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cardentist · 3 years

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I haven’t been in the star trek fandom for very long (I’ve only just started binging the series in the last couple months), so it’s been pretty surprising to find out just how negative the perception of the reboot movies are.

this isn’t coming from the perspective of someone who grew up with the series, so it hit different for me than it might for people with a different relationship to TOS, but I thought it was genuinely clever and Respectful with how it was handled.

To quote leonard nimoy: “Well the alternative timeline gives them license to escape from canon concerns. I can’t see people saying ‘they shouldn’t do that because…’ or ‘that doesn’t tie in to such and such’ because it is a different time and place. Am I right about that?” [Link]

the entire Premise is that the original series happened as it was presented in TOS, but an event late in Spock’s life caused the creation of a parallel universe in which everyone’s lives were significantly altered through two key changes to the timeline. this gives them the freedom to Both revel in fanservice And explore different facets of the characters and their relationships.

the destruction of vulcan Vastly impacts the characters and the plot moving forward, and its a detail that a lot of people take issue with. but the emotional impact of sarek admitting Directly to spock that there is value in his humanity, that his feelings Aren’t wrong, that sarek married amanda because he Loved her cannot be understated. you can read all of these things into sarek as he was in the original series, but he Never had an open conversation about these things with spock. this creates a Believable and Rewarding change in their relationship, where we get to see a different facet of them Because of the changes made. and that’s exactly the appeal. showing us pieces of these characters that we never got in TOS that are nevertheless undeniably Them.

everyone is Different yes, but they’re also fundamentally the same people at their core and that matters.

kirk’s personality obviously takes the biggest change, with him experiencing trauma at a young age, losing his father, and having an implied abusive father figure after that point. he has a harsher personality in reaction to harsher conditions, he’s spikier and harder to love. but he’s also still fundamentally a Good person whose willing to risk everything to help people. he still has what made kirk prime a good captain and a good friend.

I’m not gonna say that it’s the most nuanced story in the world, but it explores a version of kirk that was born from even Less fortunate circumstances than kirk prime, exploring a kirk brimming with potential who learned to bite back after he was kicked down. exploring those themes of trauma and loss, of insecurity and growth, and coming to the conclusion that Fundamentally He Is Capable Of Good isn’t a Bad thing. you don’t have to like it, but his growth into a better person is The Point. they deepened his flaws (all of which were present in a less exaggerated form in TOS) To Show That Growth.

and then of course there’s his relationship with spock.

people are totally justified in not liking that they had a rough start to their relationship, I usually don’t like to see that kind of thing in reboots or hollywood adaptations either, but the way people talk about it is just unfair.

Yes kirk and spock and bones have a very strong relationship in TOS, they also already know each other by the time the show starts. to look at them having to learn to get to know and trust each other when they first meet and say that it’s Bad because they were already full on ride or die for each other in the og series is silly. TOS kirk and spock had to meet and fall in love with each other too, it didn’t just happen over night kings.

secondly, the entire point of the first movie is that Even With reality itself being altered to pull them apart they are fundamentally compatible people that are Bound to each other. they meet each other on bad terms because of circumstances outside of their control, and yet they’re still pulled into each other’s orbit and find the other slotting into place next to them as if they always belonged. one of the first things that spock prime says in the movie is “I am and always will be your friend,” spock and jim are Meant for each other and the movie goes out of its way to explain that. which is what makes it so Weird to see people complaining about how they don’t like each other.

it’s a Different relationship, but it’s absolutely no less steeped in yearning or queer subtext.

speaking of queer subtext ! some people are Very unhappy with spock’s relationship with uhura.

first thing I wanna say is that making the argument that they’re doing anything that the original series hasn’t done is just, completely untrue. kirk has fallen in love with more girls in the og series than he knew what to do with, leonard nimoy was a heartthrob in his time (and he deserves it, awooga) and spock reflects that ! Spock usually turns the women who come onto him down (or when he doesn’t it’s because a plant has literally altered his mind), but there are exceptions to even that. all of three of the main boys have plenty of romance subplots, it happens. if that takes the possibility of them being queer off the table for you (which it shouldn’t, m-spec people exist) then I’m sorry to say that TOS is not exempt.

now, I can understand why Specifically This Relationship could rub people the wrong way or being disappointed that they didn’t outright depict kirk and spock as having a relationship (if not in the first movie then in the following ones after they’ve gotten to know each other), but even in that context the way I’ve seen people talk about it comes off as insensitive.

no, the relationship did not come out of nowhere. they considered having spock and uhura date each other in the original show (and you can see signs of this in the earlier episodes, where uhura very obviously flirts with him and they spend time together in their down time) before they decided against it, and spock was originally going to kiss uhura until shatner insisted that he wanted to do it (because it was the first interracial kiss on tv). [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3]

nichelle nichols was asked about this exact thing (spock and uhura’s relationship in the movie), you can read the interview in full here [Link] but I’d like to highlight this paragraph in particular:

“Now, go back to my participation in Star Trek as Uhura and Leonard (Nimoy) as Spock. There was always a connection between Uhura and Spock. It was the early 60’s, so you couldn’t do what you can do now, but if you will remember, Uhura related to Spock. When she saw the captain lost in space out there in her mirror, it was Spock who consoled her when she went screaming out of her room. When Spock needed an expert to help save the ship, you remember that Uhura put something together and related back to him the famous words, “I don’t know if I can do this. I’m afraid.” And Uhura was the only one who could do a spoof on Spock. Remember the song (in “Charlie X”)? Those were the hints, as far as I’m concerned.”

the film makers looked at the fact there were Hints for uhura and spock, that they were Interested in exploring an interracial couple for the first time (both before and immediately after interracial couples won the right to legally get married) but Couldn’t because of the circumstances of the times and decided to Make that depiction. you don’t have to Like their relationship just because of that fact, but it’s Incredibly reductive to play down it’s significance as just a No Homo cop out. explicitly queer relationships are not the only progressive or culturally important relationships in fiction.

moreover, if you can’t imagine polyamory in the communist utopian future that’s on you.

moreover, this perception that this was a soulless cash grab is just, unfounded.

leonard nimoy returned to the role as spock for the first time in 16 years (since 1991) and this was Entirely because of the respect they had for nimoy, spock as a character, and the franchise as a whole.

Lets look at some quotes from nimoy in interviews regarding the film:

Leonard Nimoy: When I first read the script (...) I immediately contacted J.J. and said “I think it is terrific…I think you guys have done a wonderful job. There is still work to be done, but it is very clear that you and your writers know what you are doing and you know how to do this movie and know what it should be about….and I am very interested.” Then as time went by we worked things out with Paramount, but the most important things were J.J. and the script. (...) I am very pleased about that and I am very comfortable with where this is going. I think the writers have done a terrific job. They have a real sense of the characters and the heart of Star Trek and what it is really all about.

(...)

TrekMovie.com: Now in the case of the new movie you have been retired from acting for years. What was it about this one that made you want to act again and go through the make up again? What was it that made you say ‘I really want to do this?’

Leonard Nimoy: You are right, this is a special situation. First it is Star Trek and so I have to pay attention. I owe that to Star Trek. Second place is that it is J.J. Abrams who I think very highly of, he is a very talented guy. Then came the script and it was very clear that I could make a contribution here. The Spock character that I am playing, the original Spock character, is essential and important to the script. So on the basis of those three elements it was easy to make the decision. So those three things: Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, and an interesting Spock role.

[Link]

Praising the cast playing younger versions of characters from the original 1960s TV series, he [Leonard Nimoy] said: “Let me take the opportunity to say this. Everybody at this table [the cast] are very, very talented and intelligent people.”

“They found their own way to bring that talent and intelligence to this movie, and I think it shows. (...) When Karl Urban introduced himself as Leonard McCoy and shook hands with Chris Pine, I burst into tears. That performance of his is so moving, so touching and so powerful as Doctor McCoy, that I think D. Kelley would be smiling, and maybe in tears as well.”

“The makers of this film reawakened the passion in me that I had when we made the original film and series. I was put back in touch with what I cared about and liked about Star Trek, and why I enjoyed being involved with Star Trek. So, it was an easy way to come on home.”

“[In this Star Trek] they said things and showed me things, and demonstrated the sensibility that I felt very comfortable with, and I think that shows in the movie. I like it.”

[Link 1, Link 2]

again, you don’t have to like it just because leonard nimoy did, you don’t have to Agree. but the idea that nobody working on the film Cared is provably false. near everyone working on the project was already a fan of the series or were excited to be involved and did their homework. it’s genuinely a Miracle just how much of a labor of love this was, and in my opinion you can feel that through the movie itself. I’d highly recommend looking into interviews and behind the scenes details about the movies. they had a respect not just for the source material, but for leonard nimoy as a person.

there’s definitely more I Could say about this, but it’s 4 am now so I’m gonna shelve it jklfdsa

that said! it’s Fine to not like the movie, not everything is going to be suited to everyone’s taste, but the specific criticisms I’ve seen feel very off base

#star trek #kirk #spock #uhura #nichelle nichols #leonard nimoy #star trek aos #aos #star trek tos #tos #meta #long post #hello followers I write essays about star trek now

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cherryblossomriot · 3 years

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i had a dream the other day that was basically a dinluke cowboy au and it has been HAUNTING me, so just allow me to deposit it upon you like my subconscious drop kicked it onto me:

Luke is a disabled veteran who has returned from war one hand lighter and several scars heavier. When he returns, his family, who are heavily involved in the politics/military of this fictional land, don’t understand his now jaded and melancholic view of both the world, but also the ideologies that they so strongly believe in, leading him to constantly feel like an outcast even among the people that he so dearly loves. They’re all passionate and strong-willed, but they still don’t understand, not his struggles with mental health or his new perspective, and it just makes things worse and worse and worse. Anakin is a general, and though he’s seen the gruesomeness of war firsthand, he’s also become desensitized to it and has anger-management issues, so he often almost finds a sort of refuge within the chaos of battle, so he clearly cannot even fathom the emotions and trauma that Luke is trying to sort through, much less know how to deal with them properly. Padme is a senator and cares deeply about the crimes and seemingly senseless violence occurring during the war, but she’s also a politician and knows how to play the long game, so when Luke comes to her, he leaves feeling misunderstood and pushed aside. Leia is the only one who seemingly understands, as the pair of them have a deep, intrinsic bond, but she doesn’t fully grasp Luke’s moods and doesn’t handle his breakdowns and flashbacks well. So everyone feels a little upset, a little unsettled, and a lot like they don’t understand why and how Luke has changed, which leads to Luke feeling more and more out of place within his own family. The war ends relatively soon after Luke’s return, which leads to parades which leads to awards which leads to balls and banquets, all of which Luke is forced to attend, his heart dragging but his head held high, because he’s an Amidala-Skywalker goddammit, and we have a certain responsibility and image to maintain to the public and everyone who endured so much. So Luke has to sit there through awards and boasts of glory and mentions of battle scars and it goes on and on and on, and he has to smile and bear it and accept the medal that they’re giving him because he did such a great service to his country and-he has a panic attack. A nasty one that leads to him having to flee from a ballroom, and outside to the gardens. Once he’s there, he realizes that he doesn’t want to go back in. At all. So he runs away. He just picks a direction and goes, stealing a car on the way (this is a modern au but also fictional countries because I don’t want to get into real politics, hooo boy no siree). In the middle of nowhere, he gets caught in a storm and basically crashes his car and passes out.

But when he wakes up! That’s when the fun begins.

He’s in this cozy sort of bedroom, and this hot guy is fast asleep in the chair beside his bed, and is that a little kid in his lap? Anyway, the hot guy wakes up, introduces himself as Din Djarin in the softest, most attractive voice Luke has ever heard with his own two ears, and doesn’t ask him where he’s from or what he was doing driving in the middle of bumfuck nowhere at 3 in the morning, so Luke is obligated to have a lil crush on him, even though he’s not sure about the kid. So he asks, and Din introduces him to his son Grogu, who waves at him and signs hello, because, as Din explains, he doesn’t speak much, and the foster system wasn’t too kind to him, so he’s got a little bit of trauma to work through. And Luke just, instantly falls in love with this soft dad and his cute little son who can shift his features from the biggest, most pleading puppy eyes ever to the face of a demented gremlin who will try to eat the frog he caught in the backyard, no matter how slimy it is, or how hard it tries to wriggle out of his hands. Din tells Luke that he can stay for however long he needs, because Luke’s kinda injured from his accident, and anyway, once he’s healed up, they always could use another hand on the farm. So Luke stays, and he meets all of Din’s other farm hands (and shitty friends). There’s Boba, who doesn’t talk much, but when he does it’s always something slightly ominous and menacing, and Luke thinks that his name sounds familiar...hey wasn’t he on the news for robbing a couple banks a few years back?...no, surely not..., Fennec, who speaks even less than Boba, and manages to be far, far more intimidating, but also helps Luke with his prosthetic and gives him fun little tips that always sound more like she’s cut off a lot more limbs than she’s lost. Cara Dune (who is not gina carano but i digress) is also there, and she’s just constantly a harbinger of chaos, but will babysit Grogu whenever Din wants to brood and stare longingly into the distance (or at Luke who’s also brooding as the sun sets but shhh). Bo-Katan and the gang are there, and while Bo-Katan grumbles about how the old ranch boss had different/better methods on how to run things, she still follows Din’s lead and helps him with the finances and taxes. They all take to Luke like a wildfire, because Luke is a sunshine boy who can make friends with literally anyone and somehow manages to make Din not only smile but laugh, but also because they can tell he’s got a lot of trauma and pain bubbling just under the surface, and they all silently but collectively agreed a long time ago that they are the patron saints of troubled and lost souls.

When Luke gets better and starts to help out, he’s constantly upset with himself because he used to help out at his aunt and uncle’s farm in the summers when he was a kid, and he knows how to do this stuff, but his prosthetic is really throwing him off and his body has sustained a lot of other injuries that make doing manual labor a much more different experience than it used to be, but everyone is really patient with him and helps him out, especially Din. At one point, Din is so nice that Luke just loses it, because he doesn’t understand how Din can be so kind and so patient, and care about him so much, and kind of calls himself broken and useless in front of Din, and Din gets super protective and grabs his hands (real and prosthetic) and tells him that he’s not broken or useless, and you’re so sweet and wonderful, and can’t you see? Ever since you’ve been here, everyone’s been so much happier, so much lighter. You’ve brought something precious to us, but most of all to me. And they’re standing really close and for a second Luke thinks Din is going to kiss him, but instead, Luke realizes that he’s crying, and Din just wraps his arms around him and holds him.

After that, time sort of blurs, marked by things like Grogu climbing into Luke’s bed because he sensed that he was having a nightmare, and Din waking up to find the pair of them coloring in a serene silence, Luke getting the hang of ranch life and his prosthetic and dealing with his panic attacks and flashbacks as they come, and Din enduring relentless badgering from his friends because hey, if you don’t marry Luke, I will and Fennec, you’re a lesbian and that doesn’t matter, it’ll be a marriage of twink and butch solidarity. And all the while, Din and Luke are spinning closer and closer towards each other, two suns hurtling in their orbit to the other with an inescapable certainty.

When it finally happens, they’ve just gotten back from one of those cowboy dances (idk what they’re called...hoedowns? yeah okay) (and yes, I wanted to hit all of the cliches in the book, thank you very much), and Grogu’s fallen fast asleep on Luke’s shoulder. After they tuck him up all snug in his bed, they head out to the porch, because it’s raining outside, and the steady thrum of water droplets splattering on the roof and on the grass is the most soothing sound Luke has ever heard (aside from Din’s voice), and he’s a little too afraid to go to sleep and ruin his perfect night with a nightmare. They stand there for a while, silence binding them together, shoulders brushing every now and then, hesitant and questioning. Luke thinks about how Din had asked him to dance earlier, his lips tilted in a teasing, but achingly soft smile, and how his heart had pounded a tattoo to the shape of his ribs when they’d pushed up so close together, the fast, rowdy dances of the beginning of the night having faded to something lasting, something meaningful. Luke remembers the ball he’d run away from, how the dancing had been cold, almost jeering in a way, and Luke realizes how far he’s come, how different it is here. And suddenly, there isn’t a question in his mind anymore. He turns toward Din, who turns toward him, and when he leans forward, Din breathes an uncertain “Luke-”, but he doesn’t get to finish the thought. Luke kisses him, and he kisses back, and it’s just them. There are hands in hair and noses nudged together, and at some point, they move, without either of them releasing the other, into the house and into Din’s bedroom. Buttons are unbuttoned, and whole stretches of skin are kissed, and when it’s over, they curl up together, Din tucking his head into the crook of Luke’s neck and falling asleep there.

When they wake up, Luke explains why he came here, why he ran away, all the while Din looks at him with his beautiful dark eyes and runs his hands through Luke’s hair, which is catching the sunlight filtering in through the window and making him look like he has a halo, all the while never once condemning him for keeping it a secret this whole time. After he’s finished, he expects some sort of shocked reaction-after all, his family’s pretty famous, but all Din does is kiss him and ask, “Wait, so you have a twin?”

It’s so unexpected that Luke throws his head back and bursts into uncontrollable, and very contagious peals of laughter, and when he’s finally able to breathe again, he kisses Din’s forehead and murmurs, “I love you.”

Din, who has been touch starved and lonely for years (no time for relationships when you’ve got a business to run and a toddler to raise), tears up and kisses him, too overwhelmed for words. But Luke understands.

And then Grogu pushes his way into the room holding up a box of Frosted Flakes above his head and shaking it, as if to say, I’d like to eat now, please.

Din and Luke stifle their smiles into the other’s shoulder, and when they get up, Luke can’t help but think that he’s finally where he belongs.

----

It takes approximately .5 seconds for all the others to figure out they’re together now, and Cara and Bo-Katan (of all people) start cheering immediately, to Din and Luke’s shock. Boba and Fennec grumble and begrudgingly hand over a huge wad of cash each to Cara and Bo-Katan because they thought it would take them at least another two weeks to get together. Din’s very done with his friends at this point, but he takes one look at Luke’s flustered but smiling face and decides he won’t kill them all this time.

And if everyone thought Luke was a lot of excitement for a humble ranch in the middle of nowhere, then they are in no way, shape, or form, prepared for when his very angry twin sister shows up with a himbo with a shit-eating grin and his 7 foot tall best friend she hired to track her brother down.

(needless to say, Boba punches Han within two minutes of interaction).

#dinluke #dinluke headcanon #dinluke fic #skydalorian #luke skywalker #din djaren #bo-katan kryze #fennec shand #leia organa #they just love each other a lot #and i am but a conduit of that love #Han takes one look at Boba and decides it's his life mission to just annoy the shit out of him #he stays away from fennec though #she's very scary #and she has no time for his dumbass #leia is even more angry and hard to deal with than she usually would be #because not only has her twin brother been missing for like four months #but she has had to deal with han thee peak dumbass solo for at least a week and its driving her insane #Chewwy fits right in #he hangs out with fennec and they go out and shoot cans together #leia hears that luke and din are together now #and she's like #you saw one (1) dilf and couldn't help yourself could you #and din's like #what's a dilf????#and luke is like #it means you're very hot #and leia rolls her eyes

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zedecksiew · 3 years

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Kriegsmesser

When I received Kriegsmesser in the mail I finally googled "kriegsmesser", and found out it meant "war knife". Which makes sense; Gregor Vuga's ZineQuest 2021 project is a tribute to "roleplaying games named after medieval weapons".

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's piss-renaissance Old World setting. I tend to pick up WFRP-a-likes sight unseen:

Warlock (quality);

Small But Vicious Dog (yesss);

Zweihander (which I have come to hate); etc.

Anyway: I backed Kriegsmesser without really knowing anything about it. So Kriegsmesser surprised me.

Kriegsmesser grew out of a Troika! cutting. Its 36 backgrounds are compatible with that system: each come with a couple of lines of description; a list of skills and possessions; an a visual cameo cropped from actual 16th-Century woodcut art.

Cohesive and competently flavourful. My favourite is the Labourer, who always starts with "an empty pine box":

"You've spent your life breaking your back, working hard for other people's profit. You have nothing to show for it but a spectre of the future."

(The obligatory ratcatcher-analogue , called the Vermin Snatcher, is here -- check that box!)

Kriegsmesser also comes with its own ruleset. Hits all the notes it needs to, with lots of orientation and advice for how to run a game -- but ultimately super-simple, mechanically:

Roll d6s equal to the value in a relevant skill, look at the highest result. 6 means you get what you want; 5 or 4 means you get what you want, at a cost.

It's not quite a dice pool, since only the highest result matters. No opposed tests.

Kriegsmesser intends to have this base mechanic handle fights, too. The combat rules - with armour, toughness and weapon values -- are nested in an optional section.

For a WFRP-a-like, this feels like a purposeful departure.

Many of WFRP's most celebrated adventures are celebrated for bits that their underlying ruleset does little to support: the investigative structure of "Shadows Over Bogenhafen"; the complicated timetable of "Rough Night At Three Feathers".

Ludwig von Wittgenstein never needed a statblock to be memorable.

Not to say that lethal, hyper-detailed fights isn't super Warhammer-y. (Kriegsmesser includes an injury table, broken down by body-part -- check that box!)

But here it feels like Gregor is saying: "I'm not Games Workshop and Roleplay isn't an ancillary of Warhammer Fantasy Battle; we can evoke grim-and-perilous-ness even if we fork away from heavy combat rules."

It has become ritual for me to read my partner Sharon to sleep.

Sometimes I read her RPG things. The other night, after I read her Kriegsmesser's introduction --

" The Empire wages an eternal war against Chaos. Its priests preach of Chaos as an intrusion, something unnatural ... These men see Chaos in anything that does not buttress their rule. They call it disorder, anarchy, corruption. They say that to rebel against their order is to rebel against god and nature. That the current arrangement is natural, rather than artificial.

" Meanwhile, the common people look to the Empire to deliver the justice that they were promised and they find none. They look to the Empire and do not see themselves reflected in it. They look around at what they were taught was right and good and see only misery.

" Their world begins to unravel. Chaos comes to reside in every heart and mind sound enough to look at the world and conclude it is broken. "

-- Sharon remarked: "Nice one."

The RPG things I read her generally leave Sharon lukewarm. She has enjoyed a couple -- but, yeah: for many of these books, text isn't their strong point.

Kriegsmesser is the only time I can recall Sharon praising the writing of an RPG book without my prompting.

Nice one.

That introduction surprised me. It underlines Kriegsmesser's biggest departure from its WFRP-a-like pedigree: how it characterises Chaos.

Corruption, a mainstay of most grim-dark-y games, is made an optional rule, like combat. Explaining this, Gregor writes:

" Kriegsmesser partially subverts or deconstructs the traditional conceit of Warhammer where the characters are threatened by the forces of Chaos. In this game it is the player characters who are the agents of 'Chaos': they are likely to become the 'rats' under the streets, and the wild 'beast-men' in the woods bringing civilisation down. It's the Empire and its nobles and priests that are corrupt ... "

Describing the Empire, Gregor writes:

" The Empire encompasses the world yet is terrified of the without. It enforces itself with steel and fire yet considers itself benevolent. It consumes the labour of others with bottomless hunger yet calls its subalterns lazy, or wasteful, or greedy. "

Holy shit this is the first time I've seen the word "subaltern" in an RPG thing, I think?

I love this.

Rant incoming:

With every passing decade Warhammer abridges its Moorcockian roots more and more; nowadays it is "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", pretty much.

Gone are the days when chaos berserkers are implied to grant safe passage to the helpless (because Khorne is as much a god of martial honour as he is a god of bloodletting); Or that the succor of Papa Nurgle is a genuine comfort to the downtrodden; Or that Tzeentch could unironically embody the principle of hope, of change for the better.

As Chaos is distilled into unequivocal villainy, Order goons get painted as Good Guys by default --

Giving rise to Warhammer's contemporary problem, wherein fans are no longer able to recognise satire.

When I was introduced to 40K, it seemed pretty clear that the Imperium was a Brazil-esque absurdist-fascist bureaucratic state: planets are exterminatus-ed due to clerical error; the way it stamps out rebellions is the reason why rebellions begin in the first place.

Tragi-comic grimdarkness. That was the point.

Nowadays that tone has shifted -- and you're more likely than not going to encounter a 40K fan who argues that the Imperium's evils are a justified necessity, to prevent worse wrongs.

We went from:

"Space Nazis because insane dumbass fuckery, also chainswords vroom vroom rule of badass!"

To:

"Space Nazis because it makes sense actually, and also chainswords make sense because [insert convoluted rationalisation here]."

Even Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade line, which ostensibly offers a look at 40K from the perspective of Chaos, never truly commits to its conceit.

With prep you could play a heroic band of mutant freedom fighters, resisting the tyranny of the Evil Imperium --

But I don't remember Black Crusade giving that kind of campaign any actual support. Its supplements service the relatively more conventional "You can play villains!" angle; the Screaming Vortex is a squarely Daemons-vs-Daemons setting.

This tonal drift culminates, in my mind, with Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop's heroic-fantasy replacement of the old WFRP / WHFB setting.

Here's the framing narrative for AoS's recently-launched Third Edition. Let's see whether I've got things right:

A highly professionalised, technologically-superior tip-of-the-spear fighting force (the Stormcast Eternals);

Backed by an imperialist military-industrial complex (Azyrheim);

"Liberating" rich new territories (Ghur) for exploitation by a civilised settler culture (Settlers of Sig-- I mean, Free Cities);

Justified because the locals are irredeemable heathens (Chaos and Kruleboyz).

I mean, that's a sweet-ass Warhammer setting. It's contemporary, laser-guided lampoon. Except it is played totally straight.

In AoS, a literal crusade is justified as the moral good.

I think Kriegsmesser surprised me because its framing of Chaos -- as a promise, as the light of hope shining through cracks of a broken world --

It feels so fucking right.

Yes: its a subaltern deconstruction of the conventional moral universe of Warhammer -- but it is a take that is also already implied / all but supported in the various depictions of the setting: from WFRP to the modified title-crawl of Black Crusade.

I'm annoyed I didn't think of it, myself. Damn you, Gregor!

And I'm annoyed that more Warhammer fans aren't thinking it, also.

lmagine if Kriegsmesser's perspective stood on equal standing as the GW orthodoxy. Imagine if, instead of simplifying stuff into "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", GW did a Gregor Vuga.

You'd have a Rashomon-ed Warhammer, where villainy depends on perspective:

You are fearful villagers, huddled around your priest, muttering prayers against the wild braying coming from the trees beyond your gates.

You are Aqshyian tribeswomen, defying the thunder warrior towering over you, the foreigner demanding you bow to his foreign god.

You are a Tzeentchian revolutionary cell, desperately trying to disrupt a Inquisitor's transmissions so your home planet isn't destroyed by fascist orbital fire.

Get Kriegsmesser HERE.

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( Image sources: https://theenemywithinremixed.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/thoughts-on-the-4e-death-on-the-reik/ https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/59-brazil https://www.deviantart.com/faroldjo/art/Warhammer-40k-Black-Crusade-273596035 https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/09/fancy-a-new-life-bringing-order-to-the-mortal-realms-join-a-dawnbringer-crusade-today/ https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/team-america-15-anniversary-south-park-2558750 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestinian_children_and_Israeli_wall.jpg )

#reviews #kriegsmesser #gregor vuga #warhammer #writing #rants #overthinking #rpgs #wfrp

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redrabbitspod · 4 years

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READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH ROLLING STONE HERE:

(full, designed article. But if you don’t want to follow a magazine layout, read the transcript. Art by @bloodydamnit)

TRANSCRIPT BELOW THE CUT

Red Rabbits: The Rolling Stone Interview

Featuring Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten, and the Red Rabbits Team

By Angie Rodner

On a chilly Monday, Neil Josten and Andrew Minyard are standing side by side, looking at something on Andrew’s phone in our New York, Rolling Stone headquarters. The rest of the Red Rabbits team, consisting of Dan Wilds, Seth Gordon, Renee Walker, Robin Cross, Allison Reynolds, and pro Exy legend/honorable mention Matt Boyd, orbit around them. It's an interesting scene to take in, to say the least. No matter what they seem to be talking about, they all defer to the two hosts without any of them seeming to acknowledge it.

I was lucky enough to sit down with all eight of them, and I’m not ashamed to say I’m a fan of the podcast and I’ve followed since Season 1. The story of Andrew and Neil (formerly known as Nathaniel Wesnisnki, the son of the Nathan Wesninski or the Butcher of Baltimore), and the revelation of their connection they’d shared as kids, was better than any true crime podcast I’d ever listened to.

Now, the team takes on what they’ve dubbed ‘The Case of the Newark 9’ for their second season. It’s a case based around the hunt for a man known only as ‘Steven’, who they believe is responsible for a series of kidnappings and murders of young girls in and around the Newark area. They’re joined by Robin Cross, a victim and survivor of Steven’s, who is helping them investigate the case.

I sat down with Robin and the other women of Red Rabbits first.

What’s it been like to work on this podcast together? Was it strange to go from looking for Neil, to having him in the studio, to watching him and Andrew form the relationship they have?

Dan: It was strange, because in all honesty, it wasn’t strange. Does that make sense? None of us knew about the meeting they had as kids, but when Andrew finally told us, everything made a lot more sense. Really, they belong together. It was much weirder when they first got back and hadn’t acknowledged what was between them yet. We were all just kinda like... are y’all not seeing what we’re seeing?

Renee: They got there eventually.

How have things changed from Season 1 to Season 2? The cases are obviously different, but they still involve missing children. What’s the atmosphere like around the studio?

Dan: Tense.

Allison: I’m not even there that often and I can still feel it.

Robin: It is tense, but there’s also a sense of urgency. We know ‘Steven’ has another girl now, so it’s like every day that goes by is another day he has her... Another day we either find him, or we don’t.

Mm... I can’t imagine how difficult that is. However, with that being said, the NYPD have made it pretty clear that they aren’t buying what you guys are selling. How does that make you feel?

Robin: I don’t feel anything about the NYPD. My anger is better placed elsewhere. I am angry. But the police didn’t listen to me when I was a kid and trying to tell them important information. Why would they listen to me now?

Renee: I think we all try and take our cues from Robin. Andrew and Neil are very careful to include her and get her opinion on certain things before moving forward. We’re not letting this thing with the NYPD deter us.

Speaking of Robin then, what’s it like for you to have her on the team? As one of Steven’s victims that is, there with you in the studio?

Robin: Oh no. Say nice things about me.

Dan: Girl. [ laughs ] Honestly, she’s amazing. She’s my little sister and I’m not just saying that. I think we all kind of feel that way. I’ve never known a person as strong and determined as she is and I know - see she’s blushing! [ laughs again ]- I know she hates it when we talk about her like this, but it’s so true. She’s family now.

Renee: She is, and I think she brings a really unique perspective to the case. We have someone here who’s directly involved, who lived through it and can give us some idea of what the other girls went through. I think most people would really love to have that kind of resource during an investigation.

Allison: For sure. She’s even my muse for my fall line. Everything is going to be deep colors and fun modesty.

Seems like you’ve been properly inducted into the team, Robin.

Robin: [ smiling ] It feels amazing...

Now, last question. Are you confident you’ll find what you’re looking for?

All as one: Yes.

Speaking with the ladies was fun. They were easy and connected and you can tell that there was a real sisterhood in the studio that day. It was refreshing to see women supporting and helping each other thrive in such a competitive industry. There was a lot of laughter between them, and it was such a joy to be able to share it with them.

My next interviewees were Seth Gordon, ‘resident TFN sound engineer/IT guy/anything to do with technology’, as he tells it, and New York Lynxes starting backliner, Matt Boyd. When I tell you I laughed throughout this entire interview, I’m being completely sincere. There was something about the way the two bounced off each other that had me smiling and understanding why they are both so well-liked.

You guys are best friends aren’t you? I feel a bromance in this Chilli’s tonight.

Seth: Bet. Matt Boyd is my homie and BFFL. Do people still say that? Anyway, we have matching necklaces and everything.

Do you really?

Matt: No, not really, but I’d totally wear one if he gave it to me.

[ laughing ] Matt, how did you even end up here? I know you were friends with Neil, but I feel like the details on that are kind of murky.

Matt: I hit him with my truck. [ My jaw dropped ] No, really! I hit him with my truck in Midtown Manhattan when I was driving home. He refused to go to the hospital so I brought him back to my place to make sure he was okay. He didn’t leave after that.

Seth: Because you held him hostage? That’s the way I hear it.

Matt: Oh yeah, for sure. He takes up so little space, why not? [ laughs again ] No really, I did convince him to stay, but I just felt like he needed a friend. He was obviously running from something and he was scared. I just didn’t know from what or why at the time.

And when you found out?

Matt: Honestly? I just about shit myself, but it made so much sense. All the little questions I asked myself early on, finally had answers.

I saw the interview you and Dan did with Essence. You guys look amazing together.

Seth: They are amazing together. It’s gross.

Matt: Yeah, and you and Dion aren’t constantly fawning all over each other.

Is that Dion hovering nearby?

Seth: Yep, that’s my man. He’s amazing and fuckin’ fine as hell. Can I say fuck in this interview?

Sure.

Seth: He’s fuckin’ fine.

Seth, what’s it been like for you, putting together the shows? There’s been a lot of audio that’s hard for us as listeners to hear, and I’m sure there’s more we haven’t even heard.

Seth: There is.

What’s that like for you to have to go through it all?

Seth: Really hard sometimes. There was some stuff in Season 1 we didn’t air that seriously gave me nightmares. It’s worth it, though. We found Neil and I think we’ll find Steven.

Are both of you confident in that fact?

Seth: Positive.

Matt: I think if anyone can find him, it’s Andrew and Neil. They’re determined and they’ll keep looking no matter what.

I believe them.

Andrew and Neil were my last interview of the day, and a more determined pair I think I’ve ever met.

Here’s the thing readers: They’re connected. It might make me a poor journalist, but I don’t know how else to explain it. At one point during the interview, Neil reached over to squeeze Andrew’s arm. At another point, Andrew reached over to squeeze the back of Neil’s neck. They were obviously a comfort to and for each other, and it almost seemed like they borrowed strength. It was intense and being able to witness it has been one of my favorite moments in my career.

So, let’s talk about this season before we get into everything else. You’re looking for a man you believe to be responsible for the disappearances of multiple girls in the Newark area. Do you feel like you’re any closer to solving the mystery than you were at the beginning?

Neil: Absolutely. We’ve gotten some really great tips and we think we’ve narrowed some things down. We don’t want to get too deep into what we’ve got at the moment, because we’re still investigating. But we’re confident in what we have.

What’s it been like working with Robin? I was able to interview her earlier, and she’s really something.

Andrew: She’s been the best resource we have. She’s incredibly strong and unbelievably quick. She’s taken this terrible thing that happened to her and turned it into fire, and it’s been amazing to watch. Most of the information we have comes from her.

The interview you guys did with her was absolutely chilling. I cried three times listening to it. How do you handle hearing these things? I feel like it’d be really hard not to take it home with you.

Neil: Yeah. It’s hard sometimes.

Andrew, I want to touch on the interview Riko Moriyama just did with Kathy Ferdinand and your response. What was that like for you, hearing Riko wrongfully expose something like that on live television?

Andrew: It was… I was stunned, I guess. That information was supposed to be sealed. My name was redacted. So I have no idea how he even got details of the case.

You’ve talked before about being in the foster care system. It sounds like you had a pretty rocky childhood.

Andrew: Yes.

Neil, I know yours was no picnic either. Do you think that this kind of... shared trauma, I guess, is part of why you two work so well together?

Neil: Yeah, partly. When we met as kids, I think a bond was cemented. We both knew how horrible adults could be to children. But now that we’re older, I think more than a shared trauma, it’s a mutual respect for that trauma. We both have shit, you know? I told Matt this one time and I didn’t really understand how true it was until recently, but we both have baggage that we share. We take each other’s on to lighten the load for the other. But, there are times when it gets really fucking heavy, and I think recently we’ve figured out that it’s better to lean on each other when that happens, instead of trying to carry it all ourselves.

Why do you think Riko felt the need to call you two out like he did? I know he mentioned Neil possibly being manipulated into the relationship.

Neil: [laughs]

Andrew: I wish I could manipulate him into having better taste in music.

Neil: My taste in music is fine.

Andrew: It is absolutely not. And I don’t know why Riko feels the need to comment. I’d be interested to hear the reason. The things he said regarding Neil were ridiculous, and in his response, Neil has made sure to make that known. But the thing that really bothered me was his comments on mental health. He tried to basically call me unstable for seeking therapy and admitting that there came a point when I needed outside help. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people in this country who seek out therapy every year. There’s no shame in it and I’m unsure as to why Riko believes there is. Honestly, I’m shocked the Moriyamas haven’t released a statement. He’s their mouthpiece, after all.

Do you think they should apologize?

Neil: Yes.

Andrew: I think they should at least clarify. I’ve already heard people are planning to protest their new documentary and I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to give my money to people who think I’m less of a person because I struggle sometimes.

Speaking of struggle, let’s move back to the case. I know the NYPD has been giving you grief over your claims that the person you’re looking for is the same person that’s taken Haylie Clark. Robin, especially, seems completely certain. How does it feel to know law enforcement doesn’t have your back on this?

Andrew: Familiar. They’ve never had my back before, so why would they start now?

Neil: I’ve dealt with too many crooked cops to really take it seriously. I have no idea what their motivations are and to be clear, I’m not saying I think they’re crooked - I’m just saying that in my experience, the help doesn’t always come like it’s supposed to.

The rest of the team seems pretty confident in you two. They all said they absolutely believe you’ll be able to find him. Is it hard sometimes, not to lose faith?

Andrew: It’s hard all the time. But it doesn’t matter. We have to keep moving forward. We aren’t going to stop until he and Haylie are found.

I think that’s really commendable and I look forward to seeing that happen. Now, tell me a bit about the team. Neil, since you came in at the end of Season 1, how did you find the dynamic as an outsider?

Neil: I didn’t really understand it in the beginning. Not really. It helped having Matt at my back for months prior, but I’ve never had the opportunity to make solid connections with people. So when I came into the studio, to this group of people who had known each other since college, it was overwhelming.

Andrew: That’s funny, seeing as how they like you better than me.

Neil: It’s all the charm and charisma.

[ laughing ] And now? You all seem really tight knit.

Neil: Now, yeah. We are. These people are my family.

Andrew?

Andrew: Yes?

Neil: She wants you to say something nice about the team.

Andrew: Every single one of them knows my coffee order, and it’s truly amazing that they can do what the interns cannot. [ he looks over at Neil, who’s tilting his head and raising his brows ] Oh, don’t look at me like that. Fine. We have a really strong team. I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing without them. Seth works harder than anyone I know, Dan keeps us all in line with just a look, Renee is the only reason I agreed to do this in the first place, Reynolds has a lot of money and she’s not afraid to use it for a cause she believes in, and Robin is the most inspiring person I’ve ever met.

And Matt?

Andrew: Who?

Neil: The guy that kept me alive for months while you were hunting me.

Andrew: [ rolls his eyes and shrugs ] He’s fine.

My take away from the interviews was this: these people will do whatever they need, in order to find their perpetrator. They believe in their cause, they hurt for these girls, and they’ll find justice for them in the end. They’re family, that much is clear, and I can’t wait to see how this ends. I can’t wait to say that I was there when it’s over.

Red Rabbits can be heard on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and GooglePlay. You can follow the website at redrabbitspod.tumblr.com and twitter @redrabbitspod.

And as the Red Rabbits team always says, “Keep Searching”. I know I will.

#red rabbits pod #aftg #andreil #andrew minyard #neil josten #seth gordon #dan wilds #matt boyd #renee walker #allison reynolds #robin cross #article #media #rolling stone #interview

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shinneth · 4 years

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Spill the tea on Stevinel (just because I saw one for conniverse) And yes, I'm not on Anonymous. Because I'm a proud stevinel shipper and no one's going to stop me from loving it, also your blog is cool

And you know what? That’s the right attitude to have! People should be free to express what they ship without shielding themselves with anonymity. I don’t blame the people that do these days - antis are fucking dangerous people - but goddamn, people. It’s fiction.

So I commend you for shipping Stevinel openly and proudly! Hard to believe it’s actually considered a bold and brave move just to be open and honest about harmless preferences these days.

That said, I’m sorry it took so long to get to this. I felt you deserved an epic, given how unexpectedly successful my tirade on why Connverse is a shit ship with an undeserved golden reputation was...

But the truth is, even though I’m very much a Stevinel shipper, it’s definitely not my OTP.

And it’s very tricky for me to figure out how to spill the tea on Stevinel in a way that’s distinct from me doing the same with Stevidot.

Because, well, let’s face it: these two ships, beyond being very similar in nature, have also endured identical hardships from the fandom.

All the death threats Stevinel fans get from the raging antis for daring to ship something so “problematic/immoral/wrong/not Connverse”?

Stevidot fans have been treated that exact same way for years. And still are. For the exact same reasons.

Both Stevinel and Stevidot shippers are valid, but the fandom constantly turns a blind eye to Rebecca Sugar’s husband who also worked on the show outright saying gem x human ships are FAIR GAME.

And also turn a blind eye to the recent interview where Sugar herself stated that the gems are more like AI - a conclusion I and many others deduced ages ago just by how gems are portrayed in the show.

But by god, they’ll hang on Matt Burnett’s word that “grown gems” are a thing even though canon itself explicitly states that GEMS DON’T GROW.

Just like how despite Maya Petersen outright admitting that Aroace!Peridot is just her headcanon, people treat it like the fucking gospel now.

(no offense to anyone who’s committed to that particular headcanon - I just don’t really see it with Peridot in particular and it’s really fucking stupid to claim it’s 100% canon when the source herself explicitly said it wasn’t)

Well, it’s canon that Spinel kissed Steven and he didn’t turn into dust. And Steven was already well on his way down the path of self-destruction at this point in time; he would’ve gone monster whether this happened or not.

Also, how often does a character get the “heart eyes” expression for just a platonic love?

If there was ever a scene where Connie or Steven had heart eyes, no doubt most of the pricks would scream “YES!!!! UNDENIABLE PROOF THAT THEY’RE IN LOVE!!!”

But when it’s Spinel, suddenly it doesn’t count? Really?

How convenient.

There’s also the stupid idiots who saw the conceptual development of Spinel in that movie artbook and saw some vague color keys during a conceptual stage and claimed that Spinel was “family” to Steven - which of course must mean “related” and therefore must make Stevinel an incestuous relationship!

Which is bull. Also shit. It’s already common knowledge that gems don’t work that way. She was the designated playmate for Steven’s mother. Nothing more.

Of course, most gems who come in Steven’s orbit end up being sort of a family to him.

But everyone seems to have this impression that a gem being part of Steven’s family means they become additional surrogate mom figures.

And yeah no, that’s dumb and wrong. Garnet and Pearl are really the only ones I’d consider actual “mom figures”. Amethyst’s more of a big sister. Everyone else can vary depending on perspective, but I’ve never seen any of the other gems as anything close to a motherly figure for Steven. Any time I see shit about Lapis or Peridot being regarded as “gem moms” to Steven, I laugh my ass off. They are so not moms or any kind of authoritative figure for Steven. Bismuth at best is more of the fun-loving aunt.

There are more roles in a family than just a paternal/maternal substitute. In fact, I believe Steven has considered Connie to be part of his family well before they hooked up in canon.

(as a side-note, I love how people who are allegedly SO squicked out by age gap ships totally pardon Connverse - you guys realize Connie was 14 in Future, right? Possibly 15 depending on the time scale? There’s gonna be a point in the relative near future where Steven is 18 and Connie isn’t - why don’t I hear you assholes angst about that “atrocity”, huh?)

I honestly do consider the CG B-Team as part of Steven’s family, but more in a loose sense. But by that same token, I consider Connie as part of the family in a similar manner.

Especially since Spinel was shoved off to live with the Diamonds after the movie - and the Diamonds themselves have a very fucked-up relationship among themselves to the point where I honestly hesitate to put a familial label on it at all - it’s extra stupid to try and paint Stevinel as something with incestuous overtones when it clearly doesn’t.

Spinel does happen to be a perfect representative of how full of shit antis are about age gaps, though.

While Peridot’s age has always been left vague, we know she can’t be 5K or older due to being an Era 2 gem. Due to her utter lack of knowledge of Era 1 events (or being completely sold on the Diamonds’ propaganda) and her general inexperience with her own equipment - as well as her ability to quickly adapt to Earth - I always headcanoned Peridot as being especially young. Like, younger-than-Steven young.

Mostly because Peri’s attitude reeks of Gen Z - also because it’d be nice for a change to have a gem who isn’t thousands of years old like literally every other noteworthy gem in the show. We need a representative of gemkind who hasn’t been around for ages.

Of course, Spinel’s backstory proves that even if they went the boring route and made Peridot thousands of years old just like everybody else, it wouldn’t really mean much of anything. She’d be no less of a valid romantic option for Steven regardless of age.

Spinel is several thousands of years old, and the movie explicitly shows us what exactly that amounts to for a gem.

As I mentioned earlier, Sugar sees the gems more like AI. Spinel remaining in one spot for several millennnia, not moving an inch, not speaking to anyone, not seeing anything other than a gradually-deteriorating garden... yeah, and somehow, despite all that, Spinel’s still very childlike per her design. She had literally no room to mature or accrue life experience: Pink Diamond basically hit the pause button on her entire life.

Even though she’s several thousands of years old, through no fault of her own, Spinel’s mindset remained unchanged. It wasn’t until Steven inadvertently came into her life that she became twisted - understandably so after finally realizing she’d been abandoned by Pink.

But she still didn’t completely lose her true self. Spinel realized on her own that Steven didn’t deserve to suffer just because his mom was a negligent asshole. She also came to understand on her own that unlike Pink, Steven truly cared for her no matter what shit she threw his way.

Steven could give Spinel the care and attention she always deserved; something Pink totally denied her while deceiving her into wasting away with her abandoned playground. He could be the one to give Spinel the love she always deserved but was either denied or manipulated into believing she got.

Honestly, this is more than enough to warrant building something more between these two.

The age gap is irrelevant. The two have chemistry. They aren’t related.

(and honestly, this is fiction - these details are largely irrelevant in fiction anyway. I’m only bringing it up because it doesn’t take much research to find that every label the antis put on Stevinel is complete inaccurate Diamond propaganda bullshit)

Stevinel is FINE. Let people ship it if they want to!

Um... is that good enough?

Honestly, I’m not gonna lie: Stevinel’s pretty goddamned popular; so much that I’m a bit jealous of it. I enjoy the ship a lot, but I’ve been keeping it at arms-length all this time. I’m looking forward to when I can write my own brand of Stevinel interaction when I get to introduce her in my series, but that’s still a while to go.

Also, there’s almost zero Peridot/Spinel material, let alone my Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3. And Stevidot material is still hard to come by; I’m noticing Stevinel’s still quite a bit easier to find by comparison.

So in a way, I feel many other unpopular ships deserve some tea-spilling sooner than Stevinel because Stevinel at least still has a sizable fanbase. Same can’t really be said for a lot of similar ships here...

A lot of this can apply to other Steven x gem ships, honestly.

But I guess I haven’t been showing Stevinel much proper love due to my devotion to my superior SU-AU. I can only hope I can soon reach a point where I can have GA Spinel react to Steven, since their dynamic will be significantly different.

(and then one day I’ll finally make the Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3 fic!!)

Until then, I can only hope I did Stevinel some justice here!

#answered asks #ryan-spinel #stevinel #stevidot #steven universe #spinel #su spinel #shipping #spill the tea #peridot #su peridot

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bookandcover · 3 years

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I really, really enjoyed this book! Philip Pullman is simply a masterful storyteller, and you feel throughout this book that you’re in the hands of a pro, comfortable and content to follow as he pulls you through twists and turns, reveals and connections as circuitous, and yet as inescapable, as the powerfully overflowing Thames.

If you summarize this book, it sounds simple: two kids rescue a baby from a flood. I could imagine a version of this book that would be boring, with none of the honesty and realness that pervades these pages. I’m not sure what it is about Pullman’s writing, but you are simply invested from the beginning. Even in the early section of the book that sets up Malcolm as a character, his simple life at The Trout, and his relationship with the nuns across the river, I was fully engaged. Often, when I sit down to read, I have a bit of detachment for a while—I’m aware that I’m reading—before I can enter the mind space of the story. That was never the case for this book; I always dropped immediately into Malcolm’s world. That world is real, present, fully-formed. Part of this is that the world of The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage (and of all of His Dark Materials) is not over-written nor over-explained, but it’s fully imagined. We sense that this is a real and complex place without knowing all the ins-and-outs of its complexity. It’s not hinted at, nor teased to the reader, because it doesn’t need to be; it simply is.

Once Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra set off down river, the tension in the book rises along with the flood waters. Their pursuer Gerard Bonneville is relentless and terrifying. I could not believe how scared I was at certain points in this book and, in a similar current (ha!) to the above, the writing never got in the way of my fear: the pacing and immediacy was always ideal to keep me inside the scenes as they unfolded. Malcolm and Alice’s quick departure from The Trout, escaping in La Belle Sauvage with Bonneville on their heels, is stressful and all the other actions scenes are similarly experienced through Malcolm’s limited viewpoint (although this is third person narration). We get the fragments that Malcolm has time to process and experience (I felt this in particular during the final sequence when Asriel rescues them from the CCD boat and Malcolm doesn’t really know what’s going on), which brilliantly keeps us inside the action. Sections of the book jump away from Malcolm’s perspective (to closely follow Dr. Hannah Relf primarily and the actions of the anti-CCD group Oakley Street), but while we’re with Malcolm, we stay with Malcolm.

I noticed one glaring exception to the centralization of Malcolm, which therefore stood out to me, and felt intentional. Very close to the end of the book, there’s a the close cut in (almost like a movie edit) on the conversation that occurs through gyrocopter headsets between Alice and Asriel. This conversation happens while Malcolm is asleep, as the small group travels to Jordan College, and it seems to be a moment where the burden Malcolm has carried and shared is, instead, carried fully by Alice. The trajectory of Malcolm and Alice’s relationship is one of increasing trust and mutual dependency, and so this moment felt like it formed the bookend to the beginning of the story, where Malcolm was the most informed, the most committed to the mission of protecting Lyra. Alice’s grit and determination is increasingly revealed to the reader, just as it is increasingly revealed to Malcolm, which shifts her closer and closer into his mental and emotional orbit. This final moment, of her being their shared spokesperson, of her carrying their joint mission while Malcolm is injured, seems to me like the true equalizing moment of their relationship. They have both been in this 100% for a while, but this is the moment where they operate fully as one entity.

Malcom and Alice are both incredibly crafted characters. The story relies on us as readers deeply understanding Malcolm from the get-go, and we do. He’s resourceful, clever, practical, stubborn, righteous, tactical, and still a kid. He’s an awesome character. Alice plays a beautiful counter-point to Malcolm; it takes us longer to like her and to understand her, to see her many layers, but that is because that’s what is happening for Malcolm himself. I didn’t expect her to be a main character during the first section of the book, just as Malcolm himself would not have. Her inclusion on the trip south on the floodwaters is circumstantial. Before Malcolm gets to know her more fully, she is simply a quintessential teenager—grumpy, claws out, edgy, but also just getting her work done, just there. Later on, we see her vulnerabilities, her compassion, her ways of showing care that she keeps sheltered beneath a tough veneer. She seems her age in every way—older than Malcolm, and more self-aware, yet also young, confused, and easily hurt, but too proud to show that hurt. As she grows in complexity for the reader, she too grows in complexity in Malcolm’s eyes, another aspect of the novel that keeps us close to Malcom’s perspective, merges his experiences—fear, compassion, understanding—with the reader’s.

Bonneville is also an incredibly drawn villain—another nod to Pullman for literary genius. In this novel, the scene where I felt most genuinely afraid (the maximization of Pullman’s ability to keep his readers in the moment of action) was when Bonneville appears on the other side of the cellar door at Lord Murderer’s abandoned mansion. Bonneville’s voice seems to defy the properties of sound and physics at a few points in this book, but only barely and in a way that is perhaps justified by our protagonists’ focused attention: Malcolm is listening for Bonneville, Alice is listening for Bonneville. More than once, he speaks to them from a very close range when he is not (yet) attacking them, and there is something about his sudden proximity, the sound of his presence, that induces a real terror that I felt keenly. His body, too, borders on the impossible, transcending the properties of physics. He could be close or far from Malcolm and Alice at any given moment because he closes gaps of distance in strange ways. They hear him at great distances across the water and struggle to gauge his exact location. He survives and survives and survives. This gives him a ghost-like quality, immaterial, like a night-ghast who haunts them.

At the same time, Bonneville’s presence is deeply physical, which we know and understand from his character introduction (when he fights with Coram Van Texel and his dæmon loses a leg) and through Alice’s understanding of him as a man who flirted with her, who approached her as a man. When Bonneville’s voice whispers through the darkness and through the door in Lord Murderer’s mansion, I felt Malcolm’s terror as my own. After reading this part, I paused and said aloud, “isn’t this supposed to be a children’s/young adult book? This is way too terrifying.” The final confrontation with Bonneville has a similar charge of terror, impossibility, and yet inevitability. We understand the insanity with which Bonneville has pursued Malcolm and Alice, the emotional/psychological impact he has on them (particularly Alice), and we feel their terror.

In addition to character development and narrative perspective, Pullman also navigates plot with dexterity. I loved that details from early in the text circled back around without feeling heavy-handed. Part of why this succeeds is that every detail seems to serve multiple purposes within the narrative. For example, when Mr. Boatwright flees The Trout after a confrontation with CCD men, I did not expect him to circle back around and re-enter the plot. His character introduction seemed to develop the role of the CCD in this universe, the level of threat they pose, and the understanding our characters have of that threat. That’s enough. Yet, he re-enters Malcolm and Alice’s lives at a critical moment, helping them hide out along with his band of outcasts in the woods. As a kind of casual Robin Hood (a bit foolish, a bit foolhardy though he is), Mr. Boatwright further shows the texture of this world where defiance of the CCD, even trivial defiance, has consequences. But, as many characters in the book remind us, the flood changes everything, and in this new world of the flood, Malcolm doesn’t expect to happen upon a character from his past and neither do we.

My conviction that Pullman leaves no stone unturned, highlights nothing with intention, brings me back to two key questions. First off, what happened to Mr. Taphouse? The night of the huge flood, Malcolm learns from the nuns that he’s unwell, and so he’s not at the priory when the flood hits, when Bonneville is there and seduces Sister Katarina. Was he actually unwell? Did Bonneville injury him or do something to get him out of the way? Will his character feature in the story again? These questions also bring up my concerns for Sister Fenella. Did she survive the flood? Will she appear again? A second set of questions exists around The League of St. Alexander, which poisons and pollutes Malcolm’s school space, changing the character of his small and seemingly innocuous community. While The League returns to the plot when Andrew (from Mr. Boatwright’s band of outcasts) betrays Malcolm and Alice and reveals Lyra’s whereabouts to the Office of Child Protection—refreshing the theme of betraying your family in the interests of a higher cause or system the buys or seduces your loyalty—this does not necessarily seem like the end of The League’s role in the plot. With the second book of the series teased—The Secret Commonwealth, which appears to jump ahead about 18-20 years—it’s curious to imagine how some of these questions might be answered or these ideas circle around again in the series. I trust that they may, in unexpected ways.

#the book of dust #philip pullman #la belle sauvage #malcolm #alice #lyra #good reads #storytelling #plot #fantasy novels

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itsomgitsgreenblogging · 4 years

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Tangled (In Complexity)

So I've been very interested in a lot of the psychological features of Essek's character, and one of them is his canonical low-empathy. Essek seems to have a really hard time with empathy as a rule, which makes social interactions extremely fraught for him. I am also a Verin Theylss stan, so of course, I had to write a whole fic exploring these issues. No, I do not believe having low-empathy makes a person evil by any means, but as this story is from Verin's flawed perspective we only get his insights into Essek's behaviors so just keep that in mind when reading.

Enjoy!

Read on AO3

Triggers: emotionally abusive/distant parenting, estrangement, grief, and mentions of canonical minor character death (Essek and Verin’s father)

Preview:

"Don't leave me," Verin begged, fingers pressed to the wood of the door, and yanking the knob to no avail. "Please, it'll get me, Mama!"

"Verin, you will stay in your room until you overcome this idiotic fear," his mother shouted, and Verin flinched back from the door. "We are drow , what kind of drow is afraid of the dark?"

"Mama, Mama no!" Verin sobbed curling tight into himself. He could hear her footsteps as they echoes down the hallway and disappeared. He screwed his eyes shut. The room seemed to shrink in his panic. The shadows at his closet seemed to grow. The panic that had been gnawing at Verin's gut since his history lesson that day seemed to grow stronger. There was only his desperate heartbeat in his ears, the scent of snuffed candles, and thick shadows. In the dark there were the monsters that he had been told about. He didn't understand why his mother couldn't understand. If he was alone in the dark, then the driders and beholders and the other creeping crawling monster would be able to find him and hurt him!

There was no choice then. If his mother wouldn't help him than Verin knew that he would have to save himself.

Verin looked about, seeing his window and realizing it was his golden opportunity. He jumped up on his chair, onto his desk, and then attempted to open the window. It didn't budge. Seeing the lock at the top, Verin climbed down to his bookshelf and began bringing books over to his desk. Using them to boost himself up and using all his strength, he heard the lock creak and pop, the window opening out to the courtyard. He nearly fell out right there but managed to catch his balance with a startled yelp.

Verin ducked, his heart in his throat. He had been so desperate to escape that he hadn’t thought of any of the consequences. Mother would come, she would know and the punishment would be worse. But would that punishment be worse than the creatures that were surely waiting for him to trance? It was a risk he was willing to take. A minute passed, and then two. No one crossed the courtyard. In fact, no one appeared at all. However, from one of the rooms he saw the light of a candle. Verin, gathering all of his courage, lowered himself out of the window and then sprinted across the yard as quickly as his legs would take him. He grabbed a stick, and began to rap at the window. Mid-hit, the window opened and Verin heard Essek swear as he swatted the branch away.

"Stop!" Essek snapped and Verin dropped the stick. Essek was sticking his head out of the window now, glaring down at Verin with a heat that made Verin shrink with a leaf now stuck in his hair. "What are you doing ?"

"Mother locked me in my room," Verin said, gripping the edge of the window and desperately scrabbling for a foothold so he could boost himself up. "And she took all the lights away! Essek, please, the driders are going to get me!"

"You are being ridiculous! Hey! Stop, you are going to hurt yourself!" Essek said, and to Verin's relief Essek grabbed his shirt and pulled him up through the window. Verin was sprawled on Essek's desk, looking at Essek's glower from an interesting angle. A book had fallen, and he had scattered papers all over the place. Despair came thick and shameful. Now Essek definitely wouldn’t help him, he would carve him up and serve him to their mama on a golden platter.

"Don't make me go back, Essek, she'll lock me away again," Verin sniffed, eyes burning. Essek's face twisted for a moment, he looked out the window and closed it, moved to the door and stuck his head out and closed it in turn. He planted his hands on his hips, and then groaned after finding whatever answer he was looking for on the ceiling.

"Oh fine, very well," Essek sighed, helping Verin off the desk and straightening out his things. "I'll put you to work then."

Verin nodded eagerly, his heart full of a crippling relief. Being put to work was far better than dealing with the dark, cold, lonely bedroom before. Essek had never assigned Verin chores or punishment before, but whatever he wanted couldn't have been as bad as the quiet room. Essek was distant and quiet and mean on occasions that suited him, but at least he always kept his promises.

"Hold this for me," Essek said, taking the blanket spread out over his legs and draping it over Verin's shoulders. "I'm getting too hot."

Verin nodded and curled it around his shoulders.

"Now I'm going to read, you stay quiet," Essek told him, standing up and pulling a book from the shelf. It was cracked along the backbone, well-used and annotated with his brother's scrawl. He settled it at the center of the desk, pushing away the massive tome he had been using after marking the page he had been on.

"I will!"

" Quiet , Verin."

"Oh! Right, sorry!" Verin whispered, curling the blanket more firmly around himself. He felt tiny in the huge chair, and didn't quite know what to do with his legs and arms. He settled for tucking them underneath himself and leaning against the arm. Essek began reading aloud.

"Dunamists have long held that gravity is the force by which a planet or other celestial body draws objects towards their center. The force of gravity keeps the celestial bodies in orbit around the sun," Essek read, voice quietly. "The manipulation of this force is called Dunamancy, and this concept of drawing towards the center is the most basic principle of the practice."

"Mm," Verin sighed, head heavy.

"The existence of gravity was first proven by which scholar, Verin?"

"Narcelia of Den Gallaer," Verin grumbled, remembering the list and his tutor who smelled like old parchment and smoke. He remembered because he had gotten his knuckles hit for doodling during that lesson, and his mother hadn’t been pleased.

"Correct, and she discovered gravity by completing a sequence of tests that started…"

Essek read, and occasionally asked Verin questions. He never once looked at Verin, and yet Verin could sense he had Essek's attention. And that was enough. After all, a drider couldn't get the jump on him if someone was paying attention. He tried to stay awake, to listen so that he could help Essek. He wasn't sure exactly what he had wanted help with, but he knew he could. He could be of use somehow. Essek would see that, and then Essek would see him . He couldn’t imagine something better than that, after all, everyone knew that Essek was a genius. If Essek saw him, maybe Verin could be special one day and not just a bother.

Just one moment, Verin thought to himself as his heavy eyes closed. I'll just rest for a moment. Essek won't be mad if it's just for a moment and it was so difficult to keep his eyes open and…

Verin drifted into a trance, and even deeper into sleep . When he awoke he was in his own bed, and the only proof it hadn't been a dream was the unlocked door and the closed window.

_____________________________

Verin was in the midst of a well needed rest when he was startled out of his trance by a Message. This was his least favorite way to wake up for multiple reasons, but it was especially unwelcome as his foggy brain began to put together the pieces of the words as they filtered in.

“Taskhand, your presence is being requested by your Denmother and the Shadowhand. You will be expected at the residence tomorrow evening.”

“Very well, I’ll leave Bazzoxan tomorrow,” Verin said, before waiting for the spell to fizzle out. He sighed and collapsed back down in his bed, once he was safe.

“ What ?” Samezi groaned from where she was laying on the bed next to him. Her head popped out from under the covers, and she blinked at him slowly.

“My presence has been requested at the Theylss Residence tomorrow evening,” Verin said, adopting an exaggerated Rosohna accent.

“You aren’t going are you?” Samezi asked, concerned, sitting up straight. Verin wished they could just go back to sleeping, with his arms around her and soaking in her warmth and her scent and burying his face in her braids. When Verin didn’t answer she swore under her breath in orcish. “You can’t be serious Verin.”

“I can’t refuse a summons from my Denmother,” Verin explained, pulling himself up and resting against the rickety backboard of his bed. He had gutted most of the belongings of the previous Taskhand, the velvet curtains and the feather down, when he got there and salvaged them for extra coin. One of his first orders of business was putting every spare coin back into the barracks where it belonged. He had no access to the vast fortune his family commanded, after all, he was the youngest son.

“You mean your mother,” Samezi said, not sounding impressed. “That woman .”

“Yes, my mother, the Denmother, Deirta there is no difference,” Verin said noncommittal though just mentioning her made something curdle in his gut. “I have to go, no matter how much I wish not to. The Shadowhand will be there, which means it’s something important.”

“Please, consider just...just refusing,” Samezi said, the worry settling like a weight between her brows. “You know how you get after seeing them.”

“You mean, feeling like I’m making nothing of my life? Please, elaborate.”

“Really Verin,” Samezi said quietly, touching his arm with a softness that gentled the sharp edges of his heart. “They are incapable of seeing what we all see. You are the only Taskhand we’ve liked probably in the history of the outpost. There’ll be chaos if that woman skins you and eats your organs or whatever she’s planning.”

“You don’t think she just wants to see me perhaps? I’ve heard I’m decent company,” Verin said, fluttering his eyelashes. He leaned to give Samezi a kiss and she batted him away half-heartedly.

“I’m being serious,” Samezi warned him, her fingers combing through Verin’s hair.

“At ease, sergeant,” Verin said with a salute before sighing and leaning back against the pillows. “I know, you’re right. But I’m sure it’s just something about politics now that the war is over. I’ll go there, have dinner, and come back. If something else happens, I give you permission to send a search party. Make to avenge me, also, burn all those letters I sent you. They are in a lockbox in my desk.”

“You are horrible ,” Samezi said. “But fine, but only if they kill you before I do.”

“Good, give me something to look forward to when I get home,” Verin said with a smile of his own.

He arrived the next evening back to his hometown through the use of their teleportation circle. Rosohna was dark and beautiful as always, after arriving he spent a little bit of time stretching his legs and getting a feel for the city that he had grown up in once more. The mood was much improved since his last visit, owed in part to the return of the beacons and to the end of the war. In general though, it felt like the city was teetering on another edge. Though it had little to do with him, he was sure that the direction Rosohna would blow would be decided soon enough.

Verin arrived in the Lucid Bastion on time, moving to the Den Theylss ancestral home. Servants acknowledged his presence and he was directed to one of the sitting rooms to await the presence of the Umavi. Verin was let in, and as he crossed the threshold he was immediately aware of another presence. Turning around, he saw Essek perched in a seat with a tome across his lap. He finished his page, not looking up, and once he did he put in a bookmark. Essek curled his fingers in the air and then slipped his book into a pocket dimension, before meeting his gaze. As always, his elder brother was dressed in a mantle and long robes that obscured his figure and he floated off the ground as he was buoyed in his own gravitational field.

"Hello Verin," Essek said pleasantly, head nodding towards him in acknowledgement.

"Essek," Verin said cordially in return, echoing his nod. "How have you been?"

"Busy," Essek answered, his tone non-committal. His attention slid to Verin now for the first time, though Verin wasn't looking at his brother but was instead looking ahead. The weight of his gaze skittered up Verin's neck like a spider and made him want to swat at his own skin. Essek had always had such an effect on everyone they knew. Unnerving , would be the term though it has its limits. Verin had known Essek all of his life...until recently there had been no life without Essek being factored in like some kind of twisted arithmetic, but Verin had no clue what was simmering under the surface of Essek's facade.

"The Denmother's last appointment is running late, it will be a few moments longer," a servant said, bowing deep in apology. Essek waved off the servant who scurried away. Verin sighed through his nose. Of course, his mother would summon him all the way from Bazzoxan and then still find a reason to not speak with him. Typical .

"I hear you have been busy as well," Essek said, and Verin startled at his voice. He had assumed their non-conversation was over and that they would start pretending the other didn't exist again. Apparently Essek wanted something.

"Bazzoxan keeps me on my toes," Verin said suspiciously, feeling his own eyes narrow. "Why?"

"It hasn't escaped my attention that you are doing well there," Essek said, and Verin met his silver gaze. He couldn't say that Essek looked proud, or warm. But instead, the placid mask of his brother was gone and his expression was neutral. "I will admit that the assignment concerned me, but I was glad to be proven wrong."

"You thought I couldn't handle it?" Verin asked, a twinge of indignation pricking him.

"In over your head," Essek clarified, arms shifting beneath the mantle. "But I have heard nothing but good things about your leadership. I'm sure the Umavi is pleased."

"And what do you think?" Verin asked him.

"A Theylss, executing their job proficiently in high places is to be expected," Essek said, looking forward. "You are a Theylss, after all."

"Until you can actually speak about that like I am a Theylss and don't just have to prove myself one, it doesn't feel like you actually think of me as your brother," Verin pointed out.

"You are the only one of our siblings I view as a sibling," Essek said with a blink, looking at Verin more critically. "I thought you knew that."

"I'm pretty sure what you think constitutes loving sibling behavior and what I think constitutes loving sibling behavior are two very different things," Verin said, illustrating the point by holding up two fingers and pulling them apart.

"I don't deny that," Essek said with a shrug. “I am sorry if I made you feel otherwise though.”

Verin was now staring at Essek unabashedly. He wasn’t even sure that he had known that apologies were even part of Essek’s vocabulary (outside of the political niceties that Essek had always been well versed in). Their childhood was scattered with examples Verin could point too-bothered Essek, annoyed Essek, cold Essek. Cold Essek had always been Verin’s least favorite, the one that treated Verin like his existence was a chore he just had to get through. During their sibling arguments, Essek would just simply pretend Verin didn’t exist...the record being for a week straight. Never once had Essek ever apologized for instigating or his part in their disagreements. On occasion, Essek could be considerate, but never kind. There was always a point . Whether it was to curry his favor or to repay a favor, it could be assumed that Essek wanted something. Essek was never apologetic . Verin had half a mind to slap himself, just to make sure he was well.

“Close your mouth or you’ll swallow a spider,” Essek said with a roll of his eyes, and Verin’s mouth closed with a click of his teeth.

“Who are you and what have you done with Essek?” Verin asked suspiciously.

“Stop acting like a child,” Essek told him with a very distinctly Essek huff that relieved Verin slightly. At least he knew that this was indeed his brother and not just a person masquerading around in his flesh suit. Verin was about to say something in that spirit when the servant walked back into the sitting room.

“The Denmother is requesting your presence now,” the servant said with a bow of his head. Essek ghosted in behind him, and Verin followed close behind.

Their mother was sitting at the table, flipping through some papers as she took sips from a glass of wine. As they walked in their mother’s eyes didn’t even flit up from the papers for a moment, she simply waved them in like she was summoning them forward. Verin felt like a child being called in for a scolding again as he moved forward. Essek’s face was a picture of cool indifference. Finally she stopped, clearly having decided that she had made them wait long enough. She set down the papers, and another servant scrambled to take them away.

“Denmother,” Essek greeted, bowing his head in respect, and Verin echoed the movement immediately.

“Essek,” Deirta said, standing up. She seemingly inspected Essek thoroughly. Though they were the same height, Essek was currently floating about an inch or two higher. It was at such moments that Verin was always surprised about how much Essek took after their mother. From the shape of their eyes, to the bridge of their noses, to the sharp lines of their delicate faces. Verin had always been closer in face and continence to their father. He wondered, often, what their mother thought of that. She seemed pleased with whatever she saw there and turned her attention to him. “Verin.”

“Denmother,” Verin said as his mother curled her cold fingers under his chin, and turned his head this way and that. Verin let her manipulate his movements, and was relieved when she let go.

“Would it kill you to keep your hair in order?” Deirta sighed, the breath coming exasperated. “It looks like you took a knife to the edges.”

“I did,” Verin said flatly. Essek made a noise like he was stifling a chuckle, casting a glance towards him Verin could see there was a muscle twitching in his jaw...like he was fighting a grin.

“ Scissors , Verin, are there no scissors in Bazzoxan?” Deirta chastised before casting a scolding glance at Essek. “You don’t have a leg to stand on, considering your ridiculous haircut.”

“Forgive me, mother,” Essek said with a sweet, almost indulgent smile. “But the teachings of the Luxon do say that our bodies are merely transient vessels. Hair is of middling importance in the grand scheme of enlightenment.”

“Oh Luxon’s light protect me,” Deirta said, throwing up her hands. “Verin, promise me you’ll schedule an appointment to get the ends of your hair sorted out before you leave Rosohna.”

“Of course,” Verin said, hoping this would be enough to placate her.

“And don’t you give me attitude, young man,” Deirta said, focusing her energy now on Essek with narrowed eyes. “Out of everyone in this household, I am not the one who needs a lecture on the Luxon’s philosophy.”

Verin felt himself tense up, as a pit opened large and wide in his stomach. Oh dear Light, he had thought this argument was over . Was Essek still pursuing his ridiculously dangerous ideas? It was a poorly kept secret that Essek had funny ideas when it came to the Luxon. Treasonous ideas, if Verin was being honest. Essek could never leave well enough alone, and had historically never sucked up his pride enough to let things lay where they were. There had been plenty of nights where Verin had hidden in his room with his head under a pillow and trying not to listen to their parents argue with Essek for hours, going around and around like they were lost in a maze. How many times had Verin prayed for Essek just to drop it? He couldn’t even count.

“Yes, mother,” Essek said simply. Verin stared at him. He didn’t look particularly bothered by their mother’s annoyance. Essek had always had nerves of steel...or maybe deadened nerves would be more accurate. Verin wasn’t quite sure his brother was capable of the emotions that would be expected from a person.

“Umavi,” a servant said quietly. “The cook would like you to know that dinner is ready whenever you would like it.”

“Very well,” Deirta said, taking her seat back at the head of the table. Essek and Verin both sat at the table, Essek on the left side and Verin on the right. Verin focused solely on keeping his head down and shoveling food into his mouth. He knew rationally that this was all better than anything he would get from the barrack kitchens, but eating dinner late at night with the head cook Old Man Vuto as company was a far superior experience. He hadn’t realized how much so until just that moment. Essek and his mother spoke about the comings and goings of Rosohna, about people that Verin knew tangentially, and business that didn’t interest Verin at all. Essek grazed, picking at his plate but mostly just moving things around.

“-now that the war is over, I am hoping that perhaps Den Wenirila will realize that their insistence on the Northern Assault strategy has done them no favors in court and the Denmother will stop shouting every time she comes into the war room,” Essek sighed.

“Yes...now that the war is over in name, there are plenty of things that need to change,” Deirta said with a sip of her glass. “Now, we must think of the future.”

“Indeed,” Essek said, and Verin placed down his chopsticks. “Is this why you have called us?”

“Yes, to think of the future for Den Theylss and for the Kryn Dynasty as a whole,” Deirta said as she settled down her glass. She waved for the servants who took the plates away and then left them alone. “The Empire has returned the beacon they stole from us, and the lines of our territory remain the same. But if anything this conflict has raised our stature in the world. The Dwendalian Empire cannot pretend that the Dynasty are savage drow and monsters who live in some cursed hovel. They were forced to recognize us. This will send a message to those countries outside of the borders of Wildemount that we are a sovereign state with military power that cannot be discounted when it comes to global politics. According to some we have lost the battle, but I believe that we have won the war. You two are not the first I have called here to discuss this with me, but as Denmother I believe it is my duty to share with all of the den my vision.”

“ Global politics?” Verin asked.

“Who did the Tal’doreians beg for aid when the dragons nearly roasted their civilization into a well-done husk? It certainly wasn’t us. They begged the Dwendalians. And do you know why?” Deirta asked Verin. “Pretend that you paid attention during your history lessons, Verin. I paid good money for them.”

“Ever since the drow left the Underdark there has been limited contact between the drow and the denizens of Tal’dorei,” Verin said quietly, repeating a lesson he had been taught long ago, trying not to feel as scolded as he did. “The only drow who remain have long since been twisted by Lolth and the dark entities who whisper in their hearts. Neighbors slaughter neighbors in the streets of their subterranean cities and the Denmothers and Denfathers rule with an authoritarian grip. Those who attempt to escape are often killed by once they reach the surface or are forced to live in secret enclaves as refuges without homes."

“That’s right. We used to not exist in their world outside of the horror stories they told their children to keep them from the dark at night, now we do,” Deirta told him, chin raised. “We have a golden opportunity to influence the world in a way we haven’t before.”

“And what would Den Theylss’ role in that influence be?” Essek asked as he threaded his fingers together.

“The Kryn are the rulers, the Mirimm are the enforcers. Theylss has always been the diplomats . You both know as well as I do that Den Theylss has always filled in the gap with everything the Empress needs. We will even do what the Empress doesn’t know she needs, for her own good of course,” Deirta said. “Den Theylss can be that for many others as well, beyond the Ashkeeper Peaks. Perhaps in an official capacity.”

“How?” Verin asked, frowning. “What does the Dynasty have that would make it worthwhile for any other country to risk the ire of the Empire?”

“We have the greatest resource. Time itself,” Deirta said. “I see no reason why our magics cannot benefit the world. Our cousins live in squalor and terror, it is our duty to return to liberate those remaining and make the peoples of Tal'dorei see drow in a new light."

“You want to convert the other nations,” Essek said, his voice flat. Verin was staring at Deirta unabashedly.

“Of course they should all see the light of the Luxon,” Deirta explained. “It is doubtful they will reach true enlightenment, but why shouldn’t we aim to bring more souls under the protection of our lord? But just the promise of immortality is the most powerful promise there is, and Den Theylss can be the ambassadors for such a promise. Diplomacy is what we need in a post-war world in order to become a world power, not warmongering. If the Empress cannot see that, then we can make Quana see it. She has been the more reasonable one as of late.”

“What are you implying?” Essek asked, for the first time there was an edge in his voice, an eyebrow raised.

“You have only ever been in the war room, Essek. Not in war. Verin has more experience than you in that regard, but still you are both young and inexperienced and still haven’t died a death for your country,” Deirta sighed. “War is a horrible thing. Bloodshed is a horrible thing, and it tends to be unnecessary and gruesome. It tends to bring up all sorts of feelings and instincts.”

“Are you implying that the Empress isn’t well?” Essek pressed.

“If Leylas Kryn doesn’t see things our way, it is our duty to persuade her of the correct course of action no matter the cost,” Deirta said with a smile. “Our country’s motto is for our den, our country, our Empress, and our Light. There is a reason that den is first.”

What does the Luxon see in you? Verin wanted to demand. Deirta wasn’t righteous, she wasn’t good, she was a monster trying to use the Luxon’s light for her own gain. Of course it should be a good thing for the den to work for peace and prosperity for all drow, but somehow she had even managed to taint that goal with her poison. He didn’t understand it. He couldn’t understand it. No matter what he did, how good he could be, somehow they were all just cogs in the machinations of her mind. She just had to have some kind of wisdom that Verin didn’t, some way of understanding that made it all make sense. And yet, Verin still felt sick to his stomach. What they were speaking on was nearly treason.

“I will do my duty to my countrymen,” Verin said as he stood up, gathering all of his courage in his spine. “I am the Taskhand of Bazzoxan. I am a son of Theylss and of you but I consider my obligation to the residents of that city to be my concern first and foremost. Denmother, I will respect your decisions, but I ask that you allow me to continue to prove myself in my own way by following my own path.”

“I see,” Deirta said with a disappointed sigh. “I’m sure I could work out a more profitable assignment here in Rosohna or even in Tal’dorei if the opportunity presents itself.”

“I shall endeavor to work to prove myself by my own merit, though the offer humbles me,” Verin said, bowing deeply.

“And you, Essek, what do you think?” Deirta asked, her gaze sliding over to Essek.

“Frankly, I don’t particularly care about politics,” Essek said bluntly. “Nor do I care about the conditions of the drow of Tal’dorei. Generations ago they made their bed, and should choose to lie in it. Of course you are right that honor to our den is first and foremost our concern, and should you choose to make moves towards Tal’dorei and beyond I will support you. But I also will advise that this gamble is high risk.”

“And should it fail, you will abandon the den to it’s fate?” Deirta asked.

“I am the Shadowhand, if it looks like your gamble shall fail I will stop it before it gets to that point,” Essek said.

“Is that a threat, Essek?” Deirta asked him, eyes cold.

“Yes,” Essek said with a smile. “The den is first, as you said. I would think you expect nothing less of me.”

“Essek!” Verin hissed, utterly horrified.

“There aren’t many who would have the audacity to scheme their way into being Denfather upon their first life, especially in a house of an Umavi,” Deirta scoffed.

“I have no interest in being Denfather,” Essek said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But should the occasion arise I will find a suitable candidate to replace you.”

“Only one of us here is truly replaceable, think long and hard about your recent decisions before you come to the conclusion about who that is,” Deirta warned him, eyes flashing dangerously. Essek’s shoulders squared and his jaw tensed. “Especially considering the company you have been keeping nowadays.”

Verin wanted to laugh at that idea. Essek? Keeping company? It was ridiculous. But based off of Essek’s frigid demeanor it apparently wasn’t a joke considering that if he had looked frigid before he was now clocking in at below freezing.

“I think this conversation is over,” Essek said as he stood up abruptly, there was something dangerous in his gaze. It was something sharp enough that it could make a person bleed.

“Clearly,” Deirta said shortly.

“Verin,” Essek addressed him clearly for the second time that night. “Would you like to stay here, or would you rather stay in my home? I have a guest room prepared.”

Who are you? Verin wanted to ask.

“I’ll take you up on that then,” was what Verin said instead.

________________________________

Verin had never been to Essek’s home. He had received it after Verin’s assignment in Bazzoxan, and there was certainly no reason to come visit his brother. But Essek’s tower reminded Verin much of a graveyard, cold and impersonal. He could imagine clearly his brother haunting the hallways in the middle of the night, a phantom to his own dreams, walking about in patterns as he tried to work through some esoteric problem that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. There were strange things though; there were books slightly out of place, extra papers, knickknacks, and things that told a story that Verin couldn’t quite piece together. The company Essek had been keeping? Their mother’s jab still echoed freshly in his ears. Had Essek been seeing someone their mother hadn’t approved of? Verin just couldn’t see that being the case. As far as Verin knew, Essek had never had any romantic entanglements nor shown an interest in such things.

“You look like you’ve been stewing on something for a while now,” Essek said as he sat down, discarding his mantle thoughtlessly. He was smaller than Verin remembered, thinner too. He looked worn down by whatever was eating at him, until he was nothing but edges and spite. “Go ahead, before your brain explodes.”

“What was mother talking about?” Verin asked directly, seeing no purpose in dancing around the point. “What company?”

“It won’t come as a shock to you,” Essek said with a sigh as he put out glasses and set out the wine. “But I lost the friends I made.”

“Friends?” Verin asked, seizing on that impossible fact.

“I should be insulted by your surprise at that part of my statement, but I know, I was surprised too,” Essek said quietly, looking off to the side as he poured a more than generous quantity of wine for himself. “But it doesn’t matter any more.”

“What did you do to lose them?” Verin asked as he sat down. Essek took a breath, and then another. He was clearly gathering his thoughts as he did so, finally he gave up whatever mental game he was playing.

“I think there’s something wrong with me, Verin,” Essek admitted, meeting Verin’s gaze openly. “I used to think...I didn’t understand you at all growing up. I thought I was better, but...I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“Essek…” Verin said, feeling something in his gut shift at Essek’s expression that twisted like he was in pain.

“I made a mistake, I did something...well, I did something for my own gain and I don’t even feel bad about it though I should. I only felt bad that the people close to me...that it hurt them,” Essek said scrubbing at his face. “I can’t understand it. I am trying so hard, I put the pieces together rationally, but I just can't make myself feel as I should."

"How do you think you should feel?" Verin asked.

"Guilty? Awful? Sad ?" Essek offered. "I just feel nothing, and then get frustrated that I feel nothing!"

"I can't help but admit that I'm at a loss for why you want my advice," Verin said quietly.

"Verin…" Essek sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Stop acting slow. I don't have anyone else to ask for advice."

"You do realize how depressing that is, right?" Verin asked him. "Me? You want to ask me ? You don't even like me!"

"By the Light! You are so dense !" Essek snapped and discarded common and began hissing at him in their first language. "Fine, here's me being honest. Yes, Verin, you are my annoying little brother. I find your savior complex insulting to my intelligence, I never found your jokes about my height funny, and you snore so loud I considered smothering you with a pillow because Mother and Father forced us to sleep into the same room-!"

"When our cousin's room was being remodeled? If you are being serious about the constant threat to my life as a child I will actually kill you, what in the nine hells Essek-!"

"So yes, Verin. I don't like you. But you are my brother. You know me better than anyone else in the world, we have a shared history. And I also know you don't like me, so I can trust you to be honest. So please, Verin, help me ," Essek said, his voice desperate, and his chest heaving with his desperation. "You are normal and I'm not and I need to know what I'm doing wrong."

"I don't think you are doing anything wrong...actively," Verin tried to explain, holding out his arms in an attempt to placate him. "You have just...you know, always been like this?"

"Like what?"

".. evil?"

"Well great," Essek said sarcastically, throwing his hands up. "Thank you, that makes me feel so much better."

"What do you want me to say?" Verin asked defensively, crossing his arms over his chest. "You didn't even cry at our father's funeral!"

"There wasn't a body!"

"Why does that matter?" Verin demanded, slamming his hand on the table. "You wouldn't have cried anyways! That’s the problem!"

"I can't fake it," Essek said, sounding honestly distressed. "How would faking it make anything better? If I don't feel it I don't feel it! I can't make myself be different, gods know I want to be."

"What do you want to be, Essek, honestly?" Verin asked his brother.

"I want to be the kind of person who the people I care about don't hate," Essek said quietly. "I'm just not sure it's possible."

"Essek, be serious, do you think the people who you became friends with would like you if you weren't acting like yourself?" Verin asked him, eyebrows shooting up.

"I don't know, it seems like it."

“Essek, really?”

Essek grimaced and downed his entire glass in one fell swoop. For a moment he seemed to truly consider the question, before just shaking his head and giving Verin a rueful smile. It was, perhaps, the most genuine expression that Verin had seen from his brother in years. For a moment he had to remember to breathe, because there he was. This was the Essek that Verin remembered between the pages of old textbooks and ducking between the pillars of their home. That Essek hadn’t been perfect, nor kind, but at least Essek was his brother. That had meant something in Verin’s life, a life that was full of starts and stops and highs and crushing lows all dictated by a woman who Verin was sure had never even seen them as people with lives outside of her. Verin wondered if it made her proud, how thoroughly she had destroyed them.

"I wonder if I loved them, or the Essek I thought I could be with them," Essek said mournfully, looking at his hands arranged in his lap. "I wonder if I'm grieving them or that Essek. Grief...it’s new to me, as many things are these days."

“If they only liked who you were pretending to be, they never liked you at all,” Verin told him, settling his hand on Essek’s shoulder after a long pause. Essek tensed, but didn’t fight the touch. Verin was sure that he felt as Verin did, like he was crawling out of his own damn skin. But Verin pushed through it, because he could at least give this to Essek.

“That Essek would have probably been a better brother, the brother you deserved,” Essek said with a heavy sigh, pointedly not answering the other question. Verin was positive that Essek didn’t want to verbalize the answer.

“You aren’t technically the only brother I have...but you are my only brother ,” Verin said with a shrug as he removed his hand. “It’s not a question about what I deserve. Frankly, I could have been a better brother to you many times. I let you face the brunt of everything alone, and I’m sorry for that.”

“There were many times I loathed you for that,” Essek said, eyes closed and leaning back against the sofa. “But I also knew that I could handle it...handle her. You were a child...so, it wasn’t your fault. Out of the two of us, I knew I would survive.”

“You were a child too,” Verin said and Essek’s eyelid cracked open.

“I wasn’t a child as you were,” Essek said gently. “I wasn’t like you.”

“You are different from me, that doesn’t mean you weren’t a child,” Verin argued.

“Did I ever tell you that I was there when you were born?” Essek asked, startling Verin with the sudden change of topic. A smile pulled at his teeth. “I haven’t, have I? I remember it because Mother had just pulled me out of the school for my special tutoring. I was so special, I was twelve, and when I arrived home Mother was pregnant with you . She hadn’t even told me, I just showed up and she was ready to pop.”

“She didn’t tell you?” Verin asked, befuddled.

“Of course not,” Essek said with a wave. “She never wrote to me when I was away, and I never came back. All of twenty-four hours after coming home there she was screaming bloody murder in labor, and then she was screaming at me because I wasn’t paying attention to my studies. When I informed her that was going to be impossible with her screeching like a dying roc she threatened to pop my eyeballs out with her nails.”

Verin couldn’t help the laughter that escaped his throat, Essek just rolled his eyes.

“Anyways, to make a long story short, I was bitchy because I finally thought that Mother was paying attention to me and then Mother had to go and push you out not even one day later. Father handed you to me, and said, this is Verin. And I remember thinking you were the ugliest thing I ever saw-”

“Hey!”

“But you were there. And that was enough,” Essek said simply, coming to a neat and concise conclusion. “You have always been enough, Verin. I know that one day...well...this truce of ours may not last, but I wanted you to know that. I never wished that you were anyone else...even if you made me want to kill you and often I didn’t like you. But you were the only one I ever felt close to. You are my brother and maybe the only person in this world that I can consider my friend and though I’m not sure the feeling was mutual...I...”

“Thank you, Essek,” Verin said, his throat feeling oddly sore. “I felt the same.”

For a moment Verin could feel the weight of a hundred years between them. A hundred and ten years should have meant nothing to them, they were children of a soul unbound by time itself. And yet, all of those memories were tangible and meaningful. He and Essek had never known anything else and Verin wondered if that made them who they were. For the first time in Verin’s life, he believed that maybe Essek saw them that way too. Perhaps that was one thing they could agree upon, in a life that was so tangled up in complexity.

“Well, it’s getting late. I’ll teleport you to Bazzoxan tomorrow,” Essek said, getting up slowly, clearly not addressing Verin’s emotions or his sentiment. “The guest bedroom is the first room on the right at the top of the stairs.”

“Wait...Essek,” Verin said and Essek paused, turned, and looked at him. “I’m sorry about your friends. I hope that things work out.”

“Good night, Verin,” Essek said, before floating away.

Verin wondered if he was trying to escape him, or if Essek couldn’t dare to dream.

#critical role #critical role fanfiction #verin thelyss #essek theylss

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howdytherepardner · 3 years

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a tale of two fountains or maybe tributes to "great men"

spires of caverns and pits and spikes; all in aggregate seem to suggest that it could not all have been constructed with care yet each one constructed with too much care for one to bear. cascading semi-chlorinated water separated and dispersed through multitude arteries abruptly exposed to the world around it, standing alone in a vernal pool tucked between decadence and the machines driving legacies of wealth and influence. despite the drapings of grandeur and the mythos surrounding it, it is not unknowable. any outside perspective would give you something to remember it by, but the spears are not a strong enough defense to hides its insides. this unrelenting, static chaos holds an eye of stability; not precise to guarantee protection, but enough to assure that anyone brave enough to venture within will know some measure of relief from the world that surrounds it and the world that it is.

i wander down an exposed stairwell with my prox and a towel, wearing only a linting mask and old swim shorts. the paved surfaces that my journey follows range from smoother cement to asphalt jagged with berries from trees that would never realize their evolutionary purpose. it is not the first time i have decided to sit under the fountain of freedom ahead of me arriving at it, but it is the first in memory that i have been so prepared. normally, a pair of briefs would get soaked while too many things sat on the stairs anticipating the emergence of my dripping form, which would continue until i made it back to my room. but there i was. i have never been particularly good at meditation, and would only claim to have “achieved” a meditative state a few moments in my life, but media depictions of water falls as a particular source for finding some form of releasing outer thoughts; it seems to work well enough, but perhaps i just enjoy the spectacle. this night, there were only a few pairs that sat along the side of water, so not too much of an audience, but enough for me to wonder what they thought as i hung my towel and mask on “Double Sights” and sloshed my way to the tower. normally i might set myself directly under a narrow cascade or in the eye, but this session i remained at a static point in orbit: my legs soaked and my arms quickly coated by innumerable droplets, but my hair only catching the most divergent skydivers, the back of my neck losing its dryness only to sweat and humidity.

it’s a place of security, your conversations drowned out by incessant waters, and in close enough proximity, your own thoughts as well. that was the aim of my venture up campus. i’ve been struggling to fall asleep lately. my body will be exhausted from interactions and activities (walking to class? inconceivable) enough that i give up on work earlier in the night and pray that an earlier sleep will restore some greater stamina. the mind however is plagued with sensations of the time that i’m wasting THERE ARE ONLY 22 WEEKS OF SCHOOL LEFT AND YOU’RE SITTING IN YOUR FUCKING ROOM WHAT HAPPENED TO THE YOU THIS SUMMER WHO WAS READY TO SEE PEOPLE AND LIVE AGAIN, the regrets i am well beyond amending THIS IS JUST HOW YOU WERE FRESHMAN AND SOPHOMORE YEAR HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING WITH YOUR IVY LEAGUE TRANSCRIPT, and other anxieties I AM FAILING ALREADY. I AM INDEED TAKING IT ALL FOR GRANTED, WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT PRINCETON OPINION PERSON? I AM DISAPPOINTING MY FRIENDS AND EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER INVESTED CAUSE OR CONCERN IN MY SUCCESS AND WELL-BEING. of course, the mind is of body as well, and these permeate through the rest of me. i haven’t felt health for a while THOUGH I’M SURE THAT’S JUST THE COVID THAT I’VE DEFINITELY CONTRACTED AND SPREAD TO MY LOVED ONES or the scattered eating and sleeping schedule compounding into no full restoration. most of the time, this leads to a shirtless run on the towpath (if i’m not doing school work, i might as well perfect this bag of bones), but Ida has eroded many segments to the bottom of the canal, so darker nights may not be the best for it AND MY VISION SEEMS TO BE GETTING WORSE EVERY DAY, SO IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL THE BODY SURRENDERS ANY SHRED OF WORTH ENTIRELY.

but that night was not humid, and chilly waters woke me to ensure i was fully experiencing my slate slowly being washed away. worries seem to just slip away from me, like a patagonia in any of the clubs’ coat rooms. i feel the effortless mind of my body switch on the ignition, turning all engines to ensure that i freezen’t in the water, and i can stretch each muscle individually as i am asked to confront the prospect of how this form is treated. and i can breathe again, full and deep, and i feel like i am able to get up and face the world as it comes once more.

Scudder Plaza may be the most relaxing spot on campus: you can catch the cooling spray from James FitzGerald’s monumental sculpture, Fountain of Freedom, or be soothed by the sounds of its cascading water. At twenty-three feet high, Fountain of Freedom is one of the largest cast bronze sculptures in the U.S. Inspired by the rugged beauty of the artist’s native Pacific Northwest, the grooves, channels, and spires of the six-ton sculpture—reminiscent of naturally eroded forms—are meant to symbolize Woodrow Wilson’s aspirations and frustrations. … Seven hundred gallons of water are recirculated through the fountain each minute and are sprayed through an intricate system of fifty major pressure valves and more than 1,000 pin-hold jets. (x)

but tower 4 is some distance from those 4 towers. and without jets pushing them back, many things come crawling back. i am looking down to the basement cafe with its lights out, wondering if the people coming my way were laughing at my relative under-dress, when i decide that i cannot go home yet. i complete another barefoot walk across campus, and lay my towel down as a seat at my penultimate resting place.

its silhouette a vague enough [cardioid of sorts] to prevent any association based on shape alone, your expectations may be higher than what you need. it is a piece of furniture in name and in relativity to form, something regarded briefly in the minds’ eye and then passed by just as quickly. its flows ooze at a steady rate, in synch such that it never appears to be moving at all; the only proof that it is, really, is the shading below coming from beyond the light and the drippings at its bottom hidden from view. those surface shimmers make a soft sound, but on touch simply flow between the fingertips. a single indentation on the surface has received a few stones of the many that live below its form, placed there by hands other than its creator; certainly, they gave their vision the precise amount of care and intent required to manifest it. an illusion that what it emits has eroded it over many years to a smooth shape, but with the truth that it is still very young and remains solid within.

it would not feel quite right to sit atop einstein’s table, so i sit on the concrete next to the square of rocks. even with consistent eye contact, its subtle streaming does little to shield spectators from the world outside. a car driving by listening to top hits from summers past, a few pedestrians making their pilgrimage for late night snacks; every little itch on the surface of my skin, and of course, bare exposure to every THIS and THAT in a state of overwhelming stillness. but in all, it comes to pass, and my brain is left backtracking to the overwhelming stillness i have known in recent months. i am nostalgic for my University Mandated Quarantine Walks, particularly one alone in the mountain lakes preserve after my first snow back. i am nostalgic for early autumn days looking at the sun reflected off a pond. i am nostalgic for the waiting to find out where i’d spend my junior year, the waiting to receive messages and letters from friends. restless simplicity, anticipation for better things that, well, i guess are supposed to be the present. it doesn’t really feel that way now. as SENTIMENTS have alluded to, i am struggling to make it through right now. instead of a senior year that serves as the culmination of all that came before, i feel instead trapped in shitty replays of the past 3 years. like a script composed of false cognates, it feels like i understand what is happening right now and it makes no sense.

Near the earthwork is “Einstein’s Table,” made of jet mist granite and inspired by Albert Einstein’s theory on black holes. Lin noted that the theory was validated last year during the creation of the table. Outer space and constellations were a source of inspiration for both projects, she said.

During the hourlong conversation, Lin shared details of her process from start to finish, which included many adjustments along the way. “With every artwork there might be six to eight models,” she said. “I’m always teaching myself about the site, so that I’m preparing myself for what it’s going to be like to be on site.” (x)

but i think i am mostly wondering about how similarly others are feeling. it appears to me that my peers are sliding right back into the chaos of the now, festive in the face of it all and doing everything i tell myself i should be doing right now. do i come off that way to them? does anyone really know how to express these feelings 100 leagues below the surface, or is it just me? what feels true to me, and what leads me to rise from my seat next to the table and return home, is that i must continue. there is little option now but to follow through on this all until the end of the line, whenever it may come; maybe that comes easier for some people now, but i think i’ll make it eventually. i am not entirely sad and i am not entirely happy, but i am here. i think i want to help people despite not being perfect at it, and i am here. all things for granted or not, i am here. i will continue to get cold under one monument and never deny the temptation to touch another passing by, because i know those are things i like to think. i hope you know you can talk to me always.

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adapembroke · 4 years

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Stop Worrying About Your Saturn Return

When I was going through my Saturn return, I was an anxious wreck. Nothing particularly horrible was happening to me. As far as I could tell, nothing in particular was happening at all. I knew that couldn’t possibly be right. Saturn returns are supposed to be dramatic, life-changing events. I knew I must have been missing something important, I went to my mentor and begged him to help me figure it out. We talked about the symbols and ways that I could work consciously to feel better about the Saturn area of my chart, but no matter what he said, I didn’t feel prepared. Finally, he sighed and looked over his glasses at me and told me that there was no way to know what my Saturn return was all about. In all likelihood, the themes that would be raised by my Saturn return wouldn’t even begin to finish playing out until I was thirty-five.

“Wait until your Uranus opposition to start evaluating your Saturn return,” he said. “You won’t have any idea what it meant until you’re at least 42.”

I was furious at the time, but now I’m starting, I think, to understand what he meant.

My Jupiter return is coming up in about two years. (Yes, I know this is supposed to be a post about Saturn returns. Stick with me.) Two years is pretty far out, but it’s close enough that I can start to predict a little bit where I’m going to be in life. After a tumultuous 20s, it is glorious to be able to think at all about what life will be like two years from now. Being in this place is making me realize that I am only just now in my mid-30s getting to the place where I can think about planetary returns at all.

It isn’t a matter of intelligence or maturity. There are some astrologers in their 20s who have more wisdom in their finger than astrologers twice their age. It’s just a matter of being able to zoom out enough on your life to see the patterns.

It is only after 2.75 turns around Jupiter’s orbit that I’m able to see my Jupiter cycle themes clearly enough to work with them consciously. My Jupiter is in Aquarius and the 7th house, which is the House of Marriage. You would expect that my Jupiter cycle would have something to do with close, partnership relationships. Yes… But that’s not at all true in the way you’d expect.

The first time I experienced a Jupiter return was when I was 12. I did not have any close friends that year, and I didn’t date anyone. Partnership was entirely off the table. Sometimes, the absence of appropriate themes is because the person is too young, but my second Jupiter return was when I was 24. In that year, I also had no major events around partnership.

What both of those periods of my life have in common, though, is spirit. I first connected with spirit when I was 12. I was terrified and pushed it away. Twelve years later, spirit knocked again, much more insistently.

At first glance spirit work and my Jupiter placement have absolutely nothing in common, but Jupiter rules Pisces, which is in my 8th house (House of the Occult). It is also square my south node (past lives) in Scorpio (more occult stuff), my sun (ego) and north node (destiny) in 10th house (vocation) Taurus (value what’s important), and sextile Uranus (individuation) in Sagittarius (life’s a journey) the 5th house (past life relationships).

This means that Jupiter is connected to themes of spirit work, past life experience with spirits and the occult, and my sense of mission. Any event that triggers Jupiter, is going to trigger all of those things, too.

Now, on the edge of my third Jupiter return, I’m only just starting to see how the 7th house connects to all of this. I work with deities (Jupiter’s expansion theme -> big spirits), but I refuse to work with them in the usual devotional way (Aquarius). I agreed to work with them only if our relationship would be a partnership (7th house), and that’s what it’s become. There are ways in which they’re much more powerful and wise than me, but there are things that I can do here (like compassionately hitting someone over the head) that are much easier for me than it would be for them. That understanding is foundational to our relationship, which makes it (at least, with the gods I work with most closely) a 7th house partnership.

How could I have possibly seen that when I was 12 or even 24? When I was 15, I had no idea that the ghost that liked to camp out at the end of the hall at my parents’ house was the world of spirit trying to get my attention. When I was 24, my first brush with spirit after years of attempts to shut it out was still relatively subtle, the sort of thing you remember later only when you have a larger story to put it in. It was only a few years later, when spirit started to break down the door, that I could see that those experiences were significant in the larger plot of my life.

If Saturn moves almost three times as slowly as Jupiter and deals with themes that are just as big and long, I probably won’t have this kind of perspective on my Saturn issues until I’m in my 90s. Or dead.

It’s like when you’re first reading Harry Potter, and you think that Quidditch game with the snitch Harry Potter almost swallowed was a humorous interlude. It’s only in the last book that you understand the significance of that infuriating tiny object. It’s only when you can look at the whole story that you can see what’s really important.

Astrology can help you get a hint of what the larger themes in your life are, but an individual life is full of so many twists and turns. The way you put together the complex set of symbols in your birth chart will be shocking when they happen but oh, so obvious in retrospect.

So, if you are in your 20s, and you’re interested in astrology, and you’re gnawing your nails to bits worrying about your Saturn return, stop. You may feel like you’ve lived a long time, but your life is only just beginning from Saturn’s perspective. This isn’t the point in the story where you’re facing the crisis that will determine your future. You’re still the kid under the cupboard. Any step you can take to get yourself into a place where you belong is applause-worthy, and if all you can do right now is see where the problems are, that’s okay. Those problems are the conflict that will make your story worth telling. If you can see what those problems are now, you’re wiser than Harry Potter ever was.

This post was originally published on Aquarius Moon Journal on 7 January 2019.

#witchblr #saturn return #astrology

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dailyaudiobible · 4 years

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10/12/2020 DAB Transcript

Jeremiah 19:1-21:14, 1 Thessalonians 5:4-28, Psalms 82:1-8, Proverbs 25:9-10

Today is the 12th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is wonderful to be here with you as we move into our work week together, spending day by day time…time around the Global Campfire no matter what's going on, releasing, reorienting, refreshing. And, so, let's dive in. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Jeremiah chapters 19, 20, and 21 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Jeremiah today we…we do get very, very clear perspective on why people would speak against Jeremiah and why they would be upset with Jeremiah. We also get some pretty profound perspective on God's willingness to be as counterintuitive as He wants to be including dismantling what one would think was un-dismantlable. I'm not sure that's a word, but to tear down something that seemed to be indestructible, basically in order to achieve His purposes. That shouldn't be surprising because we see examples of it over and over and over in the Bible. But we usually try to kinda gloss over and not look at it because it's so disruptive and uncomfortable. Basically, what God is telling the prophet Jeremiah to tell the people, all the people, including the royalty, including the leadership of the country that God's intention is that Jerusalem will fall. Okay, so those inside of Jerusalem who are seeing themselves as God's chosen people even though the prophets have been coming to them and talking about spiritual adultery and idolatry and all of the things including child sacrifice and all of the things, they still at an identity level believe there God's chosen people and that Jerusalem is the footstool of the Lord, like His temple. This is non-destructible; this is God's place and nothing is gonna tear it down. So, the closer they are to that orbit, no matter what they do, the safer they feel. Kind of a “too big to fail” sort of scenario. Of course, we…we in our time…we should be wise enough to know that nothing is like that. Nevertheless, God has made it clear that because of all the goings-on that have profaned what He had in mind in the first place that Je’s gonna tear it all down and He's gonna use the Babylonians to do it. So, Jeremiah is trying to tell the people this in a time where things are generally peaceful and prosperous. And it's only over the course of a couple of decades that these things…like that things heat up. So, the people are against Jeremiah, because he's saying things that they can't…that they don't believe can happen and that he’s just disrupting their good culture and their good peaceful time. And, so, they want to do away with him. And finally, God says, and I quote from Jeremiah here, “this is what the Lord says: See!” I love that because we’ve been trying to do that all year. So, for the Lord to say “see” is like saying, “open your eyes. Have eyes to see.” So, “this is what the Lord says. See! I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.” In other words, you are at a critical crossroads, “Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine, or plague, but whoever goes out and surrenders to the Babylonians who are besieging you will live. They will escape with their lives. I have determined to do this city harm and not good, declares the Lord. It will be given into the hands of the king of Babylon and he will destroy it with fire.” Okay, that is disruptive if you live near God's temple and believe that it's indestructible, that God put His name there and he would defend it, For God to come and say I have chosen another nation to come in wipe this place clean because I have been warning you and warning you and warning you and warning you about your spiritual adultery about your idolatry about you…you have abandoned me. You have broken the covenant. And, so, now your own actions, the choices you made to walk away, you’re about to reap what you knew the curses of the covenant would be, here’s where it gets really disruptive. God is saying basically you’re at a crossroads. I've put a choice before you and it's a life and death decision. If you want to live surrender to the enemy. Yeah! You see how hard what's being said here is. Not only for Jeremiah the prophet to say it, to deliver the message but for the people to believe it because it sounds utterly wrong to them. It's going to require something that they don't want to do. It's going to require them to take a very big, very counterintuitive, very disruptive step of faith. They're gonna have to believe the word of the Lord through the prophet over what they believe brings them security, their city, their nation. And we will continue to see this struggle as we continue through the…the books of prophecy but specifically the book of Jeremiah as we continue this journey. But it should give us clues, as if we haven't been given them already throughout the entire Bible this far, that when God decides that time is up, that His patience has run out in a certain direction and that wherever mankind would go from that point, will never circle back around to good, only evil, so He is starting over again, that that's going to happen no matter how secure people feel in their environment. So, we could take this on a macro level and just, you know, look into the world and look for the clues but we can take this at a micro level, at a personal level and understand how much disruption makes us squirm, how much the interruption of the status quo makes us angry, how willing we become to focus all of our energy to keep things the same when God is wiping the slate clean because we’re not gonna circle back and we need to restart again. As it turns out in the story that we’re reading, Jerusalem is invaded by Babylon is conquered by Babylon and the city is destroyed. The temple is burned and destroyed the people are carried into exile. Oddly enough, it's from that very context that we will see very soon the most famous passage in the Scriptures right now, “behold I know the plans that I have for you”, right? This is in the book of Jeremiah. And it's within this context of God saying, “we have got to bulldoze. Like we have got to start over, the foundations are fragmented, we have got to start over again.” So, let's ponder that as we move through the weeks ahead, the months ahead, around the world, in our own country, in our own hearts, in our own lives.

Prayer:

Come Holy Spirit we pray into this. We fight what is disruptive to us would, what causes us angst, what causes us confusion inside. We fight these things because they don't feel good. They don't feel right, and we can't see that they're not supposed to. They are escorting us. They are causing us to get up and move and You are willing to continue to make us uncomfortable until we will get up and move because we are not where we are supposed to be. Help us to trust in You, Father, even when it doesn't make sense to us. You are our ultimate source of life. We trust You. So, whatever we’re seeing the disrupts us is different than what You are seeing, and we will trust in what You are doing over what we think. Come Holy Spirit into this we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus’, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, it’s where you find out what's going on around here, it’s where the Prayer Wall lives, it's where resources are available in Daily Audio Bible Shop. So, check it out, be familiar. We’re a big…a big family around this Global Campfire so we should be familiar with what’s going on around here. So, let's get connected in any way we can, in any way that we want to. Check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, that can be done at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, and by the way if you’re using the app, all the things that I just talked about, you can access all of that, Prayer Wall included, from within the app. Just push the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner. But if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner. And thank you profoundly for that. Or, if you prefer the mail, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, it’s the red button up at the top next to the…next to the Give button that we were just talking about. You can’t miss it. It’s a Hotline button, you can’t miss it. So, you can press that button and share from there, or there are phone numbers located in different parts of the world depending on where you are. If you are in the Americas 877-942- 4253 is the number. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to call. If you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi Howard, I would like to pray for you dear. You have three daughters and you have a mom and you have a wife that you just dropped off for a biopsy. Lord I lift You up my brother. He has all these women surrounding him in his life Lord and every single one is so important for him. And I know that all the family is important for You. So, Lord I pray that everybody’s gonna to be safe Lord. And the boyfriend and daughters and grandchildren, first of all I pray for that Lord. I pray that their just gonna have company a great company and they’re going to be choosing just companions for themselves, saved people as well. So, I’m praying for that first of all. And I’m praying second of all for the health of everybody Lord. I know You give trials. We are so stubborn Lord. We know that You also give us all good gifts Lord. So, I pray Lord that You will open our eyes and we will see what we need to do in our situations, that You will open the eyes of this family and they’re going to see what they have to do in this situation of sickness, isolation. And I pray Lord that You will comfort this family with a lot of good things and a lot of good news Lord, and they will be rejoicing in You and Your will be done Lord. Let us take what You give. Let us be joyful in the day. Pour the joy into that family Lord. Pour the joy in every situation. Let them open their eyes to trust You in this.

Hey DAB this is white as snow in Tennessee except today it’s from Canada. One of the advantages of being a truck driver even though the borders still close because of Covid it is open for deliveries and things like that. So, I came in from Buffalo in New York into Ontario. So, I wanted to say hi to his little Cherry and all those who call in from Canada. And I was thinking that it doesn’t matter where I am, I can still feel close to anyone who calls in and prays through the good, the bad, the ugly. You know, this community is just so awesome it doesn’t matter where we are, we can still be connected. And it’s such a blessing. And just wanted to lift up Terry the Trucker. I pray that you’re granddaughters doing well and recovering and that if you haven’t gone home yet that you will be able to get home soon. You’ve…you know…being stuck in your truck having to quarantine until things are clear. But I just pray that your drawn closer to God through this and just know that, you know, there’s tons of people praying for you and thinking of you. And I just pray that everyone has a blessed day

Hey DABbers, this is Slave of Jesus in North Carolina. All right Holy Spirit let’s roll. Amen to prayers for Teagan and Hagan and their parents. Ronald Taylor, thinking about killing yourself brother. You know the enemy is all in…in your call because you got your name out, you said that, and everything else got garbled. So, we know that it’s the enemy. We know that. But here’s the cool thing. You’ve got tens of thousands of people praying for you and it’s like, you know, if…if you’ve never watched It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s an old classic movie, go watch that movie and see the beginning of the movie where all these people are praying and they send the guardian Angel down to help him. So, I can just see that happening for you. So, that is…that is just awesome. Pelham, I love your call about, you know, Joe the Protector who’s calling about Terry the Trucker, you know. See how this works everyone? This is like a pandemic of prayer, this entire society. So, I don’t know. I think that is so cool. Amen to prayers for Samson and his…his getting through college and for those that are trying to get in that class in Samson’s prison there. Amen to prayers for Jaelyn’s mom recovering from a wonderful birth. Darrell from Atlanta, man you’ve got a great voice. You’ve got, you know, you’ve got a voice for radio or something. But I just I love your call about using God’s word as a sword. So, you know, I love that too. Not much time I got left but Paul from South Wales, why follow Jesus 365 man. I just loved your call. That was really, really cool. Now, this call was supposed to be about Joe. So, I got 25 seconds left. Joe, you know, when I first came to Christ God was like, yeah I had this atheist family that I portrayed and God was like all these Bible verses about hey if you don’t leave your family than you’re not a real Christian. That was the enemy trying to destroy my wife, my marriage. They are gonna be…the only Jesus they’re gonna see is you. That’s it. You’ve got a chance with them. So, stick in there, Joe. Love you all…

Hello everybody this is God’s Smile here. I’ve struggled for a day to call in because it’s been really not worth it __. The pain that I live through has been with me since my 20s and I’m 54 but I would say the last 15 years have been very aggressive and most definitely the last couple of years have…I didn’t think these levels would be possible and this is with morphine and morphine based drugs. It still leaks through and becomes overwhelming. I usually get a couple of hours where I can ring in and smile with you and pray with you but it’s less weak, it’s not really, it’s been relentless. So, I’m just trying to get through. And I love Jesus and I sing praises to Him with tears. I will never deny Him, and I trust Him. I’m just finding it so incredibly hard because my __ the pain. Time’s running. I’m going leave it there. Kiss kiss.

Hi this is Radiant Rachel and I am just praising God today on my second anniversary October 7th. And I would like to lift some people up in honor of my anniversary. Dear Lord, I pray that you will surround the community of listeners here and will bless them in their relationships with partners who are seeking you Lord with eyes wide open and hearts wide open. I also want to pray for Howard who called in today from North Carolina. I pray that you will surround the women in his life with your healing power. And Lord you know what each and every one of their needs are. I pray that you will be with them and guide them and that you will bless that family. I also pray for Rebecca’s heart and Skye, her husband from Michigan. I pray for healing over Rebecca for her jaw and neck and spine as well as the seeds that they are planting. I pray that you will send good soil and water for them and that those people will join your kingdom in your name I pray. Amen.

[singing starts] Oh, how wonderful Oh how marvelous is my Saviors love for me. Oh, how wonderful Oh how marvelous is my Savior’s love for me. More. More about Jesus. More. More about Jesus. More of His saving fullness see more of His love who died for me. My Jesus is the sweetest name I know and He’s just the same as His lovely name. That’s the reason why I love Him so for Jesus is the sweetest name I know. His name is Jesus and He’s so wonderful. His name is Jesus and He’s so beautiful. His name is Jesus and He’s so marvelous just to know that He does love me [singing stops].

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eldritchsurveys · 4 years

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945.

When did you wake up today? >> I woke up at like 4a at first, and then finally fell back asleep sometime after 6a, and woke up for good at a little after 8a. IDK why this happens, but it’s really annoying when it does.

Are you a breakfast person? >> I don’t know what a “breakfast person” is. I do eat a meal in the morning...?

How often do you exercise? What type of exercises? >> I don’t exercise. It’s difficult for me to find something engaging and fun enough for me to stick with it. When the weather cools off a bit I will probably take up morning walks again, but right now I’ve reached my limit with summer conditions and can’t be motivated to willingly drench myself in sweat.

Any favorite TV shows? >> Plenty. Here are three: Person of Interest, The Dragon Prince, Hannibal.

Do you pay attention to the news? >> I read news articles sometimes, when the subject matter is of interest to me or I want to get the full story behind something. Also, I get daily emails from The Flip Side, so that’s a bit of news every morning.

Do you ever donate a dollar to fast food charities? >> Not usually. I also am rarely at fast-food restaurants, so.

What type of books do you like to read? >> I like a wide variety of books -- genre matters less to me than whether the content is written in an engaging manner and whether I care about either the characters or the subject matter presented.

Have you ever enjoyed a reading assignment for school? >> ---

Did you get to decorate your own bedroom? What's it like? >> As a child? No. Now? Yes, because I’m an adult and I pay rent here so I can do whatever I want with my own room. It’s not really decorated in a specific manner, though, like it doesn’t have a ‘theme’.

What size bed do you sleep on? >> Twin, because that’s what fits in my room. Fortunately, I am a relatively small person.

Do you wake up easily to alarms? >> I would if I used them.

Do you stay up unnaturally late at night or do you get to bed early? >> I don’t think I go to bed particularly early or late. Ten PM seems a pretty neutral bedtime.

What are you usually doing if you're up late at night? >> If I’m up late at night, it’s most likely because I couldn’t get to sleep no matter what. It’s definitely not on purpose.

Do you keep anything on like a fan or the TV while you sleep? >> I have the fan on in summer because otherwise the heat would kill me. But I don’t like the noise, I prefer silence when I’m in bed.

Do you procrastinate with deadlines? >> I don’t usually have deadlines.

Do you put a lot of effort into school? >> ---

What food could you absolutely live off of? >> I don’t think I could live off of any food (barring survival situations, of course). I require an array of nutrients just as much as anyone else.

What do you get when you go to the movies? >> An alcoholic beverage, sometimes. Otherwise I don’t usually buy concessions, they’re too expensive. I’ve definitely sneaked many a snack or beverage into a theater and I’ll do it again.

Where do you like to sit at the movie theater? >> Back center.

If you're just lounging around the house, what are you wearing? >> PJ pants or shorts and an undershirt or t-shirt.

Do you like wearing heels? >> An inch or two is fine. I’d prefer not to wear anything higher than that.

Would you prefer a night in or a night out? >> A night in usually suits me, but depending on the kind of night out, I wouldn’t say no to that either. Definitely been getting nostalgic for dinner-and-movie outings lately.

Do you enjoy being alone, or does it make you feel lonely? >> I do enjoy being alone. It’s nice to just veg out in the apartment doing whatever I want, and I don’t feel like I’m being scrutinised every time I move.

Obsessed with any songs at the moment? >> Not any that I can think of.

Do you enjoy showers, or do you take them cause you need to? What about baths? >> Showers are a bit triggering for me for a tangle of reasons, I don’t enjoy them at all. I never take baths, those are a hard limit for me.

Shower robe or towels? >> I just get dressed immediately after drying off and moisturising.

Do you have routines for waking up and going to bed? >> I clean my face and take my Pill before going to bed. I usually read for an hour after waking up, before getting up for bio stuff.

Do you remember your dreams often? >> Not often.

Do the dreams you remember make sense? >> I usually only remember ones that have some kind of connection to waking life. The more esoteric ones are difficult for my brain to hang onto, I think. They come through less frequently.

How is summer going so far? >> I’ve had my fill of summer and now I am looking forward to fall. That’s the thing about summer -- it’s short enough that by the time I’m tired of it, it’s almost over anyway. By the time I’m tired of winter, the worst months haven’t even hit yet.

Do you spend a lot of time tanning? >> I don’t spend any time tanning.

What would you say occupies your time most? >> The Internet, I guess.

Do you keep your room clean, or are you not phased by mess? >> I try to keep my room clean, although the size and how everything is set up makes it look a little more cluttered than it actually is, which drives me batty.

Do you get hassled to keep a clean room? >> Who would hassle me...? I’m grown, I’m responsible for my own damn room for better or worse.

Do you do your own laundry? >> Sparrow does the laundry.

Do you think graffiti is art or vandalism? >> It’s both. Art from the perspective of me, a passerby who likes pretty colours and funky lettering. Vandalism from the perspective of a building owner or law enforcement official.

How do you like your marshmallows roasted? >> Until they’re crispy? Is there any other way, lol...

How do you get rid of hiccups? >> I don’t do anything, mine go away pretty quickly.

How about brain freezes? >> I don’t do anything for that, either, it’s over in a few seconds.

Do you have any healthy addictions? >> That’s... that’s an oxymoron??? What do you think “addiction” means?

Are you old enough to vote yet? >> Yes.

Is voting important to you, or are you uninterested by politics? >> I am uninterested in politics and yet I still participate in the voting system. I didn’t used to, but I’ve come to understand the importance of participating and so I do my best.

Are you alright at world geography? >> I’m pretty abysmal at world geography. I know where some countries and geographical features are, and I can figure out the general area of where other countries or geographical features would be, sometimes... but mostly I just never put much mental energy into that sort of thing and I’m often wrong.

How about navigating your city? >> I can navigate this city pretty well. I’m good with cities.

What part of history interests you most? >> What part of history doesn’t interest me, at least marginally?

Do you keep your cell phone on you all the time? >> Not necessarily on me, but it’s usually somewhere nearby. ... *looks around* ...Well, right now, it’s all the way across the room, but hey.

Do you answer it when it rings or do you screen your own calls? >> I don’t answer my phone at all. Every call I get is spam or a misdial / someone thinking this number belongs to someone else entirely.

Are you big on the texting? >> I don’t text much because there’s no one to text except Sparrow, who I see every day in person anyway.

Do you like chewing gum or eating mints? >> I like the cognitive effects of gum-chewing. But Orbit changed the formula of my favourite gum so I had to give it up.

Do you use dental floss much? >> I don’t floss.

If you're biking do you wear a helmet? >> I hate the way helmets feel on my head but I understand their importance so I just avoid biking at all, basically.

What is your favorite outdoor activity? >> I’m not sure. Hiking, maybe? I do miss hiking.

Do/did you enjoy living with your parents? >> I did not enjoy it.

Do you have any favorite clothes? >> If I still have an article of clothing, one can assume it’s a favourite of mine. Otherwise I’d just... get rid of it. I don’t like keeping things I don’t enjoy.

How about a favorite pair of shoes? >> I only have two pairs of shoes and I like them both for different reasons / purposes.

How many different types of ID do you have? >> Well, I have a state ID, and a Social Security card somewhere (... I should really figure out where that is, I always seem to misplace those), and a birth certificate. I think those are the major forms in this country (I don’t have a passport, which would be another major form).

Do you always remember your license when you're driving? >> ---

Do you pay much attention to speed limits while driving? >> ---

What do you listen to when you're in the car? >> Sparrow’s iPod, usually. But she got a new dongle for the car and it’s Bluetooth, so now I can play my Spotify sometimes too. I have a playlist specifically for the car that’s my Liked Songs with all the metal and hard rock removed (which is, like, three-quarters of my likes, lmao).

What do you spend most of your money on? >> Rent.

Do you take advice when it's given to you? >> I don’t usually receive advice.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic under the shield of "realistic"? >> I feel like that’s not the whole picture. Some people are plainly pessimistic, some people are pessimistic and call themselves “realistic”, and some people are realistic. Whatever. I think my viewpoint depends on what kind of day I’m having, not some innate preference.

Do you avoid arguments or do you go out of your way to express your views? >> I avoid arguments but not to the point where I never express myself. Sometimes my trauma-inspired aversion to perceived conflict can get in my way, but I try not to let it win every time.

Are you looking forward to the future? >> I don’t usually think about the future. I’m busy enough with the present.

#surveys #survey #random survey

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yoontothemoon · 5 years

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every inch ,

pairing: kwon soonyoung x female reader. words: 1287. genre: fluff. really just dumb fluff. enemies to lovers? social media au. summary: june fifteenth. to the world of seventeen, it meant that it was soonyoung’s birthday filled with sweet birthday wishes and advertising. it meant working on his birthday and all of the silly ways that seventeen would tease him. but to him, it wasn’t just his birthday. yoon notes: i thought it would be funny, okay. but no. also i would have done a full moodboard but... eh. because it is sort of a social media au i kind of... didn’t. ☽ probably viewed best on desktop.

there was an art to dealing with soonyoung on his birthday. most of the boys usually dealt with him by ignoring his rather outlandish actions and reactions. there was no way around it. his birthday often revolved around him, even without his meaning for it to happen. it was the way that he pouted when his members wouldn’t be the first to wish him a happy birthday. or the fact that he would send himself birthday wishes in lieu of disappointment. or even the fact that he would run to every room to tell anyone that it was his birthday.

it wouldn’t have been soonyoung if he had tried anything but.

you were never surprised by his antics, no matter how outlandish he could be.

soonyoung was authentically himself, and for what it was worth—he loved you all the same. and it was all that you could have asked for. it was a constant reminder of the fact on ever day aside from his birthday.

there was a bit of a divide when it came to his birthday, a sort of void placed between you with every action on the day.

from an outside perspective, you suppose, your relationship seemed a bit tremulous at times. it seemed as if you didn’t mesh well, whether it was your off putting personality or snarky comments. it always seemed like you were in a constant state of combatant.

the fact of the matter was that it was no ones’s business but yours or soonyoung’s. it was unfortunate but it was the fact, especially in the wake of your more than public posts. those were a constant reminder though you were happy enough to share in the joke. it always seemed to be the side that you showed, despite all of the photographic proof otherwise full of bright smiles and laughter.

in the beginning, neither of you seemed all that compatible between small conversations and rather long-winded speeches. you had been at each other’s throats, kicking and screaming ( metaphorically ) until one of you ( read: only you ) came up superior. you always had an inkling that he let you win despite the over-dramatic pouting and whining that he did.

truly, the two of you were a sight to behold, and you wonder to this day how you could have fallen for someone quite like him. soonyoung who gave every inch and all of the spaces in between to the people that he loved, to the point of exhaustion. every part of him screamed affection and care, full up to the brim as he showed in actions. though perhaps you weren’t so different.

there were the days when you’d give up so much of yourself, burning your candle at both ends until the exhaustion came—you pushed through. you became so acutely aware that you could have easily been the same person, just at either end of the spectrum.

you were two bodies with strong enough gravitational fields that you fought for dominance until you fell into his orbit. it was never a fight you were going to win—just another sort of, another maybe.

he made it easy, so quick—like a habit, when you came back time and time again. you were never quite sure how it happened. or how you ended up at his apartment one day.

what you do remember was straightening slightly, hesitating at your two options to knock or flee ( granted, you thought about knocking then fleeing ). but you knocked, waiting patiently at the door for something though you weren’t quite sure as to what.

you counted the seconds, chewing at your lower lip when you heard the muffled fumbling from beyond the threshold. you thumbed for options, fingers tucking hair behind your ears as you fidget because it seemed better than the alternative. your mind seemed to race—thinking of every scenario that might have happened when he pulled open that door. it was excruciating but it never quite lived up to the moment.

when he opened the door, half poking his head out to meet you—you reached over, pulled him across the threshold. half of you thought you might have missed. you thought that it wouldn’t have been half as dramatic and some you’d end up hitting his cute teeth and just so that you could back away in embarrassment. honestly, you might have opted for that than face the sheer rejection of it all just to run away from it all.

you were not infinitely sure of yourself. but you took a risk—the risk—and tried to come out the other side. some times that was all you could do.

with both hands pressed against his soft, squishy cheeks—you kissed him. you kissed him. you kissed him with all of the fire and passion that you had in your body, in the depth of your oceans and the expanse of your sky. it was a little warmer then, full of yellows and pinks—something different from the black and blues that seemed to warp your words. all you felt was warmth.

the thought had barely registered in either of your mind as you backed him into his apartment and he slammed the door. what was worse was he kissed you back in every iterations and sense. in the splashes of oranges and purples, the limitless blues that burst in that sky of yours—he was the sun and the earth and all it’s colours.

he chased the feeling, the high as your hands thread through his hair and his hands smoothed down your sides. he grasped at any skin he could.

“finally,” he breathed the word between lips and the slow form of a smile. finally, like he had been waiting for it—the chance and the opportunity. finally, like what you had just done wasn’t a mistake or some sort of misguided reason. so finally, like he had been in love with you all this time.

because he had been—so deeply despite all of your edges.

he could boil it down to a moment. one moment that changed his whole outlook on you. it was fleeting but so full of life. he supposed it was the first time that he had truly seen you smile with every ounce of yourself that he wanted to see it again. in that moment, he heard your laugh—a little loud at first, borderline obnoxious but so so big, so free that he didn’t even know it was you.

you were that bright spot in his eyes, that little flicker of light at the edge with your mellow colours. it was in the way that you’d reach out to him, like a habit, pinkies linked with small hearts drawn on thumbs.

“finally,” you mirrored the word with lipstick smeared across the corners. that moment stood still in your mind, anchored by every point of contacts—hands on hips, scratching at the nape of his neck, lips on lips, noses brushing and clothed skin pressed. he had anchored you to him—slow and contrary to his own personality.

this was the moment that you came back to. that was when you knew it didn’t matter what anyone else said or however irksome the comments could be.

because some times you forgot that it was your birth date too between the things that your boyfriend did. he was always so caught up in it between the laughter and the work, you were just happy to spend the day.

you weren’t perfect. and you weren’t even happy a lot of the time but it was worth it. some of the time relationships didn’t sweat the little things.

sharing a birthday with soonyoung was never easy but it made more than a day’s worth of memories.

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eryiss · 4 years

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Chapter Eight - Spiralling

Summary: Laxus Dreyar, prince of Fiore, has been trapped in the town of Magnolia for months by order of his grandfather. After a failed attempt at leaving ends up with the prince injured, his grandfather punishes him by adding a new guard to his retainer team. An arrogant, up-tight, overly confident, handsome bastard named Freed Justine. [Fraxus | Fantasy AU]

Hello. Back to the warnings. This one has a panic attack in it, so be cautious when reading if this can effect you.

You can read this on FanFiction, Archive of our Own, or under the cut. You can find the chapter list here. Hope you enjoy it ^.^

Chapter Eight – Spiralling

Laxus felt unlike himself.

Not as if he were acting differently or feeling unlike he normally did. He physically felt as though he was separated from himself. From his body. It was like he was witnessing everything that was happening as a memory, from someone else's perspective. But he wasn't – this was happening right now, happening to him – and his mind was swirling with confusion and fear and a hell of a lot of questions.

Why didn't Makarov warn him? Surely he should have.

Why was everyone cheering? They were losing one of the best kings in history.

What if he turned out to be an awful king?

What if he failed?

He could see and hear everything that was going on but couldn't exactly process it. He knew that there was a crowd of faces, cheering and hollering in some cases, all looking towards him. He knew that his grandfather was talking, perhaps trying to calm the crowd, but the words were just a mess of sounds. He could feel hands on his shoulders, one from Evergreen and one from Bickslow, but he hadn't even noticed them coming into the platform.

Somehow, he managed to focus on one thing. He looked over the blur of people and his eyes settled on Freed, who didn't merge with everyone else. He was looking right back at Laxus, and after a moment, he mouthed 'are you okay?' Laxus felt himself shaking his head no.

His body was taking over, it seemed.

Makarov continued to talk – something about keeping up levels of enthusiasm – and began to walk backwards from the middle of the fighting arena. Laxus was still looking directly at Freed, hoping that somehow he had an answer for all the questions going on inside his head. In less than a five-minute period, his world had literally been transformed three times. He realised he had been selfish for months. He and Freed had kissed each other. He was going to be king.

He wasn't ready for this. Nowhere near.

Apparently Makarov was out of the fighting grounds, leaning against the wall. He was staying there by the looks of it. That was good, Laxus couldn't talk to him like this. The crowd were chanting something, too. Words in unison, and it took Freed looking away form Laxus to realise what exactly they were chanting.

A countdown. Freed needed to fight. This wouldn't be a distraction for him, would it. He couldn't get hurt. Gildarts was a strong target but Laxus couldn't deal with something else right now.

"Two. One. Fight!"

The loud exclamation of 'fight' seemed to snap Laxus back into reality. Sound no longer was muffled by his thoughts, and the edges of his sight were no longer hazy. Perhaps it was because the need to support Freed was overpowering his panic, or perhaps it was because the fight was something that he expected to happen, and he could cling to for a sense of normality. Laxus couldn't be sure, and he wasn't sure he cared that much. He needed a distraction, and this was the only one presented to him.

Freed didn't seem distracted, thankfully. He shot forward the moment the fight began. He had his sword unsheathed in a smooth movement, running towards Gildarts as quickly as possible. The other retainer was standing with his arms crossed; cocky fuck.

Laxus knew Freed could win this. The old man should show him some damn respect.

When Freed was closer, Gildarts raised an arm and shot it towards one of the brick piles that had been laid out across the arena. They broke into multiple small squares, as if knives had cut through them and cubed them. The small cubes of brick started to float in the air, rotating slowly and orbiting Gildarts. He still looked cocky, and Laxus felt himself wanting Freed to win more at the expression.

Suddenly, a barrage of the small rocks shot forward, flying towards Freed. Laxus may have taken an intake of breath, he wasn't sure, but if they hit Freed then it would hurt. The prince glared at Gildarts as if it would help Freed. The older man still hadn't taken a step.

But Freed didn't seem distracted at all. He seemed in his element.

His sword moved with fluidity, swinging through the air with such speed that it almost merged into a single trail of silver in the shape of a figure eight. It took Laxus a moment to realise what exactly Freed was doing; he was moving his sword so fast that it was acting as a shield, batting away each cube of brick and sending it flying to the side. He hadn't even slowed his running pace while doing this, and Laxus couldn't help but feel a weird sense of pride at the mans skills.

Hard to believe that they were fighting viciously when they first met. But he was being immature when that had happened.

Would he be immature like that when he was king? That couldn't happen, people's lives could be fucked up.

No; he couldn't think about that. Not now.

Apparently Gildarts had been underestimating Freed, because he took a few steps back. Freed was still running towards him, and Gildarts was forced to send the remaining barrelling towards him. The retainer continued to swing his sword in a blocking formation, forcing Gildarts to take further steps back. Laxus felt a grin form slightly. He could latch onto this. This was something good to focus on. Something without repercussions. Something he couldn't fuck up.

Freed was in close quarters with Gildarts now, definitely close enough to hit him with the sword. Gildarts hadn't expected it either, as he was spending forces of his magic directly towards Freed. It wouldn't hurt him – it read Gildarts' intentions and split that apart – and Laxus realised that he was trying to shatter Freed's sword.

But Freed must have figured that out to, as his movements with his sword were fast and unusual. If he avoided the blasts of magic then Gildarts couldn't do anything to his weapon. The retainer must have researched into how Gildarts' magic worked. Of course he had.

Laxus shouldn't have expected anything less.

Seemingly aware that Freed wasn't allowing his sword to break, Gildarts shot his arm forward and aimed it towards a wooden crate. It split apart a moment later, and large spikes of sharp wood started to float in the same was the bricks had. Freed glanced towards them but didn't give them much attention, instead striking forward.

His sword clearly cut into Gildarts' outstretched arm, and a cut slipped through his bicep. It wasn't deep, barely bleeping really, and not enough for any real pain. Gildarts winces, but shot his wooden spikes towards Freed.

The retainer couldn't block them like he had before, and Laxus growled as Freed was cut in multiple places.

"This is bullshit," He growled. He was angry; he hadn't realised. "Freed's only got a sword, how's that fair."

"He can handle himself," Evergreen assured him.

"Course he can, but it still ain't fair," Laxus gritted his teeth. "Gildarts can do a fuck tonne with his magic. Freed can either cut him or stab him. He ain't gonna stab him, not in front of people, so all he can do it cut Gildarts to pieces. That ain't fair."

There was a moment of silence. Bickslow spoke eventually. "He can deal with it."

Laxus knew that Freed could deal with it. Of course he could deal with it, that was never in fucking doubt. But just because Freed could figure out a way to deal with his disadvantage, it didn't mean it was fair. How was Freed meant to show off – which apparently this was all about – if he was limited to using the least destructive of his tactics. Gildarts wasn't even wearing armour, so Freed had to be even more careful.

The prince leant forward, hands clutching around the wooden bannister that was before him. Freed and Gildarts had moved back form each other, and the onslaught of projectiles had ended. It seemed like they were taking a second to catch their breath.

"Tired, kid?" Gildarts taunted, loudly to the crowd.

Laxus had half a mind to vault the platform and fight alongside Freed.

But Freed was calmer than Laxus. He didn't respond to the clear taunt, instead clutching his sword in his hand and running towards Gildarts again. Laxus watched as his clothes bellowed behind him, his expression collected and serious. He was so fucking elegant and, as he focused on the man who he had just kissed, he felt his emotions swirl again, this time for the better.

Freed was attainable. He had kissed Laxus, and not in anger or spurred on by adrenaline; he had simply done it. That meant that Freed felt for him, at least to a degree. It meant they could get together.

Could they, though?

Laxus didn't know how it worked. Could a prince – or a king – date a man? Could they date at all? Freed was a member of the castle's staff, would that be seen as inappropriate? Would everything about their relationship be seen as inappropriate?

They wouldn't exactly be the most conventional couple if they got together. And as much as Makarov preached for acceptance of all, there would be people who didn't want a gay king. They'd see it as weakness or immoral. Would that effect his potion in the kingdom? It could be used against him. He didn't know if he could deal with people having issued about it – the only people who knew were his family and friends, who were supportive. He'd never had someone make a big thing about it.

But what if he didn't get together with Freed at all?

It was possible. For god's sake, the amount of responsibilities he would have to deal with would be countless. He wouldn't have time for anything, least of all dating. And maybe Freed wouldn't want to be with a king – if Laxus was having all these mad rushes of fear then Freed might be too.

Could he deal with that? Living with Freed being so close – with a romance being so close – but just out of reach.

Laxus' grip on the banister got tighter. His knuckled were white now.

There was so many things happening that he didn't know. His relationship, his position, it was all in flux. He felt as though he was both on fire and freezing at once, overloading again. He couldn't look at the fight to distract himself, partly because Freed was there, and he was no longer safe to think about. And partly because it was too loud. Too bright. Just too fucking much.

Shivers ran over his skin, his ears roared with the chanting of the crowds and it was all just too much. He needed to leave; what people thought be damned. This was too much, he couldn't cope.

"Laxus!" The yell broke over everything, and Laxus snapped his head to Bickslow.

"What?" He intended to growl the word out, but it came out weak.

"I know you've got a fucking storm going on in your head, but you need to get through it," Evergreen spoke, looking serious, and Laxus opened his mouth to fight. "Laxus, you need to get down there and end this fight. Like, right now."

"What the fuck does the fight matter?"

"Freed has magic, Laxus," Bickslow hissed. "He always has. Its dark magic, he can't properly control it and right now it's seconds away from breaking down. If he keeps fighting, he might snap and end up using it."

No.

NO.

Laxus could not deal with something else. Freed did not have fucking magic! He did not have fucking dark magic. He couldn't. That kind of practice was outlawed. It would get him in trouble. And it wasn't possible. He would have told him; if Bickslow and Evergreen knew then why wouldn't he tell Laxus as well? It didn't make sense.

"Laxus look at him," Bickslow hissed again. "He can barely contain it already. Just look at him!"

The blonde looked towards his retainer, and his breath hitched slightly. It was just for a split second, but he saw wings spark from Freed's back. Purple, translucent and shimmering. Nobody seemed to react – maybe the dust covered it up from where everyone else was watching from – but it was undeniable.

Freed had magic. He had magic and hadn't told Laxus. He had magic that could get him fucking put back in the tower dungeons.

"For gods sake, stop gawking and stop it," Evergreen hissed. "Makarov knows already, he always did, so just fucking tell him what's happening. If you don't, people will see and want him punished."

That wasn't happening. This was too much already, losing Freed entirely would break it.

He stood up fast, storming past his retainers and to the door of the viewing platform. His mind was swirling, and again his body was taking over. He was walking fast, trying to get to his grandfather as quickly as he possibly could. All the people were focused on the fight though, so they weren't moving to let him through.

Eventually, he had to start pushing through the people. His head throbbed, there was shouting everywhere. It surrounded him and he couldn't focus on anything. Not the kiss, not the fact he was going to be king, not the fact Freed had magic. Not any of it.

But it was all there. It felt like everything was attacking him.

He could head his own pulse beating in his head, and every movement sent a shock through his body. He put his hands to his ears but that only made it worse. His eyes hazed again, now a mess of colours as he tried to force his way through the crowd.

This was too much.

His breathing was getting manic and his limbs were burning. Why was that happening? He shouldn't be exhausted, but he was. He felt as though he was drained, it was wrong. All of it was wrong. Why was it all wrong?

That thought festered in his mind as his limbs buckled under him, and his eyes fell closed.

-~~~-

When Laxus woke up again, he was in his bed. He was warm, sweating badly despite the fact he seemed to be stripped to his boxers, and his head was aching. He sat up slowly, letting the covers fall down him as he rested his back against the headrest; it was made of leather and mercifully cold on his burning skin.

He opened his eyes and scanned the room a moment later. It was his bedroom; the curtains were drawn shut, but a small amount of light flickered through them, so he knew it was day; and Freed was sitting at the table. Watching him.

Not in the dungeons at least.

That thought brought everything back, piling onto him. It didn't fill him with fear this time, more so with dread. A nausea filled his stomach and he was forced to swallow a bile that raised in his throat. Freed seemed to notice that and stood up and walked to him.

"What-" Laxus began; his throat hurt. "What happened?"

"We believe you had a panic attack," Freed said, his voice like velvet in Laxus' ears. "That, and a sensory overload led you to collapsing. That was about four hours ago, I'd hazard."

A panic attack. That made sense.

"I should mention that your grandfather wishes to speak to you as soon as he can. I was told to inform him when you woke up, but you'd probably prefer some time to wake up," Freed continued, and Laxus felt his stomach churn at the idea of talking to Makarov. Freed must have noticed. "He wishes to apologies, I think. For not warning you of his announcement."

Laxus nodded a little, taking a glass of water that Freed was handing him. He drunk it in its entirety, placing it on his bedside table. His mind was starting to slow down now, giving him real time to think. Calmly this time.

He needed to prioritise things.

"What happened after I fainted?" He asked, voice a little less croaky now.

"Well, someone as large as you collapsing on them is hard to ignore. The poor man realised who you were, managed to get Makarov's attention, as well as mine. The fight ended, you were taken here, a doctor checked you up and explained what happened, and I've been sitting here since."

"So," Laxus spoke up again, looking to Freed. "The fight stopped before…"

Laxus didn't know how to continue that, so Freed cut in.

"Nobody saw that I have magic," He assured Laxus, who looked at him with a frown. "Bickslow and Evergreen explained they told you. Hearing someone shouting about the prince collapsing made me lose interest in the fight quite quickly."

Okay, that was good. Freed hadn't been seen, they could now discuss the fact he had magic, and nobody was going to be slung into the dungeons. That was at least one thing that he could strike off his list of things driving him to madness.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked, and Freed sighed.

"Honestly, it's because I'm ashamed of it," The retainer was looking down, but speaking pragmatically. He always did. "Not only was I born with something that many people consider to be evil, but I haven't even gotten control of it. For the most part I can block it out and just act like it isn't there, but when my emotions become too enflamed then it seems to overthrow my good sense and I start casting without meaning to."

Laxus couldn't imagine Freed being ashamed of himself. He didn't like it.

"If I'm honest, I've used it a few times in front of you," Freed admitted. "When we fought for the first time, I was close. That's why Bickslow sent me away. A few times after that, as well. The worst day was when we were attacked on the road, after our night together."

Laxus watched Freed's face, and his gaze was lower down. There was a small darkness across his features and Laxus didn't want to look at it. There was a true look of shame and it was just so unfamiliar that it almost didn't look like Freed.

"What did you do?"

"When I killed the magician, I didn't just stab him. There was a lot going on – I'm sure you remember – and I lost sense of things. I essentially drained him. There's a spell that causes death and I used it on him," Freed sighed. "I should also admit I used a spell on you that day."

"You did?" Laxus asked. His voice didn't show if he was angry, confused or scared.

"Part of my magic is made up of runes, I have most control over them. I put a distraction rune around the carriage," Freed looked back to Laxus. "I didn't want you to watch me kill a man, so I forced you to be uninterested in it. I apologise for that."

It was odd, because now it had been explained it felt obvious.

He knew what Freed had been doing, and he probably should have watched. Morbid curiosity dictated that to happen. And yet, looking back, he just had ignored what happened. And, although his instinct was to be angry at Freed for messing with his head, he honestly couldn't be. Because even the thought of watching Freed kill someone – to drain them – was something horrible. The reality would have also been horrible, and Freed had sparred him that.

Looking up at the retainer, Laxus wanted to kiss him again. He shouldn't, that should be the last thing he wanted in this situation, but he did. Because, even when he lost control of his emotions, he had been thoughtful.

"You don't need to," Laxus spoke softly. "I don't – just don't worry about it. You're fine."

Was this twisted, perhaps. But so was everyone.

That was the next priority. Their kiss.

"Since we're talking, I have to ask," Laxus continued, and Freed nodded slightly. "I know I should be thinking about other things, probably, but what happened earlier. The fact that we kissed. Is that… what was that?"

"I. Well. From since we started to get to know one another, I've grown to admire you. You're a good man and I have a lot of respect for you. As time elapsed, I realised that what I felt wasn't simply respect, it was more akin to something… some sort of attraction."

So this was what Freed was like when he was rambling. Interesting.

But, if he was being honest, Laxus was done with talking. There had been too much talking, too much thinking. Besides, Freed had said all he needed to say.

So he cut the man off by kissing him.

Freed was shocked for a moment, it seemed. But as Laxus slowly started to move his lips, Freed joined in. Laxus pushed forward so they were closer, and Freed did the same. Laxus could feel a cold hand resting on his bare chest and smiled a little at the contact. He tilted his head, slightly butting his chin forward to add a little more into the kiss. Freed retorted by doing the same thing, and Laxus felt a small amount of stress leaving him.

For a moment, he could tell everything else to fuck off.

The fact he could be king. The fact his life was in limbo. The pointless embarrassment of people seeing him faint. The fear that Freed and him couldn't be together. It was all nothing.

Placing a hand on the nape of Freed's neck and pulled him a little closer, and smiled when Freed's mouth split open slightly. Laxus did the same, and their tongues butted against each other. It was just as good as their kiss earlier in the day, better even. This felt warm and private and without repercussions. It felt safe.

Eventually it ended, with their foreheads still touching and faces inches away from each other. Laxus was smiling and Freed returned it, looking a little flushed.

"More of a man of action," Laxus grinned. "Sorry, you were saying something."

"It seems like you guessed what I was going to say," Freed chuckled. "And apparently you seem to have similar opinions on the matter."

"So in non-pretentious speak we're both hot for each other," Laxus grinned again.

"I suppose you could say that," Freed agreed with a small laugh.

"Thought so," Laxus leant up and pressed a chaste kiss onto Freed's lips. When he pulled back, he had a slightly serious look on his face. "So, if we both agree on that, I suppose we should talk about what that means."

"No," Freed said softly, and Laxus frowned. Freed moved his hand from Laxus' chest to his cheek, and it was so damn comforting. "You've got enough to deal with, on all accounts, and I don't think we should add to that when we done need to. So, until things calm down for you, I propose we take our relationship as it comes. From what I know, that's what most normal people do."

"Yeah, 'cause nothing says 'normal' like a prince who just had a panic attack and the retainer with secret magic," Laxus laughed, before looking softly into Freed's eyes. "You sure you're okay with that. Might take a while."

"I'm patient," Freed smiled, leaning forward and kissing Laxus again. "Although if you think we won't be kissing frequently, then I'm afraid you're in for a nasty surprise."

Laxus smirked and pressed his lips against Freed's. "Yeah, feels pretty damn nasty to me."

"Likewise," Freed taunted, and Laxus grinned.

They kissed again, and Laxus felt warmth filling him as it had each time they kissed. Laxus now had his arm wrapped around Freed's waist – he was still wearing the uniform that had some damn effect on Laxus – and was pulling him close. He was smiling through the kiss and felt Freed doing the same. It was great.

And, while embracing Freed, he felt comfort. He felt as though the growing list of problems and responsibilities and issued were something he could deal with. Freed could help him, perhaps. And with the things he couldn't, at least he would have a man to kiss at the end of a bad day.

He could do this.

He could be a good king. With Freed by his side at least.

#fraxus #freed justine #Laxus Dreyar #fraxus day #freed x laxus #fanfic #fairy tail #writing

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dahniwitchoflight · 5 years

Text

Candy 37-End

Vriska isn’t wrong when she’s picturing Earth C’s Sky as being like Skaia, where you see in the cloud’s of the sky what is real and canon, which is exactly what’s happening here in this Sky of Earth C, because everything, even the visions in the clouds, are being bent unconsciously to John’s will.

If John were a much more selfish person, willing to take and enjoy everything he ever wanted, this would be a paradise to him, thank god he’s not though, but still sucks to be him

Love the infinite character loop that is the character arc of “Vriska” that she just can’t seem to escape btw

“Asshole teenager does horrible things in the name of role model who she thinks is cool but is actually terrible and another version of herself from another life and its only once she falls into her own bullshit does she realize life could have been different, been better”

Maybe this would all be different if all these Baby Vriska’s didn’t choose asshole versions of themselves as a role model like some kind of terrible self fulfilling prophecy

I don’t messaging Terezi is gonna work, pretty sure she’s dead, but Vriska doesn’t know that, she skipped right past the latest conversation and went to the top didn’t she? yup

Good to see that, from Roxy’s point of view, she didn’t just stop existing, she did just naturally swerve into the kind of person John would like, but from John’s point of view and what he knows, it did make her feel like some kind of ingenuine puppet. Sad to see that once again, she just wanted John to be happy, but her attempts, since they were coming from her, would just be futile in his eyes due to the context of the situation they found themselves in

But hilariously ironic if it was literally just the normal relationship troubles of becoming estranged from him because he was becoming estranged from her because he stopped treating her like a real person because he felt like she wasn't real

when from your own perspective, yourself is always real. From Roxy’s perspective, she could be real while no one else isn’t, it kind of a side effect of reality feeling like it’s being warped, everything gets dilated and stretched to kind of orbit around only your own perspective and you get disconnected to everything else

and of course, you can’t help but think, is Roxy only acting real NOW because John and thus the narrative finally really wants her to be? It’s a circumstantial question without an answer, it really depends on which perspective is being written from and who you ask

but still, the one factor no one can really account for is the house juju, while they are all god tier players with ultimate selves, John has retcon power, and that IS an advantage over everyone else’s wills, whether anyone likes it or is aware of it or not

it just happens that due to John’s non interference policy as much as possible, the changes were more subtle and thus no matter how warped, it was “well written” is the only way to explain it

so even if Roxy is a puppet or a real person, she is indistinguishable from either one

But can’t forget that Skaia is not entirely neutral either, it contains an author with a narrative and an opinion, who may be doing his best to remove himself just like John but did it is still one version of events over others, Hussie himself

that’s the real seemingly inescapable canon that makes things feel right or wrong or real or fake, whatever Hussie thinks is so

and maybe because Hussie was their original creators, some part of their cores will always be tugged back to his vision in some way, that piece of narrative influence that gives an unfair sway to one thing over another

Just like the what the cursor does to John

like Roxy is 100% accurate in what she’s saying in Candy too, IF everything was equal in it’s influence, if Skaia was a pool of everyone’s wills and not the will of just one man doing his best to not be that

Once again, the biggest problem in the story is the plothole of the cursor, but that’s one Hussie can’t be the one to solve or else the problem of influence just continues on in his own work

So it makes sense to do what he’s done so far and give the reigns over in ways to others, have other people write the epilogues, have other people in the hand of creation for things like hiveswap and pesterquest

and yknow of course fandom and audience, but things that come from the audience won’t ever be real and canon, like fanfiction won’t solve this problem either, no one would ever really accept that

it has to be a scenario where the originator entrusts decisions to other people aka Hussie hires an official team to do something and then they take the reigns from there

WhatPumpkin, maybe without Hussie, has to be the one to solve the plothole of the cursor to everything to feel truly “right”

maybe not do everything themselves obviously, but that problem has to be solved by someone who isn’t Hussie, that’s what I feel

That’s what I think, that feels acceptable and satisfying to me

mood whiplash incoming:

OBAMA?? oh my god damn fucking fuck

this is how he shows up in the epilogues, goddammit

I’ll be honest, while this is hilarious as a joke, it’s actually very derailing to the narrative

It feels like something that should be happening in sweet bro and hella jeff, not Homestuck

Like I enjoy it, but I know it’s wrong here, not supposed to be happening

This is absolutely a test for the audience, basically a dare, how much are we willing to accept as “Canon”? outright challenging us to change the narrative now

because if we justify changing this, we can justify changing other things, and then that basically opens the floodgates

That’s honestly probably what a lot of the content in these epilogues was meant to be, each thing presenting more and more of a challenge to swallow as real, how much can we take before we decided enough is enough and start making it different?

I actually hit that a while ago with nearly every implied sexual escapade of Gamzee’s none of them are things I want to be in Homestuck proper straight up I can think of no good sexual relationship Gamzee has ever had in the history of Homestuck

I actually don’t like where this is going though, like it was shock but now it’s getting weird vibes

The fated place of this planet is to be a cherub nest for the big bad (and also Calliope)

Why is Obama so concerned about the fate of where it’s meant to end up at? Nowhere good is the answer. And also his speech is starting to sound vaguely Dirk like or at least Dirk justifying and I don’t like how it’s taking all of Dave’s attention like he’s getting a sudden pump of that Dirk withdrawal.

“OBAMA: Haven’t you been improved by the knowledge of what you grew up to be in my time? Can you really say you’d be what you are today without the memory of him?”

Which “Him”? because if you say Dirk I don’t trust like that

All of this is such a lampshade though about the whole idea of the narrative, that’s so glaringly clear.

Obama was found by Adventuring Grandpa Jake as a kid??? I mean, sure, why not, I guess all of humanity is related to Jake technically just like the rest of the god tiers

Oh wow their just straight up making Obama another “Kid of Jake” story like Jade and Joey, “lonely kid lives on island, distantly related to an old man version of Jake English, turns out the Island holds some secret that unlocks the key to more knowledge.”

Also there making it pretty clear that the rest of the Earth Kids DO have SOME power to influence reality, since John wouldn’t think of this, I really don’t think he would, it’s just that when John is involved his everything outweighs everything

Even now it goes back to the shades John gave him over and over.

“OBAMA: I think Dirk would be proud if he could see how you turned out.

OBAMA: In fact, I know it.“

I DON’T TRUST LIKE THAT I DON’T TRUST LIKE THAT

I’m also really actually uncomfortable with how far this joke is going, like, Obama is a real person outside of homestuck, putting all this shit into his mouth just feels really in bad taste, like it’s taking the joke of how much Dave ironically likes Obama way waaay too far

“OBAMA: Believing is the key to understanding the truth underlying the words, the truth underlying the ideas they represent, and the truth underlying who we are as individuals.

OBAMA: The power of belief, the power of Hope, that’s what endows that which is intangible, ephemeral, or uncertain with a sense of reality.

OBAMA: It brings focus to the insubstantial, the mirages of the mind, the multiplicity of what is possible, of what could be, and isolates it—concentrates it—to turn it into that which is.OBAMA: And the result of that, Dave, is what we call truth.“

This is neat though, basically confirming Hope as a power of Reality has a direct ties to Canonical Truth

“The only thing he knows is he needs to listen carefully to every precious syllable. To listen with his ears, his heart, his entire being.“

Is the Ultimate Self of Dirk actually just extending to like, every person who potentially holds his DNA now??? Like, as one of the ecto progenitors of Mankind itself like how Grandpa Adventure Jake was implying??

Because that’s a terrifying thought

or maybe not, this Obama IS a constructed hologram, I forgot, pull back the reigns, Dirk could have easily constructed a robo-holo version of himself to look and act a fake story of Obama just for Dave’s sake

that makes more sense

“OBAMA: He taught me about many things. Combat, philosophy, life, love... “

Yup there is no way this isn’t some version of Dirk like a strange Obama-fied autoresponder

Okay, bad taste jokes aside about using Obama as a literary device going a bit to far

Dirk using that phrase as like, it seems to be confirmation that Dirk feels a need to “train” his romantic partners and people around him to be the people he wants them to be, servants for him and that’s so gross

“ The sliding panel reveals a recess, and in the recess stands a robot. It’s a gleaming, polished silver replica of Dave, but without shades. It stands totally still, unpowered. Dave struggles to make sense of what he’s looking at. “

IT’S A TRAP DON’T GO INTO THE ROBOT BODY THAT NEVER WORKS OUT FOR ANYONE.

IT IS *LITERALLY* CONSTRUCTING A VERSION OF ANOTHER PERSON TO WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT THEM TO BE.

God, you never really get just how control freak and obsessive it is to literally want to remake every single cell of a person and program them obsessively so that they do whatever it is that you want while also seeming indistinguishable from themselves, perfectly programmed and perfectly written

I say this not without missing the irony that doing that is exactly what Hussie wants all of us to do as well, and even I think things could be better written but that’s still hubris too isn’t it?

Calling it a choice for Dave even now rings so entirely hollow, because Dave is being written here like he would never choose anything else, so really when did he ever have a choice?

The fact that Obama seems to actually have hope powers and the way that his backstory included that note about he was related to a version of Jake English though more just makes me think Dirk’s Ultimate self got a hold of Jake’s as well, and this holobama is more just Jake English twisted incomprehensibly into another being by Dirk Strider

"Dave’s eyes widen, his mouth opens as if to scream, but he doesn’t make a sound. Infinite experience flows through his consciousness, an unimpeded torrent of raw potentiality. He sees everything. The roads not taken, the lives not lived, the thoughts, desires, fears all unacted upon. The Doomed Daves, the Davesprites, the Davepetas, life with Jade, life with Karkat, life with both, life with neither. It’s like soaring through the clouds at supersonic speed, too quickly to make out the shape of any single puffy nimbus, like a breakneck jaunt through Skaia. Huge clouds rushing by, small ones, clouds with visions, empty clouds, white clouds, then a great dark one. And then, the briefest possible glimpses—most too fleeting to be noticed—of Dirk. “

You know I just realized something too, In it’s own Messed up Way, I can see how Dirk think’s what he’s doing might be good too

if the natural conclusion I came to is that all the characters themselves need to take a swill of that house cursor thing to all be on equal footing and decide together how they want the story to be

Dirk may think he’s technically doing the same thing by unlocking everyone’s ultimate selves and merging them into his

because then it is technically every version of all of his friends all making a decision together, not just his friends, all the aspects of reality itself

except their all strapped to his will and only his will

theyre not making decisions together, theyre making decisions together for Dirk how Dirk wants is to be

they all have to have equal footing and they all can’t decide how each other’s lives are going to be

If they all get canon imbibing power and want to remake homestuck, they have to only be able to only affect their own lives, nothing more, or we get this problem

and well, Dirk just got Dave’s Ultimate self now

“JADE: as it happens, this projection within me serves as a stable conceptual foothold from which i can sense and resist another growing threat which is determined to jeopardize the canonical plane of reality.”

So again if it hasn’t already been confirmed before, Dirk doesn’t want to uphold Homestuck’s “Canon” he wants to upend it for his own purposes.

Neither Meat or Candy is Canon, but both are affecting it.

Oh cool, Alltie is actually going into with Aradia how the narrative can be condensed in such a way that they can then be applied loosely in multiple different ways, just like how I was talking about before with how Vriska’s arc seems to loop around

haha I wonder if I can do the same thing

“A brat admires an asshole, becomes one, and regrets it.”

wait I can do better

“A brat imitates an asshole and regrets it.”

that was actually a neat little exercise in how entirely strip something of all of it’s context in order to broadly apply it to multiple scenarios. Stripping the cloth in order to create a narrative thread.

“It’s a feather, burnt at the edges, flickering orange and green.”

Oh Ultimate Dirk’s definitely eaten Ultimate Jake

“JADE: consume his body.

JADE: absorb his essence.

JADE: and then using this host, i will generate enough power to move beyond the staggering pull of the event horizon encasing this world.

JADE: a prison of my own making, which can be escaped only through the supreme unification with my other half.

JADE: it is crucial to the cosmos that i succeed.

JADE: the prince of heart has to be stopped.“

Ah, Okay, now I understand that ending part of Meat, that was actually the end of Candy, so now I assume the ending of Meat is gonna happen here on the next page?

Also, Alltie, I dunno if merging with LE is exactly the thing you want to be doing here, unless you think you can win the battle of wills on the ultimate self scale, absorbing Dirk into you instead?

You probably can, I mean, even if Dirk is an especially manipulative human given godlike power to manifest his reality and put his will over countless other only humans so far

You are a Cherub who has a specific biological advantage on this field over overturning wills and you also have godlike cosmic power

Is that why our Callie is so afraid of you? Because your soul and will and ultimate self is just as much of an all consuming black hole as what you physically became? If she gets too close she’ll stop being her, pulled in by your inescapable will?

Alright, so this is Meat PostScript technically

Now I kinda wanna deconstruct the label of Post Script here though

If “Intermission” actually means “oops the story got to long, here’s a break.” but actually continues on with it’s own story not actually providing a break from long winded scripts but instead fighting with it for space and attention

If “Epilogue” actually means “oops, forgot some story, here’s some more.” not actually being an ending chapter but a tell of more to come, a bridge between stories

Does “Post Script” it’s its meaning of “After Story” an addition, a sequel coming after the original story

actually just mean “oops, I wrote the wrong story, here’s a different one”?

after all, a sequel to a story, is actually just writing a different story altogether, but one still related to the original

and why write a different story if the one you already wrote was enough?

so you think a sequel is going to be a sequel, because of the name, a different story, happening after the first, like were leaving what happened in Homestuck behind us

but in actuality it’s the same story, told in a different better way

I’m still harping on that Homestuck 2.0 is just gonna be the story of Homestuck but written differently this time, top to bottom front to end nice and neat using one elegant stroke the whole way through

Anyway one sec while I quickly reread the last actual chapter of meat before I read this postcript because I want it be fresh in my mind

Okay Dirk’s leaving at lightspeed in a spaceship with Rose and the rest of the gang are being directed by essentially a geiger counter/shield for Dirk’s presence in Jade’s body

Oh right, now I’m remembering bloody Jade tearing into flesh (LE’s flesh I guess) while Aradia watches and then her and Robot Dave and Aradia all rocket into that gaping hole, so I guess Robo-Dave might not be all that Dirk influenced? Or that Dirk sent him specifically to keep tabs on Alltie, subtly, they didn’t exactly greet eachother or interact at all or wait for him, so they don’t seem totally allied.

Then following Dirk’s spaceship:

It looks like a shark? Interesting

Considering Void a great Ocean, Shark is fitting a predator of that Ocean

Like how the end of Meat had someone tearing into Meat viciously

and now the end of Candy has someone daintily mowing down on a bowl of Candy, very sour candy it seems

Rose doesn’t seem to happy in a robo-body. It’s pretty clear she’s struggling to hold on to any sort of humanity or normalcy, which is interesting, if she’s so unhappy and doesn’t consider herself Dirk’s servant, why is she still with him?

So something important is needed for her flesh body, something that will have something to do with canon I suppose. Tiara imagery never bodes well, so I’m guessing it’s not just moving her consciousness over its probably also controlling it somehow

It sure makes princess imagery ominous anyway, Rose is a right sleeping beauty, or maybe a snow white if the glass coffin is anything to go by.

Oh, theyre intentionally creating a new session of Sburb?

“New Race” so maybe not humans, trolls or cherubs? Interesting, still could be new human race though

Gotta love how it ends on a dismissive tone from Dirk lol

So, is Rose all in on the idea of starting up a new session for some purpose?

and what does her flesh body have to do with it?

The only thing I can think of is that it’s meant to be a vessel for something, and right now the only person using flesh vessels on Dirk’s radar is Alltie

Do they mean to trap her in Rose’s body for some reason? and through that control her in some way?

I can’t help but think of Callie’s word again, that this is not a purple rose, but a red rose dyed blue, Alltie is certainly Red, and in Rose she’d be a “Red Rose” like how currently in Jade she makes a “Red Jade”

Dying her Blue, using Candy to control her then? Her one weakness was basically her eternal reverence for the CandyPop which if Alltie ever took part of would be the one time she’d basically lose control and think there was no problem with anything, putting her into her own drugged haze of not caring, basically the only thing you could do to stop her if you wanted to

As for this new session of SBURB, I can only guess that it’s importance lies as their attempt to rewrite their own story top to bottom starting from Humanity as a whole, only this time it’s Dirk writing everything not Hussie

So Dirk really is doing the Doc Scratch thing like with Alternia

Again, he thinks he’s doing the right thing, but he’s just totally wrong about it

That’s it then for the “Epilogues” it was a good read!

Can’t wait for the “Sequel” :)

#Homestuck #Meat or Candy

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