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snipsnsnailsnwerewolftales · 3 years

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Blue Moon - Part 7

A/N: See masterlist for prompts used. (And the list of amazing people who have helped me with this.) There is some show related violence referenced in this one, so, like always, check the masterlist if you need a heads up about the warnings. But this one is mostly just fluff and some angst. Though, arguably, like the season, this one may be a bit heavier. (And thank you to the amazing @trexrambling for coming up with the lines in bold during one of our chats just for fun, that was too perfect to not include.)

I do not own Teen Wolf or it’s characters. Sadly.

Warnings: See Masterlist

Word count: 4,390

Xxx

“What do you mean there isn’t a body?” you asked Stiles over the phone, walking back to your house with Derek. You had expected it to be like twisting his arm to talk him into coming back with you, but he surprisingly agreed almost immediately.

“I don’t know, they just called us to come up to the school. Apparently she went into another fugue state or something….” You heard the gears shift, the engine of the jeep coming to a stop over the line. “Look, we’re here. Just, keep your eyes open, please.”

“Will do.” You cleared your throat. “Please keep me updated.” You stared straight ahead as you ended the phone call.

“You didn’t tell him about finding me,” Derek mused from your side.

“They have enough going on right now. Plus, you didn’t say you were ready to be ‘found’ yet, so I omitted certain truths.”

Staring at the ground as you both continued in silence, you made it to your front porch before you realized you didn’t have your keys. Reaching under the front mat, Derek produced the spare key. “It didn’t take much searching,” he answered your raised eyebrow of question.

Once inside, Derek let out a heavy sigh. “Look, I’ll admit, something has felt off about Jennifer from the beginning. I didn’t want to admit it, but you’re right.”

“You didn’t want to admit something felt weird, or that I was right?” You smiled at him, taking the groan he gave as the answer. “We’ll finish this conversation in a minute. First we need to change clothes. We are both covered in…. woods.” Derek snorted a laugh, nodding in agreement.

As you started up the stairs to your room, you looked over your shoulder in question as he fell in step behind you. “Okay. What’s up, Derek?”

“My bag is in your room. I’ve…. been sleeping on the floor.”

“I thought you only came by here twice?” You opened the door to your room, seeing his duffel bag sitting on your bed with clothes pouring out the sides of it and onto your comforter.

“Yeah, that was a lie. It’s the only place I could think of where no one would bother me.” He grabbed a change of clothes before walking back out of the room, stopping at the door with his back to you. “Plus, I’m used to you being at the loft. Having your scent around was calming, and helped me think straight.” With that he left the room, softly shutting the door.

Looking to the makeshift bed he had on the floor, you noticed various things with your scent laying close by, and you smiled. Examining the room further, you realized the majority of your clothes were at the loft or at Stiles’, which left you with only one other option.

“Are those...are those my sweatpants?”

Looking down at the base of the stairs as you slowly made your way down, you saw Derek, wide eyed, and was that the beginning of a blush on his cheeks?

You shrugged. “You said I could borrow your clothes.”

Reaching inside the shirt that was massive on you, you cinched the drawstring on the pants even tighter, contemplating making it into a belt instead.

Making it to the final step, you hopped off of it to the main floor, looking Derek straight on.

Derek looked down at your feet. “Exactly how many times did you-”

“Seven. These have been rolled up seven times. I almost died going down the stairs.”

The grin working it’s way up his face was very contagious, and you found it spreading to your face as well. “All my stuff is at the loft or the Stilinski’s, so, I figured I’d take you up on your offer.”

“Well, it’s a look I could get used to,” Derek said easily, before stuttering, “um, I mean, yeah. Yeah. Whatever you need. It looks good on you.”

You plopped into a chair in the living room, him gently sitting in the one opposite you. “So, Jennifer. You think something isn’t right?”

Derek, still smiling, shook his head gently at you and sighed. “Yes.”

“What is making you say that now?”

“You.” Tilting your head at him questioningly, he grinned again, looking down at the floor. “What you said today. It’s instinct.” He looked up, meeting your eyes on the last word, and you both held the other’s gaze for a few moments in the comfortable silence.

“So let’s test your theory,” you mused. “Show up at school tomorrow, I’ll stay close by and see if anything seems overtly out of place-”

“You have classes-”

“Derek. I finally found you again. I’m not letting you out of my sight for the foreseeable future.”

He relented, leaning back in the chair.

“Text her and tell her you want to meet up before lunch. Meet her in the alcove by the fields, none of the pack will see you there, and then you are welcome to come back here.” You hesitated. “Not with her, though. That goes without saying. But I felt it needed saying. Just to be clear. Moving on.” He smirked as you continued. “While you talk to her, I’ll stay right behind the wall and listen to her heartbeat and see if I pick up on anything. You pay attention to the physical cues.”

“With her scent being so…. off, what do you think she is?” Derek said on a huff of air.

“Do you think she’s the Darach?”

His eyes widened and he looked away for a second before looking back to you, resigned. “As of today, it’s crossed my mind.”

“Why today?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s just the first time I was able to think clearly in a long time. Since she came around, really.”

You gestured to the room around you. “Well, my life is a Jennifer free zone, so feel free to use it to your advantage.” Smiling, you held his gaze once again, both of your grins lazy and comfortable.

This time, you sighed. “I’m sorry, Derek. I really didn’t want to be right about this-”

“Yes you did.” He raised his eyebrows at you challengingly. “I’m not blind, Y/N.”

“Well, that may be, but I never wished you would find the devil and start dating her.” He glared at you. “You know, you seem to have a pattern.” He rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t Kate, like, psychotic?”

“That was a low blow.” You smirked at him, but it slipped when he smirked right back. “And what does that say about you?”

You choked on your own spit. “Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said.” He tilted his head back onto the chair, closing his eyes and grinning triumphantly, hands knit together and resting on his chest.

You launched a pillow at him, letting out a cry of triumph when it hit him square in the face, startling him. His head snapped back up. “No need to be freaking rude.”

Derek curled up with the pillow, a smug look on his face. “Derek? Can I have that pillow back? This chair is lumpy.” Your voice was small.

“You should have thought of that before hurling it at me.” He got up and plopped down on the couch, letting out a sigh of content as he stretched, still holding the pillow close, smug grin still all over his face.

Getting up, you went over to him, reaching for the pillow, but he turned away, tucking it under him, clutched tight in his grip. You paced back and forth a few times, hands on your hips, before you turned to go back and try again, tripping on one of the legs of his pants that had started to come unfolded in all the movement, and launching at him with unexpected force.

He let out an oof as you landed on his chest, his head snapping your way to try and guess your next move.

“Well. This is unexpected,” you said tightly. You looked at as much of him as you could see, propped on your elbows awkwardly on his shoulder as he lay slightly sideways away from you. “You’re squishy enough, I’ll just use you as my pillow.”

Laying your head down on his shoulder, you could have sworn you heard his heart rate pick up, making you smirk. Suddenly you were laying with your head on the pillow as it rested on his chest, the rest of you flush with his body, one of your legs slotting between his and the other between his leg and the couch.

Sighing with contentment into the pillow, you had just gotten comfortable when the pillow disappeared, your head falling down to his chest with a thump, ear over his racing heart. Looking up at him through your lashes, you saw him tucking the pillow under his head, and his eyes closed. He grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch, covering you both and taking a sniff of the top of your head in what he probably thought was a subtle way as he did.

“I think you have a type, alright,” you mused quietly. “Dangerous - snore and all bets are off.”

“Same goes for you - drool and I find a way to give you fresh hell when we go back to training regularly.”

“I don’t drool!” You pulled slightly away from him.

“I don’t snore.” He settled further into the couch, one arm wrapping around your waist.

After a brief stare off, you mumbled, “Fine. Truce?”

“Truce.” He smiled.

“You’re unbelievable,” you grumbled into his chest.

“Thank you. I try.”

You could hear the smile in his tone, and it was the last thing you registered before drifting off to sleep.

Xxx

You were reliving it again. The fight with Kali. Just before the dream turned in a bad way, your phone ringing and vibrating across the coffee table beside you woke you up with a start. Glancing down at Derek who looked sleepily up at you, you mouthed a sorry before answering the phone. “Hello?”

“Where the hell are you, Y/N?” Stiles’ angry voice made you pull the receiver away from your ear, your face scrunched up in pain. Putting it on speaker and placing it back on the coffee table, you sighed, holding your head in your hands, elbows braced on Derek’s chest.

“Stiles, I’m so sorry, I-”

“I almost had my dad start a search for you!”

Derek nudged you, making you look down at him, ignoring Stiles’ incessant repeating of your name. He gestured to the phone, whispering, “It’s okay. Tell them you found me.”

“Are you sure?” you whispered, and he nodded.

Laying your hands on Derek’s chest, his arm still firmly around your waist, you placed your cheek on the back of your hands and looked at the phone as you spoke. “Are you alone, Stiles?”

The line was silent as his constant speech stopped. “Why?”

“I just want to talk to you without supernatural ears around, that’s all. It’s need to know at the moment.”

You heard Stiles fumbling around, closing doors and running faucets on his way from his room down to his kitchen - you knew by the floor board squeaks, he could never avoid them - and looked to Derek when his arm tightened around your waist.

“They can all know,” he said softly.

“I’m going with my gut, Derek. The less people know, the better. Jennifer will feel more special, and probably open up more. Plus, Scott’s got his own problems right now.” It sounded like Stiles was finally reaching the kitchen when you added softly to Derek, “Plus, I know you like to make an entrance.”

You both smirked and Stiles came back on the line. “I’m home alone with my dad, but I turned on every faucet between my room and the kitchen in case we have any lurkers outside.”

“Why is every faucet on?” You heard the Sheriff in the background, walking from room to room, and you smiled. He could be such a light sleeper.

“Talk fast,” Stiles rushed into the phone.

“I found Derek. We found the Nemeton but lost it again. We’re back at my place so no one will look for him. We have a plan, and we’re gonna try something tomorrow at school, I’ll give you details after. Nothing dangerous-” you looked up at Derek- “at least, I don’t think.” You looked back to the phone. “Just me and him, for some info gathering, then probably back here, and we’ll go from there.”

“And the others couldn’t know about this why?” Stiles hissed into the phone, his father’s footsteps getting closer.

“Because, everyone is working on their own thing right now, and we can regroup after. I think we finally have all the puzzle pieces we need to get a picture.”

“Fine,” he huffed.

“For the record, that’s my idea to bring him to school for info, and my idea to only tell you. He said others could know. I just thought it best that less know for now.”

“That actually makes sense. I agree. Okay, fill me in as soon as you know more, please. But I don’t know how long him being gone will be helpful.”

“You got it.”

“Wait…. You found the Nemeton?”

“Go to sleep, Stiles. I’ll fill you in later.”

“They found a what?” The Sheriff said in the background, voice heavy with sleep.

“Uhhhhhh….” Stiles failed to answer.

“Just say shenanigans, Stiles.”

“I don’t even wanna know,” the Sheriff said, yawning, his footsteps retreating.

“Smooth, Stiles. Smooth.”

“Oh, just go back to sleep, Y/N.”

“Will do. Sorry I didn’t let you know I wouldn’t be back tonight.”

He sighed. “It’s okay. I was just worried, but it’s okay now that I know. Sleep well.”

“You, too.”

The call ended and your phone locked on its own, the room going dark once more, Derek startling you when you looked at him only to see bright red eyes staring back at you.

“You know very well you could see without those,” you mumbled, tucking your face back into his chest, digging your chin in a little more forcefully than necessary as you stared at him.

He grinned, no sign of them going anywhere as he blinked a few times. “Now, where’s the fun in that?”

Xxx

It was like something out of a movie.

Jennifer saw him standing in the tunnel, hesitating only a second before she realized it was him. She smiled and ran up to him, embracing him as she leapt into his arms, tucking her face into his neck, his face buried in her hair.

You watched until they kissed, and you had to look away before you made any gagging noises. You blamed Stiles for some of these reactions, you really did.

Derek kept his answers to a minimum, asking her to come with him for the day, and you felt your stomach drop. You knew it was an act, but the thought was just unsettling.

They kissed one more time, and you had to physically step back a few paces so you couldn’t peek around the corner and see them anymore. You were supposed to be listening to her heartbeat, but yours was so loud in your ears it was hard to focus. As far as you could make out, her heart was steady the whole time, not a single tick. And that’s what was the most concerning.

Between the kisses and shared words, hell, even the sight of each other, she should have had some sort of uptick or something.

You wouldn’t admit it to him, but you had eavesdropped on his heartbeat, too, and noticed his little upticks here and there.

You wanted to be wrong, just for his sake, but it looked more and more like she was up to something.

Looking one last time, you saw her turning away, their hands lingering on one another’s before falling away at the last possible second. She walked away confidently, tucking some of her hair behind her ear almost shyly as the wind swept errant leaves and her long loose tresses around her.

He turned and looked at you once she was out of sight, holding your gaze for only a moment before hanging his head and shaking it gently.

Walking up to him, your hands itched to reach out and comfort somehow, but felt it better to give him space, so you settled for touching the tips of your shoes to his, putting them in his line of sight. The smallest of smiles turned up his face when he noticed.

“I really hope you were listening to her heart rate, because all I could hear was yours.”

You felt your eyes go wide at the admission, the act of breathing something foreign. “Um, yes. Yes, I…” You looked up then down, then to the side before looking back at him, his head still hung, and you swallowed to try and get rid of any emotions in order to simply speak. “It didn’t change the whole time. Which I don’t have to tell you is an even bigger tell.” You gently shifted your weight from foot to foot. “You, on the other hand,” you spoke softly, “you had some major tells, and, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you keep getting dealt the shitty hand, and have to-”

You were cut off by his hands gently grabbing your face, tilting it back until your noses were touching like yesterday, and you could just feel the ghost of his lips over yours. Resting his forehead against yours, he let out a sigh that sounded both content and yet frustrated. You opened your eyes just in time to see his flick up to look at yours before a voice to the side jarred you from the moment.

“Hey, hooligans! Get back to class!”

You let out a decidedly frustrated sigh before answering, making Derek smile. “Yes, Coach!”

Pulling away, Derek tugged you by the hand back to the car.

You heard Coach mutter something about “delinquents” and “back in my day” before he was totally out of earshot.

“I finally understand why all the guys call him Coach Cockblock now….” you mumbled, making Derek snicker.

Xxx

Back at your house that evening, Derek had been unusually quiet, but you didn’t feel the need to fill the silence in any way. You just sat near him on the couch, both of you processing what today had revealed.

When you got a call from Stiles that Cora was in the hospital, you immediately looked to Derek and knew he had heard.

“Go,” you urged him, waving the hand not holding the phone in a shooing gesture.

“But tonight-”

“Everyone will be there at the concert, safety in numbers. And right now Cora is all alone. Go take care of your sister.”

Nodding, Derek practically jumped over the back of the couch, grabbed his coat, and was out the door in seconds.

“Y/N, Cora was about to show her eyes to my dad after I explained everything to him when she passed out. He’s gonna be at the concert tonight. Think you can use the glow sticks to help me prove a point?”

“Sure, Stiles. What else is a werewolf best friend for?”

He chuckled. “Okay. Fill me in when you get here about what all was accomplished with your and Derek’s secret steakout today.”

“You make it sound like something sordid.”

“And until you tell me otherwise, these are the nightmares that play in my head.”

You laughed, grabbing your coat before stepping out the front door, locking it behind you. “Then suffer until I get there.”

Xxx

Once again, things turned super weird super fast. As soon as you got to the school, you felt a chill go down your spine, your eyes glowing of their own accord. Something was off, and you didn’t like it. Blinking away your golden eyes, you got out of the car, looking up and meeting Chris Argent’s gaze a few spaces away. He looked just as unnerved as you did, and that definitely didn’t sit well with you. Giving one another a nod in acknowledgment, he turned to follow after Allison and Isaac, and you met Stiles and Scott outside the auditorium.

Filling them in quickly, Scott was surveying the area for Lydia as you spoke. Suddenly, a scream was heard and you knew it was Lydia. You and Scott dropped to your knees with your hands over your ears, Stiles panicked and trying to help. You felt your phone buzzing in your pocket, and managed to stammer out, “My…. phone….” to a helpless looking Stiles. Immediately he fished it out and answered it, the screaming coming to an end. Scott was still on his knees and breathing deeply, and your own world was spinning as well. You removed your hands from your ears and placed your palms flat on the ground to try to find some balance again.

You heard Derek over the phone asking what’s going on when Scott abruptly took off towards the classrooms. Stiles sprinted after him, tossing you your phone, which you fumbled, before holding it to your ear and rising to your feet to take off after your friends.

“We don’t know, Derek. Lydia just screamed, Scott took off for the classrooms, Stiles is right behind him, and I’m the last one on this crazy train. There is a whole other something crazy going on inside the auditorium from what I can hear, but right now I’m focused on Lydia. The others in there can take care of that. Call Isaac to find out what’s going on.”

“Be safe,” Derek said quickly, and you nodded before rolling your eyes, remembering he can’t see you.

“Will do. Thanks. Let me know if anything changes with Cora.”

“Of course,” he said, then you both hung up.

Stuffing your phone in your pocket, you screeched to a halt when you saw only Stiles, and he looked utterly lost. “What’s wrong?”

“Scott- he- he said he heard my dad, and-” Running his hands through his hair, Stiles was turning in circles, his heart hammering away as a panic attack brewed.

“Stiles.”

“And he just took off, Y/N!” Stiles yelled, his hands starting to gesture. “I couldn’t keep up, and now my dad-”

“Stiles, calm down. Remember you asked me to use my glow sticks to help you prove a point?” You flicked on your yellow eyes with a blink. “We’ll find them.”

Simply nodding, his face screwed up in fear and dread, Stiles followed behind you as you turned toward where you heard voices.

Despite an all out sprint, neither of you made it in time to get into the classroom, Jennifer slamming the desk against the door too easily for a human and holding it there with some sort of magic. No matter how hard both of you tried, you couldn’t make the desk or the door budge. You peeked through the corner of the little window in the door while Stiles watched on, taking up most of the frame.

Scott was coughing up blood on the floor, completely wolfed out, Lydia was in a chair crying, a garrote loose around her neck, and Jennifer was approaching the Sheriff slowly, a knife sticking out of his right shoulder. After some exchanged words, he shot her in the right leg, and you smirked, only for it to fade as the wound healed in seconds. She was going on and on about the sacrifices, how they helped her acquire certain traits like healing from the bullet the Sheriff had fired, and then she kissed him.

You couldn’t hold it back this time; you made gagging noises, trying desperately to keep your focus on the scene in the room though your eyes began to tear up as you fought the urge to vomit. You stopped breathing when Jennifer morphed into what you could only assume was the Darach before pulling away from the Sheriff, screeching, and jumping out the window, shattered glass going everywhere.

Stiles finally was able to push the door open, his strength surprising you as he shoved the desk back while opening it. The Sheriff was gone, and Scott and Stiles stared out the window in silence. They shared a look briefly before Stiles’ gaze returned to the window, his face a tight line, Scott looking on with concern.

Going over to Lydia, you helped her get free of the bindings of the chair, tearing the duct tape away like it was nothing, and then the garrote, pulling her up and into a hug as soon as the offending thing had been tossed onto the desk beside you.

“I found it in time for you guys to do something about it. I didn’t find a body. If I had just been a few minutes sooner we could have-”

“Lydia.” You pulled away, gripping her hands to turn her attention from Scott to you. “You were right on time. You’re right. You didn’t find a body, and because of that we know who is doing this, and there’s still a chance that the Sheriff will be just fine. We caught her off guard, thanks to you.” You grabbed her biceps and squeezed gently. “Just, next time, maybe a little quieter? The room still is sort of spinning.”

The pack started to fill up the room, and you saw police car lights starting to reflect off the shattered glass around the space.

Going over to Stiles, you gave Scott a sad look before you both stepped up beside your friend, one on each side. You bumped Stiles’ shoulder with your own. “We’ll get him, Stiles. We’ll bring him back.” You spoke softly, leaning into his shoulder just as gently. “I know it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I made a promise.” He looked at you, his face void of any one emotion. “I have to help you prove a point.” You blinked your yellow eyes on for a few seconds before blinking them off. “What else is a werewolf best friend for?”

He smiled almost imperceptibly. “Okay.”

“And until we find her, or tell you otherwise, there are no nightmares that should play in your head. Please, plot away. Just know…. She will suffer when I get there.”

Xxx

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iforgotmypreviousaccountlol · 3 years

Text

Starting Line

Happy Holidays, @carson-asmo-lover

This is your Secret Santa gift. I hope you like it!

AU: Asmo is a uni student who just moved into a new apartment unit, Solomon is living next door learning how to bake. Every day, Asmo would smell the sweet aroma of baked goods from his room and in the hallways. One day, after a hectic day from uni, he stops in front of the door trying to guess which baked good is being made for that day. The door opens, cue awkward silence, Solomon invites Asmo into his apartment, and into his life.

ASMO

There, there it is again. Asmodeus glanced at his wall clock. Right on time: 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The sweet smell of sugar and pastry permeated his room. His next-door neighbour is baking again. He closed his eyes and inhaled, trying to take a guess which pastry his neighbour decided to make today. It has been a good past-time for whenever he found himself bored on some days when he doesn’t have uni classes. Not that he had nothing better to do, he had to catch up on a lot of schoolworks but he isn’t in the mood to do them right now.

He moved in just a few months ago so he could be closer to school, but now that he enjoyed the new-found freedom that is living alone, he realized he missed the constant presence of his brothers. Sure, having his own place meant that Lucifer wasn’t around to nag him when he goes out to party most nights, or if he brings people back to his place for some night escapades (He never did bring someone over though. Maybe he should.) He made a mental note to go home for the weekend if the workload permits.

“Cinnamon rolls,” he finally said, propping up from the couch. The sweet smell of the cinnamon powder that contrasted with the slightly sour cream cheese made Asmo’s mouth water. He groaned. “If you’re gonna make pastries, at least offer some to your neighbours so we don’t get hungry from the smell.”

Now he has no choice but to go down and buy something sweet to satisfy his craving. He put on a peach sweater and wrapped a white scarf around his neck. He stared at his reflection for a moment. His champagne-colored hair was longer on one side, stylishly swept to frame his face. His diamond stud earring reflected light when he turned his face in a certain angle. “Alright, enough. I look stunning, as always.”

He wrinkled his nose at his neighbour’s door when he passed on his way out, the smell of cinnamon is much stronger in the hallway. He hadn’t even met the mysterious baker, given that he’s almost always out to some party when he isn’t in class, it’s strange that they never even once bumped into each other in the lobby or the elevator. He shrugged and went on his way to hunt for some cinnamon rolls.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Asmo was almost dragging himself back to his condo unit after a hectic morning. He had a 3-hour lecture for Fashion Marketing and he had to pass a 10-page essay on Fashion Theory (which of course, he crammed last night. He even skipped a campus party!) and he’s just about ready to pass out and is determined to take a long nap for the whole afternoon. That would have been a solid plan, except it’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon and the scent of baked sweets wafted from his neighbour’s room and into the hallway.

He stopped on his tracks and inhaled the scent, his brain immediately fell to its routine, trying to discern which ingredients are being used to create what pastry. “Milk, definitely. What else? Eggs? And oh—”

The door suddenly opened. Asmo jerked back in surprise, his hand latched to the strap of his sling bag. He blinked once, twice.

A tall man with silvery-white hair with stunning blue-gray eyes, wearing a black turtleneck with sleeves rolled up to his elbows and white apron, came out of the room carrying a small trash bag. Asmo was never one to be at a loss for words, especially not in front of attractive people, but his tongue refused to make an audible sound.

“Oh, hello. I suppose you’re my neighbour? I believe this is the first time we’re meeting each other?” The man continued, “I’m Solomon.”

Asmo shook off his surprise and cleared his throat. He wore his usual disarming smile and nodded at him. “Asmodeus. I just came back from school, I was just, uh,” he said while gesturing to his unit’s door.

“I see.”

Awkward silence filled the space between and around them. Asmo noticed a faint sprinkle of flour on Solomon’s right cheek, he clamped down the urge to reach in and dust it off.

The fire alarm started beeping causing the two to jolt in surprise. Solomon raced to the trash chute, dumped the trash bag and raced back inside his room to turn off the oven. Asmo stood unmoving to the doorway. He wondered if he should offer help.

Thick smoke came out of the oven when Solomon opened it, he fanned the oven with a mitt. The fire alarm hasn’t stopped beeping so Asmo mindlessly stepped inside and grabbed the nearest flat object (which happened to be a pan of piped cream puff dough) to fan the alarm component on the ceiling. He honestly had no idea what he’s doing. The piped dough from the baking pan fell and scattered on the floor, one even hitting him right on the cheek.

“Oh. It stopped,” he commented, the pan still raised over his head.

Asmo glanced at Solomon who was still kneeling in front of the oven and saw that a bunch of dough pieces is now strewn around the kitchen floor. A solitary piece of dough stuck on the baking sheet finally gave up and dropped on Asmo’s forehead. He blinked slowly, unsure on how to react.

Solomon snorted, obviously trying but miserably failing to hold back a laugh. Asmo flicked away the dough which earned a chuckle from Solomon, which in turn triggered Asmo to burst into laughter.

“Sorry, that was… not funny.” Solomon said in between laughs.

Asmo doubled over. He wiped a tear that escaped his eye from laughing and said, “It kinda was.”

“Listen, why don’t you sit and clean yourself up. I’ll just tidy up for a bit and we could enjoy the successful batch I made earlier. Think of it as a welcoming present.”

Asmo considered it for a moment. Sleep or… this? “Sure.”

Solomon smiled, and started cleaning up the mess.

Asmo pulled out a chair and sat. His rose and gold eyes followed Solomon’s movement. It mesmerized him; the grace in his movements, certain and self-assured. He stared so hard he didn’t even notice that Solomon was already standing in front of him asking something.

He shook his head a tiny bit. “I’m sorry, come again?”

Solomon chuckled. His chuckle sent a shiver down Asmo’s spine.

“I asked if you would like tea or coffee. To pair with the cream puffs.”

“Tea, please. With milk.”

Solomon nodded and proceeded to the kitchen counter to make the tea. Asmo wanted to face palm and cringe. Why is he acting this way?

“So… tell me about yourself,” Solomon said.

Asmo paused. In any other instances, he would’ve already started talking about himself without even needing to be prompted. Why is it that he can’t think of something interesting to tell this guy?

“Why don’t we talk about you first?” Asmo deflected the question.

That earned another smile from the fair-haired man. He brought the cooling rack containing the cream puffs and a tray of tea and cups.

“What do you want to know?”

Everything, Asmo thought. Instead he asked, “What’s your major?”

“Chemistry. You?”

Huh, that surprisingly fits him. “Fashion design. Why are you always baking?”

Solomon sipped his tea. “I promised my little brother Luke I would teach him how to bake. You see, a friend of mine, Barbatos went overseas for a job. He was the one who was supposed to teach Luke. But since he can’t, I decided to give it a go.”

“That’s incredibly nice of you.”

“Thank you. For now I still need to watch videos and study the recipe but I think I’m starting to get the hang of it. Well, except for the incident earlier.”

Asmo nodded. The cream puffs looked so good he wanted to pull out his phone and post it on his Instagram but he stopped himself. He reached for one and popped it into his mouth.

The milky taste and the slight crisp of the puff blended well, it tasted divine—Asmo’s thoughts stopped at the same time he stopped chewing. WHAT IS THAT? It’s bitter and spicy and sour, flavor after flavor assaulted his taste buds faster than his brain can process the actual taste of the pastry.

He looked at Solomon, the latter clearly expecting a comment or reaction from him. Good thing he quickly managed his expression. He smiled, the cream puff still stuck on the roof of his mouth.

He was saved by the ringing of Solomon’s phone. When Solomon turned his back to reach for his phone, he quickly spit out the pastry on his handkerchief and stowed it on his bag’s pocket.

Solomon’s eyes widened slightly at him when he saw him gulped down his tea as a desperate attempt to wash out the aftertaste. “You sure are thirsty. More tea?” Solomon offered.

“I am. Yes, please.” Asmo nodded vigorously.

“So, what can you say about the cream puffs? It’s my first time so I can understand if they didn’t turn out perfect.”

That would be the understatement of the year, Asmo thought. He also dreaded the question. To tell or not to tell? “Do you have any more of the strawberry tart you made the other day?”

“How did you know I made some?”

“Please. Everyone on this floor probably knows what you’re baking every day.”

Solomon chuckled and proceeded to get a strawberry tart from his fridge.

Asmo swallowed, bracing himself. Just a small bite. A chaos of flavors.

He placed his palms flat on the table for 10 seconds then rushed to the sink to spit out the tart and gargle water. “What the hell was that?”

Solomon raised an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean? It tastes normal to me.”

Asmo’s jaw fell when he saw Solomon eating his tart with no problem, enjoying it even. He can’t believe he spent his days craving for sweets his neighbour baked when in reality they taste this atrocious.

“That’s it, Solomon. You’re not allowed to bake anymore,” Asmo said, shaking his head.

“Huh? I thought I was doing fine. I really need to learn though, I can’t disappoint Luke.”

Asmo bit his lip, considering. He sighed. “Fine. You can bake all you want, but never without me. I’ll oversee whatever you’re doing to make sure you never end up making those… those unidentifiable monstrosities again!”

Solomon smiled; in his grey-blue eyes, Asmo saw wonders, and potential, and… a future. “Deal.”

SOLOMON

Solomon checked his watch. It’s Friday and Asmo will be coming over in a minute or two. It’s already been more than a month since they started their “baking lessons.” Granted, it’s not every day; it’s only twice a week, thrice when their schedule permits. But would it be a stretch if he admitted to himself that the highlight of his weeks are the days when Asmodeus comes over to watch him work?

A knock interrupted his thoughts. He should just give Asmo a spare key, he thought while walking towards the door.

“You’ll never guess what happened in class today! So see, I crammed a paper again last night so I almost came late for class. Our professor for that class was Professor Simeon, you know? He’s wonderful but can be very strict so I didn’t want to be late and be scolded but then, on the way to the classroom…”

Solomon’s lips tugged at the corner as he watched Asmo lament about his tiring day at school. His strawberry champagne bangs swept stylishly, slightly messed up by the wind. His gold and ruby eyes sparkling along with his words and gestures. Asmo always looked alive to him. No, not the usual alive as in living. Really alive. Maybe that’s what happens when you know to find love in everything.

“Anyway, what are we making today?” Asmo finished, hanging his white coat on the rack near the door.

We. It shouldn’t have sounded as nice as it did. “We,” he said the word with maybe a bit more excitement than warranted, “are making red velvet cake.”

“All right! That’s great. I love red velvet.”

“I already prepared—”

He stopped because of the irritation that flashed in Asmo’s eyes. He bit his lower lip to suppress a smile.

“Throw it out.”

“That would be a waste. At least try out the batter before rejecting it.”

Asmo put both his hands on Solomon’s shoulders and looked at him seriously, emphasizing his words, “Solomon, I know for a fact that you are an amazing and smart chemist, but you’re hopeless in the kitchen.”

Solomon laughed which earned a chuckle from Asmo. “No, no, I didn’t add any suspicious ingredients this time. I swear. I followed the instructions word for word.”

Asmo begrudgingly took a spoon and tasted the batter.

“Good?”

He shrugged. “Surprisingly.”

It was two weeks ago when Asmo finally figured out what he was doing wrong all this time. Solomon had a bad habit of experimenting with ingredients, most likely because of his chemistry experiments. But even after figuring out what’s the problem, Asmo continued supervising his baking. Not that he’s complaining, and not that he would ever ask the arrangement to be over. He would never admit it out loud, but he liked having Asmodeus over.

Solomon started whipping the frosting with a hand mixer while Asmo stayed close to watch him. It took a lot to focus and not glance on his side.

Asmo said, “Hey, you got a little something—”

His eyes met Asmo’s in time as Asmo’s fingers dusted something from his cheek. They stayed frozen in time for a moment; staring at each other, Asmo’s fingers barely grazing Solomon’s cheek.

The moment would’ve lasted longer if the mixer’s whisk attachment hit the side of the bowl in a wrong angle and sprayed both of them with frosting. They blinked at each other before bursting into laughter.

“Kitchen blunders for the nth time,” Solomon joked.

Asmo pulled out his phone and suggested they take a picture, Solomon let Asmo take their “selfie.” After Asmo was satisfied with the pictures, Solomon reached for a paper towel to wipe frosting from Asmo’s usual immaculately beautiful face.

After the cake cooled, Asmo helped design the frosting. He also took pictures to post on his Instagram. Solomon made an account last week just to look at the pictures occasionally. The photo of the cake earned hundreds of likes and comments in minutes. Well, that can’t be helped, Asmo is a popular guy. Solomon would be too if he actually bothered to socialize, but he found it rather exhausting to deal with people he’s not interested in.

“Hey, could you send me our picture from earlier?” Sol said.

“Oh yeah, sure.” Asmo fiddled with his phone. “…And sent.”

“Thank you,” Solomon replied.

They settled down on the table to eat the cake they made and have some tea. They talked about their days and their upcoming exams. Eventually, the sun started setting. Its golden rays streaming from the window, dyeing the room in a soft orange hue.

“I think you’re okay now, Solomon. Remember to just always follow the instructions and don’t add any unnecessary ingredients to whatever you’re cooking or baking, and it’ll turn out fine.”

Solomon raised an eyebrow. He pushed away the idea that Asmo will now stop coming over because they already eliminated the cause of the weird taste (which isn’t actually weird for him).

“It's a force of habit. I’m always curious so I can’t stop myself from experimenting with things.”

“I guess…”

“Why, am I eating up too much of your time?” He asked.

“Of course not. I like spending time with you, Solomon.” Asmo’s cheeks flushed a bit.

Solomon sipped his tea.

Asmo took the small window of silence to change the topic. “Anyway, I got a call from Mammon the other day and guess what? He’s appearing in a mag—”

“Me too,” he interrupted.

“Hmm?”

“I like spending time with you too.”

Asmo was caught off-guard but eventually smiled. He reached for his bag and pulled out a silver box with a champagne-colored ribbon. “By the way, here.”

Solomon’s brows wrinkled. “What’s this?”

“Happy Birthday, Solomon.”

“How did you—”

Asmo winked at him. “Information comes easily when you have a lot of friends.” Asmo laughed and continued, “Kidding. I’m in the same class as Meph, he works in the registrar’s office as an assistant so I asked him. I had to do him some favours, but eh, it’s worth it.”

“Thank you, Asmo. Really.”

Asmo’s phone beeped, he looked at his notifications. His eyes widened a fraction.

Solomon smiled. He had an idea why Asmo was surprised. He glanced on his own phone, notifications pouring in fast. He clicked on a post, his first one ever.

It’s a photo Asmo took of them earlier. Asmo, lively as always, was throwing a peace sign while winking, his ruby and gold eyes full of wonder; Solomon, his blue-grey eyes a pool of mystery, was smiling a bit, looking at him contentedly. The caption? Best birthday with ‘that special someone.’

His phone chimed, a notification appeared on top of his screen: Asmodeus liked your photo.

#obeymesecretsanta2020 #obey me au #obey me asmodeus #obey me solomon

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curiosity-killed · 3 years

Text

super long rambling and a fair bit of whining abt my relationship with dance AUs bc this is what my brain chose to fixate on for my whole extremely sloggish run

Because I love dance and because I love writing and because I do rather a lot of both, I pretty consistently struggle with my complete and utter block on writing dance AUs and I’ve basically realized that it comes down to a three-prong barricade that gets progressively harder to overcome as you move through it

Because part of it is just technical. Writing about dance is hard from a dancer’s perspective. I know dance, I know the mechanics of it and the sensations of it. I can walk you through the technical details of a 3-minute variation and I can tell you how my heart lifts and body fills with light the moment I step onto the stage. I can give you the nitty gritty and I can give you the grand metaphors—and I cannot for the life of me balance the lens on the middle ground.

I got asked on bumble what my favorite dance step is and immediately answered tour jete (or entrelace, depending on your school). And then, because the person wasn’t a dancer, I followed up with, “it’s a big fun jump that makes you feel like you’re flying.”

Yeah. That clears everything up.

A story cannot be made by a Big Jump That Feels Like Flying. Do you know how many steps that could cover?? Hell, how many disciplines?? A barrel leap is a big jump that can feel like flying. So is an Italian pas de chat. All three of these are w i l d l y different steps.

So there’s the words but—how to translate a language of precise motion and sweeping emotion into plain language accessible to people who haven’t grown up in this pidgin tongue of bad French and weird metaphors. Tombe pas de bourre glissade pas de chat contre temps—this is my language of dance. This is not only clear instruction on what steps to take but also the rhythm of it conveyed in the syllables and accents. I read this and not only see the dance across stage but feel the sway of my torso as I mark along, the flick of my wrist as I shape the steps before they’re taken, physical reminders of 17 years of training and study.

A reader reads this and their eyes glaze over and roll back in their heads.

To go the opposite way, to lay it all out in the actual physical motions is, if possible, even worse. Fall (gracefully) onto your right leg while extending your left with pointed foot to cross your left behind your right to step your right to the side to— *gasp for breath* Yeah, no.

The solution to this, in theory, is the kind of checklist I go through while performing: emotion, motion, technique. (Incidentally, this is the opposite of my checklist while rehearsing or taking class) Draw the reader in with the feel of it, move them with familiar steps, punctuate with the details. In theory. I’ve yet to make it work.

And then there’s the fact that I have had a very weird education and career in dance. I grew up dancing in the rural Midwest US—not exactly a hub of performing arts (and if you mention Joffrey, I will kindly invite you to look up “rural” and then look at Chicago).

The vast majority of dancers in the rural midwest (...RMWUS??) go to competition schools. Think Dance Moms, high kicks and tricks on Instagram, trophies and tiaras.

I.....went to a university.

We learned more about kinesiology than kicks. My teachers were fascinated by the way I could “jump like a boy” and didn’t once mention my waist circumference. It would be a lie to say it was all daisies and sweetcakes. We were competitive. Sometimes we were brats. We learned to push through severe physical pain and turned perfectionism to a weapon. Teachers had favorites and older girls could be downright mean.

But, having now danced at a competition studio, it was wildly different. When there were tears in the dressing room, it was because we were graduating and going far across the country from each other—not because a teacher had come in and yelled at the entire cast for 15 minutes right before the show. When auditions came around, we discussed each other’s strengths and weaknesses and together determined what we thought the best casting would be (tbc we did not have a say in casting, it was all just a thought exercise).

We learned about dance not as an isolated thing we do but as a part of life—dance as an expression of culture, dance as a remarkable maximization of the human body—and are still always welcomed home.

I do, if I’m totally honest, think I got a better education than people at competition schools. But when it comes to writing fanfic...this is not a model of dance that is super easily accessible. Competition dance is on TV, Instagram, it’s all over. A rigorous academic approach to modern ballet...is not.

Lastly and ultimately the biggest stumbling block is: dance has always been a very gendered experience for me. My weird university education was surprisingly queer and unsurprisingly liberal, but I am a ballerina—not a danseur, not a ballet dancer. I grew up huddling under the edge of the grand piano with my friends hastily sewing pointe shoes and tingling with anticipation when we were finally old enough to wear platter tutus. I grew up pulling my hair back in tight buns and only being allowed to wear small earrings in class when I was in high school.

There’s some crossover of course. I’ve got (as Colorado Ballet says) Mad Hops so my teacher would make me do men’s tempo jumps while the rest of the girls stood on the side and caught their breath. My partner for a pas de deux fell sick one tech week so my best friend, female, partnered me instead.

Men can (and increasingly do) train in pointe shoes and wear tutus. Look at James B. Whiteside and Harper Watters for some of the most obvious examples. It is wonderful and remarkable to see gender roles changing in ballet and dance and that should be expressed in fiction as well. Men dance. Men do ballet and not just to hold up the women or to do big jumps. They can point their feet too, y’all.

(Here is where the whining really begins. Just so you’re warned.)

But when I sit down to write, the stories I want to tell are the stories I know—queer women growing up and training and learning together and challenging and supporting each other. The way you are taught ballet is very dependent on your gender. Men can train in pointe shoes, but that’s not the classical or traditional route.

While my friends and I were taping our toes and grimacing about dead shanks, the guys in our cohort were in a separate class learning how to perform big jumps and turns in second. While I was cinching tight my friend’s corset-back bodice, the guys were in tights and a shirt. Again with the jumps—it wasn’t that I was a good jumper or that I was a strong jumper, it was that I jumped like a man. It was a compliment, but it was also an exception.

Meanwhile, most of my fandoms are very heavily male. The one time I attempted to write a dance AU was for VLD and I immediately ran into the baffling problem of “There are too many boys.” As someone who’s danced my whole life...this is not (usually) a problem in the real world of dance. If I write AUs about the main characters, I am writing about male dancers. Again, great! We need more positive and varied depictions of men dancing—but it’s not what I want to write.

I wrote out an entire paragraph here only to realize that the crux of the problem is actually the usual crux of my problem with gender in fanfiction and it is, quite simply: I want more well-developed female characters. Because I can write a story about side characters, but there’s so much less to go on — and sometimes, that’s where the fun comes in. Getting to play with and create a wealth of history and character for a written-off member of the cast can be really fun. But, for me at least, the delight of AUs is slipping in and twisting around canon in a new context.

If I write a wangxian ballet AU, Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation can be traded for his switching abruptly to a new studio—one that uses harsh methods, demands too much from him, cuts him off from the people he used to dance with—all so that the money from his tuition can be turned to help Jiang Cheng continue at his chosen academy and pursue dance professionally. It’s a stretch, it’s a twist, but it’s within a frame readers recognize.

If I write a ballet AU with Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing...well, it’s all free form. We have so little to go on that you can make it work—Cloud Recesses becomes a summer intensive, Wen Ruohan’s conquest becomes the buying out and closing of the Jiang academy for some new development—but there’s less resonance. We’re on new ground and the reader has to offer up a lot more trust and disbelief.

Which I suppose leads us to genderbends?? Good lord. I do not know my own feelings about that enough to go anywhere. b l a r g h

so i guess this is all to say: writing good, dance good, writing dance hard. pouty face pouty face pouty face :<

#long post #personal #BEHOLD A VERY VERY VERY RAMBLING LINE OF THOUGHT

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sjrresearch · 3 years

Text

Why Not Wargame World War I or Vietnam?

Historical Wargaming, like many hobbies, has fads. One year, Ancients might be big, or it may be Colonials. The next, World War II. But two periods have not, at least in my own observation, gotten their day in the sun. At least not in US wargaming circles (and I will be speaking almost exclusively to that, as I am less familiar with, though still knowledgeable of, the British wargaming scene).

These periods are the First World War and Vietnam. Both were major conflicts with plenty of research materials available (unlike, say, the Grand Chaco War). Both have libraries of rules and boardgames written for them, but neither, at least not at the cons I’ve attended, are quite the attention-getters that other conflicts do. Why is this? I have some theories as to why.

Just a disclaimer, this is mostly an opinion piece, and your mileage may vary.

American and British Views of the First World War and Vietnam

Let’s face it. Most American wargamers are patriotic folks. We want to play wargames where “our boys” feature prominently. World War II more than fits that bill. World War I does not. By the time the American Expeditionary Force arrived in France in strength in early 1918, the German Army was on its last legs. The Americans arrived in theatre in time to push the Germans off the proverbial cliff when the last German offensive in the west failed. Our active participation in the First World War was barely six months. Our fleets fought no major battles, and by the time we were shuttling troops to Europe, the U-Boat and raider menace was a shadow of what it used to be. In the air, American heroes were made, such as Frank Luke and Eddy Rickenbacker, but they, too, missed the worst of the Allied fortunes of the previous year.

In short, while American forces improved the overall strategic position of the Western Allies, the US Army was poorly prepared for the modern battlefield. Many of the American offensives, in the beginning, used the same types of massed frontal assaults that the British and French had abandoned the previous year due to the horrific casualties involved. The US Army often had to buy equipment from the British and the French to supplement their own needs, as our own industry had not geared up for war by the time the war ended.

In short, our role in the First World War was a minor one, relatively speaking. And that carries through to American wargamers. British wargamers learned a quite different lesson about the First World War from their school classes and their families than we did. We had 4 million men in the military for the First World War, half of that went to France, and half of that saw any combat. Compare that with the Second World War, where you had 15 million Americans in the military. So, for many wargamers of a certain age, they were more likely to have a World War II veteran in the family at some point than a World War I veteran.

In Britain, this was different. Over 5 million men in Great Britain enlisted, which was almost 25% of the male population at the time. Add in the fact that the British lost almost 750,000 men worldwide over four years and the United States lost 110,000 in the space of five or six months, a different image of World War I appears. In the US, it is a conflict we do not game much because nobody pays much attention to it (though, with recent movie releases such as 1917, this seems to be changing). In Britain, World War I is seen as a national tragedy. It is of boys being sent off to the slaughter at places like the Somme and Passandachele. And since Britain is in many ways the “mecca” of hobby wargaming, it is inevitable that a feeling of “No, that’s just not something we want to game out” took hold for an awfully long time.

Moreover, the Western Front was not a war of movement except at the very beginning and end. That is why most boardgames on World War I tend to concentrate either on other theatres (the East is extremely popular), 1914 or 1918. Miniatures games tend to center around the same, or game out the war in the air or at sea.

Vietnam is the opposite in so very many ways. American participation in the conflict was massive from the beginning, and the conflict lasted ten years. Approximately 2.7 million Americans served in Vietnam, and the war showcased some advanced weapons systems on both sides. But it was an unpopular war at home that tore the social fabric of the time asunder. Wargaming in this country truly came of age in the 1970s, and Vietnam was still seen as a “dirty” war, again, one not worth gaming. In British wargaming circles, Vietnam has been big and never really stopped being big. I remember all my British “glossies” (slang for the British Wargaming magazines, named as such for their glossy covers) full of articles on Vietnam.

There was a small uptick in gaming Vietnam in the mid-to-late 1980s in this country, as various movies came out from Hollywood, but the nature of the conflict is not easy to game. Vietnam epitomized the old saying about combat: “Long periods of boredom punctuated by short, sharp moments of sheer terror.” There were long periods of time where patrols would go out and find…nothing. Then a patrol would go out, and all hell would break loose. That is not easy to game. That is the larger truth at the tactical level about counterinsurgency. It’s not how many guerillas you kill, but it’s what you do to use “soft power” to undercut their support. That said, I have seen some good miniatures games on the subject, but most board games on Vietnam seem to be focused on the strategic and operational levels.

Add in the popular beliefs about Vietnam and the men who fought there. None of them were true, but the media popularized them in the day, and popular opinion demonized the soldiers who fought there. Going back to fads, it was not hard to see why American wargamers to this day get a little queasy about gaming Vietnam.

Availability of Games and Miniatures

I am happy to say that times are a-changin’, as the old protest song from the Vietnam-era goes. Perhaps with World War I, there are no veterans in living memory, and there’s better history being done now (especially new history on the tactical innovations developed on the Western front putting an end to the pernicious myth of half-trained boys being slaughtered by uncaring commanders). And with Vietnam in this country, we are starting to see more Vietnam veterans opening up about their experiences and game designers and rules writers listening to them.

So, here is an overview of what is out there both board gaming and miniatures-wise:

Board Games World War I

Ted Racier has written quite a few games on the First World War. It is not a period I game for the most part, but I played the 1918 game back when he published it in Command magazine. I personally think it was one of the three best games Command ever published, and I am glad to see GMT is bringing it back.

We all know what I think of this game, and I think it was a welcome window into the strategic realities of World War I. It is still one of the best Card Driven Games of all time.

I do not own this game, but the premise of doing a worldwide game of the First World War does intrigue me. It seems to put proper focus on economics and diplomacy, with the war of movement slowing down into an attritional model. All in all, it looks good, but if someone who has played it could let me know how it plays, that would be appreciated.

This game has been out for a while, and I had also heard a lot of buzz about it when it was released. Clash of Arms could have had a solid game in this, and I played it once. The rules needed a lot of work and probably could have used the “living rules” concept that other game companies used.

Board Games Vietnam

A note, this is not all-inclusive as there are a lot of Vietnam board games out there. I had to cherry-pick which ones would be of the widest possible interest.

For a while, this game by Victory Games was the game on the Vietnam War. It was truly a monster game and covered every aspect of the war, from pacification to how dedicated the combatants were. It was well-designed and state of the art for its time. Sadly, it is out of print and not cheap to come by, but it is worth it if you can find a copy.

Downtown is probably one of the best games on what goes into planning and running an air campaign out there today. GMT still has the game in print (it is one of two games on Vietnam I own), and I have played it on VASSAL a few times. I really do like it. The designer, Lee Brinscombe-Wood, has gone on to write An Elusive Victory (The Arab-Israeli wars in the air) and The Burning Blue (The Battle of Britain), and Red Storm (A hypothetical Third World War in the skies over Germany) were also written all using the same rules system. The game details well the frustrations faced by the Americans over the skies of North Vietnam. You can purchase a copy here.

Mark H. Walker did some really neat work with his Lock ‘N Load series, and one of the first games in the series was about Vietnam. Lock N’ Load is a system that is at the same level as Squad Leader but is a bit simpler to play, but no less nuanced nor fun. I own the 1st Edition of Band of Heroes and will one of these days go out and get the new versions of the series. All of them play the same, with an emphasis on putting tactical decisions into the hands of the player, keeping the game moving and fun, with most scenarios taking no more than an hour or two. You get all the troop types: US Army, USMC, ARVN, NVA, VC, and yes, even Australians (for those wanting to game out the movie Danger Close). You can get a copy here.

Meatgrinder is a game from the folks at Against the Odds magazine about the last stand of the ARVN at the town of Xuan Loc in 1975. The rules are beautifully written, and the articles that come with the game are incredible reading at times. It is games like this that remind us that there was still a war going on after the US pulled out in 1973, and the fall of South Vietnam had consequences. And it is just a great story of a hell of a stand. You can purchase a copy of the issue and the game here.

This was the game that was on everyone’s minds when it came out in 2014. The COIN series is an innovative set of games designed around a common rule set that games out insurgencies like Cuba in the 1950s, Columbia in the 1990s, and Afghanistan today, as well as Vietnam. I have yet to play any of the COIN games, but I want to. They are all highly recommended and address the problem of counterinsurgency quite well in a strategic context. You can purchase a copy here.

Miniatures Rules for World War I and Vietnam

Richard Clarke has a reputation with Too Fat Lardies for putting out good rules with card-driven mechanics. It is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it can produce a good game. I haven’t played Through the Mud and the Blood myself, but it has very good information on the various armies of the Western Front and the tactics they used, with the rules author making a fine argument that the tactical innovation opened up the stalemate of the Western Front in 1918 (it did). Too Fat Lardies’ products can be found all over the internet or in PDF or physical format on their website.

Peter Pig’s rules are meant for larger-scale fights, where each stand of troops is about a company in size, and the 6’x4’ board is sub-divided into squares and plays something like a board game. I will not say it is my cup of tea but may swear by it. You can buy digital copies via Peter Pig.

There are several rules for World War I also on Wargames Vault, and some, like Westfront, sound intriguing, but take a look for yourself.

Even though Force on Force is still sadly out of print, their Vietnam sourcebook and rules were probably one of the best rules sets out there for gaming the Vietnam war. Happily, PDF copies are still available for sale from the publisher for $20.00. You will need the base rules to play as well, but those are also available on PDF from the publisher.

Two Hour Wargames (THW) has been blurring the line between RPGs and Wargames for a while now and promising (and delivering) games in under two hours. Their Vietnam game is no different, as the game is centered around the idea of your “character” controlling a squad, and like most THW products, the game has very simple rules. There is also a campaign generator for scenarios you can play out on the tabletop. It is a great fun, pulpy take on Vietnam and is well worth the $20.00 price tag. The rules are for sale in PDF and can be found here.

Next week, we’ll discuss miniatures themselves, as that’s going to take an entire article in its own right!

At SJR Research, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse SJR Research’s service on our site at SJR Research.

(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)

#wargaming #vietnam war #world war I #history

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wkm-detective-abe-squad · 4 years

Text

All Together, Prologue and Part 1

Making A Plan

Word Count: 2257

Based on this AHWM AU

Warnings: None

Author’s Notes at the end

Some say that the night is dead, that it is silent and empty, but that is never quite the case. As the moon rises and the world is lulled to sleep there is always someone, somewhere who resists the darkness’s lullaby. An owl, willingly or not, left to their own devices as the stars above make their journey across the skies.

Tonight, however, seemed to be filled with a whole flock, ruffling their feathers as wide eyes search for something far from their grasp, something that cannot be hunted by one alone.

With their skills, their experience, and their hints of jumbled memories, success appears to be in reach, despite the secrets, the conflicts, and the haunting truth.

However,

It is also important to note the average owl’s brain only takes up about ⅓ of its skull.

Which can equate to roughly the size of a thimble in some species.

…

Do with that information as you will.

________________________________________________________________

Blue and red hues colored the moonlight gently streaming into the lab, as the steady hum of machines filled the void with quiet noise. At the hour of 4 am, the halls should have been emptied hours ago, but of course science never sleeps, so neither did the scientist. It wasn’t healthy, she that more than anybody, but she considered it a small price to pay for what was at stake.

At least that’s what she told herself. It was difficult to label what exactly was at stake when nothing simply made sense anymore. Nothing was adding up in the way they should, and the scientific method she held on to appeared to be failing her at every turn.

The first indicator of something being amiss was the time. Yes, staying up till 4 in the morning was horrendous for a person’s circadian rhythm, but that wasn’t the major issue. The major issue was that the sun was shining bright, and the clock was reading 2:37 pm up until she had turned from her desk until just moments ago to be met with darkened windows. Yes, perhaps Einstein’s theory of relativity could be to blame, but she wasn’t that absorbed in her work… okay maybe she was, but even she had to get up once in awhile in the span of roughly 13 hours that had somehow passed in an instant.

The second indicator was a feeling that was gnawing at her from the inside out. A sense of Deja vu that would never leave, a constant feeling of a word stuck on the tip of her tongue, and bits and pieces of memories in her brain that seemed logically impossible, even in her dreams.

What did it all mean?

Despite the piles of handwritten notes strewn across her desk, she felt completely at a loss. At least she had the newly built Time Anomaly Tracker… that she had no recollection of building, to show for.

Maybe she just needed a break from it. Maybe things would make more sense in the morning after what little sleep she could get.

But first she needed to slow down the wheels turning in her mind. It was a good thing there was an old TV in the break room, that should do the trick. It didn’t take her long to plop down onto a dusty couch and grab the remote. Hopefully it would be enough to distract her from all her thoughts.

-click-

“Order your bubbles today-”

-click-

“Welcome to Warfs-”

-click-

“You think she cares? Bad Dog!”

-click-

So picky, she couldn’t help but drone through the different channels until a shaky camera and a stuttering voice caught her attention.

“Hello everybody this is Jim, and this is my associate Jim. Welcome to this Jim News Exclusive -stay low, stay low- Tonight, we bring to you-” the reporter paused for a moment to dramatically point to the camera, as if this was a message directly to Rose Beauregard herself, “live footage from the scene of the crime. The crime of robbery. A robbery so mysterious, so mystifying that no one could even pathom how the the robberors could have broken into this heavily guarded museum in the first place!”

From the way they were sneaking around, it appeared that the reporters had broken into the museum. It was actually quite impressive considering the lines of caution tape that wrapped some exhibits like Christmas presents, the addition of a laser based alarm system, and the obscene number of patrolling guards and policemen that could be easily seen in the background.

"We must be careful Jim we don’t know what dangers may be lurking abo- oh hand me the steak," it was thrown off camera, quickly followed by a distant voice cheering in delight about the free snack, “The Old Steak Trick, works most of the time.”

Soon, maybe a little bit too soon, the Jims approached a very much unlocked and strangely unprotected vault.

“Here it is, the grisly scene. Not one, not seven, not four, but two insidious individuals committed the reprehensible act of theft in this very vault. Yes, the item that once here is no longer here. It has disappeared, off with the perpetrators. We have no confirmation about exactly what it is they actually stole, but we have our theories. It could have been a treasure map or an ancient salt shaker, it may be from another world or the source of a time anomaly, it could be fairy (like the ones we learned about in history class) or the world’s oldest picnic basket, it could be all of these, it could be nothing at all, the possibilities are endless.”

“Now I’m sure many of you watching at home are shaking in utter fear, I am too, but fear not. Thankfully for you innocent, or perhaps not so innocent civilians, justice hit them hard, even harder than how Cousin Jim was hit by that bus, and a great many times quicker. Our inside resource has informed us Jims about the fates of Mark Iplier and his assistant Y/N. They are already locked up, far, far away at Happy Trails Penitentiary to never see the light of day again. We are safe, for now.”

“However, there is still a mystery to be solved. For unknown reasons, the object of question has not been returned to its rightful place. It’s tragic on every degree, that poor stolen object, it must be so scared and alone now that its captors are behind bars. But that is why we have taken it upon ourselves to get answers. And this time I swear, on every Jim ever to Jim, that we will find an answer to whatever, wherever, whenever, and whyever this thing is-”

The Jim’s voice was cut off by another’s, which resulted in the reporters and their sole viewer being being thrown off guard. In their hasty escape, the camera tumbled to the ground, making it even more difficult to decipher who the new person was. From the small glimpse, it didn’t appear like they worked at the museum, nor were they dressed as any law enforcer. Nevertheless, they didn’t seem so glad to see the trespassers.

“You two again!? Why won’t you quit?!?” was the last thing to be heard before the screen was claimed by static.

The scientist simply sat on, dumbfounded by whatever the hell she just watched. Her head was filled with so many questions she wasn’t even sure where to begin. There was a heist at a public museum, yet no one knows what was stolen? How were the perpetrators already in jail? Didn’t the crime just happen? When was the trial? And why did everything seem like it was…

Out of order.

“Mark Iplier… Y/N… A time anomaly”

It all finally clicked.

This had all happened before. Well, sort of. The events were different as far as she remembered. Thankfully it appeared she was no longer in a timeline riddled with the undead and raiders, and undead raiders. However… if she had already destroyed the anomaly before, all of the time-space issues should have been fixed right? Unless, of course, her original hypothesis about of all this was wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t the box causing all the trouble, maybe, it was Y/N and maybe this Mark causing the trouble. The strangeness always seemed to be triggered by them afterall.

Too many of her questions were still left unanswered, which only served to fuel her curiosity and need to fix this once and for all. However, this time Rose was no longer at a complete loss, she now had a lead, which only meant one thing:

Off to Happy Trails Penitentiary.

________________________________________________________________

Blue and red hues colored the moonlight blanketing the courtyard, as the blaring call of ambulance sirens added to the usual chaos of the night. 4 am was too late for any of this, but crime never slept, and apparently neither did any of the criminals. Which in turn led to a very sleep deprived and grouchy warden that now that had to deal with one prisoner being punched through the wall and another pulling off a magic disappearing act.

Not to mention the holes. There was a giant hole in the bottom of his office, several even larger holes in the cell walls, and another that was vaguely human shaped and a little bit too disturbing to deal with at the moment. It felt like the place was built out of goddamn graham crackers.

At least the injured prisoner was properly dealt with, Mark Iplier, or Asshole Mark as the other prisoners called him, broke too many bones for the staff to handle so he was sent off to a nearby hospital to recover. The warden didn’t mind, he was causing too much trouble anyways going off and asking for his personal belongings.

And speaking of the two’s personal belongings, the box they had arrived with just so happened to disappear with Y/N, who was otherwise known as *Insert Ridiculous Prison Nickname Here*. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to open it yet and now it was gone. However, that wasn’t the worst of it. Y/N was gone, or perhaps very good at hide and seek. He was hoping for the latter but after several hours of guards and prisoners counting and looking, it didn’t seem very likely.

The warden was offended on all accounts by the newest prisoner's conduct. There hadn't been a breakout in years and then suddenly they waltz in and think that they could just waltz back out like it was no big deal. Though yet again, he doubted the charade would last long. Most of the criminals of Happy Trails wouldn’t last a day out in the real world. They even sang a song about how they never wanted to leave. It would be soon enough until they came crawling back again, and when they did, they were going to face all the wrath of Warden Dave Murderslaughter. They were going to get rehabilitated harder than they would ever get rehabilitated before, whether they liked it or not.

But for now he had to play the waiting game. Somehow, someway or another, he was going to take the reins over once again. This was his penitentiary after all, and what kind of warden would he be if his jail wasn’t in proper order?

________________________________________________________________

At this hour the world seemed almost monochrome. It was an hour in which one should be snuggled up in bed, or in some cases, a jail cell safe from the dangers of the world. It was for sure not an hour where someone should be braving the summer night’s heat as they wander through tall grass, with no one other than the insects eating them alive as a companion.

Y/N had escaped, that was a given, but that didn’t mean they felt free. Once everyone knew they escaped, the hunt would be on. All they could think of at the moment was to carry on forward, but they knew they’d have to think of a plan eventually. If only Mark was there with them… he was always the one to point out their options.

But now they were all alone, truly alone… Wow, when was the last time that happened? Of course they couldn’t remember, during all these adventures memory never seemed like a necessity. With every bizarre scenario that came along, it was difficult to process the present as it was. Trying to analyze the past was a whole other be a feat in itself. As Yancy said, “The past ain’t the kind of thing to be trifled with.” It was the future they really needed to worry about right now.

They had to forge their way out of this mess somehow, but they couldn’t do it all by themselves. They needed to find Mark, or at least some they could trust, they needed to make sure no one else would be looking for them, and they needed to learn the truth about the box they had gone through so much trouble to steal. In it was a key as far as they knew, but inside they knew that there had to be more going on. Something that perhaps Mark wasn’t telling them about.

So now they had… something that resembled a plan. They were still unsure of the road ahead, but perhaps if they followed that plan… and don’t deviate from it… everything might just turn alright in the end after all.

________________________________________________________________

Thank you for reading, it’s much appreciated :) Future parts should have less POV switching, this is just mainly to set up where each character is at starting out. (Also please don’t quote me on the owl facts, I was just trying my best to make a dramatic metaphor)

Tagging: @thatforgottenbasilisk @thecatchat @statictay @gay-spaghetti @captainsaltypear @chelseareferenced

#markiplier #a heist with markiplier #ahwm #Professor Beauregard #Warden Murderslaughter #Y/N #self insert #Yancy #fanfic #All Together AU #my writing

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symonde · 5 years

Text

Dark sun (part 1- Beckett x mc): 5 years lost

Pairing: Beckett x mc

Book: the Elementalists

Word Count : +/- 2900

Summary: It has been 5 years since Beckett Harrington was forced by his father to leave Penderghast and Joane Raven behind. Now he can return to the place and the people he has missed all these years to finish his PhD.

Author note: this is my first attempt at writing fanfiction and at writing in English since i am not a native speaker. I appreciate every comment and every correction since it will help me improve my writing. I hope you will enjoy my first attempt at a series for the choices book the Elementalists. The characters and the world belongs to Pixelberry Studios.

It had been five years... Beckett hadn't been able to write on his thesis for a whole month since he knew that he would be able to return to Penderghast College of Elemental Magicks for the remaining years to complete his second PhD in "genetic and epigenetic studies of magical predispositions and attunements". He was exited and afraid at the same time...

5 years ago he had graduated in Penderghast, majoring in "evolution of magickal abilities and attunements” and "biochemical reactions to magical influences". It had been 5 years since he walked the wide stone halls of the school he once used to call "home". Even if Penderghast had not been his official home, since his parents lived in a mansion in Galdurin, it had been the first place he felt like he belonged... before his father decided that his only son had to finish his studies in the society of Mr. Shayd - one of his fathers business partners who was also teaching in the elite university of Kawath – in Japan.

During the last 5 years he had missed his favorite tree in the school gardens where he used to study on warm summer days when the air in the library became to dense to breathe properly and not even a humidity-cleansing spell would help. He had missed the herboratory where professor Kontos used to teach him some more advanced Satyr knowledge of the natural influences of magical attunements on Beckett’s request. Most of all however he had missed his friends... - hell who was he kidding - most of all he had missed, and was still missing Joane. In these 5 years there had not been a single day where he had not missed her laugh, the way her red hair seemed to draw his gaze whenever she was near, or how easily he had been able to make her blush... She had shown him how to appreciate lazy sunday mornings and the value of friendship. She had filled his life with warmth and love – a feeling he had not known before in his life nor after...

Since he had been forced to leave her, he would often walk aimlessly in the sun to feel nearer to her. Being a Sun-Att he hoped against all reasoning and knowledge, that she would be able to sense him thinking of her. Leaving her behind without further notice had left him emotionally in a very dark and cold place for multiple month before he was able to summon back the emotional detachment that his father had taught him from a very young age. He knew his education and life had cost his father a fortune since he had been attending the worlds best programs held by the highest decorated professors. His name had opened him the doors to every field of study he wanted and everyone treated him with respect... and professional distance. He had lead a lonely life.

He had often asked himself in these years if he had simply been too happy and therefore had not been able to meet his fathers stiff standards. He had loved her too much... and yet had never been able to tell her these few precious words or how much she really meant to him. It was his greatest regret that she would probably never know just how much she had meant to him. So he did the only thing he knew would keep him from despairing. He buried himself, his thoughts and his aching heart in his studies.

He learned all he could about the fine notions of nature attunements and the human genetics in relation to them. He simulated and tested slight variations in RNA code and had succeeded in identifying the genetic predispositions for magick in humans. This had earned him worldwide recognition in magickal science. Even his father had send him a note “Continue the good work – this is what I am expecting of you – Andrew Harrington the Second ”. Beckett didn’t even care that there was no love in his message. His only hope had been to hear from her – since she would perhaps have heard his name in the news... but it had already been more than 4 years...

The first 3 years of his research, he was forbidden any contact with other magickal institutions or people outside Kawath for confidential reasons. Every correspondence had to go through Mr. Shayd himself before it was delivered. Of course he had written to her, explaining himself and his fathers decisions, but he had never gotten a reply. He wasn’t even allowed to contact people via smartphone outside of the organization, since he was working on the highly classified project of identifying the genetic factors for blood Attunements. He was tempted to do so despite the consequences so many times, he even had a hundredth messages typed out, but decided against sending them every time for it would cost him his sponsorship and his father would make sure he never saw Joane again.

4 years into his research, the note he got from his father had been the last time he heard from him. Three month later his father died unexpectedly of heart failure. How this was even possible would always be a mystery to Beckett since he was fairly sure that his father had no heart. He finished and published his works for Mr. Shayd only two month after his fathers death – not caring if he was respecting the proper etiquette of mourning. He even suspected his father would have approved the efficient continuing of his work.

The real reason for finishing his work in Japan however was, that he was now free to choose – without his fathers influence – at which university to write the wrap-up thesis of his research of the last years. It had only taken him a day to request the transfer papers to Penderghast. A week later Dean Goeffe had already approved his request – proud to welcome such a famous magickal researcher back to his roots. What a farce... he couldn’t care less about her reasons, only that he could go back.

It had taken Beckett exactly 5 hours to pack all his belongings and now, a few days later, he was standing in front of the massive metal gates of Penderghast - that would soon welcome the students for their first classes of the day. It was 6 o’clock in the morning. He hadn’t been able to sleep – his stomach was clenching nervously and his heart seemed to remember after all these years how to ache for something long lost.

He hadn’t heard from her or any of his friends for 5 years. Hadn’t allowed himself to magically research her name in the magical information network “Jinx” – too afraid to face his emotions. Now, standing in front of these gates however he remembered... the smell of her – like fresh lemons and mint,... the warmth that melted all his insides when she smiled at him before throwing herself in his arms at the end of a long day in class,... the feeling of her soft lips pressing small feathery kisses on his chest when she wanted to wake him up delicately on a Sunday morning... and what those kisses often lead to afterwards...

Beckett felt his stomach drop. Why had he come back? This was nothing but pure self inflicted torture. He couldn’t even blame his father if this would cost him his PhD – because he was fairly sure he wouldn’t be able to get his brain to work for the next weeks or months if every step he took inside of Penderghast would be filled with memories of her...

Breathing deeply in and out for a few moments he steadied himself and finally pushed the gate open to find his way to Dean Goeffe. She welcomed him briskly and he felt like he had gone back in time facing the stiff women. She handed him his teaching curriculum and the access codes to the laboratories beneath the school building that would allow him to finish his research. As a PhD student at Penderghast he had to teach at least one class for 6 hours a week. Since the teaching staff was always lacking in the more scientific subjects, Dean Goeffe assigned him to teach the graduating classes in evolution of magickal abilities and attunements which pleased him immensely and he found himself looking forward to it.

After this bit of good news however, Beckett found it hard to focus on the Deans further explanations of the school premises – his thoughts drifting back to the first time he had been to the Deans office with Joane. They had known each other only for a few days and he had been a total jerk to her. Being one of few rare Sun-Attuned and thus born with very powerful magick, he thought her a threat to his position as the best student in Penderghast. Meeting her however had resulted in an emotional storm of unfamiliar feelings for him since he found himself drawn to her sharp wit, her natural ease with people and her sunny temperament. She had him disarmed with her smile before he knew what had happened. The detention they had to fulfil following their misbehaviour in class lead to his first real friendship. During the following months, they challenged each other on every occasion. He had a deep understanding of magical techniques and a lot of discipline, whereas she had the advantage of a quick learning mind and vast amounts of raw magickal power. It always felt like they were balancing each others flaws out – magically and socially. He loved talking about his knowledge of the magickal world and his theories, and she would challenge him in this knowledge – learning more about herself and the magickal world in their mutual discussions then during class, where she preferred socialising with her friends rather than paying attention.

A few month and some disturbing events later, they had become more then friends. Even now Beckett found it hard to believe that someone like her had chosen him instead of someone like Griffin Langley – the Penderghast Thief Captain every college girl seemed to admire and fall for.

It wasn't that he thought badly of himseld, he knew that his looks had not been that bad. A lot of girls had complemented him on it since he had practiced Yoga for years and had started swimming in his second year at Penderghast which had resulted in broader shoulders and a more masculine chest. However he had never understood her decision fully but did his best to make her happy.

He had never been able to converse with people at ease about his feelings, his family or his hobbies (he didn’t have any...). This left him always as some sort of outsider – only when he was with her he felt free. Whether she realized it or not, she had always captivated everyone from the moment she entered a room.

His looks hadn’t changed that much the last five years. Beckett now preferred to leave a slight stubble and his cheekbones had sharpened – which resulted in a surprisingly positive reaction from women. He had entertained a few liaisons with random attractive women – always looking for a piece of her in them. None had lasted more that a few weeks. They weren’t her... what would she look like now?

“Mr. Harrington?...” he heard Dean Goeffes voice cut through his thoughts.

Jeeez Beckett get your stuff together – at least until you are alone... He wasn’t the shy teen that had been horrified by the Dean on his first year at school – he had to behave like the adult credited researcher he was... “I apologize Mrs. Goeffe. I am rather tired from the long flight. I believe it would be best if you could show me to my quarters so that I can take a short nap before meeting my colleagues in the afternoon.”

She eyed him suspiciously as if she knew exactly that he hadn’t been paying attention to any of the other research fields in Penderghast she explained to him during the last hour. However she didn’t want to risk offending him, so she continued “Of course! I will show you to your rooms and office. We will be meeting your co- professors after lunch in the library for your welcome. Please follow me.”

She lead him through some familiar and even some unfamiliar corridors leading to the teachers quarters. A few minutes later he found himself blissfully alone. He installed himself on his bed and pulled a few private belongings from his luggage and changed in his now usual black shirt and jeans. He checked his mailbox and read a few business notes but he couldn’t bring himself to focus appropriately since his thoughts kept going back to Joane.

What was she doing now? They had discussed their future plans on a few occasions. She always wanted to gain a deeper knowledge of the complex relations between Sun and Moon Attunements. They had thought they would both have a lot of time left together at Penderghast as PhD students. Had she taken the sponsored PhD offered to her by the Dean a few days before he left? If so was she still working here? Was she now able to use her full power? Would she hate him?...

As his thoughts threatened to go down that dark road again, he couldn’t bring himself to stay in his room. He decided to get some fresh air and check out the gardens and his study tree. Even before he met Joane, that had been one of the spots on campus where he had always felt at peace. Later the both of them would often meet there to discuss magickal theories and Joane would practice her sun-spells. He would thoroughly write down his observations on her spellwork and check them against scientific theories before sharing and debating them with her. She would often despair at his endless questions about the technique she used and the inner workings of her magick she couldn’t properly describe. She used to say she would just draw the magick from inside her heart. Whereas the magick of the secondary attunements would be drawn out of her belly.

Beckett had never been able to understand her reasoning. All the books taught that magick was innate and used a body’s energy but none specified different regions inside a body to draw magickal power from. He had tried her theory himself on numerous occasions but he wasn’t able to produce any magick like that. However, since he was no Sun-Att he didn’t know if her theory could be scientifically founded or if she was simply unable to put her inner workings into words.

Beckett found himself nearly alone in the gardens, since it was already late September and it was quite cold outside. Slowly he gained a little bit of peace. At 10h15 the classes had already begun and only a few students who had decided that classes weren’t all that important crossed his path. He didn’t care, but hoped he would be able to share with his future students the importance and the fascination of his field of study so that they wouldn’t want to skip his classes.

When he neared the tree he was aiming for, he saw a small figure sitting there from afar, reading a book. His heart started beating faster but as he approached her, he saw that the womens hair was long and a dark shade of auburn, not the natural fiery red of Joane’s hair she used to wear in a short bob. She was also wrapped in a warm winter coat. Joane had constantly and unconsciously emitted a warm glow from inside of her, which resulted in her never needing a jacket outside even in the crisp autumn months – like the sun was warming her from within. Even knowing it couldn’t be her, Beckett felt unsteady getting nearer.

It unsettled him that another person would use their spot now, and he walked over briskly. He thought of something to tell this women that would ensure her leaving and not using this spot again. He knew it was ridiculous since this was public space but it was like a last reminder of what he had shared with Joane and he wasn’t able to let this be taken from him yet.

“Excuse me Miss... would you mind leav...” his words died in his throat when she turned up her head to look at him. She was Joane, but at the same time she wasn’t. Her eyes that once sparkled with golden freckles had turned to a chestnut colour. Her skin had lost its glow and she had lost some weight. It seemed like the sun inside of her had been put out.

When she looked up at him, her eyes went wide for a few moments. “Beckett...?” her voice was only a whisper disbelieving but steady and very cold. There was no trace of the warmth and laughter it used to carry. Her voice now conveyed no emotion at all. They stared at each other for a few moments before she blinked and stood up slowly. She turned around and started to walk away without saying another word...

Not knowing what to do or say Beckett let her go. He felt like he had been shredded into tiny pieces inside. This was terribly wrong... What had happened to her during the last 5 years?

#beckett harrington #beckett x mc #playchoices #choices fic #the elementalists #the elementalists fanfiction #beckett harrington x mc #beckett harrington fanfiction

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itsthelinernotes · 6 years

Text

Do I Need To Know About Music If I Want To Write About It?

Somehow everyone likes Music, but simultaneously we can’t agree on what music we like. So what is it that we’re all in agreement about liking? This makes for a strange bit of sociology in terms of how music is approached and talked about. Since music has this odd type of universality it’s seeped deep into our culture and our discussions of it manifest in some strange ways. My love of music, and later love for philosophy and sociology is what led me to studying why music is so universal but not agreed on for six years and two degrees.

All this time studying music has led me to what I now arrogantly believe may be one of the central contradictions of music which is that it is worthless. I’m not trying to say that it’s worth is = 0 nor am I trying to misdirect with a platitude that it is “priceless” meaning that it’s worth is infinite. What I mean is that it simply cannot be defined in terms of having a worth at all. In computer terms you might consider this as being null. I don’t believe this worthlessness is necessarily bad or even good. What I do mean to point out is that it prevents us from thinking clearly about the role of music. When considering we live in a capitalist hellscape this provides a problem because we can’t assign its value at “infinite” nor can we value it at “0”. This is what I think leads to the never ending arguments surrounding the worth of music, musicians, their work.

Before I go on, I should make this clear: I support every musician in their right to get paid. I wrote my Master’s thesis on the labour rights of musicians and how they are abused. However I have a utopian vision where all music is free for everyone. That vision doesn’t jive with our world and until we have some massive societal revolution, musicians gotta eat and we have to play by the rules of capital for now.

The most frustrating way that this valuelessness manifests is that knowledge about music, be it music theory, music history, sociology of music, whatever, is always valued as a secondary skill even in the industries and structures built around music (I pause here again to remind people that I’m a recovering academic writing blogs on Tumblr, what I’m about to describe is personal, I’m mad about it, maybe that’s improper or biased but it’s how I understand my own experiences). Let me give you a few examples.

After entering the hell of the job market with two music degrees I was encountered with a great deal of false hope. There were actually fairly frequent job postings in or around the “music industries”. This was great for living in a small city, albeit one with a rich musical history. What quickly hit me though is that despite all these music jobs no one was actually looking for anyone who knew anything about music. Go ahead and search “music” on a job board, most of the jobs listed will not have “requires a knowledge of music or musical background” unless you’re teaching (I’ll get to this later). Most jobs in music require marketing, business, social media, administration, event planning, etc. Whats more they require experience in those fields so they are not open to most musicians or people who have dedicated their time to the actual music. I don’t mean to downplay those skills or say they are not relevant, I do mean to say that any actual knowledge of music is rarely prioritized. Of course people with passion for music are attracted to these positions but they can also become bloated with people who enjoy music passively. I guess the issue there is that I don’t know a single person who doesn’t enjoy music.

At this point you’re probably shrugging off my frustration as an idiot who thought studying music instead of literally anything else would help me get employed in music. Well you’re right I am frustrated because even the people I know with music degrees who work in music had to get a second degree or diploma unrelated to music to get that job. You might also say “well there are people who write about music who get hired based on their knowledge of music.” But let me dig at that point.

As someone who keeps a close eye on these job postings I can say with relative confidence that most job postings at major music publications (I recently saw one for Stereogum) require experience in journalism first. Their interest is not in proving that you actually understand the content you’ll be writing about but that you’ll be able to produce content on anything. This is most clearly shown in music reviews. Take any review of a new popular album and jot down a one sentence summary of each paragraph. You don’t have to do much to see that not only do these writers bring up the same points in each review, they often do it in the same order. I don’t say this to slander journalists, I think it’s a noble profession, one I don’t have the skills to do. I do this to point out that if you take an incredibly diverse set of information and give it to people who have been trained to write in a certain way, you’ll get largely the same output. If you don’t, you’ll encounter an editor who, having raised through the same ranks will see that it is. Of course it’s not always the case that journalists get hired to write for these publications (for instance, you may just have connections) but it is very common.

I realize this comes across as arrogant and entitled but I think the question of credentials is an important one. After all, I’ve spent six years writing about music under the scrutiny of academia to be told over and over I don’t have the qualifications to write great content like “Every Radiohead Song Ranked” because I didn’t study journalism. I hosted a campus radio show on music for four years to be told the same thing at a radio station. What seems to be happening is that obviously music is important. We’ll create an infinite amount of publications dedicated to the topic. It has worth. But it’s still second to skills that have value to the institution. What I hear from people hiring in music is “Of course music is important... it’s just not valuable”. My encyclopedic knowledge of music is not welcome in the working world unless it’s tied to another skill that can be more efficiently employed. This is because we can’t actually place value on music the way we can on skills with more quantifiable outputs.

This brings me to education. All through my time studying music I got “so you going to be a teacher?” it was something I found frustrating but I do love to teach so I always said “maybe”. Well recently I figured I might as well look into teaching. Where I live, to get a teaching degree you need to have a certain amount of course hours in “teachable” subjects. There’s band class in every school here and luckily I’ve taken a number of conducting classes and have plenty of class hours in music. When looking at the list of subjects considered “teachable” one has an asterisk next to it. It turns out music can only be your “secondary” teachable meaning you have to have majored in another topic and maybe minored in music. I talk to teachers I know in the province and they say that there are barely any music teachers and they regularly have to try and recruit from outside the province. I called one of the univeristies in my area and they assured me that my masters degree was not applicable and that I can’t even apply to be a teacher with only music credits. What I love about this is that I, as arrogant as it may sound, almost certainly know more about music than anyone teaching it in my province (there is a small program at my alma matter that gives degrees in “music education” but having spent a good deal of time with those people I’m not too worried about competition). More people would have education degrees not from the music education program and instead would all have music as a “secondary”. Meanwhile I’m not even eligible to enter most of the teaching programs here at all.

While this article certainly comes off as the complaints of a dumbass, I think there’s an importance in asking these questions. If you decide to pursue the knowledge of music academically, why is that so often viewed as a bonus to a primary knowledge? Why are our priorities in the music world on non-musical skill sets and knowledge, even in careers that are concerned with music knowledge like teaching and music writing? I don’t think it’s anything to do with the well meaning people I’ve thrown under the bus here and everything to do with our way of measuring value. Or better, our deep inability to deal with things that can’t have value assigned to them. Consider also that every LP when it came out was sold for the same price, but immediately some of them became collectable and would exponentially increase in value while others you would struggle to give away. The universality of price of a new LP in the 60s, a new CD in the 90s or an iTunes single in the 00s was because we just can’t place a value on its contents so we had to concede that every song is worth $0.99. Because a good deal of my identity and work has been put into understanding music now my skill set and that of others is in a weird non-value. Afterall everyone loves music, what’s so special about me?

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racingtoaredlight · 5 years

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RTARL’s NFL Week 7 Extravapalooza

I know this is a football post, but the World Series looks like it’s gonna be great. Verlander, Cole, and Greinke vs. Scherzer, Strasburg, and Corbin is RAD. Especially now that MLB has decided to switch back to the non-juiced baseballs. Nothing says “we care deeply about the integrity of competition” quite like drastically fucking with the league’s official equipment when the games matter most!

The Stros and Nats are very evenly matched in my opinion, but I think I’m gonna take Washington to win based on nothing more than pure bullshit and approximately 25 seconds of thought. Nationals in 6, baby! TAKE IT TO THE BANK!

[looks at my record of picking things]

Congrats to the Houston Astros and their fans!

My picks are in BOLD, and all betting info comes to you courtesy of Vegas Insider.

Last Week’s Record: 6-7

Season Record: 35-49-1

Arizona Cardinals at New York Giants (-3)

Ooh, this is a spicy little meatball of a game. Neither of these teams are what I’d call “good,” nevertheless this one rates very highly on the “Watch ‘Em Up Index” patented by my colleague Starkweather.

The combination of the “West Coast team travelling East to play an early game” scenario and the triumphant return of Saquon Barkley led me to choose New York to prevail in a shootout.

Houston Texans at Indianapolis Colts (-1)

Another good game! The Colts deserve all the credit in the world for not going completely into the tank after Andrew Luck decided to call it a career weeks before the season started. They’re legitimately feisty, and it was wrong for me to ever doubt the powers of Jacoby Brissett.

One thing the Colts do NOT do well is pressure the QB, as they sit at just 26th in the league in Pressure % ( QB pressures (hurries + knockdowns + all sack plays (half and full for players, just full sacks for teams)) per dropback). This leads me to believe that DeShaun Watson will make it through at least one more week without literally exploding into chunks on the field, and when he avoids that he’s usually very good.

Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills (-17)

Holy shit, when was the last time the Bills were favored this heavily? The WAGONS HAVE BEEN CIRCLED! Buffalo QB Josh Allen has played the Dolphins twice in his young career so far, and both times have resulted in an absolute statistical bonanza for fantasy footballers, so if you play DFS or feel like placing any prop bets, I would advise hopping aboard the Allen Train today.

The Dolphins make me sad. Note that they don’t make me CRY, because I’m not Hootie from Hootie and the Blowfish.

Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions (-2)

Man, I feel bad for the Lions. They were boned out of a divisional win on Monday, and now they welcome an even tougher divisional foe on a short week. I still think they’re a good team, but this is a tough spot. My man Kerryon Johnson has NOT had a chance to get it going so far, as for whatever reason the Detroit offensive coordinator is insistent upon trying to run him straight up the middle in obvious running situations as opposed to trying to get him the ball with a bit of space to operate. Seems like a functional running game would take some pressure off of Staff Daddy! Why yes, I am an aggrieved Kerryon Johnson fantasy owner, why do you ask?

The Vikings coming to the realization that their best bet for success is to let Kurt Cousins chuck it all over the yard is hilarious to me, because you know damn well it’s going to cause HC Mike Zimmer’s other eye to explode. His demeanor in press conferences following games where Minny wins after Kurt throws 30+ times could best be described as “just watched his wife’s autopsy.”

Jacksonville Jaguars (-4) at Cincinnati Bengals

Oakland Raiders at Green Bay Packers (-4.5)

I am VERY disappointed that the Raiders have actually been a somewhat competent team so far. Watching Jon Gruden seethe on the sidelines each week was supposed be a major part of my autumn, god damn it. I suppose there’s still time for things to go sideways, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll devolve to quite the level I’d like.

The Packers’ rush defense isn’t very good, which is unfortunate given that they find themselves up against enormous Oakland RB Josh Jacobs this week. Conversely, the best way to attack Oakland is through the air. Despite having Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay isn’t really in a great position to take advantage of this, given the fact that they have basically zero healthy pass-catchers. This game feels like a low-scoring, field-position battle that ends up being decided by a field goal.

Los Angeles Rams (-3) at Atlanta Falcons

I can’t shake the feeling that this game is going to be a blow-out win for the Falcons, and my instincts are NEVER wrong. You know who the Rams’ back-up QB is? That’s right, it’s BLAKE BORTLES! I know it isn’t likely they’d make a switch given Goff’s huge contract, but how many more stinkbombs are they willing to endure before they begin to feel themselves swaying to the siren song of BORT? Jalen Ramsey may demand another trade if that were to happen.

I truly have no idea what the Falcons will do from week-to-week. I mean, I clearly don’t know what ANY team is going to do, but with Atlanta it’s like, EXTRA uncertainty.

San Francisco 49ers (-9.5) at Washington Football Team

The narrative around this game has mostly been “Kyle Shanahan hates the Washington franchise with the fire of 1000 suns and he desperately wants to crush their hopes and dreams,” which is DELIGHTFUL. This game probably isn’t going to be any fun at all for Case Keenum, and then it will be even less fun for poor Dwayne Haskins if the team throws him in there.

The field at Washington is a notorious piece of shit to begin with, and evidently today it’s extremely soggy there. The Over/Under is currently at 39, and pounding the under doesn’t seem like the worst investment in the world if the game’s gonna be a slop-fest featuring one team that wouldn’t be likely to score a whole hell of a lot even in ideal conditions.

Baltimore Ravens at Seattle Seahawks (-3)

In theory, Seattle has the speed and athleticism along their defensive line and in their linebacking corps to keep Lamar Jackson from completely running wild on them. If that’s the case and Lamar is forced to try to beat them mostly with his arm, I don’t think he can do it. Especially given that his best WR, Marquise Brown, is out for this one.

As far as Seattle goes, Russell Wilson is the best. Evidently the national NFL media reads this picks column, because the “Wilson is the MVP frontrunner” chatter began in earnest on all of the talking-head shows this past week following my praise of the mighty DangeRuss. Clearly, nobody was aware that he was good until I brought it to the world’s attention. I’m predicting this is going to be a breakout game for rookie WR DK Metcalf. TE Will Dissly was a big part of Seattle’s passing offense, and those targets have to go somewhere. That coupled with Baltimore’s extremely shaky pass defense likely focusing the bulk of their meager stopping power on Tyler Lockett leads me to believe that DK will feast.

Los Angeles Chargers at Tennessee Titans (-2.5)

In last week’s post I joked that it would be hilarious if San Diego blew a lay-up of a game against the thoroughly depleted Pittsburgh Steelers. Well, it turns out that it wasn’t hilarious, it was actually kind of depressing. Do NOT watch any of this game for any reason.

New Orleans Saints at Chicago Bears (-4)

Trubisky BACK! Whether or not that’s actually good for the Bears long-term is certainly up for debate. At the very least, he’s a much more capable scrambler/runner than Chase Daniel, which I think will come in handy today.

Alvin Kamara being out is huge, obviously. Teddy B not having him around as a world-class safety valve in the face of Chicago’s fearsome pass rush is going to be an issue, I reckon.

This game has the week’s lowest Over/Under (37) for a reason.

Sunday Night Game: Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys (-2.5)

Neither of these teams are playing particularly inspired football as of late, which is nice. At least some of the Cowboys’ issues can be chalked up to injuries to key players, and it appears they’re going to have everyone back for this one. La’el Collins and Tyron Smith coming back is huge (literally LOL!!!) for the offensive line, and Amari Cooper returning to join Michael Gallup gives them a legitimately dangerous pair of WRs.

I’m picking the Cowboys to win here, which feels kind of gross, BUT I think in the long term it will only help from a comedy perspective because it increases the odds of Jason Garrett getting a contract extension.

Monday Night Game: New England Patriots (-9.5) at New York Jets

via GIPHY

#NFL #Sports!#Football

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queervagabond · 7 years

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How were you able to go back to college? Like, I basically failed mine and I just recently dropped out. Everybody keeps telling me to try again, but I'm just so embarrassed about it and I feel like a disappointment.

hey! I really apologize for not getting back sooner and I hope you see this. I have been dealing with finals and I wanted to figure out how to give this question the answer it deserves. If I don’t give a good one, since my strategy ended up being rambling my entire story of the past few years and hope something sticks, you are always welcome to message me or send another ask asking for a better answer.

When I first went to college, I did it because that was just what I was always told to do. Graduate high school and then go to college. Thats how life worked, no leap year, and it had to be a “legitimate college” aka art school was out of the question. So I went to a nice qualified school and I failed. Like all out complete failure. Lost a full ride my first semester and ended up in debt by the end of my second. The only thing I didn’t completely fuck up was the symphony program I was in. I like to say to people that ask that I didn’t fuck up the photo class I was in because that makes more sense than symphony program, but honestly, in the end I even messed that up. And I returned home feeling completely defeated. I wasn’t even metaphorically licking my wounds, I was purposefully letting them fester because I thought I didn’t get to recover from being a disappointment like that. And I didn’t talk to anybody about it because being a dropout can definitely feel embarrassing because of society’s standards (But one thing I had to realize is that everybody has a different personal timeline and I should give the middle finger to the stupid standards)

And for quite a while I was where you were. In theory I wanted it, but I couldn’t even start to imagine trying again. I had felt the fall once and there was no damn way I wanted to experience it again. But after a while, good god did I want it.

I had to get over my absolute terror of failing again. I had to get over all the people that looked down on me for dropping out. I had to get over the fact that I adored the college I first went to and that I couldn’t go back. I had to get over that the opportunities I had been presented there weren’t going to happen again. I had to make sure that I wasn’t pushing myself into something I couldn’t do yet. I had to want it.

Goodness that was a lot of baggage. And honestly, therapy helped a lot. If you have access to that, I highly suggest it. And find one that fits, not all are going to work, and it can be frustrating looking for one but my current one has helped me immensely get to where I am now.

But a tip, want it. Make sure you want it. And find a major and a school that fits you and that you want. Don’t do it because others are telling you to (along with those stupid societal standards,) do it because you want to. Take the time you need to figure everything out, get yourself back onto your two feet, do some introspection(I did A Lot of that,) and take a breather, because if you are like me, you need one even if it seems, at the time, wasteful. I took nearly two years. Seemed like forever but I needed it.

When I applied it ended up happening at 3 am on one of those nights where I want to do everything and see the world and think if I just try enough I can reach the stars. I feared the motivation would go away by morning like every other time so I applied that night and for a while I didn’t tell another living being that I had applied except in whispered anxious excitement to my cat. If I didn’t tell anybody then nobody else’s expectations would be riding on if I got in or not. I got a call at 8 am that woke me and I sat in bed crying for about 2 hours because they wanted me to come in with a portfolio and I interviewed and was damn honest when they asked what happened the past few years and got in and every damn day I am thankful for those terrifying minutes of bravery it took me to apply.

I found my fit at a small school where everybody knows everybody by their first name and I’m open about my past, in my depression and in my major failure, so people can understand me and I made sure I have a lot of support I can fall back onto in case I start slipping again. I went from failing every class I stepped foot in to straight A’s (bragging gives me a sour taste in my mouth a bit but I did this by and I have to remind myself I get to brag sometimes.) And while I had exactly one credit that could have transferred, I decided to not even enter as a transfer student because I wanted a new start.

And yes, I still have the regret. It still weighs on me late at night, full of what if’s. But I also can counter them with What Now? “Where do I go from here” and “Look at where I am now.” I had to make myself stop looking back, and told myself to just move on. You can’t drive a car looking in the rear view mirror, so how the hell was I going to go anywhere in life if I kept looking back.

Also, I quit facebook. Seeing everybody succeeding sure wasn’t helping and I needed to focus on me and not whatever my pseudo-friends from high school were doing. The only reason I didn’t delete it entirely was I needed a way to talk to my brother because he didn’t have a cell phone I could text in South Korea. So maybe you enjoy facebook, but also be careful on how much you look at where others are going and what they’re thinking and just focus on you.

So, want it my friend. Figure out what you want to do. When I express my regrets to my therapist he always points out that I’m just one of those people that sees no point in doing something I don’t enjoy so of course I struggled (and that the depression sure didn’t help lol.)

I can talk so much more about this but I don’t want to turn this into an introspective autobiography, if that hasn’t happened already. I hope this helps.

tldr- I waited until I wanted it like a man in a desert wants water. And a lot of therapy, self-reflection, and reassuring safeguards put in place. That too.

#fp #Anonymous #long post #also carrie fisher's quote of #Stay afraid #but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will fol #*follow #as always and will alway have an impact on my life #it helped me go back tbh #something i live by now

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nobszone · 7 years

Photo

So I was checking my notifications to see which of my posts got the “ @takashi0bump” when I remembered I had this series of asks laying around in my inbox for the past month or so, and I figured now is a good time as any to go over them.

Before we get started, let me apologize to the anon for taking this long to answer. I’ve had a lot going on both on and off the site, and you asked quite a bit here. So I needed a while to get to a point where I felt I was able to properly answer your questions.

So, let’s begin.

First let’s talk about business regulation, and then I’ll give you some of my thoughts on the 2016 election, or at least thoughts that I haven’t had a chance to express yet (anyone who saw my long back-and-forth about a month ago knows I’ve already expressed quite a bit).

I consider myself a Capitalist for two reasons. First and foremost, I believe in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Secondly, as anyone who’s been following this blog will tell you, I’m a huge proponent of individual liberty.

Out of the three economic systems (Capitalism, Socialism, Communism), Capitalism is the one that gives individual people the best chance at achieving wealth and success for themselves. You look at famous American success stories like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Nelson Rockefeller, Howard Hughes and so on. These are all stories that I don’t believe could’ve happened in a Socialist or Communist system.

But I also acknowledge the system isn’t perfect. It has its flaws and failings, some of which have been pointed out in great detail over the course of the last decade. I also am willing to concede that because of the increasing automation of the labor force as well as the development of technology such as AI, Capitalism itself may no longer be viable in as little as 20-30 years.

Because when your workforce is composed of robots, what do you pay them?

Anyway, that’s for another discourse. My point is that while I don’t think Capitalism is the be all end all perfect system for mankind, it’s the best one that we have under the current circumstances as it allows for the most individual freedom as well as gives individual citizens the best chance to achieve wealth and success.

So with that in mind let’s talk about where I stand on regulation.

I’m...mostly against the government interfering with the private sector, but I’m completely open to certain types of regulation.

For example:

Environmental, to ensure that business activities don’t result in serious pollution and/or environmental catastrophe.

Fair labor rules to enforce my above stated belief in an “honest days work for an honest days pay” (though I will freely admit I’m more in favor of right-to-work laws than unions).

Anti-trust regulations to break up monopolies and keep competition alive.

Net Neutrality to ensure the internet remains free and open (Have you all called or emailed your representatives and/or senators, by the way?)

Safeguards to ensure that people buying property or taking out a loan can actually afford to buy said property or pay back said loan (this is mainly to try and prevent a repeat of 2008).

So, some oversight, but not necessarily to the extent that you’d see in a non-Capitalistic system.

I know it’s popular for folks in my generation to rail on about the “evils of Capitalism” (while typing their rants using technology made possible by Capitalism), but there’s certain areas where I think the private sector is much better suited to excel than any government program would ever be.

One example is healthcare.

Let me say up front that I don’t disagree with the idea of a universal high quality healthcare system. Hell I don’t even disagree with the idea of free healthcare for everyone. I think that giving everyone access to high quality healthcare at an affordable price is a goal we should be working towards.

But my issue with acts like the ACA and other systems like the NHS in England is the economics of it.

At the end of the day, a healthcare system that is of high quality, universal and comprehensive while still being affordable is an economic impossibility.

Basically think of the healthcare market as being like a supply and demand curve that you learned about in your Econ class. The “supply” in this case is the number of doctors available, the quality of the care, etc. The “demand” of course is the people needing healthcare. The equilibrium point is where the two meet.

What the ACA and the NHS try to do is set what basically amounts to a price ceiling. They’re saying “okay, health care of <x> quality will not cost any more than <y> dollars.” Which sounds nice for everyone. More people get access to higher quality care, doctors still get paid, everything is peachy.

Problem is, for said price ceiling to be effective, it has to be set below the equilibrium price. So now there’s a gap between the supply and demand lines: a shortage.

In this case a shortage could mean anything from lack of available doctors, a decline in the quality of the care given, waiting times for surgery, things like that.

And if that’s a trade-off you’re willing to make, more power to you. For me? I think it’s counter-productive.

So with that in mind, here’s my radical idea for helping expand healthcare coverage:

Let insurance companies compete across state lines.

Right now, it is illegal to buy health insurance out-of-state. I think lifting this little restriction will do wonders in helping to alleviate the healthcare crisis in America.

While I can’t be certain, I think that private healthcare could indeed become a perfectly competitive market, with all insurers falling towards an equilibrium price. If someone in one state is charging an astronomical amount for coverage, and someone in another state is offering the same coverage for half the cost, people in the first state should be able to buy from the second state.

In a related story, this would also help people in the LGBT+ community. If you live in a state that denies you coverage because you are a non-heteronormative citizen, you should be able to buy from a state that does not discriminate.

Now I don’t know if this would actually work out, the economics of this can be figured out by people much smarter than I am. But I do feel this is an instance where the private sector can do a better job than the government.

Another area I feel the private sector succeeds is in technological development.

Apple and Microsoft come to mind, but the example I like to use the most is SpaceX.

I want you all to repeat this to yourself once a day for the foreseeable future: Elon Musk is taking us to Mars.

SpaceX has only been operating for 15 years, and already they have technology that only made it to the drawing board for NASA. In a year they may be ready to send manned missions into Space, while NASA’s own spacecraft is still at least 2 years, possibly 3, from its first manned flight. And a lot of this is because SpaceX doesn’t have to answer to any bureaucrats in DC. They’re free to use their budget however they wish, while NASA is only given a sliver of the federal budget, and has to justify every dollar they spend.

In a related story, I’m cautiously optimistic about Trump’s plans for NASA. While it seems he has a very basic understanding of how spaceflight actually works, he does seem to have a legitimate interest in manned spaceflight, which is more than I can say for the last administration.

But I digress.

So I hope that clarifies my position on the free market.

Anyway, now I’d like to talk briefly about some trends I’ve noticed on the left and the right in the wake of the election. Since this post has gone on for quite a bit already, I’ll try to keep this part relatively short.

I find myself in a unique position, where for the first time in my life I am legitimately annoyed by both political parties.

The GOP seems to have looked at how the Democrats all but ceased to exist in 1968 and said to themselves “Lets do that.” They’ve made token statements of annoyance at Trump’s antics, but aren’t willing to do what it takes to reign him in. Sadly, I predicted this would happen, as the GOP is mainly trying to tread water until they get through the midterms next year. Sadly this has allowed for some more...fanatical members to make some noise on the federal and state level, people who basically want to say or do anything and they don’t care who they offend in the process.

Meanwhile the Democrats are a total mess right now. As I’ve said before, I cannot believe they actually rejected Socialism before the Republicans got a chance to do so. But that “Feel the Bern” faction that got...well...burned in the 2016 primaries is still angry and vengeful. You have people like Michael Moore calling for all the neoliberal Democrats to be ousted, and to make the Democrats a true Socialist party. At the end of the day, the only thing the Democrats even have to say to the American people right now in regards to why they should vote for them in 2018 is “We’re not the GOP.”

So yeah, you can see why I’m willing to take potshots at both the left and the right at this point in time (much to the imagined horror of high-school age me who was a raging neocon who absolutely would have voted for Donald Trump if he had the chance, but that’s another story).

But here’s something really interesting I’ve noticed.

As the anon in the ask said, there’s a lot of people on the left who feel that they aren’t welcome there anymore, even though the left is the side that, in theory, should be supporting of them. And a lot of this has to do with the fact that there’s this major “our way or the highway” attitude right now with the liberal elite. And you’ve all heard me express my annoyance with the left’s tendency as of late to (as Tom Walker’s Johnathan Pie character so expertly put it) “believe in diversity as long as it’s not diversity of opinion.”

For better or worse, I haven’t seen that on the right.

I mean, there’s been a couple prominent examples of former Republicans saying they can no longer associate with the GOP. Joe Scarborough being the most recent example (though, honestly, who could blame him?), but the fact is that there’s still a lot of differing ideas and philosophies in play right now for the GOP.

Paul Ryan is a big fan of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism, he also supported the auto industry bailouts of 2008 and the Dodd-Frank act.

Rand Paul is a Libertarian (when he feels like calling himself one) who wishes to ban abortion entirely, and while he is not an advocate for decriminalizing marijuana, he is against mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes.

John McCain has come out against universal healthcare (also favoring a free-market solution) and Net Neutrality, but he’s also been one of the most vocal proponents of Native American issues as well as one of the most hawkish voices on the right in regards to Russia.

Donald Trump...well...nobody really knows what he supports, as his statements on his political views can range from inconsistent to downright incoherent, but he has consistently supported medical marijuana, term limits for Congress, and manned exploration of space.

Reminder that the Log Cabin Republicans also exist.

The point is there’s a lot of room on the right for differing viewpoints. And I’ve found that even if people can’t completely agree with the GOP on everything, they still don’t have an issue at least relating to them. I personally don’t see eye-to-eye with the Republicans on everything, but I have no problem voting for them, or describing myself as being conservative on certain issues.

And, most importantly, at no point have I ever felt alienated from my more hardcore GOP friends because my beliefs didn’t align with the party.

So, all things considered, it seems that when it comes to diversity of opinion, the Republicans are doing a better job. Why is that? Well I think it’s because both parties, at their core, have a very different philosophical approach to how they wish the United States to be. Though to be clear, this doesn’t just apply to the US of A, this applies to the left vs right debate pretty much everywhere.

The left’s political philosophies (starting at moderate Liberalism and going all the way to Collectivism) put more emphasis on what’s best for the group. The old “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” cliche. The left’s approach to a problem is to basically say “okay we’re going to try one solution and one solution only, but it’s going to be the solution that benefits everyone in some way.”

In a related story, this is why I think a lot of millennials are gravitating towards the left. Thanks to the Internet, we are the first generation in the history of humanity to have actually been part of a truly global community. And it’s not just in politics where this group mentality comes into play. Hell half the time there’s fandom drama, it’s because someone said something stupid and everyone else decided to get together to prove how wrong they were.

It’s important to realize that our parents and grandparents didn’t have this kind of global community. In fact, for about half a century, they were taught to fear the other, the foreigner, the people with the incompatible lifestyle who were out to destroy you.

This is why I think they gravitated towards the right, because the right (starting at moderate Conservatism and going all the way to Objectivism) focuses more on what’s best for the individual. Whether it’s success in the free market, the right to own a firearm, the right to pick your healthcare provider, etc. The right is more focused on individual liberty. Their approach to a problem is to basically say “okay, everyone try the solution that they feel works best for them.” So that’s what I think it comes down to. And both mindsets have their pros and cons.

The left would restrict individual liberty, but they would also aim to make a world where everyone is treated fairly and has the same quality of life.

The right may not care about those social protections and some people would be better off than others, but they would also aim to make a world that had unlimited freedom and choice.

And this is the important part. Do yourself a favor and write it down on your desktop or something so you can see it every single day. Because in times like these, this cannot be stressed enough:

Neither the right nor the left are inherently evil. They BOTH have villains: the extremists who want to do EVERYTHING one way.

Whether it’s the alt-right or the cntrl-left, those camps just want to stick to their way and their way only. The truth of the matter is that just going one way gets us nowhere, and as much as people in both of those camps like to mock centrists, the answer really does lie somewhere in the middle.

I like to think of America as like a car driving down a road. For the most part, we try to stay in the center. But every so often the road turns or shifts, and we have to adjust to the left or the right to stay where we need. But we should never ever make a hard left or hard right, that would end in disaster.

Alright, so that’s the end of this wall of text. If the original anon is reading this, I again apologize for taking so long and I hope I was able to give you satisfactory answers to at least some of your questions. As for the rest of you, I hope you at least learned a little bit more about how I view the world we live in. If you yourself have any questions about my views on all this, feel free to ask!

#Really Quite Frankly #politics #American Politics #ask #Capitalism

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theliberaltony · 5 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to a special edition of FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Wednesday marked the last day candidates could qualify for the Sept. 12 Democratic primary debate, and in the end there were 21 DNC-approved polls, with 10 candidates able to hit 2 percent support in four qualifying national or early-state polls1 and reach 130,000 unique donors (including at least 400 individual donors in at least 20 states).2

The ten candidates who have qualified are: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang.

So now that we have one debate with the top 10 candidates, how’s that change the dynamics? Who could it help and who could it hurt?

micah (Micah Cohen, managing editor): No. 1 benefiter: Us.

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Yeah, now I get to watch UVA raise its national championship banner on Friday instead.

micah: Back-to-back debate nights are horrible.

sarahf: Now, now — I meant this when I tweeted it earlier — it goes beyond self interest:

Welp, that was pretty anticlimactic, but I'm actually pretty excited for one debate night (and not just for self-interested reasons). Warren & Biden have yet to face off — and in theory, these are the 10 candidates voters are most interested in: https://t.co/nFc682fqn8

— Sarah E. Frostenson (@sfrostenson) August 28, 2019

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Yeah, it helps people who were hoping to make plans on Friday night. And — just full disclosure here — we think it’s pretty cool that the network we work for, ABC News, is gonna get to host the first debate where all the major candidates are on the same stage.

micah: But Sarah, I assume you wanted a more substantive answer that readers will actually be interested in?

sarahf: Yeah, we’re finally about to watch the candidates people are (theoretically) most interested in!! And I, for one, am excited to see Warren and Biden go head-to-head.

What about you all?

micah: Yeah, that’s true. So maybe Democratic voters are the real beneficiaries.

natesilver: I’m not sure it helps voters, to be honest.

I think maybe it hurts voters.

What they could do instead is put all the good candidates on one night and then all the weird ones in a JV debate. That way, people who want to watch the weird candidates still can, but it doesn’t deprive them of the opportunity to see, say, Warren vs. Biden.

geoffrey.skelley: There were plenty of people in my Twitter mentions complaining that there should be two debates with smaller numbers. I think you arguably could have had Biden, Warren, Sanders, Harris and Buttigieg one night, and put the other five on the second night.

sarahf: Are we sure we think that’s a good idea? The JV debates were ridiculed on the GOP side during the 2016 primaries. I just think there’s no good way for the parties to handle the winnowing process, and the candidates had 21 polls to hit 2 percent in, so I’d argue these are the 10 candidates voters are most interested in hearing.

micah: OMG, we just got down to 10 candidates, and people are already complaining that that’s too many!!!?

geoffrey.skelley: In the context of one debate stage, yeah.

natesilver: I think it’s kind of been demonstrated by now that a candidate like Castro or Booker can have a pretty darn good night — and he or she is still overshadowed by what the 4-5 main candidates are doing.

micah: But this is certainly an improvement for voters over two 10-person debates.

Even by your logic, Nate.

natesilver: Hell, have the JV debate first, and then have some system where whoever does best according to a poll of Democratic voters gets a seat on the second night.

geoffrey.skelley: Oh, now that’s fun.

sarahf: But OK … to get back on track …

geoffrey.skelley: Story of Sarah’s life as politics editor.

micah: OK, my

take …

This might also be the most obvious, conventional-wisdom take — but isn’t Biden presented with the most downside risk now that the focus gets tightened to 10 candidates?

Instead of having to worry about mainly one top-tier challenge (Harris or Bernie or whomever), he now risks getting outshone by any or all of them.

The assumption behind this, which might be wrong, is that Biden is a worse performer in these debates than the other top-tier candidates.

natesilver: Doesn’t Biden actually get less speaking time, though, than if there had been two 6-person debates?

micah: Yes, so I guess that’s a plus for him?

But I would argue that the narrative power of being down to one stage and one debate (and thus constricting the number of “viable” candidates) maybe outweighs that.

geoffrey.skelley: Especially since he’s the one candidate trying to stay within the time limits when talking on stage.

I think there’s merit to Micah’s case in that it’s in the interest of the other leading candidates to hit Biden, and now all three candidates who are more or less right behind Biden in the polls all get to attack him.

micah: Right, so the chances of a Warren-Biden dustup increase, but so do the chances of a Harris-Biden, Bernie-Biden or Buttigieg-Biden clash.

Or Beto-Biden!

geoffrey.skelley: Booker-Biden, too.

micah: Klobuchar-Biden!

natesilver: Not to be pedantic — OK, TO BE PEDANTIC — but I don’t think anybody is right behind Biden. He leads by double digits in the polling average.

Also, didn’t everyone go after Biden in the Detroit debate? That didn’t seem to move the needle much, though.

micah: But that’s the point — most of those people who went after Biden were “also-rans.”

To me, Warren going after Biden has more potential to hurt him than the pass-the-torch guy going after Biden.

Even Booker or Klobuchar going after Biden has more potential to hurt him than the more anonymous candidates.

geoffrey.skelley: RIP Eric Swalwell.

sarahf: I guess the flip side of Micah’s argument is that there isn’t necessarily an immediate upside for some of the lower-tier polling candidates like Klobuchar or Castro either.

But perhaps I’m not giving enough credit to how the dynamics of this debate will be different than the previous two.

natesilver: Yeah I think if you’re the Klob, you might actually want a night where it’s just you, Biden and some other rando candidates on stage.

micah: Nate, I’m not sure what argument you’re making.

natesilver: I’m not sure what argument any of us are making.

Look, if you think Warren’s gonna clean Biden’s clock, then it’s good for her that they’re finally on the same stage together.

I don’t think that’s good for, like, KLOBUCHAR though, because all the focus is gonna be on the Warren-Biden confrontation.

micah: But the real question here is how do the dynamics change from two 10-person debates with a mix of top-tier and lower-tier candidates each, to one stage with the top 10. It isn’t whether two six-person debates would be better for Biden.

natesilver: Nothing really matters except that Warren and Biden are gonna be on the same stage.

sarahf:

micah: Except maybe it’s bad for the middle-tier candidates too, such as Klobuchar? (As you said, Nate.)

natesilver: From Biden’s perspective, I think the options are ranked this way: 1) Don’t debate Warren 2) Debate Warren on a 10-person stage 3) Debate Warren on a six-person stage.

micah: And from the Castros, Yangs and Klobuchars of the field it’s the reverse? Right?

geoffrey.skelley: I think those three would have benefited from the two small five- or six-person debates. Now, they could be heavily overshadowed, but there still might be an opportunity on certain issues for one of them to break through — Castro on immigration, for example.

natesilver: Yeah, I think Castro or Klob would rather be part of a smaller debate against Biden, where everyone else is not ganging up on Biden, and certainly not where you have Warren around, who’s gonna command all of the attention.

micah: Agreement!

sarahf: OK … so who exactly stands to benefit from the dynamics of this debate?

natesilver: It’s good for Warren to be guaranteed a slot against Biden. Unless she blows it.

micah: And I would also argue that it’s good for the other top-tier candidates — Harris, Sanders and maybe Buttigieg.

sarahf: It’s certainly make or break for those three, but I’m not sure it’s good, given everything we’ve just said about the Castros, Yangs and Klobuchars of the field.

natesilver: I don’t think it matters much for Bernie either way; he’s always a highly competent, but not spectacular debater, and the circumstances don’t seem to matter much.

micah: That’s fair.

And it’s obviously good for Klobuchar, Castro et. al. in the sense that they made the debate, but they probably would have preferred two nights.

natesilver: Harris is interesting, though. She and Warren have NOT been on the same stage together.

Maybe Harris should go after Warren! Or Bernie!

micah: Warren busting Biden is maybe good for Harris?

natesilver: I think Warren busting Biden is better for Warren than it’s bad for Biden.

Because Biden’s already had one really shitty debate and one OK one and …. well, he’s still polling at 29 percent or whatever. I’m not sure his voters care that much or see the debate the same way that media folks like us do.

micah: So yeah, then maybe it doesn’t help Harris even if Warren gets the better of Biden.

natesilver: WHAT IF HARRIS GOES AFTER WARREN ON THE NATIVE AMERICAN STUFF?!?!? She can be pretty cut-throat.

geoffrey.skelley: With some of the overlap of college-educated voter support for Warren and Harris, you could make a case that Harris should think about going after Warren to win over more of those voters. But I guess I’m having some trouble seeing it. And yeah, no one has criticized Warren for claiming Native American ancestry yet — even though that might be her most obvious non-policy weakness. That could be explosive if it happened.

micah: So the goal there would be to try and win over some of the liberal, white, college-educated support Warren has?

natesilver: I mean, she needs some of Warren’s college-educated white support, and she needs some of Biden’s black support.

She needs both of those things, and right now she has neither, really.

micah: COME OUT FIRING AT EVERYONE!!!!

sarahf: Well, as we learned in our poll of the first debate, while the bulk of Harris’s new supporters came from those who supported Biden, she did also make inroads with voters who were supporting Warren and Buttigieg — so probably a fair amount of white, college-educated voters. And I think it’s definitely plausible that this happens again.

geoffrey.skelley: If Harris is the second choice for a fair number of Warren supporters, there’s an opportunity to convert them to her, too. But yeah, to Nate’s point, Harris really does need some more of Biden’s black support.

micah: And as you note, Sarah, we did find that Biden lost support after the first debate, and much of it went to Harris.

So you do wonder if, had Harris had followed up with a better second debate performance, whether more of that support would have stuck. Which is all to say that I’m not positive Biden’s ~30 percent is all that durable.

sarahf: But OK … is the field now just those 10 candidates? Or what happens to the other 10 candidates FiveThirtyEight considers “major?” Do we expect more dropouts? Or do we think many of the candidates will try and stick it out for the October debate, as the qualifying criteria isn’t changing?

geoffrey.skelley: Given her campaign’s irritation with the debate qualification rules, I think Tulsi Gabbard might stick around to see if she can make the October debate. Tom Steyer is also only one poll away from making the October debate, so he might just keep spending mountains of cash in the early states in the hopes of getting that survey. Marianne Williamson — who knows? But it’s hard to see any other candidates having a chance of making the October debate.

sarahf: Well, you say that, Geoff. But Zach Montellaro over at Politico made an argument earlier in August that the October debate stage could grow, not shrink, and while I’m not totally sure how much it could grow, I do think more than 10 candidates will qualify. So now, I think more candidates on the cusp will stay in the race in the hopes they make the cut.

geoffrey.skelley: Sure, the candidates who weren’t that far away from making the third debate probably want to see if they can get enough polls or donors (or both) to make the fourth one. But everyone else is pretty much done and dusted.

micah: So, if making that October debate is among the more important things at this point in the campaign, do we think Steyer and Gabbard potentially have the most staying power, among the people on the outside looking in for the September debate?

sarahf: I’d think so?

micah: BOLD!

sarahf: And then maybe we get one of these magical six-person debates you all keep talking about.

micah: I like it!

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, I’d say two smaller debate nights in October is quite possible because Steyer was so close to making it, and he can spend millions in Iowa and other early states to try to attract enough notoriety to get 2 percent in one more state-level poll.

natesilver: I mean, I guess Steyer is likely to qualify.

micah: I’m surprised more candidates didn’t at least try to outsmart the system in the way Steyer did.

natesilver: In the abstract, you’d think the DNC would consider putting all candidates on the same stage if there were, say, 11 of them. But it seemed to be pretty clear this time that they were drawing a bright line at 10.

sarahf: I still can’t believe Steyer spent more than $10 million on digital and television advertising since he announced he was running in July — that’s more than any other Democrat in the race and President Trump!!

natesilver: Yeah, are we really sure he’s a winner here, Micah?

He spent a shit-ton of money, he missed the first debate, and maybe he’ll make another debate in six weeks?

micah: Well, just given his overall prospects, I’d say him being currently more likely to make the October debate than Steve Bullock or whomever is a sign he did something smart?

Or maybe I just underrated him from the jump.

natesilver: It’s a sign that that system isn’t set up super well.

micah: Yes, that too.

natesilver: Granted, any system would be exploitable.

But, like, maybe the DNC should subtract X donors for every Y amount you spend,

such that you don’t actually get credit when the cost of fundraising exceeds the amount you receive.

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, there’ve been plenty of complaints that the debate qualification rules create perverse incentives, like spending more money to get the donors you need than the amount you actually pull in per donation.

sarahf: Well, I mean all the polls Steyer has qualified in have been early-state polls, right, Geoff?

So his design on dropping boatloads of money in early states wasn’t exactly misguided.

geoffrey.skelley: Right. He has three qualifying early-state polls and no national polls.

micah: Yeah, I don’t think it’s worked super well for Steyer. But it’s worked a little, at least.

But some rule, like the one Nate describes, would preclude that kind of “gamesmanship.”

sarahf: OK, so we think maybe Steyer and Gabbard stick it out until October, but what about everyone else? Anyone else want to make the bold prediction that Kirsten Gillibrand drops out before the October debate? [Editor’s note: After this chat concluded, Kirsten Gillibrand dropped out of the race, making her the sixth candidate to drop out this summer.]

Seriously, though, do we think a lot of the candidates now drop out?

micah: I’m sure a bunch will drop out.

geoffrey.skelley: I don’t think it’s completely bonkers to think that Gillibrand will drop out.

micah: Who’s most likely?

Yeah, definitely Gillibrand.

natesilver: Gillibrand is in the Jay Inslee category of “someone who has a future to lose.”

micah: Right. And political science research actually shows that having closer ties to the party — and thus having more to lose by staying in toooo long — correlates with dropping out.

natesilver: Although unlike Inslee, she doesn’t have anything to run for this year.

geoffrey.skelley: Gabbard has a congressional seat to defend, though.

But her primary is in August 2020, so she’s got plenty of time until the June candidate filing deadline.

natesilver: But there’s been talk of a primary challenge, right, Geoff?

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, Gabbard does have a legit primary challenger. So that might encourage her to drop out sooner rather than later, and go home to defend her seat.

micah: Maybe Tim Ryan drops out, too?

natesilver: I mean if we got a text alert right now saying Candidate X dropped out, the names we’d be most likely to guess are what? Gillibrand and Bennet-with-one-T?

micah: (

I thought Bennet already dropped out.)

But yeah.

geoffrey.skelley: Ryan actually might be able to wait a bit longer because, technically, he doesn’t have to drop out to seek reelection to his House seat (Ohio law permits candidates to run for president and Congress at the same time.) And Ryan had previously said he would file for reelection while continuing to run for president.

natesilver: Ryan does seem to be having fun on the campaign trail.

breaking: found my running mate pic.twitter.com/b1HsuwLUA7

— Tim Ryan (@TimRyan) August 28, 2019

And he’s getting to do a bunch of podcasts that he’s always wanted to be on and stuff.

geoffrey.skelley: Namaste, Nate.

sarahf: Seems #offbrand with the yoga shirts he’s also selling, but maybe I’m too close-minded.

micah: (Ryan is going for the Harry vote.)

sarahf: I also think Bullock could drop out soon, as I think he, too, could have a future in the party, too (if he wants it).

But maybe Bill de Blasio and Williamson are in for the long haul though, or at the very least, they don’t have the same incentives to drop out.

geoffrey.skelley: Could definitely see Williamson hanging around. Why not?

micah: Yes, let’s argue about de Blasio!

micah: Does de Blasio have a future in the party to worry about? (Drops out.)

Or does he need his campaign to end in a better spot? (Stays in.)

natesilver: de Blasio? More like de Lusional.

I’m not sure why he ever ran in the first place.

sarahf: l o l

One theory I heard tossed about was he was interested in raising his profile for a cushy job at a think tank. But I don’t really get that logic, as I’m not sure how this has helped him.

natesilver: I literally laughed at my own joke out loud. Thank god not very many people are in the office today.

geoffrey.skelley: Maybe de Blasio was annoyed that all these relative nobodies, including the mayor of a small city in Indiana, were running for president — and thought: “Why not me?”

micah: lol

But I’m genuinely not sure if he’ll just stay in forever. Or “save face.” I tend to think the latter?

sarahf: Let’s wrap — the first one-night debate is upon us. Ten candidates have made it, and we’ve talked about who that helps, who that hurts and what we expect of those who haven’t made the stage. Any last thoughts?

micah: I guess my takeaway from this chat is that if everyone thinks that, of the people to have not made the debate, Steyer and Gabbard are the most likely people to make some noise … then I feel pretty comfortable saying that the 2020 Democratic primary is down to the 10 debaters.

geoffrey.skelley: This is definitely an opportunity for Warren to separate herself from the rest of the pack — or to borrow from Nate’s tiers a bit, solidly position herself as a 1B to Biden’s 1A. Right now, there isn’t one obvious alternative to Biden.

micah: Yeah, and in terms of what happens on Sept. 12, I think Geoff is right. Can Warren solidify her a place as 1B?

And maybe also — between Harris and Buttigieg, can one of them push closer to that top three?

natesilver: She’s already a 1B. This is about whether she can become a 1A.

micah:

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Sarah Frostenson #Nate Silver #Micah Cohen and Geo

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some-flyleaves · 7 years

Text

for “no particular reason” some thoughts on stuff I’ve watched/read lately

spoilers ahead but most of these have been out for a while by now

Beauty and the Beast remake

overall entertaining and well-animated, though I still prefer the original

some of the story tweaks were neat and I especially liked the subplot about the cursed servants becoming less sentient(?) as time went on

others were kinda unnecessary imo, the whole opening scene being a glaring example. also giving the Enchantress a bigger role is neat in theory but kinda definitely raises a few Questions

not fond of the autotuned lead singer which is even more obvious comparing soundtracks

the furniture designs cannot grow on me They Simply Can Not, you can’t get nearly as many lines of action or squash & stretch out of a hyperrealistic CGI teapot

on that note the original’s beast design is still the best design, shout-out to my family for calling the live-action prince a “surfer dude”

at the end of the day idk what to make of the LeFou Discourse(TM) but shout-out to the little bit where Potts was like “you’re too good for him [Gaston]” and all things considered I thought it was a biiit more than what those cynical meme posts suggest. mind I’m not sure what I would’ve thought if I didn’t know about the whole shebang beforehand

it was apparently enough to get the film banned in a few countries, which doesn’t equal Instant Representation Pinnacle obviously but ehhhh that’s another topic for another time

Maleficent is still the best live-action “remake” of the films disney’s been churning out lately imo my onion, but I can’t say any of them have really disappointed me? (unless the first Alice counts; all I remember is that it was weird, which I guess is a given considering the source material but idk live action loses so much charm. definitely haven’t watched the second and have no interest in thereof)

anyway Mulan is one of my favorites so fingers crossed...!

Moana

very predictable but heck if that oscar bait song hasn’t been intermittently stuck in my head since

big earworm shout-outs to “You’re Welcome” and “Shiny” too but this website has ruined the latter sequence to an extent because I’m half convinced someone in production there has a vore fetish

in any case that was way too good a villain song for a one-scene show-stealer wtf the fuck

Moana’s voice & overall expressiveness fuels my soul

also it was GORGEOUS, more than compensates for another ~coming of age~ plot with fantastic colors

I have a lot of questions about the sentience of the ocean

what do you mean the Obligatory Animal Companion was a chicken and not the pig

okay ngl I didn’t quite catch the angry volcano spirit woman also being the green lady? I don’t think...? aw heck it’s been a little while by now but the ending was neat

how fucking old is Maui

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle - if you recognize that name it’s because, as I found out after reading, he’s the guy who leads the band responsible for a song I had on repeat hell for at least a couple months after discovering it via this wonderful, wonderful "lyric.. comic... thing” </ungodly run-on>

if this seems completely out of nowhere it’s because it is. I’ve jacketed and shelved a lot of new books, and while a good handful catch my interest, few compel me to check it out before heading home for the day

off the top of my head the other most recent book this happened with was No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale (heads up for a non-graphic image of hanging on the cover), which was... oh holy shit that was over three years ago I don’t read often enough nowadays x_x

that one started strong but, around if not at the point where the protag was making out with the secondary dude, took a sharp turn towards the cliche & general What Is This Fuckery. but I digress

seriously no image on the internet can do this cover justice, the vaguely vaporwave-lookin part is actually very dark and the whole thing shines like one of those rain puddles mixed with.. gasoline? oil?? whatever makes it rainbow-y at a certain angle

I only skimmed the inside flap description before diving right in the night I took it out, and I realized a good chapter or two in that I’d unintentionally picked up a horror novel.

well. kinda? horror-ish?? despite there being no killer on the loose, no supernatural monster on the prowl, not even an invasion of alien farmers federally paid to invade your small town, basically no imminent looming dagger above the protagonist’s head, it’s VERY unsettling for the most part and I gotta give it major kudos for that

<SPOILER class=“mild”>also huge shout-out to the subtle switch to first-person at a key moment, then scattered throughout from there on.</SPOILER> it was at that point I had to reread the description to see what I’d actually gotten myself into and decided I was gonna read this sucker in one sitting or I wouldn’t be able to sleep

(skip this bullet point if you don’t like vague ending spoilers) despite that it manages to leave off on a somber, even sentimental note. pretty darn satisfying, though upon further thought there are a few big questions left unanswered that probably should’ve been addressed. (/vague end spoilers)

overall I’d recommend it if you’re looking for an interesting little read that might send a few chills from atmosphere alone but also makes you think*. just don’t start reading expecting a chapter or two before bed will do help you fall asleep.

*yeah yeah I know “makes you think” is something of a meme phrase at this point, but screw it I like my media when it actually engages the viewer/reader for more satisfying payoff. I’m not a fan of the “lol intellectualis” thing anyway V: but I digress.

Kubo and the Two Strings

ftr the record I called Beetle being the dad from his debut

my god Laika really likes their bugs and creepy hands (based on this and Coraline at least, I’ve seen ParaNorman but don’t remember much). this is absolutely a compliment.

voice acting didn’t thrill me, with the exceptions of the old lady & spirit sisters, but got dang those facial expressions

magic worldbuilding left a lot to be desired but it took place in fantasy China(/Japan? as with The Last Airbender I think we’re looking at another fictional Asian blend) and I for one am a sucker for that so I can let it slide

climactic fight felt kinda shoehorned, when the moon spirit dude showed up looking like a nice old man I almost thought they were gonna go for a less confrontational ending sequence - which I guess it kinda did but also the obligatory “join me and we can rule forever” stuff came up. I dunno I liked the spirit fish form ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

don’t get me wrong here I did enjoy it, I guess I was just expecting a lot more from all the talk about kids being able to handle mature themes and whatnot? ah well the conflict wasn’t quite Good Versus Evil so that was neat

was the moon spirit just a regular old dude all along though? is the moon going to rise again even with him hanging out among mortals? is he mortal now?? how does the Plot Amnesia work???? can someone tell him who he really was even if it’s not flattering??????

idk for some reason I feel like I’m being harsher here than anything else so far, really did enjoy it though. LOVED the 2d animation in the credits and I absolutely must emphasize how fucking awesome the animation is, being primarily stop-motion and all. they set a very high standard with Coraline and cartwheeled over it with Kubo holy hell

also I have a new desktop background

Wings of Fire Book 1: The Dragonet Prophecy - Iiiii actually haven’t finished reading this one just yet, saving the last part for when I finish at least one mcfucking assignment, but here goes nothin:

if you take a shot for every blatant violation of Show Don’t Tell you’ll be dead three chapters in, not sure if that’s because this is a middle-grade book or what

that said I find the plot & its overall direction intriguing enough to continue and, much as I may internally groan at the repetitive characterization and disney villain dialogue, I thought it was worthwhile and already have the next book checked out ;V

what can I say there are dragons there’s a war and it’s a very interesting take on the whole “because you are the Chosen Ones we will raise you here for hero training” deal

there’s also some intriguing worldbuilding with regards to the “scavengers” and “the Scorching,” not sure how much those are covered in this book but a friend who recommended the series in the first place says it’s some kind of post-apocalyptic thing?? nice.

not really related but shout-out to that one commenter in Script Frenzy who told me it was jarring or weird or something to have my dragon protags straight-up eat a few human researchers. I mean they weren’t wrong and it’s not like the WoF good guys have eaten any people (onscreen, at least) but still. I don’t read dragon stories for the humans >:T

in any case, sorta wondering if that one surviving scavenger will come back in any way later...? chekov’s human.

but seriously we don’t need to be beaten over the head with exactly why each dramatic plot twist is indeed dramatic, I could practically hear the manufactured gasps

despite that there are also descriptive passages of fun events like characters getting their necks snapped or screaming in agony as poison seeps through their scales! and we've barely scraped the surface of the Horrors of War!! >:Dc

conclusion of sorts for this disorganized mishmash of bullet points: why yes I am one of those unrelatable fucks who doesn’t buy the whole “I will defend a shitty shebang of a plot if the characters connect” thing how are you. what can I say, even if I don’t have any particular fandoms right now, I still have Thoughts On Media and no one can stop me from throwing a good ~90 minutes into typing ‘em up despite having other responsibilities ;’V

tune in next time for... well honestly I dunno if this is gonna become a regular thing, but whatever thanks for readin feel free to like reply and follow and see you next time on a-flyleaf dot tungler dot corn~

#''no particular reason'' by which I mean Procrastination Supreme #.rtf #*watches this get longer than my current essay in progress* swell!

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novantinuum · 7 years

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Stanford in the Looking Glass (P. 4/9)

AO3

Chapter rating: K

Word count: 1200~

Summary: (Series general) Nine times Stanford Pines looked in the mirror, and his reaction to what he saw reflected there.

(Chapter) Ford enters his new home in Gravity Falls for the very first time, and reflects on lingering anxieties and his hopes for the future.

8 years old | 12 years old | 17 years old

25 years old | 32 years old | 35 years old | 46 years old

? years old | 62 years old

{25 years old}

A crisp November breeze ran fingers through the ends of Stanford Pines's hair as he approached the cozy a-frame cabin nestled between the towering evergreens. He exhaled deeply, a wide smile brightening his face and wisps of warm breath escaping his mouth in a fog.

Home, he marveled, the levity of the thought lifting his cheeks. My home.

All in all, local lumberjack Dan Corduroy completed the project in a masterful fashion. He cut no corners when it came to the quality of the wood or assembly technique, was highly receptive to suggestions in the design, and even gave Ford what he endearingly referred to as "the bachelor's discount." Considering the young graduate had been living on nothing but the barest scraps of grant money for the past five months, (which was technically not allowed by the terms of the grant), he greatly appreciated the consideration. Honestly, he still felt a hint of shame for doubting the man’s capabilities towards the beginning. It was evident by now that Dan truly loved his work and considered it a livelihood.

The aspiring crypto-biologist could only hope he would discover the same sense of fulfillment in his own future work.

Lithely, he spun the key ring around his left index finger, his nerves nearly trembling in excitement. Booted feet quickly scaled the two steps to the front door. He pressed his right palm reverently against the wooden frame, tracing the bumps and ridges of the dark rings still visible through the thick varnish. The young man’s touch remained as gentle as a low midnight’s tide however, as if disturbing this structure might shatter this plane of reality and expose it as nothing more than yet another of his indulgent fantasies. When his eyes locked with their doubles, peering judgmentally out at him from the glass pane of the door's window, he suddenly began to wonder if this were all too good to be true. The soft smile that once tread over his lips began to fade.

The wind picked up again as looming anxiety hit its zenith, grappling with the edges of his long coat and scarf and forcing a shiver from him. Grant. The damned thing. Why must every festering worry that crosses my mind have to link back to that grant? he thought, gritting his teeth. He won it on sheer academic merit alone, didn’t he? It was his! The only major requirement was that at term’s end he produce samples of his research. Proof, one might say. Proof that his benefactors’ money supported a worthwhile scientific cause.

A worthwhile scientific cause. Heavy italics on ‘worthwhile.’

While he sometimes lacked the appropriate social cues to thrive in collaborative environments, Ford was no idiot. He saw the way some members of the academic board scowled at him after he presented his proposal to study this region’s rumored paranormal inhabitants. What he considered indisputable evidence others might dismiss as sheer idiocracy, and then where would he be? Stripped of his funding? Shamed by the entire scientific community? The new embarrassment of his family line?

He squeezed his eyelids shut and allowed the forest's essence to wash over his worries- of mortgages, family members on call, the stress of retaining his funding, the blistering uncertainty of the future, etc. The list inscribed in his mind stretched for miles. But as he smelt the earthy scent of wet dirt after a short lived Oregon rain shower, the unique aroma of freshly fallen pine needles...

Yes, he would be okay.

It was desire that led him to this strange backwoods town, and with a dash of luck and a heaping of scientific theory, this desire would translate into his research as well. He’d find a home here, and one day prove to everyone watching that they were wrong about him.

That everything in this world they considered weird existed for a reason.

His heart burning warmly with a new confidence, Ford inserted the key into the lock and swung the door open. A shadow hung over the entryway, but not one of warning. No, instead- with its darkened, blank walls and pristine floors- his house felt like a beacon of infinite possibilities. An empty field notebook. A plausible, as-of-yet unproved theory.

It took a few moments for him to locate the light switch. Once the incandescent bulbs mounted in the ceiling warmed up and dispelled the entryway's shadows, he reached for his scarf and unwound it from around his neck. Humming contently, he slung the thick cloth over the coat hook on the back of the door.

As he surveyed his new home- preparing a mental map for where he might place various belongings and his scientific equipment- he noticed an unexpected piece of furniture. Propped against the far wall of the entryway was a full length, dark oak framed mirror. He found this rather strange, as he held no recollection of purchasing this. The hints of a smile played at the corner of his mouth as he realized who likely did.

A slip of paper was taped to the edge of the frame. Ford removed it, and began to read:

Welcome (officially) to the neighborhood, Ford! If it's the strange you're looking for, you'll fit in here like a glove. (A six-fingered one, obviously!) Good luck with all that weirdness research, and watch out for tiny woodsmen- they love nibbling on bare ankles. Also, don't fuss with any anti-woodsmen spray sellers. These guys are liars and just want your money! DROPKICKING is way more effective!

Best,

~"Boyish" Dan Corduroy

Ford’s lips curled into a humored smirk as he scanned over the note one last time and slipped it into his pocket to keep for later reference. A surprisingly classy housewarming gift, from what he knew of Dan.

When he glanced up he was greeted by his ever-changing appearance, peering faithfully from the surface of the mirror. Only six months gone since he finally left the hell known as Backupsmore University with two PhDs, (one in evolutionary biology and the other in biochemistry & biophysics), and yet by some nebulous twist in causality he swears he’s matured more in this minuscule span of time than in the last five years. Perhaps— he theorized— this occurred because now, not only did he finally look like an adult, but he finally felt like one, too.

When Stanford Pines entered college five years ago on the cusp of adulthood his cheeks were still pudgy, and his aspirations bordered on nigh-impossibility. He remembers feeling like a kid playing pretend in a father’s ill-fitting clothes on the first day of lecture... the overwhelming sense of panic that rattled his bones as a neighbor silently starred at his hands, at him... the suffocating anxiety of receiving his very first ‘D’ in a scientific focused class and wondering if he even belonged at this damned second rate college...

And yet he survived. He grew, in courage and in stature. He was an adult, unaided, with a mortgage and a degree and plenty of stubble lining the edges of his jaw. The tables were still turned against him, of course. He had a lot to prove, and the scientific world would be against him.

But as Stanford Pines proudly stood in front of that mirror with hands on hips, spine erect, and his trench coat billowing behind him... he figured he was just reckless enough to rise to the occasion.

#wow it's been a while...#my writing stuff #gravity falls #stanford pines #manly dan corduroy #(he's there in spirit)#gravity falls fanfiction

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notapaladin · 3 years

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harmonic orchestra gen fills (pt 3)

I am SUFFERING but it is DONE

ao3

1 (teomitl – we are all hungry and so is the tide)

He is standing on dry land, the heat of the sun baking his limbs, but behind his eyes he's drowning. Behind his eyes is the slosh of lake water hitting the sides of the canals, the shallow green algae-choked depths where the axolotls swim, the hidden sharp rocks and currents that exist to pull the unwary under. In his ears are the dry, chittering songs of the ahuitzotls.

In Tlalocan, the Verdant Land The dead men play at balls, they cast the reeds…

We are hungry, they say. Eat.

He opens his mouth, and his teeth are fangs.

2 (acatl & teomitl – not too shabby)

"I'll row," Teomitl said, and Acatl—who had two perfectly good working arms, thank you very much—winced as they got into the boat. He'd seen Teomitl's rowing. He'd had the...experience of having been in a boat with Teomitl rowing. Generations of his peasant ancestors rolled in their graves every time his noble protege took up an oar.

As he expected, the boat rocked dizzyingly as they pushed off from the pier, and Acatl fought the urge to close his eyes. Traffic on the canals was always something to be contended with, and even the slow pace of a collision wasn't enough to save you if you fell in and got a mouthful of what, for charity's sake, he had to call "water." He'd need to be on his guard; Teomitl would have his hands full just keeping them on a straight course.

So he watched the other boats, and he watched Teomitl, and after a while he felt the anxiety under his breastbone start to ease. He's been practicing. The boat still swerved, and once or twice they bumped the edge of the canal hard enough to jar them both, but at least they were getting to their destination. "Teomitl."

"What?!" Teomitl snapped. He didn't turn around to look at him, but Acatl could feel his glower anyway.

Expecting a reprimand, he realized. If he'd been able, he would have clapped him on the shoulder. As it was, he smiled and called, "You're doing very well. Keep it up."

Teomitl's blush spread all the way over the back of his ears and across his shaved head, but he said nothing. As he turned to check the oncoming traffic at a crossing, Acatl caught the edge of a broad grin.

3 (teomitl – before the sword)

Tomorrow, there will be war. He will march at the head of the Triple Alliance to claim new lands for the Empire, to crush foreign cities' temples under his sandaled feet, to put their warriors to the sword and offer their hearts to the Sun.

That's tomorrow. Tonight he prays, and it is not to the Southern Hummingbird for victory in battle or the Jade Skirt for her favors when they reach the rivers between them and their goals. No, tonight he sheds his blood for the favor of any god who will listen, and he thinks of Mihmatini and Acatl and all their nieces and nephews—all the people he'll be leaving behind.

Please, he prays. Keep them safe. Don't let Acatl overwork himself, don't let Mihmatini make any powerful enemies—please. I won't be able to protect them while I'm gone, so please keep them safe for me.

4 (acatl – even if it wasn’t meant to be)

His parents had wanted both their sons to be warriors. Neutemoc was their golden boy, the one who won fame and glory on the battlefield, who had risen from a peasant boy to a man entrusted with the regalia of a Jaguar Knight. He had made them proud. And Acatl? The second son, the disappointment? He had been strong once, too—strong and clever and his parents' pride, the one who'd went off to study with nobles' sons and could, if he'd applied himself, become just as skilled as his brother.

Instead he became a priest, and neither of them had forgiven him. Priests held the world together, gave honor to the gods—but they were not warriors. For them, there would be no glory, no renown. Acatl had thrown away all chance at that when he'd joined the priests of the Dead, and everyone around him knew it just as soon as they looked at him.

They didn't look deeper. They forgot that even in the calmecac, boys were trained to fight, and when you were reed-slender as your name and lacked the backing of rank and power, you became resourceful.

In short, it shouldn't have been a surprise that, when Quenami put his fists up, Acatl kicked his legs out from under him and went straight for the squishy bits.

5 (teomitl & tizoc – freeze frame)

"You are my brother," Tizoc says, and with the last of his strength he grabs for Teomitl's hand.

Teomitl pulls away. Looks down at him. Remembers a sneering laugh, that peasant's daughter, the clergy of Tlaloc penned like animals as they died weeping blood. Remembers the black edge of an obsidian blade at Acatl's throat. But Tizoc is right, even now—this man, twisted and withered as he's become, is still his brother. For a moment, he hesitates.

(It could have been different. It should have been different. It should never have come to this. If he could choose another path…)

There is no other path. He turns and walks away, and lets his brother die.

6 (mihmatini, nezahual, & teomitl – high school au)

If Nezahual kept poking her between the shoulderblades with his pencil, Mihmatini was going to rip it out of his hand and shove it right in his fucking eye. He was a year younger than her and shouldn't even have been there, but he was in all advanced classes, set to graduate in a few months just like the rest of them, and never let anyone forget it for a second.

"Hey," came the hiss from behind her. "Hey."

Without turning around, she muttered, "What?"

"Your brother. Is he single?"

She didn't have to ask which brother he meant, even when Nezahual jerked his chin forward as though she could possibly miss Acatl setting up another slide on the overhead projector and launching into the next part of the lecture on pre-conquest history that they were all supposed to be taking notes on. "...Yeah. Why?"

"Oh, no reason."

And because he sat behind her, she missed him turning to where Teomitl sat in order to flash him a shit-eating grin and a thumbs'-up—but when Teomitl flipped him off in response, she had a pretty good idea why. She felt like doing the same thing; just because Teo's crush was doomed didn't mean he had to rub it in.

7 (teomitl & nezahual – irises)

They're both Revered Speakers now—and both at least three-quarters drunk, since Nezahual thinks laws don't apply to him and Teomitl's always felt limits are for the weak—so that's what finally gets him to lift his head from the pillow, blink owlishly, and ask, "So what's up with your eyes, anyway?"

Nezahual blinks back. "What do you mean?"

Teomitl waves a hand in the vague direction of his cousin's face. "They're green. Your parents didn't have green eyes. Your siblings don't have green eyes. Nobody has green eyes."

"You do," he points out in a tone that's probably intended to make him sound wise but instead comes out as snippy.

"Only sometimes, with Jade Skirt's magic! Yours are like that all the time." He's actually always sort of wondered if maybe Nezahual's mother looked at a frog too long when she was pregnant, or ate too much sun-dried algae, or made a deal with a witch just so her son would have creepy eyes.

Thinking, apparently, is taking some effort. "...The Feathered Serpent," he finally says. "A mark of Quetzalcoatl's favor."

Teomitl hums. He'd liked the algae theory better.

7 (the high priests, teomitl & tizoc – everything’s worse with zombies)

Quenami, showing the first shred of good sense he'd ever displayed in all the time Acatl had known him, was backing away. Unfortunately for him, he didn't do it fast enough, and the hand slamming against the wall next to his head was enough to stop him in his tracks. He swallowed visibly, clearly striving for calm. "I did say there might be side effects—"

Acatl was going to kill him. "He eats brains!"

"So?" Acamapichtli, alone among all of them, looked unruffled. "It's hardly as though the sacrifices are still going to be using theirs afterwards."

Acatl would probably need an extra pair of hands if he wanted to strangle both of them at once, and even though Teomitl would definitely help—his student had been looking both nauseous and horrified ever since he'd seen what they'd brought his brother back as—it would still cause too much trouble in the long run. Accordingly he stepped back, let Quenami act as though he hadn't just been publicly menaced by a man half a head shorter than him, and took a deep breath. "Right. Our Emperor eats brains. And we're just—just going to live with this, then, is that it?!"

"Not for long," Teomitl muttered.

Acatl thought about the star-demons. He thought about waiting; maybe Tizoc's reign would stabilize. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad.

Then he remembered what he'd seen in the Emperor's chambers, and hoped Teomitl would act quickly.

8 (quenami & acatl – a welcome interruption)

Quenami held his ground, smiled in Acatl’s furious face, and mentally calculated his odds of surviving the next half-hour without incurring any major injuries. They didn’t seem promising. Of course Acatl had no real backers at court aside from Teomitl and knew it, but he was so angry at Quenami’s latest venture—really, how naive, the renovations to the Great Temple had been so long in coming that it was ridiculous to divert funds for something as minor as feeding the peasants—that if Quenami said the wrong thing, it could very easily end in blood.

He just had to figure out the right thing. “I’m sure we’ll find room in the budget for—”

“People are starving in our provinces,” Acatl snarled, and oh, that had definitely not been it.

“Acatl!”

Teomitl’s voice. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Well, Acatl, I suppose you’d best see what he wants.”

Acatl turned and stalked away without another word, and he counted it as a victory.

9 (teomitl – if you’re going through hell, keep going)

The Tlaxcalans were eyeing their borders like a pack of starving coyotes, three border provinces had singularly failed to deliver any of their taxes, and on top of that—as though Teomitl did not have quite enough to deal with, thank you—his brother was gearing up for another war. Not the yearly flower wars, mind you, but a full-scale re-invasion of Meztitlan, entirely as if he'd forgotten the way that city had handed them all their own asses during his coronation war.

Teomitl took a deep breath and rubbed his temples to stave off his building headache. It didn't help. Two more years, he told himself. We'll get through this, Tizoc's reign will stabilize, and then when I take the throne it won't break under me. He just had to be patient. He'd get what he wanted eventually.

He just had to make sure it stayed in one piece until he did. Grimacing, he bent over his supply lists again.

10 (chalchiuhnenetl & teomitl – do you really believe everything you’re told?)

Her sweet, strong, foolish little brother says, "Acatl-tzin told me that I should wait. That trying to take the throne now will break us, worse than anything Tizoc's ever done." He's not looking at her, and though he stands straight as an arrow his voice has the faintest hitch of emotion in it.

She smiles and rises from her seat, gently tilting his head with a hand on his jaw until he's looking her in the eye. "And do you believe everything Acatl-tzin tells you?"

Teomitl turns a dull and unhappy brick red. "He doesn't lie."

"Mmm, no. But he doesn't respect you, does he? He sees only his precious little student, not a man who can make his own choices. He won't realize how wrong he is until we show him." She lets her smile grow. "And we will, won't we?"

When he nods, she knows she has him.

11 (acamapichtli – the joy of a summer storm)

Every year, he sacrifices. Every year, he prays. And every year he hopes—that this will please the Storm Lord, that the blood and maize and precious lives fed to Him will bring the rains they need to strengthen the crops, that never again will He withhold His favor and see them starve and die for lack of water. The canals run so low this time of year that boats are sometimes stuck in the mud, and he searches the skies desperately for rain.

When dark clouds hang thick over the lake, he breathes a little easier. But it's not until the sky breaks in a crack of thunder—until rain's pouring down in sheets so heavy that he can barely see his own hand in front of his face—that he strides out, beaming, to join his priests and give thanks to their patron for His blessings.

12 (acatl – an ordinary courage)

He's only just started to rebuild his relationship with his brother. It's been years—years—since he's spoken to any of his married sisters, and Acatl's honestly not sure he can do it. They have their own lives, their own families, and they certainly never shied away from telling him just what they'd thought of his decision to join the priesthood instead of taking up a profession that would support their parents in their old age.

And yet here he is, standing in front of his sister Icnoyotl's house with gifts of fruit and fine cotton cloaks. Another step, and he'll be past the threshold and into the courtyard. If he's brave enough. If he's not the coward they've always thought him, spine turning to water at the very idea of being thrown out again.

No, he thinks. I can do this.

He takes one step, two, and calls his sister's name.

13 (quenami & tizoc – skewed priorities)

"My lord..." he says as diffidently as he dares. If he's obsequious enough, flatters Tizoc-tzin's vanity enough, he can get away with criticizing him when he really has to—such as when the Revered Speaker of Tenochtitlan, in his infinite wisdom, proposes a certain renovation to the Great Temple that would leave Coyolxauhqui's prison exposed to moonlight even for a moment, giving her a chance to break out and destroy them all. "Might I suggest postponing the start of construction for a week or so? The supplies you requested…"

"Ah, yes!" Tizoc's eyes light up. "You've reminded me. Tell me, have the goldworkers received their orders? I want the top of Huitzilopochtli's shrine to shine like the sun, so that He will know I hold Him in the highest esteem."

Quenami takes a slow breath. Yes, he'd been the one to help Tizoc onto the throne. Yes, he'd been the one to bring him back to life. But after all...this, he's starting to have second thoughts. Maybe having young Teomitl as Emperor wouldn't be so bad after all.

14 (acatl & teomitl – role swap)

A novice priest of Huitzilopochtli and the Emperor’s least warlike (and therefore least favored) brother are as far apart as an ant is from the moon, but now a priestess has gone missing and it’s not as though Ciquacen Acatl can ignore that, not when everything he sees in the stars says a great calamity is coming, so off he goes to the calmecac to find someone who might know more than the useless scraps of gossip he’s picked up from his brothers. He doesn’t find anything so useful as an eyewitness, of course, but when Ceyaxochitl hears he’s on the case she bids him wait while she fetches someone she insists will want to help.

“This,” she tells him as she ushers in a young priest, “is Teomitl. He’s swearing there’s been foul play and we’ve arrested an innocent man.”

“You have,” the boy snaps. He can’t be more than eighteen, proud in the way of the young, and he barely bows at all to Acatl-tzin. “My lord,”—the respect is honest enough, at least—”I saw Elueia before her disappearance, and I don’t think the Jaguar Knight came to kill her. Not with the way she was acting.”

He gestures for someone to bring him paper and ink and a reed pen. He’ll want to take notes. “Tell me everything you saw.”

15 (acatl & neutemoc – I know there’s better brothers, but you’re the only one that’s mine)

Things between them hadn’t been good for over a decade, not since Acatl had joined the priesthood and crushed their parents’ dreams, but he’d thought they’d been getting better. He thought they’d been getting better. They’d been speaking, at least, and Neutemoc had been fighting alongside him. There had been space for something new to grow out of the shattered remnants of what had been.

And now he was lying in the mud, cold and still and not breathing why wasn’t he breathing—

Teomitl’s presence at his side was a bonfire in the drizzling rain, but his voice was as careful as a man picking his way through obsidian shards. “I can bring him back, I think,” he murmured. “He’s not so far gone. But...there will be a price.”

Acatl sucked in a sharp, painful breath. “I’ll pay it.” His voice hitched on what was almost a sob. “I’ll pay it, just—please—he’s my brother—”

Teomitl closed his eyes. “Alright.”

When he opened them again, they were jade from end to end and Chalchiuhtlicue’s voice echoed from his lips. Yes, there would be a price, and Jade Skirt was a cruel and capricious goddess. But Neutemoc was curled over and throwing up stagnant lake water, so Acatl would worry about that later.

16 (acamapichtli & acatl – this ain’t no place for no hero)

The really sad thing is, he can see where it all went wrong; Ceyaxochitl should have taken Acatl more fully under her wing, teaching him the ins and outs of his role before unleashing him upon the court as the new High Priest for the Dead. There is a time and place for a man to be earnest and self-sacrificing, but Acatl’s long past that. Someone should have made sure he realized it before now—before his naivety found him here, in this cage, with Tizoc trying once again to see him dead.

Well, he’ll just have to drive the point home. Acatl’s all snarling anger and a feral sort of common pride, even now that he’s been thoroughly beaten and locked behind stout wooden bars on ground that’s slowly but surely sapping his strength. If he wasn’t so pathetic in his useless determination, Acamapichtli would feel bad for him. He takes a step forward, knowing that the bars are the only thing protecting him, and murmurs, “Foolish Acatl. You think you’re a hero, don’t you.”

Acatl spits at him. It falls short. “Go fuck yourself,” he snarls, and goodness, Teomitl has been a terrible influence on him.

He sighs, shaking his head. “You should have stayed in Coyoacan. Tenochtitlan’s no place for a man like you.” And then, because he can’t resist, he adds, “Teomitl won’t be able to save you from this.”

If the bars weren’t in the way, he’s quite sure Acatl would kill him with his bare hands.

17 (teomitl – ambition, anxiety, adrenaline)

He just barely made it into the tunnel through Tlalocan before he broke down completely. He’d held it together well enough talking with Mihmatini—it had been emotional on both sides, yes, and there had been tears of rage and grief in both their eyes—but he’d managed to keep himself under control until she’d left. (Probably forever; there was no way she’d ever forgive him, but they were at least talking. From there all other things could start.) But then she’d walked away and he’d been standing there alone and he’d taken one more breath—

And it had struck him like a tidal wave. She and Acatl had been injured, had been fighting for their lives, and he’d stood in front of them with his warriors and his blinding lust for the crown and almost—he’d almost—

Gods, what have I done?

At least in the tunnel, he was alone. There were no witnesses as he crumpled to the ever-shifting ground and lost the battle against his tears, no one to hear as they burst out of him in wrenching, painful sobs. He’d wanted to be Revered Speaker, to save the Empire from his brother’s clutches, to lead it to glory. He’d wanted it so badly that, with his sister’s venom in his ear, he hadn’t cared who stood in his way. Mihmatini had just slain a king’s ghost for the sake of the Fifth World—she’d still been bleeding as they talked!—and she’d shown every inclination to slay him too for the same reason, and he would have deserved it. And Acatl...

Steady eyes. A firm, calm voice. “I’m asking this as one man to another.”

Well, he thought bitterly, at least I know he respects me now. He wanted to throw up. If there’d been anything in his stomach, he might have. He’d finally gotten what he’d wanted from the man, and all it had taken was the near-destruction of everything else he loved.

(He could have killed him. Worse—Acatl could have hated him. Teomitl kind of hated himself.)

He sucked in a breath—come on, Ahuitzotl, no more tears—and choked on another wracking sob. No, he wasn’t fit for company yet. But when he was, he had some apologies to make.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #quenami #tizoc #mihmatini #acamapichtli #nezahual #paladin writes stuff

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inexcon · 7 years

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RSI Comm-Link: StarWatch: Ancient Scandals

Send Your Tips to StarWatch!

Get ready, get set, because Callie C is about to go full StarWatch on you. We’ve got the hottest celebrity entertainment news from across the Empire primed to beam direct, with only the freshest of the fresh thanks to our insightful insiders and tenacious tipsters working tirelessly to get the drop for you.

First up, a new fashion trend that’s less about what you wear, and more about what you don’t. Specifically, onola gems. These pale blue incandescent crystals have been showing up on runways all over the place since Opal Sky used them heavily in their Spring ’46 collection. I’m sure some of you deep scanners out there have spotted my festive Venti slips that are just oozing with the suckers. Cute as hell, but that might not be enough to save them from being trashed. A fashion design collective calling themselves Last Impression have started a movement to get manufacturers to boycott the use of the little sparkles. Turns out that the mines in Tyrol where they’re collected may not be the nicest place to work. The group’s been sharing some pretty nasty vid of the poor conditions there, and it’s heartbreaking. Celebrities like Uvara, Karen Masters and Trilo have already joined the boycott effort, and as of right now, so am I. ’Cause fashion is just as much about reflecting who you are on the inside as it is what you look like on the outside, right?

Next, we got some musical mayhem going on. From what we hear, not all is synching on the Cries of Whispers tour. Musically, the pairing of electro-thunk sensation Miss Nomer with the traditional Xi’an choral septet Nyalāth has been earning tons of exube reviews from fans and critics, but apparently, backstage things weren’t as harmonious. Now, we haven’t received deets on exactly what the drama was — I don’t buy for a second the spectrum theory that it’s the food smells coming from Nyalāth’s dressing room — but our tipster’s reporting that Miss Nomer has officially broken her contract and is ending the tour early. While normally this would be devastating news, it has the makings of something a bit more dire since the tour was officially sponsored by the Xi’an government.

Planned as part of the push to get that treaty thing everyone’s been talking about passed, they had hoped this concert tour would spread a little xeno-goodwill around. Definitely an ill omen if Miss Nomer — who had the fortitude to date the infamously annoying Sess Tandi for three whole weeks — can’t make peace with them. With her exiting, the organizers are desperately pinging other musicians to take Miss Nomer’s place. My vote? Raz Ditto. Those otherworldly Xi’an trimonic chords with Raz’s soulful wail? Yes, please.

From there we go to the case of the missing Cass. Tons of you who tuned in to watch the new series Then There Were Three last night were surprised to see the role of Agent Styles played not by infamous gadabout Ellroy Cass, as showcased in the trailer released a few months back, but by the adequately handsome Tyrese Leroc. Reaching out, we got confirmation that the studio decided to “go in a different direction for the role.” Or in other words, they spent a lot of time and credits at the last minute to reshoot all the scenes with Cass so that they wouldn’t be associated with his all-consuming wreck of a life. For those of you keeping track, this is the third major role poor Cass has lost in the wake of his drug fueled crash and burn at the Crimson Tower premiere two months ago. Of course, the first two hadn’t started shooting yet, so this one has got to be stinging a bit more.

I’ll admit it. I’m getting worried about our golden boy. After all his slip-ups and comebacks, has he finally vented all his good will? Scary thought. I’m not sure I want to live in a ‘verse void of his scandals and overacting. I mean, just think about all he’s given us this year alone. Glitter abs? Jumper juice? The phrase “I just cassed out”?

To help him rise phoenix-like once again, I wanted to use a bit of our precious StarWatch time to put all of Cass’s celebrity ass-hatery in proper historical context. And people say this show’s not educational and stuff! I am one hundred percent stoked to welcome friend and historian, Jane Osbar, professor of new media at U of R and author of Pixels and Pain: Digital Emotional Transcendence. For the next couple of shows, she is going to highlight some of the biggest celeb scandals of the past few centuries, all of which make the stuff Cass’s been up to look all kinds of tame.Thanks for being on the show again, Jane!

JANE: You know as soon as you comm, Callie, I come running. Ancient celebrity gossip is my passion.

I am totally picturing a class full of confused students wondering where the heck you are right now.

JANE: No way, they totally know where I am. StarWatch is required viewing for all my classes. Hey, guys!

Are you serious? This might be the most touched I’ve ever been other than that time I got to meet Jo Niar. Surprisingly into hugging, that one. Speaking of inappropriate actions, care to share the first shocker you’ve selected for us?

JANE: I thought we’d start with Gil Taggart from way back in 2762.

Oh man, I love this story. So dark!

JANE: It is definitely a skin crawler. Basically, imagine the most attractive person you can and that was Gil for people back then. When you see the pics of him, it doesn’t quite translate because of the long hair braids, but take my word, those were totally in style.

Our fashion expert, Nisco, has promised me those are coming back but I refuse to believe him. Anyway, Gil. Super-hot.

JANE: Right. He has fame and fortune, and then one day he’s flying to some big party, and his ship runs into some engine trouble. The pilot sends out an emergency signal, but it cuts off almost immediately. It was still on long enough to attract the attention of a nearby repair station, so they send out a trawler just in case there’s some credits to be made. When they approach the ship they can’t raise anyone on the comms, so they send someone over to investigate.

It’s like something straight out of vid.

JANE: They EVA over, cut their way into a hatch, and find the pilot shot to death in a pool of blood in a room with three stasis pods, each one containing a greenish-skinned person also shot to death. Gil is nowhere to be found. And on top of all that, it turns out that the ship had been set to self-destruct, but thanks to the same mechanical problem that had killed the engine, it didn’t work.

Can you imagine finding that on an abandoned ship? Goodbye, sleep.

JANE: It’s even worse once you know what he had been doing with those bodies. The Advocacy would find out that as Gil was getting older, he had been more and more preoccupied about the signs of aging. Somehow he had come to believe that the copper rich blood of people from Lorona would help him stay young, but only if he got it directly from the source. So for going on five years, he had been storing people in those pods and using them for forced blood transfusions. He did them constantly, hence why he had to bring them when he traveled. When the ship broke down, Gil panicked, killed everyone, set the self-destruct and fled.

And no one ever found where he went, right?

JANE: Yup. Vanished. Though there are some rumors in Kesseli that Gil stills roams the caves sucking the blood of the innocent.

How’s that for putting Cass doing a bit too much flow in perspective? At least he’s not vampiring all up on people. On that happy thought, StarWatch is taking a quick break. Don’t you dare go anywhere.

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