#views at least. someone who understands him. and in that understanding disquietness. to know someone else knows your insides intrinsically.

[buckyownsmylife]

There’s a Light Over at the Frankenstein place - Sebastian Stan fluff

The one where you’ve been set up on a blind date with Sebastian Stan, with whom you had briefly worked and considered to be a friend. The only problem is, does he feel the same way?

Warnings: light angst? I’m incapable of writing anything without a happy ending, so do not worry.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

“Seb?” I asked, honestly surprised to find him walking in with who I assumed to be his mother, by the similarity of their constitutions. His eyes met mine and I could swear he blushed, before looking down to his shoes and averting his eyes to his godmother, who stood next to me.

“You two are witches, do you know that?” He provoked, to which the two women simply giggled. I looked from one woman to the other, not being able to contain the sheepish smile trying to fight its way into my expression.

“I can’t believe this,” I teased Anastasia, who simply rolled her eyes at me, before nudging me with her elbow. 

“Well, you couldn’t stop talking about him since you two met, so we decided to help,” she explained and it was my turn to roll my eyes. 

“So I say that I finally met your grandson and that he really is nice and you read that I’m in love with him? Remind me to never say something to you again, Lord knows how you’re going to interpret it,” she blushed at the comment, but it was obvious by my smile that I was only joking. “Listen, if I have to go out with anyone tonight, I’m glad it’s with you, Seb.” I winked in his direction and didn’t miss the fact that he, yet again, blushed under my gaze.

Georgeta, Sebastian’s mom, grinned at me like I had hung the moon in the sky. I remembered he had told me how big of a fan of my work she was and so I made sure to hug her and introduce myself since he didn’t seem to be too eager to do so at that moment. Soon enough, both she and Anastasia kissed us goodbyes and with their last reminders to behave, finally left us be.

I wasn’t lying about what I had said. I was so incredibly grateful that my blind date turned out to be Sebastian, not only because I thought he was actually cute, but because he was someone I was already comfortable with and I hated the idea of spending my Thursday night with a complete stranger who could bore me to death. There was absolutely no possibility that was going to happen, though, since he was my company.

Despite the fact that we hadn’t known each other for that long, the two weeks we had spent together on set was one of the best experiences of my life. He was simply so freaking funny and considerate and I couldn’t forget the feeling that filled my heart when we spent the whole night looking up at the stars and talking about our greatest fears. It was so nice to find someone who understood my problems with anxiety so well, but every time I thought about the suffering this incredible human being went through because of it, I wanted to wrap him in a blanket cocoon and never let him leave my arms again.

“So…” I started, seeing as we were both still one in front of the other and he hadn’t made any movement that indicated his decision to sit down at the table Anastasia and I had picked when we arrived. “Do you want to stay here or would you rather go somewhere else?” I asked, watching as he finally looked me in the eyes, scratching his nape.

“Whatever you wish, darling…” he stated, but I could still see the clear discomfort in his stance. I looked around me once, weighing the trendy restaurant his godmother had brought me to before voicing what I had already decided. 

“Let’s get out of here,” I pulled him to me by the sleeve of his coat, locking our arms together before we let the cold air of Los Angeles’ evening hit us.

“Where are we going?” he questioned and I simply glanced at him, a smile on my lips.

“You’ll see.” Was my only answer as I quickly made my way towards the spot I had in mind. The walk was silent, despite the fact that I tried to come up with something to say a thousand times, but his disquiet threw me off completely. I knew blind dates were awkward, but seeing that we already knew each other, I was expecting at least some kind of conversation, since I considered us to be friends.

My feet took me to a well-known path and soon enough I found myself in front of my favorite bar in LA. I spent too much time during my visits here, but I had never brought any of my friends here before.

“What is this?” Sebastian asked, his bright blue eyes shining under the bar’s neon sign.

“The favorite place in this city,” I explained, pushing in the doors to let us in. Instantly, the familiar buzz of excited voices and the dim lights welcomed me to the environment I came to know so well.

“Hey, Peter!” I shouted over the other voices gathered around the bar, excitedly waving at the barman.

“Y/N! I wasn’t expecting you around here these days!” The muscular man behind the counter shouted back, his hands occupied with wiping down a few glasses. I simply shrugged, sticking my tongue out.

“You know I’m full of surprises.” I giggled. 

“That I do. What can I get you today?” I glanced at Sebastian, but as he was too occupied staring at his feet, I decided to let it go.

“I’ll have a beer, please.” 

“And your friend?” I remained quiet, not looking at Sebastian as I waited for him to say something. To be honest, I was getting pretty pissed now. 

“Oh, nothing for me, thank you.” That was it. As I accepted the bottle Peter offered me, I walked around the bar and chose a seat right in front of the barman, just under the tv, so I could get a good view of the game that was playing.

“Do you want me to look if there’s a soccer game on?” The bartender knew me too well.

“Yes, please,” I smiled gratefully at him, taking a swig of my beer. From the corner of my eye, I could see Sebastian changing his weight from one foot to another. Oh, so he was getting uncomfortable. Good. Maybe now he’d understand how I felt.

“Do you want to stay by the bar?” His voice reached me and it sounded timid. I raised an eyebrow.

“Well, seeing as I wasn’t expecting you to stick around, I figured it’d be better for me to remain here than to be left alone at a table.” Sebastian frowned at my words as I cursed myself for being mesmerized by the blue in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” I took a deep breath when I realized he truly looked confused.

Turning in my chair, I abandoned the game I was only pretending to watch and fixed my attention on my date for the night. “Sebastian, it’s okay. You can go back to your place. I promise I won’t tell your godmother, we can just say it didn’t work out or whatever. I just can’t bear this vibe anymore, I hate to see how uncomfortable you seem to be by me even though I thought we were friends until tonight.” I scoffed, feeling incredibly silly under his piercing gaze. I had to look down at my shoes before continuing.

“It’s so stupid, I was expecting to have a terrible night. And then when I saw you getting into the restaurant with your mother, I was hopeful that at least I would have fun. After all, I love your company.” Huffing, I straightened up on the chair, still not looking him in the eyes. “I’m sorry if you felt embarrassed at the prospect of going on a date with me. This could have been simply a night out between friends.”

“I don’t want to be your friend.” The words froze me in my spot, making my insides feel like they would burst and kill me on the spot at any minute, now. The shock finally made me look up to meet his eyes, and the encounter made it seem like he was surprised by his own words as well. “Shit. That’s not what I meant.”

Trembling, I left my chair and reached for my purse blindly, already turning around in search of the bar’s exit. “It’s okay, you don’t have to explain,” I whispered, despite knowing he probably wouldn’t listen over the loud sounds surrounding us. 

Quick steps took me outside of the building and the cold wind from the night sobered me up. What the fuck was that? My mind wasn’t working fast enough to catch up with what was going on, but my heart felt up to date, as I could feel it breaking into a thousand pieces.

It was stupid, but I knew I had a crush on Sebastian. And despite knowing he’d never feel attracted to me, I just never expected him to not even want to be my friend.

Sebastian’s P.O.V.

I was stuck on the same spot Y/N had left me, mulling over my own stupidity when at last something clicked and I found myself running out of the bar to look for her. Thankfully, she wasn’t very far so I managed to reach her just before she crossed the street.

“Wait, please,” I asked, grabbing her by the shoulder. I was expecting her to pull away or at least yell at me, but when she turned around with tears in her eyes, I knew I had screwed up. “Shit. Fuck. C’mon, doll, please don’t cry over me.” I pulled her for a hug, which she thankfully didn’t refuse, but she didn’t reciprocate either. Well, small steps. At least she was still here.

I let her cry against my sweater as I pondered over my own stupidity. Why was I like this? I hurt the only person in the world I didn’t want to hurt and now my own heart was heavy, not only with regret but also with fear. I was terrified of the prospect of losing Y/N.

Her cute little sobs started to soften and I felt it was safe to pull away from her just enough so that I could get a clear view of her face, which I quickly held between my hands. “Doll, I’m so sorry. God, I’m such an idiot, and I understand if you hate me and don’t want to see me ever again, but please just let me explain. When I said I didn’t want to be your friend… What I meant was… I would love nothing more than to be more than friends. I was actually the one who asked my mother and my godmother to set us up on a date.”

She blinked once and then twice, her lips stuck in a pout as the tears disappeared from her eyes. “I-I don’t understand…” She raised her coat’s sleeve to wipe her face as she stared up at me, her brows furrowed as she tried to make sense of what I had just shared.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

“I’ve had the biggest crush on you since we met.” My eyebrows rose all the way to my hairline at those words. I even snorted, 100% not believing what he had just said.

“Well, you have a weird way of showing that, Sebastian.” He chuckled, looking down at his shoes before meeting my eyes again.

“You’re not wrong. I… I am so bad at dealing with what I feel about you, in fact, that I had to resort to my godmother’s matchmaking skills. And you saw how she gets… But I wanted to get through with it, because otherwise, I wouldn’t know how to ask you out.” Narrowing my eyes at him, I tilted my head as I crossed my arms, the picture of annoyance.

“Then why the hell did you treat me like a nuisance? I mean, you’ve barely said a word to me all night!” It was hard to ignore how cute he looked with his cheeks slightly tinted pink, but I tried to. I wanted to be angry, I had every right to be irritated!

“Yeah, well… Turns out my plan wasn’t as great as I thought. When I saw you in that restaurant…” His phrase was interrupted by a low whistle. “I could only think something along the lines of shitfuckshit she looks too great ohmygod I’m gonna ruin this fuckfuckfuck abort mission abort.” Now, I had to laugh. And just like that, I could feel that warm fuzzy feeling that took over me whenever I was near Sebastian, and he knew it. His small, shy smile was begging me to forgive him when I had already done it.

“You’re too cute for your own good, Stan.” Pulling him by the lapels of his coat, I stood on my tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss on his lips, before separating our heads to gather his reaction. He was wide-eyed, but obviously not displeased, as his gaze kept traveling from my own eyes to my lips while he licked his.

“Well, so far I’d say it’s been highly advantageous to me.” Giggling, I allowed him to embrace me until our chests were pressed tightly together. “Think you can spare me another kiss?” I frowned in fake confusion at his question.

“Before you take me out on a proper date? You must be confusing me with another woman, good sir.” Now, it was his turn to laugh.

“That’s fair. Where to, milady?” I accepted the arm he was offering me while giving him a mischievous look.

“Anywhere, as long as you talk to me, silly.” The smile he gave me made me melt as I hugged his arm and allowed him to guide me through the night.

#sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan fluff #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan insert #sebastian stan insert fanfiction #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan writing #my fics #fluff #sebastian stan #sebastian stan angst #angst

[illogicallyinclined]

Do you think we could get some Disaster Trio stuff from the aftermath of the most recent Sander Sides Episode? Whether it is fluff or angst is up to you but I miss seeing those three interact and with how this last episode went it could make things interesting.

oof ouch my feelings. so, YEAH. umm, About That... 

the aftermath of Putting Others First is... Rough for the trio, in a word. after all, though Janus finally got acknowledged as a Valid and Helpful side by Thomas -- which is something that Logan AND Remus agree that he deserves -- he also kind of... threw them both under the bus in the process

Remus, although largely in agreement that what Roman did was Wrong, also can’t help but feel some form of sympathy for his brother, both because he knows what it’s like to have Thomas’s disapproval lobbied his way (note: it fucking sucks), AND because Janus literally insulted Roman by comparing him to Remus, which was... mean. it was mean, not only to Roman -- who Remus concedes may have deserved it for laughing at Janus’s name -- but it was also mean to Remus, and unnecessarily so

typically, being perceived as evil doesn’t bother Remus; he enjoys dark subject matter, he constantly talks about things ranging from slightly taboo to morally reprehensible -- it therefore doesn’t surprise him that SOME of the others wrongfully view him as a wicked creature with no sense of shame or remorse. but to hear Janus call him the “evil twin”??? it... hurt. it hurt a lot more than Remus was expecting it to. and, much to his own surprise, he actually finds himself holding onto this hurt and letting it manifest into petty anger and the urge to ignore Janus at every given opportunity

and Logan? oh my GOD, Logan.

Logan has been Horribly Open with Janus and Remus about how he feels like he’s overlooked and not listened to among the “light” sides. more open, he would wager, than he ever has been or ever will be with anyone else in his life. so to have Janus hook him by the neck, pull him away from the conversation, and impersonate him without any sort of forewarning was... frustrating. infuriating. (maybe a little heartbreaking, even if Logan won’t admit it)

it’s just. Logan thought that Janus understood. he thought that Janus understood how much it fucking hurts upsets disquiets him to be cast aside like his thoughts and opinions are worth nothing. but Janus pulled Logan aside anyway, dragged him away By Force to take his place, and now Logan doesn’t know what to think

Logan understands that Janus just wanted to be listened to. he understands that possibly better than anyone else in the mindscape. but what he doesn’t understand is why Janus didn’t just.. talk to him. why didn’t Janus ask to switch? even if he doesn’t trust Logan himself, doesn’t he at least trust Logan to make a rational decision? 

(...did Janus mean to hurt him?)

Logan doesn’t know anything anymore. he doesn’t know if Janus ever even considered him a friend, or if Janus just pretended in order to learn how to imitate him. and Logan doesn’t know which one would hurt more, either: to have someone pretend to like you just so they could use you, or to have a friend willfully betray you so that they can accomplish a goal that you would have helped them accomplish had they ever bothered to ask

he doesn’t know. he doesn’t want to know. and, for the time being, he thinks it might be best if he just avoids Janus altogether

tldr; the disaster trio has become the disaster duo for the time being. none of them are happy about this, least of all Janus

#disaster trio #ts spoilers #logan #remus #deceit #disaster trio au

[cha-melodius]

The Definition of Madness Chapter 1

Whumptober No. 22: Drugged

Fandom: The Man from UNCLE (2015)

Pairings: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin, Napoleon Solo & Illya Kuryakin & Gaby Teller

Summary: They say the definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Or, Illya gets stuck in a very whumpy time loop.

Ao3 Link

*****

You're ready for a new round Don't it look like it's gonna be fun, be fun Up from the floor on the count of ten Oh you get up, you get down and you try it again

“Fuck!”

Illya sits bolt-upright in his bed at the safehouse, and it’s barely another heartbeat before he has his gun in his hand and is ripping open the door to his bedroom. Have they been discovered? Is the safehouse compromised? Are they being attacked?

Instead he finds Napoleon in the kitchen muttering a litany of colorful swears under his breath as he holds his left hand under the tap. Gaby joins Illya in the doorway only moments later, the expression on her face a somewhat odd mix of concern and irritation.

“I take it we’re not being attacked?” she asks through a yawn, pushing errant strands of hair out of her face.

Napoleon looks up at them and winces, looking almost sheepish. “Ah, no. I didn’t expect the handle of that pan to be that hot.”

“Hmph,” Gaby huffs, then immediately turns around to return to her room.

“You had to be up anyway!” Napoleon calls after her, but whatever she grumbles back is unintelligible.

Illya steps closer to the sink and sees an angry red welt on Napoleon’s palm. His partner hisses softly as the cool water splashes over the burn, and Illya moves past him to the freezer, which has thankfully been stocked.

“You don’t make a very good alarm clock, Cowboy,” Illya says as he hands him a bag of frozen vegetables.

“So very sorry about that, Peril,” Napoleon bites out sarcastically. He squeezes his eyes shut, mumbling under his breath when he presses the makeshift ice pack to his hand. “God damn cheap pans without properly insulated handles.”

Humming softly at Napoleon’s grumbling, Illya goes to get the medical supplies that typically only come out after a job, thank you very much. There’s some burn cream inside, he knows, and he tosses the whole thing at Napoleon, who just manages to catch it with his uninjured hand.

“Better not have to save your ass today because of that,” Illya mutters at him before he goes to get himself ready. He’s already dressed, because he tends to sleep fully clothed before missions, but he still needs to gather the rest of his tactical gear and weapons. Plus, he really doesn’t want to listen to Napoleon complain, which is currently what he’s doing based on the curses drifting in from the next room.

By the time he reemerges Napoleon is still fumbling with gauze as he tries to bandage the wound one-handed. For a moment Illya considers going over to assist him, but then he seems to have actually gotten it anyway as he rips the medical tape with his teeth and shoves everything else back into the bag.

“Wouldn’t want you to actually help,” Napoleon accuses, glaring at him.

Illya just shrugs. “You seem to have done fine.”

Napoleon narrows his eyes at Illya and huffs, but he’s caught: either he protests this statement and admits that no, he did need Illya’s help, or he accepts the backhanded compliment and tacitly admits that Illya was right. Illya just manages to suppress a smug smirk, but only because he’d actually like to eat some of the omlet that Napoleon put together that morning.

Sure enough, Napoleon grabs the offending pan (with an oven mitt this time, Illya notes) and divides the eggs inside into three portions, then wordlessly pushes one of the plates across the counter toward Illya. They eat in silence, standing at the counter, while Gaby bangs around in the other part of the safehouse. Illya watches out of the corner of his eye as Napoleon flexes his hand experimentally, wincing as he does.

It’s definitely not a good development. Illya considers suggesting that they put the mission off for a few days, or that Napoleon hang behind, but he knows that neither will go over well. Napoleon is as stubborn as anyone Illya has ever known—the way he pushed himself to the limit almost immediately after coming out of Rudy’s chair had driven that home early in their working relationship—and he will certainly dismiss a small burn on his non-dominant hand as trivial.

Besides, he doesn’t need to say anything. When Gaby finally reappears she’s wearing her own tactical gear and a surly frown. “Don’t you think you should probably stay back today?” she asks Napoleon.

“What?” he answers, looking confused, like he’s already forgotten about the injury. She looks pointedly at his bandaged hand, and he waves her off. “Oh, this? It’s nothing. I’ve worked through much worse.”

Gaby looks skeptical, but she, too, knows that it’s not worth arguing with him about. Instead she eats her portion of the eggs, still frowning as Napoleon leaves the kitchen to finalize his own preparations for the mission.

“You’re ok with this?” she asks Illya.

“Not really,” he shrugs. “But he’s not going to listen to me.”

Gaby tilts her head, giving him a shrewd look he doesn’t really understand. “He might.”

“He won’t,” Illya insists. They stare at each other for a moment, and Illya has the uncomfortable feeling that she is evaluating him in some way. “If he says he can work through it, I trust him. I trust him not to endanger the mission or our lives.”

These are words he could not have imagined speaking only a year ago, but spending that much time with someone, and trusting them with your life as many times as he has, certainly changes your perspective.

“What about his own?” Gaby asks, arcing a brow at him quizzically.

Illya doesn’t have an answer to that question

The compound they’re infiltrating is halfway up a mountain with only a single, narrow road leading to it, so they have no choice but to approach overground. The climb takes all day, and Illya would find it all surprisingly pleasant—it’s a beautiful day, and the views are stunning—if it weren’t for the fact that he knows at the end of it they’ll be walking into a highly dangerous situation. Dusk is just beginning to fall when they approach the fencing around the sector they’ve identified as the best access point. Illya’s CO2 laser makes short work of the chain link, and they slip inside without tripping any alarms.

It’s far more deserted than they expected, which should be a good thing but instead just makes a sense of unease settle into Illya’s bones. But there’s no way their targets could know that UNCLE was coming, no way they could have seen the team’s approach. It is more likely that they’re just overly confident in their mountain fortress, such as it were, and not expecting the infiltration.

At least, this is what Illya keeps telling himself as they make their way deeper into the compound, and his feelings of disquiet only grow.

The plan was to split up—the compound is huge, and they have only a vague idea of where the data they are looking for might be kept—and there’s no way to change that now. They pause at the chosen rally point and nod silently to each other, and then Illya’s partners fade into the darkness surrounding them.

Right. Search his sector, back to the rally point in 30 minutes. 

He should have turned around the minute he found a buildng inexplicably sitting where none had been marked on the map. He should have turned around when his nose had been assulted by harsh chemical odors the moment he slipped inside. He should definitely have turned around when his vision started going just a bit fuzzy and his hearing dulled like there was cotton in his ears.

But the building seems empty, and if their targets are working on chemical weapons UNCLE needs to know, and so he does not turn around until he hears a soft tread behind him.

The man standing there regards him curiously, like he’s not alarmed at all to find a giant, heavily armed, Russian spy in his facility. Dimly, Illya thinks he knows why. He can feel his grip loosening on his rifle, can feel himself slowing until it feels unmistakably like he’s moving through some kind of thick porridge.

“Intriguing,” the man says, and his voice sounds like it is coming from a great distance.

Illya wonders how he’s not affected by whatever is hanging in the air, clogging Illya’s lungs and making it increasingly difficult to breathe. He knows he needs to move, to get out of here, to get back to the rally point and try to warn his team, but it is becoming obvious that it’s going to be impossible. At least he can hope that by distracting them here, Napoleon and Gaby can get out.

“Go collect the others,” the man tells someone that seems to be just outside of Illya’s field of view. “We may need them for leverage.”

Someone tugs the rifle out of Illya’s hands, then pulls his wrists together and binds them roughly behind his back. A moment later his legs are kicked savagely from behind and he lands hard on his knees on the concrete floor, but the pain only manages to be a dull throb through the fog in his mind. His vision continues to narrow until all he can see is the man standing in front of him, silhouetted by a blinding white light pouring through an open door. Then the light is blocked in part by more figures coming through it, and oh, no, it cannot be.

Surely they did not get the drop on both of his partners. Surely this is some kind of hallucination.

With one, final burst of strength, Illya struggles futiliy against the bindings and feels the rope dig sharply into his wrists. It’s no good. He bends forward, gasping for breath in air that feels as thick as pea soup, and blacks out.

Next Chapter

#whumptober2020 #no.22 #drugged #the man from u.n.c.l.e. #fic #tmfu #the man from uncle #napollya #napoleon x illya #napoleon solo #illya kuryakin #gaby teller #my fic

[the-trashy-phoenix]

Supernatural season 4 review (part 1)

Link to part 2:

Carly and I have been waiting for this season since we started watching Supernatural. She had been sending me Destiel posts and pictures and telling me about them even before we watched the very first episode, so I had a lot of expectations on this particular season, and on one particular character.

Castiel appears from the very beginning (I thought he wouldn’t come out so early) to explain Dean’s inexplicable resurrection. In fact, Dean died at the end of the third season and at the end of his last year on earth due to the deal to save Sam, but we already knew he would survive because the authors would never let him die at the third season and we are no more surprised by the fact that in Supernatural being dead permanently is more unusual than coming back to life after a while.

The first episode is happy and tragic at the same time: Dean wakes up in his coffin (that was pretty disquieting if you ask me) and he manages to come out and reach Bobby. At first he cannot believe he’s really Dean, but Dean convinces him even without knowing how he was saved from hell. Bobby’s pain for Dean’s death is comprehensible, as he considers him as his son, and so it is the confusion he feels seeing him again, but that’s nothing compared to Sam’s reaction. He’s been deeply broken by Dean’s death and, as it was predictable, tried in every way to take him back, and failed (as most of the fans have noticed, this total impossibility of the brothers to live without each other is quite toxic, but from some point of view their entire life is…). In fact he’s so surprised by Dean coming back from hell he can’t hide the fact that Ruby kind of took his brother’s place. She is an interesting character who emerges properly only in this season and develops through it in a quite complex way: I was never able to tell if she really wanted to help the Winchesters, as it seems in the first place, or if she was only following a mysterious path. By the way, thanks to her help and especially her blood, Sam, without Dean in his life to stop him, persuaded himself that the best way to keep hunting was by enhancing his demonic powers in order to kill demons. I’m quite sure he thinks it’s a good compromise between his two sides, good and evil, but I also think that something happens inside him the exact moment he sees his brother again. He’s so afraid of Dean’s judgement he tries to hide his relationship (also romantic, which is quite creepy) with Ruby, also because deep inside he knows what he’s doing is somehow wrong, even if he’s actually saving people. Of course when Dean finds out he gets mad at him, and that’s understandable considering how suspicious he’s always been about Ruby. However, he himself is never really sincere with Sam about what happened in hell, both because he doesn’t want to remember and somehow feel again all that pain and because he feels deeply guilty for having accepted to torture some souls, even after a long period of resistance. Also, Dean’s pain doesn’t end as he’s back in earth, because he meets again several times Alastair, the powerful demon who tortured him in hell and forced him to torture other souls (and I was quite happy when Dean had the chance to get a little revenge and torture him). Of course these big secrets lead to fights and misunderstandings to which we are used, but those issues could have been solved easily, if only they had spoken to each other from the beginning. After a while they finally do clarify their positions, and that’s a relief for us all. Sam tells Dean what Ruby has done saving him on a lot of occasions and partly persuades him to rely on this good demon, but even after this clarification, the problem is not completely solved because Dean can’t but think Sam has replaced him with Ruby and prefers following her advice rather than keep hunting with him. Deep inside Sam has always the same feeling towards his brother: he doesn’t want Dean to treat him like a child, and his biggest struggle is being considered as the little brother who needs protection. That’s why he wants so bad to break free from Dean. Although, he doesn’t understand that also Ruby is patronizing him and, as he acknowledges at the very end, she’s not doing it because she loves and cares about him, but because she needs him.

I’ll jump quickly to the final episode, as we’re talking about Ruby. The main villain of the previous season, Lilith, was not defeated at all: in the last episode we just get to know Sam can resist her, so she has to find another way to take over him. During all the fourth season we see Lilith breaking the so-called “seals”, which will allow her to free Lucifer from his cage down in hell. The boys struggle with that all the time and they don’t know how to stop her, apart from killing her. At the end, Sam decides to do that all by himself, helped by Ruby and by the demon blood he can’t stop drinking at this point, without knowing that’s exactly what he has to do to bring Lucifer back and Ruby has been cheating on him all the time. I do have to admit it was quite a shock, because I had started to like and trust Ruby and to think Dean was a little too paranoiac, and jealous, about her. Maybe it’s just that I liked to think that someone who’s destined to be a monster, like a demon, can actually have a choice and do the good thing. Also Sam always seems to hope that, because he himself has demon blood in his veins and tries to use his evil powers for the good. He mirrors himself in monsters all the time, as in episode 4, when he tries to convince Dean that a bad creature can really control itself if it wants to, but everything, even in this episode, seems to prove him wrong. Even his blood thirst is insatiable and, although he thinks he can control himself and choose the good side (as he thinks he’s doing when he accidentally frees the Devil), at some point in episode 21 Dean and Bobby feel the need to close him into the panic room to detoxify him from demon blood (and they would have succeeded, if he hadn’t managed to escape).

As I mentioned Bobby, I’d like to point out the fact that the boys seem to consider him only when they’re both alive, while, when one of them is (temporarily) dead, the other one is so lost he cuts every link with other human beings, especially Bobby, who in the contrary is always there for them. I just think he deserves a little more consideration and gratitude, because he loves the boys just as they love him and they don’t seem to realise he suffers so much when one of them dies or if he doesn’t know what’s happening to them.

To go back to the final episode, you may wonder what Dean was doing while Sam was freeing Lucifer and starting the apocalypse… To answer this question we have to go back to the beginning and Castiel.

As I said before, this mysterious character appears as Dean’s saver and presents himself as an “angel of the Lord”. Of course we’re as surprised as Dean is hearing that, because we’ve learnt to think the world is full of evil and there’s no such thing as a good supernatural creature, so we wonder what’s the truth. Well, there’s no contradiction: we soon also learn angels aren’t as good as the Bible teaches us (at least the ones in Supernatural). They do exist, so Castiel is not lying, but they just want to do their own good and they don’t care at all about humans (that’s quite paradoxical, that Sam and Dean care more about protecting humanity than angels, and as far as I know God himself, do). But that’s another thing we get to know as the show goes on and that reaches its apex in the last episode.

Of course I already knew something about Castiel (and his “special relationship” with Dean) as Carly told me a lot about him, but still I found his appearance and the whole angel thing quite interesting, especially because at first Cas tries to be solemn and focused on his duty, which is at first even a bit scary, then quite funny considering how his relationship with the brothers will evolve through the season and through the entire series. His character changes a lot not only in his behaviour towards the Winchesters, but also in his faith in God’s and angels’ plans, as he decides to actually do the right thing against all the odds and against his own father, which must’ve been really hard for him, knowing how blindly faithful he was at first. He decides to put himself into the hands of those two guys without knowing anything but they’re fighting to save as many people as possible, and that’s why we love him and consider him the only angel worth the name. The more the show goes on, the more we see the continuous contrast between Castiel’s attitude (at first just a little uncertain) and the other angels’. I’ll mention just two of them for now, Anna and Zacharia. Anna is a girl who’s perceived as crazy because she says she can hear angels speaking, and of course demons hunt her as a means to find out the angels’ plan. When Sam, Dean and Bobby find her and try to help her, they call Pamela, an old friend of Bobby’s who always helps the boys as best as she can (I think she’s one of the characters that help Sam and Dean more and that they never thank enough, considering she finally sacrifices her life to allow them to conclude a hunt successfully). Pamela makes Anna realise she’s a fallen angel, and that explains why she’s able to hear angels’ voices, and after some time, she can go back to heaven, the place she belongs to (only after having randomly had sex with Dean because why not…). Anna’s story is quite unusual compared to the other angels we met: most of them are just sort of powerful and incorporeal spirits, who, just like demons, need a human body to fit in. We see it in detail in episode 20, in the narration of Castiel’s story. I think this mechanism of appropriation of innocent human beings contributes to Supernatural’s evil connotation of angels, who seem to be even more sneaky than demons, because they take advantage of people’s faith to convince them to hold them in their bodies and do whatever they want once they’re into them. Of course this vision of both angels and demons as villains is clearly made to make us sympathise even more with Castiel, who rebelled, and with the brothers, who seem to be the only ones really caring about mankind.

Angels’ wickedness emerges in all its power in the final episode and in the character of Zacharia. That’s the time when the entire plot is solved: Zacharia, an important angel in heaven hierarchy, keeps Deans locked in a sumptuous room to prevent him from stopping Sam from breaking the last seal. Just as Sam doesn’t know what he’s doing while he thinks he’s saving the world from apocalypse, Dean didn’t know angels actually wanted the apocalypse to happen to purify the world and finally defeat demons and Lucifer. It’s quite shocking for him (and also for us) and, even though he had never liked and trusted angels, he’s led to hate them completely. He thought he was brought back from hell because angels wanted him to help saving the world, but he understands it’s exactly the opposite. In addition, I also think the worst feeling for Dean is feeling useless and not being able to protect someone he loves, especially Sam; that makes his situation even more painful, and Zacharia seems to know it well. At the end, he manages to escape, but he can’t stop Sam from killing Lilith and the brothers can do nothing but acknowledge together the beginning of the apocalypse, which will be the main theme of the following season.

I’ll go rapidly through the single episodes as usual, to highlight some I particularly liked.

I found the fifth episode, the one in which a monster fakes itself into Dracula, quite original and I appreciated the mixture of colored and black-and-white scenes, aimed to mark the difference between “reality” and the movie set up by our Dracula. In the sixth episode we are shown a hidden side of Dean, an uncontrolled fear which is of course aroused by something the brothers are hunting, but which is also credible imagine is actually an emotion Dean constantly feels in his dangerous life but can’t allow himself to show. One of my favourites of the season is episode 8, where all people’s wishes come true, because the scene of the little girl wishing for a giant teddy bear and actually getting it was so funny and scary at the same time. Episode 13 gives us another piece of the puzzle to reconstruct Sam and Dean’s childhood and youth, as they work a case in a school they had attended: apart from blaming John for making his sons change home and school so often they can’t even make friends or built a sort of life, these highlights from the boy’s past provide us even more information to understand how they became the men we see in the present and how they were, and still are, deeply different from one another.

I feel I have to mention a new character, who is quite important for the Winchesters and also recurrent in the show, Adam. He randomly comes out as Sam and Dean’s half-brother, son of John and a local woman he met during a hunt; of course at first the Winchesters don’t believe him, but at some point they have to face the truth and kind of feel sympathetic with him for John’s absence during his growth, because they’ve been through the same issues even if in theory their father lived with them. Moreover, Adam’s appearance testify once again Sam and Dean’s biggest weakness: even if they don’t know Adam at all, they can’t help but try to save him and give him love (especially Sam, I have to say) welcoming him into the family. That’s so cute, but that’s also what keeps bringing them troubles.

I’ll end my review with episode 14: the hunted monster is a siren, which, as you all probably already know, shapes itself as a male federal agent to seduce Dean. “Big hint of Dean’s bisexuality!!”, I can hear some of you scream. What I think is that the explanation the episode gives for it (the siren takes the shape of a man similar to Dean, in other words the type of brother Dean has always wanted) is quite convincing, and is not the strongest element to sustain Dean’s queerness. I’ll impatiently wait for other clues in the next seasons…

- Irene 💕

#Supernatural #spn #Spn season four #spn review #sam #sam winchester #dean #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #deancas #bobby #bobby singer #ruby spn #adam winchester #bi dean #first time watching supernatural

[jae-writes-fanfiction]

Famous Living Dead

Michael x Reader - 1641 Words - More Freaky Fics

Notes: Written for @blackbutterfliescal with the prompt of Micheal and a séance! This ended up being a Victorian!AU on top of that. Curious about any of the historical practices, or Victorian séances? Send an ask! Otherwise I hope you enjoy! ❤️

Warnings: references to in-home Victorian viewings/funerals/séances, mourning jewelry, grief, major character death (the main character’s spouse is dead).

- - -

The group sat around an oval table. The room was lit only by soft candles. The man who had once been your husband ignored propriety and removed his gloves to hold the medium’s hand and fully connect the circle. They were those who had loved you most; Ashton, Luke, and Callum- your dearest friends, Michael- your husband, yet you didn’t recognize the two other people. The medium only referred to them as The Sisters’. One sat on the Medium’s left, the other across from her at the end of the table. Their faces were shrouded by hoods, making their true identities unknowable. The Sisters didn’t speak but instead sat amongst the group to help concentrate energy into the spirit world.

“Ms. Fox,” Ashton addresses the medium adjusting his spectacles, “I can’t help but wonder to the purpose of your compatriots. It seems they seek to divide us-“

Luke nudged him harshly, you knew Ashton to be a devout skeptic. While you were alive he often wrote into papers defrauding false séances and mediums. But from the despondent look on Michael’s face, he could tell this wasn’t the time.

You smiled softly looking on, you were glad someone was looking out for Michael. You longed to take his hand in yours and tell him you were alright, that the sickness couldn’t touch you anymore. That the time you had together wasn’t enough but it was perfect, that he didn’t have to worry.

But all your attempts had failed thus far. His dreams remained unaltered, your voice was unheard, your touches unfelt. This, Ms. Fox and The Sisters, were your only hope. But contrary to their advertisement, there was no force, heavily nor devilish, that could connect you with the living.

“Now Sirs, our circle is joined,” Ms. Fox spoke with eyes too bright for the occasion and bet voice too jovial, “Even with The Sister’s help we must call to summon our spirit.”

She turned her green eyes to implore Michael to speak through his grief, placing the séance’s success or failure in the responsibility of a man already utterly consumed with guilt. It was a good alibi, should their demonstration prove false. They would only then need to assure the poor widower had he conjured correctly their theatrics wouldn’t have been needed.

Had you any feeling in them you would’ve worried your hands in anticipation. You’d give anything to reassure him, to see his eyes smile truly again.

He coughed trying to clear his throat, “Ms. Fox I’m not sure what to do…” He sounded just as lost and broken as he looked.

“Of course Mister Clifford! Did you bring a personal object of theirs as was requested?”

He swallowed thickly and nodded to the ring on his center finger. The device was rather clever, quite expensive, and a perfect display of mourning for a gentleman in distinguished society- at least that’s what the advertisement had claimed when Luke bought him it. The ring’s center was a small frame, the central skeletal figure a pin that could be pressed inwards to then release outwards and access the interior space. In it was a lock of your hair woven into a delicate pattern.

You had heard Luke and Callum discussing it after you were laid out the night before the burial. Ashton insisted that as a man from a respectable family Michael needed the correct memento mori, just as he needed the correct flowers, and that postmortem photograph Luke had arranged.

It was all expected of Michael, especially after the passing of a much-loved spouse. But in the last year your illness advanced rapidly, doctors recommended a seaside excursion for the clearer air, they recommended salves and tonics, and even specific household décor. He gave you all of it.

Yet none of that melancholy or guilt manifested when Michael looked at the ring. In the soft shades of your hair, and the glimmer of the band he only saw your face just as it had been when you were first wed, and just as he hoped it would be when he saw you again.

“That’s perfect,” Ms. Fox said gently, “Now call to them. Just like you would if they were simply in the next room and you wished to see them.”

Michael nodded slowly and mumbled something quietly, that no one heard but you before sitting up a little straighter.

“Darling,” his voice broke over the syllables, “are you here? Can you hear me?”

“Oh!” Fox cried out, “I think I can feel a presence. Oh, they’re so faint, so frail even still...keep going!”

Michael took a shaky breath and tried again, “Darling, if that is you please speak to me. Show me a sign!”

You strained against the space between you, screaming at him to look and see you. You were right there, just out of sight and another world away.

“I- I think I can feel them trying to reach out through me!” Ms. Fox sounded near ecstasy and it made you cringe.

You felt nothing else. You couldn’t feel her any more than you could Michael, and your heart dropped at the realization that she wasn’t feeling anything either.

All of a sudden a strangled moan ripped through the air and all the candles went out. You knew instantly the sound came from a phonograph concealed in the adjoining room, and that the candles had purposefully short wicks.

At that moment The Sisters began to shake, and in doing so the table did as well. Amid the startled confusion, the medium quietly blew out the candle. No one in that room could see as The Sister closest to Ms. Fox reached out with a hand she had quietly been resting over ice under the table, to touch Michael’s hand. His strangled gasp and subsequent short sobs broke your heart. The momentary fear and relief he felt were false, and the only witness was you. The dark veil between you couldn’t be moved.

You thought about praying that Michael never found out about the devotion. But what good would that do you now- what god listens to the prayers of the dead?

The Sister at the opposite end of the table shifted her legs so a third actor might quietly crawl from under the table, to walk about the purposefully dusted floors. The women’s shoe prints would be a definitive piece of proof even in Michael’s eyes, as would the slight breeze from the fan the Secret Sister carried as they left the room.

It all happened within a few minutes, so it appeared Ms. Fox begged them in earnest not to “break the circle,” shouting for her assistant to, “resurrect the lamps.”

When the room once more held light, the Secret Sister looked like a savior, standing with a candle aloft terrified at the newly revealed footprints. Michael looked ghastly pale and he trembled trying to remain composed, despite earlier lapses, in front of the allegedly distinguished Ms. Fox.

“I’m sorry for such a dreadful display! “It would seem your late beloved is not at peace yet.”

Ms. Fox spoke as if she too were frightened by the spectacle. If looks could kill yours from beyond the grave would've sent her directly to hell.

“I am afraid sirs that repeat sessions might be in order! They’re quite an unhappy ghost, I’d dare wager a guess to some illicit dealings, don’t you see we’ve already had footsteps! And you, you felt her hand? A partial apparition maybe! To think with more prodding we might call forth the figure entirely! And yes, then the truth of it must come out but to think it’s only such a small price to pay for such a rare understanding-“

“That is enough,” Callum said with an authority his friends had never heard him use before,”there is no disquieted spirit here. If anything only a very sad one. A better relationship never lived, nor shall I stand to hear you ramble on to disparage it.”

He stood quickly yanking his hands off the table. The action seemed to break the heady illusions playing over the other’s minds as they all started at the moment. Wether or not you had tried to make your presence known, or something else did- they didn’t know. But they did know your marriage was filled nothing but perfect adoration and this woman, for better or worse, was now claiming otherwise.

Luke stood as well, quickly buttoning his suit jacket. The breach of conduct on his part loomed like an executionor’s axe for Ms. Fox, as a gentleman Luke always acted perfectly sociably- yet there he stood and the circle was broken.

Michael couldn’t speak, he had no scope of the tricks that had been played but his mind was plagued with the thought of your soul restless for eternity, searching for something you could never find. He said nothing while Ashton pulled Ms. Fox aside, nor while Luke quickly ushered him outside.

That night you floated through the house that was once yours. The twisting hallways and spiraling stairs all felt the same. But no place with a death in it cantruly stay the same. Swathes of fabric covered the mirrors and as the hours passed since the burial and the covers remained you knew Michael felt it too.

Even though he couldn’t see you, your presence still lingered throughout the house. Michael almost expect to round each corner and see you working at some inane task. Between the séance’s excitement and the grief written into his shoulders Michael collapsed on the sofa from exhaustion.

You moved beside him, had you been flesh and bone you would’ve been holding Michael. As he fell asleep, tears staining his cheeks, he could’ve swore he smelled your perfume and heard you return his whispered sentiment from before: I love you.

#michael x reader #rpf #freakyfics #Victorian mourning au #I used my degree on this lol #yes it’s a reference to the fox sisters #fun fact Fox and the Sisters was once my band’s name because we all met during Victorian lit seminar

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG173!

- … It was absolutely terrible, horrible, upsetting, and I loved it – it was indeed answering that little question about the children, the answer was still absolutely horrifying even given the circumstances, and I needed to hear that level of discomfort&upset from Jon and Martin themselves about victims in general. (Though I’m a bit “it took CHILDREN for you to truly react with horror?!” x”))

I really like how this episode already felt like something that was… not a conclusion (really not; not yet), but something that couldn’t have happened right at the start of the season. It demonstrated explicitly why the “smiting” is not a viable option; it returned to the foreground what the actual problem is (the Fear-system, not the individual avatars having a small or large benefit in it); and it allowed for Jon and Martin to let their points come across a bit more explicitly in a way that didn’t feel like a full blown-up conflict either. They argue, they have conflicting views, but they’re also getting better at understanding the other’s mindset and limitations (the journey is not only through the domains; it’s also a journey of navigating with someone else who operates differently from you, and has other ways to cope, and learning how to push forwards carrying your differences).

- The “statements” of the children were heartbreaking ;_; Poem for The Stranger, formal report for The End, botanic manual for The Flesh, theatrical play for The Web… and now a children’s book for The Dark.

Stylistically, the use of repetitions and more simplistic words, constructions and reasoning, in Jack and Caitlin’s stories, really made me feel that it was about children, for children, in the mind of children? I love that their fears felt extremely logical: there is an absolute certainty in their fears, in what the monsters are, what they would do to them. The monsters and their tortures (what they want to do to the kids) are simple, but also very concrete and straightforward (and so is the name “Night Street” for the territory! It tells what it is). The kids’ beliefs are ruthlessly clinical. There’s no need to be fancy; it works as is. Even the adults’ rules sound concrete – but arbitrary and cruel, becoming neglect, leaving the kids at the mercy of monsters. And it’s interesting that we don’t see the monsters actually catching any of the kids: the apocalypse is mostly an extension of their fears removing anything that could appease or protect them (there is no light, no day after the night, nobody comes when they scream and the “adults” are unresponsive and useless; the kids are on their own).

On that note, pretty sure that the adults mentioned were not actually there (“Dad’s dead. Mum’s here but she lost it a while back. So now it’s just me.”, “Some grown-ups are not in bed, but they do not want to help Jack. They want to be alone. They don’t want any children around at all. They tell Jack it is after his bedtime, and put him in another dark room where he cannot run…! So no grown-ups told Jack to run into the dark.”, “Her mother is downstairs, but she is part of the sofa now. She won’t stop staring at the television and laughing. Laughing and laughing. She doesn’t like it, when Caitlin is awake. She doesn’t hear it, if she screams.”), mostly convictions in the kids’ mind to reinforce their hopelessness. But aouch: it seems like the domains, while showing some aspects of other fears (the kids are constantly hunted, what the monsters could do to them is close to Flesh-territory, etc.), are not really functioning as “collaborative” projects. If they were, pretty sure that some parents could be ensnared by Desolation or Beholding, for example, forced to watch their children getting tortured but unable to help and save them ;;

How the fear worked was also very on point for children’s psyche:

(MAG173) ARCHIVIST: “Callum smiles and says he’s found a brand new monster! Jack doesn’t want to hear about it. He knows that when Callum tells him what it is, then it will start to chase him. He won’t see it, of course, because it’s just too dark! But he will know it’s there.”

Callum literally creates the fears of the monsters, which creates the monsters themselves. The conviction makes them true. And it really works that way when you’re a kid! Something that has been told to you, or that you saw/read somewhere (“Caitlin read a picture book once, full of horrible spiky fish with big eyes and crooked teeth. She would see them every time she went to bed for weeks. That was what the monsters looked like, she was sure of it. They would grip her, with their nasty cold fins, and bite her head clean off.”), is too powerful to be contained in pages and becomes a tangible threat that you’re sure is personally coming after you.

- … I live for the Dark vs. Eye animosity and:

(MAG173) ARCHIVIST: Childish fears are… simplistic. MARTIN: [LONG EXHALE] ARCHIVIST: Direct. [SHAKINGLY] The Eye prefers the more complex neuroses and disquiets of a fully developed mind…! So the children are allowed to age… MARTIN: [DEEP INTAKES OF BREATH] ARCHIVIST: And they are placed in domains where their fears can… mature. Domains like this one. MARTIN: Christ, that’s… that’s messed up! ARCHIVIST: … Yes.

… The Eye throwing the kids at The Dark, because they’re not that satisfying on their own, so The Dark can have them. Beholding, please.

é_è Regarding the kids’ fears “maturing”, we get glimpses of that with Jack and Caitlin – there are very clear Hunt-vibes (being constantly pursued), but also some Lonely (nobody is coming for them), some Flesh and Slaughter (getting mutilated, consumed, being meat for the monsters), and I could very well see some Spiral sneaking in (not being confident in their sense of reality)…

The most upsetting part is how this domain and its function… felt thought through? That sort of grooming requires organisation to engineer a fear-machine. It’s not only instinct and impulse: it’s planned, organised towards a goal because current things are not good enough as is. It was stated time and time again (by Leitner, by Gertrude, by Gerry) that the Fears were mostly impulse, not really “thinking”, but this domain feels so… calculated, demonstrating a form of sentience behind it? I think that was the most upsetting reveal this episode – of course children wouldn’t have been safe, but to learn that they’re “allowed to age” only for their fears to develop and get more satisfying for The Eye? That’s truly horrifying.

(- I’m also a bit relieved to know what is happening to them, because there could have been “worse”: this episode could have talked about people who were pregnant when the Change happened, or about very very young infants. Though I can’t help but wonder about the babies and how they can grow up without adults to mirror, without forms of communication with their peers. Right now, the only hypothesis I have would be that they… could become “Inheritors” as described in MAG134, if left on their own and only raised with and around the Fears?)

- … I really wasn’t expecting Callum to come back, after the Church Of The Divine Host chapter seemed to have closed with Manuela. Well – I had trouble leaving behind the faint possibility that “Rayner” had somehow managed to hop into a new host, but I wasn’t expecting Callum to come back for himself.

(MAG073) ARCHIVIST: You said it started with a kidnapping case? BASIRA: Yeah. Callum Brodie. Twelve… twelve years old. Disappeared from his home in Dalston three weeks ago. Sitter was asleep when the mother came home, the front door was open, there was no sign of him. There was no forced entry so it started out as a missing persons case, but they got a witness claiming he’d seen three unknown figures entering the Brodies’ home that night, so it was kicked up to Serious Crime. There was some back and forth with Kidnap Squad since no ransom demand had been made, but not much progress in terms of finding the kid. […] The briefing was pretty short. We were told that Callum Brodie had been found and it was suspected he was being held by a man named Maxwell Rayner, with an unknown number of accomplices. There were suspicions that there might be cult involvement. That’s when I phoned you. […] Next to him was an old chair that looked like it could have come from a dinner table. The wood was stained, covered in dark mould, and tied to it with thin metal wire was Callum Brodie. The kid's eyes were blank, though not clouded like the old man’s, and his face was locked in a silent scream. Rayner was facing him, thin, bony hands raised to his face. Something was… something was flowing out of his mouth. It looked like ink, but it flowed more like a heavy fog than any sort of liquid. It drips down his forearms and onto the floor, where it… it rolled towards Callum, climbing up the chair and oozing across the boy’s body towards his face. It was moving slowly, and had just reached his chest. The roaring sound seemed to come as it convulsed out of the old man’s mouth. […] The kid seemed fine. I mean, I’m sure he’ll need a lot of counselling, but he didn’t seem physically any worse for wear.

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: So Edmond Halley was… Rayner. Or, at least… whatever was inside him. You said he was dead, though. BASIRA: I thought he was. We shot him to hell before he could, uh… “pour himself” into that kid.

(MAG143) MANUELA: But I could see in his eyes that Maxwell was so very tired. And all the words fell to nothing. Instead, we began the search for his successor, a new host for his… continuation. He would regain his strength, and we would plan our next move. It was difficult, though. The approaching culmination had meant Maxwell had not prepared another host, and the search for another vessel was… long and involved. Finally, about eighteen months ago, we found one: a child, whose father had, by coincidence, been directly marked by The Dark. It was a desperate plan, but we were desperate, a shadow of what we had been. Maxwell left me here, to guard the Black Sun, and everyone else left to help in his rebirth. [INHALE] But it didn’t work, did it? I can only assume we were too weak to hide from you, and you struck when Maxwell was vulnerable.

+ Manuela’s words kinda confirming the hypothesis that he was the son of MAG052’s statement-giver, Phillip Brown, the awful cop who had reported on Robert Montauk’s death (MAG052: “Martin hasn’t had much luck tracking down Mr Brown himself. According to Caroline Brodie, his ex-wife, she left him in 2004, after his dismissal from the prison service pushed him further into alcoholism, and he became abusive. She said she got a single letter from him in 2009, asking for reconciliation, but she never replied. Martin says the letter was postmarked from Waterford in Ireland. But he’s been unable to track Mr Brown any further.”)

… I immediately went with the same reasoning/hope as Martin when listening to this episode, that it wasn’t actually Callum himself but Rayner/a dark cultist possessing him ;; And nope ;;

(MAG173) MARTIN: That’s the avatar for this place? ARCHIVIST: Callum Brodie, thirteen years old. He guides the children through their fears of The Dark. MARTIN: This is that kid Basira went after last year, right? The one the darkness cult took. So, so that’s not even a kid, that’s whatever was inside Maxwell Rayner, it’s just wearing his body! ARCHIVIST: [CALLING] Callum? [FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING] CALLUM: Yeah, what? ARCHIVIST: You remember when those people kidnapped you. What happened? CALLUM: Mm, it was fun! I just hid and the cops came and got me. [SCREAMS IN THE DISTANCE] ARCHIVIST: Tell the truth. [STATIC RISES] CALLUM: Augh…! I, I–I was, I was scared, alright? I was really, really… scared. [STATIC FADES] And it was dead dark, and… I couldn’t see anyone and, I didn’t know where I was and… And there–there was something on my face, and it was cold, and, and slimy, and it didn’t like me. Then there was a bang, and it was gone…! And… the police were there. [SCREAMS IN THE DISTANCE] ARCHIVIST: And what happened to the thing that tried to take you over? CALLUM: Dunno, it… went away. ARCHIVIST: It died in the light. CALLUM: Whatever! ARCHIVIST: And it was after that you started shoving smaller kids into cupboards, right? CALLUM: Yeah. Give them a taste of it. Make them afraid of the dark. [SCREAMS IN THE DISTANCE] ARCHIVIST: But you’ve always pushed around smaller children, haven’t you? CALLUM: They made me feel sick. I hate them! ARCHIVIST: And now? CALLUM: Now everyone’s afraid of me!

That was another thing which hurt a lot in this episode: the fact that, so far, Callum’s story felt “simple” in its horribleness: a kid, who got kidnapped by a cult, who almost got possessed by an evil Dark-something, who was rescued, who was probably traumatised but still physically saved. Basira had offhandedly mentioned that he would need help to process what had happened to him, but as far as we could tell, he was just a blameless victim who went home and that was it. And he still is on that front! … And he also turns out to be, and already was before the kidnapping case, a bully. And he’s only thirteen – you can’t judge and evaluate a kid’s actions as you do adults’! But what can you do, then?

It stings that Callum took on that role, because his father was an awful man and Caroline Brodie had apparently left him while pregnant or when Callum was a few weeks old, so Callum never really knew him, and the show has stated time and time again that blood doesn’t condition you to become someone or something, but Callum became a bully too even without his father (whether it’s independently or because the consequences of Philip’s actions were felt in other ways than his presence). It stings that Callum turns out to be both a victim and a bully, not caused but still nurtured by his own trauma: trying to reclaim some control by putting younger children through experiences similar to his own, and by trying to lie about how traumatising the kidnapping had been to him. And it’s still made clear that… the trauma led him to this. Brushing with the powers led him to this. And it’s still a thirteen-year-old kid that was probably let down and not cared after enough after his traumatic kidnapping (and was not provided with the necessary redressing before that, when he was a regular bully).

- Re: Jon compelling Callum to tell the truth:

* So Jon can still do that! I was wondering, since Oliver had pointed out Jon’s passiveness in his new role and Jon had not displayed the ability again since the Change, so far.

* I have various “!!” feelings about Jon not taking kids’ bullshit at face value and having the ability to make them tell the truth very matter-of-factly. That was… almost domestic. (And yeah, feeding the “Jon&Martin AU where they adopt twenty kids”)

* There has been a HUGE constant amongst avatars to picture their path towards their patron as logical and wanted, when we had had hints that it wasn’t that simple (Mike Crew comes to mind, in MAG091: “There are echoes of resignation, I think, almost desperation. That can’t be right, though. What reason would I have had not to jump? Not to become as I am now. Perhaps I just didn’t know the true joy of vertigo. It doesn’t matter.”). We got a vivid example with Callum, who tried to pretend that the kidnapping had been on his terms when he was actually terrified. Again and again, I can’t help but think about Jonah: if Jon were to compel him, to rip the truth from his struggling tongue, would we get a quite different biography from what he had sent to Jon in MAG160, which had been on his terms?

- ;; It was horrible and made a lot of sense that Jon… plainly accepted that the “ruling” avatar was a kid, but that Martin had more trouble understanding it. Jon had direct experience with children’s cruelty and intra-violence (his bully was 18 when he was 8); Martin’s own traumas, as far as we know, came from the adults that surrounded him (his father leaving, his grandfather dying, his mother falling apart).

Jon already knew very sharply that children can hurt children in “normal” circumstances, and had read enough about the Powers touching children or shaping their lives:

(MAG009, Julia Montauk) “Whatever I had seen my father doing in there, its effects had long since vanished. I don’t know why my father did what he did, and I doubt I ever will, but the more I go over these events in my head, the more sure I am that he had his reasons.” (MAG109) JULIA: I tried to live a normal life. I really did. I took jobs working in the backroom of offices where I wouldn’t need to meet anyone. I had boyfriends who promised they didn’t care. I burned through half a dozen counsellors. None of it worked. You see, my father’s always remained one of the darlings of the true crime community.

(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “We sat on a bench as the sun went down, watching the sky redden, and Agnes asked me a question. It was the first time she’d said anything more than a few words since we left my flat. [STATIC] She asked me if I had a destiny.” (MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “And on top of that, sleeping peacefully among the fire… a baby. Untouched, unharmed, and to our eyes, alight with a burning divinity. We baptised her with the boiling water of Asag and named her… “Agnes”, as had been her mother’s final request. But… raising a messiah, as it turns out, is a lot more challenging than creating one.” (MAG145) ARTHUR: You might be right. But Agnes did. That’s the thing about an… “incarnation”, isn’t it? She was a child and… person as much as she was a god. And we messed that right up…! … I still remember when Diego brought us a book on childcare. [CHUCKLING] Roger’s body was still in her room, blackened and smoking from… when he tried to feed her. I thought for a moment he’d brought another one of his damn Leitners, but no! It was just a… regular ol’ book on looking after children…! But I was an idiot. Saw it as… attacking my leadership.

(MAG081) ARCHIVIST: There were supernatural things in the world, but they were rare – isolated and exaggerated, vastly outnumbered by wild tales and drunken imaginings. The one name I held in my mind as a true source of evil was Jurgen Leitner, and I knew him as the worst of it, for it was his name that had marked the encounter that scarred my youth. […] I do not know how many of them there are, or precisely how they separate, but I do know that the Eye – Beholding – was not the first that I encountered in my life. The first was the Spider. The Web. And I have no idea what that might mean. I was eight years old when my grandmother gave me the book.

(MAG101) MICHAEL: When he was in school, [Michael Shelley] lost a friend to something like me. His friend was named Ryan, but those in power simply called him schizophrenic. I don’t know if he was, but it doesn’t matter. He was so dreadfully afraid his world wasn’t real that to make it so was almost nothing. Michael was there when he was taken; he never got over what he saw. Or didn’t see. After much searching and despair, it drove him into the waiting arms of the Institute, where he met Gertrude Robinson.

(MAG111) GERRY: The things out there weren’t like taming fire, they couldn’t be contained or used for light or warmth. The best you could hope for from them, would be that they don’t spot you, and instead my mum chased after them, obsessed with others who had tried to stare at them without being blinded: y’know, Flamsteed, Smirke, Leitner. Idiots who destroyed themselves chasing a secret that wasn’t worth knowing. And the worst thing was, she marked me as a part of that, without my understanding. Or consent.

So no surprise that Jon had all the background knowledge to be already ready for this situation… and that Martin required more time and was more explicitly hurt and shocked by the concept.

There were two big layers of horror in that domain: how it operates on the kids, and how Martin&Jon were seemingly powerless, unable to put a stop to it, while the situation was indeed intolerable:

(MAG173) MARTIN: Wh–what about the avatar? Alright, I know you said it didn’t change anything, that the domain would still exist, but at this point I don’t care, alright? Anyone who’s chosen to spend their apocalypse tormenting children– God, you–you need to end them. Now. ARCHIVIST: … It’s not that simple! MARTIN: Seriously? Seriously? ARCHIVIST: [LONG SIGH] … Fine. […] You see? MARTIN: See what, Jon, what am I supposed to see? That you don’t want to kill a… thirteen-year-old kid, big revelation! ARCHIVIST: I don’t know what you want me to do! MARTIN: I want you to use your power, I want you to help them, I want you to make things better! ARCHIVIST: There – is – no – “better” anymore. MARTIN: You keep saying that, and I hate it! ARCHIVIST: I keep saying it because it keeps being true, you know that! [SCREAMS IN THE DISTANCE] MARTIN: What I know is that leaving children here is… i–i–it’s inexcusable, i–it’s monstrous! ARCHIVIST: Martin, tell me what you want me to do, and I will do it! [SCREAMS IN THE DISTANCE] MARTIN: … [SLIGHTLY MUFFLED] Tell me about this place. … I need to know. […] The sooner we get back to the Archives, the sooner we can put a stop to this. All of this. They just… [INHALE] They’ll just need to hang on a little longer. ARCHIVIST: … Right. [EXHALE] Right.

* Outside of the supernatural, it’s a very concrete situation: what can you do, as an (unequipped) adult, if you’re witnessing a child torturing children in a community in which you don’t belong? What is the thing that needs to be done to improve the situation?

* Added with the supernatural, as was mentioned: the torture would keep going anyway if Callum was removed. And Callum is a kid, who was clearly traumatised himself and is fighting for survival – how could he deserve death for it? Yet, he’s enjoying the pain he inflicts; yet, he’s not the problem. (The problem is, as Martin pointed out again, the apocalypse itself. The problem is the Fear-machine, the system the Fears put in place.)

* … Ethical concerns about the “goodness” of smiting a thirteen-year-old to lower the pain of other kids aside, “smiting” Callum probably would have made things worse for the other kids: it would have given them an example that… monsters can kill even the most powerful of you. That your “friend” (who is also a bully) can be taken down, that you can disappear, that you can die. Concretely, it would probably have caused more fears for the kids.

- Overall: I’m glad that this episode demonstrated that no, the “smiting” is absolutely not viable nor reliable. It’s petty revenge. It doesn’t do anything good (and is probably feeding The Eye, so contributing to the awful system), it doesn’t free people nor does it decrease their sufferings. Yet: is it okay to let people enjoy the chaos be and keep benefitting from it? There is not clear answer about what Jon and Martin “have to” do, but I perfectly understand their frustrations…

- I’m still laughing so so hard that Jonah… is never relevant. Avatars can immediately identify Jon as all-powerful or even the apocalypse-bringer:

(MAG164) HELEN: What would I have to gloat about? Much as I am delighted by this brave new world in which we find ourselves, I can take no credit for it. This was all… you!

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: Well, of course you want to wallow in my shame like your voyeur master!

(MAG166) HELEN: We’re all here, Martin. The Stranger; The Buried; The Desolation; all of us. But The Eye still rules. All this fear is being performed for its benefit. And so, there are now exactly two roles available in this new world of ours: the watcher, and the watched. Subject, and object. Those who are feared, and those who are afraid. And Jon, well… he is part of The Eye; a very important part.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “This report is being sent to: The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! And its Archive, which draws knowledge of this suffering unto itself. […] Perhaps once it might have horrified me, or given me some sense of pursuing the ultimate release of the world that you have damned.”

(MAG169) JUDE: Fancy seeing you both here. To what, exactly, do I owe the pleasure, the honour, of being graced by the great and powerful Archivist, harbinger of this new world, and his, uh… valet…? […] Just messing around~! Wouldn’t want to keep you from your oh-so-special business, Your Holiness.

(MAG171) JARED: Mm. … So, is there any way this doesn’t end in me dead? I’m guessing that’s on the docket if you’re here. Unless you’re just here to smell the flowers.

(MAG172) ARCHIVIST: “THE SPIDER: Oh, Francis… It’s such a shame, but I couldn’t do such a thing even if I wanted to! The man in the audience saw to that!”

(MAG173) CALLUM: … You’re the Eye guy, right? ARCHIVIST: That’s right. CALLUM: So you’re like… real important. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] I suppose I am!

But Jonah? Jonah “I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.” Magnus? Never heard of ‘em.

(But aouch, the identification of Jon as connected to The Eye and/or being responsible for the apocalypse is not helping him… He was feeling guilty about it even before leaving the cabin. I wonder how much time before someone points out and reminds him that Jonah framed him and planned and pushed for the apocalypse to happen? Martin had clearly identified Jonah as the one responsible, but it’s been a while since he was last mentioned…)

- Back to “what are the tape recorders DOING” because mmmm…

(Season 5 trailer) MARTIN: Are you still… [SIGH] “feeling it”? Seeing everything? ARCHIVIST: Yes, I, I’m trying not to, but… all of the fear, th–the anguish, i–it just… [INHALE] It keeps coming at me in waves, rolling over me, filling my head with such… awful sights. MARTIN: … I’m sorry. That sounds… [SMALL EXHALE] That sounds horrible. ARCHIVIST: … I wish it was, Martin. I really wish it was. … But it feels… right. [MIRTHLESS HUFF]

(MAG162) MARTIN: What happened? The tapes, were you– […] Look, Jon, I… I, I know it hurts, but you’ve just got to… ARCHIVIST: No, no, lo–look… I, I–I was listening, and I–I was filled with this… hatred. This anger; I–I wanted to leave, and hunt down Elias, a–and…! MARTIN: W–wow, okay… ARCHIVIST: But, when I thought it… the–there was… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] There was something else. Th–this place, it… it didn’t want me, it… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] didn’t want us to go. MARTIN: … What do you mean? ARCHIVIST: This cabin. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It’s not right. And, when I thought that, I–I felt… It, it all poured out of me down… into the tape. MARTIN: [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: A–a–an–and it… felt good. It–it felt… right. MARTIN: Okay. [BREATHES IN] So you’re recording again? ARCHIVIST: I might need to. If we’re going to make it…!

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: They won’t hear you, Martin, they’re all… too busy waiting to die. MARTIN: Jon… ARCHIVIST: They sit here – [STATIC RISES] the image of everyone they hold dear locked in their mind, knowing they’ll never see them again. Waiting for the order; dreading the bullet or the drone or the barbed wire that will tear them to shreds and leave them nothing but a bloody– [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] MARTIN: J–Jon, enough! Enough! [STATIC FADES] … Please don’t tell me these things. ARCHIVIST: I… I’m sorry, I– There’s just so much! There’s so much, Martin, and I know all of it, I can see all of it, and I– It’s filling me up, I need to let it out! MARTIN: I’m sorry, but tough. Okay? Tha–that’s not what I’m here for. [VOICE IN THE DISTANCE: “No… No!”] MARTIN: I can’t be that for you, I–I just can’t. ARCHIVIST: [QUIET] I… I know. [SILENCE] I–I’ll use the tape recorder…! [PLASTIC OF A TAPE] I just… [INHALE] You probably want to wait outside.

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: We’re fine. MARTIN: A–are we? I mean, that place is– … I don’t, I don’t feel fine, okay, and you were there a long time doing your… y–you–your guidebook, which, you know, I get it, but that place is…

(MAG165) MARTIN: Yeeaah, good call. Hum, in that case, do you want to… do your thing now then, before we start moving? But, are we close enough? [ROARING IN THE DISTANCE] ARCHIVIST: … Yes… Yes, I–I think so. Good idea. MARTIN: Thanks! ARCHIVIST: You, uh… [SHUFFLING] You might want to take a bit of a walk. This… feels like a strange one…

(MAG166) ARCHIVIST: I… It’s hard to put into words. Loo–l… [SIGH] Look, we can talk about it later, we’re– coming to a… “domain of The Buried”, and [STATIC RISES] I would really rather… […] [INHALE] [WHIMPERING] Ah… [GRUNT] MARTIN: Jon? Are you… ARCHIVIST: We’ve been… close for too long, I need to, uh… [INHALE] You might want to take a walk. MARTIN: Hm.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] [LONG EXHALE] [CREAKING SOUND] Oookay. Time you went for a walk. [FOOTSTEPS] MARTIN: Y–yeah, about that… [CREAKING SOUND] You sure you’ll be okay on your own? […] You… [INHALE] You vomit your horrors. [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: [REVULSED SOUND] Uh! I’m… not sure I like that metaphor…! MARTIN: “Puke your terrors”? ARCHIVIST: … Just go. MARTIN: Alright. Fine, I’m going.

(MAG171) JARED: You still do that talk-y thing? You know? Drink up all the fear and spit it back out? ARCHIVIST: Sort of, yes. JARED: Alright. Well, I’d like to hear about my garden. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … Okay! MARTIN: Look, if this is some kind of trick– ARCHIVIST: It isn’t. […] MARTIN: Jon, are you… alright? ARCHIVIST: Yeah, hum… Sorry. MARTIN: No, it, it’s alright. JARED: Is it really that bad? Seeing what I’ve done here? Or… uh! Is it maybe that deep down, you think it’s as beautiful as I do?

(MAG172) ARCHIVIST: Ah… Hold up, I–I need to, uh… [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] MARTIN: Now, seriously? We’re almost out of here. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I’m sorry…! Not really up to me…! MARTIN: Fine. [SIGH]

(MAG173) MARTIN: Slow down, I can barely see a thing! ARCHIVIST: … Sorry. […] Look, I would just really like to get through here, as quickly as possible. MARTIN: How come? This one seems like the quietest place we’ve been in a while! It’s just… rows and rows of quiet houses. I mean, I know some people don’t like that sort of thing, [CHUCKLING] but I’m actually finding it kind of relaxing s– ARCHIVIST: [AGITATED BREATHING] Martin…! Please. [LOUD BREATHING] MARTIN: … Jon…? Where are we? ARCHIVIST: I–it’s complicated. MARTIN: That’s… not an answer! ARCHIVIST: Can we please just move on? […] Do you really want to know that? Really? MARTIN: [FRUSTRATED BREATHS] ARCHIVIST: I’ve been trying very hard to keep this one bottled up…!

Jon had also mentioned that they could have gone another way in MAG169; the statement in MAG171 was prompted by Jared, who wanted to hear about it; and MAG170 was even given by Martin. Jon had almost left the Web’s domain without giving one, and tried to “keep this one bottled up” in MAG172, and only gave it when prompted by Martin. Is Jon displaying a bit more control over his need to “pour out” the domains’ statements?

Once again: there are very two different things at play. On the one hand, the fact that Jon and Martin have to “experience” the domains by going through them, and the fact that Jon sometimes feel saturated to the point he has to “pour out” into the tapes to be able to function again. The two do not feel connected or necessary to each other: the tape recorder clicked on in MAG167 and recorded something that wasn’t a domain’s statement (but one about the previous Team Archive), and Jon didn’t give the house’s statement in MAG170 – that was Martin. What are the tape recorders, and is this feeding them somehow…?

- Sob about Martin trying to lighten the mood at the beginning of the episode, because it just created a rift right away – Jon already knowing the horror of the situation, and Martin thinking/hoping that the situation around there was okay-ish, allowing for light jokes:

(MAG173) MARTIN: Slow down, I can barely see a thing! ARCHIVIST: … Sorry. MARTIN: No prizes for guessing who’s in charge here, eh? ARCHIVIST: Mm, I–I suppose not…! MARTIN: You know… I really miss the days when I could blame broken streetlights on the council. A strongly-worded letter just doesn’t feel as forceful when it’s addressed to “whichever Dread Power it may concern”. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] [SIGH] Hm.

Please, Martin, send many strongly-worded letters to Jonah to hiss about the current problems.

Also, SOB ABOUT THIS BIT:

(MAG173) MARTIN: This one seems like the quietest place we’ve been in a while! It’s just… rows and rows of quiet houses. I mean, I know some people don’t like that sort of thing, [CHUCKLING] but I’m actually finding it kind of relaxing s–

Because ahahahahahaha: lonely!Martin liked the “quiet” in season 4, and “rows and rows of quiet houses” puts me in mind of MAG150’s statement with the Lonely suburb ;;

- The fear that The Web could be messing with Martin is still fresh in Jon’s mind, uh?

(MAG173) ARCHIVIST: Martin, tell me what you want me to do, and I will do it! [SCREAMS IN THE DISTANCE] MARTIN: … [SLIGHTLY MUFFLED] Tell me about this place. … I need to know. ARCHIVIST: I thought you hated listen– … [INHALE] Are you… sure that’s what you want? MARTIN: Of course it’s not…! [BAG JOSTLING] But I need to hear it.

;; Jon trying to check if Martin wasn’t mindcontrolled, since it sounded out-of-character…

(But: it made sense for Martin, and it’s also one more thing that couldn’t really have happened at the beginning of the season. Martin didn’t want to hear about Jon “vomiting” his horrors – it’s not that he was living in denial about them happening, he knew very well about them. But as was mentioned, “knowing” and “understanding” are two different things: Martin could hear that the children were terrified and preyed upon, the statement “only” provided details and the way the domain was operating. It brought no catharsis, no clue about how to make it stop and help the kids. It just made Martin another voyeur, aware of the situation… and unable to do anything short-term to solve it.)

- It’s sad and I’m glad that Jon and Martin’s differences are shining and conflicting a bit more obviously nowadays. At the core of it: Jon knows how to navigate through this new world, knows how it works, what is happening around them. He already knew about the children getting tortured, why they were there, that they were being groomed to become more satisfying for The Eye. Martin… doesn’t, and Jon tends to forget that: while Jon has to bear the knowledge, it also makes some of his actions hard to follow (Martin didn’t understand why Jon was walking so fast), and Martin’s hypotheses and hopes ruled out before he even voiced them (Jon already knew that Callum was in charge and that “smiting” this domain’s avatar wasn’t a comfortable option). But it doesn’t feel to me like they’re heading towards full-blown conflict, quite the contrary: there are tensions, there are mutual frustrations over the other’s behaviour, but they don’t forget that the apocalypse is responsible for it, and are getting better at wording what they’re feeling. Martin had pointed out that Jon wasn’t very open about his feelings, and it’s true; and it’s also true that Martin seems to be misunderstanding Jon’s level of control over their situation, to the point that… they’re both occasionally hurting each other.

(- Re: the slapping reference, I thiiiink it was Jon’s attempt at a sardonic joke like he had done in MAG154, and it just didn’t land because it sounded accusatory with a tint of cruel edge instead:

(MAG154) ARCHIVIST: I–I’ve been trying to a–avoid, being, hum… Sticking to old statements? Thank you, for your little “intervention”, by the way. MARTIN: Look, I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t– ARCHIVIST: Yes, no, I know, I’m sorry, uh– that didn’t… come out right. Honestly: thank you. [EXHALE] It’s been hell, but… I–I did need to hear it.

(MAG173) ARCHIVIST: [LOUD, LONG EXHALE] [STATIC FADES] Is that enough for you? Do you need to hear more? MARTIN: … I… ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] [STATIC INCREASES] “See Luka. See Luka sleep–” [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] MARTIN: No, no! No, that’s enough, that’s… enough. [STATIC FADES] [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: … Thank you for not hitting me this time. [SILENCE, PUNCTUATED BY SCREAMS] Was that what you wanted? What you needed? MARTIN: … No. [SLIGHTLY MUFFLED] No, it didn’t help at all. ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry. MARTIN: … Let’s get out of here.

Martin hasn’t slapped Jon three times for the fun of it or for his own benefit: he had previously tried to shake him awake (MAG160) and to talk him out of it (MAG169, MAG172) when Jon was supernaturally ensnared. But, also: Jon is perfectly entitled to be bitter about it.

I wonder if Martin will try to find another way next time, though (MAKE OUT WITH HIM, HE WON’T BE ABLE TO TALK, MARTIN.))

- Sob over the fact that Martin “wanting” something reminded me of his outburst at Tim…

(MAG079) TIM: Alright, fine. Fine. What do you want? What’s your light at the end of these spooky damn tunnels – and don’t say “everyone happy forever”, because that’s not happening. … Well? MARTIN: I don’t know. I don’t know!! I want to find out what’s going on; I want to save Jon; I want everyone to be fine, and you know what? If we were all happy that wouldn’t actually be the end of the world!

(MAG173) ARCHIVIST: I don’t know what you want me to do! MARTIN: I want you to use your power, I want you to help them, I want you to make things better! ARCHIVIST: There – is – no – “better” anymore. MARTIN: You keep saying that, and I hate it! ARCHIVIST: I keep saying it because it keeps being true, you know that!

And Jon is really reminiscent of Tim right now? Convinced that they’re stuck in this situation forever, almost reproaching Martin for daring to hope? While Martin’s hope indeed feels too idealistic and unreachable, despite technically being… the bare minimum.

- Jon… hasn’t always been this fatalistic about the current situation in season 5. He began the season with hopelessness, but then was the one to offer hope, before… apparently reverting back to despair:

(Season 5 trailer) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … What? What do you want? … The world is…! It’s over. You’ve won. What can you possibly still need to hear? […] MARTIN: “How are you feeling in general”, then? ARCHIVIST: … Unchanged. [PAUSE] I don’t know if it’ll ever change again…! […] MARTIN: Maybe I should, uh… pop down the village? See if they have any coffee instead? ARCHIVIST: It’s gone, Martin, and the people are…! MARTIN: Yes, I know, Jon, I’m not ignorant, I’m just… I’m just not ready for complete despair yet. ARCHIVIST: “Like me”. MARTIN: … I didn’t say that. ARCHIVIST: You didn’t have to.

(MAG161) MARTIN: Jon, it’s not your fault… ARCHIVIST: Martin, can we not do this again. MARTIN: Sorry. ARCHIVIST: I’m just… I’m mourning a world I killed…! MARTIN: I know… ARCHIVIST: And we’re all trapped in its rotting corpse…! […] MARTIN: Jon, I… This isn’t healthy. ARCHIVIST: Healthy? I am an avatar of voyeuristic terror, whose unquestioned craving for knowledge has condemned the entire world… to an eternity of torment, “healthy” i–isn’t, i–it’s not…! […] No, it’s not, I’m, I’m sorry, I just… [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] [INHALE, EXHALE] It hurts. MARTIN: I know. ARCHIVIST: … I need time. MARTIN: I know. But we can’t stay in this cabin forever…! [DISTANT HOWL] ARCHIVIST: Why not? It, it’s quiet here, an–and I have you…! […] MARTIN: Well, that as may be, we can’t just stay here forever. ARCHIVIST: What could possibly be out there that you want to see? MARTIN: A way to stop this, a way to turn the world back! ARCHIVIST: [HINT OF A DISHEARTENED SMILE] … Do you really think there is one? [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: Well, if there is, it’s not in here, is it? ARCHIVIST: It’s so… It’s so loud, out there? The agony, the–the terror, I can see it all so much more clearly…! MARTIN: I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: No, it’s– [SIGH] I love you, I just… I need more time. [SILENCE] MARTIN: It’s alright. [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] [CREAKING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: [SOFT EXHALE] MARTIN: It’s alright, I’m good at waiting.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “This place wishes to be our tomb. But The Eye does not wish that. No. [STATIC INCREASES] The Eye wishes instead that it be my chrysalis. It is time that I emerge…” [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] […] MARTIN: So you’re recording again? ARCHIVIST: I might need to. If we’re going to make it…! [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: Back to the Archives? ARCHIVIST: Seems the best place to start. [RUMBLE OF THUNDER] MARTIN: Uh… Y–eah, alright! [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: Martin… It’s going to be a hard journey. […] MARTIN: Do you think it’ll do anything? Confronting Elias? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] I… [SIGH] Maybe? MARTIN: No, I’m serious. Do we… [PAUSE IN THE PACKING SOUNDS] Is there a chance that we can undo this? ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE] Gertrude didn’t think so. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: … Right. ARCHIVIST: [SOFT] But she’s dead. [FIRMER] Let’s find out for ourselves. […] Besides, there’s… far worse out there. Better to try and avoid it, I think. MARTIN: We’re not even gonna try? We, we’ve got your lighter, maybe we could just– ARCHIVIST: We can’t fight the world, Martin. MARTIN: [AMUSED DEFIANT HUFF] Says you.

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: It means the journey will be the journey, regardless of how we choose to make it. […] You could see that tower from anywhere on Earth. And it can see you. And if you walk towards it, eventually you’ll get there. But you have to go through everything in-between. […] MARTIN: What’re you doing here? [PLASTIC RATTLING] It’s dangerous. Could… get yourself blown up, like all these poor… [PLASTIC RATTLING] Who d’you think they were? Really don’t see why they can’t just… go round, picked a better place to… [STEPS THROUGH LIQUID] [SIGH] I guess there… aren’t really any “better” places anymore, are there? [STEPS THROUGH LIQUID] It’s all this. Or worse, or… or different.

(MAG164) MARTIN: How much further do we still need to go? [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: A long way. Through many dark and awful places… […] MARTIN: Can we turn the world back? [STATIC RISES, STRONG] ARCHIVIST: Wow! Hum… I–if the Fears are removed, yes; but they–they can’t be destroyed while there are still… people to fear them; th–then they can’t be banished back to the space where they came from, it’s not… there anymore, I… Oh! Uh… MARTIN: J–J–Jon, what’s wrong? ARCHIVIST: Uh, it’s, uh… I’m sorry, trying to know things about them directly, i–i–it’s like… [STATIC DECREASES] [EXHALE] God, it’s like looking into the Sun…! MARTIN: Okay, okay – okay, alright, that’s alright.

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: Help us with what? MARTIN: ‘xcuse me? ARCHIVIST: Annabelle, help us with “what”? Our–our, our journey, killing Elias, vanishing the Entities – what? […] Wi–without… trust, without a, a reason… Gertrude needed both the purpose her mission gave her, and the control her position allowed. To be here, like us, without a, [INHALE] a reason, without someone to ground her, she… She’d have power but… no control. No real… purpose. Perhaps she’d dedicate herself to a, a doomed quest like us, but– … [QUIET] No… I think this would have broken her. And she’d have resigned herself to… ruling her domain. […] MARTIN: [INHALE] [SNORT] Ssso. If you say Gertrude wouldn’t have been able to go on without a reason… ARCHIVIST: Yes, Martin, you are my reason. MARTIN: Just wanted to make you say it…! ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] MARTIN: Cool.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: I feel badly for those that exist in his domain, o–of course, I do, but… At least, their suffering will be over, eventually.

(MAG170) ARCHIVIST: M–Martin, if you… did; i–if you wanted to forget… a–all of it, stay here and just… escape. I… I would understand. MARTIN: … N–no…! It’s comforting here, leaving all those… painful memories behind, but… It’s not a good comfort, it’s… I–it’s the kind that makes you fade, makes you… dim and… distant.

(MAG171) MARTIN: Jon. We are… doing good, right? Making things better? ARCHIVIST: … I don’t know if that was… ever an option.

(MAG173) ARCHIVIST: I don’t know what you want me to do! MARTIN: I want you to use your power, I want you to help them, I want you to make things better! ARCHIVIST: There – is – no – “better” anymore. MARTIN: You keep saying that, and I hate it! ARCHIVIST: I keep saying it because it keeps being true, you know that! […] MARTIN: [INHALE] [CLEARER] The sooner we get back to the Archives, the sooner we can put a stop to this. All of this. They just… [INHALE] They’ll just need to hang on a little longer. ARCHIVIST: … Right. [EXHALE] Right. MARTIN: Come on.

After the surge of hope towards the end of MAG162, Jon has made more and more small comments implying that he doesn’t think that there is a “better” solution (theirs is a “doomed quest”, Oliver’s victims will ~at least~ die, Martin staying in his domain would have been a way to “escape”, etc.) I wonder what is happening in Jon’s mind: is it the journey starting to take its toll on him, things feeling hopeless because he has to face the concreteness of this new world, which feels all-powerful, too complicated, too big, impossible to undo? Or did he “know” something that he hasn’t told Martin, back in MAG164, or did he drew from there the conclusion that it was impossible to get rid of the Fears? In any case: it’s good that Martin is still pushing for hope and for a solution. What would be the alternative? Just stopping and getting a domain to rule over? Keeping on with the journey through the horrors forever ~since at least they’re together uwu~?

- Re: Jon apparently not daring to hope (anymore) vs. Martin accidentally sounding very bossy and ignorant by wanting Jon to save things… at the core of it, I think that there is a misunderstanding between them regarding Jon’s powers, which makes sense for both of them.

For Jon: his powers can’t do much good. Growing as an Archivist came with taking live-statements and condemning people to his nightmare zoo, where he could only watch and not intervene (with mentions that he used to try). Saving Melanie and Daisy, annihilating the Dark Sun, was accompanied by new victims, constantly tortured, leaving them a wreck. He never “saved the world”: The Unknowing would have failed on its own with no intervention necessary, and Melanie was right to point out that them trying to do good… had invariably caused bad things all around. Saving Martin meant getting his last mark, setting him up for Jonah’s apocalypse.

But for Martin: Jon saved him from The Lonely twice. Martin’s own “powers” (disappearing in front of Georgie, his Lonely training) never came at the cost of sacrificing innocents – only himself. And Jon was able to stop hurting innocents when monitored, after Martin took Jess Tyrell’s complaint: bad people, bad avatars, would keep hurting people. But it seems that in Martin’s mind, there are still “good” ways to use one’s powers (saving people, smiting avatars) without negative consequences – which… isn’t really the case. The powers are granted by the Fears to provide more fear for the Fears.

(- Amongst the sad things regarding Martin’s horror at being a passive witness to the children’s suffering: technically, it was long-due as a horror, since the very beginning of the show. They knew, as Team Archive, that the things happening out there were hurting actual people, real people. That some of them were still alive. Jon began season 4 lightly apologising about their passivity, in the Web’s web-development statement. Martin is horrified at their passivity now, but technically… they’ve never really tried to help people for the sake of helping people — the worst cases being Jon’s own victims.)

(- I shouldn’t hoooooope but ;; The fact that Jon seems to be reaching rock-bottom re:hope and being unable to do anything good, to make things “better”… still makes me wonder if he might not manage to get Daisy back for a short while.

Alternatively: that would be the rock-bottom. To have to smite her, or to help Basira in killing her as promised… because there is no other option.)

- Right now, Jon and Martin indeed feel powerless, but there are various elements contributing to this. First: at the beginning of the journey, reaching the Panopticon was supposed to be the start to trying to undo the apocalypse, not the final objective; right now, as they go through domain after the domain and the horrors are more concrete, it’s easy to forget that the journey wasn’t supposed to be their answer and solution.

Jon is also getting his powers from Beholding, who has never been a passive agent when it comes to knowledge – Jon had noted how hard it had been to listen to MAG154’s tape (containing a way to… cut one’s connection to The Eye), and had even expressed his difficulty with burning Gerry’s page because of the knowledge it could still provide. When Jon had tried to know how to get rid of the fears in MAG164, he had noted that knowing about the Powers was more intense – and had to quickly stop. Why would The Eye nurture the hope of undoing the apocalypse making it all-powerful?

Meanwhile, Martin has noticed that he was “always following, never leading”, doesn’t have a clear understanding of the domains, doesn’t have powers, which… seems to limit his options. He’s also proved to be able to think outside-of-the-box when it came to providing plans, in the past, and had sometimes displayed a more “intuitive” feel of the powers (with Peter and Simon), so that could come in handy – just… not in the current environment.

Overall: Martin and Jon are limited right now, having trouble understanding themselves and conveying it to the other (but are still trying!), and clearly in need of other perspectives… So here’s to hoping that Melanie&Georgie, Basira (… and potentially Daisy but I don’t wanna hope TT_TT) could help. I doubt that the entirety of season 5 would be a hopeless exploration of this apocalyptical world in which everyone suffers almost-forever and then dies?

… The other option right now is Annabelle, who had told Martin that she was calling “to help”: given that Jon&Martin are lacking options… Martin could be a bit more open this time if she tries to reach him again – or at least, listen to what she has to say, even if it’s only venom.

  New organisation for season 5, as announced everywhere!

I see absolutely no downside to this as a listener: I’m glad that RQ are allowing themselves more time to work on the show safely and remotely (operating safely during the pandemic means that the logistics of almost everything has changed, you can’t expect people to keep up), I’m glad that the series is lasting longer time-wise (yay!), I’m glad that I’ll have two 6-weeks-break to breathe a bit /o/ And honestly, if they end up needing more time and have to space out episodes/hiatuses for even a bit longer, full support, I hope that they won’t hesitate if it’s deemed necessary (or even healthy!).

Curious about the fragmentation in three acts – that’s another structure of tragedy, it… could mean that we’re technically in the “prologue” to the core of the season? Well, the segmentation in three is also interesting for events: we’re currently in the journey towards the domain, there are only Vast, Hunt and Spiral remaining, which could mean that MAG176 is the last zone before the Panopticon, and then… And then. Act I being the journey, Act II and Act III regarding the Panopticon (research into the Archives) and Hill Top Road? Eye-arc and Web-arc? (I’m still a bit “MMMM” about a few words said during one of the Q&A, which could imply time/timelines shenanigans at some point…)

MAG174’s title is… well, my adjective for it would be the title itself, damnit. I… It… it could be the perfect title for a Vast domain (Simon, where are you.) AND for monster!Daisy barging in into that domain, WorriedForDaisy.jpg

#the magnus archives #tma liveblog #tma season 5 #tma spoilers #mag173 #long post/

[revolutionary-demosthenes]

The Bonstetten-Gray relationship

Most of this information comes from “Thomas Gray (A Biography)” which can be found here: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.226086/page/n289/mode/2up.

Thomas Gray was an English poet born in 1716. He had many siblings, but the was the only one who survived childhood. According to poetry foundation, he “is generally considered the second most important poet of the eighteenth century” behind Alexander Pope.

Charles Victor de Bonstetten was born in 1745. He was a Swiss writer, and stayed with Francis Kinloch, John Laurens’s ex-boyfriend, (I will post more about him soon) when Johannes Von Müller and Alleyne Fitzherbert, 1st Baron, St. Helens were also staying with him, in what I call Kinloch’s Gay Retreat. (I will be posting about that very soon.) This relationship is pre-Kinloch, however something interesting is that Alleyne Fitzherbert also knew Gray, who wrote about Fitzherbert, “the little Fitzherbert is come as pensioner to St. John's, and seems to have all his wits about him.” 

Bonstetten met Gray near the end of the latter’s life. There was a 30 year age difference between them, but they were both adults. Bonstetten knew about Gray, but how they first came into contact is pretty hilarious. Here is the excerpt from the biography (Norton Nicholls was a friend of Gray’s): “So the November of 1769 wore uneventfully on, until one even- ing Norton Nicholls, who was concluding a rather protracted absence from his parish with a visit to Bath, happened to go to a ball at the Assembly Rooms. Light-hearted as ever, the youth- ful rector scrambled on to a table in order to have a better view of the dancing, and presently another young man did the same. They clutched one another for fear of falling, an unceremonious introduction which led to a lifelong friendship between them. The young man's name was Charles-Victor de Bonstetten, and he was the only son of a prominent member of the little group of patrician families which ruled the canton of Berne.” In other words, Nicholls and Bonstetten both stood on a table during a ball, holding each other so they wouldn’t fall! What a way to meet someone... They became friends, and either Bonstetten realized that Nicholls knew Gray, or Nicholls found out that Bonstetten revered Gray, but either way, Nicholls wrote a letter of recommendation for Bonstetten to be taught by one Thomas Gray. 

Side note: Bonstetten was going to marry an heiress, but wrote to his father that he was very happy he had not done so. Very, very happy. The he had not married a woman. He wrote in French, but the rough translation is, “O my dear father, I will now be admirably cheerful, and sing and dance all day like a man who woke up from a bad dream” Wow.

It appears that Bonstetten and Gray became fast friends after they met in London, December (of 1769, I’m assuming. The book is not terribly clear.) Bonstetten stayed in a coffee house often used by Gray and his friends. It seems that the affection Bonstetten felt for Gray came on quickly. He wrote Nicholls, after two weeks of being in Cambridge, “I never walk but with even steps and musing gate, and looks corner- cmg with the skyes ; and unfold my wrinkles only when I see Mr Gray, or think of you Then notwithstanding all your learnings and knowledge, I feel in such occasions that I have a heart, which you know is as some others a quite profane thing to carry under a black gown,” Gray wrote at the bottom of this letter, of Bonstetten, “I never saw such a boy our breed is not made on this model He is busy from morning to night, has no other amusement, than that of changing one study from another, likes nobody, that he sees here, and yet wishes to stay longer, tho’ he has pass’d a whole fortnight with us already His letter has had no correction whatever, and is prettier by half than English.”

At first, the Gray seemed to only see Bonstetten as a student, “But as the weeks went by, and his protege still stayed on at Cambridge, Gray grew ever more fascinated by him. He insisted that he should visit him at all times of the day, dine with him, work in his rooms. Together they read the English poets, went over the botanical lessons of Mr. Miller, played on the new pianoforte — a present from Stonhewer — and talked on and on until the college gate was about to close” They spent a lot more time together, which seems to have been initiated mainly by Gray. 

But it is this next passage in the biography that really hits me the hardest. It also is pretty clearly implying gay, which seems amazing to me, as this book was written in the 1950s, when being gay was still unjustly taboo. The book says that when Gray first met Bonstetten, he just saw him as a good student/an opportunity to impart knowledge onto someone deserving. But, “by now he realised that this newcomer was arousing in him emotions such as he had never experienced before, emotions obsessive and overwhelming. All his defences were swept away — the life so carefully organised, the formal and deliberate manner, the refuge which he had sought in books and antiquities and the interleaved Linnaeus. He was filled with disquiet, for he understood the secrets of his own nature he knew the existence of temptations which could not for one moment be contemplated by one who had been, all his life long, a strict observer of the laws of God and the laws of man. At the same time the very presence of Bonstetten brought him unimagined happiness. For a few short weeks he enjoyed once more what he had never known since his childhood days...” 

This appears to me like an intense internal struggle for Gray. He knew how society looked upon homosexuality, and as a respected poet, it was a big risk for him to be accused of this. As for the ‘secrets of his own nature’ I cannot honestly think of any other meaning of this but attraction for other men. Additionally, why would Gray. be ‘filled with disquiet’ about an intimate friendship? This strongly implies that Gray felt that the intimacy their relationship reached a level that was not accepted by society in that time. This passage especially makes me feel so bad for Gray, Bonstetten, and everyone who was/is not straight but are/were not allowed to be their true selves. Gray loved this man so deeply, yet if anyone found out about it, he would possibly be sentenced to death! An impossible situation, truly. But Bonstetten and Gray seemed willing to take the risk. Oddly, the biography says, that when Gray refused to talk of his personal life with Bonstetten, “Bonstetten concluded, a little surprisingly in the circumstances which then prevailed, that [Gray] had never been in love.” I would say very surprisingly... But of course this would also be an excellent cover for a romantic relationship. It is also worth noting that if Bonstetten only saw Gray as a mentor, why would he care if Gray would not talk of his early life when Bonstetten did?

However romantic their relationship got, it is clear that they both, though Gray especially, were very happy around each other. It was not to last, sadly. Bonstetten’s father wanted his son home. Gray made fun of this, and Bonstetten made a heart-felt appeal to his father, “Quand j ’ai enfin trouve un ami c'est pour le perdre et pour retomber dans cette sombre solitude ou je reste la proie des vices et de toutes les miseres humaines” which translates to “When I finally find a friend it is to lose him and to fall back into this dark loneliness where I remain the prey of vices and all human misery.” This was quite a smart and logical appeal, since Bonstetten’s father was worried about his son disgracing himself in some way or another, as many fathers worried about in those days (Henry Laurens...).

But even this was not enough, and Bonstetten departed in late March. As the biography says, “Gray was quite inconsolable All the warmth, the con- tentment, the affection that had lately filled his life would be drained out of it once more, and nothing but loneliness and emptiness lay ahead. And apart from his desolating sense of personal loss, he was deeply anxious about Bonstetten’s future He had tried so hard to sober the volatile creature, to control the fantasies and aspirations that filled his brain What dangers, what pitfalls of licentiousness and atheism now awaited him in France? What would happen to him when he returned to the domination of 'his cursed Father ’? As the dreaded day of separation drew near he tried to confide in Nicholls, but despaired of conveying to him the extent of his distress 'He gives me too much pleasure, and at least an equal share of inquietude. You do not understand him so well as I do, but I leave my meaning imperfect, till we meet I have never met with so extraordinary a Person God bless him ! I am unable to talk to you about anything else, I think.’ He went to London with Bonstetten, and said farewell to him on 23 March at four o’clock in the morning, when the Dover coach rumbled away into the cold and darkness.” The phrase “too much pleasure” also seems to suggest a relationship beyond friendship. As well as the phrase, ‘I leave my meaning imperfect’ perhaps he left it imperfect because he could not dare to write his real feelings.

Every single one of Bonstetten’s letters to Gray after leaving London are missing. Every. Single. One. One cannot even begin to speculate the sorts of things written in those letters! Three letters survived from Gray. These letters are pretty heartbreaking. It is clear that Gray missed Bonstetten deeply, despite only having known each other for a few months. “Never did I feel, my dear Bonstetten,” he wrote “to what a tedious length the few short moments of our life may be extended by impatience and expectation, till you had left me nor ever knew before with so strong a conviction how much this frail body sympathizes with the inquietude of the mind I am grown old m the compass of less than three weeks, like the Sultan in the Turkish Tales, that did but plunge his head into a vessel of water and take it out again (as the standers-by affirm'd) at the command of a Dervish, and found he had pass'd many years in captivity and begot a large family of children The strength and spirits that now enable me to write to you, are only owing to your last letter, a temporary gleam of sunshine Heaven knows, when it may shine again I did not conceive till now (I own) what it was to lose you, nor felt the solitude and insipidity of my own condition, before I possess’d the happiness of your friendship.”

Poor Gray! We do have a hint, however, later in this letter, what the letter Bonstetten had previously written had contained. Gray writes, “I return to your letter, it proves at least, that in the midst of your new gaieties, I still hold some place in your memory, and (what pleases me above all) it has an air of undissembled sincerity. Go on, my best and amiable Friend , to shew me your heart simply and without the shadow of disguise, and leave me to weep over it (as I do now) no matter whether from joy or sorrow.” Well, Gray was a poet, but this is just so beautiful... and so sad! This letter betrays such genuine grief and love over Bonstetten... if this letter survived, what must Bonstetten’s (which did not) contain? Bonstetten’s letter must have contained sadness about the separation as well. The line ‘without the shadow of disguise’ also strikes me as a particularly gay line... if they were just friends, why would there even be talk of parts of their heart ‘disguised?’ Also, Gray is saying that Bonstetten’s true heart makes him weep, which is basically saying, ‘You love me so much but that you love me so much is painful because you are away from me. But this is not the end of the tear-fest, my friends. Gray wrote Bonstetten again soon after, 

“Alas! how do I every moment feel the truth of what I have some- where read Ce n’est pas le voir que de Fen souvenir , and yet that remembrance is the only satisfaction I have left My life now is but a perpetual conversation with your shadow — The known sound of your voice still rings in my ears — There, on the corner of the fender you are standing, or tinkling on the pianoforte, or stretch'd at length on the sofa — Do you reflect, my dearest Friend, that it is a week or eight days, before I can receive a letter from you, and as much more before you can have my answer, that all that time (with more than Herculean toil) I am employ'd in pushing the tedious hours along, and wishing to annihilate them; the more I strive, the heavier they move and the longer they grow. I can not bear this place, where I have spent many tedious years within less than a month, since you left me.’ 

Time had obviously not softened the blow of Bonstetten's departure. Gray also repeatedly emphasizes that he is not living his life in the way that he was before Bonstetten entered his life. Again, we do not have any of Bonstetten’s letters, so we must only speculate what they could contain. But it seems clear that whatever they said, they did nothing to alleviate Gray’s pain, and perhaps even made Gray yearn ever more for his departed pupil. 

About a month later, Thomas Gray and Norton Nicholls went to Suffolk together, and had hoped to see Bonstetten while there, but when Bonstetten was there (I do not the know the reason why he was not or why Gray expected him to be) Gray wrote another plaintive letter:

“I am return'd, my dear Bonstetten, from the little journey I had made into Suffolk without answering the end proposed. The thought, that you might have been with me there, has embitter'd all my hours. Your letter has made me happy; as happy as so gloomy, so solitary a Being as I am is capable of being. I know and have too often felt the disadvantages I lay myself under, how much I hurt the little interest I have in you by this air of sadness so contrary to your nature and present enjoyments, but sure you will forgive, tho* you can not sympathize with me It is impossible for me to dissemble with you Such as I am, I expose my heart to your view, nor wish to conceal a single thought from your penetrating eyes — All that you say to me, especially on the subject of Switzerland, is infinitely acceptable. It feels too pleasing ever to be fulfill'd, and as often as I read over your truly kind letter, written long since from London,* I stop at these words La mort qui peat glacer nos bras avant qu’ils soient entrelaces.”

The French at the bottom of this letter translates to, “Death that can freeze our arms before they are intertwined.” 

There is also a line in this letter which raises the question “Did Gray love Bonstetten but Bonstetten not love Gray?” The aforementioned line is, “tho* you can not sympathize with me” which seems to suggest either that Bonstetten is not having as hard a time away from Gray, or that they loved each other in different ways. But this could also just mean that Bonstetten has other friends, or really anything along those lines. I also feel we should be extremely careful when claiming that love is one-sided when we only have one sides’ recollection of the relationship. People try and do this with the Laurens-Hamilton relationship... many of Laurens’s letters that survive are not as gushing as Hamilton’s but we are missing a great deal of them, and what we have was edited. But some people try to dismiss the relationship because of this. Also, this is one line out a letter that basically screams “I LOVE U!!” so...

I have found a list of all the Bonstetten letters, though there is no content. There are dates of the letters, though. Here is the link: http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?collection=letters&author=Bonstetten,+Charles+Victor+de,[phone]&sortby=placelet_up.

There’s a letter to Norton Nicholls in there too, and the only reason I’m mentioning it is because Bonstetten uses the phrase ‘methinks’ which is just wonderful.

But it seems that this relationship would die down soon afterwards. The biography says, “Such intensity of emotion could not last for very long It exhausted Gray's vitality at the time, and may well have had a permanent effect upon his health, but as the weeks went on he began to view the whole affair in a more reasonable light He saw the absurdity of his relationship with Bonstetten as well as its sadness; and indeed the absurdity, for all his over- mastering charm, of Bonstetten himself. Even at this early stage he began to find the style of the letters from Paris * un peu trop alembique', affected and over-refined. They were not to grow less so with the passage of time. Bonstetten made uncon- vincing excuses for not writing more often, and 'he seems at present to give into all the French nonsense and to be employ'd much like an English boy broke loose from his Governor ' It was the natural reaction of a high-spirited young man after those sober months at Cambridge, months of serious reading and celibate living and an unequal friendship between youth and age; but it displeased Gray, and the pangs of separation began to torment him less.”

We can tell from this that Bonstetten was the one who really began to separate from Gray once their geographic distance and cultural distance (to some extent, because Bonstetten was adopting more French manners, which displeased Gray,) grew too great. This parallels the Kinloch/Laurens relationship to some extent, I feel, because Laurens and Kinloch relationship deteriorated once Laurens was in London and Kinloch was still part of the Geneva social circles.

At any rate, this is what I have been able to find on the Bonstetten/Gray relationship. In conclusion: Bonstetten and Gray were likely lovers, despite a very large age difference, (Bonstetten was abut 24, and Gray 53) but the relationship did not last long. (If you want to think of it as a summer fling in December, I won’t stop you.) Gray appears to have been the more gushy letter-writer, but we have none of Bonstetten’s so it is really impossible to say. Bonstetten died in 1771, while Bonstetten was in Geneva. I’m trying to figure out what Bonstetten did, and if he stayed in Geneva or traveled between 1771 and 1775, when he went to Kinloch’s Gay Retreat.

Hope you enjoyed!

#Charles Victor de Bonstetten #Thomas Gray #we need a ship name for these two #queer history #Norton Nicholls

[elizabethemerald]

Dreams of Drowning: Chapt 3

Jim has a cold. Nothing major, completely common. But during a call with his mom, someone notices his absence from work and is concerned. 

AO3 Please reblog if you like!

Jim shuffled morosely around his apartment. The cold had come on suddenly. On Sunday he had been fine. Then he woke up on Monday and knew he couldn’t go into work. His nose was alternately running and completely clogged. He had a cough and a fever. He was sure that if given a day or two of rest he would be perfectly healthy.  

As he groggily fixed himself some tea with lemon and honey for his throat he checked his phone. He almost had a heart attack when he saw he had two calls from his mom at two in the morning! Was she ok? Had she been hurt and he slept through it? Then he remembered that she was currently in France. She had probably forgotten about the time zones and called as soon as she landed. He sniffed loudly and called her back. After a moment of ringing the phone was answered. 

“Hey mom! How was your flight?” Jim said. There was a slight pause on the other end, almost long enough for Jim to think the call had dropped. Then a voice he recognized but not his mother’s voice answered. 

“This is Doctor Lake-Nomura’s phone. May I ask who’s calling?”

Jim rolled his eyes. “Zelda can you put my mom on the phone?”

“What you’re not going to call me mom too?” Zelda said. Jim groaned. “Why not? You mother calls me mommy sometimes.”

“Why would my mom call you...mommy.” The realization hit him at that moment. “Ug, gross Zelda! Gross. I don’t want to hear about that!”

Zelda’s laugh was loud and long on the other side of the phone. Jim grimaced. After a couple minutes of him trying to get a word in edge wise past her laughing, she took a breath. 

“Here is your mother Little Gynt.”

Jim could still hear the sound of his mom’s wife laughing as she handed over the phone. He could also hear his mom talk about the view and tell Zelda to go look at it. 

“Hello, This is Doctor Lake-Nomura.”

“Hi mom. How was your flight?”

“Oh hi Jim! The flight was super long. Since it was our anniversary Zelda got us business class seats, so it wasn’t too bad thought.” It sounded like she was walking around the hotel room while she spoke. He suddenly heard a big uptick in background noise. She must have stepped out onto the balcony of her room. “The view is amazing. We can actually see the Eiffel Tower! Can you imagine? Waking up and seeing the Eiffel tower first thing in the morning?”

“That sounds amazing mo-”

“Just a minute Jim.” His mom muffled the phone. He could still her talk for a moment with Zelda, then what he presumed was a kiss goodbye. “OK, I’m back. Zelda is going to get us some breakfast. She’s so amazing, I’m so in love with her.”

Despite the other woman’s dirty jokes Jim couldn’t help but smile. He loved hearing the way his mom gushed about her wife. He was just glad that she was happy, and able to do all the things she couldn’t do while she had been raising him by herself. He was about to say so when he sneezed explosively. Several more sneezes followed. 

“Jim! Are you getting sick?” His mom asked. 

“Yeah. It came on real quick. I think I’ve probably been going to bed with my hair wet too often.” He laughed past his stuffed up nose. If he was going to keep dreaming about Claire he was going to have to start taking a towel to bed. 

“Have you been taking some medicine?” Barbara’s concern heavy on her voice. “Do I have to-”

“Do you have to end your vacation early to come and give me cold medicine?” Jim laughed even louder at that. His eyes and head felt heavy for some reason. “I don’t think your wife would ever let me live that down!”

His mom said some reply but he couldn’t focus on it. He felt so overwhelmingly tired. 

“No I’m going to be fine. Don’t…” The words were a struggle to get out. “Worry…” The phone slipped from his lax fingers, dropping to the floor. “...be fine…”

The words barely breathed out. Then he felt the floor rush up to meet him. Distantly he could hear his mom on the small speaker. 

“Jim? Jim are you ok? JIM!!” Then it was gone. 

Jim opened his eyes under water. The strange purple water pressed all around him. He could barely take in this fact when the current dragged him forward. He turned in time to see Claire reaching out to him. 

She wrapped his body in a hand as large as he is and brought him through the water close to her face. She carefully turned his body this way and that inspecting it closely. Jim swore her face showed the same concern as his mom’s voice. The thundering words in his head seemed to confirm her concern. 

“Hurt? Hurt? You hurt? You? Are you hurt? They hurt?” The repeating symphony of her words, overlaying on each other, filled his head. He could hardly concentrate. He clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. For a second that did nothing to stop the flood of words in his brain. Then there was silence. 

He carefully opened his eyes. Claire was holding him close, but didn’t say anything. He was close enough that he could see through her skin. It looked like she had a similar flow under her skin as the water around him. Her eyes were pure white, shining down on him. 

“Hurt?” The single word came to him, so softly he could barely feel it. 

“No. I’m not hurt.” He had never questioned how he could breath, speak and see in these dreams while underwater but he realized he could. 

The water around him changed. He felt without knowing how that he was seeing something from earlier in the day. The food mixture he had been making for her fell into the water. He could feel Claire’s emotions roiling off her. Joy. Disgust. Surprise. Fear. 

He interpreted her meaning easily. She had been excited for his cooking. But one of the other cooks must have covered his shift and went back to the old recipe for her food. But what was this being that seemed to be so powerful afraid of?

Claire must have picked up on his thoughts. She tapped his chest with a finger. 

“You nice.” Then her hand went to her own chest. “I afraid.”

“They hurt you.” She was afraid someone had hurt him. He was suddenly aware again of the massive chains. Before he could focus on a thought she spoke again. “Why gone?”

“I was sick. Just a regular cold. It’s not sanitary to be around food when you are sick. I couldn’t come into work today.” Jim tried to explain. 

Jim felt more than heard Claire release a relieved giggle. She shook her head back and forth, her hair floating out around her. She tapped his chest again. 

“Not sick anymore! Never sick again.” She laughed. Jim felt warmth move up his arms and down his legs, filling his head. 

He tried to focus, to put his concern into words, or at least thoughts. The chains. She had been worried about him getting hurt. She thought “They” would hurt him. He tried to ask the question, but the spreading warmth was distracting him. She stopped laughing and looked at him her held tilted to the side. 

“Jimbo! Jim you need to wake up. Come on Jim!” The voice pulled him away. Away from her. Jim reached out for her. “Jim, your mom is going to kill me if you die! Please wake up.”

Claire reached out her hand and Jim was able to grab her finger for just a second when he was suddenly whirled away. 

Jim coughed and sputtered, water pouring out of his mouth. Toby’s hand on his back helped him finish coughing up the rest. 

“Geeze dude!” Toby said, still patting him on the back. “Next time you are going to collapse, don’t drop a full pitcher of water when you do! You could have drowned while unconscious.”

“What are you talk-” Jim looked around. He was sitting in a massive puddle of water. He looked in concern at his friend. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have work today?”

“Your mom called me. From France I might add. I raced here. Paramedics should be here in a few minutes to check you out.”

Jim sat up and rubbed his face. He should feel miserable. The cold, the water, passing out. All this should add up to him feeling awful. But he felt better than he ever had. 

* * *

It had taken a lot to convince Toby that he was ok. It had taken even more to convince his mom. The EMTs had come and checked him out. He followed up with his regular doctor, only because he was a close personal friend of his mom and she would find out if he didn’t. The doctor gave him a clean bill of health. It had taken multiple calls to France to tell his mom the results, but between him and Zelda they were able to convince her not to end her anniversary early and fly back home. 

In truth Jim felt better than he had in years. Probably since back when he was a kid and always felt invincible. The cold had disappeared completely. Even a few of the joint problems he was starting to develop from a life time on his feet and in kitchens were gone. But he couldn’t explain to anyone else what had happened. He could barely understand for himself what Claire had done. 

He went to work the very next day. He wasn’t going to risk Claire panicking again if he missed a second day of work. When he made the food he was pretty sure was for her he put extra care and love into it. To thank her for fixing his cold. And to make sure she knew he was the one making the food. 

It was his third day back when 49B was rocked by a small earthquake. He was born and raised in California. Earthquakes had been a common occurrence throughout his life. This one didn’t even seem that bad. He calmly stepped back from his rack of knives as the room shook and rattled. It seemed to last longer than most small earthquakes he was used to, but soon ended. 

Jim did a quick safety check around the kitchen to make sure nothing important was damaged and helped restack some of the goods in the walk-in freezer. He couldn’t help a feeling of disquiet following the tremor. The feeling lead him to double and triple checking the kitchen. 

There were several more after shocks throughout the day. Each time his feeling of disquiet grew. When he got home he checked the news but didn’t see anything about the tremor. Must have been a localized earthquake, he tried to rationalize. 

He couldn’t shake the feeling though. That there was something off. Something wrong. It could have been his imagination but he swore he could hear someone screaming each time the building shook. None of the other cooks mentioned it or even seemed to notice. Maybe it was someone in the building who wasn’t used to living where earthquakes were frequent?

* * *

Jim sat alone in the empty cafeteria. Another lunch rush come and gone. He sat with his own simple lunch untouched in front of him. There hadn’t been any more earthquakes. But they also hadn’t been reported at all on the news. He pondered this problem while he stared at his food. 

It was Friday. Another week gone past at this new job. He hadn’t any dreams since Claire cured his cold. He was wondering what triggered them. He couldn’t help but think that he might be losing his mind. That his brain was making these dreams appear. His mom would be home tonight, maybe he could talk to her about it. 

As he was thinking with his head down, a few drops of water fell on the table in front of him. He looked up in confusion and almost fell backwards out of his chair. 

A woman he had never seen before was standing in front of him, leaning over the table. She looked like she could be latina, with tan skin and dark brown eyes. Her hair was dark brown as well except for a small strip that was dyed purple. Her hair was also dripping wet, like she had just spent a couple of minutes in the rain. Though it was summer and hadn’t rained in three weeks. 

He smiled at her a little awkwardly. She mimicked his expression. 

“H-hi. Can I hel-”

“Thank you for the fish.” She said. 

“Oh you’re welco-” He hadn’t cooked any fish today. He had cooked a vegan option, and the meat option was beef. There hadn’t been any fish on the menu. The strange woman continued to smile at him, her hair dripping onto the table. He realized she was wearing one of the long lab coats the researchers wore and not much else. “Wait. Claire-?”

The door to the cafeteria slammed open and Jim whipped his head around to look at it. He was pretty sure the two people who walked in were the head of security and the head of research, though he had never spoken to either of them before. He turned back and the woman who had been in front of him was gone. He could see on the floor a trail of small drips leading out a different door. He got up and followed it quickly. Neither of the respective department heads paid him any mind. 

The trail of water lead down the hall and around the corner. He noticed that along with the drips from her hair, there were also small wet footprints. He raced around the corner and saw the trail led into a mechanical room. Inside he found the pump room the other cook had mentioned.

The pump was truly massive. And on the floor there was a small puddle of water and an abandoned labcoat. The back and shoulders of the coat were damp from her hair. 

Jim carefully examined the pump room but didn’t find anything else. The only other sign was one of the access panels on the pump was sitting slightly askew. 

“Claire.” Jim whispered softly. “What are you?”

#jim lake jr #claire nunez #Barbara Lake #zelda nomura #toby domzalski #Trollhunters #tales of arcadia #dreams of drowning #writing emerald #please reblog #and commment #I want to improve my writing and need feedback

[ahlis-xiv]

Of Moogles and Mail, Pt. 2

I cannot believe it has already been over a year since the liberation. The times that followed were difficult for me, but in a way I didn’t wish to consider back then. Home, was not home, is still not home. Not yet. That’s what happens when you are forced to let it go, to grow up across a continent and between city-states and climes so different than the place of your birth, only to return to it even more changed than before. Ala Mhigo and I are both so different now., each with our own histories..yet perhaps I was too young to really understand or to truly recall? But, do you know what I do remember? I remember the color of azure against iron red stone, a voice of a friend where I never expected it. It hit me, this memory, and has stayed with me ever since. I miss those colors. That sound. That which is familiar. I miss you.                                                                         - an unsent letter, not dated

Ahlis insisted that she be present during the transfer of Thancred from Ala Mhigo to the Rising Stones. There his fellow Scions and comrades would watch over him as he would be placed among the others who succumbed to what ever power beckoned and stole them beyond reach. Y'shtola and Urianger were the other unlucky ones to fall, witnessed by herself...and Alisaie.

She could not keep her thoughts long on her young friend; doing so invoked emotions, fearful and ominous ones in equal measure. It was better to focus on Thancred in the moment now, after having rushed herself back to the city, carefully pulling a chair to the side of the infirmary bed he lay resting in. They had a few moments to spare before the preparations would commence, yet now that they were alone and in silence Ahlis did not know what to say. It had been so long since the pair had exchanged words—even a moment—together.

“Well. You’ve gone and done it again haven’t you,” she spoke with no conviction in her voice, knowing it wasn’t his fault, knowing she had no one to blame. Not even a face.

What was she to do, now that so little certainty remained for his fate? For all of them? It was a dark path her mind dared to tread, yet it would serve no purpose for her friend lying prone and lifeless in an unfettered sleep. Instead she saw how simple, gentle even, Thancred seemed in such repose.

“Ever since our days in Ishgard you’ve kept a kind of distance, I feel.”

Her hands came together to rest in her lap and her eyes no longer remained upon his face. Rather, they scanned the infirmary room Thancred had been given, the door slightly ajar. It was quiet and separate from any business with other patients; only the faint presence of medicine and ointment lingered in the air.

Ahlis knew this distance she spoke of, a sort of space that still remained empty. Thancred never spoke of it, but the weight of the Antecedant’s departure was one he bore alone. In some ways she knew, she couldn’t understand, yet a part remained if perhaps there could be something, a kind of middle ground, where they could meet. She touched her forehead, a finger rubbing the gap between her eyebrows. Ahlis was tired, frustration seething in the back on her mind, and twisting in her chest. It could not be helped, the circles her mind was so fond of treading over and over.

Was there something else I could have done?

The quiet was broken at the faint and approaching footsteps she knew were coming. With time rapidly slipping away she reached for Thancred’s hand and gave a small touch; she dared to squeeze his fingers. It was quick, Ahlis removed herself before the infirmary healers arrived, bowing out of their way when they entered to retrieve him.

Thancred’s skin was warm, but nothing else; a disquieting realization settling even more into her heart. She half hoped—silly, perhaps—that such a tiny, infinitesimal gesture would provoke something out of him. He remained unmoving as they moved his body carefully from the confines of his bed, to the cot in which he was to travel upon, and from there to the awaiting party that would oversee his departure.

Ahlis followed after the healers, finally ready to leave after choosing to wait behind as the others made way back to Mor Dhona, yet the call of her name pulled her out of her pondering. She turned and stopped, frozen in her steps: it was Aymeric waiting just outside the entrance to the infirmary, alone with no accompaniment despite the evening hour. This was strange. Immediately Ahlis felt as if something was amiss.

“What is it?” She asked quickly, expectantly, a heavy knot now forming in her gut. “Is something…?”

Aymeric saw that he had startled her and sought to assuage her concern with his smile, the familiar and cordial turn on his lips crossing his face.

“Be at ease, my friend.”

He began to approach her and Ahlis realized she must have sounded far too tense; she looked away for a moment.

“I’m sorry, I, ah...I am a little on edge, as you can imagine.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Aymeric paused briefly, considering, “Is there aught we can do for him?”

Aymeric’s expression was a somber with a pensive narrowing of his eyes. The scene from before where all had gathered: the Scions, his fellow peers of the Alliance, and Ahlis, and the sudden ‘attack’ upon them. It had been a confusing, harrowing experience, lasting only a matter of moments before…

“Not at this time, no. Thancred’s condition hasn’t changed, but I plan to go back to the Rising Stones where the others are waiting,” Ahlis looked pointedly to him then, seemingly resolute. If she was putting on faces, she was rather convincing. “We will find answers for what was done to us.”

Ah, of course. Aymeric canted his head in acquiescence, yet when he looked upon Ahlis again his thoughts were far more plain upon his features: a softness now touching his eyes.

“Then I shall keep you no longer. Go to your companions, and find the answers you seek.”

Ahlis did not respond to him as she turned her eyes back down the path where Thancred had been taken. Tension began to grow in her chest. To follow and continue on her way...her friend deserved that much at least. And yet…? Her hands clenched at her sides.

Sorry, Thancred, but for my sake I must do this. Allow me this selfishness, just this once.

“I, don’t need to leave immediately,” Ahlis said, decision made. “You and I haven’t had a proper chance to talk in some time.”

“That we have not,” Aymeric approached, closing the space between them further.

If they were to speak in confidence, Ahlis surmised, they would not do so just beyond the infirmary doors. She offered her hand to him: was this too forward? Would he accept? Such considerations crossed her thoughts yet she found little care in it, not this time.

“Follow me, I know a place where we can go,” Ahlis spoke, palm upward.

A moment passed as Aymeric looked to her hand, then to her, before he clasped it within his own without question.

The room was cool when they entered, the sconces unlit and empty stone hearth belonging within. Evening had settled in and after scurrying in the dark Ahlis found light enough from one lamp with enough oil to last, with other candles following suit.

Within the growing light of the room Aymeric could see it was rather bare, though serviceable, as Ahlis did her best in improving any sort of hospitable character it might have had. Tapestries replacing the Garlean banners had been hung up within and drawn close against the sealed windows to fend off the cold air, and what sparse furniture that remained looked old and slightly out of place. For all he knew this place may have served as a storage area, nondescript and somewhat removed from the busier sides of the Quarter. Yet in the interim she had managed to turn it into a kind of living space. Quiet, and solitary.

“It’s the best we can do, I suppose. It’s what I get for not cleaning it for a long while,” Ahlis spoke as she dusted her hands upon her hips. “You won’t believe the fuss Lyse gave me when I told her all I wanted was a hole in the wall.”

Aymeric smiled in brief amusement; it was fitting. To him, she had always seemed as someone with little want and need, a woman who would make do with what was given.

“Do you rest here?” Aymeric looked to the narrow and small bed with two threadbare blankets tossed upon it. It looked small, almost painfully so.

“Sometimes,” Ahlis shrugged her shoulders before rubbing her hands together as she walked towards the fireplace. “It doesn’t look it, but, it’s comforting...especially if I want some silence.”

The fire took some time to burn hot and plentiful, having spent the rest of the meager wood and kindling. She knelt near the heath in silence as she watched it grow, and when she turned back to see how Aymeric fared, Ahlis found him having pushed part of the makeshift drapery aside at a window, his eyes looking out into the city beyond.

“Not the best view, is it?” Ahlis’s lips turned into a little half smile. “Compared to the sight from the Palace. Remember?”

Ahlis rose to her feet, moving to where Aymeric stood and taking a place at his side. He turned away from the window and their eyes met.

“That I do. I would be remiss in having not committed it to memory. You were radiant with victory despite your injuries.”

“Hmph, always effusive with your praise.”

“I remember your tears,” he continued, though now he voice had become soft, and careful. “Despite your efforts in hiding them. It my own folly not to join you and give what aid I could.”

Ahlis shook her head briefly, feeling herself faltering against his gentle regard for her; she fought against provoking him as the old ire of feeling so vulnerable began to claw upon her insides.

“No, I...wished some things had been different,” she said, and when she did Ahlis was unable to stop herself from looking away. “That’s all, aye? It’s a perfectly reasonable reason to cry.”

What am I doing? Her cheeks began to feel hot as her throat worked to say anything else but nothing came. It was like frustration was inching up her windpipe, only to make her feel like she was burning.

“You need not justify yourself to me, that was not mine intent. The recent events have been quite trying, and I worry you carry more of the burden than most. Nor must you suffer alone, Ahlis.”

Aymeric reached for her, his fingers lightly brushing upon her arm, and suddenly everything felt like it stopped. She held her breath and Ahlis swore she could feel her heart sharp against her chest. It was too much, this surge of emotion that bloomed inside of her, and when she finally mustered the nerve to look at him again her eyes were distraught, maddened by her emotion that began to surface from within.

“I don’t have that luxury. This is, it’s...”

Ahlis made to draw herself away from Aymeric yet his fingers tightened upon her arm, keeping her near. With lips parted she looked as if she gasped at his action yet he remained undeterred.

“I cannot claim to know the entirety of your burdens, nay they pale in comparison to mine own. I understand the responsibility of honoring one’s duty, and yet you draw yourself away, time after time. Is the thought of sharing your hardships and camaraderie that ails you so? Tell me...please.”

Ahlis clenched her jaw; the urge to bite back against him was fierce, ready to scream from her tongue. Her heart was relentless, continuing to pound. In the end it was the insistence of his voice, and the intense, earnest plea within it that made her speak.

“It’s happening again. My friends, they’re...we’re being torn apart and I don’t know if I can do anything to stop it.” Her arm went limp in Aymeric’s grasp, her will to try and pull away dissipating. “First it was Thancred, now Y’shtola and Urianger. And Alisaie...I cannot protect her either. Nor you.” She looked to him and, for the first time that Aymeric could truly recall, he saw a pained despair in her eyes. “I fear everyone that I hold dear to me are in absolute danger.”

Aymeric’s gaze fell, eyes nearly closing with dark lashes hooding his gaze.

“I cannot allow you to come any closer to me. It is for your own safety,” Ahlis uttered softly.

Aymeric closed his eyes for a moment, then another, before he opened them again.

“I fear no outcome nor for mine own fate, such is my responsibility. Yet I wonder if you believe that I remain indifferent to your plight, regardless of all that has happened?”

Ahlis’s was struck by his sincerity; she had no excuse to be surprised, even if his accusation stung, and yet? She sighed—huffed, more like—before her eyes narrowed to match his stare.

“Oh, you frustrate me! You and all your reckless conviction. I’m serious.”

“As am I. For all that you have done for my people, for my city...and for my own gains, selfish as they were. Allow me to make good on my promise, and to remain by your side as a companion, as a friend.”

His words were like an arrow into her heart as she remembered that day she returned to the city. He had come to welcome her arrival, earnest in his wish to repay her deeds in what ever measure he could. Ahlis felt herself wavering, the ache of being between stubbornness and relenting, the temptation of giving in just an ilm when an ilm felt like everything. She must have been silent for so long that Aymeric started to pull away, but it was his absence that made her finally respond. Taking his hand once more into her own, she knew there was to be no more reticence, not now, and to hells with the rest of it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her attention captured by the warmth of his fingers, “you owe me nothing. You have already done so much.” Ahlis pursed her lips for a moment, a small joyless chuckle following after. “I’m pretty terrible at this, you know.”

“Only out of lack of trying,” Aymeric turned his hand, fingers brushing against one another. “Practice, on the other hand, is a worthy strategy, if I a may say so.”

“Are you volunteering to help me then?” Ahlis briefly narrowed her eyes, testing, provoking him as much as she kept her own touch feather-light. To witness this almost-playfulness from her, Aymeric could not deny the relief he felt moving through him, from those self-same fingertips to the depths within his heart.

“If you will have me,” he replied and he stopped entirely, his breath caught in his throat. “That is to say, I am...”

Ahlis laughed, honestly and truly now, after a rather incredulous look came to her face and all attempts to redeem himself died then and there. Aymeric swore and hoped his face, and his ears, did not betray his embarrassment.

“Come on then,” she tugged upon him lightly, still mirthful, towards the hearth and warmth of the fire. “I’d prefer it if we did not stand near the cold windows.”

Aymeric followed in her footsteps, grateful and, finally, content.

#; my writing #ffxiv fanfiction #of moogles and mail #ahlis #ser aymeric #wol x ser aymeric #; final fantasy xiv #2nd part = done! #how's this for progress aaah #this is important for me I feel like I came a long distance #esp from over a year ago #for those I chitchatted with about my writing stuff this was a long time coming #I wanna give all my <3 to emily for being my beta reader bless and thank #maintanence day reading for y'all...if you want it lol #met my goal and it feels good #now let's see if 4.5 ruins everything

[mariequitecontrarie]

Drabble #32, Rumbelle. ;)

Never AloneSummary: “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”Rating: GA/N: Dark castle fluff for @bookwormchocaholic. I can’t seem to keep these to a “drabble” to save my life. Hope you enjoy my long-winded version.

ON AO3

“Tongue of lizard, heart of bluebird, foot of Belle…”Rumplestiltskin stopped short, his tongue tripping over the incantation and ruiningthe potion in the process.

“Hellfire and damnation!” Dismayed, he watched a boilingmass of greenish-grey goo spill over the edge of the cauldron and ooze throughhis fingers.

A simple chant cleaned up the mess, but the Hatter waswaiting for this potion and he still had to begin again. It was all her fault.

Rumplestiltskin flexed his stiff fingers. Belle’s disquiet overthe past several hours had paralyzed his body and brain. The sound of herpacing outside the barricaded door was an ominous drumbeat in his heart, herlow, square heels echoing on the stones. Even his old limp from the first ogre’swar, long since repaired by magic, throbbed in time to her labored sighs.

Aye, she had finally made up her mind to leave him. A dealwas a deal, and she had sworn forever, but he could no longer bear to keep herhere against her will. It was long past time to grant her freedom, send her offto see the world. As for him, he’d lived nigh two hundred years in abjectmisery, so what was a few millennia more?

“Belle!” he bellowed, releasing the wards on the laboratory.“Get it in here!”

“Yes, Rumplestiltskin?” Frowning, she slipped through theopen door. “I would have come in sooner, but the door has been locked all day.”

He treated her to a black scowl. It was the third time he’d botchedthe spell due to his carelessness, and he was down to his last bit of smokedeel roe. Dark circles wreathed Belle’s eyes and he almost dropped what remained.“What are you moping about?”

“Nothing.” Her cheeks were wan and slightly sunken.

He snorted at the obvious lie, but his heart hiccupped,sharp and painful . Was she unwell?He steeled himself against a flood of concern. If she was, it was no longer hisaffair. Still, she was the lone ray of sunshine in his empty world. He wouldmiss her more than he could possibly say.

“If you truly want to know…” she began.

He shook a finger in her direction. “Hurry up then!”

“Because you did ask….”

“Aye, I did,” he snapped when she trailed off again, “and I’velived another two centuries waiting for you to answer.”

“Rumplestiltskin, would you please stop interrupting?” Annoise of exasperation slipped through her lips, and she stomped her small foot.

Ordinarily, her sass amused him, but this evening he wassnappish and wary. He scanned the skyline, wondering if she would leave tonightor at least wait until morning. Perhaps she had already packed her belongings.

“As you wish.” He winced, waiting for the killing blow.

“I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.” She blewout a noisy breath at the hurried confession, sending wisps of hair flyingabout her face.

What?

Baffled, he stared at her flushed cheeks. Of all the wordshe had expected her to say, these were the very last. “Are you speaking fae,maid?”

Her brow furrowed, considering. “I don’t think so.”

He leaned forward to sniff her sweet breath, fighting theneed to close his eyes. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Only water and sweetened tea.” Her smile was tentative, andgrowing wider by the moment.

“You’ve ingested something foul,” he insisted. “A bite ofbad beef; a moldy pastry.”

“No.” She twisted her fingers together, still hovering inthe doorway. “I’ve been too nervous to eat.”

“Ah. Well.” He cast about for an explanation. “This, uh, feelingyou say you have…for how long have you been imagining it?”

“It’s not my imagination.” She stepped closer, laying softfingers on his hand. “And a while.”

“Hmmmph.” He shook his sleeve out of her grasp. “You don’tlook terrified.”

“Of you? Never.” She shook her head hard enough to make herauburn curls bounce.

“Then why did you say you were?”

He followed her sightline to a small family of mice dartingin and out of a hole in the tower wall. In the fading sunlight, their tinybodies cast ominous shapes across the stones. Finally she spoke. “I amfrightened, in a manner of speaking.”

“Ha!” He affected a triumphant pose. “I knew it.”

“Yes.” She leaned against his worktable and tugged on her workapron. “I’m afraid that you’ll laugh at me.”

Her lustrous blue eyes tugged at his heart, creating a dullache beneath his breastbone. “I should laugh,” he said hoarsely. “These womanlyfeelings you have for a monster are foolish indeed.”

“You certainly know how to ease the torment of an admissionof love, don’t you?” she asked, a slight smile tugging at the corners of hermouth.

He carefully searched her face and tone for irony, butdarkness shadowed her skin now that the sun had disappeared beneath thehorizon. With a wave of his hand, he lit a dozen candelabras, bathing the room insoft light.

“Fine,” he huffed, deciding to humor her innocence.“Assuming you’re not concussed, what makes you think you love the Dark One?”

“I don’t love the Dark One. I love you, Rumplestiltskin.”

“Same difference, dearie.”

“No, it’s not.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Andplease don’t talk to me that way.”

“What way?” He mimicked her voice in a high trill.

“As though I am a stranger you must posture for,” she scolded,a thread of humor in her tone. “Names have power and you know mine, so use it.”

A bittersweet craving washed through him. Belle. Darling, cheeky, wonderful Belle. “What can you know of love?”

“Well, I know I’m happy when you’re here, and sad whenyou’re away. I know I feel more at ease and at home here than I ever did at myfather’s estate. And,” she stammered, drawing her appreciative gaze down thelength of his body, “I know-I like to look at you in those tight leathersyou’re so fond of.”

“Ahem.” His cheeks grew hot, a mingling of embarrassment anda craving for something so long buried he barely recognized it. Sensible peoplerecoiled from his appearance, but not Belle. She had to be the only sentientbeing in the Enchanted Forest who admired him for anything more than what shecould gain from his power.

She shrugged. “It’s true. Besides, you wouldn’t wear suchform-hugging trousers if you didn’t want anyone to admire the view.”

“And if I laugh at your declaration, what then?” He lifted apotion, examining the sapphire liquid in the flickering candlelight. “Would youreconsider your foolishness?”

“My heart would be carved into slivers,” she whispered.

He nearly dropped the vial, undone by the nakedvulnerability in her gaze. As if such a shining and lovely innocent wouldsuffer any loss by being removed from his presence!

“People will say I bewitched you,” he warned. In this land,for a young woman to ignore her reputation was to her greatest peril. He baredhis teeth in a feral snarl. “Doesn’t that terrifyyou?” he asked, tossing her words back.

Her sniff was disdainful. “I care nothing about rumors andidle gossip.”

“Indeed?” His protests were weakening, the citadel aroundhis heart crumbling. He shelved the potion, then shuffled backwards until hiscalves bumped the chaise lounge. At a loss for words, he sank down on thecushion.

Belle sidled closer, stepping between his spread thighs. “Doyou know what does terrify me?”

Breathless, he shook his head as her gaze bored into his. Shebent down to caress his cheek, palming his jaw. “That you won’t love me inreturn.”

His eyes drifted closed and before he knew what washappening, her slight weight was resting in his lap. She settled her bottom on hislegs and twined her arms about his neck. She was soft and sweet, her light honeysucklefragrance enveloping him in safety and warmth.

“Belle, I—”

“Why did you lock the door on me?” she murmured. “Your teahas gone cold three times.”

Embarrassed by his childishness, he looked toward thewindows. “I’d convinced myself I didn’t want to hear anything you had to say.”

“And now?” She scooted up his thighs to nuzzle his neck,making his skin prickle.

He snorted, clinging to the dregs of his stubbornness. “Ifyou wanted to come inside so badly, why didn’t you knock?”

Her eyes danced with amusement. “You were hollering soloudly, you didn’t hear me call. My fists hurt from pounding on the door.” Shepresented her knuckles, which were mottled by black and blue marks.

“Oh.” Unthinking, he pressed her fingers to his mouth. Apurple sheen coated her skin as he healed the bruises and scrapes with hislips.

“Thank you,” she whispered, then lay her head against hischest. His arms hung stiffly at his sides and she clasped first one wrist, thenthe other to draw his arms around her, arranging his limbs like a mannequin.“What did you think I was going to say?” she asked.

He splayed his fingers over her back, and closed his eyes.The relief of being hidden from her shrewd gaze made him bold. “I believed youwould request your freedom. It’s what you deserve, and despite our deal, Iwould never prevent you from forging your own destiny.”

The slender arms around his neck tightened. “If I went away,we would both be lonely.”

He laughed, low and mirthless. “You? No. Belle, you haveyour family, your friends, and your fiancé. And what of your plans to see theworld?”

“Can’t I see the world with you?”

“Why would you want that?” he asked dully, his palms stillstroking her back. “What can I possibly offer you?”

“Belonging.” She eased back on his thighs, her expressionthoughtful. “Have you never been in a place filled with people yet felt utterlyalone? All my life I’ve been surrounded by others—parents, servants, peers. Butthey didn’t know the real me…this odd, bookish girl…and so the ache ofloneliness remained. Here with you, for the first time someone understands andloves me for me, not because I fulfill some expectation by learning to run anestate or marrying a certain man.”

With a small groan, he pressed her close once more, anembrace of solidarity. For as long as he could remember, he’d believed he wasthe only person who felt alone in a crowd.

She lifted her face to his, a hint of fear flecking heririses. “You do love me, don’t you?”

“Aye.” He buried his nose in her tumble of curls, inhalingher essence. He loved her mind, her body, the way she thought, the things shesaid. He loved her so much it was a physical ache, a rawness in his spirit thatwould be satisfied with nothing but her.

“Rumple, I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“Oh Belle,” he choked. Before his disbelieving eyes, she wasgathering up the pieces of a dream he’d thought was shattered. “Is this reallywhat you want?”

“Yes.”

Yes. There was aneternity of promise in that one small word. She needed him, just as he did her,and his heart exploded with a joy he hadn’t known since the birth of his son. Hecupped her cheeks with his hands, massaging her pulse point with his thumbs ashe lowered his mouth to hers, so close that only their mingled breaths laybetween them.

“Then I will never leave you alone again.”

###

Send me a pairing and I’ll write you a drabble

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #rumplestiltskin #belle french #dark castle rumbelle #mqc writes #marie doesn't know how to drabble #bookwormchocaholic

[itsclydebitches]

Summary:

Just days after Balem returned to his adult self, Jupiter is thrown head-first into another adventure - one she, frankly, really doesn't have the energy for. But when has the universe ever taken her desires into account? Mysteries, promises, and desperate moves forward; bees, splices, and awkward family dinners. It's enough to make even her seasoned head spin.

...which doesn't even include the chance to play at 'Mother' once more. Only question is: will Jupiter take it?

(DIRECT SEQUEL TO "ROCK THE CRADLE")

Fandom: Jupiter Ascending 

Words: 9,779 so far 

Warnings: Will eventually mention previous neglect/abuse of children

Pairings: Jupiter/Caine 

Where to Read it: Below the cut or on AO3 (AO3 recommended for formatting) 

Chapter Six

“This went from ‘kind of cool’ to ‘seriously annoying’... oh, twenty minutes ago?”

Jupiter irritatingly swatted at another cloud of bees (careful not to actually hurt them) as they made a desperate dive to try and burrow into her hair. Another batch was settling in all the crooks of her body (collarbone, beneath her chin, in the hollow of the backs of her knees), while still others seemed to seek actual skin contact, bypassing her already covered arms and legs to flit up beneath her shirt. Jupiter grit her teeth at the feeling of foreign bodies crawling everything, stupidly glad that her skinny jeans didn’t allow them to burrow anywhere else.

“Enough of you,” Caine growled, mimicking her swat with a lot less patience. Jupiter caught his hand and brought it into her lap instead.

“It’s fine,” and no sooner had she sighed it than the bees were back, landing wherever they could and taking whatever she was willing to give. Jupiter wondered if she looked somehow regal like this—or if she was just a cheap monster out of some low-budget horror flick.

Kiza’s expression suggested the latter. Her phone click-click-clicked as it took a million, horrible photos. No way was she buying her a better phone. This girl did not need more storage space.

Jupiter thought about pointing out the obvious though, that there was no photo album to fill anymore. Or there was, but it was gone, and she doubted Balem wanted her to send updates. The mere thought of him painstakingly adding pages to the back of the book and gluing in new photos was so ridiculous it had Jupiter releasing a slightly hysterical laugh.

Kiza slowly lowered her phone. “You okay?”

“Not really.”

“Yeah. Yeah I feel that.”

The whole party was largely off kilter and a massive swarm of bees invading the living room was only part of the problem. Jupiter was high-strung of course, and Caine had a tendency to follow her in all things, even emotions. Same with Kiza and Stinger now that she thought about it, some hereditary loyalty rising to the surface as they honed in on their queen, and okay, shit, was everyone in a bad mood just because she was?

Three pairs of eyes stared at her intently. Huh. Maybe “I feel that” was less a common phrase and more a literal expression of truth. Jupiter mustered up a smile.

“Whoooo’s gonna explain what’s going oooon?” she sang.

Stinger sighed, throwing up his hands. He obviously needed to do something with them though, and without a weapon to point at a concrete enemy he just ended up fiddling with everything in reach: the throw draped across the couch Jupiter sat on, the edge of his shirt, a pencil he’d stuck haphazardly behind his ear. In the end Stinger settled on pouring her another cup of coffee even though Jupiter had barely touched the first.

That done he spread his arms. Whole strings of bees followed the movement.

“You’re more equipped to answer that than I am, Your Majesty. You say you were visited by a fox splice?”

Caine nodded. “One sent by Kalique. You think there’s a connection?”

Kiza snorted. “Between her suddenly changing the game and an attack on our house? Absolutely. Though what the hell would she want with our honey?”

“Nothing,” but Stinger’s hands made fists just thinking about it. “She has the resources to pull off a theft like that of course, she could hire any group she’d like, but why the hell would she want to? There’s no commercial value to it—at least not compared to her own vast wealth—and as for personal reasons...” he trailed off, shaking his head. “It makes no sense.”

Jupiter scoffed. “When has anything involving Kalique ever made sense?”

“The fact that she’s actually the most logical and methodical of the three is kinda sad. And by ‘sad’ I mean hilarious.” Kiza dodged Jupiter’s whack to the head.

“You didn’t hear anything?” she pressed. “Earlier?”

“Nope. Slept in, did my chores, went to do more chores outside—” Kiza sent a nasty glare her dad’s way. Stinger challenged it stiffly—”finally got to the hives out back, called you, and discovered... that.” ‘That’ was clearly the missing honey, though Kiza made the absence sound like a foul addition instead. Like an enemy. Or no, something that grew. A cancer.

Jupiter felt Caine shifting on the couch beside her. She gave his hand another squeeze and was relieved to feel him doing the same.

“We’ll figure it out,” she said. “I promise. And not to make light of that situation, but...can we focus on one emergency at a time?”

“Dinner,” Caine said solemnly.

“Politics,” Stinger countered.

“Food,” Kiza finished. “Wasted. Which I am very happy to eat for you anyway.”

“You’re welcome to the steaks,” Jupiter sighed, like she didn’t already know that Kiza had squirreled them away for a late night snack sometime. The girl’s appetite was easily the most alien thing about her. “You’ll all come then?”

Stinger’s hand settled on her shoulder. “Don’t be foolish, Your Majesty. Where you go, we follow.”

She actually wanted to say something appropriately thankful in response, but the movement was—once again—ruined by a flash from Kiza and an exaggerated “Awww.” She raised her phone in the air as Jupiter rubbed at her eyes.

“I like this one,” Kiza announced.

“Good for you,” Stinger said. “Caine. With me. I won’t be going into another Entitled’s lair blind. Not again. Kiza? Entertain your Queen.”

“Sir, yes sir,” she said and as the two boys went off to discuss super cool space weaponry she threw herself onto the couch beside Jupiter. A massive cloud of bees rose up like a wave.

Jupiter carefully extracted a bee that had gotten caught in the belt loop of her jeans. “Can you make them go away?”

“I’ve tried.” Kiza actually sounded apologetic about it. “They’re really... just...” she blew out a slow breath. “They need this right now.”

“...and so do you,” Jupiter said, realizing the words were true as soon as she’d said them. Kiza was pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with Jupiter, much like how the bees themselves were seeking her touch. If Jupiter focused, she could feel the lightest tremble running through Kiza’s body. She lifted an arm and settled it around Kiza’s back. The younger girl nestled there, vulnerable.

“It probably seems stupid to you,” she muttered, face now pressed into the fabric of Jupiter’s shirt. “Just honey, yeah? Got plenty of that. And sure, sure the bees themselves are fine, which is the important thing, but... it’s an invasion, you know? Someone was here. In our home. They took something that didn’t belong to them!” Kiza was trembling harder now and it had little to do with disquiet. “Ugh. I sound like dad. I know he’s super mad too, even if he’s better at controlling it. I’m a second generation splice. I love our bees, alright? But even I’m not connected to the spirit like he is.”

Jupiter’s fingers had found their way into Kiza’s hair. She paused there before resuming her slow, soothing movements. “Spirit?”

Kiza hummed. “It’s not really a religion, like you have here on Earth. You gotta remember its all tied up in our biology too. It’s more that we understand all the layers.”

“Like onions,” Jupiter intoned and was relieved when Kiza shoved her lightly.

“Don’t quote Shrek at me. But yes, layers. Or—or connections. Like how one bee isn’t just a bee. They’re part of a hive, an ecosystem; they’re connected to you and to me. It’s the same with honey. It’s not just a food source, it’s something they made. It’s exploration and life and they always create more than they need so we can have some too and—” Kiza drew in a massive breath. “It’s just important, okay?”

“Okay,” Jupiter agreed. She sometimes forgot just how young Kiza was, not only compared to her but their group at large, everyone either in a genetically enhanced middle age or outright ancient. Kiza was the little sister Jupiter had never, but who she was thrilled to have now that she was here.

She also felt a little like a daughter.

Jupiter twisted her earring.

“Good talk,” she said, because Jupiter was nothing if not awkward when it came to heart-to-hearts. There was a little part of her mind that whispered, ‘I love dogs’ and she firmly stuffed it into the deepest, darkest pit she could conjure up. “So… whatcha got there?”

Still curled against Jupiter, Kiza had her phone out again, though for once it wasn’t pointing and clicking. It looked like she was online, though what website needed such a violently blue background, Jupiter didn’t know. She shooed a bunch of bees out of the way to get a better view. Kiza helped by tilting the screen.

“Tumblr,” she said, like that explained anything at all.

“Tumbling?”

“Tumblr. Don’t you ever waste your life online?”

Jupiter considered. “Yes, but you’re talking to the girl who grew up in a poor, super large family that always monopolized the one desktop. Also, excuse you, but I’ve been busy. Saving the world? Or did you forget?”

To Jupiter’s horror, an unexpectedly evil grin stretched across Kiza’s face. “Oh, I didn’t forget, Your Majesty. I documented it.”

“You—wait what?”

Over the next mind-boggling ten minutes Jupiter got a crash course in current social media, complete with the distinction between those parts of the website that humans had access too, and the sprawling, galaxy-wide network that catered to everyone else. Scrolling through pictures, news articles, and GIFs of funny cats was one thing, finding out that Kiza had been blogging about Queen Jupiter on the equivalent of Space Facebook was something else.

“You’ve made me kind of famous,” Kiza said, sounding infuriatingly smug about it. “My follower count skyrocketed when I started posting these pics. I mean sure, we get the stupid anon or two, but pretty much everyone else is supportive. They want to know you, Your Majesty. It’s the classic rags to riches story, plus you’re the first Entitled in, what? Ever, who isn’t a dick? You should totally start your own blog. Provided I help, of course.”

“Oh my god,” Jupiter whispered. Her finger felt numb as she scrolled through an endless stream of stories, questions, and, yes, pictures of her. Most of them were candid, shot when Jupiter had been otherwise engaged. There was one of her upside down on her bed upstairs, a half-piece of toast dangling from her mouth. She couldn’t even remember when she’d done that, let alone how Kiza could have gotten a pic without her noticing. The ones of her and Caine were particularly popular, at least according to the number of ‘notes’ each one had. Jupiter was torn between flattered and mortally embarrassed.

She scrolled down further and found a picture of her holding Balem. Jupiter snapped her hand back.

“You’d be good at it too,” Kiza was saying, oblivious. “You’re pretty, famous, and rich, the trifecta for getting a good following. Plus half of what you say is basically shit-posting, so.”

“Kiza—”

“I can—”

Whoom.

Too late for talk: at that moment a massive crash sounded from somewhere outside; too short to be an earthquake, not quite large enough for an explosion. Still, it knocked Kiza back into Jupiter’s shoulder, the both of them slipping halfway off the couch and their cloud of bees scattering with worry. The two filled coffee cups splattered onto the carpet. The throw fell down across their backs. Jupiter ended up jarring her hip and watched as Caine and Stinger store sideways into the room.

What now? was her first and completely justified thought.

Jupiter pushed up quickly, righting the boys in her vision. They looked ready to take on a whole army together. Which tended to happen when you carried whole armloads of weapons into the room.

“What the fuck?” Stinger growled. He’d already hefted something large and glowing blue over his shoulder, marching towards the door. Caine stopped only long enough to pull Jupiter to her feet.

“My thoughts exactly,” she grimaced.

“You’re okay?”

“Fine, fine. Do we know what—?”

Whoom! Again, but closer and with a bit more... solidity. This time Jupiter felt the foundations of the house shake.

“Oh, but it’s never boring with you, Your Majesty,” Kiza breathed. Jupiter watched with a mixture of disbelief and respect as she began composing a new post.

“We’re talking about this later,” she said and grabbed them both by the arm.

Careful of what they might find, Jupiter, Caine, and Kiza followed Stinger out of the house.

#JA #Jupiter Ascending #Rock the Cradle #When the Bough Breaks #JAfic #its been a productive fic day!

[rhube]

On punching Nazis

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about the punching of Richard Spencer and whether it’s OK to do it, enjoy it, encourage such behaviour in others.

This got super long. In many ways it’s me forcing myself to think through my thoughts properly.

My ultimate conclusion was: one has a duty to punch members of the National Socialist Party of Gemarny, where one is able; I don’t think it can be one’s duty to punch Neo-Nazis who have not committed an extant crime, but I’m honestly not sure - our current political climate makes duties here fundamentally unclear; but it follows from this that as duties are unclear, it must be permissible to punch Richard Spencer, a Neo-Nazi whose allegiance and aims are extremely clear - if it might be your duty, it must be OK to do so; and it’s definitely OK to laugh at mash-up videos of the punch.

Furthermore, all of this is based on my personal ethical stance as a rule utilitarian. Many people are not rule utilitarians. If it’s not your starting point, you may have different conclusions.

...

I’ve not been retweeting or reblogging a lot of what others have written on the subject because a) it’s actually a very complex philosophical question, b) most people writing about it are not giving the question the nuance it requires, and c) whatever I think about it, it’s not my place as a white woman to comment on how people whose ethnic groups are the targets of Nazi hate and genocide feel about punching Nazis.

And more than anything, given that I did not know how I felt about it, I couldn’t in all conscience go spouting about it, whether in knee-jerk ‘don’t punch people!’ reaction or in supporting punching Nazis because that’s what everyone else was doing. I have been tempted by both those motivations at one time or another.

My initial reaction was a mixture of satisfaction with the punching and deep disquiet. And it’s important to recognise why this is. It’s important because how you feel about punching people and punching Nazis is going to go to the heart of complex ethical belief systems you’ve built up over a life time. If I were still teaching ethics, I legitimately would want to set as an essay question ‘Is it OK to punch Nazis?’ - and I would expect a good answer to consider both metaethical considerations (are there objective rights and wrongs, duties and obligations, or are the things we call ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ merely expressive of our emotions?) and normative ethical questions (what system of ethics should I apply in deciding whether something is right or wrong?), as well as the practical ethical questions most people are answering from (should I do it?).

In considering my own ethical position, I am coming from a Rule Utilitarian place. Which is to say that I believe I should act in accordance with a set of rules that, if followed, will bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The individual actions might not bring about happiness, but if I and people in general followed those rules, it would. More, I’m distinctly Millian in my approach. I read J S Mill’s On Liberty at 16 and it deeply effected me. I absorbed and still hold to his ‘Harm to Others’ principle, which is that you should be free to do whatever you want as long as it does no harm to others. That generalised rule, applied to everyone, is the route to the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

For those interested in the metaethical question, this means that yes, I think there are objective rights and wrongs, and that good relates to the greatest happiness for the greatest number (’utility’). And the Harm to Others principle is a chief normative way of achieving that.

What does this mean for the practical question of whether it’s OK to punch Nazis. A surface reading makes one think ‘no’ - punching is a harm, and much of what Mill writes about in On Liberty is the importance of free debate - he strongly believed that allowing people to speak so that you could expose and challenge them was vital to the path to progress. He believed that the truth will always come to the surface in such situations.

I have become less sure about that in recent years. Not least because I have experienced the human fact that the most belligerent can easily silence the most vulnerable when allowed to speak. And I have always struggled with the fact that my beliefs as a Millian made me feel as though it was my duty to challenge others and engage in open debate, but as a deeply damaged person, and someone who loses track of her carefully reasoned thoughts when faced which someone emoting and not responding to logic, I have not always been able to follow that duty. I am less and less sure that it is a duty. I still believe debate is important and that trying to understand one’s opponents in the most charitable light is an important aspect both of getting to the truth and of figuring out how to respond to those one disagrees with. But forcing those who will not be able to put their best arguments forward to be confronted by stressful situations and people who will take their silence or confused words as victory... that is not conducive to happiness and it is not true debate.

And the truth is, Mill understood at least some of this. I mean, he didn’t talk about anxiety or triggering or anything like that, but he didn’t say that absolutely anyone should be allowed to speak about absolutely anything at any time and place. Certain forms of speech are harmful. Speech that incites others to harm is itself harmful:

even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation of some mischievous act. (Mill, On Liberty, p. 52)

Now, Mill probably wouldn’t have taken Richard Spencer merely talking to a camera as a positive act of instigation. He writes that:

An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corndealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard. (ibid. - Mill is thinking of the Corn Riots)*

But I wonder if he would have felt the same way if he had known about Nazis and what happened in Nazi Germany. If he had read 1984 and seen that the US president is now talking about ‘Alternative facts’ and ‘America First’ (which is a code word for Nazis). There is a harm going on in the presses right now, and the way they treat the so-called ‘alt-right’ (Nazis).

Our currently laws on hate speech are more refined although strongly influenced by Mill. Unsurprising that thoughts would be refined over the past 158 years. Mills was a Victorian, and although ahead of his time, I would never say that he is perfect. (I imagine most of you reading this would be fine with someone at a rally criticising capitalism, and you might blame those who rioted - or consider whether law enforcement encouraged rioting - rather than the speaker; although an explicit incitement to use violence might be different.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Freedom of Speech is a really good primer for this discussion, btw, (SEP is a well respected philosophy resource, with articles written by experts in the area); it points out that the UK Public Order Act of 1986 states:

A person is guilty of an offence if he ...displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress. (SEP)

It is an application of the Harm to Others principle, but with more nuance than Mill’s original conception. It considers that there are other kinds of harm than physical harm. This is one reason not to give Nazis a platform or to treat them like any other speaker. Spencer published an essay on his website (note, he didn’t write it, many of the quotes from it have been attributed to him, but are from Colin Lidell) entitled ‘Is Black Genocide Right?’ The website has now been taken down, and Spencer is too smooth to say something so blatant himself (although please link me to anything where he does), but genocide is absolutely something he’s completely behind.

Advocating genocide definitely comes under advocating harm. Spencer is too savvy to say that on camera. In the UK it would bean offence (dunno about US law) and punishable as Mill recommends. Of course, Mill would say that it should be the law, and not individuals who do this. That simply punching those who believe repulsive things, but have not acted on them, is not conducive to the greatest happiness for the greatest number, in the long run. (Note: Act Utilitarianism would have no problem with this. Clearly many, many people enjoyed the act of punching of Richard Spencer, and it far outweighs his pain. But then, Act Utilitarianism can justify killing someone to harvest their organs - there are reasons I do think we need to live by rules, and not the utility of single acts.)

And I think we have to see Richard Spencer not as a single Nazi, but as a member of the Neo-Nazi movement, who would  be in favour of restoring what concretely happened in Nazi Germany. Not just the massive death toll, but the unbelievable amount of suffering. We have to be able to make war against such people. The suffering involved in fighting such people has to be justified when it is weighed against the suffering of allowing them to continue, or to restore what was before. The loss of happiness. All those lives and families.

But then, we are not currently at war, and if Richard Spencer is engaging in such a war, he is doing so very quietly. If he is murdering individuals, we have laws for dealing with that. So where does this leave us?

Mill allows for public stigmatisation of people who express distasteful views, but do not cross the line so that the law might act. But is that enough? Surely Richard Spencer does more that offend public decency. Ah, but he is so. Damned. Careful.

And there is the question of our duty to learn from history. Events are moving swiftly now and what we should have learnt from history is to resist more strongly and earlier.

Does that mean punching Nazis?

I think the answer to that has to be ‘yes’. A Nazi as a member of the National Socialist Party of Germany would have been a participant in the harms conducted there even if they conducted no physical acts of harm themselves.

Does that mean punching Neo-Nazis?

Neo-Nazis are not members of the National Socialist Party of Germany and were not involved in those crimes, although they might want to have been, might have been involved in other crimes, and might advocate for similar events being enacted now. And I do think it is dangerous to punish people for as-yet-uncommited crimes, or to take the law into one’s own hands. To do so is to become an Act Utilitarian, and that makes a whole host of things permissible that I think would be very bad. It’s not about a ‘slippery slope’ - such arguments appeal to a fallacy, one can stop at any point. It’s about having a consistent system of ethics by which I can judge right and wrong. Rule Utilitarianism is the best normative ethical system I have found so far, and if I violate it for a single case without finding a way to adapt the system to justify the action, then I no longer have a system of ethics to follow.

But I also think we have to be clear on the question. Do I mean ‘Is it my duty to punch Neo-Nazis?’ or ‘Is it OK to punch Neo-Nazis?’ Bear with me - this is about considering all the angles.

I think it is one’s duty to punch Nazis, if one is able. I’m not sure it’s one’s duty to punch Neo-Nazis who have committed no extant crime or who the law is prosecuting for a crime. But that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to punch Nazis, or feel good that Nazis have been punched.

Ideally, there would be a crime and they would be being punished. But they have learnt to be very careful. They now have influence on the state itself, and there is a very real chance that laws will change such that they will not be punished for future harms they perpetrate. If this happens, we have a duty to resist such a state. I do believe that you only have a duty to obey the state in so far as it works for the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and not simply the happiness of the few and the most powerful or certain subsections of its citizens.

The difficulty comes in knowing when to resist and what kind of resistance should be permissible at what point. I think a lot of my hesitation comes from simply not knowing the answer to those questions. I am not a good enough political scientist. I’m a philosopher, but the difficulties of practical ethics have always intimidated me, which is why my expertise lies in metaphysics and epistemology instead.

So. I don’t know what one’s duties are in this case. Furthermore, I think that the difficulty posed in knowing one’s duties in such a case must grant a certain permissibility to act on behalf of those who are not experts in political science and political history. It can’t be one’s duty to do it if the duties are not knowable to the layperson. But at the same time we cannot judge the action wrong if it might be one’s duty.

Therefore, although I cannot say that it is right to punch Neo-Nazis who have not committed an extant crime, I also can’t see that it is wrong either. Which means that it must be permissible to punch Neo-Nazis - at least one’s whose allegiance and beliefs are as clear as Richard Spencer’s, and especially when they are engaging in propaganda that seeks to support a shift in state towards a situation where Neo-Nazi genocidal ideals can be enacted.

Oh, and by the way, even Mill would be OK with publically shaming Richard Spencer. So go ahead and laugh at the video. He deserves it.

[Edited to add this important footnote:]* Upon reflection, although I initially treated this as a case of Richard Spencer voicing an opinion to the press, what he was actually doing was voicing an inflamatory opinion at a women’s march, where he knew it was possible to incite a violent reaction. In this case, even if he wasn’t directly telling people to act violently, he was speaking in a way likely to incite violence at a time and place that he knew could easily result in not merely violence, but a riot. Which really puts him squarely in the wrong for speaking as he did, where and when he did, in Mills terms.

[abakersquest]

CHAPTER NINETEEN – ON FALLEN EMPIRES AND ASH-LADEN SHORES

The water around the speeding Fortune exploded violently as volley after volley of cannon shot zeroed in on the escaping vessel. Behind them, the mystical tower of the Storm Bell finally sank beneath the unruly waves, ringing what its listeners could only assume was the death knell to the intricate workings of the sea. As Blackeye took the ship’s wheel, Polly desperately tried to concentrate through the din and make the ship invisible again to no avail. Undeterred, she rushed to the aft of the ship where Wally and Wistea conjured what they could to deflect any of the many incoming cannonballs. Behind them, Hector focused and channeled every last ounce of magic he could into his sword. He’d been able to hobble the ship before, so he’d try to do it again.

It was then that everything shook with the sudden resonance of a mighty chime, and the chaotic waves behind them calmed. The Storm Bell rang again and the sky was instantly filled with dark and heavy clouds. A third ring birthed a maelstrom that almost lifted the Fortune out of the water, disrupting the flight of the pursuing sky fortress and many of its shots. A fourth ring brought lightning and thunder the likes no living being had ever seen. With the fifth ring, the waters below the spontaneous tempest began to spin and reform the once collapsing whirlpool. It was nowhere near the size of its predecessor, but large enough to expose part of the sunken tower.

Powerful bolts of lightning quickly snaked through the ink black clouds and cascaded over the warship. The bolts homed in on several spots and seemingly did no damage until something in the body of the vessel exploded violently. The warship’s propellers locked instantly and it fell toward the ocean. Half the distance from splashdown, its mighty supports rang to life once more and its armored belly skipped along the water.

All eyes turned to Hector who shrugged, “that wasn’t me.”

“Was the Storm Bell!” Blackeye shouted over his shoulder. “Looks to me it’s tryin’ to do the work of the Fount, but that ain’t gonna keep for long!”

---

A harried Insicai soldier rushed onto the command deck of the warship; Aegis. He was soon followed by a plume of billowing black smoke. “General!” he almost coughed. “The Lightning Collector has been overloaded! We are doing our best, best, best to halt the spread of the fire now, but it may grow out of hand if-”

The Indomitable Smith rose from his seat and walked toward the smoke. “Maintain this position until repairs are completed. After which we shall make way to Insicai, the next Mobius Glass should be completed by the time we arrive.” His helm turned to the right, indicating he was looking over his shoulder. “Re’duvae, see to our return course with the navigation team.”

The armored Insicai that had greeted him at the dispatch port stood and saluted before heading down a nearby stairwell that lead from the Command deck to Navigation.

---

The door to the Fortune’s interior opened and Rozzi hobbled as far as the door frame, looking everyone over. She could easily see the undeniable frustration and disappointment on all their faces.

“Anyone wanna fill in the particulars for me?”

“We saw their ship over the Storm Bell’s tower so we assumed that was their target,” Wally replied. “And while we were busy with puzzles and fighting an all together pointless battle, they were lifting the Fount of the Sea right out of the water.”

“Puzzles?” she asked.

“The tower challenges anyone who comes in, even the front door has a task before you can even enter,” answered Hector.

Rozzi stood and thought on that for a few seconds. “Hold on, everything was still intact by the time you got to the top of that thing? Nothin’ bashed in, or blown apart? The guy you fought actually made it past the stuff you did?”

The landing party all exchanged a look before Blackeye spoke.

“Its different challenges for everyone… But overall they reveal somethin’ about yerself. My first time, I learned to move more calmly.”

“I should be more careful not to burn myself out.” Wally added.

“An overabundance of pride could kill me.” Wistea volunteered.

“Focusing too much on the big picture means I miss important details that could save my life.” Hector concluded.

“But,” Wally began to reason. “That we didn’t pass through a bunch of smoldering ruins means that giant must’ve faced the same philosophical test. He had to tell the truth to enter, face a challenge of personal worth, and show the willingness not to fight.”

“Wally!” Hector quickly replied. “You asked him a question right? If he was being made to fight or fought of his own volition?”

“He said ‘both,’” Wally recalled the scene. “It was strange… My insight didn’t work on him like it did with the Rogue and the Princess. Granted he’s clearly less emotional than them, but it was more than that.” He scratched at the back of his ear to help his thinking. “I don’t quite know how to put it; it was more like he seemed…”

“Hollow?” Wistea volunteered.

Wally nodded. “But maybe I was wrong?”

“Well!” Rozzi shouted with a clap of her hands. “Not a total loss! The Storm Bell’s safe at least, and we learned more about what we’re facin’. I saw that little magic gizmo they pulled out for the Fount. Since they got here ahead of us and everything was still intact, I get the feelin’ they only had one of those on them. So, could be they could only pick one of the two magical artifacts to wreck up, or maybe they take a while t’ get ready, or there’s only the one.”

A slim smile grew on Hector’s face. “Gaining knowledge might be a tiny victory, but it still counts toward the whole.”

The whistle of the Kettle Engine finally faded and the ship began to slow. Blackeye worked the lever back to its neutral position and twisted the handle. The sensation of something large opening traveled across the deck beneath their feet. “It’s gonna take a day before the engine’s workin’ again. I sure don’t want to head to Sauro without it. Works out, we’re two days away at best. Nurse your bruises and steel yourselves, it’s gonna be a wild ride once we’re close.”

There was a loud thud off to the side that was quickly revealed to be the exhausted body of Polly Cofresi. At some point during the conversation she’d leaned against the railing, fallen asleep, and then finally slipped the rest of the way down. With a chuckle, the captain locked the wheel, gently scooped her up, and took her down to the bunk room with a few whispered words of praise.

Rozzi leaned on the door after it was closed and pouted slightly. “So you mean to tell me, I missed a magical game of Honest Consequences.”

Wistea’s expression grew pensive as, they all could tell now; she began to check her sizable catalog of memories and facts to figure out what Rozzi was asking about.

“It’s a children’s game in Animana,” Wally told her. “You sit ‘round in a circle, then go and challenge the person across from you to answer a question truthfully, or pull some outrageous stunt.”

“Except this particular outrageous stunt was having to almost fight my fellow knight.” Hector patted Wally on the shoulder.

“Wait? You saw me?! What’s that mean? I had to almost fight Sir Hammond!”

“Ah,” Wistea began. “No doubt it was a test of our personal feelings of inadequacy. We all faced someone that in some way made us feel weaker by comparison, no doubt to encourage us to fight it and fail. I can understand Hector’s imposition, after all, one of the last things you did was hurl one of Kota’s Generals across the Storm Bell’s belfry. That sort of thing can be very imposing.”

“AHHH! I CAN’T BELIEVE I MISSED THAT!” shouted Rozzi in frustration.

“Don’t you worry; I’m sure the next time we’re all in mortal danger, Wally will no doubt do something just as impressive and startling,” Hector chuckled.

Wally sighed, grateful for the levity that Rozzi seemed to have revitalized in everyone, but still frustrated that he could do nothing to prevent the day’s loss. It all left him in a somewhat frustrated mood he couldn’t immediately shake. “I’ll stay up here on first watch, you all relax…”

As he tried to walk toward the foredeck a sudden gust of air threw him off balance and back toward the group where he was met by Rozzi’s stern expression.

“I’ll have none of that, thank you very much! ‘First watch’ my tail, you just wanna stand up here and mope at the sky like that’d make you feel any better. Now,” she reached over and grabbed the fur on his cheek. “You’re gonna come down to the galley and make us all somethin’ to eat and I guarantee you’ll be smilin’ by the end of it… Also someone has to make sure I don’t fall down the stairs. I barely made it up here y’know?”

“What?” Hector said with playful incredulity. “Don’t you trust me?”

“About as far as I could THROW you,” she retorted.

He sighed and looked to Wally with an earnest smile, “not gonna live that one down, am I?”

“Probably not,” Wally answered plainly as he took Rozzi’s arm over his shoulder to help her down the stairs.

---

There was a disquieting stillness to the air as they sailed toward Sauro, Blackeye said that with the Storm Bell dividing its power, both the sea and the sky would suffer from an unseemly calm until the Fount was either restored, or the Bell lost its strength. The sails drove them forward as best they could with the steady but weakened winds. In another day’s worth of sailing the air grew much warmer and on the horizon, the crew of the God’s Fortune could see a faint glow. It was neither sunrise nor sunset, but the eternal fires of the twin molten peaks that flanked the island nation of Sauro. Soon its mountainous shore came into view, a natural and enormous barrier of peaks all along the island’s shoreline that made it practically unassailable from any angle, save the ports built into the mountain caverns.

According to the captain, the ports had all been sealed by cannon fire induced landslides after the end of the war, in order to prevent citizens of Sauro from ever leaving their island again. Every so often a ship would be conscripted to check on the ports to make sure the fallen stones hadn’t been disturbed, and in the 20 years since the end of the war, not a single Sauroian had come back to, or left from, Sauro.

Many of the refugees of Sauro had been taken in by Animana after the war’s end, while some others sailed and worked amidst the Icthy Isles. Planae, Orni’Hu, and Insicai however had denied them entry. In his quest for kitchen work back home, Wally had a job in the part of The Outers where the Sauroians had been allowed to settle. They were quiet and cautious whenever he was around, no doubt afraid any indiscretion would rob them of another home. They wore cloaks to hide their appearance, and kept to themselves whenever possible, all to avoid causing any uproar by simply existing. All said, there was absolutely no telling what life was like beyond the mountains of Sauro after the war, they’d be going in almost entirely blind.

The Fortune’s crew looked out over the waters ahead as the imposing mountain range loomed ever closer. “I suppose the loss of the Fount made the waters here more traversable,” said Hector curiously. “Seer Cinera made it sound like we’d be dealing with the most violent waves imaginable.”

“It ain’t the waves ones concerned with, lad.” The captain turned the wheel quickly, the God’s Fortune narrowly avoiding a spontaneous geyser of steaming water.

Everyone stared at the heated plume as Hector calmly stated, “oh.”

“Them hot spouts ain’t the bother either…” Blackeye warned. “You’ll know it when we see it.”

The God’s Fortune weaved around several more dangerous blast of superheated water as it came ever closer to Sauro. Everyone kept their attentions as extended as possible, readying as best they could for whatever imposing threat the mysterious island had to offer. Finally, they were close enough to see the tall red tower with a single light shining at the top, just as Cinera described. The many eyes on deck tried to get a better view when the clouds above them began to swirl unnaturally. At first they seemed to simply orbit one another until there was a loud snap of air and the clouds were replaced by a titanic orange eye with a thin and jagged black pupil. It stared down and drifted along with the ship it so easily dwarfed, and shone down with an otherworldly light.

“I hope Cinera was right about that Tetsu fella,” the captain said quietly. “Don’t think I’ll be able to trick Kota the same way twice…” Blackeye flipped the Kettle Engine’s switch and the Fortune shot forward, leaving the massive mystic eye trailing. The shine of the eye increased and Hector could see the water under its gaze begin to boil and the air above waver with a thick haze of heat. As the chase continued the air beneath the eye seemed to ignite, creating a pillar of shimmering death that only speed its pursuit with every passing second.

“How’d you trick it last time?!” called out Wally.

“Water canopy! Made us look like empty sea!”

“Grandpa! It’s gettin’ closer! Shouldn’t I make the ship invisible?!”

“Keep that for later! We’re gonna need it if we wanna get out in one piece!”

The giant eye vanished instantly, leaving only a trail of steaming seawater. As everyone quickly looked to see if they could spot it elsewhere, the snap of air signaling its appearance rocked their ears, as it spontaneously manifested directly ahead of them. They could feel the air temperature skyrocket as the captain desperately tried to change course. Suddenly a large black slate rose in their path and the ship raced into it at top speed. Between the ticks of a second the crew of the Fortune found themselves saved from certain death and thrown into uncertain surroundings. Their eyes slowly adjusted and their ears sought out what they could as Blackeye shut off the Kettle Engine.

In the low light of a few scattered torches and distant gleaming crystals, they could see the vague impression of a ship builder’s dock built into a mountainous cavern, long disused and left to rot beside a now stagnant pool of water. Of course, all that was less impressive than the fact they were hovering a dozen feet above it all.

Below they could hear a feminine voice grunt with effort as the ship slowly drifted down to rest in the water by the dock, affording said voice’s owner a slow reveal to the ship’s crew. Illuminated by a bright oil lamp by her feet, a short female frog stood adorned in a flowing dress and head scarf that bore the red, black, and yellow of a sunset, as well as a number of silver coins that shimmered in the flickering light. Her golden flecked eyes finally opened and looked up, taking the sight of them in with elliptical pupils. Her smile was one of content relief that certainly helped to lighten the mood of what had just occurred.

Polly gasped as she could see an ornate glowing halo behind her, similar to Cinera’s. However, the outer ring of it was darker than the inner structure. This did nothing to diminish the beauty of its ethereal presence as far as she was concerned.

“Please,” the Sauroian stranger spoke. “Follow me to Master Tetsudin; I can only shield us from Kota’s sight for so long.”

Every pair of eyes that didn’t belong to a wallaby settled on the only one in the cavern.

“Does everyone need to check with me every time we meet someone new?”

“They say power and responsibility are steamy bedfellows,” paraphrased Hector

“I don’t think anyone in the whole of history has ever said anything even remotely like that… And the answer is yes, we can trust her,” replied the slightly annoyed wallaby.

The heroes hopped down to the creaking docks that hadn’t felt much in the way of weight in two decades. The young Sauroian girl, who was just barely an inch or two taller than Wally, politely curtsied for the group. “My name is Hyla, Hyla Areo. I am Master Tetsudin’s current apprentice. Please, before we go, I must take the Flarebearer’s hands.”

Wally raised a curious eyebrow at her as she outstretched her broadly rounded fingers. Sensing nothing dangerous about the gesture, Wally placed his hands in hers.

There was a sudden rush of emotions, memories, thoughts, and experiences that twisted like a tornado around the wallaby’s consciousness. Some recent, some from long ago, and some that were clearly not his own. He grit his teeth and braced himself to weather the typhoon of it all, only to see it fade as rapidly as it arose. Hyla slowly shook a somewhat awestruck expression from her face.

“F-… Forgive me; I just had to make sure. You… Really are everything Master Tetsudin said you’d be.”

Wally blinked a few times, finding it a little difficult to see at first. “He knew about me?”

She nodded. “There is little my master does not know.”

Rozzi cleared her throat, “S’pose etiquette’s on that list somewhere, eh?”

She tapped Hyla on the wrist gently, revealing she’d yet to release Wally’s hands. “Oh! Yes, right, of course.” She released his hands before bowing her head apologetically. “Please, this way. I’m afraid we’ll have to take the long way since moving your ship took a lot out of me.”

“S’long as you can put her back where she belongs, we’re fine, lass.” Blackeye patted the ship’s hull before following.

The dock’s facilities were naught but the ramshackle remnants of a ship building yard. Tools and scrap materials strewn all about, no doubt due to a hasty retreat by the workers. Everything creaked, groaned, and shook at the passing of these new travelers. Even shadows moved like old, broken wrecks as the oil lamp’s light slid along every surface. They soon came to a boulder set before a sheer stone wall. Hyla whistled and the stone moved aside like a polite gentleman on a narrow street. Beyond it was a stone staircase, carved directly into the mountain’s interior; Polly had a giggle as her broad shouldered grandfather had to walk up it sideways.

“Life’s been hard here, hasn’t it, Hyla…” Wally began to speak amidst the sound of stair climbing.

She looked back at him over her shoulder, saying nothing.

“Seems like when you were ‘looking’ at me… I saw a little bit of you. I know it’s probably not much but, from one almost starved child refuge to another, I’m sorry.”

She smiled and nodded silent thanks.

Rozzi walked up and nudged him gently, speaking softly, “’bout that. Just how much did she see y’think?”

“Felt like all of it,” he said quietly. “Even parts of my childhood.” Wally frowned. “But growing up in Sauro after the war? Leagues worse than The Outers ever were…”

The group came to another sheer wall that a whistle from Hyla opened. The room beyond was lit by a series of floating orbs, with no clear support or mechanism. Every inch of their surroundings was a surprising contrast to the tower’s exterior, a deep almost black blue. The only features within were the four pillars that reached high toward the domed ceiling and the massive chains attached to each one. At the end of the chains sat a titanic figure that dwarfed anyone they’d met thus far. Clothed in tarnished silver robes, there could be no doubt this was Master Tetsudin, an absolutely gargantuan turtle.

“Welcome,” he said in a voice best described as that of a beloved family elder just waking up from a nap. “Lovely to finally see you all in person. Ah, so to speak.”

It was baffling that such a kindly voice could come from such an enormous body with a face like ancient brown leather. But beyond that, Wally saw something that truly shocked him. Where there should be a set of eyes or even the vaguest impression of them on a wrinkled face, there was nothing, an empty darkness.

“No, young Flarebearer, your eyes do not deceive you. As part of my penance, I surrendered my gift of sight before I built myself this prison. The beauty of nature is something I shall rightfully never see again… Despite my other ways of seeing.”

Wally tucked his initial shock away as well he could and approached Master Tetsudin. “I… Well, sir, we were told that if anyone anywhere could tell us more about the Stellar Flare and how to restore its power, it’d be you.”

Tetsudin reached out his enormous hand, and the chains attached rung like church bells thrown down a flight of stairs. “Present the blade, please.”

Wally readily unsheathed it and held the broadside up, quickly wondering if trying to hold it up higher would make any possible difference at this point.

The old Sauroian tapped a single clawed finger against the blade, causing it to chime like a tuning fork.

“Mm, as is to be expected. The sword expended all its power to banish Kota the last time it was used against her.”

Everyone but Hyla replied in varying shocked tones, “Banished?!”

Wally was the first to continue, “You mean that… Sir Hammond the Only didn’t actually slay Kota?!”

The ancient Sauroian gave a small yet genial laugh. “Would you be fighting her now if he did?”

“I… I guess we all assumed she was back from the dead…”

“Death is a rather permanent event, young Flarebearer.” Tetsudin leaned back and looked up toward the ceiling. “There may linger some lesser presence in your stead, or you may simply live on in memory or legend. But there exist no magic in this world to truly resurrect the dead. I do not know why Sir Hammond chose to banish her; the Flare at full strength could easily have ended her life in his skilled hands. Now she has returned from her banishment, and the Flare came with her, having expended its power to keep her sealed these twenty years.”

Hector spoke more to calm his mind than anything else, “I’m certain, whatever the reason, my father did what was best for all of us…”

Blackeye patted him on the shoulder comfortingly.

Tetsudin leaned down, finally directing the whole of his attention to the slightly shocked wallaby. “Wally, heed my words. You must take the Stellar Flare to the tallest peak of Krust Mountain; there and only there can it be restored.”

“Krust Mountain?” Blackeye chuckled. “Fella, I been sailin’ the seas since I was a wee lad, so while experience says I can believe it exists, it’s most likely in the Southeastern seas, which is a big patch of nothin’ for ages. So, even if the place’s real, findin’ a bloody island that MOVES on such a big empty stretch’a ocean is damn near impossible.”

Tetsudin smiled at him. “So you’re up to the challenge then?”

“Course I am y’ daft shellback! Just ‘cause it’s impossible don’t mean I can’t do it!” The captain slapped Hector on the back, causing him to stagger slightly in surprise. “‘Specially with a crew this hardy!”

Tetsudin laughed, or at least that’s what the deep rumbling noise in his throat made everyone think. “I have a great deal of faith in you all. I can only apologize that I could but answer only one of your questions. Unfortunately,” the great turtle pulled back from the heroes. “We are out of time.”

A green armored soldier had leapt in through the single window in the tower, landing between them and Tetsudin. While the sagely turtle outsized it by a measure of ten, its full height loomed over the band of heroes. It was the opposite of the Indomitable Smith, a living metal testament to imposing physiques.

“Hyla!” Tetsudin shouted. “You must aid the Flarebearer on his quest! Go with him and his allies!”

“But Master!” She cried out.

The large emerald armored figure turned toward her. “Have you no respect for your elder’s wishes, little mage?” The voiced of the intruder carried the air of aristocracy and dignity in every last properly pronounced syllable. “How shameful! I shall see to it you are properly punished.”

With speed that blatantly opposed his enormity, the green armored assailant rocketed toward Hyla, a shimmering blade of unknown make in hand.

Wally quickly sprang from his position to intercede, bringing the Flare up to block the overhead strike. The blow rang through the Flare’s blade and shook Wally’s bones as the ground beneath his feet shattered.

“Interfering in my duties to defend a lady, truly a commendable act by the Flarebearer!” Wally suddenly found himself struggling, his opponent pressing down against his sword with a force he’d never felt before. “But I am the Peerless Knight. Not even you could rival me!”

With a sudden upward thrust the Knight’s crossguard caught the edge of the Flare, breaking Wally’s guard. Unexpectedly, Wally rolled backward with the force of the blow and narrowly dodged the following strike. However, the force of its impact shattered the floor, giving Wally no way to reclaim his footing. Instead he landed flat on his back with a hearty thud.

The Knight unleashed loud triumphant laughter as he closed the distance between them almost instantly. In that far too quick of a moment, Wally knew this was the fastest and strongest opponent he’d ever faced. Before he could even lift the Flare, the enemy’s blade was mere inches from stabbing a superfluous hole into his chest. Then, as he closed his eyes to brace himself for the death blow, he felt himself fall a short distance and greet the floor with his back once again. When his eyes finally opened, another portal was sliding shut above his head, having dropped him behind his friends.

“Young Sauroian,” the Knight spoke with a subtle tinge of frustration. “You would betray your own people? Did you forget the devastation wrought on this land by his predecessor? Do you feel no honor, no patriotism?”

Hyla glared furiously at the Knight. “You can’t begin to imagine what I feel!”

“Such presumption from someone so young, do not fear,” he said as he bowed gracefully to her. “I shall be happy to mentor you properly at the end of my sword!”

The sound of enormous chains being rattled filled the air as Tetsudin slapped his hand down against the floor, and the heroes all vanished from sight in a cascade of blue flashes.

The Peerless Knight looked over his shoulder to the ancient mystic and spoke in a civil tone. “A pity… You recall your vow to never use your magic, do you not?”

Tetsudin made a small noise in his throat to scoff at him. “Visit whatever punishment you like upon me, I can assure you there is no suffering in this world I could not endure for the sake of others, especially my pupils.”

---

The deck of the God’s Fortune suddenly found itself populated by several tumbling bodies. Hyla was the first to her feet, helping Wally to his. “We must go quickly! If the Knight is here, Bulfo won’t be far behind.”

With a grunt, Blackeye righted himself. “Little Miss, Fast is what the Fortune does best!”

“How far can one of those gates you made go?” Hector asked as he helped Wistea up.

Hyla thought on it for only a second or two. “I’ve never moved anything this size before today so I have no idea. But I shall do my best!”

“Right then!” Captain Blackeye gripped the ships wheel. “We got one good go left in the Kettle Engine, and we might be ambushed by a toad in a dress! Miss Areo, are you ready?”

Hyla took a few deep breaths to center herself, and a prismatic shimmer rushed over her hands. “Whenever you are.”

“Once we’re through, Polly makes us invisible, and we make for Galaga, got some old Orni’Hulan friends who can get us some leads on Krust Mountain. If anyone in the world even has the vaguest idea of findin’ a mountain that dances about the Southeast, it’ll be one of those crazy feathered nomads, livin’ on old stories and pub snacks.”

Everyone braced as Blackeye nodded to Hyla and the pitch black portal slid open before the ship. The captain kicked the Kettle Engine into action and the fount of steam jolted them through. The second open sky and the sight of Sauro at their backs met her eyes; Polly reached up to form a shroud of invisibility around the ship once again, only to have the nascent energy shatter to ethereal dust. With the ugly sound of air being torn apart, Vizier Bulfo appeared on the deck of the God’s Fortune.

“Mmman excellent effort on transporting an entire ship, Miss Areo. As should be expected of a student of Master Tetsudin.” Croaked the aging sorcerer.

Wally, Hector, and Blackeye charged at him with all the speed they could muster, only to find they’d been transported behind him in the blink of an eye. Without a moment hesitation, Wally spun and launched a sizable volley of fire at Bulfo. He barely acknowledged it, the fireball rebounding off an instantly summoned barrier of light sending it back toward its caster.

Had he paid more attention however, he would’ve seen Wally closing the distance the entire time the shot was flying, with quickness instilled into him by weeks and weeks of training with Animana’s greatest soldier, Wally slapped the mystic conflagration with the broadside of the Flare, sending it right back at Bulfo with twice the speed. Wally could see the barrier clip the very end of the fireball off as it slipped past Bulfo’s defenses and hit him full on the chest, sending him tumbling and burning along the deck with a howl of pain.

Wally kept his momentum, ready to bring the Flare down on him as Rozzi ran up alongside to also strike the still sizzling sorcerer, their blades only sliced through open air and the remnants of mystic fire as he vanished and reappeared above the ship.

“GGRRHA! NO MORE GAMES! I’LL CRUSH YOU ALL NOW!” Bulfo pointed his ugly staff at them and the Fortune was lifted harshly from the sea and high into the air.

Terrifyingly loud groans and creaks rang in every ear as the Fortune was subjected to intense stresses, Bulfo’s magic slowly crushing it.

“NO!” Polly shouted as she thrust her hands out and formed a protective bubble of light around the ship.

It rocked slightly inside the bubble, but the pained sounds of the ship’s timber ceased. Polly shook and grunted with effort as Bulfo sneered and floated closer, the air beneath him a strangely distorted mess keeping him aloft. He brought his staff back and struck the barrier with it, the impact cascading over the entire surface. Polly shrieked in pain and recoiled at the blow, but the barrier did not fall.

The wicked mage cackled hoarsely as he hit the barrier again and again, each strike transmitting great pain to Polly.

“Wally!” Hyla shouted as she ran up to him. “Throw the biggest punch you can, I’ll handle the rest!”

Wally, entirely done with thinking twice, pulled back his hand and delivered the best straight right he could toward Hyla. The Sauroian sorceress placed a very small portal between herself and Wally, sending his hand on a mystically aided journey. Beside the villainous fiend a much larger portal came into being. Through it, the magically magnified fist of the Flarebearer emerged, ten times the size of its owner. It slammed into the unsuspecting toad’s broadside, and sent him flying against his will toward the horizon.

“G… Grandpa…” Polly shook with pain and exhaustion, eyes filled with tears. “Is… Is it safe? D-… Did I…”

The world fell away in that moment, as Blackeye could do nothing else but fall to his knees and embrace the child he’d raised. The fact the ship would plummet toward the ocean without her magic was a banished thought as he held her and said, “You saved us all, my dear… I’m so very proud.”

Polly managed a smile before consciousness slipped away from her.

The barrier vaporized.

The ship fell.

Every hand scrambled for something to hold onto.

Hyla shouted something unheard, and they all fell through another portal.

<[Chapter 18]–[Index]–[Chapter 20]>

#A Baker's Quest #Writing

[badonkodank]

Better Kept Secret

ao3

Chapter Three: For Blood Is Thicker

Ford stared into his third, recently refilled glass, his thoughts buzzing in disquiet uncertainty as he questioned his decision to let his brother go without… something. An apology? An explanation? Perhaps even a more in depth talk about the things they’d only glossed over thus far...

Actually, that last one wasn’t likely to happen.

That conversation had the potential to last longer than they were willing to stay up, and it had the potential to become painful. It would dig at plenty of old, recently healed wounds. There would be arguing, most probably crying of one sort or the other, and it would not be a conversation for a public place, of that Ford was more than certain.

Then it was a good thing he’d let Stan go to cool off. At least that was what he assumed his brother was doing out there, since it was how he had recently been handling chats that went south and he hadn’t been the one to start it. Granted, this one hadn’t necessarily gone south, it had just gone… weird. There was a difference between the two, though they were similar depending on who was asked.

Ford knew it was best to leave Stan to his own devices until he came back on his own, and from there they could figure out whether they wanted to (a) go back to the motel and finally dig into the problem, or (b) stay where they were and pretend nothing had happened for the time being. Unfortunately that didn’t keep the nagging unease from earlier from returning, burying its talons under his skin and taking up residence.

The man had reasoned with himself for the first five minutes that it was only his guilt making him want to run after his brother. After an additional five minutes Ford had to tell himself Stan had taken an hour to sort himself out before and to just give him time. Another minute and another drink down and Ford noticed that aside from himself the building was vacant. Thirty seconds later he still couldn’t shake the worry off and he lost his resolve to stay put.

Getting up a bit faster than necessary and ignoring the shriek the chair gave in response, Ford headed for the door. His intent was only to check on his brother; make sure that he was okay, if only to prove to himself that there was no reason to be concerned. That was all. Nothing more.

He eased the door open, a calm query already forming on his tongue, something along the lines of “are you alright?” or “what’s up?”, but the words shriveled up before he could even decide which to go with.

The parking lot was empty.

Stanley was gone.

The realization hit hard, sending a familiar adrenaline pumping into his veins as he threw the door wide open, about to run out when the bartender shouted at him, saying he and his brother hadn’t paid.

Ford grit his teeth and all but threw the money on the counter once he’d ripped it out of his pocket, aware that he shouldn’t take his worried aggression out on the poor man who was only doing his job, but not caring. He was keeping him from searching for his brother and Ford was not about to pause and apologize for his foul mood when he was certain he’d never have another encounter with the man.

With their bill paid, Ford dashed out into the lot, eyes darting about for any signs of his brother. While it might have been logical to assume Stan had gone for a walk, Ford was sure he would have let him know if that had been the case, because his twin knew how badly he worried when he couldn’t find him; he wouldn’t have intentionally done that to him, especially when he wasn’t the one he was upset with. Not completely anyway. Yet he was drawing blanks as to what else could have happened to his twin. He wanted to trust his instincts when they told him something wasn’t right, but at the same time he desperately wished just this once they were letting him down.

When the light from the bar glinted off something wet on the ground not half a moment later, Ford swore his heart was slamming against his rib cage hard enough it would burst. Blood had been one of the easiest substances to identify before his Portal days, the only difference now was that Ford could merely glance at it and deduce the severity of injury from the size of splatter, instead of having to study it a few minutes.

What he saw now had him sucking a breath in sharply as his mind threw dozens of scenarios for what could have caused the small splatters of red on the gravel, none of which were comforting. It was obviously a decent sized injury, not fatal but certainly not small either, and Ford swallowed hard, forcing out the images of Stanley bleeding and in pain that his brain conjured. He didn’t have time to think about that! He had to find his brother.

Crouching to scour the dark ground, Ford found several foot shaped imprints in the gravel all seeming to head in the same direction, and among those prints were scuff and drag marks.

Signs of a struggle.

Stanley.

There was no other explanation for where his brother would have gone. Though, what reasons someone could have for harming him, Ford couldn’t be certain. Sure, from what he knew and what he could guess about Stan’s life, he’d angered a great deal of people, but nobody from around here… as far as he’d been made aware.

Not that it mattered then; the thought of anyone putting their hands on his little brother made Ford’s blood boil in a way it hadn’t in awhile and he had to fight to shut out the voice that told him to chase after them and rip their throats out. The sensible part of him demanded he keep his head while he went after Stan and his captors, and Ford latched onto it and had his feet moving as soon as he’d straightened himself out.

They’d left a clear enough trail even a child with no tracking knowledge would’ve been able to follow with relative ease. And Ford was no novice. It took a matter of moments, walking along the trail, before he’d figured out the direction to head, but the newfound lead did nothing to quell his rising panic.

At a leisurely pace, it took ten minutes to get to the docks. He was easily able to shave that time down to four by sprinting. As soon as the trail of red blended into the dark wooden platform, Ford came to a halt, looking around for Stan. With the street lights shining less brightly, he had to allow his eyes a moment to adjust to the darker area, as as they did he moved closer to where he heard voices, using cargo crates as cover while taking stock of the situation.

Needless to say, if the angry voice in his head hadn’t been screaming before, it was then.

Stanley was indeed there, but so were his attackers, and while that alone would’ve been enough to set Ford off, it was the state of his brother that had rage practically pouring from his every pore.

It was with no pleasure that Ford noted he had been correct about the severity of injury Stan had received in the parking lot; his left temple was bleeding profusely, his bottom lip split and oozing the sticky liquid right along with it, and that was only the tip of the iceberg.

There was a tear in the upper right area of his jacket, indicating the likelihood of a cut in that arm, his left eye was closed slightly and red under a cracked lense, and his arms had been tied behind his back as he knelt, doubling over in a way that made Ford sure there were further injuries he couldn’t see.

The fact that they had managed to do all that and drag Stan here in less than twenty minutes made him hesitate to come out, though, because it was hard to take his brother down even on a bad day. He could only image the results if he tried to go against them alone. Even distressed, Ford knew a dumb move when he thought it. It made him pause in his movements to reveal himself, deciding to listen in hopes that it would better help him assess the situation and the men who outnumbered him and his brother first- see if there was anything worthy of his fear.

“Look, it wasn’t even me-”

“Give it up, Pines. We know it was you who ratted us to the feds. We aren’t looking for a confession.”

“No, no, you got- I really- I think you need to listen though! It wasn’t me, I swear!”

Ford didn’t need to understand the context of the conversation to know Stanley had lied, his voice hitting that higher octave on the ending statement that it always did when he was swearing the false truth of something. It was more than a bit concerning, knowing his brother had actually done something to warrant this sort of, albeit over-the-top, justified retaliation.

Even so it still made Ford clench his jaw in hatred toward the group when he heard the distinct sound of knuckles striking flesh, followed by a grunt of pain.

Despite wanting to stay put for longer, Ford still found himself peering around his cover once more to see what was happening. The one who had punched Stan had just started stepping back, which gave Ford a clear view of the other two by his twin.

One of them stood at Stan’s side, obviously strong -though, maybe not; Stan wasn’t even struggling- since he was holding his brother still while another fastened something to his legs. Ford might have taken the time to check on the others then if he hadn’t let his eyes immediately wander, following the path of the chain to find it attached to several cinder blocks, their purpose glaringly obvious when paired with the location.

No. Nononono. No.

Ford inwardly cursed himself when he stood without thinking, and cleared his throat to grab the group’s attention. The men’s reactions were swift, even if they also conveyed shock, and Ford had to force himself to stay put when the pair by his brother jumped up and joined a third in drawing their weapons while the fourth ( Oldest. Confident. The real threat. ) stepped calmly over to Stan and held a knife to his throat. Ford’s heart skipped a beat in panic at the sight but he schooled his expression to appear calm, as if he was the one holding their family hostage and outnumbering them.

It felt like the worst kind of torture for him right then when everything in his being wanted to let go and beat the men within an inch of their life, but he managed to contain himself.

That didn’t stop him from taking a few steps closer before the others could speak, though. He wanted to be as near to the situation as possible so that once he’d formulated a plan that would end favorably for Stanley and him, he could at least follow through. The men as a whole tensed and the one threatening his brother straightened up and, casually as one might talk about the weather, said, “Stop there or he dies.”

Ford did as ordered without complaint; he was close enough now.

If he truly wanted to he could reach one of the men training their gun on him. Though, he wouldn’t need to do even that; the familiar and comforting weight on his hip would be all the help he’d need when this went south. However, what held Ford’s interest wasn’t his proximity to the others, but the expression Stan wore; his twin was staring at him, eyes wide and pleading while also unfocused and dazed in a manner Ford recognized but wished he didn’t. He could only wonder, then, what Stan thought he was seeing, what he remembered and why he was remembering it now of all times.

“You’re the one he came with, aren’t you?”

The man addressed him and Ford did his best not to glare when he nodded. “I am, and I suggest you step away from my brother.”

“Ye’, I figured you two had to be related when I saw you earlier. Was a bitch figuring out which one was the man we wanted, won’t lie. But, now that we’ve got good ‘ole Pines back, the only one who’s gonna get away is you.”

Ford bit his tongue momentarily to keep from growling out that if they didn’t step back he would tear them apart, and once he felt a bit more in control again he answered, keeping his voice as level as he could- which was just barely.

“I am not here to argue, I am here to retrieve my brother. If you would step away from him- I don’t think anyone wants this becoming any more awkward than it already is.”

Another man scoffed before the one who had been speaking thus far ( the leader ) followed the sound of contempt with words so dismissive they had Ford going over all the reasons he could not reach for his gun and shoot him in the mouth.

“Can’t. We have business with Pines. Business that doesn’t include you. So walk away now and this doesn’t have to get messy.”

To punctuate the end of his sentence the man angled the knife so its tip was digging into the skin over his brother’s carotid artery. Ford felt something inside beginning to fray.

“Get away from him or I will kill you,” Ford spat before he could stop himself.

He regretted the words instantly when the men tensed and held their weapons more cautiously than they had been, all aiming for either his head or his heart and making Ford freeze, realizing he’d almost lunged. The only good thing that seemed to come out of the rise in volume and activity was the fact that Stan’s eyes appeared to have cleared some and he was frowning, looking at Ford in a way that left the man sure his brother was actually seeing him now.

“Ford?”

The barely whispered word dripped with confusion and fear that made Ford’s stomach clench painfully. He tried to imagine what could have been going through his brother’s mind to make him speak and betray his emotions in a dangerous situation so easily, but found nothing clear came to mind.

He wasn’t able to imagine what his brother was seeing, because while Ford knew the man likely had two different realities playing in front of his eyes, had two different versions of himself being scared and worried and not understanding what was going on, he had no inklings as to what part of his twin’s life these things were tied to.

With a pang of discomfort Ford realized he was in the dark about a great deal of things regarding Stanley’s past, since, while they had talked here and there about the lives they’d lead (Ford being very vague and sticking to the parts where he’d been in their dimension), they had glossed over much of the 10-year period in terms of where Stan had been and what he’d been getting himself into. His brother had always managed to switch topics or not-so-subtly brush it off altogether.

Sharp, strained laughter brought Ford back from what he hadn’t realized had been deep thought, and he forced himself to focus on the problem at hand (he could dwell in discovery later). The man threatening Stanley seemed recovered from his lapse of stunned silence, and the mocking cackle cut off as soon as it started. A growl passed unpermitted past Ford’s lips, his concern for what his brother was seeing forgotten.

Gaze locking with the ring leader, Ford narrowed his eyes at the cruel confidence he found, the way the man seemed to say “you won’t do anything because I have what you want”. Even if he was mostly correct in that assumption, Ford refused to allow any form of reaction to pass over his features. Instead he tried to focus on mapping out ways he could disarm the other without causing Stanley physical injury.

Unfortunately he got no further than “don’t hit Lee” before the man grabbed a fistful of his brother’s hair and yanked his head back sharply enough for Stan to whimper in response.

That was it. Ford didn’t even register that a line had been crossed, but it had all the same.

No one. hurt. Stanley.

Something snapped. Neither his hands nor his mind belonged to him and everything became a blur, a cacophony of shouts and gunfire and cries of pain that didn’t belong to him. He registered the familiar weight of his, as Mabel had dubbed it, “Portal-Gunny-Thing”, in his hand, could smell the strange otherworldly smoke it spit out after firing, and the charred flesh and blood of whoever its blast had hit, but didn’t know when he’d drawn it or pulled the trigger.

Ford watched his hands rip a chunk of hair out of someone’s head and then reach out to snap the wrist of another, yet he felt nothing under his fingertips. It was a familiar sensation, a numb, almost autopilot, state of mind. He knew things wouldn’t end well when he was like this, yet he couldn’t remember how to get himself out of it.

Even as screams of agony echoed around him (screams he knew he was the cause of) he didn’t try to stop. Even when he felt a thrill of exhilaration at what he was doing run down his spine in a way that terrified him, he didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop. Not when one of the attackers buried a blade into his upper arm and dragged down before Ford threw him over the shoulder of the injured appendage; not when he felt a bullet graze the area of his head that contained metal; not even when all three men were lying unconscious at his feet, bruised and bleeding from various injuries ranging from scratches to laser burns, and in one’s case, a deep cut in the stomach where Ford had reversed the hold on a knife and taken advantage of the weapon’s angle.

But it wasn’t over.

It couldn’t have been over that fast. They had all gone down too fast, too easily, and it felt almost anticlimactic to Ford, who was still eerily calm while his mind was a buzzing hive of adrenaline induced activity. He needed something more, something to cement it into him that Stanley was safe, but he didn’t know what that “something” was. All he really knew was that Stanley’s safety had been his priority from the beginning and it still was, and…

And there had been four men.

A familiar cry halted Ford’s thoughts of victory, and the man felt himself become more coherent with the sound, enough to turn around and widen his eyes when he realized his error in focusing on the three others. The leader, the one he’d shot first to keep Stanley safe, had recovered enough to make his way back over to his brother, and now stood beside the weights attached to Stan, the malicious grin spread across his face making his intentions clear as day.

“No…”

Ford stumbled forward, cursing his legs for suddenly going weak on him. Time suddenly slowed and he watched the cinder blocks get pushed off the dock into the dark water below, Stanley following them with a startled gasp. The loud splash that seemed to reverberate in the otherwise too silent night air was all that was left as proof anything had happened at all.

Ford was sure he only stood frozen for a few seconds, but it could easily have been hours, if the man who’d thrown his brother into danger hadn’t moved suddenly, making an attempt to get away since it was clear to him as he stared at his fallen group that Ford’s threats had not been empty.

On instinct and perhaps reflex, Ford aimed for the leader and shot him in the back of the knee, his only forethought for the action being that once Stanley was safe, he would want the man alive. After that, though, he wasn’t thinking, he was throwing his coat and glasses onto the dock and diving into the gelid waters in the spot he’d seen his twin disappear, the mantra of, “Save Stanley. Protect Stanley. He’s all you have. Save him ” the only thing driving him; the only thing helping him ignore the burning in eyes the feeling of saltwater in his open wounds.

It was so dark Ford wondered if he’d even see Stan if the man was a foot in front of him, and the voice at the back of his head telling him he’d seen things in darker situations wasn’t doing anything to calm him. Perhaps it should have. Logically speaking, Ford should have been immediately reassured… but he wasn’t, because nothing about this was logical.

Why now? Why, after they’d made so much progress, did things have to take such a negative turn. Who even were these people? Why had they felt the need to hurt his brother? Nothing about what had happened, and was happening, made any logical sense, and Ford couldn’t find it in himself to pretend it did, no matter how anxious it made him.

After what seemed like an eternity, Ford caught sight of the dark outlining of his brother and held back a gasp before picking up his speed. As soon as his numbing fingers brushed against material he recognized as Stan’s jacket, he pulled his gun back out and squeezed the trigger. Not hard enough to fire, but enough for it to illuminate the water around him with its charge.

The man ignored how his heart hammered in his chest when he noted Stanley wasn’t struggling anymore (if he had been in the first place) and forced himself to focus on the task of freeing his brother. He squinted when the small glow illuminated his target and he wasted no time pointing at the chain helping to weight Stan down and firing. As soon as the link was severed Ford got as tight a grip he could on his twin and kicked for the surface.

His lungs had begun to ache and he tried not to think about what that could mean for Stan if he, someone who had trained themselves to hold their breath for several minutes, was starting to need oxygen.

When they broke the surface Ford noted with mounting distress that, while he gasped for air, Stanley didn’t, and he reached for the dock he’d leapt from with cold, shaking fingers. He hissed in frustration over how long it took to pull himself out of the water while keeping hold of his twin, but dismissed the self-directed annoyance as he undid the rope binding his brother’s hands and laid Stanley out on his back to begin CPR.

Ford counted every compression under his breath, doing his best to push away the voice that sounded a bit too familiar for comfort telling him it wasn’t going to work, that he’d taken to long, that Stanley was going to die and it would be all his fault. He knew it was wrong -had already felt his brother’s pulse, no matter how weak- and told it to shut up, because this was working. It would work. He’d lost too many people, done this too many times, had made mistakes and learned from them and knew now how to keep someone alive… it would work.

It had to. The alternative was one he wasn’t willing to consider.

Ford leaned down to breathe into his brother’s mouth, momentarily glad that Stanley wasn’t yet conscious because he knew the man would freak out if he suddenly woke to find Ford in such close proximity, even if it was to save his life. When nothing happened after that he swallowed the lump trying trying to rise in his throat and went back to work with the chest compressions.

“Come on, Lee,” Ford whispered, knowing his twin wasn’t likely to hear him but hoping he would all the same, “Come on. You cannot do this to me. You are not going to be taken out by something this ridiculous. Come on.”

Breathe. Wait.

One. Two. Three…

This. Will. Work.

“I will not allow you to go like this, Stanley. Get up!”

He slammed his fist into his brother’s chest and jumped back in surprise when Stan jolted and sputtered, turning on his side as he coughed up more water than Ford was comfortable with.

It took a minute, but once he was sure Stan was alright enough to sit up, he assisted him in doing so. Stanley shivered and Ford couldn’t be sure if it was because of the cold or because he might still have been experiencing a flashback, but… he was okay, and that was all that mattered.

He’s okay. He’s okay. You did it. You protected him. This isn’t like last time. He’s okay.

Ford started letting himself relax into the reassurance that knowledge brought until he was dragged back into reality when he heard footsteps; a broken shuffling that could only mean a limp. The recent memory of shooting someone’s leg flashed before his eyes and it was then that he remembered the reason his brother had been in the water to begin with. Remembered the one who’d put him there. The one who had been trying to murder his brother.

“F-Ford…?”

Stanley’s shaky voice went unheard as Ford turned around to find the man he’d shot several feet away, his intent to get away clear as day. He barely registered the growl building in his throat when he leapt to his feet to chase after the injured human, the white hot rage he’d felt before his dive returning with gusto. With every step Ford gained on the man, images of what he’d done to Stanley flashed in front of his face along with a new wave of fear for his brother’s safety.

Step. He took Stanley.

Step. He scared Stanley.

Step. He threatened Stanley.

Step. He hurt Stanley.

Step. He tried to drown Stanley.

The startled expression the man wore when Ford grabbed the nape of his jacket and promptly threw him to the ground was satisfying to say the least. Ford made no efforts to conceal his intentions as he stood over the man, a murderous glint in his eye when he slammed his foot into his side, giving him no time to speak.

The man’s responded by telling Ford he wouldn’t beg for his life. The blow he attempted to deliver afterward was easily dodged and only served to fuel the fire that had Ford wanting to hurt him. He crouched down, grabbing the man’s collar and shaking him roughly, unconcerned by the audible crack of his skull slamming against the ground.

Had anyone come upon the scene and thought the treatment too rough, Ford would have gladly fought them too. This man deserved everything he had coming.

That ideal was only cemented into his brain when the man spit in his face.

Red blurred the edges of his vision then and Ford hissed, slamming the other into the ground once more. The man’s weak attempts to fight back stopping fairly quickly after that, and Ford felt numb again.

Blow after blow he reigned down upon the man’s face until it resembled an abstract macabre painting more than anything human, until his knuckles were bloody and bruised and he was panting heavily from exertion, until he’d felt the man had begun to receive adequate punishment. He needed to understand that if you harmed something precious to Ford, you would have to pay the price.

And Ford was still so scared; this man had recognized Stanley from how many years back and still wanted him dead? What would stop him from coming after his twin again once he was released? Nothing. Ford wasn’t going to risk it. He couldn’t.

It was for that reason that he wrapped his hands around the man’s neck and pushed down, squeezing hard to cut off the wheezing breaths he’d been taking. The way it felt to have someone completely subdued and at your mercy was enthralling- calming in a way Ford had forgotten, and he focused on that as the man’s pulse started slowing in his neck, until he stopped thrashing so much, until…

“Stanford, stop! ”

Stanley. What was wrong? Why did he sound so upset?

He knew his brother would be distressed at the very least, but… upset? With him? Couldn’t he see he was protecting him? Could he not see this man was too dangerous to be allowed to live? Couldn’t he…?

No… But… Why?

“Stanford, stop now, you’re killing him! ”

That was the point, wasn’t it? The man had to die, because he’d hurt Stanley, because he was a threat so long as he remained alive. Why didn’t his brother realize that?

Why couldn’t Stanley see he was only trying to protect him? It was his job to keep him safe, after all. After events of Weirdmageddon Ford had sworn to never let anything cause his brother that much suffering again.

Stan must have forgotten that, considering he was showing such concern over the man’s impending death.

“Ford, that’s enough …”

No. It wasn’t enough. Until the foul creature was no longer living it would not be enough. It would never be enough until he could be absolutely certain that Stan was safe.

Stanley would have to understand that this was how things went sometimes. It wasn’t always pleasant, but it had to be done.

Right?

“... S-Sixer?”

That made Ford pause and remove some pressure from the man’s throat as he finally looked up at Stanley, wanting to understand why his brother had all of the sudden sounded so small and hesitant. He was met with the sight of his twin’s face twisted with fear and uncertainty, both of which Ford could tell were not directed at the man beneath his hands. Which means… Oh…

Ford scrambled to his feet and backed away from whom he’d been moments away from executing, coming back to himself with horrifying abruptness.

He stared at his hands, then at the gasping person on the ground, then at Stanley who was watching him apprehensively and hadn’t moved from his spot, still shivering from what he could suddenly only hope was the cold. He looked back at the man he had beat so very nearly to within an inch of his life and had to swallow the bile that rose. Under normal circumstances Ford knew he could have walked away from something like that without feeling too much remorse, but this… this was different. There… there hadn’t been a need for this- at least... not to this extent

The knowledge sat like a hard stone in his gut and he desperately wanted to dispel it then, not because he felt guilty or because he regretted his actions (because he didn’t), but because… he’d done it in front of Stanley. He’d growled and hissed and snarled like an animal and… and Stanley had seen all of it.

Ford felt sick.

And his brother was being quiet, so horribly quiet, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do; everything in him was telling him to run, to get as far away from everything as possible and wait for the dust to settle. Yet he knew that wasn’t an option; Stanley was there and he was hurt and bleeding… and he needed Ford’s help.

Though, whether or not his twin would allow him to even get near after what he’d witnessed, Ford wasn’t sure, and he had to blink away the pressure behind his eyes that made it even more difficult to see when he acknowledged that Stan had every reason to reject him. He couldn’t blame him if he did. In fact, he would be amazed if his brother didn’t.

His twin had officially seen what Ford knew to be the worst part of himself. He never wanted that. He had avoided the topic for so long, had been doing so well at hiding it too... But that was over. Now he would never again be the “nerdy bro who needed someone to protect him”, he would be “the raging monster who almost killed someone- and how many people has he killed before? ”, and the thought pained him more than he could describe.

Whether he wanted him around or not, though, Stan needed his injuries seen to and Ford was not going to leave them to fester because he was afraid of what reaction he’d get. As it was, Stanley was just staring at him, eyes still full of shock and, now, some unidentifiable emotion that made Ford frown in concern as he bent down to grab his coat and glasses, placing the latter item onto his face and wrapping the other around Stan’s wet shoulders, hoping to provide some kind of warmth.

He wanted to ignore his twin’s small flinch when he did so, but a knife had already begun twisting in his heart and the desire to flee and avoid Stan grew stronger. A small hope that his brother would not be afraid, died with the motion. Ford hadn’t realized it had been there until he felt it being crushed.

He understood, of course he did, but he and Stan had been through a lot in their lives, both together and apart, and while he had been expecting the reaction from his brother, he hadn’t been prepared for it. At all. And it hurt.

He was not about to let his brother see that, though, and quickly schooled his expression to appear as calm as possible, figuring Stan would be more likely to relax around him if he looked like his usual, calculating self. Whether he succeeded or not, Ford wasn’t sure, but given that Stanley didn’t back away when he leaned in a second time to inspect the damage done by his assailants, he could only assume he was managing relatively well.

Ford shook his head when he found he’d been correct in assuming his brother’s arm had been cut, and, while it bled lazily, it was still cause for concern in his eyes, especially when it was paired with the jagged laceration in Stan’s neck from where the blade seemed to have been dragged when the man holding it had fallen backwards after Ford having shot him. Neither wound was life threatening or particularly nasty, but it was Stan, and Ford couldn’t stand the sight of any family members being hurt. It needed to be fixed.

So focus on what needs to be done to fix it. Think.

Ford nodded in acknowledgement of his own thoughts and took a deep breath to reign his feelings in. They didn’t need him being emotional now, they needed his logic and fully formed plans.

It took a minute, but Ford decided the first thing he needed to do was get Stan patched up. He almost suggested going to the boat, which was decidedly closer, but discarded the idea when he remembered he had brought the first-aid into the motel because he had faith in their knack for contracting injury. Granted, he’d never considered the possibility of something this bad happening… He made a mental note to start carrying the damn kit at all times.

The second thing Ford knew they would need to do, as much the thought disgusted him, was call 911 to help the men he had so badly wounded. It would do them no good to be left where they were, and he was aware that, should the hospital and authorities ask who had attacked them, they would say nothing because it was obvious they were connected to some kind of illegal activity. The last thing they’d want was federal officials sniffing around.

But that call would come after he’d gotten Stanley into a warm, secure place.

The third thing Ford was acknowledged, was that they could not stay there. They would spend the night to let Stanley recover a bit, but then they had to leave whether they had all the supplies needed or not. It wasn’t ideal, but he was sure there were other towns further north where he could find substitute supplies for the things they required to continue into the Arctic. There were other towns that inhabited people that didn’t have it out for his twin; Stanley couldn’t have pissed off the entire western side of Canada, right?

With that in mind Ford went to gently place a hand on his brother’s shoulder, only to stop himself before making contact, staring at the blood covering his fingers and shirt sleeve and retracting the appendage.

Perhaps touching Stan after all… that, wasn’t the best idea.

Ford didn’t know if he would be allowed to do that, seeing as he’d practically ripped someone apart and felt no remorse. Settling for the next thing sure to work, Ford cleared his throat softly to grab his brother’s attention before he spoke, inwardly cursing how strained his words sounded and how he had to fight off the stutter trying to accompany them with every shiver that ran through his body.

“Stanley, we have to leave.”

#gravity falls #the grunkles #sea grunks #stan #ford #my fics #my ff #my writing #stangst #it begins #violence cw #blood cw #do NOT tag Stan/cest

[celticnoise]

Michael Stewart was magnificent on Radio Scotland last night.

He was absolutely first-rate.

It was one of the best contributions I’ve heard from a journalist in many a year.

His colleagues on the panel either did not fully understand the point he was trying to make – which is to suggest that they are idiots who shouldn’t even be on the air – or they were trying desperately to deflect from them. You can guess what their possible motives for that would be.

To be frank, he was a credit to the BBC and those he was sharing a studio with failed utterly to meet his standards. Broadfoot and McIntyre were a joke. They repeated the accusation that Morelos suffers racist abuse, an accusation without an iota of evidence to support it.

They repeatedly tried to shift the conversation away from where Stewart believed it should be.

He was fulfilling the BBC’s public service responsibility, by asking a difficult and important question, and focussing on a matter of grave consequence. They wanted to focus on fluff. I do not believe it’s just because they are bad at their jobs.

In the piece I wrote about the Morelos saga over the weekend, I posed the question as to whether or not Bill Leckie’s article on the player reflected anger from inside the press corps about the efforts to paint the player as some kind of paragon of virtue when the truth is very different.

It is clear now, from listening to Stewart, that a growing number of them are disquieted by just how far the Morelos cheerleaders are willing to go.

Gary Ralston is one of the worst. His sickening article on Morelos last month sparked a major backlash and, on this site, one of the most scathing responses I’ve ever written. Ralston’s piece was an obvious attempt to shift the debate away from Morelos’ on-field behaviour and to paint him, instead, as a victim of sinister forces out to get him.

It was a conspiracy theory piece, with no basis in fact or reality, pumped out by a national newspaper.

It was propaganda.

And who benefits? His club did.

They were able to beat off an SFA investigation that should have been a formality, and put under pressure any official who has to officiate in a game where Morelos plays. Any sending off can now be painted as part of the “conspiracy”.

It stands to reason that it will have an effect for the rest of this campaign.

This transparent stratagem to protect their most valuable asset and keep him on the pitch, even when his behaviour demands sanction, is underhanded and corrupt. What happened last week though went well beyond that, and was actually dangerous, as Michael Stewart rightly surmises.

It portrayed this country in a wholly negative light. It bent reality. It presented a grotesque and inflammatory lie as if it were a fact.

In doing so, it raised the levels of hate.

And as Stewart, and Sutton, and others are right to point out, it painted targets on people’s backs.

This idea that Scottish society had gotten so toxic for Morelos that people might be willing to kill him was so pervasive that Graeme McGarry, of The Evening Times, who to my knowledge has never written a negative word about Morelos, actually put himself and his profession under the spotlight and posed the question as to whether they were complicit in that.

Morelos is the architect of almost all of his own problems.

The abuse he gets from the stands can cross the line, but every player in Scotland has been subjected to abuse. As Stewart pointed out, this was the weekend where Shay Logan went on the offensive against people racially abusing him at Ibrox. One culprit actually apologised to him for it.

But that story got none of the headlines Morelos’ claim did.

His interview last Friday with Sky Sports was plastered all over the papers instead, an interview, by the way, which a Celtic Facebook page from Alicante has alleged was misrepresented by the Sky Sports translation to be far more controversial than it actually was.

Who was responsible for that? Whose agenda was being served?

As Stewart said, it came a week after Sevco had lost at Tynecastle and in the same weekend they drew at home to Aberdeen, to fall seven points behind us in the league.

The football issues no longer seem to matter though, not when the Sevco manager can sit in front of the press and allege that Scottish football has a racism problem. That’s the headline. That’s the story, although it is manifestly untrue.

But it stops them from asking him hard questions about his own failings as a coach, so it’s a job well done.

Scottish football has a few idiots in its stands.

That does not equate to a problem with racism.

Italian football has a problem with racism. Russian football has a problem with racism. Certain clubs in England and across Europe are haunted by it and can’t seem to shift it. And one club in Scotland has a long history of the anti-Irish variant of it.

Of course, no-one wants to talk about that either.

This started out as a way to free Morelos of his own on-field baggage.

As Leckie pointed out, this is a ned and a cheat, a diver, an elbow thrower, a guy with red and yellow cards piling up. Not one person in the mainstream press has hit out at this claim that he is refereed differently. In point of fact, I do think he is, but not in the way his fanclub means.

He certainly will be in future, as no referee will want to have his name splattered all over the Sevco-friendly press for joining the campaign to “drive him out Scottish football” – one of the most insidious and despicable lies in this whole charade.

The people keenest to get Morelos out of Scotland are those on the Ibrox board who know a major player sale is the only way to balance the books. Many of us suspect that they are responsible for putting many of these ideas into the public sphere as a way of justifying a sale at far below what their alleged “asking price” is.

That the idea of a player being “forced out” of the game here because of racists and psychopaths will deeply damage the reputation of the sport and – ironically – made it far harder for them to find a good replacement who’ll come here, appears not to trouble them.

But it troubles other people, like Leckie, like Stewart and I daresay a good many more who are keeping their heads down.

I cannot support that; I think journalists should speak up whenever they believe the public is being deceived or let down, but in the midst of the firestorm currently raging, I understand the urge.

I understand why they might do it.

The point where Stewart snapped was the publication, last week, of stories about the alleged “tampering” with Morelos’ car.

Today he’s under attack from The Daily Record for suggesting that they had been fed the story.

They have denied mentioning “tampering with the brakes” in their articles – which is true; those words are never used in the pieces – but the inference is clearly there and the writers at that rag know full well that it is.

The allegation is practically screaming from the headlines.

The one above the Ralston-Jackson piece shrieks the word “sabotage”.

It is described as a “traumatic incident” – there’s even the suggestion his thigh injury might have been caused by it.

And for good measure the article throws in a fan comment from Follow Follow at the end; “Hating a player is one thing but tampering with a car could kill him.”

You do not need to have worked at Bletchley Park to get the message.

This wasn’t a case of someone making mischief, it was an attempt to seriously injure or even murder the player.

The whole of the Jackson-Ralston article is tainted by their decision to end it on that note.

There was no reason to put such an inflammatory comment in there otherwise.

They did that deliberately. The worst possible interpretation of this incident was given credence … and for days the Newsnow feeds were filled with stories darkly hinting that the alleged persecution of Morelos had taken the darkest possible turn.

Stewart made a factual error; for that he’s going to cop a lot of flak. But really, his mistake is cake compared to what the press has done here, or at least helped to do. He is correct to suggest that this story was given to the papers by someone … and he’s right to suggest that this would not have been the police. He’s also right that whoever fed it to the media did so in a way that assured the most lurid headlines imaginable … all based on a fictitious premise.

Stewart’s point was that this story was put in the public domain very deliberately, that it was certainly aggressively spun, and that the objective was to suggest that someone had tried to do Morelos harm. That is the point he was making, and does it really matter which newspaper broke it first? His point was that the people or person who gave this to them was pursuing an agenda, and to Hell with what the consequences were.

And they could have been severe.

Stewart, Sutton and others were accused of having fanned the flames which led to the attempted murder of an Ibrox player. It does not take a genius to see how that could have led to actual harm being threatened or visited on them.

Both men – indeed all of us – should be deeply concerned at the way some in the press fed that view, which was already rampant on the Ibrox websites, as I said at the weekend.

This is where Stewart drew the line.

That’s what sparked his angry response last night.

The Morelos Victim Lie has swollen to the point where it’s now having a real impact on how the game here is perceived, and those pushing it have shown themselves to have no regard for the wellbeing of others as they ramp up the pressure. They will stop at nothing.

Stewart knows the media should not be engaging in this kind of destructive behaviour, that they should have a modicum of responsibility, that they should have presented facts instead of sucking up speculation and regurgitating it.

They either allowed themselves to be used or they did it for their own benefit … Stewart is concerned at the social costs of this.

Saying so was a public service.

He could have been more careful in how he did it, but he was angry and frustrated at having to hear more nonsense, more unproven allegations getting tossed around, and he was simply not prepared to stand for it another minute longer.

What is shocking here is that the BBC has refused to release the podcast and that The Record has unleashed the attack dogs on Stewart himself. There will be a clamour now to back him into a corner and make him apologise. It is a sterling example of why others in the profession in Scotland might have chosen not to get involved at all, despite their feelings of despondency over how the campaign to make Morelos a victim is starting to do real damage.

We should perhaps not be surprised that the one broadcast journalist who we recognise as being honest and impartial and willing to tell the truth as he sees it has been made out to be the bad guy here. This is the price for going against the views of the media industrial complex in Scotland, a press corps who know exactly what their “core audience” is.

Stewart is one of the few good men in the business.

It will be a dark day if the forces he’s butted heads with here are able to drive him out of his BBC role, and especially when you consider the parade of yes men, ex-Ibrox footballers, EBT recipients and halfwits who have traipsed through their Scottish offices down through the years.

Today everyone who cares about Scottish football owes a debt of gratitude to Michael Stewart, for directly confronting this issue.

He was trying to do justice to his role and to the organisation he was representing.

It will be a flat-out disgrace if he is punished for that.

Cheer yourself up today and check out our Rangers liquidation quiz … as we near the eighth anniversary of Armageddon Day it’s worth going over it again!

https://ift.tt/2v0LD7O

#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #TheCelticBlog #News

[raguna-blade]

Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 16-20

Welp, after last weeks hot bullshit, things have taken a minor upshot. Minor, in that things are still uh... Well.

Episode 16

GODDAMNIT AGAIN? ITS BEEN LIKE TWO EPISODES?

What hell is coming this time. C'mon. I got it. I'm cool. We're ready.

...Anthy late night infomercials....Uh. Curious choice of entertaintment.

Nanami's about to get called out for infomercial shopping sin't she?

Yep.

Juri immediately rolls in and styles on everyone.

Nanami's about to try and pass this. uh...cowbell off as jewelery

and

God. She's trying. She's trying so hard.

And I know anthy is behind this somehow. But damn Nanami. You're...Well...

Ok, so so far the filler hasn't been filler and is she just wearing the duelist suit out and about?

For real though, if the filler thing holds.

Oh she just admits it's a designer cowbell. Ok. Well...Damn. She's got the mad confidence to try and pull this off. Go her then. Fuck all the haters.

But still and for real, it's a cowbell nanami.

Oh hey it's the boy. Mitsuru trying his best.

Utena trying to spit the truth and people pulling bullshit trying to silence the truth.

….What. What the hell is going on here. She got turned into a cow...? There's..There's a song?

And we got the mad silhouettes. Her last meal?

Her last meal? God, i'm not sure I want to try and analyze this episode right now. I'm 100% sure the context won't occur until like the last episode or some shit but.

Is...Is she...Is she turning into a cow...? by wearing the bell...?

SHADOW GIRLS? OFF BRAND SHADOW GIRLS

muck my life are the filler episodes just supposed to be keys dressed up stupidly so we don't look at em closely.

And they're just..They're just going fucking in on this aren't they.

Why the hell did he go to Anthy and Utena. Mitsuru what do you knowwwwwwwwwwwwww

...Is she legit fucking cursed with this (Apparently?) pretty ass bell.

REAL SHADOW GIRSL? Squeak queak mouse girls...Uh..

Uh...Wait, with anthy as mouse thing last episode what is...what is happening.

Nanami slowly becoming  a cow.

Utena: Take the Cowbell off Anth-Nananmi.

Oh my god it is a fucking metaphor. It's...

Oh my god oh my god it is. Utena's spiel here sounds a lot like STOP PRETENDING TO BE A ROSE BRIDE BEING A ROSEBRIDE OR WHATEVER.

Also...Seeing Red and flipping out is a Bull thing, so the Rosebride thing is 100% and she just turned into a fucking cow..

And the imagery with the cutting the cowbell off and nanami turning...normal reads like a black row.

Chasing Status Symbols is BS: JURI FULL OF THE BLING

Anthy 100% DID THIS ON PURPOSE. The Nose Ring.

Ah next episode. Trifling territory once more.

Episode 17

Old Girlfriend(Crush?) Blues?

Juri just out here beastin on people. So Business as usual.

Oh, that's the face of shit about to go down.

And She just fucking dipped. I'm sure it was fine.

People can just LEAVE Ohtori? That's a thing?

Shiori: I did in fact, fuck up real bad. Also I don't got a roommate which is...

oh Hey, it's Dude Anthy and Utena.

Hurting yourself on Purpose...? huh.

Nanami out here questioning people's gimmicks.

….Is..Is the sword thing supposed to be sexual? Oh god. How the fuck did I miss that. Also Nanami, please stop aping your brother it's weird.

Shiori, you LEGIT stole her man. Which she wasn't even into, but god.

Did that Bird Kill itself running into the window? Uh...? uhhhhhhhhh.

Utena. You..you do not know what you're stepping into god.

OH GOD PLEASE JUST STAY AWAY FROM HIM. I AM BEGGING YOU.

Talking about Innocence and purity. UUUUUUUUUUGH.

YES THANK GOD SHOWER OF SADNESS SO MUCH BETTER.

….Oh fuck is Juri about to get got by the Black Rose jerks?

Oh, this is not how she wanted this to go down

FUCK HELLINTERVIEW TIME

Hated Juri. ok.

What's with the butterfly regression. Dear god. These freak outs are just...

Your only choice is to revolutionze, hey, no, that's super not fucking true. That's some edgecase bullshit. Uuuuuugh.

Uh. Uh. What the FUCK is going on with these roses I swear to god.

….Have all of these been in her goddamn locker?

….Whats...what? Wait did she just acknowledge the shadow girls? Assuming I just didn't miss it is it like...Utena getting closer understanding to...Whatever weird bullshit magic field that exists in ohtori?

….Birds huh. Are the black roses supposed to be like...I guess the Jungian Shadow thing? Huh.

EVEN LIGHT MAKES DARKNESS? What the...

Wait, does sword stealing grant the sword's....owner? Their talent? Anthy...?

Also, are we EVER going to get a reaction to the weirdness.

Bird in the oven. And...Juri just waking up

Wait a fucking second. Anthy just offerred up...analysis? Of a person? Conversation partner.

Episode 18

Nanami out here asking the real fucking questions. WHY SO SERIOUS GUYS THIS SHITS OBJECTIVELY HILARIOUS.

Oh god is Mitsuru the next duelist? Is Utena Going to fight an EVEN YOUNGER CHILD?

ROSES ARE VERY SENSITVE TO THE CHANGES OF THE SEASONS. Given the roses seem to be kinda like...people representatives that's..

Also, Anthy, sympathizing with the boy who wants to be the...servant? Boytoy? What.

Also, why is nanami consistently got the fucking reads when she isn't up her own ass?

Mitsuru ACT LIKE A KID, says nanami.

Mitsuru: It's...Just a banana. I don't get it. BUT THE INDIRECT KISS THOUGH.

Mikage Seminar. AGAIN.

Those Three Dudes. Wait.

GOD FUCKING DAMNIT. PLEASE DON”T

AKIO: AS THE STARS AGE THEY LOSE THEIR SHINE.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaajustdon'tstopscreaming.

...wait elevato-no. But we got a black rose. Are...

Wait are the black roses specific people or are they more generalized.

Mitsuru is trying so hard. He's a hardcore kid, but he's trying damnit.

Girl: This is gonna end badly. You're Real Dumb

Proven Right Immediately. She's got the reads.

Mitsuru: ADULT THINGS! BEIN AN ADULT!

Nanami, are you jealous? Of a Kid?

Nanami: you shouldnt be in a rush. You don't gotta be an adult.

OH BOY ELEVATOR TIME.

Mitsuru has such a crush, it's cute and he doesn't know what to do and he's just gotta ride those feels. Puberty is apparently rough for him.

Mitsuru break the world fuck it.

Uh...the framing here is...um. Disquieting in a weird way?

KNIFE AND SWORD and what the fuck is with the rose...?

Shadow Time: The Metaphor is uh...pretty on the nose here.

And Utena is 100% reacting to the shadow girls.

Anywya, time to beat up a child.

Oh he just fucking oes. Just like Nanami in fairness but.

Wait. Heed your master and come forth. Like the phrasing suggests the duelist but...Anthy is the one who calls the sword. Uh..hm.

Defeat the adults ahead of you that's an adult? Huh.

So, I checked it, but the bodies seem to be mirrors of the people who got dueled. So...That's interesting.

Did...Did nanami just catch feels from the kid? Ok. Well. Alright.

Episode 19

Wakaba Prince Dreams. Nice.

Wakaba gonna make someone a nice wife. Huh. Wakaba, don't take that out of his hands.

Onion Prince.

Brown Rose Wakaba? ok.

You...you gonna give that her? It's for her. Wakab, you of all should know better.

...Y'all got some history wakaba? Oh. She crushed on him when little. Baw.

HOW MANY TIMES ARE THEY GONNA REPEAT THAT!?

4 times?

Tatsuya tryin I guess, but hm. I sense a hellavator ride.

PLAYIN AROUND WITH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENT.

POT MEET KETTLE God.

Please. Just...get out. I beg you. Anthy's there but...

Thinly Veiled BUT SECRET HEARTS: IMMEDIATELY VIEW ANTHY.

Wakaba, you've got guts for days, you got this just spit it out.

Utena don't call wakaba out like this.

Also, Her prince is REAL THANK YOU MUCH.

The Utena Tea Sip I need as a reaction gif. Just...

Damn Tats, you dense. Also, dumb. The Indirectness. Kid. Just...Tell her.

...So princes change from person to person? Huh.

THE FAKE OUT. Thank goodness. But Shadow girls. Uh...hm.

Are...are the tires..Princes...? Wha..

her reacting to the shadow girls is weirding me out hard.

Oh god is this gonna be a cute moment? OH THEYRE GETTING CLOSER!

WHOA THE FAKE OUT AGAIN.

TATSUYA YOU STAY OUT OF THERE GODDAMNIT

Hooboy.Hellavatored.

Uh...Uh tats. You...

Wait, is the elevator going up?

Huh. So...The Elevator is praying on darkness? OK.

SAIONJI IS BACK. THATS WAKABA'S PRINCE!

So...That might work poorly. Or maybe it'll be fine?

That's A Dueling Wakab, so no, not great.

Episode 20

Wait, is Saionji just bumming at her house? Dorm room?

Saionji confirmed to be attractive to many so...MK.

...Are they off campus?

She's legit storing this boy in her room.

I...ok. That home exchange was weird.

I can't tell if Saionji is pulling a woe is me thing or if he's legit had a turn of heart.

I mean I guesss he's had to think things through.

JUST PRAYING TO GOD. SUPER RELIGIOUS YEP SUPES TOTES INTO GOD YEAH

...How is he glistening like that.

But Wakaba, like he's still a dick. So...What...how. Do you just got the bad taste?

As Long as I have this secret I'm special! Oh...hoooooooooooboy.

Oh no, saionji sounds jerky still. Oh no. maybe it's fine.

...Is...Is she his sugar momma. And apparently this caused wakaba to just go super mode somehow so that's...interesting.

The lighting here is making this otherwise innocuous exchange weird.

Why are you doing a back bridge in this room? Also...please. Get out of there.

Saionji...? That's..actually kinda sweet. STILL GOT A BAD VIBE GOIN ON HERE.

Saionji asking bout the student council. And...he asked about anthy. Welp. Welllllp.

Welp. Oh no. wakaba. Wakabaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Mikage how the hell did you get there?

Saionji, immediately on the uptake.

HELLAVATOR TIME. Also, damn saionji, you given out the same gift?

I seem to recall Wakaba slapping Anthy, so that's just foreshadowing now.

Oh she looks like she's gonna murder.

Saionji gave mikage the thing so....

SHE JUST GRABBED HIM BY THE THROAT

SHADOW TIME

Marriage uh..ok.

Also, Saionji is, in fact, a fucking dip, but he does at least seem to have a solid grasp on gift giving. Or at least what's owed and such, even if he misses the value of things. So...Ok, credit where it's due.

Wait, that was a shinai right? Is this...is this Utena Vs Saionji from the otherside now? With Utena as the Established duelist with the weird sword?

Yeah that's a face of shock.

Anthy: GET SWORD RIGHT THE FUCK NOW DO IT NOW HOLY SHIT DO IT NOW.

Wakaba CAME IN TO KILL ANTHY FUCK THIS DUEL SHIT.

SHE IS NOT REMOTELY PLAYING AROUND. Nanami? Playing games. Wakaba? NOT FUCKING AROUND IN THE LEAST.

Second Duel(?) Utena has won without the cursed ass holy sword thing. I think. Third. Rather.

Saionji feelin himself.

Poor wakaba. She looks so...done.

#revolutionary girl utena #liveblog #thank god the screaming material is only a 9 out of 10 right now