#people don’t give a single fuck about arabs

[dead-loch]

I don’t want to derail the original post but I’m really frustrated right now and need to get this out. Happy to be corrected/educated/whatever. I’m going to try not to be aggressive with any of this.

I’m seeing people in the notes of nearly every single post about Palestine that inevitably includes information about how to spot anti-semitism or how people will use this to push anti-semitism, saying things like “this is why I don’t talk about supporting Palestine”. Or they’ll reblog the post and just put “#antisemitism” like there’s not a single other thing the post could possibly be about (you know, the Palestinians whose land and lives are stolen).

Well, it’d be real nice if supporting Palestinians didn’t constantly get derailed by the threat of being called anti-Semitic (here I reference the orgs and people who insist that anti-semitism includes being critical of the state of Israel and its crimes). Can not a single thing be about the people who are actually suffering right now? Millions of them? I don’t understand why every single post needs to play both sides on this issue. Right now, in this moment, in Palestine, IT’S PALESTINIANS who are suffering. So why are everyone else’s feelings being made the priority?

This is such an unbelievably frustrating place to be. Like I have literally seen an Israeli person- so someone living in Israel and benefitting from the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians- say that they don’t usually talk about what their govt is doing but “this time” they just had to speak up. And all the reblogs are treating this person like a saint for— what? Finally saying something?? People, especially those who live in Palestine and the Middle East or have family there, have been begging for help for decades and I’m supposed to not be upset by a person (and let’s be honest, many people) who just decide to keep quiet until it gets, what, worse somehow?

The government of Israel is committing crimes against humanity. In part due to the threat of being seen as anti-Semitic, we, the world, have done nothing while this continues to happen. We’re literally making one person who suffered feel better by allowing that person to harm others. Except on a massive scale.

#free Palestine #antisemitism #idk man I’m just so sick of nearly every single thing I see #people don’t give a single fuck about arabs #there’s barely any representation in the west #like we know you hate us that’s the actual reason y’all don’t speak up

[laineystein]

It’s okay if you don’t want to answer but what do you think of the protests blocking aid at the southern border? I feel like if anyone can have a sensible response it’s you and I’d love to be able to reblog your answer to shut people up 😝

I think that I can’t imagine what the families of the hostages are going through.

I think that as a survivor of SA my heart aches for those still in captivity who are undoubtedly suffering daily - for that reason and so many more.

I think I’m angry and I think a lot of Israel is angry that we continue to provide and facilitate the distribution of aid for a place that has done nothing but support our annihilation.

I think that Egypt needs to do more to help their fellow Arabs than to lay that responsibility on the single Jewish country in the region - again, the same country that was attacked by said Arabs.

I think that the world will hate us either way so what does it matter if we stop aid? They’ve already made up lies that it’s the IDF shooting civilians during the distribution of aid. This is just another ploy to push blood libel narratives and paint Jews as the enemy.

I think that the aid isn’t going to the people so what does it matter if it’s delayed? We’re merely inconveniencing H*mas, which is the goal.

I think that trucks that have been let through remain undirected and uncollected on the other side of the checkpoint because the international community is so busy blaming Israel and the Jews that they can’t take time to actually help the people they apparently care so much about.

I think the international community needs to do more to pressure H*mas to release our hostages and surrender. So much of this suffering could be over if that happened.

Lastly, I think that we live in a world that has proven that Jews (and Israelis by proxy) are alone and that the only one that can help us — is us. I think that we need to help ourselves before we help others. And I think that while my people are suffering at such a catastrophic level, I don’t give a fuck about anyone else. Block the trucks. I said what I said.

#ask things #⚔️🇮🇱 #I said what I said die mad about it 😘 #I also think that a lot of you think I’m this staunch leftist when actually I’m absolutely a moderate #the unfollow button is the one in the upper right hand corner

[stephobrien]

I’m coming from my vent account because I don’t want to get found out as a Jew on my main. Please, please stop posting in the antisemitism tag. You’re clogging it up and taking away a safe space for Jews by trying to delegitimise Jew hatred. Now, I don’t know if you’re good faith or not, but I’m leaning on no. You keep on going onto posts about Jew hatred from Jews, saying what boils down to ‘wow! I’ve learned so much from this!’ and then you go back to posting inflammatory things again. I mean, you posted something from Caitlin Johnstone, I can’t believe that you give a single shit about Jews (or Ukrainians) after that

As for your most recent post on how poor you just can’t believe lying Jews when we talk about discrimination because you’re scared we’re deceiving you, you put in a comment ‘If I'd seen said Arab nations' governments massacring thousands of civilians, while painting every single criticism of said massacre as Islamophobic, yes, I would have’. This is… I don’t even know how to tackle this, do you genuinely not know all of the horrific shit so many of the Arab states have done? Qatar is known as one of the biggest countries of modern slavery. The Houthis in Yemen sex traffic Ethiopian women, and also reintroduced slavery into Yemen. Just look at the atrocities so many of these countries have committed against Shia Muslims! Is your brain mush, how can you say this when there is so, so much evidence of the horrors that these nations have committed?! And if you think these states graciously accept criticism of those horrors… you’re being ignorant on purpose. And it’s still not okay to say that you don’t believe an Arab when they talk about anti Arab racism that they’ve experienced, I think we can at least agree on that. So why’s it not the same for Jews?

For a more personal example to Jews, look up the Mizrachi expulsion. The Arab states violently expelled almost a million Jews from their countries ‘because Israel’, which they only care about because it ruined their dream of pan Arabism, not because of any solidarity with the Arabs in the mandate btw. My family was lucky, we came from Iran, which is not Arab, so the violence was coming from the people rather than the state itself. But I’ve had to heard accounts from people talking about how they watched their family get shot in the head while their homes were repossessed for no reason other than the fact they were Jews. Is that bad enough for you? Does it even make a dent in your image of the Arab states? Or is it okay because it happened to Jews?

I know I sound very angry in this, and that’s because I am very angry. And that anger is completely justified! My life, and the lives of almost every Jew on this disgusting website, have been beyond horrible for five months. The number of times I’ve had to read about a new Jew hating shooting or stabbing in the world is too many too count. And then, non Jews like you decide to play the ‘oops, I just caaaan’t believe those Jews about Jew hatred because they could be zionists!’ (Which are around eighty percent of the Jewish population, but I don’t think you’re ready for that conversation yet, it’s reserved for people who actually want to learn). All of us are so unimaginably angry. All of us are at our fucking breaking point, or we’ve completely snapped already! The people you have interacted with have been some of the kindest, most levelheaded people here, but you’d better not get used to it, because we’re all tired of this bullshit

Thank you for taking the time to call me out. Between you and the several other people who contacted me about this, I’ve come to realize that that post was a terrible mistake.

It was meant to be a vent post about people who deliberately blur the lines around what’s actually antisemitism, and about my lack of certainty about my own ability to independently assess the less obvious instances of that (which is clearly still very lacking, as the response to that post made clear to me).

But it apparently caught a lot of innocent Jews in the crossfire, making them feel unsafe, unheard, and delegitimized. That wasn’t the intention, but it was clearly the effect. I screwed up badly, and I’m sorry.

I admittedly don’t know all the details about the horrific shit Arab nations have done. I was aware of Iraq’s government mass murdering protesters, and Saudi Arabia’s horrifically sexist laws, but some of the info you shared in this post is stuff I hadn’t previously heard of.

As for why I mentioned false accusations of antisemitism specifically, it’s because that’s the one I’ve seen several times a day lately, sometimes in the form of stuff like telling people who protest child murder that “You just don’t like it when Jews defend themselves.”

That said, you and the other people who responded have made it clear to me that that focus was based on an overly narrow view on my part. I’ve been more active in pro-Palestine circles than in circles that focus on the other situations you mentioned, so naturally that resulted in me seeing more antisemitism accusations than accusations focused on groups that aren’t directly involved in that conflict. So that resulted in a less than balanced viewpoint.

While my vent post was meant to be about one specific phenomenon I’d personally seen a lot of, the fact that I didn’t mention similar behavior on the part of groups I hadn’t personally seen as much of that behavior from did result in it being unjustly targeted, in a way I didn’t intend but should’ve assessed better.

What happened to you and other Jews at the hands of Arab nations (and pretty much every nation) was absolutely not okay. The effect my post had on you and other Jews who saw it was not okay. The treatment you’ve endured on Tumblr is not okay. And I’m sorry for the pain I caused you.

You have every right to be angry at me. I won’t ask you to forgive me or trust me, because I know I earned your anger with that poorly thought out post. I shouldn’t have made my own insecurities and frustrations other people’s problem like that. I screwed up badly, and I’m sorry.

#long post #I can be a dumbass sometimes #but I'm woman enough to admit when I screwed up #and this time I definitely did

[jewishbarbies]

https://www.tumblr.com/notyouraryang0dd3ss/748577562393968640/not-any-previous-anon-but-thank-you-for-sharing?source=share

They can't get enough of you lol. It's not like you're purposefully tagging the Zionist posts with anti ts posts, they saw a jew and went actually ❤️ they don't know what they're talking about, i know better than them. JVP is good because it aligns with what I want to believe In.

Sad for the "many jewish friends that stand against Israel" though.

ah yes, another goy mad that a jew disagrees with them about what is and isn’t antisemitic like they have any leg to stand on. mentioning their token jewish friends is pretty typical.

JVP believes all you have to do to be jewish is just start saying you’re jewish. AS A JEWISH PERSON, that is fucking wrong and antisemitic. ask any jewish person who was born jewish or actually converted and they will tell you the same fucking thing. has this bitch heard that they also don’t know the difference between arabs and egyptians? that’s pretty racist, no?

if some random goy wants to bitch and whine and label me a zionist (derogatory) because they don’t know what they’re talking about and want to seem like they have the moral high ground to all their other goy antisemite friends, i do not give a single flying fuck. I’m gonna keep doing what I’m doing. if anyone wants to actually learn about what’s going on, they can listen to actual jews and the palestinian people of gaza whose majority voted in favor of a two state solution. so, if you’re advocating for the destruction of israel bc “from the river to the sea”, you’re going against the wishes of the people in gaza who actually have to deal with the consequences of whatever america leftists decide to meddle with. if they can sleep at night knowing they’re not only fucking it up for jews, but also the palestinians they claim they love so much, then they’re no one i care about. palestine deserves freedom from hamas to make its own decisions. if you disagree, you’re not for a free palestine.

#Asks #anonymoose #antisemitism #love the co opting of the hitler/nazi lingo to prove taylor is a nazi #while simultaneously selling jews out to keep yourself socially safe #how very of the time of you #anti taylor swift #swifties dni

[ultfreakme]

Black Adam is the Supehero film we need

I mean it. A film like Black Adam was sorely needed when it was first announced and still badly needed now during it’s release. It does this thing, that most superhero movies these days don’t do; it takes its characters seriously. It never pokes fun at their names, their suits, their powers. No. These are heroes who are on a mission, and it’s so refreshing seeing a superhero movie that isn’t so insecure about itself. The Rock and the cast are proud of the characters they’re playing, they respect them and that makes all the difference. From the get-go, the confidence and care placed in the source material helps set the tone and immerses the audience. You will love and respect them as much as the writers and cast does.

:read more:

The biggest highlight of the movie to me, is how explicitly critical it was of American Imperialism and the military. It’s prevalent throughout the movie. Khandaq is an African, Arab country invaded and abused by entitled Americans, under the pompous thumbs of their military. The titular characters are all from Khandaq, fighting for their freedom and their rights. Teth-Adam(Black Adam) is a villain only to Americans because he gets in their way. His methods are not pure or benevolent, because his people have been enslaved and used for thousands of years. Of course he’s angry. Of course the people of Khandaq support this man- this god-- who is freeing them from the people who would care even less for their lives. Why should they empathize? Why should they have any mercy when these American assholes have been invading, abusing, killing and restricting their freedom for so long?

FUCK NO.

And you know what? He’s never condemned for it. The Justice Society of America(JSA) enter thinking they’re in the right, but when they learn what’s up, they admit that they’re wrong.

I did not expect such scathing and overt undressing of how shitty the situation is for countries occupied by the american government but here it is. In a comic book movie.

I say comic book movie because MCU at this point is thinly veiled military propaganda.

The trailer makes you think you know everything but I promise you, you don’t. The promo material shows a very tiny part of what Teth-Adam is about. Teth-Adam’s character is very subtle, he’s not bombastic and he does not verbalize his emotions and thoughts but as you watch the movie, you’ll realize there’s more to him than “I’m no hero” (and that line is not what you think it means, the movie will give you context for why he keeps repeating that).

The JSA are extremely fun, Aldis Hodge and Pierce Brosnan were amazing, they brought such presence and weight to the characters. Noah Centineo and Quintessa Swindell are also wonderful, they have amazing chemistry and the amount of thought they put into their characters was shocking tbh. You can tell what each character is about just based on the way they move (Cyclone’s twirly, light-stepped, often very free. Atom Smasher is extremely awkward, shoulder’s hunched, unsure how to fit into a space). Black Adam’s physicality says so much about his character like y’all, they thought through everything for them.

The civilian characters; Amon and Adrianna are freaking amazing too. Amon is very much the heart of the story, the one who shows JSA and Teth-Adam what being a hero is really about. Maybe not directly, but he represents what a hero’s supposed to be, what their end goal is with all these heroics. Adrianna is who keeps the story centered and human. She’s who reminds these people with god-like powers that this is not about their petty squabbles and fights when there are so many regular people relying on them for help. She keeps them on track.

It was so nice to see the civilian side play as big of a role as the human side.

This is not a cinematic masterpiece. But it’s a darn good movie with an important message, a heartfelt production, amazing effects and acting. You won’t be bored for a single second and you will walk out of it feeling awesome. 

#black adam #black adam 2022 #teth-adam #atom smasher #dr. fate #cyclone #hawkman #amon #adrianna #WATCH BLACK ADAM

[iamumbra195]

So I just came across a post about Pavitr in the comics having an existential crisis about not being white like all the other different variations of Peter Parker (I’m definitely reading his comics at some point).

But now I’m remembering something from when I was a kid and I was wondering if this was like a universal POC experience from before you actually understood the concept of race and discrimination or if it was a just a weird fucked up thing my mind came up with.

See when I was younger, I was in an arab predominated school, there were like two other black girls but one of them was lightskin (I didn’t even know she was black until like second grade XD) and I hated the other for... various reasons (she was my bully for like six years but we ain’t gonna talk about that) so like I had no sense of kinship with like anyone in my class or school 

Because of that environment and the fact that I didn’t know why the racist secratary always got me in trouble while letting the other girls get away with not wearing the proper uniform until like fifth grade, I had so much fucked up self esteem like when I tell you all my memories of looking in the mirror as a little kid were so messed up-- I straight up hated my appreance and would see like this warped monster thing, I’m being completely honest. When I look back at pictures of five/six year old me I’m like ‘I was cute, why the hell do my memories look so different?’

Not to mention all the colourism and older people who looked like me telling me not to stand in the sun too much so I wouldn’t get any darker. I wanted straight hair for soooo long-- like all the way until I was thirteen and relaxed my hair for the first time and ended up ruining it for like five years after that.

Here comes the fucked up part. 

I never actually met a lot of my extended family when I was younger, so when I would imagine them, I would imagine them looking nothing like me because my mom always told me they looked pretty-- I would imagine them as ARAB, like with dark wavy/straight hair and all their predominate features. 

Anyways, I was a little tiny bit surprised when I met them and they looked nothing like my imagination. But the worse part was perhaps the fact that literally every single one of them had naturally straight/wavy hair or they relaxed it every few months so it would stay that way. I was still obsessed with straight hair at that point so when they offered to get the lady who does their hair to relax my hair I was super happy and excited about it but guess what??? 

She ruined my hair. I lost so much of it, it became dry and tangly because she didn’t bother doing it properly because I was catching a flight in like three days and I needed to leave the thing in for like two days so by the time I got the results it would be too late for me to ask her to fix it or give us our money back.

For the next like three years I kept cutting my hair until all the damage grew out completely and now I don’t have a lot of hair and it’s doesn’t grow as much as it used to.

So yeah.  

I wasn’t around white ppl a lot as a kid, no public school or anything so I think experience was different and my ‘beauty standards’ were more arab beauty standards but Idk tell me if you guys had a similar experience.

Circling back to the thing I said about Pavitr, I felt like that period of my life was the time where I really related to Pavitr’s existential crisis because I constantly felt ugly or that I wasn’t good enough because I didn’t look like the girls around me. I was also kinda (?) bullied for being chubby so that did nothing to help.  

So yeah, I have a lot of feelings about this. UGH.

I really hope they explore that part of Pavitr’s life a little bit in BTSV

P.S.: does anyone else feel really disconnected from their ethnicity and culture and feels really awkward at barbeques with distant cousins and their extended family because you feel like you don’t belong or that they’re judging you because you can’t speak your native language and have grown up mostly around judgy, racist old arab people as your teachers so you adopted a lot of arab mannerisms and.... yeah, I’m gonna talk about this another day

#racism #pavitr prabhakar #internalized racism #colourism #fucked up childhood memories #rant #beyond the spiderverse

[gamerswift13]

Need for Speed Unbound!

Or as I like to call it, High-speed Head-on Collision Simulator 2022

Kia ora, friends!

This is gonna just be a short one this week due to ongoing mental and physical health issues, but on that front I have some news: I think I’m slowly but surely getting better!

But anyway, I wanted to talk a little bit about Need for Speed Unbound this week because I have been playing it a lot over the last few weeks (when I have had the energy) and I can’t think of a game in recent history that has made me rage quit and want to throw my controller so many times but still is able to pull me back in. I love a good arcade racer; my favourite series in this genre is obviously Forza Horizon (and to a lesser extent Forza Motorsport, which I am still excited for in October), but I have been known to dip into Need for Speed now and then. This latest entry, launched last year, recently came to Xbox Game Pass, so I decided to check it out.

My first dive into this game was via Xbox Cloud Gaming and y’all, that service is great for some games, but for a game as fast-paced as Need for Speed Unbound, I absolutely do not recommend it 😅. Playing it this way, I was constantly crashing into things that I didn’t see because the frames fell out, so it didn’t take long for me to decide to make some space on the tiny Xbox Series S internal storage and download the game to play locally. Once I got that out of the way, I started to have a blast… for a while. My TV, which was 1080p, died a couple of months ago, so since then I’ve been using a TV I borrowed from my sister, which is 720p, and let me tell you, again for a game like this, it’s… a less than optimal way to play. Once I started getting into faster and faster cars, I started crashing into things again. A lot. This isn’t a failure of the game itself, I don’t think, I’m just playing it in a really stupid way 😭.

Apart from all the technical stuff I just mentioned, Need for Speed Unbound is really fun. I think my favourite part, though, has been customising my character, as well as the paint/wraps on some of my cars.

I wish I had more pictures of the different outfits I’ve had my character wear, (I haven’t had the time to go back to the game before writing) but I still really like this look. And oh boy do I love that car. It’s one of the cars the game gives you in the beginning, a Nissan GT-R from I want to say 1997 (or thereabouts), and it’s fast, great at drifting, extremely hot, but the best thing of all: I made it look queer and non-conforming as fuck.

The game limits what you can write on your cars, I assume because it’s possible other players could see it, so it wouldn’t let me write ‘queer’ or ‘gay’ or ‘bitch’ or ‘fascist’ - those first two are kind of bonkers considering the amount of queer representation this game contains, but I digress. So I substituted ‘fascist’ with the succinct ‘fash’, and instead of ‘basic bitch’ I wrote ‘basic beach’, which the latter is honestly kind of better anyway.

The racing is fun, though frustrating sometimes thanks to the game only giving you a maximum of retries per in-game 24-hour period, but what really stands out to me is that there is so much queer representation here - like way more than I’d have ever expected from a Need for Speed. There’s one NPC racer you meet and race against named Justicia who is from Mexico and is openly transfem. There are signs around the city that say things like ‘love is love’, or simply have the pride flag on them. And as you may have noticed on my car in the pictures above, you can just put the pride flag and trans flag all over your car if you want - and not just that, they have every single type of pride flag I could think of, which blew me away. Seriously, more games need to be this open about supporting queer communities. There’s also a bunch of representation for people all over the world - the music in Need for Speed Unbound includes tracks in Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, French, and a few I couldn’t nail down just by listening, and it’s honestly super refreshing.

Anyway, that’s all from me this week. Sorry if it feels a bit like it was put together at the last minute because, well, it was, but I wanted to make sure I had something for you.

Thanks so much for reading, y’all, I appreciate it. As always, if you have any comments or questions, hit me up on the social links at the bottom of the page, or flick me an email! If you want to read more stuff from me, you can check out my Letterboxd reviews! This week I reviewed Robot Jox (1989), which I believe may have inspired some of the aesthetics of things like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Pacific Rim.

Stay safe and warm out there (or safe and cool, if you’re in the northern hemisphere!) y’all, and I’ll talk to you all again really soon. Ka kite anō au i a koe. 💚

Rebecca

| Mastodon | Bluesky | | Cohost | Substack | Facebook | itch.io | | Letterboxd | Instagram | | Carrd | Email |

#video games #videogames #video ganes #queer writers #trans writers #nonbinary writers #non binary writers #writers of aotearoa #aotearoawriters #new zealand #writers of new zealand #writers of tumblr #xbox #cloud gaming #need for speed #unbound #need for speed unbound #substack #Game Pass #games industry #Series S #LGBQIA+ #achievements #NFS Unbound #queer representation #queer rep in media #queer characters #lgbtqi+ #lgbtq #lgbt representation

[aqueeracademic]

morse being queer (and other commentary) pt. 3:

season 1, episode 3, “Rocket”:

TW: one tab briefly mentions s*xual harassment, it doesn’t come up again.

- rockets are for SURE phallic imagery

- strange is always looking so fine i do not care

- the way jakes eyes RAN to morse as soon as everyone left the nick 😧

- these men all just hate Nora bc she’s a powerful ass lady i’m obsessed with her

- morse correcting people’s spelling is gay and i won’t elaborate

- all this just to pull a curtain off a rocket what was the actual point

- ^ ignore that i DO understand the point of this episode but like... come awn

- estella is also a big slay i love women in power

- jakes didn’t even have to look to know morse was standing there what kinda gay telepathy was that

- morse showing off what debryn has taught him about forensics 💪

- “oops,” jakes said with a smirk, looking morse up and down in a way that made his ears hot.

- ^prolly what the script said

- debryn only showing morse the pocket watch to give him a leg up on the case is smth that can be so personal 😔😔

- he UNDERSTANDS morse’s ambitions and he doesn’t want him to fall behind and i love him

- bright kicking morse out of the office is insane

- thursday simply doesn’t care about these people

- morse being violently uninterested in alice is gay.

- alice IS the loml tho i love her ✋🙄

- jakes staring alice down as he drags morse away from her 😧

- no need for all the hatred

- morse is embarrassingly incapable of keeping eye contact with jakes i can’t stand this man

- “i don’t mean to be disrespectful” and then promptly being suuuuuuper disrespectful is a niche i love

- “perhaps if you write my answers down you won’t need to repeat the question”

- i love this scientist

- why are alice’s pupils always HUGE

- like what r u smoking qween?

- strange asking morse what he makes of the case immediately is SO personal to me

- jakes flicking his cigarette towards the camera has me 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️

- anyways.

- “i know the history, mr broom.” 😐

- why is he carrying the clip board upside down

- a drink to catch up 🤨

- jakes never fails to check morse out and i fully respect him for it 💪

- “nobody’s getting hurt” SHES BEING FUCKING HARASSED YOU FUCK DONT BLAME IT ON THE FULL MOON U PIECE OF SHIT

- i wonder how jake’s actor’s lungs r holding up.

- the slouched position, legs crossed at the knees, relaxed ankle, hand on thigh, cigarette in hand, eyebrow raised... this man is GAY

- ^morse’s deductions on jakes

- bright being a dick because he’s stressed out beyond all help is valid and justified i don’t care

- nora is too powerful i’m obsessed with her

- “jakes said you know the secretary?”

- jakes goes to thursday w his crush on morse is all i’m getting from this

- SLOUCHED POSITION, HAND OVER THE BACK OF THE SOFA, LEGS CROSSED AT THE KNEE, HAND ON THIGH, JAKES IS GAY

- i wish my hair looked like morse’s why is my hair stick straight

- i swear on my life this camera man does every single woman in this show DIRTY on their angles can he not get one flattering angle on any of these women

- morse’s face anytime a woman is being objectified is insane considering the books

- like sir YOU are the culprit

- morse and thursday always go STRAIGHT for the rich people and i love them for it

- you can’t convince me this man isn’t gay. morse cant even figure out that alice is fully in love with him. asks her out to drinks as an “old friend.” she tells him straight up she misses him and he’s like 🧐🧐🧐

- i just now put together that the rocket being phallic imagery is not a joke at all but a metaphor for the factory being run by men when the women are better and smarter but are being suppressed. the men constantly ignore the women despite their intelligence and, like the rocket, are powerful and important. even the fact that the princess attended the reveal of the rocket is looked over, focusing more on the arab prince and his relevance to the case. the fact that the factory is building a rocket is not coincidental at all, but rather a representation of what the problem is with the factory, which is the men in charge, hence that phallic image. in this essay i will-

- morse standing there for the argument after the accident is gay of him. he could have left he was just there for the drama

- “where would you like me, henry?” “under the sod.” “i was there, for 20 years.”

- SHES INSANE I LOVE HER GO NORA

- “you deserve more.” “i doubt that.”

- i am him and he is me

- i am him and he is me

- HES SO EMBARRASSED WHEN HE REALIZES SHE LIKES HIM I CANT STAND HIM

- i feel so bad for alice

- “are you still in love with her?” “i don’t know.” “then you are.”

- literally stop

- “maybe you could love me, too. just a little. a little would be enough.”

- THAT LINE PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE LIKE A FREIGHT TRAIN

- there is not nearly enough morse/debryn interaction in this episode i hate it here

- no longer love the nazi scientist he is a nazi

- shots of morse consistently have jakes standing off his right shoulder and that means so much to me

- nora slays once again by forcing the old white man out of power

- morse just sits with his feet up on his desk, drinking scotch, listening to opera, and reading classics and i want nothing more than to be him

- morse sleeping with alice after all of that is BATSHIT INSANE of him can he not treat one (1) woman correctly

- ^ the answer is no

- “what are you doing saturday? singing?” why do u care jakes 🤨

- “tickets? plural? what’s this? your little friend?” are you jealous jakes 🧐

- my evidence for morse being gay in this episode is that he has 0 concept of how straight relationships work

- “you’ve changed your mind?”

- bro she wanted to fuck you was that not clear????? what’s wrong w you

- NORA IS SO FUCKING SKCKELFLCOR

- MAKING ESTELLA THE CHAIR????

- i fucking love women in power i am SICK OVER THIS

- thursday and morse solving cases by simply hanging out™️ is so personal to me

- how fucking cold is it in this factory? why can i literally see their breaths when they speak? surely that isn’t protocol like turn the heat up

- no matter how lonely morse gets thursday READS his ass and is there for him and i love them for that

#i’m so glad people r enjoying these #i love making them #endeavour itv #endeavour #itv endeavour #morseverse #morse #endeavour morse #fred thursday #jim strange #peter jakes #gay

[mahoushojoe]

hmmmmmm thinking about zia rashid

first of all...holy shit, why is her name zia? there is not a single person in egypt named zia. zia is supposedly a girl born in a rural village in upper egypt. zia is just. not a name she would have. it's not egyptian. as far as i know it's not even middle eastern. like, sometimes people really nitpick stuff when criticizing these things online but this really isn't a nitpick, like. just common sense! common sense and respect for the culture and heritage you're exploiting for your cash cow franchise. the bare minimum. you didn't even have to deeply research Common Girl Names In Upper Egypt. You could have just named her, like, Sara or something, and it would have worked just fine.

like the reason the name is such a big deal is that zia is one of like, two egyptians in a series ABOUT egypt, and yet she's just...not. she doesn't feel egyptian. through her we know nothing about egyptian culture. her name is a Not Like Other Girls name. we don't know whether she's muslim or coptic. she's the Egyptian Rep but she's just Not Egyptian, and the fact that she has the personality of a piece of cardboard doesn't help. it feels like egyptian characters are often purposely distanced from being egyptian in media like this because a) the writers don't want to put in the effort to research and b) it would force them to confront the colonial implications of the media they're writing.

her village is like, comically orientalist- rick could have looked at a map of egypt and known that absolutely nowhere in egypt do they have places named in formal arabic like that. it's called village of the red sand, right? it's given this long mysterious sounding formal arabic name as a result, and just... it's not how egyptian place names works and it's also not how any place name would work, period. a more realistic thing would be if rick had put in the work to at least get an IDEA of the egyptian dialect of arabic -better yet, the UPPER egyptian dialect. Like if the village was called Raml Ahmar it would have been like. Believable. Grounded. And like, in Zia's childhood, supposedly this entire village gets like eaten by sand or something, and... there. Nobody notices. Like if something like that happened in the US it would be a huge deal and everyone would know about it, but since egypt is this like, Desert Of Mystery, things like this just happen and nobody cares I guess.

zia herself isn't even in the books like 60% of the time. like she's either a puppet or like, in a magical coma or something, and when she IS there she's this like Quiet Strong Girl Of Few Words so she doesn't really have a personality beyond being a #girlboss. she is very open to going on dates with a boy and KISSING him at some point even though a girl from upper egypt wouldn't be caught DEAD publically doing those kinds of things, culturally speaking. on that note, zia doesn't know what a mall is. egypt has malls. zia lives in cairo iirc and cairo does, in fact, have several LARGE malls. so all this converges to show zia as this Mysterious Girl From The Third World(tm) and again, as mentioned before, to distance her from her being egyptian.

so like these all seem like nitpicky details, but they all converge to send a message: rick does not care about egyptian culture enough to research it. since the people of modern egypt are poor and brown and all the cool ancient stuff can be conveniently stolen and whitewashed, egypt has no value to him besides being an occasional setting. and it rubs salt in the already gaping colonial wound left by the british and the french and the ottomans and whoever else took a chunk out of us and left us to bleed- which is: exploit egypt for the artifacts and degrade and disrespect the rest.

i'm gonna be honest- i wasn't expecting perfect egyptian rep from a white american man and i wasn't looking for it from him either. but what grates on me is disrespect. what grates on me is laziness. tkc is probably gonna be a lot of kids' introduction to egypt and this is the message it leaves in their head; this is the mindset, that egypt is worthless and only the ancient artifacts are worth taking seriously. and then that devolves into the way tourists and expats arrive here asking to be treated like royalty and treating the locals like shit and paying them pennies. it devolves into museums refusing to give us OUR artifacts that they LOOTED during imperialism. it devolves into the microaggressions i face on the internet every day, where I cannot talk about the serious problems this country faces every day without some annoying american making a king tut reference or whatever. tkc isn't the reason behind all of this, it's far from the only media that has ever done this, it's not even the worst offender. but it feels bad to constantly see the blatant disrespect people have for you and your heritage and it feels bad to constantlyq have it relegated to a joke pop culture reference and it feels bad to be constantly spoken over.

again: im not waiting for representation from riordan or his ilk. i don't need his crumbs. but the disappointment i felt when reading about zia was real, and so was my irritation at her characterization and the way it's supposed to represent me.

tl;dr when you write a book about a colonized and exploited country and people, please afford them a little fucking respect. the bare fucking minimum. this is why i'm not at all excited for the upcoming tkc adaptation and for my own sake i won't be engaging in it, although i dread the upcoming pop culture wave that will happen as a result.

#tkc #the kane chronicles #zia rashid #egypt #rrcrit #rr crit #rick riordan #rick riordan critical #tkc crit #tkc critical #there better not be derailments and other foolishness in the notes i SWEAR to god

[toffeelemon]

what does it mean to be an immigrant gay kid (simon pov) 

(ft. trans simon??? because if i’m projecting why not go all the way)

look. simon loves being Gay. he has never once felt ashamed, or resentful of this part of himself. it’s not like being gay is his entire personality, but he loves following Gay Culture. getting in on all the memes, watching all the films with representation, following stockholm pride as if he would ever go as a bjarstad teen. but - he can’t help but feel that the ‘community’ he’s seeking out is so White. it’s not like there aren’t poc at pride - but the pop culture around it all seemed so one dimensional. the pop music. the drag. nothing wrong with pop music, simon is a benevolent music lover, but - he imagines eventually going to a gay club, and hearing nothing but White preppy music, and honestly, it doesn’t sound like a good time. he feels torn, like he has to pick between his gay side and latino side

it’s no surprise to himself that his best friends ended up being rosh and ayub. and simon is so grateful for them. at marieberg, there has always been an invisible divide between the white kids and the ones who are not. the side that simon belongs to is not just latino kids - it’s also south asians, arabs, black kids. thrown together with the single connecting factor that they’re kinda outcasts. but somehow there’s an exaggerated toxic masculinity - the defensive need to lash out, protect yourself from this society that isn’t very kind on them, perhaps. simon hates it. everyone knows that simon is gay, and no one cares enough to be mean about it - he has played nice with some white soft-boys before. (and by that he means, kissing at parties.) but in the end, they return to their relative worlds, because simon is not one of them, and they would never want to cross over to simon’s world either

with rosh and ayub, simon is comfortable. he can just be. he doesn’t have to be man enough or unthreateningly white enough. they understand each other and each other’s strict parents or unavailable parents, and they could just make fun of straight people and white people without having to worry about the fragility of these people’s feelings, as if they don’t casually hurt minorities on a daily basis. ayub and rosh taught simon how to be queer more than the internet has ever taught him. they are living proof that there’s more than one way to be queer (and trans), and simon can be someone else other than an androgynous white twink who’s conventionally pretty

simon loves his mum. and he knows that linda loves him. and yet - trying to come out (as trans) has weighed on him so much, him trying so hard to find the right words in spanish and then wondering, fuck, are there even all these expansive words to describe gender in spanish, or is he slowly losing his roots the more he embraces his queer-trans side? of course he is going to talk about it with his mum in spanish, because these are the matters of the heart, so why does it feel so foreign and so heavy on his tongue when he tries to say, “mama, i’m a boy”? he ended up saying something cringey about being born in wrong bodies, which was definitely not what he meant to say anyway, because bodies have no gender and he has an exciting new world beyond the cisnormative that he is dying to show the woman he loves the most, but those outdated clunky words are the ones linda would understand, so he started with those

it was important to simon that linda takes part in choosing his new name. simon knows that his deadname was what it was because it was a familiar name to both swedes and his hispanic family - and as much as his deadname crawls up his skin uncomfortably, abandoning it felt like giving away something precious that his mum had gifted him, a part of his heritage. linda gave him a few options, all slightly biblical because she’s catholic by convention - simon fondly rolls his eyes at the biblical references - and they settled on simon. he loves his name, and knowing that linda chose it also feel like a tangible piece of reassurance and acceptance that simon could carry with him every day

simon isn’t That brave. he tasked linda with the job of telling the extended family, who they hardly see anyway, so if worst comes to worst and they’re transphobic? simon would just have to forget about the annual christmas gatherings where half a dozen families scramble from different corners of europe, converging at his cousins’ in copenhagen into a colourful chaotic mess. (he’ll survive. he will. even though it already feels lonely out here in the middle of nowhere sweden, and he has no one to speak spanish to but his family, and the cashier at that one corner shop) but the reception was less bad than he thought - although simon suspects linda hid the worse from him - and abuelita simply sent him a short email (an email! what a woman) that says she liked the name simon, and asked him does this mean he would get a girlfriend soon. simon was hysterical reading it - but he loves abuelita. glad to know that she loves him back in her own way

masculinity is a strange thing to emulate. it doesn’t help that simon doesn’t exactly have good role models. he thinks about his uncles, the traditional Man of the House - and decides to start there. he’s always been protective of his mum - jumping into banal arguments in the supermarket queue when the swedish language fails her, being used to calling the bank people and the tax people for his mum because bureaucracy language is designed to gatekeep, and simon might as well put his elite education to use. it makes him worry about the bills and the house even more. and now that he’s the Man of the House - he wants to step up to protect his family, his mum and his sister. linda told him to look after his sister, so he did 

linda worked so hard to give them the best education they could afford, jumping so many hoops and pulling so many favours to get them into hillerska. waking up an hour early to prepare breakfast ever since they had to get up earlier and travel further to school. it took so much effort to get into hillerska - so simon had no heart to tell his mum that everything isn’t exactly peachy at this bullshit elite school. he smiles through his teeth and pretends that he doesn’t have no friends. that august doesn’t make casual jabs at rowing practice like “stop running like girls - oh sorry, sosse”, as if he’s really sorry. that the third years don’t make fun of his singing voice - as if there isn’t variation between cis teen boys anyway. that he isn’t totally invisible because he’ll never be one of the boys, but he’s not a girl either, and anyway it doesn’t matter, because he isn’t white or rich, and he’ll always be an outsider. he’s a big boy, he can endure it - linda doesn’t need to know

and simon works hard at school. really hard. because his mum just wants the best for them and he can’t be a disappointment. he already has the world on his fingertips - so what’s his excuse for getting a C in maths? wille well-meaningly tried to tell him that the system isn’t fair anyway, because the grades will always favour you if you’re rich and white and your parents are friends with the headmaster, but simon panicked and all he could hear was that he’s not doing all he can to excel, to be good enough

wille - wille isn’t scared of simon, even when simon bares his teeth and proclaims to burn down the monarchy. he doesn’t look down on him either. it’s what drawn simon initially - if wille could see past simon beyond being a poor immigrant kid, maybe simon could let his guard down and give this skinny white boy a chance?

wille is so good. almost too good. simon doesn’t have a grudge against dating white people like rosh does (white girls, *hiss*), and it’s really unavoidable that most boys he kisses end up being white, because they are in the middle of nowhere sweden. but wille is something else - ayub can’t help but laugh. simon really picked the richest, whitest guy out there, and he’s not even sure if he likes boys. (the internalised demon in simon almost whispers - and you’re not even a real boy.) simon is over that phase in his life, doubting whether he’s good enough or not, but - this is the prince. he has the right to feel a little nervous. (wille is so much more than just being the prince)

wille keeps exceeding his expectations. (or maybe simon just has really low expectations.) simon wasn’t sure how to feel about how wille feels about his dorky, working class friends - simon’s not ashamed of his friends, never, but he’s afraid of how wille would react, being confronted with people so unfamiliar to him. because, as much as he hates it, he cares about this particular white boy’s feelings and opinions. but wille is cute and makes an effort, almost more nervous to impress than vice versa - and simon is not in love. he’s not

and then wille goes out of his way to include linda, to make her feel comfortable, and simon’s fierce protectiveness and defensiveness morphs into something else at the back of his heart, pitter-pattering. he’s ridiculous. how could a boy get him so whipped?

wille called him low. because simon tried to protect himself and accidentally fucked up and fuck, he’s a drug dealer now, what a cliché. and he’s angry, he’s so angry, because wille didn’t say it, but all simon hears is that he’s working class and he’s latino and he’s poor and he’s a barely passing boy, and he’ll always be pit against harsher standards. he can’t be less than perfect - mistakes are only allowed for rich white kids who can buy their way out of them. and it takes only one mistake for wille to turn on him right away. how could simon be so blind? and here he was, looking right past all the times wille had hurt him. in the end wille is like the others - self absorbed and self-important. simon should have known better. maybe they should have both kept to their own worlds. simon surely doesn’t want the prince’s world

and then it all comes crashing down, and bad becomes worse. because simon has been waiting to change his legal gender once he turns 18, and now his biggest insecurities are aired nationally for everyone to see. because the prince is getting off with a boy? but no, it’s actually a girl, haha. and everyone is keen to see who is this fucked up, poor and brown and sexually deviant thing that somehow corrupted the prince. simon passes most of the time, he hasn’t been misgendered for so long - and now he can’t escape it, it’s everywhere, blaring words on screens and magazine covers and his chest feels tight, even worse than usual. he is usually very strong mentally - Man of the House and all that - but one dark night, the only thing holding him together is the cursed thought if anything happened to him, the headlines would still be misgendering him, and simon is nothing but a spiteful creature. that is not a legacy he wants to leave behind. and linda. he would never break his mother’s heart like that

wille finally makes a public appearance, and simon has no tears left to cry. and he hates himself, he really does, to still be so soft on wille when the world has been so harsh against simon - but wille using he/him pronouns to refer to simon, not even bothering to mention him by name, still felt like a lifeline. simon wishes he could ask for more, and he hates himself for his impossibly low standards, but he still appreciated the bare human decency

he asks nothing of wille, but at least wille gave him a little shred of dignity back

#FUCK #this is NOT the trans simon i was hoping to write #again can you tell i'm a mama's boy #i miss my mum :( #funnily enough i think my parents were actually hoping for a boy sike #the name thing - me keeping my immigrant english name because my parents gave it to me - too true bestie #can you tell i have something something first gen overachieving asian trauma #parents sold their lives for my education and being gay is already a failure i cant fail in maths too lolol #young royals #? #trans simon #afab ftm simon <3 #FTM SIMON #my emotional support projection character #i can't recover from this #after yr you can't expect me to go back to bland white boys anymore rip #my unwritten fics

[qqueenofhades]

20+ Books That You (Might Actually Want) To Read During Pride Month!

Right, so. I got annoyed after seeing the list referenced in this post last night, told myself that my books are all packed up so I couldn’t do anything about it, and lasted all of a whopping 10 minutes before picking up my phone and attempting to make my own list instead. Behold, my from-memory attempt to present 20 books with strong LGBTQ plots, characters, and/or authors, that DON’T just rely on Suffering and Identity Politics and are... you know... fun.

Listed in alphabetical order by title. Links take you to Bookshop.org, where you can buy them from your local independent bookstore at a discount and NOT from the evil empire.

1. A Master of Djinn – P. Djeli Clark * author of color * steampunk Cairo in 1912 * djinn! magic! murder mystery! * butch Arab lesbian main character * devout hijabi Muslim badass assistant * anticolonial alternate history

2. An Accident of Stars – Foz Meadows (Sequel: A Tyranny of Queens) * trans author * bi, pan, trans, aro representation * racially diverse characters * all female POV characters * high-fantasy world adventures

3. Boyfriend Material – Alexis Hall * queer author * look I love this book SO MUCH and have absolutely screamed about it before but also I LOVE IT SO MUCH * contemporary M/M fake dating in modern London, complete with full cast of disaster found-family queer friends * it is. fucking. HILARIOUS. I almost died the first time reading it * there is a sequel called HUSBAND MATERIAL scheduled to be released in 2022; I am a normal amount of excited for this book

4. Gideon the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir (Sequel: Harrow the Ninth) * the book cover says “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted palace in space!” * that is exactly what you get * slow-burn enemies-to-lovers F/F main romance * I cannot describe this book, it is dark, genre-bendy, science fiction-y, Hunger-Games-with-lesbian-necromancers-in space? Kinda? I have literally never read anything like it * also fucking HILARIOUS

5. One Last Stop – Casey McQuiston * queer author (who wrote Red White and Royal Blue) * bisexual fat girl from the South/lesbian-daughter-of-Chinese immigrants from the 1970s-riot-grrl main romance * time traveling mystery involving the Q train in Brooklyn (mentions Brighton Beach ahem) * magical realism * many more found-family chaotic queers including a trans Latino psychic and a Black accountant by day/drag queen by night and the mean little gay disaster who has a hopeless crush on them

6. Parasol Protectorate (series) – Gail Carriger * this is one of my favorite series, and there are five books: Soulless, Changeless, Blameless, Heartless, and Timeless * steampunk vampires/werewolves late Victorian London, like Jane Austen crossed with P.G. Wodehouse (they are all fucking hilarious) * pretty much everyone is queer; we got your flamboyantly camp gay vampires (Lord Akeldama ftw!) We got your gay werewolves! We got your lesbian French inventors! We got your big disaster idiot werewolf main male love interest! We got your crazy adventures! You name it we got it! * two spin-off novellas: Romancing the Werewolf (M/M) and Romancing the Inventor (F/F) * she has a ton more books in this same universe and writes sexy queer supernatural romance as G.L. Carriger

7. Plain Bad Heroines – Emily M. Danforth * queer author * historical horror-comedy set between a haunted girls’ school in early-1900s New England and in the modern day * all sapphic female main characters * plays with style/form/voice, a story within a story within a story

8. Red White and Royal Blue – Casey McQuiston * you’ve probably heard of it but here I am reccing it again * the biracial son of the first female POTUS falls in love with the Prince of England; shenanigans absolutely ensue * yes, the British monarchy still absolutely sucks a big fat dick * hilarious, heartfelt, reads like fanfic, just go get it, it will change your life

9. Rosaline Palmer Takes The Cake – Alexis Hall * same author as Boyfriend Material, this is his newest * bisexual female protagonist * absolutely perfect satire of The Great British Bake Off (you can tell this man has watched EVERY SINGLE SERIES and all of the holiday specials) * sweet and surprisingly thoughtful

10. Starless – Jacqueline Carey * genderqueer/transmasculine main character of color * almost all main characters are brown people! * lush Middle Eastern/India-inspired fantasy world * gods, prophecies, monsters * the best Oh God Why Me I Am A Horrible Mentor wise-old-mentor

11. The Future of Another Timeline – Annalee Newitz * nonbinary (they/them) author * time travel but make it The Handmaid’s Tale * will probably make your head explode * feminist, queer, subversive * diverse characters

12. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue – Mackenzi Lee * queer author * technically YA but historical/magical adventure set in the 1700s * bisexual disaster main protagonist and love interest of color * (mis)adventures across Europe * has a sequel (see below) with the badass asexual sister of the protagonist

13. The Hate Project – Kris Ripper * nonbinary/genderqueer author * M/M enemies to lovers/sex with no strings attached (spoiler alert: strings attached) * HECKING HILARIOUS * sweet, escapist, and very low stakes * diverse characters, including fat protagonist with realistic anxiety disorder

14. The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy – Mackenzi Lee * PIRATES, obviously * sequel to Gentleman’s Guide * asexual female protagonist * strong queerplatonic f/f friendship * more historical/magical 18th century adventures

15. The Last Rune (series) – Mark Anthony * Imma be real with you chief, I haven’t read this series since I was a clueless teenager with no idea why I liked Gay Stuff so much, so if it does turn out to suck now, don’t throw rotten veggies at me * but especially since it was written in the NINETIES, this series was hella progressive?! * gay characters, disabled characters, characters of color, all playing significant and heroic roles in six-book epic fantasy cycle * people from Earth end up in high-fantasy world of Eldh * endgame M/M romance for the main character * books out of print, I think, but you can find them cheap somewhere like AbeBooks; first one (Beyond the Pale) linked above

16. The Library of the Unwritten – A.J. Hackwith * queer author * heaven-hell-Valhalla supernatural adventures * The Good Place x Good Omens x Lucifer x The Librarians * Pansexual Black badass female heroine * Queer found families * The Sassiest TM Bisexual Villain Turned Reluctant Hero (is he my favorite? Why on earth would you think that.)

17. The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon * epic doorstopper science fiction/historical fantasy set in a vaguely 16th-century world * main F/F romance between a queen and her sorceress bodyguard * sassy old gay alchemist whose backstory will give you Feelings * so many strong women and characters of color * no homophobia! marriage is fully gender-neutral, spouses are called “companions”

18. The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller * likewise one you have probably heard of but still * a little light on the myth/historical part imho, but the writing is beautiful and will give you many feelings * M/M romance between Achilles and Patroclus  * reimagining of The Iliad (her other book Circe is also really good)

19 The Stars are Legion – Kameron Hurley * all-female apocalyptic space opera * messy messy antiheroines * grimdark war fantasy * queer sci-fi drama

20. Witchmark – C.L. Polk * author of color * M/M romance * main character is a veteran and a doctor dealing with his own hidden magic and repressed war trauma * gaslamp fantasy set in a world reminiscent of post-WWI England * strong sibling relationship

#book recs #book recommendations #bookblr #happy pride #pride month #lgbtqia #long post

[leiawritesstories]

Speak To My Heart

Rowaelin Month, Day 15: A bad day

Word count: 3422

Warnings: language, bit of depression, fighting. In short, there is angst in this fic. Hope the ending makes up for the rest.

Linguistics and foreign languages are two of my personal passions, so please bear with the bits of language talk that I couldn’t resist including. Brief word of clarification: a lot of expressions we use in English either translate into something extremely rude or don’t make sense in other languages. Translation companies have been trying for quite some time to make sure they don’t accidentally send a client a translated instruction manual that reads “fuck your mother” instead of “for questions, contact your local energy department.” All right I’ll get off my soapbox. :)

The phrases in foreign languages, marked with *, are translated into English at the end. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rowan’s day had been shit. The second he walked through the door, he’d been bombarded with an endless slew of crash reports, malfunctioning equipment, faulty passwords, and best of all, having to rewrite half the security firewalls because one of the rash young idiots in his department couldn’t be bothered to check his work for errors before sending it to management. And management thought it was the department boss’s job to fix all of his employees’ fuckups.

He hated IT.

Even more so since being promoted to department chair. 

All he wanted to do was the fun stuff--program design and development, fixing the flaws in his own designs, and of course making those who tried to break into his company’s systems regret their pitiful existence. But Cadre Tech’s bitch of a CEO refused to let the best software engineer on her staff actually do his job. 

Most days, he could cope with the pile of useless shit she directed to his desk. Most days. Today was not one of those days. Probably because on top of all the meaningless tasks he’d had to field, he was also forced to sit through one of Maeve’s bullshit “department head strategy sessions,” where every department chair had to pretend they gave a single shit about any word coming from their CEO’s garishly red, pinched mouth. 

As if she knew anything her staff actually did. 

Thanks to the compulsory meeting, Rowan was stuck in his office at nearly ten o’clock, painstakingly combing through the final draft of the update to CT’s translation program. This program had shot the company to fame and fortune, or at least insane stock value. “A Google Translate that actually translates,” their marketing department called it, and by the gods, that stupid slogan worked. And made sense. Rowan knew the program was just as good as it claimed to be.

He’d put in the hours, alongside a team of linguists, software engineers, designers, and people fluent in at least one other language. Frequent were the sessions where the project whiteboard turned into a jumble of words in twenty or more languages, Spanish alongside Arabic next to a column of simplified Japanese characters spilling over into a row of Cyrillic lettering. Rowan himself spoke German and some Spanish, but even he was lost amid the cacophony of eighteen different people switching from language to language, trying to figure out how idiomatic expressions translated from one language to another and what words should never, ever be placed together. 

It took the team well over a year of bickering, or as they called it, friendly linguistic disagreements, to make it from loosely mapped concept to functioning program. By the time it hit the market three years ago, the software had been so well promoted that companies all over the world snapped up their chance to finally communicate properly with the client they’d offended years ago with a bad translation. 

At launch, of course, Maeve stood in front of a sea of shouting reporters brandishing microphones, smiling her serpentine smile, and proceeded to thank the creative team for all their “contributions” before taking all the credit herself. 

Said creative team went to the bar that had become their usual gathering spot that night to get drunk and shit-talk their horrible boss, not necessarily in that order. 

His favorite memory of that night was hearing the chief linguist, an outside contract with multiple advanced degrees who spoke eight separate languages besides English fluently, refer to Maeve as “quella puttana rugosa che non riusciva a convincere un cazzo a venire a dieci metri da lei se si vestiva da figa.*” The Italian speakers on the team were crying with laughter, and so was everyone else, once she translated it.

And then she downed another shot of vodka and hissed something that sounded like “sukya bliyad, no puedo mich betrinken con esta ordures.**” When everyone blinked in confusion, she sighed and relayed the sentiment in English. 

Nobody had laughed as hard as Rowan. Aelin Galathynius just had that effect on him.

She brightened his darkest days.

But she couldn’t ease the strain of today.

And it was all his fault.

~

Aelin glanced up at the clock on her wall and cursed in three different languages when she saw that it was nearly eleven. Without meaning to, she’d spent all afternoon and evening writing lesson notes on idiomatic expressions. She really couldn’t help herself once she got into the topic; it was her pet project.

And the subject of one of her dissertations. Yes, she had multiple. 

She’d worked her ass off for years to get through college, then through graduate and doctoral work while teaching at universities to offset costs, then earned a full-time teaching position at one of the top-ranked universities in the world. She got to teach linguistics, her lifetime love, and give guest lectures at other universities and at conferences, teaching people all over the world about the complexities and interrelatedness of language. Hell, she spoke ten; she’d be qualified to speak on linguistic relationships by virtue of that alone.

Gods, she was the chief linguist behind the most successful translation software ever produced. Even if the bitch who owned the rights to said software had literally threatened to sue over ownership rights if any of the people who’d poured their figurative blood and sweat and literal tears into building the program tried to claim a small piece of the credit each of them so richly deserved. 

That software and her role in its creation--even though Maeve Ond had claimed the public credit, the creative team spoke at interviews and made news features for their work in Cadre Tech’s massive success--had solidified her credentials as a professor of linguistics, had boosted her into her lecturer spot.

Last year, her university granted her tenure. 

She should have been overjoyed, and she was, but not as much as earning tenure deserved. 

Because there was nobody to share her joy.

Three years ago, in the wake of CT’s overnight jump to worldwide fame, Aelin fled a love she did not and never would deserve. 

She told herself she would never look back. But she did. Almost every day, she looked back at the life she’d shared with Rowan and tried to convince herself that she did the right thing.

Try as she might, she could never silence the whisper that echoed always in her mind. 

“You broke both of your hearts” 

Someday, she told herself, someday she would be back in Doranelle. Someday, she would have a chance to apologize. Someday, maybe she could fix the Rowan-shaped chasm that gaped wide in her heart. 

Yet here she was, sitting in a very nicely appointed hotel room in the university district of Doranelle, typing furiously away as if burying herself in notes and prep for tomorrow’s lecture could make the urge to contact Rowan disappear.

~

Three years earlier. Doranelle.

“Knock, knock.”

Rowan’s head jerked up from where it had most definitely not been slumped on his desk. “Wha--Oh. Hi, Aelin.”

“You’re falling asleep, buzzard, let’s go home.” He heard laughter in her soft voice. 

“As if you won’t just get home and start cross-checking every single one of the phrases on your ‘potential problem’ list.”

She chuckled, walking over to him. “Fine. We’re both perfectionist work whores. Doesn’t mean we don’t need sleep.”

“I know you too well to believe you’re actually going to sleep.”

“All right, you win. Come home now, I’ll make some food, and you can put me to bed.” She winked saucily at him, leaving very little doubt what putting her to bed would entail, and he was up out of his chair in seconds. 

“Hand over your computer, Fireheart,” he grinned as they walked into the small house they shared on the outskirts of the city. 

“What?”

“Your computer, love. I’m leaving both of our work bags on the shelf by the front door so we can actually catch some rest tonight.” He pressed a finger to her mouth to silence her protests. “Uh-uh, Ae, we have interviews tomorrow and I won’t let the genius behind this program’s flawless word-to-word be anything but well-rested.”

She sighed, but he saw the love in her eyes. “Here, then, my dear brilliant software engineer. Leave your notebook, too, because I know if it’s anywhere near you, you’ll be up at three in the morning scribbling blocks of gibberish and picking apart your faultless code until you go insane.”

Both of their work satisfactorily put aside, Aelin made good on her promise to cook Rowan dinner. 

And then he made very good on his promise to put her to bed. 

The next morning, they were both awake with the sunrise, content to lay curled in each other’s arms as the morning light spread across their room.

Rowan drifted back into sleep, waking for good when he caught a whiff of coffee from the kitchen’s direction. 

“Morning, you sleepy buzzard,” Aelin grinned, sipping from her mug.

Rowan dropped a kiss on her head as he reached for his mug. He took a long drink, sighing as the milky, sweetened caffeine hit his mouth. 

“I will never understand how you drink your coffee black, Fireheart.”

“Not all of us need to sweeten the hell out of coffee to drink it, Ro. Maybe if you can’t handle the real thing, you should go back to your pretty little cups of crappy cafe tea.”

“Mention my pretty little teacups again, Ae…”

She giggled. “You be quiet and drink your coffee-flavored milk, my love.  We both know you’re impossibly grumpy until you have caffeine in your veins.”

He grumbled something unintelligible as he drank his coffee.

They were nearly late to work that morning, even having planned an extra half hour to arrive, thanks to Aelin wearing what Rowan dubbed her “sexy professor suit.” She fixed the pins in her French twist in the car, making herself once again a portrait of professionalism, and slipped Rowan’s hand from her leg.

“Two hands on the wheel, Whitethorn.”

He pouted. “But I’m a safe driver and I want to hold your hand.”

“My hands are over here, love, not down by my skirt.”

When he pulled into his spot, Aelin closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. 

“You good, Fireheart?”

Gods, she loved hearing him call her that. “Yeah. I just…needed a moment to settle myself. To tell myself the cameras aren’t here to tear apart what I say.”

Rowan wrapped his hands around hers. “Dr. Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the bland reporters are here to stand in awe of your expertise. Not a single word you say will come across as anything but brilliant and beautifully said.”

She squeezed his hands, her usual confidence returning. “I love you, buzzard.”

“I love you too, Fireheart. Let’s go talk about our amazing achievement.”

The day sped by in a blur of reporters, interviewers, teleprompters, practiced speeches, lights, cameras, and crew. When the last bleached-blonde anchor of the last interview of the day cut her crew’s cameras, Aelin flopped against her second-in-linguistic-command, Dr. Nehemia Ytger, the expert on ethnic African languages. 

“If I never see a news crew again, it’ll be too soon,” she sighed. “I’m beat.”

Nehemia snickered. “But we’re done talking about how proud we are that Maeve and her marvelous company have done such a grand service to the world.”

Aelin snorted softly. “Right. And now we servicepeople want to go home and take off our heels.”

“Amen to that.”

As the team filed out of the studio, Rowan made his way over to Aelin. “Holding up?”

“Not anymore,” she said, leaning casually into his side. “My heels are killing me, there’s a hairpin stabbing into my scalp, and I really, really need to pee.”

Rowan laughed, deep and husky. “Let’s get you home, then.”

“I’m stopping in the bathroom first.”

Just before she left the ladies’ room, Aelin heard voices in the break area. Familiar voices--Rowan’s, Maeve’s, and the snippy, borderline whiny tones of Remelle Frelau, who worked in the marketing department and had a hell of a boner for Rowan. 

“--looking at revenue over--” Maeve’s voice cut out, but from the gasps of the other two, the revenue was through the roof. 

“And it’s all thanks to this genius here,” drawled Remelle, who if Aelin had her guess was probably clinging onto Rowan like a platinum-blonde leech. 

“Ms. Frelau, this was the product of a team. No single person could possibly have made it happen alone.”

“Oh, call me Remelle, or even better Remy. And you’re the team leader, so you practically did create it by yourself.”

Aelin snickered to herself. Vapid bitch had no idea what she was saying. 

“That’s not how teams work, Ms. Frelau. We wouldn’t be here without Dr. Galathynius and Dr. Ytger’s language expertise, not to mention the creative genius of the engineers, graphic designers, linguists, and programmers.”

“Ms. Frelau, though her judgment is clearly biased, has a point, Mr. Whitethorn,” Mave said. “You demonstrated remarkable collaborative leadership qualities throughout this project, and I fully expect that you will continue to do so.” Maeve’s heels clicked away. Rowan’s voice followed her.

“Thank you, Ms. Ond, but I have to credit Dr. Galathynius--”

“Will you stop kissing that woman’s ass?” snorted Remelle. “Gods, she’s not worth your time or your praise; all she does is translate words into different languages and you idiots drool over that like it means anything.”

Aelin jerked like she’d been slapped. She knew Remelle was a self-centered, shallow, spiteful bitch, but she hadn’t known she would do this.

“--did more for this project than you and your useless whiteboard of catchphrases,” growled Rowan. 

“I don’t care what she ‘did for the project,’ Rowan, she’s never going to be good enough for you.”

“Thank you for caring about my welfare, Frelau, now please kindly fuck off.”

Aelin chose that moment to saunter out of the bathroom and head straight for Rowan, her face showing no hint of having heard that conversation. She did note with satisfaction Remelle’s vain attempt to march out of the room with some semblance of dignity. Too bad her heel caught on the seam of the hallway carpet and the break room’s tile flooring and she had to grab the doorframe to keep from collapsing. 

“You’re awfully quiet, Aelin.”

“Just thinking. Processing, really. It’s been a hell of a day.”

Rowan nodded. “I bet.”

“And hearing fucking Remelle rip into me for being useless…didn’t make it better.”

“Shit, you heard that?”

“Yeah. I heard that.” Her voice was hollow. 

Rowan pulled into their driveway and shut off the engine. Reaching across the console, he cupped Aelin’s face in his hands. “Aelin. You are brilliant. You are terrifyingly smart. You are a force of nature. Nothing, nothing you will ever do is useless. Don’t let that jealous bitch make you think you are less than the perfect woman.”

She smiled tentatively at him. “She…she told me before that last interview that I could never be enough for you. Because you--because of Lyria.”

Rowan raked a hand through his hair. “Ae, can we talk about this inside?”

That night, he told her about his former fiancé, Lyria. He told her about their whirlwind romance, their youthful dreams. He told her about the horrific crash that stole away Lyria’s life. A drunk trucker, a narrow pass in the mountains. He showed her the box in which he kept all the memories of that life. He cried. Aelin cried. He curled against her, let her comfort him.

“Sometimes, I wish she was still here. She’d understand everything. She always did.”

Aelin had no response. She let Rowan fall asleep, his weight shifting off her and into his bed, and looked through the box. Everything she saw served as another reminder that this was the first woman he loved, the woman who understood everything. 

She was worthy of him. 

But was Aelin?

The more she looked at Rowan and Lyria’s happiness, the more the answer solidified. 

No.

When Rowan woke up the next morning, Lyria’s box sat on Aelin’s side of the bed, a side that had not held Aelin.

He glanced out the window.

Her car was gone.

He got up and frantically paced through the house.

Everything she’d brought into his home was gone.

As was she.

~

Present day. 

Rowan opened his front door mechanically, pulled off his shoes, dropped his work backpack on its shelf, and was halfway to his bedroom before he realized he’d just opened his front door. His front door that was always locked. 

Someone was in his house.

Someone who either had a duplicate key or insanely good lockpicking skills.

Exactly one person owned a duplicate key to his house.

Aelin.

That’s impossible, she lives in Orynth, she can’t be here, he told the traitorous part of his brain that leapt with joy at seeing Aelin’s face again.

He turned around and made his way through the kitchen--nobody there--to the living room. He flicked on a lamp, casting a soft light around the room.

And nearly had a heart attack.

Aelin Galathynius sat on his couch. 

For a moment, he just gawked at her. She looked so…different. Older. Gone was the infectious smile that had captured his heart. Dark shadows smeared under her eyes, testament both to the long hours she devoted to her work and to recent sleepless nights. She was twisting a ring on her right hand, a familiar sign of her nerves. From his angle, Rowan could see a hint of dark script on her wrist. A tattoo. The Aelin he knew didn’t have tattoos.

“I’m not a ghost.” Her voice, weary and hollow, broke the tense silence.

Rowan crossed the room, propped an arm on the fireplace. “Why?”

“Why am I here? Why did I leave? Why did I cut you out of my life?”

“Everything.” He couldn’t keep the waver from his voice, but his eyes burned into hers.

She took a steadying breath. “I’m here to apologize, first of all. I’m here to face what I ruined and to try and start mending it. I’m here to come to terms with everything I broke when I left three years ago.”

Whatever he’d expected her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.

“I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m sorry I left like that. I was…I was scared.”

“You can’t just run away from your fears, Aelin!” He couldn’t keep the frustration from his tone. “You can’t just abandon someone when you have a bad day!”

“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have left! I know I can’t run from my fears; I’ve spent the last three years trying and fucking failing to do that! But I don’t know what else to do.”

“Saying something about it would have been a good first step.” 

“I’m bad at emotions, Rowan. I tried. It wasn’t enough.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse.”

Aelin flicked a tear from her face. “I know.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. I should never have left. I let some stupid comment root into my head and make me doubt myself. I made myself believe I would never be good enough for you. I left you. I loved you, and I still left you. I still love you, even though I’ve tried to suppress it. I can never make up for that. I…I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve regretted that horrible decision all these years. I want you to be happy, Rowan, I--”

“How am I supposed to be happy without a source?” He’d dropped onto the couch, close enough to touch her but still keeping his distance.

“What?”

“You didn’t just take yourself away, Aelin. You were my happiness. I’ve spent three fucking years trying to make myself believe I’m better without you in my life, and I can’t.”

She was unabashedly crying by that point. “What do you want me to do? How can I make up for abandoning you?”

“Stay.”

Her gaze locked onto his, both of their eyes pooling with tears.

“Stay with me, Fireheart.”

“But--”

“I never stopped loving you either.”

A choked sob ripped out of Aelin. Rowan couldn’t hold himself in check any longer; he reached out and tugged her gently into his arms. To his shock, she didn’t resist, burying her face into his chest as sobs shook her shoulders. When she calmed, he tilted her chin up.

“Will you stay, Aelin?”

“Yes. Even though I will never deserve your forgiveness, yes.”

~

Translations:

* = “that pinched old whore who couldn’t convince a dick to come within ten metres of her if she dressed up provocatively” (Italian)

** = loosely translated as “Fucking hell, I can’t get drunk off this garbage.” (in order, Russian (badly phonetically spelled out because Rowan POV), Spanish, German, Spanish again, French) (the Russian doesn’t directly translate, so it could mean several different variations of expletive)

~

Might there be a second part? Perhaps......

#my writing #rowaelin month #aaaaaangst

[alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer]

champagne problems (part 1)

here's my first part of my modern no magic "champagne problems" singer-songwriter quarantine thomastair AU! happy birthday to @foxglove-airmid even though I don't think it's your birthday where you live anymore (and I still haven't posted zia's birthday fic, it'll happen I swear)!

no content warnings for this part (besides maybe quarantine), but future parts will include discussions of mental illness, substance abuse, and a suicide attempt

obviously, the song alastair "wrote" in the fic is not mine, it's by taylor swift! and a few of the lyrics have been changed!

Masterlist | AO3

Thomas breathed out a sigh of relief as he lugged his suitcase up onto the fifth floor landing.

“‘Ere we are,” Piers announced as he unlocked the door.

Thomas was utterly exhausted, such was the result of taking a redeye flight across the Atlantic during a global pandemic, but any idea of rest that he’d had was interrupted when he heard the sound of piano flood the apartment.

“Ah, sorry about that,” Piers nodded, “One of my flatmates, the walls are paper thin. He can’t record at the studio right now, but he’s trying to finish his EP, so it’s been a bit noisier around here. He’ll take a break soon, hopefully.”

Thomas shook his head. “It’s no problem. Thank you, again, for allowing me to stay here. I’ll be looking for my own place as soon as the quarantine is up.”

“Of course. You’ve got the couch as long as you need it. Couldn’t just hang you out to dry, could I? Although, you did pick a god awful time to move to the city, if I do say so myself.”

Thomas sat down on the couch and tried to make himself comfortable. It was more comfortable than the flight or the airport, at least. “I know… I considered postponing the move, but the visa was so difficult to get, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. They say this will all blow over in a couple of weeks, but borders are closing and I heard talk of them suspending all pending visa applications. I didn't know how long it would be if I waited, if the job was even still here for me at all.” Although at first entrance, the music had seemed to be a nuisance, it now comforted him. It wasn’t bad at all, in fact, it quite reminded him of the days Alastair’s playing had filled their flat…

“Where did you say you were working again? At a record company?”

“Yeah. I’m just doing pretty basic stuff for now, but if I ever do want to record my own music, I’ve got to start somewhere.”

“Hm,” Piers said, gesturing to the room the music was coming from. “Perhaps you’ll get on with him well, then. Would you like some tea?”

Thomas nodded and Piers went to start the teapot. Piers continued, “Though I suppose he's more of the tortured artist type. Very reserved, quite prickly. I didn't even meet him until a couple weeks after I moved in here because he was off in some psychiatric hospital.” Thomas shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was never one for gossip. “My other roommate’s nice, though, I think you’ll like him. He-”

“How did you end up in New York, again? I don’t think I ever asked.”

Piers dove into the subject change quite readily, explaining his uni - or college - years in New York City and his decision to stay afterwards. Thomas had tuned most of it out, truthfully. It wasn’t that he was trying to be rude, but he was rather exhausted, and Piers was wearing thin on his patience.

As the kettle started to whine, Thomas heard the musician begin to sing, and he froze. It sounded so much like Alastair. But it couldn't be, could it? With over 8 million people living in the city, he would not end up in Alastair's apartment by accident. His Alastair was certainly reserved and prickly, but it wasn't possible. It must be like all those times he thought he saw him on a street he'd never walked or heard his laugh in a café he'd never been to. Just his mind, tricking him. Even if he knew that voice so well, despite not hearing it in so long.

“It’s quite good, isn’t it? His first single just dropped.” Piers asked, bringing over his cup of tea. He hadn’t realized it, but he’d been staring intently at the door.

Thomas took the cup. “Hm? Yeah, I guess. Thanks.”

“You should look it up. It’s called “champagne problems” by Simurgh. That’s spelled- Well, it should come up.”

The name Simurgh sounded familiar, but Thomas couldn’t put his finger on where he knew it from. At Piers’ insistence, he pulled out his phone and brought up the song. As he skimmed through the first few lines, a cold feeling settled in his stomach.

“You booked the night train for a reason So you could sit there in this hurt Bustling crowds or silent sleepers You're not sure which is worse”

“Simurgh,” Thomas realized.

“Yeah, I think it’s Arabic or something.”

It took Thomas a moment to process that Piers was responding to him. “It’s Persian.” He was certain that Alastair would have some very stern words to say if he heard Piers confusing the two, actually. Thomas had admittedly let his Farsi skills deteriorate quite a bit since the breakup, but he was fairly certain the name came from the Shahnameh. There was no doubt in Thomas’ mind now: he was staying in Alastair’s apartment, and Alastair’s first single was about one of the most painful days in Thomas’ life. “I, er, I used to study it.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right!” Piers launched into a tangent that Thomas tuned out as he read through the rest of the page.

“Because I dropped your hand while dancing Left you out there standing Crestfallen on the landing Champagne problems”

“Thomas? Are you alright?”

He realized then that his hand was trembling so badly that his tea nearly spilled. He used his other hand to steady it. “Oh, uh, yes, I’m just tired.”

“Perhaps you should rest. I can ask Alastair to quiet down for a while-”

“No!” he exclaimed rather too forcefully. “No, that’s not necessary. I’d just rather not talk, if that’s alright.”

Piers nodded.

Thomas kept reading.

“Your mom's ring in your pocket My picture in your wallet Your heart was glass, I dropped it Champagne problems”

Of all the songs, why did he release the one about him? Why was it about a memory still so painful in Thomas’ heart, all of these years later? He remembered it so well, standing there, alone, shattered into a million pieces.

“You told your family for a reason You couldn't keep it in Your sister splashed out on the bottle Now no one's celebrating”

He was fairly certain that Barbara had been more excited than even he was, confident that Alastair would accept, and so very proud of her baby brother, all grown up. She’d been furious when it fell apart, but it was her who stood with him during the aftermath, who boarded him onto a train to Edinburgh to visit Eugenia when he couldn’t stand to be in the same city as him any longer, who went through his phone, blocking all of Alastair’s accounts so that he could obsess over him no longer, who comforted him as he wept and held him as he picked the pieces of himself back up again.

And all the more sour was the memory in light of her death.

“Dom Pérignon, you brought it No crowd of friends applauded Your hometown skeptics called it Champagne problems”

He looked up at Piers, who had fortunately become enthralled with something on his phone and was no longer paying Thomas any mind. He lifted the teacup gingerly to his lips, but he felt far too sick to take a drink.

“You had a speech, you're speechless Love slipped beyond your reaches And I couldn't give a reason Champagne problems”

A reason, that’s all Thomas had wanted. Just any explanation. He understood if they were moving too fast, or perhaps he’d misread something, but he just didn’t understand it.

Why? Why can’t you tell me why? I deserve an explanation, Alastair. Please, anything.

I… I’m sorry, Thomas.

Stop it! Stop apologizing! We can just go home and pretend this never happened, please, forget about all of it, it was a stupid idea-

Thomas, stop. I shouldn’t’ve… This was a mistake. I’m sorry I didn’t see that sooner.

That was the moment Thomas felt his heart stop beating.

“Your Midas touch on the Chevy door November flush and your flannel cure "This dorm was once a madhouse" I made a joke, "Well, it's made for me" How evergreen, our group of friends Don't think we'll say that word again And soon they'll have the nerve to deck the halls That we once walked through”

Despite the nearly two decades Thomas had spent in London before Alastair, it was never the same without him. He saw him everywhere he went, despite knowing he was thousands of miles away. After graduating uni that May, he accepted a spot at a graduate program in Spain and didn’t look back.

“One for the money, two for the show I never was ready so I watch you go Sometimes you just don't know the answer 'Til someone's on their knees and asks you "You’re the only one I want by my side, What a shame you’re fucked in the head," you said”

Those were the words that haunted Thomas’ nightmares, even now.

It’s you! It’s only you for me! It was always going to be you! But I can see now that I was never going to be enough for you, you and your secrets and walls and your lies. It’s a shame… it’s a shame you’re so fucked in the head, Alastair. You’ll never truly love anyone, will you? You’re not physically capable of it.

Alastair hadn’t responded. Thomas had wanted a rise out of him, any reaction at all, despite knowing how lethal and volatile Alastair could become when provoked. But there was nothing. Not a flicker of anything in his steeled expression. He’d simply looked down, apologized again for any pain that he’d caused, and left.

That was the last time they’d spoken.

Thomas and his sister left for Edinburgh that night, and when he’d returned to London, Alastair was gone.

“Well, you'll find the real thing instead Who'll patch up your tapestry that I shred And hold your hand while dancing Never leave you standing Crestfallen on the landing With champagne problems”

Thomas couldn’t imagine giving his heart to anyone again, not now and certainly not then. He’d dated in Madrid, but it had always stayed casual. He’d made sure of it. He could see now that he and Alastair had gotten together quickly, moved in together quickly, done all of it very quickly. After all, he’d fallen hard and fast. He gave all of himself to Alastair, and he’d nearly lost all of himself in the process.

“Your mom's ring in your pocket New picture in your wallet You won't remember all my Champagne problems

“You won't remember all my Champagne problems”

Now, he wondered what the rest of the story was. He’d convinced himself that Alastair had never loved him, that he was heartless and cruel, though he’d known that wasn’t true. Could Alastair have written this song if he’d never truly loved him? Perhaps he was a sociopath.

Thomas felt like he should run. Like he should pick up his bag and dart out of the apartment before Alastair could notice him, find some hotel somewhere with undoubtedly extraordinary high rates and just pretend like this never happened. He could get back on a plane and go back home to his parents and delete his phone browser history and pretend like this was all just a bad dream. But he could not move.

He didn’t know how many minutes had passed before Alastair’s door opened. He looked up with a start.

“Thomas,” Alastair breathed. He stood wide eyed, flushed.

“Do you two already know each other then?” Piers asked.

There was a moment of silence before Thomas cleared his throat. “We used to,” he said, looking down.

“I, er, I forgot that your friend was coming today,” Alastair told Piers. “It’s quite a long journey from London, you should have told me, I would have been quieter.”

Thomas considered correcting him for a moment, but decided not to. “Don’t worry about it. I heard you had your first big release. Congratulations.”

Alastair gave an awkward nod. “Thank you. Right, well, I’ll just…” He rushed over to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. “I’ll try to be a bit quieter.”

“Don’t- It’s fine, really. In fact, I’m sure there’s some hotel in the area I can stay at for now, actually-”

“Well, don’t leave on my account,” Alastair interrupted. “We agreed to let you stay here, and the city’s a bloody mess right now. I’ll stay out of your hair, Thomas.”

Thomas only nodded as Alastair disappeared back behind his bedroom door.

Thanks for reading! Taglist (ask to be +/-): @stxr-thxif @chaos-and-starlight @zosiaenrique @lifewouldbebetteronmars @littlx-songbxrd @dianasarrow @eugeniaslongsword @bookswitchcraftandcats @jamesherondaleofficial @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @livingformyself @anarmorofwords @foxglove-airmid @writeforjordelia @sapphic-in @jem-nasium @fortheloveofthecarstairs @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @shadowrunner2000 @thewarthatsavedmylife @fair-childd @itsjusta-j-really

#alastair carstairs #thomas lightwood #thomastair #tlh #the last hours #fanfic #fanfiction #champagne problems au

[turtle-go-brrrr]

General bayverse headcanons part 2

Splinter

A very light sleeper

Anytime something happens in the lair, he knows

He knows so many of his son’s secrets but act as if he didn’t to protect their feelings

Like that one time he saw Leo flex in front of his mirror (he never did it again because ‘what if it was Raph or Mikey’)

Or that one time he went to ask Donnie a question and realized too late he was having some... alone time... and Donnie tried to play it off to save what was left of his dignity: “haha no I’m not doing anything, I’m fine, how can I help you?” but left a tab open

Let’s just say Splinter knows way more about his sons than he wish he did

He feels honored every time one of them, or hell, April or Casey, come to him for advice or just to vent

He’s jsut so happy to know they trust him

He loves watching movies with them

Doesn’t really understand pop culture but is thrilled when they take the time to explain it to him anyway

He keeps every single drawing Mikey ever made him, he has multiple boxes of them and he keeps his favorite in his room

It takes so much space, but they’re really important to him

Raph made him a really soft scarf that he wears every time they go to the surface (it reassures him)

He also has a sweater and a blanket, and he loves bragging about them: “Oh, this? Yes, my son made it for me :) Isn’t he talented :)”

He finds Donnie’s smarts both impressive and intimidating

Sometimes he’s scared he will never truly understand him or that he won’t have anything else to teach him

But then Donnie comes to him when he can’t sleep or had a nightmare, and he feels warm inside

He’s really scared for Leo

He has so much pressure on his shoulder and so many responsabilities, he’s terrified he will break someday

But Leo knows he can count on his family to support him if anything turns sour and is learning to open up (thanks to Splinter)

All in all, he’s the proudest dad there could be and definitely bragged and showed embarassing memories to April and Casey when they joined the mutants

His favorite animal is the canary

April

Mom Friend ™ 

She’s the one to bring them snacks or useless trinkets they might like

Leo thinks it’s stupid and they should hoard that kind of things

(he does anyway)

She’s also the one to bring medical supplies to the lair when they’re getting short on them

She knows many people because of her job, and comes so often to the pharmacy that the people who work her eknow her and know to not ask too many questions

She doesn’t care about the sight of blood but the smell makes her sick

She still follows Splinter’s instruction when doing stitches and she took a few first aid courses with Casey

She’s the one who takes care of the biggest bugs of the lair

She’s also the one they all go to when they have an embarrassing question to ask (the kind of stuff you’re too embarrassed to ask one of your parents, no matter how close you are)

Doesn’t really listen to anyone, really

Except maybe Splinter from time to time

But like, if she wants to investigate something messy or dangerous, she won’t let anyone stop her

She won’t run straight into danger, she’s not stupid, but she’s not gonna back off just because it might be dangerous

“Okay, April, I’m sorry but you’ll have to sit this one out, it’s way too dangerous for a hum-” “She’s already inside”

 She’s brave like that <3

The best at Just Dance

Even beat Raph from time to time

She has a terrible singing voice tho and loves to scream-sing just because she knows it drives Leo crazy

Sometimes will get picked up by one of the boys and just acts as if nothing hapened and keep talking about whatever the conversation was while being carried around everywhere

Speaks 3 other languages to varying degrees of fluentness: Spanish (fluent), French (still learning but she’s getting there), Arabic (beginner)

She knows insults in a lot of other languages tho (you know, just in case ;) )

The only one who doesn’t pull pranks on Casey (she takes pity on him and he gives her kisses when she takes his side so win-win)

Her favorite animal is the fox

Casey

Pray for him

He’s so fed up with their sibling nonsense

He’s always in the middle of their fights and he’s tired of this

But he’s even more tired of being the victim of their endless pranks (especially Raph and Mikey)

The payback is worth it tho

Surprisingly good with kids

Especially troubled kids (he used to be one, so he knows what to say to help them)

Also really found of small animals

Unlike Mikey who talks to them as equals, Casey baby talks and it’s both adorable and kind of silly

He’s well known in most of the rescue centers of the city because he always brings in stray animals here

Also volunteer in some of them from time to time

He’s really conflicted because of all of the horrible things othe cops do  and he often wants to quit because of that

But if he leaves, he knows no one will try to make a change

He believes he can make things right and tries his best to callout his collegues when they say or do fucked up things

Also completely understand all the hate against cops, and don’t hesitate to let everyone know it’s justified when his colleagues try to play the victim

Despite his anger issues he tries to keep a level head when on the job

He wants to be a good cop, but being a good person is even more important (and almost got him fired multiple times, the only thing keeping him from that being his connection to Chief Vincent)

This is why he’s also doing his vigilante stuff at night

He knows that sometimes, the law won’t protect the most vulnerable people

But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t

Once accidentally cut himself on the left with a piece of glass

He broke a glass jar, cleaned it up but forgot one little piece, and later stepped on it

It didn’t cut his foot, but he felt something under it and tried to get it off by rubbing his foot against his leg

Hence the stupid cut

Most of his scars aren’t really from his numerous fights, they’re just stupid injuries like that

His favorite animal is the cheetah

#bayverse tmnt #tmnt headcanons #tmnt leonardo #tmnt #tmnt april #tmnt casey jones #tmnt splinter #tmnt raphael #tmnt donatello #tmnt michelangelo #my writing

[youneedasoultraveller]

Is the popular headcanon that Nicky was illiterate, stupid and barbaric fitting in the stereotypes about Southern Europeans / Mediterraneans ? I’m guessing it’s from the American part of the fandom that’s choosing to not respectfully write Nicky since he is white while being virulent towards anybody that doesn’t perfected and accurately write Joe because he is MENA.

Hello!

Mind you, I am neither a psychologist, a sociologist nor a historian, so of course be aware these are my own views on the whole drama.

But to answer your question, yes, I personally think so. It definitely comes from the American side, but I have seen Northern Europeans do that too, often just parroting the same type of discourse that Anglos whip out every other day.

There is an abysmal ignorance of Medieval history – even more so when it concerns countries that are not England: there is this common misconception that Europe in the Middle Ages was this cultural backwater full of semi-barbaric people that stems unfortunately not only from trying to (correctly) reframe colonialist approaches to the historiographies of non-European populations (that is, showing the Golden Age of Islamic culture, for instance, as opposed to what were indeed less culturally advanced neighbours), but also from distortions operated by European themselves from the Renaissance onwards, culminating in the 18th century Enlightenment philosophes categorising the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages.

Now this approach has been time and time again proven to be a made-up myth. I will not go into detail to disprove each and every single one misconception about the Medieval era because entire books have been written, but just to give you an example: there was no such a thing as a ius primae noctis/droit du seigneur; people were aware that the Earth was not flat (emperors, kings, saints, etc, they were depicted holding a globe in their hands); people were taking care of their hygiene, either through the Roman baths, or natural springs, or private tubs that the wealthier strata of the population (and especially the aristocracy) owned. The Church was not super happy about them not because it wanted people to remain dirty, but because often these baths were for both men and women, and it was not that in favour of them showing off their bodies to one another. Which, you know, we also don’t do now unless you go to nudist spas. It was only during the Black Death in the 14th century that baths were slowly abandoned because they became a place of contagion, and they went into disuse (or better, they changed purpose and became something like bordellos). And, lastly, there was certainly a big chunk of the population that was illiterate, but certainly it was not the clergy, which was THE erudite class of the time. It was in monasteries and abbeys that knowledge was passed and preserved (as well as lost unfortunately often, such as the case for the largest part of classical literature).

So what does this mean? According to canon, Nicolò was an ex priest who fought in the First Crusade. This arguably means that at the very least he was a cadet son of a minor noble family (or a wealthy merchant one) who was part of the clergy. As such, historically he could have been neither illiterate nor a dirty garbage cat in his daily life.

Let’s then talk geography. Southern Europe (and France) was far, far more advanced than the North at the time and Italy remained the cultural powerhouse of the continent until the mid-17th century. Al Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula, the Italian States,  the Byzantine Empire (which called itself simply Roman Empire, whose population defined itself as Roman and cultural heirs of the Latin and Greek civilisations): these places have nothing to do with popular depictions of Medieval Europe that you mainly see from the Anglos. Like @lucyclairedelune rightfully pointed out: not everyone was England during the plague.

Also the Middle Ages lasted one thousand years. As a historical age, it’s way longer than anything we had after that. So of course habits varied, there was a clear collapse right after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, but then things develop, you know?

Anyway, back to the point in question. Everything I whipped up is not arcane knowledge: it’s simply having studied history at school and spending a few hours reading scientific articles on the internet which are not “random post written by random Anglo on Tumblr who can hardly find Genoa on a map”.

Nicolò stems from that culture. The most advanced area in Europe, possibly a high social class, certainly educated, from Genoa, THE maritime superpower of the age (with…Venice). It makes absolutely no sense that he would not be able to speak anything past Ligurian: certainly Latin (the ecclesiastical one), maybe the koine Greek spoken in Constantinople, or Sabir, or even the several Arabic languages from the Med basin stretching from al Andalus to the Levant. Because Genoa was a port, and people travel, bring languages with them, use languages to barter.

And now I am back to your question. Does this obstinacy in writing him as an illiterate beast (basically) feed into stereotypes of Mediterranean people (either from the northern or the southern shore)? It does.

It is a typically Anglo-Germanic perspective that of describing Southern (Catholic) Europeans are hot-headed, illiterate bumpinks mindlessly driven by blind anger, lusts and passions, as opposed to the rational, law-abiding smart Northern Protestants. You see it on media. I see it in my own personal life, as a Southern Italian living in Northern Europe for 10 years.

Does it sound familiar? Yes, it’s the same harmful stereotype of Yusuf as the Angry Brown Man. But done to Nicolò as the Angry Italian Man (not to mention the fact that, depending on the time of day and the daily agenda of the Anglo SJW Tumblrite, Italians can be considered either white or non-white).

Now, the times where Nicolò is shown as feral are basically when he is fighting (either in a bloody war or against Merrick’s men) or when Yusuf is in danger. Because, guess what, the man he loves is being hurt. What a fucking surprise.

Nicolò is simply being reduced to a one dimensional stereotype of the dirty dumb angry Italian, and people are simply doing this because they do not seem to accept the fact that both he and Yusuf are two wonderfully complex, flawed, fully-fledged multidimensional characters.

So I am mainly concentrating on Nicolò here because as an Italian I feel more entitled to speak about the way I see the Anglo fandom treating him and using stereotypes on him that have been consistently applied to us by the Protestant Northerners. I keep adding the religious aspect because, although I am an atheist who got debaptised from the Catholic Church, a big part of the historical treatment towards Southern has to do with religion and the contempt towards Catholic rituals and traditions (considered, once again, a sign of cultural backwardness by the enlightened North).

I do not want to impose my view of Yusuf because there are wonderful Tumblr users from MENA countries who have already written wonderful metas of the way Yusuf is being depicted by non-MENA people (in particular Americans), especially (again) @lucyclairedelune and @nizarnizarblr.

However, I just want to underline that, by only ever writing Yusuf as essentially a monodimensional character without a single flaw, this takes away Yusuf’s canon multidimensionality, the right he has to feel both positive but also negative feelings (he was hurt and angry at Booker’s betrayal, allegedly his best friend, AND HE HAD EVERY RIGHT TO BE – and I say this as a Booker fan as well).

I have not been the first to say these things, it is nothing revolutionary, and it exactly complements what the MENA tumblr users in the TOG fandom have also been trying to say. Both of us as own voices people who finally have the chance to have two characters that are fully formed and honest representations of our own cultures, without stereotypes or Anglogermanic distortions.

And the frustration mounting among all of us comes from the fact that the Anglos are, once again, not listening to us, even telling us we are wrong about our own cultures (see what has happened to Lucy and Nazir).

What is even more frustrating is that everything in this cursed fandom – unless it was in the film or comics – is just a bloody headcanon. But these people are imposing their HCs as if it were the Word of God, and attacking others – including own voices MENA and Italians – for daring to think otherwise.

I honestly don’t expect this post will make any difference because this is just a small reflection of what Americans do in real life on grander scale, which is thinking they are the centre of the world and ignoring that the rest of the world even exists regardless of their own opinions on it.

But still, sorry for the length, hope I answered your question.

#i am also expecting to receive lots of shit for this but can't say i care #the old guard #tog discourse #nicolo di genova #the old guard meta

[uglymanchronicles]

Ugly Man Chronicles Reignition Book 2 Chapter 2: My Breakfast With Evan

Just a couple dudes getting to know each other.

“If you must know,” Evan sighed, spearing a glistening sausage on the end of a flimsy plastic fork, “my jackass older sister thought it would be hilarious to give me a cupcake she'd baked with about a dozen powdered viagra for my fifteenth birthday. I wound up passing out eventually. Burst a lot of blood vessels. Damaged the erectile tissue beyond usefulness.”

Titus froze mid-coffee-sip. “Seriously? What a bitch!”

“Buddy, you don't know the half of it.”

“So... no signs of life down there?”

“Nothing for twelve years.”

“I think I would literally kill myself.”

“It's not so bad, I guess. At least I don't have to drain the blood out of it any more.”

“Eugh! Fuck! Did not need to hear that!”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer to.”

“Do you get, like, blue balls all the time, then?”

“That's basically my ground state of being.”

Titus whistled flatly, avoiding looking Evan in the eye. He settled for staring at the table. There wasn't a lot of Evan's face that he felt comfortable looking at; every part seemed to at least be adjacent to some unpleasantry or another. About the only safe area was his right eye, which, as luck would have it, was directly opposite Titus's 'good' eye. Titus rallied and met Evan's gaze again. “Alright, your turn.”

They'd agreed on a sort of mutual interview process, taking turns asking questions to suss out what the other was capable or if he was worth having around. Evan took a bite out of the sausage and chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

“Who's Moreno?”

Titus hissed through his teeth. “A real piece of shit.”

“I'm going to need more than that.”

“I'm getting to it. He's basically, like... a freelance henchman? Like, sort of a mercenary criminal. Sells his services to the highest bidder.”

“And why's he matter?”

“That's another question.”

“No, it is not,” Evan said, quiet and serious. “Do not argue with me in bad faith, Titus. I have very little patience for it in the best of times.”

Titus regarded him for a long moment. The man across from him was wider than the table they sat at. His muscles were so pronounced in some points that Titus could tell when he was about to move by the way they bulged and contracted. Yet he gave the impression that he was constantly trying to pull himself inward, to make himself smaller. He spoke quietly and with a simple formality, but only hours before Titus had watched him single-handedly beat down some of the nastiest people he'd met in the past month.

Hmm.

“Fine. Moreno matters because I'm after the guy he's working for. You see, Moreno isn't just a normal scumbag. He works for people who need nasty things done. Not like regular nasty, either. How much do you actually know about magic?”

“I've got some... notes. So far I'm not able to find a lot of coherent rules. It mostly seems like it relies on things that nobody would normally do.”

Titus snapped his fingers and pointed at Evan. “Hit it right on the head. Rituals, reagents, that kind of thing... the reason—well, one of the reasons—magic doesn't just happen all the time by accident is that it's all weird little things. A lot of the more heavy magic relies on some pretty elaborate and obtuse shit to get it going.”

Evan momentarily thought back to the Book of Fate and his ritual in the woods. “So Moreno does these things for people?”

“Yeah. Thing is, though...” Titus stopped raising a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth and set it down again, as if he'd momentarily lost his appetite. “The people who use his services generally practice some pretty vile magic. Real depraved shit. And to empower depraved magic, you need depraved rituals. Moreno is the guy you go to when...”

“I think I get it,” Evan interjected, since Titus seemed to be struggling with deciding whether to continue. “Your turn.”

Titus tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, then looked Evan in the eye. “How smart are you?”

The scars on Evan's face squirmed around as he actually smirked. “What kind of question is that?”

“Hey, we agreed no 'whys'.”

“Alright, alright. Well, there's really no objective metric for it, but... I have Master's degrees in computer science and theoretical physics, Bachelor's in those in addition to mathematics and electrical engineering, and associate's degrees and certificates in everything from EMT training to ballet. I should have my doctorate in physics, but...” he said, with a bitterness that Titus made a note of, then changed gears. “Oh, and I also speak Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Arabic pretty fluently. I also know ASL. I can get by in German and Russian, too. I don't know if any of that is what you meant but--”

“Jesus, I get it,” Titus muttered, rubbing the side of his head. “How the fuck do you make money?”

“Software consulting, mostly. I specialize in security and processing efficiency. People pay me to break into their systems and then patch the holes, or to make their code run quicker or make their programs smaller. I've got a few patents I've licensed that bring in most of my income nowadays, though.”

“Anything I would have heard of?”

“If you've used a computer made in the last four years it probably has something I wrote integrated somewhere into it. I also helped develop a protein-sequencing program that helped develop a vaccine for this nasty SARS variant that broke out in China last year. They say if they hadn’t nipped it in the bud it could’ve spread worldwide and we’d be looking at millions of deaths by now.”

Titus scrunched up his face. “Oh yeah, just say that like it’s no big deal.”

“I’m just glad it turned out not to be one. What I'd really like to do is get my compression algorithm out there, but if I do that, somebody's going to try to hoard it all for themselves.”

“Are you talking to yourself or me?”

“Look, I... a few years ago I figured out a way to compress memory down by a exponential factor of six with zero loss. All it takes is a couple software plugins that don't take up much room themselves. Essentially, I could make a gigabyte fit in a kilobyte with very little trouble, now that the math's figured out.”

“Holy fuck, that's insane! Why haven't I heard anything about this?”

“Mainly because I don't tell people. If I put it up on the market, some ISP would buy it and bury it. If you make information smaller, you make it faster. Can you imagine what it'd do to internet access if dial-up and barebones cellular networks suddenly had the bandwidth of fiber optics? It would... maybe not revolutionize our society, but it would level a lot of playing fields. Bring a lot of underdeveloped areas of the world—hell, this country—up to modern levels with no extra cost. The telecomms would crash and burn so hard. But I don't have the means to get it out there without going through someone else. Yet,” Evan added. “So I basically work watered-down versions of the compressor into the software I make. Nothing that can be duplicated, and nowhere near its full potential, but enough to get me hailed as some kind of genius and pay the bills.”

“So why aren't you on your own private island or something somewhere instead of puttering around God's Ashtray in a shitty old Bug?”

“Hey, the Beetle is not shitty,” Evan said, defensively. “And I'm just waiting for the AC in my RV to get fixed or I'd be driving that.”

“Oh hot damn! Now that's the way to live!”

“Not the one I'd choose voluntarily, but it could be worse.”

“How come you're doing it, then?”

“I think it's my turn to ask,” Evan said, mildly.

“Fine,” Titus said grumpily, crossing his arms.

“How do you make money?”

“That's easy. I'm basically a freelance bailbondsman. I just roam around, drop my advertising around bars and courthouses.”

“You get many clients that way?” Evan asked, cocking his remaining eyebrow.

“Oh, you'd be amazed how desperate people can get,” Titus said, shrugging. “Of course, they're usually not the most responsible people, so when they bounce, I track 'em down myself, drag ‘em back to jail, get the money back. My eye usually makes it super easy. Sometimes they don't even see me before I get the cuffs on 'em.”

“Why did you feel the need to rob a bunch of drug dealers, then? The thrill of it?”

“I had a pressing need for a large amount of cash that my normal work doesn't bring in. That got me enough to hold it off for a while. My turn.”

Evan waved down a waitress for a refill of his coffee, trying not to take it personally when she gasped upon seeing his face. “Go ahead…”

“No, no, hang on.” Titus waved a hand dismissively. “I want to try something. Take your hair out of the ponytail.”

“What? Why?”

“Humor me.”

Evan groaned and reached back, removing his hair tie. After shaking his head, his hair fell over his face, obscuring everything but his nose and mouth. Titus pursed his lips and regarded him seriously for a moment.

“Can you see?”

“Yeah, I guess. Well enough to not walk into things, I think, and I could probably read if I had to.”

Titus snapped his fingers. “Good. Go with that from now on.”

“Why?”

“Because now you don’t look like God’s mistake. Now you look like a big, dumb-but-lovable goon. Like Jack Black would voice you in a cartoon.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Do you like seeing people contemplating their own mortality and the general cruel absurdity of the tragic farce that is human existence when they get a glimpse of your face?”

Evan felt his cheeks burn and was actually grateful his hair was covering most of his face. “…not particularly, no.”

“Then there you go. You’re welcome. Okay, question time. Uh… how did you get your powers?”

“Which one?”

“Oh, now who’s arguing in bad faith? Fucking all of them, you thick-lipped gargoyle.”

Evan had the feeling he hit a sore spot. Titus's easy-going, jocular tone had bled away from him, leaving behind the hard-edged razor-blade of a man that had ambushed him the night before. He decided not to belabor the point.

“I don't know why I can rege—why I heal so quickly. No, I'm serious, as far as I know, it just started happening sometime in the past few months. I can't remember. Don't look at me like that, I'll get to that in a minute. When I was younger I recovered from a lot of injuries a lot quicker than the doctors thought I would, so maybe it's something I was born with and it just got stronger recently for some reason.”

Evan took a sip of coffee, mainly to buy a few seconds to think of how much to explain for the next part.

“The ability to shut off powers... that's part of, well, I guess you'd call it a magic ritual, because I don't know what else to call it. I found a weird old book that said it contained the key to making someone an instrument of universal justice, or something of the sort. Since then I can see... I guess they're souls? Maybe? I can sort of move mine and when I run it into someone else's it seems like I can shut off their powers. Or... take them entirely, if they're dying.”

“Horseshit!” Titus scoffed. “That's... that's like meta-magic. I don't even know if that's real.”

“No, seriously! I don't think it's just magic powers, I think it... 'normalizes' things.” He briefly recounted his encounter with the pain monster.

“Are you kidding me? That...” Titus took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair, exhaling slowly and loudly. “Look, I don't know much, but the fact that you even ran into something like that, let alone survived... those odds are astronomical. And you say you negated not just its powers, but its whole form?”

“Yeah. Once I... reached into it, like I did with you—oh don't make that face. Grow up—I kind of disrupted what made it... different, I guess? Like I cut it off from its special qualities. Like it was...”

“Disjuncted,” Titus cut in.

“Yeah, that's a good word for it. Like the old Mordenkainen spell?”

“Fucking nerd.”

“Eat my ass. Anyway, after I killed it, I was able to reach into its... soul? Animating force? Aura? I don't know what to call it. I was able to grab something and pull it out and it just got pulled into me.”

“Not aura.”

“What?”

“Aura's a different thing,” Titus said, dismissively. “So what did you get from doing that?”

“I.. I feel pain differently. I don't flinch or get adrenaline rushes from injuries that don't actually impede my ability to function. I think I have a better sense of what is actually dangerous to my body now. It still hurts, but I don't react to pain like people normally do. It's like...hmm.” Evan drummed his fingers on the table. “Do you know anything about video games? Fighting games, specifically?”

“I used to fuck around on an old Alpha 3rd Strike cabinet when I was a kid. Why?”

“Do you know what 'super armor' is?”

“Isn't that where a move can't get stopped by being hit when you're doing it?”

“Right. I'm kind of like that now. Pain doesn't interrupt me.”

“Fucking nerd.”

Evan's fist involuntarily clenched. “I'm trying to put this in terms you can understand, you stupid reprobate. My experience with your judgment thus far hasn't given me much faith in your intellect.”

Titus burst out laughing. “So he does know how to banter! I thought you might be one of those Rainman types.”

“Oh sure, call it 'banter' to try to excuse the fact that you've been insulting me for the past half hour. Do you say you're ‘just joking’ when people get mad at you for saying stupid shit, too?”

“C'mon, lighten up! We're partners now! Tell me more about this soul thing. I still think you're full of shit.”

Evan sighed through his nose, then held up his left hand, forming his fingers into a circle and peering through them.

“Yours is... a sort of cross between a sea green and an oil slick. The tendrils of it keep reaching out and snapping back, going all over the place. It seems to keep expanding and contracting. It's almost flickering, like... it's indecisive. Very chaotic. The tendrils that aren't snapping around seem to be kept pretty close to your body, wrapping around you like... I can't tell if it's protective or restrictive.”

Titus's expression slowly became serious. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know. I have a lot of theories, but nothing solid to go on. I'm not sure if it's allegorical or a literal representation of a person's... power, maybe? Yours definitely looks a lot different than most people's.”

“I don't believe this for a second. Let me see.”

“How would I do tha—hey!”

Titus grabbed Evan's wrist and held his hand up to his eye. “Ho-lee...”

He pulled back from Evan's hand, staring at him. Then he looked around the room, mouth slack as he took in the diner's other occupants.

“Huh. Did you know it keeps working until you blink?” He said after a moment, a faraway tone to his voice.

“I didn't even know other people could do it,” Evan said, awe in his voice. “Hey, wow, you're right!”

“Jesus, yours is, like, really blue. It looks like... a bunch of steel cables. It's weird, I felt like I both could and couldn't see the edges of it...”

“I can kind of move it, but I'm not sure if I can do anything with it beyond interfering with people's powers. It's like learning to use a muscle you didn't know you had.”

“Huh.” Titus was again silent for a long moment. “Your turn.”

“Can you do anything else supernatural? Besides your time-eye?”

“Don't call it that, it sounds stupid. And... sorta. I seem to have whatever innate talent you need to actually do magic, but it's not like it's easy to find instructions. Most of the people I know who can use it just dabble with half-broken magic items—wands, amulets, charms,” he pulled the silence charm out from under his coat and bounced it at the end of its chain. “I guess I'm sort of a dabbler. I know a few tricks, I can use a lot of magic tools, I can sense magic pretty well, I can dowse... Most of the time I really never have to use anything besides the eye, though.”

“Is the eye all-or-nothing?”

“Yeah. It's not nearly as useful as you'd think, but any edge is an edge.”

“When I turned off your power and it was coming back, though, you started speeding up—or, I guess, everything else was slowing down? You were moving faster, one way or the other. You were able to touch me, and those punches hurt.”

“Huh, yeah, you're right.”

“Do you think there's a way you could learn to only partially activate it?”

“That'd be great, wouldn't it? Thing is, just using it is a huge strain, and that time spend outside of time adds up. Going by normal calendar time I'm only 26.”

“Fuck, I'm 27!” Evan laughed.

“Yeah, well, I'd rather be prematurely gray than what you've got going on. My turn. Uh... huh, I can't really think of anything else. Uh... are you gay?”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“No, but the question still counts.”

“I'm bi,” Evan mumbled, crossing his arms across his prodigious chest. “Not that it matters. And before you ask, no, you are not my type. We're done talking about this.”

“Huh. You ever sucked--”

“We. Are. Done. Talking about this.”

“Fine, God. Go.”

Evan mentally circled back to an earlier question he felt hadn't been properly answered. “Why are you after Moreno?”

To Evan's surprise, Titus didn't hesitate. “I'm actually after his current boss. He's just the best lead I have to go on.” He took a deep breath, then started talking with a rushed, deadpan pace, as if he was eager to get the words out as quickly as possible so they wouldn't be in his mouth very long.

“Moreno is working for a guy only known as the Soultaker. He has an innate supernatural ability to pull a person's soul out of their body. When that happens, the person just... shuts down, usually. No motive force behind them. Eventually they just die of dehydration, usually. I've seen some people so set in routine that they keep going without a soul, but... it's not really life.

“It seems like the extraction process takes a while, so he can't just walk past you on the street and pickpocket your entire essence. So he needs people rounded up for him, held until he can do his nasty juju. So that's where a degenerate like Moreno comes in.

“So when he pulls out a soul, it, well, it looks like this.”

Titus pulled a battered, faded Crown Royale bag out of his jacket. It bulged strangely and made a quiet clacking when he set it on the table. He pulled out what looked like a large marble, or maybe a dull pearl, and handed it to Evan.

Evan brushed his hair out of his eyes and peered into the milky depths of the sphere. After a few moments of staring, the murky clouds inside the thing seemed to clear and a face floated to the surface. A black man, maybe in his late 40s, going thin on top. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be sleeping, but his expression had a look of discomfort to it, as if he was having a bad dream.

“Jesus Christ,” Evan whispered, “I've seen this guy... Martell Calloway? I saw some news article about how his family found him tied up in his apartment and completely comatose! But he didn't have any injuries beyond being a black eye... so he's dead?”

“Life support,” Titus said, taking Mr. Calloway's soul back from Evan's unresisting fingers, “technically, he's one of the lucky ones. They found his body before it wasted away to nothing, and I was able to intercept his soul before it got to a buyer.”

“Why would someone buy something like this? What use is it? Can you fix him?”

“A human soul is a damn near exhaustible arcane battery,” Titus said gravely. In the split second between sentences, Evan noticed something—after he'd put the bag back into his jacket, Titus surreptitiously touched a pocket on the other side of his jacket, as if he was making sure something was still there.

“If you know what you're doing, you can power a lot of magic using a soul. And you can reuse them as long as you don't overdo it. If you know what you're doing, you can wring all but the last drops of essence out of a soul and let it heal or recover or whatever, and it'll eventually be back to full strength. Very resilient things,” Titus continued. “I don't think they're conscious in there, but... anyway, it's supposed to be really hard to extract a soul. But this guy was born with or spontaneously developed or somehow figured out a shortcut to the whole process. So the market is getting flooded with torture-batteries and ECUs are getting flooded with vegetables. And families are winding up with loved ones who are as good as dead, without having any idea why this happened to them. Dozens of them have been taken off life support in the past few months. Half these souls have no body to return to. And no, I can't fix it. At least not yet,” he sighed again. “I was hoping once I found him, I could somehow get the secret out of him or force him to put them back, or... maybe I thought if I killed him it'd reverse the effect. He needs killing, either way.”

Titus's eye widened as a thought struck him and he looked Evan in the eye for the first time since he'd started the story. Evan realized what he was thinking and looked down at the tattoo on his left arm, flexing his fingers.

“If you can take people's powers after they die...”

“...then we can save these people.”

Titus put a hand over his mouth and for a moment Evan thought he saw his eye well up.

“I'm in,” Evan said, a sense of righteous purpose welling in his heart. “I don't really know what the universe wants, but I doubt... I know it's not this. We'll find him, we'll stop him, and we'll save as many of these people as we can.”

“...thanks,” Titus mumbled behind his hand. He swallowed hard, then seemed to come back to himself. “We're back to square one, though.”

“You said you could dowse? Like, for real?”

“Yes, for real. I can find things and people with the pendulum method. It's handy for tracking down bounties.”

“Why don't you dowse Moreno?”

“Why didn't I think of that?!” Titus said incredulously, smacking his forehead. “Because he's warded. He's not magic himself, but he's collected enough gear through his career that my normal methods don't work.”

Evan rubbed his chin. “What if we used an abnormal method?”

-------------------

An hour later, they were in the RV. Titus was poring over the collection of Evan's notes and the strange papers he'd bought from Delmann's shop. Evan was very carefully slicing a strip of skin from his own ankle up all the way up his leg. The Guiding Light—the Finder's Follysat on the table between them, filled with fresh blood.

“Even if this works, he's going to know we're coming,” Titus muttered, engrossed in the pages. “Remember what I said?”

“That's why we're not going to look for him,” Evan said, adjusting his grip on the potato peeler. “I don't know how we'd even write his name. Can you read that, by the way?”

“Kind of. This is... most of this is written in, like, arcane pidgin. Who compiled these notes?”

“I did, I think.”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to clarify on that. Apparently a couple months ago, before the ritual, I drilled a hole in my own brain to erase some kind of very dangerous memory.”

“You what.”

“That's not a metaphor or anything. Really did it. I could show you the video.”

“I'll pass. So you don't remember where this came from?” Titus shook the Book of Fate at him.

“Nope.”

“Jesus shit, do you have any idea--”

“How reckless that was? Yeah, yeah, I'm still here and I'm the answer to your fuckin' prayers, aren't I?” Evan gave a whoop as the peeling skin reached his thigh. “Got it this time!” he said cheerfully, snipping the flesh-ribbon off with scissors.

“God, that's so fucking gross. Anyway, you haven't explained how we're going to use that thing to find Moreno.”

“We don't set it to look for him. We look for somewhere he's been. Maybe the last place he slept. Do you think you can describe him well enough in that language for it to work?”

Titus looked like he might actually be impressed, but he hid it well. “Yeah, probably.”

“Good. I've got a dictionary I've put together on that tablet next to you, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Maybe it'll help?”

---------------------

Two hours later, they had it.

Find where a man born between the 27th and 28th north parallels during a new moon under the sign of capricorn with black hair and green eyes who has killed at least 10 people slept in the past week.

They really had to squeeze the letters in, but when Evan put a flame to the wick, it sprung to life, wavered for a moment, and then pointed east. Both men cheered. Evan threw Titus the keys.

“Drive! Drive north until I tell you otherwise!”

While Titus started the engine, Evan spread a map of the United States on the table in front of the lamp, then produced a protractor and a notebook from a drawer. “Okay, you bastard... let's see where you've been hiding...”

It took three days—one spent driving north, one spent driving back to where they'd started, and one spent driving south. While Titus drove, Evan made meticulous notes of the flame's direction, marking angles on the map. Finally he threw the pencil down triumphantly.

“He's in Salt Lake City.”

“Well, that narrows it down a little, I guess. So what, do we just go there and hope this thing points us in the right direction?”

“Too slow,” Evan called, stepping back into what used to be his bedroom and sitting at his computer. “Now I work my magic.”

After parking, Titus walked back to look over Evan's shoulder. The half-dozen monitors on the wall were flickering between rapidly-changing pictures of faces and what appeared to be CCTV footage.

“What is this?”

“This,” Evan said with dramatic pride, “is Blaccat. Facial recognition algorithms that the CIA wishesit had. I actually started working on it years ago before I thought about the implications of it, but I shelved it. I figured since I may be needing to, uh...”

“Be Batman?”

“...yeah...that I should get back to work on it. Right now it's comparing faces to the description you gave me and cycling through every damn security camera in the city looking for it.”

“How illegal is this?”

“Soooooo illegal.”

“Oh, hey, can you get into police department records?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

“See if you can get into the Las Vegas mugshots from... February 2019. Run your face-recognition thingy there.”

“Alright.... and... is that our boy?”

A handsome Latino man in his early 30s with shoulder-length jet-black hair and piercing green eyes stared at them from over a booking clipboard.

“That's him,” Titus breathed.

“Perfect! Now I just have to feed that into... wow.” Evan made a gesture and a black and white video popped up on the biggest monitor. The man in the mugshot was walking along the street, flanked by a short stocky man in bandanna and a lanky man with the ugliest white-boy dreads Evan had ever seen.

“That's him! Where is that? When is that?”

Evan grinned up at Titus. “That's live. I can track him and put us at the nearest intersection.”

Titus smiled, eye overbright, and began breathing heavily through his nose. “We got him.”

Evan met his eye and nodded. “Let's get him.”

#my writing #urban fantasy #ugly man chronicles: reignition