff heats up just enough for Kravitz to feel it through his shirt. His fiancé swears and shoots a glance at the ceiling. “No, uh… no shade, Lady Iz.”

Kravitz skims toward lower octaves, slipping into something richer and more languid, untitled. He closes his eyes against the melody and Taako’s warmth. “So we’re the exception to the rule. There’s always got to be one.”

“Says you, Mr. Law Enforcement.”

The astral plane won’t hold it against him for smiling at that. “Okay, I walked right into that.”

“Yeah, you did,” Taako murmurs, and presses a little closer, tucking his fingers into Kravitz’s lapels. “Anyway, you, uh… you’re right, my man. Doesn’t matter how strict you wanna be about it. There’s always gotta be an exception.”

(“I’m worried no one else will have me,” he says, and he says it so matter-of-factly, like he has always known it.

It says something about Kravitz that through the haze of wine and disbelief, with something like a heartbeat fluttering in his chest, he looks at Taako and thinks, I will, I will, I will.)

It’s in the heady, unfiltered seconds after their kiss, with petals fluttering around them and Taako’s veil snagging on Kravitz’s jacket, and the uproarious cheering of their family rising around them.

“Hey,” his husband—his husband—whispers. “You know?”

“Yes,” says Kravitz, breathless, because the world works in mysterious ways. “Yes, I know.”

(“So, like, here’s the deal,” Lup says.

She has a way of dominating the space that Kravitz isn’t quite used to, but feels like he should be. Whereas Taako dominates the room, Lup is the room. She makes it up with every fiber of her bright, enormous personality and, in this case, makes Kravitz feel rather like he’s standing next to a small sun. Her heels rest against their thick, colorful carpet as she says, “You’re gonna marry my brother, and that’s great. You’re also my boss, and that’s great! But neither of those two facts of the universe are going to keep me from fucking you up if you hurt him, at all, whatsoever. Capisce?”

“I—I understand,” says Kravitz, because there is no other acceptable answer.

“Great.” She folds her hands behind her head and fixes him with a radiant grin. “In that case, I think we’re gonna get along just great. ’Bout time Taako’s soulmate made him an honest man, am I right?”

Kravitz blinks. Another habit he’s picked up from the living. “Taako’s… soulmate.”

“Uh, yeah. No duh, Skeletor. You two seen yourselves lately? I mean, I get if you’re not into labels, I just gotta call ’em like I see ’em.” Lup smirks. “Oh, man. Soulmate. I just got that. You see? Too perfect.”

“We’re not…” It surges like an impulse in his throat and breaks off halfway past his lips. “You didn’t know we’re not—?”

Lup arches an eyebrow. “Not soulmates?”

“Well—well, no,” he says, hurriedly. “It’s not that—I mean, I love him, and everything, but that isn’t how this works. I’m a bounty hunter for the Raven Queen, and I have been for a long time, and I know my soulmate’s dead. They have to be. And Taako’s from a different plane, which means wherever his soulmate is, they’re definitely not here. And we’re okay with that. We’ve talked about it. I don’t, uh… I didn’t want to be presumptuous, I’m just surprised he’s never mentioned it to you before.”

Her silence is almost worse than Taako’s. It’s tense and contemplative and Kravitz rocks forward on the balls of his feet, debating over whether or not he should say something, or if he’s earned it at all.

“That’s… interesting,” she says, finally. “He, uh, he avoids talk about capital-E emotions like the plague, you know, so I guess I sort of assumed. But I do have to ask, Kravitz—you never considered the possibility that you two might be soulmates anyway? Regardless of all the crazy shit we’ve been through?”

“Soulmates are decided at birth,” says Kravitz. “That wouldn’t even be possible.”

Lup just shrugs. “Stranger things, Ghost Rider. Anyway, it’s none of my business. Taako makes his own decisions. He’s a competent—okay, no. He’s an adult. But that’s good enough for me.”

He looks at her. Unlike him, she hasn’t once dropped her gaze. “I don’t mean to pry, but are you and Barry…?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, before he can finish. “Absolutely.”

“When did you know?”

Her grin shifts into a softer, more sentimental smile. “Oh, man. Took me a hell of a lot longer than it should’ve. But it’s like they teach, right? You just kinda know when you know. And, uh, I will say, a half century of science and sexual tension doesn’t hurt.”

Kravitz does manage to muster a laugh at that, although it falls short and shallow in his chest. “I didn’t want to be nosy.”

“Nah, you’re cool.” Lup rolls her neck back, then levels her stare at him again. “You know something? It suits you two. This whole defying Fate thing. Not that I’m into rebelling against Her Majesty’s gal pal, but—you get the idea.”

“We’re not really rebelling against anything.” Kravitz glances at the ceiling and thinks perish the thought, just for good measure.

“Maybe,” says Lup. “Definitely six feet deep in denial, if you ask me.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” she chirps, and doesn’t say another word.)

With a telltale crackle of ozone, Taako’s glamour settles into place. Kravitz almost doesn’t notice, over the hiss of the stove and his radio, which sits on the countertop and plays a soft, upbeat melody, but he knows as soon as the hairs on the back of his neck curl.

Of course, he looks over when Taako spins on his heel, ladle dangling from one hand, and says, “How do I look?”

“Beautiful, of course,” says Kravitz, lightly. His hand is stalled over the handle of a kitchen knife, because they’ve both decided that his proficiency is with chopping vegetables and not much else. “Just as I would’ve answered five minutes ago.”

“Oh, we are so not getting into this today.” The doorbell sounds from across the house, and Taako sets down the ladle and nudges Kravitz. “Keep chopping. Try not to lop any fingers. But if you do, make it—make it, like, a cool thing, okay? ’Cause that would really be… yeah. I’ll be right back.”

He starts toward the doorway, and just like that, the glamour drops. Taako doesn’t seem to notice.

“Taako, your—”

“What? Oh.” He laughs uneasily. “Wouldja look—uh, look at that! Technical difficulties, just be a moment—”

Static electricity snaps and falters through the room. The edge of Kravitz’s knife rests on the cutting board as he watches. He’s nervous, and he’s not sure why. (He does know why. It’s because Taako is nervous, and by extension, Taako is volatile.)

“Fuckin’—” His husband exhales sharply and curls his hands into fists. “I swear this is—this is so weird, it won’t—”

The doorbell rings again, and Taako flinches like he’s been struck.

“It’s not fucking working,” he says. “The glamour.”

Magic is a fickle thing. Kravitz knows, in his case, one misplaced chord can transform a simple charm spell into a warped, inescapable thrall—nevermind what consequences apply right here, right now. He steps forward as Taako’s knuckles whiten. “Have you considered you don’t—”

“Oh, no,” Taako snaps, holding out a finger. “No, I’m gonna—gonna shut that shit down right now, because yes, I fucking need it, Krav, no questions asked. Now shut up and just—fucking help me get this thing working, alright?”

The silence that follows is broken only by the doorbell ringing a third time. Taako sucks in a breath and jerks his head towards the entryway, and it breaks off mid-chime.

“Figures,” he mutters. “Fuckin’… Silence works just fine, just peachy, but when it’s the one thing that matters…”

“Taako, I think you just need to give yourself a moment, alright? You’re nervous about this, that’s okay—”

He scoffs. “Nervous about a family dinner. Yeah, okay, sure. That—that checks out.”

“Your first family dinner, with people you care about. You do know this is the sort of thing that people get nervous about, right? You know how completely normal this is?”

“Normal,” says Taako. “Now you’re just trying to insult me.” But his hands uncurl and hang loosely at his sides, and his breath evens, and the air thickens. Magic congeals around Taako, much slower than it should, and the glamour settles back into place.

“Finally,” he whispers, just as something hits the wall with a bone-rattling crash.

Kravitz and Taako whirl around as one, and through the entryway comes a faint but aggravated shouting. “We’re coming!” someone yells. “Hang in there, you two!”

“You—you fucking—that’s my door, Magnus, are you serious—”

“You weren’t answering—”

“I was in the middle of something—”

Taako storms into the living room, whipping out his wand and brandishing it at a dust-coated, sheepish-looking Magnus. He glances back at Kravitz only once, just briefly enough to be altogether innocuous. We’re gonna forget this ever happened.

Kravitz gets the message.

(“I’m worried about him,” says Kravitz, and it sounds like a confessional. Everything does in the presence of a goddess.

YOU LOVE HIM, says the Raven Queen, Spinner of Fate and Patron of Winter, Hellraiser of Shadowfell. IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE.

The astral plane is quiet. He suspects it’s something about her domain; the way she can command it from thousands of souls with a cursory glance. For lack of better phrasing, she is quieting the dead for him. And he knows it’s her way of being helpful, in the only way a divine entity can be, but his words are weighing too heavily in the silence.

“He just—it’s little things, but he struggles sometimes and he won’t let me help. At first I thought they were just quirks, but they’re clearly… not.” Kravitz releases a breath that’s somehow trapped itself in his chest. There is no oxygen here. “And he brushes them off like they’re nothing, and I feel like I just have to stand there and—and put up with it. I don’t want to do that, my Queen, but there’s nothing else I can do. There’s nothing else he’ll let me do.”

HE HAS LED MANY UNCONVENTIONAL LIVES.

Kravitz gives a humorless chuckle. “That’s for sure.”

HAVE YOU… PROPOSED A SHARING OF EMOTIONS? The Raven Queen’s feathers shift as she peers thoughtfully down at him. Her stare is an awe-inspiring thing when it catches unruly souls in its grasp, but its fixation on him feels more like a spotlight he can’t escape. CLEAR THE AIR, AS THE MORTALS SAY? IF YOUR SOULS ARE DISHARMONIC—

“That’s irrelevant, your Eminence. We’re not soulmates.”

—SUCH IS MY OBSERVATION, she continues. YOU WOULD BE WISE TO TAKE IT INTO ACCOUNT.

He sighs. Another unnecessary indulgence. “I know. I… didn’t mean any disrespect.”

I KNOW, MY CHILD, she says, and her shadow over him is stark but momentary reprieve. SOMETHING ELSE IS TROUBLING YOU. I AM… IN YOUR PRESENCE, IF YOU WOULD CARE TO SPEAK ABOUT IT.

Kravitz looks past her. He looks to the Sea, which is bright and tossed by non-existent wind. The souls are restless, he thinks. Points of light intersect and mingle under the waves.

“How do soulmates find each other?” he says. “After they die, I mean.”

She tips her head. THAT IS AN UNUSUAL QUERY. AND UNRELATED TO YOUR PERSONAL LIFE. WHY DO YOU ASK?

“I’m just curious,” says Kravitz, and he is.

The Raven Queen hums, low and resonant, and the note sends a ripple cascading outward into the Sea. SOMETIMES THEY DO. SOMETIMES THEY DO NOT. FATE AND DEATH MAY WORK HAND IN HAND… Her eyes glow dimly with amusement. BUT ONE DOES NOT HAVE PROVIDENCE OVER THE OTHER.

The Sea glimmers and ebbs, and Kravitz watches it, picking out the waves capped with light and the souls that hang over them like stars. He imagines Taako’s soul, radiant, outshining the others around it. He imagines it descending into the water and straining for the peak of each wave. He imagines it fading, flickering, and letting gravity drag it down.

They call the seafloor Oblivion, and Kravitz has never seen it.

“So they just spend years alone,” he says, distantly. “Just… forever searching.”

I WOULD NOT SAY THAT, the Raven Queen muses. SOULS ARE NEVER ALONE IN THE SEA.

“But you have to admit.” A wave chases after the toe of Kravitz’s boot, and he takes an inadvertent step back. “It—it seems like a terribly lonely thing.”

He knows when she looks at him, because a chill settles across the back of his neck. It’s almost comforting.

YES, she says. YES, I SUPPOSE IT DOES.)

“Ango!” Magnus’s voice booms across the table and nearly knocks the plate of mashed potatoes from Barry’s hands. “How’s nerd school for nerds?”

From where he sits sandwiched between Taako and Lup—an altogether dangerous place to be in any situation—Angus McDonald pushes up his glasses and says, “Junior high school education isn’t nerdy, sir! But it’s, um, it’s going good! We just started our unit on soulmate lore.”

Immediately the room explodes into questions and crosstalk. Family dinners, as Kravitz has learned, tend to do as such, particularly when six of the eight people at the table each have roughly a hundred different stories to tell. Merle scoffs. “Why’re they teaching kids about that shit? What’s the point?”

“Okay, you—you know they teach that as—as early as elementary school, d-did you not have the basic lessons, or something?”

He shoots a guilty grin at Davenport, whose eyebrows are set in an impressive arc. “I, uh… I played hooky a lot as a kid. ’S not important. Kiddos got no business learning about that soulmate nonsense at this age. Now, what they really need is a good botany lesson—”

“Lalalalala!” Magnus plugs his ears just as Lup withdraws her wand. Kravitz honestly can’t tell if she’s being serious or not. Mercifully, either way, Merle shrugs and falls silent.

Taako catches Kravitz’s eye and gives an exaggerated shudder, and he bites back a laugh. “Anyway,” his husband says, “setting aside that—whatever the fuck that was, Agnes, how’s that going? You make any ’a the teachers cry yet?”

“No, sir, I’d prefer not to do that. It’s pretty interesting, actually!” Angus launches into an explanation of soulmates in mythology, and Merle heaves a very obvious sigh, but that doesn’t change the fact that the entire table quiets down to listen. Taako himself is putting a fair amount of work into acting like he’s not paying attention, even though his ears are just noticeably quirked and twitching toward the sound of Angus’s voice. It’s a rare and undeniably endearing thing.

“Y’know, funny thing,” says Barry, when Angus pauses for breath. “There was this case awhile back—this experiment, where a, uh, an arcanist wanted to try and bring back his soulmate from the other side, right? And he actually managed to do it—and, uh, the soulmate was just… mute. Turns out that was a consequence of Fate, right? Couldn’t violate the last-words policy. So that didn’t last very long. But get this! He evaded the authorities long enough to write a paper on his work, and it’s just—oh my gosh, it’s fascinating. I’d recommend the read. Super heavy, but super worth it.”

“Babe,” says Lup, sounding very much like she’s holding back a fit of laughter, just as Kravitz says, “That was definitely illegal—where did you even get that paper?”

Barry suddenly becomes extremely occupied with his mashed potatoes. “I, uh… research. Anti-necromantic research,” he adds hastily, as Kravitz’s eyebrow creeps upward. Lup claps a hand over her mouth to stifle her snickering.

“Anyway,” he continues, thoroughly flustered. “It went into all this detail about how Fate and Death are governed by different sets of rules, and based on what his—uh, what his findings yielded, he figured if the laws of Death can be broken, logically, the laws of Fate can too, right? Doesn’t mean anything’s gonna stick, but there’s gotta be a way to game the system. And soulmates are kinda the most accessible part of that system, so… if there’s a way, it’s through studying them.”

Taako stifles an extremely fake yawn, but Angus looks intrigued, which sets off several alarm bells in Kravitz’s brain. He hopes to goddess the boy’s interest is in soulmates and not necromancy. “That is very interesting! All, of course, um—all hypothetically, right?”

May life, Death, and Fate herself bless Angus McDonald. Barry almost chokes on his mashed potatoes. “Uh—yeah. Absolutely.”

“That’s really something,” Lup says, and she says it so casually, even though Kravitz happens to know she has never been casual in her undeath. “Breaking the laws of Fate and all that. Makes you wonder if it’s already been done, huh?”

And then she glances at him. Fleeting, innocent; anyone looking on wouldn’t think anything of it at all, but that’s the point. It’s a silent, unspoken something that passes between them. He knows exactly what she means.

“Somehow,” he says, to no one in particular, “I don’t think it has.”

(The scene is a familiar one: they’re sitting on the couch, and the projector is winding, and they’re both a little tipsy on Taako™ brand champagne. They’ve just finished watching a film that felt far less sad than it was supposed to be, mostly because Taako had kept leaning in and cracking jokes about the over-acted dialogue, and they’d both ended up in stitches at the emotional climax. A young woman stands on the beach, watching the sunrise, as the credits start to roll.

“Aw, beans,” Taako drawls, half-submerged in blankets. “That was—that was a real bummer, huh?”

“Real bummer,” Kravitz murmurs. The room tilts around him in a silvery haze, and he rests his head gently against the back of the couch and stares up at the dappled ceiling.

His husband sighs and shifts against him as the film’s soundtrack plays softly in the background. The woman is still watching the sun rise. “Y’know something?” he says. “I don’ get why people make shit like this. ’S just… depressing as hell. No fun. Makes no sense.”

“People tell stories about the things that scare them, I suppose.” There are legends of Death that claim it can wear any face it wishes, that the one you love the most will be the one who takes your mortal soul. He’d scoffed at that—the idea that somehow, Death is responsible for the fears and insecurities of the living.

“Yeah,” Taako grumbles, “ ’n that makes no sense. Like, if you’re afraid of somethin’, you don’ talk about it, right? Like—like forgetting, or, uh, bein’ alone or some shit—”

He falls unexpectedly silent. Still clinging to a thin layer of consciousness, Kravitz tilts his head to look over at Taako.

“ ’S stupid,” he finishes, at last.

“It’s not stupid.”

“Fuck’s sake, lemme be drunk ’n unhappy for once, okay?” Taako slouches further into the blankets, effectively trapping his ears between a mass of hair and the layers around him. It occurs to Kravitz that he could be doing that to immobilize them. “Lemme just—mm, oh, life sucks, shit is whack, Fate fuckin’ hates us and we’re all gonna die someday.”

He goes quiet again. Kravitz realizes he can only argue two of those points, and he’s pretty sure Taako doesn’t want him to.

So he lets his eyes unfocus and his gaze drift again to the ceiling, and his eyelids are starting to flutter when Taako says, “You know—uh, you know when I’m gonna die, right?”

As sudden as he can be under the influence of some very potent champagne, Kravitz looks over at Taako once more. “Where did that come from?”

“Just thinkin’. I mean, that’s kinda your job, so I just—you never said anything,” he says, like he can detect the anxiety bubbling in Kravitz’s stomach. “I put the pieces—assembled that puzzle m’self. Makes sense.”

“Well—I don’t, actually,” says Kravitz. “I could know if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.”

Taako looks at him, through the honeyed glaze over his eyes and past the slant of his lower lip.

“Why?” he says.)

One by one, the IPRE dies.

It’s hard not to blame Fate for the way they go, which is to say, just far enough apart to let the wounds heal before someone else’s passing tears them open again.

Kravitz spends one night in the astral plane offices.

He tells Lup he’s working late, and she raises an eyebrow at him, but she doesn’t call him out on it. Instead she says, “It’s been a month.”

“I think today was a bad day.”

“I could drop in and see what’s up—”

“No, I think he wants some time to himself. Nothing against you, of course, he’s just been… mulling over the unfairness of it all. Seeing one of us would probably drive that home, honestly.”

Lup hums. “Yeah, I guess having a reaper swing by during your existential crisis would be pretty rough, huh?”

When Kravitz doesn’t react, she reaches across the desk and nudges him. “Taako needs his space to grieve. You know that. Angus meant a hell of a lot to him—I mean, he meant a lot to everybody, but they were real close. It’s just… it’s hard.”

“What’s hard,” says Kravitz, a little sharper than he means to, “is trying to acknowledge that this isn’t my fault. Death has a mandate, and we fulfilled that, but that doesn’t change the fact that I took Angus’s soul. And everyone else he cares about, if they’re not still living. He’s taking it personal, Lup. I know it’s irrational, and he knows it’s irrational, but grief always is. There’s nothing I can do here other than my job, and it—it’s awful.”

He exhales shakily and remembers seconds too late there’s no reason for him to do so. Lup looks at him and says, “You love him a lot, huh?”

“Of course I do, but that’s not—that’s not the point.”

A look of pure incredulity passes over Lup’s face. “I think it’s exactly the point, Kravitz. You know he’s terrified of being alone, and honestly, it’s gotta suck knowing you’re gonna be the last man standing. Alive,” she adds, as Kravitz opens his mouth to object. “I don’t care how much free access we get around here, this is still hella different from living. Taako’s got a ways to go, and, honestly… I mean, I’m gonna be real for a second, I’m not gonna stick around until he beefs it.”

Kravitz’s head snaps up from where he’d been examining the whorls in his desk. “You’re—”

“Barry and I,” says Lup, and an exhausted smile tugs at her lips. “Fuck it, we were gonna wait to say something, but we’re setting a retirement date. Not anytime soon, but… yeah. That’s happening.”

“Her Eminence—”

She waves her hand. “We cleared it with R.Q. She figures by then we’ll have fulfilled our debt, anyway. We’re just… we’re tired. It’s been awhile out here, and immortality kinda drags when you know everybody else is gonna kick it.”

Something must have changed in Kravitz’s expression, because Lup laughs a little helplessly and rolls her eyes. “Look who I’m talking to. Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t spill the beans to anyone else, because we’re planning on announcing it in our own time. And if Taako gets pissed after that, you can tell him I told you to keep quiet. Let him be mad at me instead.”

“Is this… I mean, part of this is about him, right?”

Lup shrugs, but something clouds over in her eyes. “When Barry and I talked it out, we just kinda acknowledged that as long as I’m around, Taako won’t go anywhere. He’d outrun Death to make sure he doesn’t go before I go. So I guess this is my way of helping him make the smart decision, y’know? It’s not the only reason, but I just… I want him to go knowing he’ll see me on the other side.”

Kravitz can’t acknowledge that. He can barely reply to it, because he’s just realized how very much he wants that for himself.

He wants to see Taako on the other side. Not as an emissary, or whatever other role he’ll be serving after so many centuries. He wants to be there, when the rift breaks through the space between planes, in his purest form. (And, rather selfishly, he wants to see Taako’s soul without the age-old energies that break apart and ripple around it; the layers of interdimensional wear and tear. He knows it will be beautiful in a way neither of them understand.)

So instead he says, “I can’t speak for him.”

“Good answer,” says Lup, and shoots him a waifish smile. “Anyway, about this whole thing—just give him some time, okay? What you’ve got going here, you could power the fuckin’ Bond Engine with it. Can’t break the stuff of Fate.”

“Nice try,” says Kravitz. “We’re not soulmates.”

“Didn’t say that.” She cocks her head and says, “Funny thing, isn’t it? This whole soulmates, not-soulmates thing is in direct contradiction with the laws of Fate. Logically, you two should know by now, right? But you can’t seem to make up your minds, and that kinda fucks up the universe’s whole deal.”

“We have made up our minds. I don’t know where you’re getting this from, but I can promise you we both know. There’s no reason to think otherwise, anyway.”

Lup just hums again. “Nobody’s that adamant over stuff they really believe, babe.”

“I don’t have to believe it,” says Kravitz, verging on knife’s edge frustration. “I know it.”

She rolls her shoulders and pins him under another powerful stare. It demands the truth from him and, more strikingly, makes him feel as if he’s not telling it. “Y’know something?” is all she says. “For once, I think you do.”

(“It’s not my right,” Kravitz replies. “I don’t deserve that kind of… leverage over you.”

Taako’s name is somewhere in his ledger. That page will go untouched until the time comes.

“And—you know,” he adds, because he can.

Taako doesn’t drop his gaze as he says, “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”)

It’s a Sunday.

More specifically, it’s a Sunday morning that drips with sunlight and warmth. The sky is a vibrant, impossible blue, like an ocean hanging over Faerûn, clear and depthless for as far as the eye can see. It is silent and whole and perfect, unbroken.

They don’t sleep in.

Taako makes beignets. They’re light and airy and they taste like home, and Kravitz loads their accompanying coffee with vanilla and caramel and whipped cream. As these things do, the newspaper falls on their doorstep, and they read it over breakfast and make fun of the headlines. (One of them reads TAAKO THE WIZARD HOSTS HOTTEST DEPARTURE PARTY IN FAERÛN! and they have to smile over the simplicity of the word departure; like today is the start of a grand continental tour or an interplanar voyage.) The gramophone spins through a drowsy, early-morning melody in the background.

They move through it like a dream—like a languid, sun-soaked dream that Kravitz never wants to wake up from.

At approximately quarter past ten, they stand facing each other in the living room.

The room is too large. It isn’t large enough. A wagon rumbles by and disturbs the cobblestones outside their flat, and Kravitz feels the vibrations shoot up his spine and come to rest in his fingertips. He looms over Taako, too tall for his own frame, cutting a deathly dark shadow through the light that falls through their window. He’s out of place in the home they’ve owned for centuries, and there’s nowhere for him to go but forward.

He does. He takes a step, and Taako flinches. The guilt that immediately drops across his face makes it obvious that he hates himself for it, and Kravitz hates himself, too.

“Okay—uh, fuck,” he says, with a shaky laugh. “Sorry, that—that was some dumbass, uh, shit. I’m fine. I’m fine. We both knew this would be rough, I’m—I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” says Kravitz, too quietly for his own voice.

“No, don’t—don’t pull that with me, I’m—”

“No, Taako, I know this for a fact. No one is fine when they’re about to die. It’s okay.”

Taako holds his gaze for a few brave seconds before his mouth twitches backward into a feral, visceral grimace. His shoulders are shaking, and Kravitz is sure it’s with the weight of emotion before he realizes it’s with the effort of keeping his ears still. With an awful release of tension, the ears drop and pull back, flattening against either side of Taako’s skull.

“Okay,” he says, “alright, you got me, I’m—I’m fuckin’ terrified.”

Kravitz’s heart jumpstarts, stutters, and drops immediately through his ribcage and into the floor, because Taako is telling the truth and there’s nothing worse he could have done. He’s shaking for real, now. His breath rattles in his throat as he says, “I’m—I’m real sorry, I didn’t want to make this any harder on you than it—than it already is—”

“Taako—”

“And I know Lup and—and Barry, they said it wasn’t, uh, anything worth getting worked up over, and—and all the rest of them, they’re gonna be there, and they’re—they’re chillin’, and it’s fine, it’s all cool beans over there in the astral plane, so I—I shouldn’t be, fuckin’, losing it, but here we are, I guess, y’know, this is my life now—”

“Taako—”

“Or—or death, I guess, ha, because, like—yeah, uh, I just—”

“Love, please.”

He breaks off and bites his lip.

Kravitz starts to take another step, and pauses, and when Taako nods, he crosses the full space and takes his husband gently by the shoulders.

“Tell me again what we said.”

Taako sucks in a shallow, shuddering breath. “It won’t hurt. It’ll be quick. I won’t be alone over there.”

“You’ll never be alone over there,” says Kravitz. “Never, ever, you understand?”

He nods, and another violent shiver passes through him and sinks through Kravitz’s chest. “I gotcha. I… I understand.”

They stand in silence for a moment, because there’s nothing else they can do. Taako shuffles forward, and without having to think about it, Kravitz pulls him into his arms. Even through the thickly tailored fabric, he can feel Taako’s fingernails digging into his jacket and pushing wrinkles into the surface. He doesn’t care. Right now, it’s the most wonderful sensation in this or any world.

“I’m ready,” comes the muffled whisper. “But I’m not ready. Y’know?”

“I know,” Kravitz murmurs, and holds Taako a little tighter, because he’s just realized that he’s not ready, either.

He hadn’t thought about himself before this moment, the one marked so clearly in his ledger, in the same elegant Celestial calligraphy as every other entry. (He doesn’t know who writes the ledger. No one does, but right now he hates them more than he hates anyone or anything else.) So he closes his eyes and focuses on the way Taako’s chest rises and falls against his, jumping and dropping off occasionally as his breath hitches. He rests his cheek in the subtly thinning hair that falls around Taako’s face and tries to impress upon his memory how perfectly his fingers fit into the angle of Taako’s waist. He breathes, too, and lets his exhale graze the crest of Taako’s ear. He breathes and he remembers the moment.

IT IS TIME, says the Raven Queen at the back of his mind, and Kravitz doesn’t realize he’s said it aloud until Taako steps back.

“Okay,” he rasps. “Let’s… let’s do this thing.”

“I’m going to summon my scythe,” says Kravitz, pretending that his heart hasn’t just broken into pieces, and that his every word is scattering them further to the winds. “What did we say, again?”

Taako looks him steadily in the eye and says, “It won’t hurt.”

“It won’t hurt,” Kravitz echoes, and the scythe materializes in his hand. He’s seeing it for the first time, now; seeing the polished handle and the perfectly curved blade, arcing towards a singular, interdimensionally sharpened point, and he understands the fear. He understands it because he fears it now more than he’s feared anything in his existence.

The Raven Queen’s magic ignites in the veins of his arm, pushing him gently to raise the blade. Taako follows it with his eyes, and then he says, “Wait.”

Kravitz is all too grateful for the interruption. “What is it? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” says Taako. “I love you.”

And the magic compels him, but not before Kravitz can say, like a well-worn reassurance, “I love you too.”

The scythe falls. It breaks Taako’s body into fine, brilliant threads of light, coming apart like an unraveled seam, and then Kravitz sees his soul. It’s beautiful, he thinks. It’s perfect, it’s poetry, and he thinks of it in simple verse, of how he will be able to recount the way reality unwinds itself for the small sun in their living room. He thinks of it so he will not have to watch how quickly the rift shimmers into existence, or how Taako’s soul is ensnared by its fickle gravity. He thinks of it so he will not have to watch when it leaves him.

He thinks of it so he will not have to think of the words engraved into his skin; and even more simply, on his heart: I love you. A defiance, a promise, a wish.

An impossibility.

#... you know ;)#the adventure zone #taz balance #taakitz #fic #mine

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blackwoolncrown · 6 years

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curious to hear your thoughts bc i think they're sharp, as a person still figuring out fandom. what do you think of the moral okayness of thorki (the ship)? they're brothers, but gods.... godly incest? at what point does "ship what you want" stop applying?

It’s not so much about where it stops applying. Understand that I actually never have said what people should or shouldn’t read- only that what a person chooses to focus on in general (and therefore including what you write, watch, or read) is indicative of something and in many cases of certain taboo* or violent material my heavy suggestion is that that something is ultimately meaningful.

It’s not ‘just’ fiction.

So like, me personally? I often don’t actually care what someone is into (with some logical exceptions), I care whether or not they’re aware of why, because often people would rather not inspect the why so they can keep enjoying problematic media (and also my actual Big Thing is I don’t approve of situations where someone engages in activity they are not fully aware of, because to me if you aren’t aware of the consequences or origins of your actions, you haven’t fully consented to what you’re doing and that makes me sad. Example: Do you smoke cigarettes? Fine! It’s your body; as long as you aren’t exposing non-smokers to second hand smoke, no one should have shit to say. But if you start smoking bc you believe that cigarettes aren’t actually bad for you and there’s no downsides, you haven’t fully consented and now I wish you either a) inspected your motives and actions or b) stopped).

Overall I suspect that many of the most vociferous defenders of ‘fiction is just fiction!’ are people whose interests often veer into what we often call taboo (I think that word is so ineffective) who don’t want to ask themselves why. My other general rule is that people are most doggedly defensive about what they get off to. There’s also the issue of people having already brought to question their fictive interests and instead of wanting to find out the answer, deciding There’s Nothing To See Here, Fiction Is Just Fiction! Or, on the cusp of identifying a maladaptive interest and feeling as if that’s an action of self-judgment, they identify with their fictive interest because to them judging it means judging themselves.

Ideally neither is necessary. You can just understand that you got into something at a previous time but you’ve grown past it, learned from it, and can walk away from it without shame. After all, it’s ideally just your business. All I’m saying is that you know what the fuck your business is, pardon my french, because people who don’t know themselves are….well, it’s an issue.So to answer your question, here’s another question: If Thor and Loki were not brothers, would you care as much? Imagine a situation in which Thor and Loki are not related, but still share a lusty rivalry. Is something missing? What is it? What about them being gods absolves, in your mind, the impact of their siblinghood?Often, something like sibling incest (which to me is, honestly, not my bag but obviously way less awful than parent/child due to a whole slew of issues with imbalance there) is exciting to people simply because either a) the incest is the barrier to love and in general barriers to love make ‘good’ stories because two people overcoming the bounds of a romantic limitation is a more moving story than two people who can love freely (bc we love suffering and strife! it seasons things, I guess lol) and the incest is just an easy yet huge barrier b) because we have a hard time working through something without sexualizing it and who could write or would want to read about two brothers’ having a heartfelt love/hate brotherhood? Very few people, apparently, because that’s not a valued interaction. Thus, add some fucking into the story and Thor and Loki can work out their antagonistic feelings without getting to the bottom of them because we imagine sex is an equalizer and a balm (it’s not, but I understand the idea has a huge place in erotic fiction and absolutely use it myself when I write for fun).That speaks, to me, of an issue (and I’m going to be specific here) with not really having the language or familiarity with the social concept of brotherly love to make a story about it and its struggles interesting. We don’t have the language and thus cannot conceive of brother/brother reconciliation without sex. And this again speaks of a larger issue our society has with sex and the huge void of emotionality between strangers and lovers (friendships, loyalty. non-sexual bonding? What’s that?). We cannot conceive of a way to intensify, for the sake of adult (in age, not nature) entertainment, something like siblinghood without using sex.

It’s just cheap writing.

On the other hand, the very real ramifications of this easy-route conflict writing is that it sexualizes and normalizes sibling incest (or other things in the case of other stories) and I think it’s incredibly callous to want to ignore the voices of SA victims in this regard. People like to retort that ‘well YOU might not be able to tell fiction from reality, but I can’ but here’s the thing: Your subconscious mind can’t. If your brain wholly knew that the fiction you were reading was Not-Reality the information would be irrelevant and would fail to produce an emotional response. The reason we are excited, aroused, sad, scared, angry, tense, etc during movies and books is because while we are focused on them our mind is interpreting the happenings as actual happenings. To the extent (!) that media ‘pulls you in’, your subconscious believes it, validates it, and signals responses accordingly. That’s why it’s entertaining.

I say this because something many fans of certain content don’t want to face is that the consumption and support of, and proximity to certain types of violent or taboo content starts to lessen your reaction to them. I’m not speaking as an outsider, here, and so I caution you and anyone else to second-guess the awareness of anyone who says ‘there’s no way that’s true!’. What you repeatedly experience becomes normal for you. This doesn’t apply as heavily with Thorki or similar ships bc of the conceptual complexity (it’s pretty far-removed) but there are certainly fetishes/ships where repeated exposure lessens your reaction to that concept in general. As if that doesn’t seem to be problem enough, since this is an issue of entertainment, this also means that a person seeks more of the content. After all, what fic fan reads just one story about their scandalous OTP? You need more, or more extreme versions. And I’m not talking out of my ass here- people for some reason love incest- it’s one of the top-searched terms on any adult media site for general consumption. On sites that it’s not, that’s only because the term itself is blacklisted and users use some other coded term. In the absence of pearl-clutching, we must recognize that smutty fiction and tube sites’ activities are largely the same. b/b m/s and f/d incest continue to draw attention and I honestly don’t know why.

And this is why I pay no mind to people who say that fiction has no effect on reality. Even if it didn’t, it arises from our reality. The real minds of real writers in the real world. And I’ve seen the results. I work with sex and fetishes- it’s my job. I know what people as a whole are into and I’m begging y’all: UNPACK THIS BAGGAGE. Soooo many fetishes are just maladaptive coping mechanisms, so talk of ‘fiction being just fiction’ are literally bullshit. Fetish, and the relative psychology of it, is my job, to the point that it’s also what I have to navigate to try and ensure my safety (by avoiding volatile fetishists) and income (my first job, for instance, was a porn artist, and by now I’m an adult content producer and prodomme). And again, many fetishes are the back end of intense or subconsciously formative moments in our lives. The attraction is not ‘the thing’, it is a thread us leading back to that moment, to learn from our experiences, to resolve past issues with the wiser perspective of our older selves.Again, there’s not much going on in terms of Thor/Loki here but on a wider scale there is. Often in fandom, for instance, it’s not really about the ship so much as the fetish. It’s disguised in the language of fandom, but people who have a bunch of incest ships are incest fetishists, full stop. There’s no difference in motive between them and the ~gross pervert guys~ reblogging porn gifs and adding incest prose to them. If geeks could more often find porn gifs that looked like their taboo OTP rest assured they’d do the same damn thing, most of them. Ficlovers like to act like their position is somehow more morally acceptable because there are no ‘real’ people involved like in porn, but whether or not a physical body is used to represent the characters/roles is a pedantic and nebulous distinction at best. Your interest is still your interest. And people are going to hate this, but it sounds so much like pedophiles on 4chan who say that their ‘fetish’ is okay because the characters aren’t real. Furries into cubs (not the gay dude kind but the baby animal kind) feel justified the same way because the figures are fantasy creatures. But they’re still expressly coded as the infantile versions of adult characters, and again, the motive is the same. I’m not saying ALL of these things are one to one, I’m saying it’s a similar logic: “This is a fantasy and as such it says nothing about me. It would only matter if I physically did it.” Which is dishonest and illogical bc one’s fantasies and interests arise out of their own minds. Porn consumption is a night map of the human social psyche. It’s not ‘nothing’.

Sure, most of those people would probably never touch a child, but that’s because the real world provides consequences the fantasy world doesn’t- not because they’re not interested. I know bc I’ve seen them say that themselves, many times. I was a 4chan teen. What was normal there would make a well-adjusted person puke. But I was maladaptive, impressionable and young at the time and it became normal for me. So many forms of incest, rape, pedophilia, bestiality etc became normal in the ‘shock makes things acceptable’ speed-posting culture of neverending offensiveness there. And that’s not just a 4chan thing. It’s a group anonymity thing. Any imageboard vet can tell you that. When you’re in the anonymous group, what the group does is what you do, and you go along with it, continuously being desensitized until you suddenly go WTF or…keep going. And having seen these arguments before, I’m wary of those who go to battle on the idea of all erotic fiction being totally beyond judgement, because often what is going on is that people whose interests should be judged, at the very least by themselves, argue against that so that there are other people who feel the same way who don’t realize they’ve been manipulated to cloak the offenders in their community.

But I digress.

Since my feelings on Killmonger fans* started this, I’ll offer an example of my own: I think AoU Ultron is hot. But I don’t actually want to fuck him. I wouldn’t be interested in any ‘reader x Ultron’ narratives. Why? Because despite my love for and identification with many villains (usually bc of their victim’s rage and queer coding which always leaves them far cooler and better dressed than the hero) and my love for robots, I can’t ignore that Ultron is a heartless, people-hating, death-machine. He has no interest in love, doesn’t care about anyone, and if he bothered to fuck a person (I fucking doubt it) he’d gladly fuck them apart. And since I love myself, I don’t find that appealing. If I found the idea of being fucked to death by a robot arousing, that says something about how I feel about my existence. I know bc I am strangely fascinated by the idea of armageddon (another reason Ultron appealed to me). Spoilers: it’s just easier to feel like you want the whole world to end when you’re so certain there’s no other solution and you yourself are afraid of the emotional responsibility of weathering the world and social interactions. When you love yourself and other people, the idea of seeing the world burn stops being so entrancing. So sure it’s an enthralling literary concept. Is it something I dedicate my blog to or obsess over?

No.

Other things I’ve examined- my love for robots. Do I find myself attracted to robots because they are humanoids you can objectify free of moral conflict? No, and that sucks for me bc that’s why most people like them and that affects the kind of adult media made about them (can you tell im bitter), it’s because I find humanoid robots to be something I can identify with, I see them as symbolically human, and relating to them is, to me, acknowledging that a human is also a construct with both programming and a will of its own it uses to explore and often fight that programming. My attraction to the concept of an automaton stems from my early realization that my own body is but a fantastic collection of parts, electric signals, programmed genetic data, pulleys and fuel. Amazing! Now that I know that, have I stopped consuming robot fetish media? Well yes but only because I can’t find any I like…but in general, no. I’m not ashamed of my attraction, I’ve unpacked it, faced it, and go on about my life. It actually did lessen the obsession, though.

So, to stay on point, sibling incest as a concept is IMO not ‘wrong’ to write/read about objectively but it is questionable to perpetuate, romanticize, fawn over, collect, celebrate, etc. Most problematic to me is the issue of how these ships are identified. Generally any time there are 2 handsome brothers in a piece of media, some not-small-enough contingency of the fandom assumes they’re fucking, and sees all forms of affection or antagonism between them as evidence of their lust.

What does this say about your ability to recognize sibling love? What does it say about the social value (or lack thereof) of the same? When ‘all feelings lead to sex’ is the overarching theme of our entire society, I can’t really say I am uncritical of concepts like hatesex and incest being so intensely attractive to people over, say, romantic love between two people who are not related by blood. A bit of a tangent but similarly while I get the chemistry appeal, the fact that ‘hatesex’ as a concept (two people who often express aggression, hatred, intolerance etc of each other being interpreted as actually masking feelings of attraction) is so popular is ripe for questioning. How far removed is it from “He picks on you because he likes you” and other maladaptive forms of “loving someone means hurting them…a lot” which are real actual problems people suffer for right now?

Plus, it begins to suggest as I said before that all forms of affection/relationship end in sex. Even if sex never happens, sex must logically be the apex of love if two characters who have any kind of affection, even if that affection is also seen in the presence of aggression (!) or a moral barrier (family bond), are easily assumed to be sexually compatible to the extent that fandom perpetuates.

So back to your point, this is again not really an issue (as far as where I’m coming from) with what’s right and wrong. It’s an issue of people needing to take responsibility for themselves and being curious about their own issues and interests. I’m not advocating for censorship- I’m advocating for people to enlighten themselves about themselves in which case a lot of ‘taboo’ media would be produced in a lessened capacity.

I find it interesting that when I ask “Why are you into ____?” people don’t answer that question, or seem unwilling to, since their first reaction is to flip out and cry censorship. No one seems to notice that that’s not what I’m actually saying lol.

I don’t care what people do, if it’s not hurting someone. I care that people know why they do what they do. I am critical of things and of myself. I think people should just dare to be critical. It’s a great tool for self-healing that doesn’t involve perpetuating damage.*I dislike the term taboo because it and the moral judgment it applies is a nebulous term that is used far too broadly. Incestuous pedophiles soften their interest by calling it ‘taboo’, but interracial relationships are also classed as ‘taboo’, thereby suggesting that the term is as loose as ‘whatever many people think is wrong’, which is clearly far too transient and easily-influenced. Often, I find, it’s used as ‘something that is morally objectionable for reasons we’re not going to explore, we’re just going to lump all this shit together indiscriminately as taboo’.

*Again, I don’t care about people who mainly think MBJ is hot as Killmonger, that’s totally logical. I question people whose fantasies specifically extend to Killmonger THE CHARACTER being seen as sexually attractive **because** of/specifically on the grounds of his general character (i.e. radicalized, violent, murderous, apathetic) and what kind of person would fantasize about being subject to a man like that.

#Anonymous #long post #long as fuck #and here's how I feel about things #mine #full transparency I have a robofetish blog #it rarely updates bc there's just not that much interesting content to me

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