#and she frankly is normally written in a way that aligns with that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ollieofthebeholder · 3 years

Text

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr || Also on AO3

Chapter 47: Jon Prime

Jon awoke abruptly from a sound sleep and sat up before he thought about it. Martin mumbled something and shifted against him, but didn’t otherwise stir. Jon bent over to kiss his temple in wordless apology, then carefully extricated himself from his fiancé’s arms, picked up the torch, and moved silently over to the door. Something had roused him, he didn’t know what, but he’d be damned if he let it get to Martin. Clicking the torch off so as not to alert whoever or whatever might be out there, he put a hand on the knob, counted silently to three, and yanked the door open.

The first thing he registered was the beam of light playing on the wall opposite. The second thing was the person holding it. “Melanie?”

Melanie swung around and accidentally—or at least Jon presumed it was an accident—shone the torch directly in Jon’s eyes. He yelped and tried to protect his eyes. “Oh, God, sorry, sorry!”

“Jon?” Martin’s voice from behind him was worried, even through the fuzzy half-awake

“It’s all right, Martin. It’s Melanie.” Jon barely managed to keep from saying it’s only Melanie, which would have been a sure way to infuriate her. “It’s safe. Go back to sleep.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” Melanie said. She actually sounded like she meant it. “I didn’t—know you were still out. It’s almost lunchtime.”

Jon stepped out of the little room and closed the door behind him, hoping Martin would be able to get back to sleep. They’d had a rough night, for reasons he really ought to tell Martin but hadn’t admitted yet, and he needed his rest. “We’re living underground, Melanie. And most of what we do aboveground we have to after hours, to keep hidden. We keep a bit of odd hours. It’s fine. Is something wrong?”

“No, not really. If I’d known you were still asleep, I’d probably have tried to wait.” Melanie waved what was in her off hand at him, and Jon’s eyes locked onto it. A statement, and from the sharp hunger that lanced through him, a real one. “It’s just—they’re all trying to restrict themselves to one statement a week, you know? Martin told me he and Tim talked to Jon last night, and he’s getting too dependent on the statements. Like, he went too long without one and got really sick.”

Jon sighed heavily. “I was afraid of that. I really thought they were monitoring things better…and I’m sure it wasn’t this bad this quickly for me.”

“Yeah, well, apparently Snoop God doesn’t think patience is a virtue. Anyway, he’s all right now, but nobody else wants to get that bad, so they’re trying to…”

“Restrict their caloric intake?”

“Basically, yeah.” Melanie smirked at him, but the smile faded almost instantly. “Sasha took a statement live last week before she went home for the week. Tim took one on Thursday. Martin took Georgie’s last week and recorded another real one yesterday. Then we found this one today.” She hesitated. “I was going to read it, but everyone’s…pretty unanimous that I shouldn’t.”

“They’re right. As soon as you start reading them aloud—I mean, just reading them to yourself, just working on them, is going to be bad enough, but reading them aloud will just tie you more and more to the Eye.” Jon cocked his head at Melanie. “So what are you doing down here? Trying to sneak past and read it with no one knowing?”

“No,” Melanie said indignantly. “I was bringing it to you. I mean, if Jon gets sick going too long without reading one, you must need them, too. And if we leave it lying around loose up there, someone who shouldn’t is going to not be able to resist temptation. So, two birds, one stone, all that. I just figured it would help.”

“Oh,” Jon said, a bit surprised. “Thank you. I—I have been a bit…I do need one. Thank you.”

“Do you need a recorder or anything?” Melanie asked, handing over the statement. “Or do you just…speak into the void?”

Jon couldn’t help but laugh. “Sometimes, yes, I do. I’ll be fine. If whatever is behind the recorders feels it’s important, one will…appear. Otherwise I’ll consume the statement and hand it back, and from what I understand, the next person to actually try and make a recording of it will be able to record it without issue.”

Melanie eyeballed him. “How many times has it happened that you got one and the recorder didn’t appear?”

“Hasn’t yet,” Jon admitted. “Thank you, Melanie.”

“Sure. See you next time you pop out. Tell your Martin I’m sorry I woke him.” Melanie gave him a sardonic salute and made her way back to the steps.

Jon watched her go, then turned to go back into the room he and Martin had claimed as their own and hesitated. Martin had always hated listening to him do the statements, and Jon frankly had always hated doing them in front of other people. Now that he knew that the presence of another person—especially someone Eye-aligned—meant the energy was shared out, it explained a lot more. Normally he waited until after hours, went up into the Archives, and did whatever statements they left for him in the Archivist’s office, but something under his skin itched and he didn’t want to wait.

He told himself he was just being courteous, that he was just letting Martin get his rest by going to another room to read this one out. He knew himself well enough, though, to know he was lying.

He slipped further down the tunnels, looking for another of the rooms his counterpart had marked as being an actual room. There were plenty, but he ignored most of them. The one he eventually chose was outwardly no different from any of the others, but it was closer to one of the other exits from the tunnels.

That, Jon had no idea why it was so important.

He slipped into the room, settled down on the floor, and set the torch next to him. With practice, he’d learned to balance it so that it formed a sort of lantern effect; it wasn’t optimal, but it was enough to let him read if he needed to. In its light, he set the folder down and began to open it.

The whirring caught his attention, and Jon looked around. A tape recorder sat just outside the circle of torchlight. Sighing, he grabbed it, checked that it was recording and not playing, and brought it to the familiar position.

“Statement of Anya Villette,” he began, “regarding a cleaning job on Hill Top Road.”

Jon had said once that, as a child, he had hated to read anything he felt he had read before. The first time the team had given him a statement to record—or more accurately to re-record—he had worried that he would feel similarly about the statements, that they wouldn’t satisfy him because he knew them already. He’d quickly learned that he needn’t have worried; while he remembered them, they were relatively new to the Eye, and he usually didn’t realize he remembered them until he was done recording. This time was no different. The name ticked at his mind when he first read it, but once he uttered those words—statement begins—he was lost to the real world. All that existed was him, the statement, and the Eye peering over his shoulder and drinking the fear through him like the lid of a toddler’s spillproof cup. The only difference was that, maybe because he was in the tunnels and the Eye had to strain, he was aware of something else paying attention to him. Likely whatever was behind the recorders.

“Statement ends,” he said finally, lowering the last page to his lap. For a moment, he stared blankly ahead of him at the wall opposite, the statement settling into the nooks and crannies of his mind.

Hill Top Road. He remembered this statement now, of course he did. Martin had been the one to find it for him prior to the Unknowing. He still remembered the apologetic look on his face as he told him I couldn’t find anything new on circuses, but I know the Hill Top Road stuff interests you too and I thought, well, it might be something. Jon had wanted to hug him for that something awful, but he’d restricted himself to a warm smile and a thank you, Martin that had made Martin’s ears go pink.

“Supplemental,” he said at last. “I…I still have no idea what to make of this one, to be honest. I know that if we do additional research, we will come up with nothing, even more than usual. Anya Villette does not exist. The cleaning agency she purports to work for does exist, but does not employ her and has not been contracted to clean the house at Hill Top Road. That house is certainly not student housing; it’s been abandoned for God knows how long. And”—he sighed heavily—“if I go there, I will only find a tape playing a statement recorded long ago and a new one on official Institute forms.”

Or would he?

Jon froze and turned the question over in his mind. He’d never been clear how the Web even knew he was going to go to Hill Top Road when he went. The sly wording of her statement indicated that it had likely been written while he was on his way there, so it wasn’t as though it had been sitting around for years waiting for him, and the point the tape had been at likely meant she’d set her trap just prior to their entrance. He had no idea how the Web had monitored him, if the Web had monitored him, but if it had been, it was probably monitoring Past Jon now. It likely didn’t know about him. Whatever was at Hill Top Road, whatever Annabelle Cane had warned him away from in his own time, she might not know to warn him now.

“Regardless,” he said slowly, “for the good of…everyone I care about, I think it is important that I do go to Hill Top Road. The sooner, the better.” He swallowed. “End recording.”

He turned off the tape recorder and got to his feet, recorder in one hand and statement in the other. The correct thing to do would be to take this back to his and Martin’s room, curl up with Martin for a bit longer, and then put the statement and tape on the Archivist’s desk. And God, he wanted to. If he was really going to Hill Top Road, going alone would probably be the stupidest thing he could do.

At the same time…

He’d felt very strongly at the time that he recorded this statement the first time that he ought to stay away from the house at Hill Top Road. He felt that way now. The only other time he’d felt this strongly that he needed to stay away from something, that there was something the Eye didn’t want him to know, it had been when he’d first listened to the tape of Gertrude Robinson’s talk with Eric Delano.

And if the Eye didn’t want him to know something, it was probably something that would be to its detriment. Which could only help their plan to stop Jonah Magnus and his damned…ritual.

He stared down at the objects in his hands, then set them neatly on the floor next to the door, picked up the torch, and headed for the exit from the tunnels.

Fortunately, there was no one about to see him emerge from the service entrance in the South Kensington station. Nor did anyone look twice at him as he paid his fare and got on the train. It was almost a two-hour journey from there to the house at Hill Top Road—two hours to worry about what he would find, two hours to fret about doing this alone, two hours to reproach himself for not waking Martin to tell him where he was going. Two hours to decide to turn back.

He didn’t.

Two hours later, he stood in front of the house at Hill Top Road and stared up at it. It was exactly as he remembered it: brand new, relatively modest, well-appointed, and totally abandoned. Nobody had lived in this house for years. Nobody would live in this house, ever, if Jon had to make a guess. It wasn’t even owned by anyone.

Breaking into it was a lot easier than it had been the first time. In the first place, he knew the house now, knew its weak points and easy access spots. In the second place, he was alone rather than being burdened with an angry ex-cop who thought every problem could be solved with a combination of obstinate logic and a certain amount of pressure, an even angrier ex-Internet celebrity who thought that both he and the entire idea of trying to hunt down Annabelle Cane was stupid, and a Hunter who knew that every step she took into the building, no matter how good her intentions, made it that much harder for her to stop listening to the blood. (He also didn’t have to contend with the other three all assuming he was too staid and weedy to know how to gain access to someplace he wasn’t wanted, like he’d never done a spot of breaking and entering in his life. Georgie had once accused him of being a cat with opposable thumbs and social anxiety.) In a way, he wished he had Daisy with him—she’d been something of a comfort at the time, which was a bit of a surprise—but at the same time, he had to acknowledge that the Daisy he missed was the one he’d rescued from the Buried, not the one who’d threatened his and Martin’s life seven months ago.

Jesus, had it only been seven months?

Shaking his head, Jon slid the bobby pin he’d found on the Tube out of his pocket, picked the lock on the back door in a matter of seconds (not his best time, but he was out of practice), and slipped inside. He took another deep breath, then coughed as that drew dust and…other things he’d prefer not to think about into his lungs. Once he had himself under control, he turned and swept the beam of his torchlight around the place.

The interior, like the exterior, was exactly like he remembered it. Cobwebs covered virtually every surface, far more than should have built up even in nine years of disuse, clinging to curtain rods and disused furniture and empty cabinets. Jon swallowed against the sudden rise of nausea at the reminder of the Web’s presence. He tried to remind himself of what Martin had told him once, when they’d first been at the safe house and he’d seen the cobwebs in the corner and almost gone feral—that cobwebs were old and abandoned webs full of dust, that the presence of them meant that the spiders themselves were long gone.

Somehow, though, he didn’t think they were. Not completely.

Careful not to breathe too deeply, Jon moved cautiously into the house. Obviously it wasn’t the same house Agnes Montague had grown up in, but he had a fairly good idea of the place from the statements. Anya Villette had described a cupboard under the stairs that led to an unmarked basement. Daisy had claimed not to have noticed one, but…

Something creaked overhead. Jon froze, hand on a door that seemed likely to lead downward. The house was empty, he was sure of that, there shouldn’t be—

The creak came again, like someone was moving around. There was definitely someone upstairs. Jon’s curiosity overcame his caution, what little of it he had left. It wasn’t compulsion from the Eye. The Eye very much wanted him to leave. Any desire to see what was upstairs was one hundred percent Jon, and it was that that drove him to investigate. It was nice to want to know something without needing to Know it. Gripping the torch like a weapon, he started up the stairs.

It was a spiral staircase, something he hadn’t noticed the first time he was there. Something ticked at the back of his brain, something about a parlor up a spiral stair, but he couldn’t quite remember. As he hit the top step, though, the knowledge slammed into his brain.

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly, “’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy; The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, And I have many curious things to shew when you are there.”

“The Spider and the Fly,” by Mary Howitt. First published in 1829. Meant to be a moral lesson about the dangers of flattery and falling for seductive words and a silver tongue. It had been the second poem Martin ever memorized, after his Year Two teacher reduced him to tears by lecturing him in front of the entire class for “showing off” by learning—

Jon quickly shut the mental door against the flood of knowledge. Martin and Past Martin might be different people now, but they’d had the same experiences—up to a point—and he owed them both the courtesy of staying out of their heads. He had enough knowledge to be getting on with. He was about to walk into the Web’s cunningly-laid trap.

For just a second, he hesitated. There was still time to turn back…but he’d come this far. He couldn’t very well take a four-hour journey, undoubtedly worry Martin, and then go back and say it was pointless. He might as well learn something.

There was a door opposite him, slightly ajar. He took a slow, steadying breath, resolutely shored up his mind to keep out the Beholder, and opened it.

It was a bedroom, simply furnished, as if for a little girl. There was a four-poster bed with carved columns, a low dresser, and a vanity and mirror, all painted white. The seat of the chair in front of the vanity, the comforter and bedskirt, and the ruffled canopy on the bed were all a delicate shade of pink, or had been before the dust settled on them. And sitting on the top of the bed, leaning back against the headboard and playing with something in her hands, was a woman Jon knew far better than he wanted to.

“Hello, Jon,” she said pleasantly. “Do you mind if I call you Jon?”

Jon exhaled heavily. “Annabelle Cane. Why am I surprised?”

Annabelle sat up, cross-legged on the bed, a sly smile on her lips. “You’re looking well. I’m so glad you came to visit.”

“Really,” Jon said flatly. He almost called her out for not having wanted to see him before, but he held his tongue. She couldn’t know he was from the future. He still wasn’t sure what the Web wanted, or what Annabelle herself had wanted, but he wouldn’t risk the world by tipping his hand.

“But of course! The Mother of Puppets has watched you very closely.” Annabelle tugged her hands apart, and Jon realized what it was—a length of some kind of string, looped around her fingers and forming a sort of open shape reminiscent of a teacup. It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to guess it was made of spiderweb.

“So what does the Web want with me?” Jon crossed his arms over his chest, which would have been a lot more effective if he hadn’t almost clobbered himself in the jaw with the torch.

“Oh, I can’t tell you that.” Annabelle passed a few loops from finger to finger, pinched in a couple of places, twisted, and spread her hands again; now instead of a cup and saucer, it looked a bit like a witch’s broom. “That’s not why you’re here, anyway.”

Jon stubbornly remained in the doorway. As long as he didn’t cross the threshold, he’d be fine. Probably. Maybe. “And why am I here?”

Seemingly uninterested, Annabelle brought her hands back together and began shifting the loops again. “Have you ever played this game before?”

“What game? The Web’s game?”

“No, silly.” Annabelle held up her hands, revealing a latticework like a suspension bridge. “It’s called Cat’s Cradle. More often played with two, of course, but you can play by yourself if you want. Did you never play it?”

“No,” Jon said, and it was only partially a lie. He’d never known there was a name for it, or a formal method of playing, but he’d once done something similar with a bit of yarn he’d found in his desk. It had distracted him enough that he’d failed to pay proper attention in class, and his teacher had first yelled at him for not answering her question and then for playing with the string, scolding him that he would cut his fingers off if he wasn’t careful. He hadn’t exactly believed her, but he’d also never tried again.

“Shame. It’s a pleasant way to pass the time.” Annabelle began working the loops again. “Why are you here? Because you’re curious. Because you want—no, because you need to know.” She looked up at him. “Because you need my help.”

“Your help?” Jon said incredulously. “Your help with what?”

“Your plan. Gertrude had one, too, you know. So many people have plans. And those plans depend on so many things, so many little strands woven together. It’s almost like—” Annabelle spread her hands apart again, fingers splayed wide. In the center of the span was a perfect eight-pointed shape. “—a spider’s web.”

Jon stood his ground, with difficulty. “So you know what my plan is.”

Annabelle’s eyes glittered. “I know what your goal is. Not how you plan to do it. Not necessarily. The Web isn’t like the Eye. It doesn’t Know. It just sees…patterns.” Another twist of her hands, another slip of a loop, and suddenly she was seeming to transform her hand into a marionette, or else creating the framework of a hut. “And I see the pattern of a goal, and the threads that could lead to it. Do you think you have the power to succeed?”

“Yes,” Jon replied immediately. “We do?”

“We?” Annabelle looked up at him with a smile.

Jon narrowed his eyes. “Not you.”

“Oh, no, of course not me. No, you’re talking about Martin, aren’t you?” Annabelle’s smile broadened. “Of course. You can’t hope to succeed without him.”

Jon froze. Fear lanced through him. She couldn’t know, she couldn’t possibly know…he’d been watching, he knew his counterpart and Martin’s weren’t together yet. Patterns or no patterns, she couldn’t know what he meant to him.

In a low, dangerous voice, he said, “Don’t you touch him. Don’t you dare touch him.”

“Perish the thought! I want you to succeed, Jon. I want to help you. I can help you.” Annabelle held out the string towards him. It just looked like a mess. “Take this.”

“So you can bind me in the Web? Not a chance.” Jon reached for the door handle. “I never should have come here.”

“It’s not a trap. Martin can’t give you help as it is.” Annabelle’s voice stopped Jon in his tracks. “Not if you can’t find him.”

Slowly, Jon drew himself up to his full height. “What. Do. You. Mean.”

Annabelle was still holding out the strings in his direction. “It’s not a threat, either. Patterns, Jon.” She drew her hands back, slipped one of the loops quickly off a finger, and stretched them wide, producing a tangled mess. “One slipped thread can throw them all off. And if it breaks…well.” Dropping all the loops from her fingers, she began quickly and deftly unpicking the knots, talking all the while. “You have a bond. It needs to be…stronger. Otherwise there’s a risk of neither of you surviving what you intend to do. It will protect you as well as him.”

Jon watched as she began looping the strings over her fingers again. “And if I refuse?”

“Then you refuse. You walk out of this house, we go our separate ways, and you hope your plan succeeds without that bond.” Annabelle shrugged. “It won’t hurt you. It won’t hurt Martin.”

“It hurt Gertrude.”

“Gertrude did it herself. And she also was bonding with the Desolation. How could that be anything but painful?” Annabelle pointed out. “But I know how to weave the threads. It’s a perfectly harmless bond. It will just give you both the strength and power you need to survive what’s coming.” She spread her hands again. Somehow, she managed to pinch and twist the strings just right so that there was a clear and obvious M in the middle of it. M for Martin. A few more flicks of the fingers, and then she was stretching her hands out to Jon again. “Do you trust me? Then take the strings.”

Jon hesitated. Did he trust Annabelle Cane? The simple answer was no; she was of the Web, the entity he’d feared the longest. He knew now that none of the entities had humanity’s best interests at heart, but some were worse than others. Was the Web better or worse than the Eye? Than the Hunt? Than the End? And for that matter…was this Annabelle acting on behalf of the Web, or acting on her own?

The other issue was this bond. Could Jon really make this decision for Martin, bind them together, without asking? Martin may have liked spiders once, but he trusted Annabelle Cane and the Web even less than Jon did. He genuinely worried about its manipulations, about the possibility of it controlling either of them. And Jon had no right to make decisions for him. They were a team, they had to decide together…

The problem was that, like attacking Jonah, this was a now or never situation. Jon had to make a decision, and he had to make it immediately. If he walked away, he would never get this offer again. He had to choose between accepting the bond and hoping Martin would forgive him for it, or rejecting it and hoping he survived for Martin to scold him. He had to decide whether he believed he was strong enough on his own to protect the ones he loved, or whether he would need Martin’s strength. He had to decide whether or not this would bind him to his Martin or to Past Martin, or if it would bind Past Jon and Past Martin together, or if he even believed Annabelle would actually do it.

But if it would protect the man he loved…

Jon came to a decision. He stepped all the way into the room, stretched his hands out, and let Annabelle transfer the strings onto his fingers.

“Good,” Annabelle said, sounding satisfied. “Quickly, there’s not much time.” Her hands were a blur as she moved loops and threads from finger to finger. The string bit into the scar on his hand, but Jon gritted his teeth and bore it up. Finally, she clapped her hands. “Now then…pull.”

Jon separated his hands to the furthest extent the string would let him, and the world seemed to explode in a swirl of static.

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #annabelle cane #canon-typical web content

6 notes · View notes

boughtwithaprice · 3 years

Photo

I Kissed His Books Goodbye

Kae Salonzo Perez- Dilla

April 30, 2021

It was in 2019 when one of my favorite Christian authors shocked the Christian world by announcing his separation from his wife. It was Joshua Harris, the famous author and pastor who wrote, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" and "Boy Meets Girl" which sold millions of copies since their publication in the 90s and made him like a Christian celebrity. I was totally heartbroken when this news popped on my IG feed. A year before this devastating news, I came across Joshua Harris on Facebook and YouTube where I learned about his recent project at that time which is also the reasn why he resurfaced. He was on some documentary film of some sort where he reevaluated his very own books mentioned earlier. I have also watched his TED Ed segment where he apologized for the lives destroyed by his book. He said that he was too young when he wrote his famous books. I was puzzled at that time which led me to do more research a.k.a stalking. I am a good stalker, you know. Kidding aside! So, from there, I started stalking the Harris couple on their social media accounts. I will not forget feeling that something was already off from their relationship since they are both absent from each other's daily activities. I do not know if that is just normal with other people but to me, it isn’t. Also, it struck me that Shannon and the Harris daughters "appear" to be highly modern and very much "in the trend" kind of way when it comes to their clothes, music, and social media posts. Given that they are in the limelight of conservative believers, this is a diversion. I was not a diehard fan of Joshua Harris and so I do not really know what happened to him after writing his books, after getting married to the girl of his prayers, and after pastoring a mega church for 17 years. However, I suddenly recalled an information he disclosed in one of his books. It was about Shannon whose inches close to starting her music career but then converted to her newfound faith and so this dream career of hers was aborted. This, I strongly recalled when I found lots of her IG post informing the world that she is about to release her music albums -which her songs don’t have the slightest expression of her love for God. For a preacher’s wife, for a Christian woman, so to speak, her recent project gave me another major what-in-the-world-is-happening moment. These findings surprised me! That's why I'm not really taken aback when Joshua Harris announced that he and his wife, Shannon, are eventually divorcing. Perhaps something bigger is afoot since then.

I know I am very late to make a fuss about Joshua Harris and his chosen path today, but I just want to express my thoughts since I kept seeing him lately. I was instantly reminded that I followed him on IG! And now I think about unfollowing him so I would be free from another stress. So, following his separation from his wife in 2019, more of his announcements on the social media just got more terrible as time pass by. He then denounced his Christian faith and joined an LGBTQ parade publicly. What worst could happen now? He has been posting his personal criticism on “Christianity" and against people "in the faith" with the notion of man's freedom being suppressed by God's will. He makes obedience to God appear so vexing and that it’s the very thing that stifle man from enjoying earthly pleasures. He just twisted the truth about ‘love the sinner but hate the sin’. God is angry at the wicked every day and so we were all once hated by God until he shows us His grace (Psalms 7: 11). But tolerating a sinner could never equate to any form of love. Unless man sees himself as a sinner, he will never repent and seek God. Harris has numerous posts about this particular topic! As I see it, one could assume that it is his way of answering back to the spiteful comments he keeps on receiving from the Christian group. He’s making the believers look like a group of unbelievable people for hurting him with God’s truths. The truth will surely hurt him.

There is no denying of the fact that Joshua Harris is still a hot issue among Christians today. Every time Christians talk about relationships, Joshua and his books are brought into place. Before the declaration of his newfound path away from Christ, his books were said to be the "Bible" of Christian romance. Decades ago, Joshua and his books were often referred to when Christians tend to look for godly relationships to pattern theirs. I personally and seriously took note of the contents of his books since I was in a relationship when I read them back then. Just like the other Harris loyalists, I would always mention his name and the things I have learned from his books when giving advice to my friends both in and out of the church during girl talks. It's such a shame that I have to evaluate my old self and admit that I have passed onto others the words of Harris more than God's. This, I humbly ask forgiveness from the Lord. And so, fast forward to the present time, look at how events have turned now. No one knows what really happened between Joshua and Shannon, but I'm pretty sure that whatever hit their relationship is a reflection of their individual relationship with God which have finally come in fruition in time. The book of Jeremiah says in chapter 7 verse 24, But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. Whilst spending years and years of their life in the ministry, I could not help but wonder, was God really there "in" them? Frankly, although no man is in the position, it’s hard not to question their salvation thinking about what happened to them.

Joshua Harris have said in an interview that he excommunicated himself from his church because he failed to follow the standards required by the scriptures. In his words, he sounded like he was the victim more than the traitor. To add, one of his videos on YouTube showed live reactions from the offended readers of his books. I personally think that was a clear picture answering the question of why he ended up retracting his beliefs in public. He responded to those people in oppose to what Christians should be doing when being persecuted. He wanted to please them so bad to the point where he just decided to abandon his post, leave his God or god and follow them as if that was the best decision to reach out to them. His mindset is just so disappointing. At some point, did he blame God for earning his haters? Is that why he went after people he doesn’t personally know and has no relationship with God? Was he supposed to reevaluate through the Bible or through people’s lenses? How many were Christians in that pool of readers? It was just necessary to apologize for the wrong points that resulted to misguided readers, but why leave the faith? It’s true that it takes lots of courage to face the music but I don’t see the part where leaving your faith is a new definition of bravery.

When a Christian is found to be challenged, he ought to thrive. What happened to standing fast in the faith written in 1 Corinthians 16:13? But instead, Joshua Harris allowed the enemy to overpower him. He heard the wrong side. Well, to start with, he's probably not a genuine Christian. We don't want to judge him but again, we have been warned in Ephesians 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; A Youtuber also commented that a Christian should never find his life in the Lord burdensome. Sadly, Harris has put down his cross, got tired and stopped following the Savior. A believer's walk with Christ was never promised to go through an easy road but we will always find ourselves consistently rejoicing in His grace despite the way. Otherwise, those who are just pretending to understand the gospel will soon be revealed and will simply walk away because they were not meant to be in the fold of Christ in the first place.

Just recently, not only Harris have denounced his faith in Christ. There were others. Although this is not new anymore because there were others even before Harris’s time, but in this age of social media, issues like this have great impact in the Christian society perceived in various wavelength. And this case has left Christiandom a question-- what do we do with the learnings gained from such persons? It is fitting to know where the line should be drawn when reading Christian books. The Lord has commanded us to daily seek Him in prayer and in the scriptures. Even the prophets enquired and searched diligently (1 Peter 1: 10). Hence, to check if the materials we read carry God’s truth in them, they must be aligned to what the Bible says. God’s words should affirm the ideas being offered to us by other books whether they appear new or not. I believe that the things I learned from Joshua’s books really helped me assess my former relationship and double check if it indeed glorifies the Lord. But I do not give credit to the author because most of the concepts of the godly dating he presented were extracted from the Bible and were inspired by the people around him that were ‘in Christ’, and Lord willing, still walking with Him until now. Joshua Harris have miserably left his once professed faith and no wonder when ‘his followers’ do the same too. The Lord only revealed the impending danger of following leaders and prominent individuals with such devotion that should only belong to God. We should be vigilant and be fully aware of where and with whom do we pour our faith into. 2 Peter 3:17, KJV: "Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness."

The books written by Joshua Harris have heavily influenced his Christian readers. However, more than those pages that illuminated his beliefs before, what would really speak for himself is the life he chose to live today. I have kissed dating goodbye long time ago, not because of his books, but because God has been gracious to me and provided me a godly man to marry. I won’t recommend Joshua’s books but I will be keeping them. If people see them on my shelf one day, I know significant lessons could be drawn from them --more than courtship and dating, but particularly about a Christian’s walk with Christ.

We are in the end times and we are witnessing the falling away of man as said in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. But by God’s grace, His true children will persevere until His glorious return. The sad story of Joshua Harris just proved that our God is a perfect God who is solely worthy of receiving man’s adoration and trust. Not that He needs any of it, but it’s just crystal clear that no one else does. And that no earthly relationship should we model ours after except that of Christ and His love for the church which we could learn nowhere else but from the scriptures.

Isaiah 40:25-31

To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

#joshuaharris #ikisseddatingggoodbye #joshuaharrisbooks #boymeetsgirl #kaperanggot #dating #courtship #christian #christianity #christianromance #godlydating #romance #christianlove

2 notes · View notes

aro-neir-o · 4 years

Text

Carnival of Aros: New January 2020 Roundup

You all no-doubt saw my frantic posting and reblogging of the submissions on Friday (apologies; I thought I had spread those out, but no, I did not queue things correctly).

Thank you to everyone who submitted something and also to everyone who interacted with the submissions. I very much enjoyed hosting this carnival and everyone had something interesting to say. I myself did not have the spoons to write my own piece but a lot of my thoughts and feelings were echoed in others’ pieces.

I am following the format the December Carnival of Aros host used for the roundup. There is a Short List which is an amalgamation of links to all the submissions and a Long List with commentary about what each submission covered in terms of themes or topic. The Long List is under the Read More link.

SHORT LIST

Isaac, Part One and Part Two

Briar

Annie

Maximus

Ace of Arrows

Izel

Laura

Le herbe

Sennkestra

Scoop

LONG LIST

The first post Isaac wrote covers how learning the difference between asexuality and aromanticism opened up many doors for thinking about orientation, especially how a-spec orientations interact with non-a-spec orientation. Additionally, coining the term “squish” helped explain a lot of the non-normative platonic feelings aromanticism brought with it, and so new conceptualizations were able to be shared with the whole community. The second post talks about how discovering aromanticism interacted with discovering gender for Isaac. Orientation models that work with aromanticism can be applied to gender as well, so that one’s relationship to their sex can be considered separately from one’s relationship to gender.

“I didn’t identify as aromantic immediately, and as asexual even later, but splitting what was socially tangled opened new doors to me. [...] Sharing the terminology of “squish” with other people aware of aromanticism has allowed me to express clearly my feelings and even to establish a queerplatonic relationship, though I didn’t know of the terminology yet. [...] I could realize my gender identity because I split biological sex and psychosocial gender even for identity, where they are usually grouped together.”

In their post, Briar talks about how re-closeting themself has made them approach aspects of their identity differently. They mention how the prioritization of the identities they have in their life seems to be different from most aro bloggers, and how this makes them feel distanced from the community. How many issues framed as aro-specific issues are also being taken up by alloromantic people was also something they touch upon. They also share how a poem written by their friend resonated with aro experiences, giving an in-depth analysis of each stanza.

“I’m not trying to get some sort of reassurance that I can include myself in the aro community with this. It’s more that I’ve realized that not every group or community is made up of 200% committed Ride Or Die people, even if said group is considered young and relatively smaller than more established groups. [...] When I was first trying to figure out if I was somewhere under the aro umbrella at all, I came up with a term that I felt encompassed my specific experience. It kinda, sorta has overlap with a few other terms that I’ve seen a few times (definitely not often), but I’ve honestly never felt like sharing that term would actually accomplish anything in the aro community.”

Annie submitted a beautiful piece of art that expresses feelings of happiness upon discovering the aromantic identity. How the vocabulary and conceptualizations of the aro community helped Annie craft a new self can be seen in the colourful and prideful painting. Giving back to the community and sharing these feelings of happiness and gratitude really comes through in the piece.

“I have always been kinda creative, and I really wanted do something for the aro community and for myself. I discovered I was aro a year ago, and it made me so happy to have this new label that was almost made for me.”

Maximus wrote faer post on how discovering aromanticism can help one understand romance better. Fae talks about faer experiences with compulsory romance and heteronormativity growing up, and how understanding aromanticism helped with stepping back and becoming less judgemental towards others who experience romantic attraction. Furthermore, how romance can look very different for different people opened up a whole new understanding of love for Maximus.

“Being able to situate myself in the aro identity has given me a new, and frankly better, way to address the emotions and trends of my peers. Honestly, spending years of my life assuming people were being dramatic on purpose as a way of gaining or asserting social status was not the healthiest. It hasn't been until recently that I've been able to move away from the mindset that romance is a horrible thing. It is simply a strong emotion that I don't experience. The assumption that I did experience it was always, and continues to be, the worst part.”

The post Ace of Arrows made centers on positivity and acceptance of diversity. Channeling a mutually understood frustration into positive action is one such theme covered in the post. Ace of Arrows also discusses how aromanticism as an individual preference of orientation is deeply linked to narratives normalized in Western culture - narratives that are, historically speaking, new. The post ends with some book recommendations that align with Ace of Arrows’ own journey learning about alternative relationship models.

“I often think about how “romance” and the idea of “marrying for love” are actually very recent concepts that started gaining traction in the West some time around the middle of the 20th century, and yet we act as if this is how all humans everywhere have always conducted their relationships. [...] So it follows that there have also always been people who have conducted their individual relationships in a manner that is more closely aligned to the relationships of aromantic people today than the normalised romantic narrative of society.”

Izel submitted a poem, titled “To all the aros.” The poem opens with a call to other aros who share Izel’s experiences of frustrations and rejection, and it reads as a uniting anthem against these negative feelings. Acceptance of one’s own identity and of the diversity of aromantic experiences shine through as major takeaways from this piece.

“I thought that I needed a fairytail love story in my life in order to be happy. … … But I don’t need that.Aros don’t need that, don’t we? We don’t feel romantic attraction, and that’s ok.And some of us feel some romantic attraction, and that’s ok, too. Sometimes, romance isn’t for everyone.”

In her post, Laura discusses how new doesn’t always equate with excitement and optimism. Things that are new can just as often cause us fear and nervousness. Laura discusses how Tumblr has contributed to aro activism and growth, in both positive and negative ways. Finally, Laura calls for the aro community to continue reinventing itself and continue “becoming new,” to shed the fears that come with change, and to commit to real inclusion.

“I want to see the aro community grow. I want to see it create new resources, explore issues that have never been explored before, and build a foundation for a vibrant, inclusive community that will continue well into the future. [...] I’ve been doing my best to push the aro community in new directions for the better part of two years now. However, every time I or anyone else tries something new, there are people who are afraid.”

Herbe de provence wrote a post on how discovering aromanticism, at first, triggered feelings of denial, but then set off a chain reaction of self-reflection that ended up explaining of lot of childhood feelings. Learning about aromanticism gave Le herbe new confidence to be accepting. How accepting and curious LGBTQ+ friends increased Le herbe’s pride in the aromantic identity is also an important theme touched on in the post.

“In truth, when I learned that I was aromantic I earned so much more than just a word to describe my experience for I learned to accept a part of myself I never knew I was reppresing. [...] Many, many months after first reading the word « aromantic » this is still new for me and I sometime have to remind myself that *it is alright to be myself*. That *it is alright to love like I want*, Like I *do*.”

Sennkestra wrote a post combining the themes of “new” and “allyship.” Being a good ally means being consistently accepting, patient, and an active listener, but it can also mean learning and growing with new ways of being a better ally every so often. Sennkestra shares anecdotes as examples of above-and-beyond allyship and also encourages others to share their own, so that allies to aros everywhere can add new and diverse actions to their repertoire. The little things can count a lot.

“Even though many of these actions are objectively somewhat small things, they show that these people have remembered my identities, taken the time to learn a bit about it, and have had the presence of mind to actively take the chance to support us when they saw an opening. And cumulatively, they all add up to a lot of support that’s made it much easier to live the lifestyle I want to live without anxiety, and given me the backing I need to continue to do active work even with audiences who might not be so supportive.”

In her post, Scoop talks about how discovering the aro community brought her new understandings and connections with people that she was missing, but it also made connecting with non-aros that much harder. Scoop also describes her struggles choosing between non-SAM and alloaro labels - both of which resonate with her but are considered completely separate microcommunities. Finally, while Scoop expresses about her excitement with involving herself in new types of activism, she also expresses her fear about being outed in these situations. What’s new isn’t always without great risk.

“One of my friends will say, every now and then, 'romance isn’t all bad' to me and I find myself taken aback every time. I know it isn’t all bad? Does she think I do? Is it bc I criticise the system? But in reality I want people to find the romance they desire. I just simply think that they deserve it in a way that is much kinder and more considerate than they often receive it. And give it. I've gotten really good at speaking aro and sometimes I'm going to need to translate that language. [...] ”

#aro #aromantic #arospec #carnival of aros #new #january 2020 #roundup #actuallyaromantic

39 notes · View notes

acroakingbird · 4 years

Text

Discussing IPKKND Tracks

Dear @jalebi-weds-bluetooth,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my ask so thoroughly.

Your reaction to receiving my ask(s) was so cute. It made me feel all warm inside. Tumblr seemed to be drunk, my theme kept weird-ing out until I changed it then I can’t see the changes on any device except my laptop. Also, I kept getting an error when replying to your cat post until I gave up. Spoiler Alert: I just wanted to let you know your babies are super adorable and should bless your blog more often.

Glad to know you love rambling, something we have in common.

I have watched IPKKND with English subtitles and so my understanding might not have picked the nuances in cultural/linguistic expression.

1. Arnav and Lavanya

Yes, the way IPKKND began and the theme the show introduced as well as the way it was narrated was gripping and sort of ‘western’. I am not a fan of the Daily Soaps with exception to IPKKND, so I never understood the differences between individual channels and the type of content they air until you explained it. So I understand now why they had to do certain things to indulge the channel and its audience. Though I’m mostly happy with how the show turned out to be in the end, it’s still tragic to imagine what could have been if their creativity hadn’t been restrained.

Yes, I can’t watch these holier than thou scenes between Lavanya, Khushi, and Nani. I love all three women, Nani isn’t the usual ‘has to be strict all the time’ grumpy person, she almost always down for a good time, sensitive to situations and is there to team up with anyone for fun, Khushi is a courageous little ray of sunshine I adore and Lavanya is sweet and realistically portrayed. Her growth is beautiful to watch. Also, these three have great chemistry together and I love watching their scenes except when they are there to moral police Lavanya and it’s supposed to be a ‘good thing’ and we are supposed to nod along to the misogyny.

Arnav and Lavanya’s relationship isn’t healthy, it’s quite bad - there’s dishonesty, some power imbalance and their expectations of another isn’t aligned. But, here’s what I think about the cheating:

I feel like Arnav did cheat on Lavanya quite a number of times, emotionally and Diwali time included. Arnav and Lavanya were committed enough to be in a live in relationship and they both had feelings for another (Lavanya more than Arnav and I’m not saying they had the same intensity as between Arnav and Khushi.) At no point during that time was it okay for him to be attracted and have feelings for Khushi or lead on Lavanya because he didn’t want to deal with them. Frankly, it was disrespectful and cruel.

Arnav recognized the attraction and did everything he could to deny the said attraction and feelings. He hated the loss of control when it came to Khushi and how she made him feel. Every time Khushi asked why did it matter - he knew why it did but never wanted to admit it. It was not unknown to them what they were feeling, they might not know the depth of it, but it was attraction that much they both knew.

He wasn’t honest with himself neither does he acknowledges that he feels that way. Him gathering all those feelings weren’t something he could control, he could, however, control his honesty and how his and Lavanya’s relationship would proceed after everything.

He’s not actively pursuing Khushi behind Lavanya’s back and most of ArHi interactions are accidental but he’s also never actively putting an end to it. When doing that, he’s hurting Lavanya.

He also actually admits it himself in Episode 142 - I didn’t do the right thing with Lavanya…maybe ever. When he finally realized how unfair he was being and confessed how he actually felt to Lavanya was something he should have done a long time ago.

[I do realize they are fictional characters and things are written or done the way they were for the narrative. I am just sharing my own opinion that there was definite cheating.]

2. Kidnapping Track

I look forward to your discussion about this track. The Kidnapping track was fine, it’s the subplots I had an issue with. Like you mentioned Bubbly, that Uncle etc.

“We probably would’ve gotten more interaction between the four of them and it would’ve been a delight to see them - considering the New Year Episode & the Akash suicide track, the four of them are like fireworks together!”

Yes, this is what I meant. All four characters had chemistry which should be explored further. The New Year episode is one of my favorites.

Additionally, Akash and Payal should be developed further as their own characters, aside from the main protagonists, and have their own story independent of Arnav and Khushi’s which would have been interesting to follow. Also Khushi-Payal’s sisterhood. I mean, after the marriage, not once did Payal asked Khushi if she was doing okay with that creep being in the same house or anything normal siblings would discuss. Their entire relationship went down the drain after the hate marriage.

This isn’t the best example to provide but this is what I can think of right now, in The Office, Jim and Pam has their love story and then there’s Dwight and Angela happening around the same time. It’s interesting to follow both even when one love story isn’t affecting the other love story.

3. Khushi Attempting Suicide

I am sorry about your loss, S.

I agree with you completely - this is the one track the writers on the team should have all said a definite no to. There’s already enough misunderstanding and misconceptions about mental illness and the last thing anybody needs is a whole ass track dedicated to showing funny it was that the main protagonist wanted to kill herself. Silly girl.

Then they never show any kind of support for Khushi and she’s completely isolated after the incident. The entire track is disgusting just like the thing you told me about the other show.

Again, thank you for responding and discussing this with me. The magic of the show is evident in the fact that there’s still something to discuss nearly a decade after the show aired.

I’ll be looking forward to more of your content.

P.S Give your cats some of my love, okay?

Hugs,

Raven.

#arnavkhushi #ipkknd #jalebi-weds-bluetooth

18 notes · View notes

study-like-you-mean-it · 5 years

Photo

HOW I IMPROVED MY HANDWRITING: A GUIDE

When I was around 12, I got a piece of work handed back to me. It was an essay that I had written for an English class, a normal piece of homework, but this time, my teacher handed it back to me, and told me that she couldn’t mark it because it was, quite frankly, illegible. The years I’d spent in primary school as a left-hander grappling with a temperamental black ink fountain pen had clearly not paid off, and clearly I needed to do something about it. Thus began a very long process that took many years, but eventually I emerged with neater handwriting, and not one but two different styles of writing. Here’s what my handwriting looks like at the moment.

Just for the sake of clarity, these two styles did not emerge at the same time, and they emerged at very different points in my life (the cursive emerged long before the neater print), but I’ll talk you through how I started to fix my handwriting in order to achieve both, so hopefully you can improve yours too (this post was a request so hopefully at least one person will find this useful).

Firstly, I settled on a bunch of pens that I rely on constantly for my writing. The first is the Bic Cristal Medium biro pen, which I have used for all my school work since I made the switch from fountain pens, and it’s my go-to, especially because it’s much cheaper than the ink pens that I’ve opted for, and since it isn’t inky in the same way as the others, my work is much less likely to smudge. I use this pen to take all my lecture notes, as well as the notes that you see in my studyblr posts. See below for an example:

I use the stabilo black pen to normally write headings in my lecture notes and also to write thicker lines in my bullet journal, but I’m excluding it from this post simply because the headings and things (like what you can see at the top of this post) are more to do with calligraphy than my general handwriting, and to improve my calligraphy it was simply a matter of copying things that I had seen and practicing it by writing all my study/lecture notes headings in calligraphy.

The MUJI pen is something I only ever really use in my bullet journal, because I like the way it looks in relation to the size of the space I have to write in. I only ever write in print with the MUJI pen, since I don’t think it looks as nice to write in cursive with it (and also I find it trickier to do so), but even if I only use it for one purpose, using my bullet journal is still a very daily action for me so it does constitute a big part of my handwriting.

With that preliminary stage through, we can now move on to the practical reality of each of my handwriting types. Firstly, the cursive:

CURSIVE

This handwriting style did actually start out as a neat kind of print, but over the years that I used it, it became more and more natural to write in cursive, and over time it became what it was. Here’s how it evolved over time from the point I decided to neaten it up:

So, you can see very clearly that it’s been a very long process to get where I am now, and there’s not shortcut around it. When I started, writing things out was absolutely painstaking, but eventually you begin to find shortcuts that firstly look neat and secondly (and most importantly) you find easy on your hand when you are writing. What then emerges is an amalgamation of the nice-looking and easy ways of writing things, and then you have a neat everyday handwriting. What you should never do, however, is let your old habits creep back in. It’s a very tough process that often requires you to be uncomfortably aware of how you write, but I promise it will pay off. It still takes a very long time, and you need to be using your handwriting pretty much daily for a matter of years before it can reach what you want it to look like, but you can’t force anything as this is very much an organic process.

My print handwriting emerged partly as a revision technique and partially as a result of wanting to start a studyblr. I wanted to present neat-looking notes, but I knew that my cursive was only going to take me so far. As a result, I painstakingly wrote out my revision notes in print, making sure to also keep my words in the middle of the space between the lines rather than on the lines, just because I personally think it makes my notes look neater, despite the fact that it takes much, much longer. It takes me slightly less time nowadays to write things out in print, but this is still a significantly longer time than for my normal cursive writing. This is an entirely artificial handwriting that makes me focus on the words I am writing much more, which is why I find it a useful way of spending time when I am revising. However, I know this is not my real handwriting as it is not as comfortable, and I know that I should never force this to be my real handwriting as it is inefficient and unproductive to think of them in the same way.

Long story short, in the case of adding more styles to your arsenal of handwriting, you need to keep a main, efficient style and not force any of these other styles to be your main handwriting, even if they may look nicer in your eyes. Improving your handwriting takes years of daily use and practice, and you don’t want to hold yourself back longer by forcing your hand to be uncomfortable

GENERAL TIPS

Writing in the middle of the space rather than on the line makes your handwriting look neater, but it will take much longer

You need to be using your handwriting frequently if you want to improve it. Try writing letters to people you don’t see enough, or switching to handwriting your lecture notes.

If you’re using margins, you can automatically neaten up your work by aligning the end of a line with the left hand margin on the other side of the page (a sort of barely-visible right hand margin). This makes it look justified, and also has the added pragmatic benefit of you being able to add notes and comments to the side of your work, which is especially useful when you’re writing essays in exams, for example.

Your pen choice (and paper choice, to an extent) will affect your handwriting, so don’t be afraid to experiment a lot in order to find what works! It won’t necessarily be the same as mine, so don’t take my word on pen choices as gospel.

Never give up! It’s a slow process and you need to stay determined to improve! Trust me, it’s worth it, as someone who gets dozens of comments on the internet and in real life saying how cool and neat my handwriting is whenever I write something down ;)

669 notes · View notes

ssaalexblake · 5 years

Text

No but the aunts in caos are so brilliantly written like, Zelda’s entire aesthetic and self image is based around being a bad ass bitch, Zelda Spellman? She’ll kill you, she’ll threaten to do something horribly disfiguring to you and you buy it because you know she’d be willing to go through but... In actuality she’s not actually Good at doing it, despite her willingness to throw down at any given moment.

Who is good at it?

Hilda.

Why?

She has to be, actively Because she does Not look or seem like she will be willing to throw down at any moment.

Zelda very much is that bitch she wants you to think she is, she didn’t care about straight up beheading a dude and she was willing to work her way through whoever volunteered to be next, but like... She’s never Really had to be that person who is good at petty revenge.

She was the popular older sister in school with the cool brother Edward (like, probably, she talks about him like he’s an older sibling), she's the Super Devout child of night, she displays herself in ways that align perfectly with the ideal in that culture and actively revels in said culture, until she became a teacher she had quite clearly never been the proper target of actual childish bullying before. She threatens Shirley in response, talks big, but none of her own threats pan out (and tbh, buttoning her lip and eating her familiar's legs isn’t that harsh contextually, i mean, Nick literally staked the weird sisters’ feet to the ground and they’re still fans of him, so i really doubt a little lip buttoning is considered super awful), but Hilda’s ideas? They get Used and they are brutal.

Hilda suggests to Zelda what to do her attempted tormentors, she stands over her and watches to make sure Zelda gets the magic right, too, implying Hilda’s experience and Zelda’s lack of it and that Zelda also acknowledges this fact. Hilda also tries to steer Zelda away from her more eclectic revenge methods to her own, Significantly scarier methods. She also manages to banish a vengeful ghost like it’s child’s play.

Hilda says it in part one to the ghost kids, and when she says her harrowing at zelda’s hands was brutal (gonna assume there were Traditions involved here bc i’ve not seen evidence that zelda’s actually any good at that type of thing when thinking spontaneously), that she’s good at revenge, after all, she’s had the practice where Zelda hasn’t.

Hilda’s not devout, Hilda attended Sabrina’s catholic baptism as a witness, was excommunicated for it and didn’t actually care for religious reasons (it was Inconvenient to not have access to the church when their lives went to hell, but that was about it), Hilda dresses and acts like a bubbly over-loving aunt from one of the Cutesy fairy tales, she does not fit in aesthetically or personality wise into that church, and people react to her because of this and she’s had to learn to be brutal and vindictive and like the type of person you would meet in Grimm’s fairy tales.

Whereas Zelda is content to react to Shirley’s antagonizing with creative magic and threats, Hilda? Hilda straight up murders her. No mercy, no warning, no sympathy or empathy, she fucked with Zelda and will die. Hilda, also, immediately murders a dude who gets handsy with her even though it will pretty much, really, just result in her own death because of exactly who the man was. She stabs the fuck outta satan (so does Zelda tho), decides to perform an exorcism b/c why not right???? Manipulates the shit outta the weird sisters when they have Ambrose, is ruthless enough to just set a demon on those witch hunters and therefore be the Only one present in the entire area unharmed by the hunters at all and like, more badass stuff i’m sure I’ve forgotten.

But honestly, i think the Most indicative thing as to what utter Steel Hilda is that... She’s the one Sabrina actually listens to. Sabrina who has inherited Zelda’s inherent sense of extra-ness and stubbornness, who has every ounce of her biological father’s arrogance and pride and pretty much blithely ignores every directive Zelda emphatically tells her (Like, sometimes Zelda Is being extra and gotta say it, occasionally petty, but equal so to the times she is not, either way, Sabrina does not listen), but... Sabrina seems obedient to Hilda, more worried about her wrath than with any other character on the show, arguably even Satan, sometimes (Before she realises exactly what getting on his bad side can mean, anyway).

And i think that is Incredibly telling to the subtle power dynamics in the family, when Hilda puts her foot down, Sabrina is more likely to actually fall in line and examine her actions. Sabrina is weary of crossing that line in ways she is not even slightly with Zelda, and it is So So So So telling.

I just think this genuinely makes Zelda and Hilda a nuanced display of sisterhood and parenthood than most like, Actual parents on TV. Normally you’re given the hardass parent and and friend parent and that’s it, that’d be the dynamic. But Hilda and Zelda function as both elements simultaneously, frankly making them better parents than most parents on TV too, tbh, even if at the start you think you’re being fed this usual dynamic, the show slowly shows you Zelda’s soft edges and Hilda’s hard as steel edges, while simultaneously giving you the reasons for them to have such characteristics.

and like, i Still can’t believe that the most nuanced character writing i watch at the moment is on the trashy satanic soap opera whose plot i can pretty much guess totally accurately as i go along @ other shows care about character work pls

#caos #i love the aunts SO MUCH #i rlly love that i can SEE sabrina was raised by them in sabrina's character but Also her bio parents too??? kids in shows almost are #never noticable products of their parents and that's so ridiculous #hilda spellman #zelda spellman #i love them so much lol #i love that zelda talks big AND means big but isn't actually super Good at being so #i love that hilda does not talk big but is INcredibly good at being a hardass #they are Such sisters #so much more similar than u think at first glance

9 notes · View notes

moiraineswife · 6 years

Text

Okay so I could definitely do with some more queer rep from Sanderson but I will say that I love the richness and complexity of his characters and the fuck that they almost all say ‘fuck you’ to writing gender roles.

‘Strong women’ doesn’t mean ‘woman punches loads of things and is badass’ it means a rich variety, of complex women who are each strong in their own way.

Vin, the street-urchin and constant survivor, whose strength comes as she grows and actually learns, in so many ways, to outgrow that ‘strong woman’ archetype. She learns to be soft. She learns to embrace her feminine side. She learns vulnerability, and love, and trust, and she grows into a better, stronger person for it.

Marasi who finds her strength in knowledge, and in loving herself for the things she can do, instead of loving the idolised version of herself who has all the things she wishes she could do. Who learns to stop revering and living in a man’s shadow, and steps out to cast her own.

Steris who is a canonly autistic woman who is never forced to be ‘normal’, in any sense of the word. The characters around her learn to read her, to understand her, and they fall in love with the woman that she is because of her quirks, because of her differences, because of her autism, and not in spite of it.

Shallan who was a sheltered, naive young abuse victim, with very obvious PTSD and anxiety who has undergone an incredible, uneven recovery journey. She has found herself, her voice, her independence, and her agency. But she is also learning how to accept what has happened to her instead of hiding from it, to heal and grow while retaining her wit, her drawing, and her smile.

Jasnah who, frankly, couldn’t care less about people’s expectations when it comes to her. Her mind is her own, and her strength comes from knowing herself, and refusing to compromise that self even when it goes against her entire culture and society. A woman who presents a composed, cold, blunt face to the world and is allowed to, and is never undermined or ‘thawed’. She is who she is, and that’s final.

Navani as a mother, a wife, a lover, in many ways the embodiment of traditional roles for a female character over a certain age. But she’s also a scholar, an engineer, an inventor, a visionary. A woman who knows what she wants, and inevitably finds a way of getting it. A woman who has deep loves and passions, and pursues them, but never loses sight of the merit of logic and order.

Vivenna, who grew up with the knowledge that she was to be a sacrifice for her people, that her pain and happiness were as nothing compared to her duty. A woman who grew up with deeply rooted prejudices, and a naive, ignorant view of the world. She grew up, she learned her own mind, and followed it to the ends of her earth and into another, where she came to lead men in battle in a notoriously misogynistic/gender-role based society.

Siri the dreamer, the free spirit, who learned that she didn’t have to be like her sister, and didn’t have to ascribe to the things expected of her to have value, and worth, and power. Who becomes a queen in her own right, and matures into a powerful woman who refuses to accept life on any but her own terms.

It’s a common enough critique that female characters get stuffed into one mould that’s described as ‘strong’ and that’s it. Which is almost as limiting and stifling as the traditional expectations of female characters. But tbh I love what he does with his male characters and the complexity and rejection of typical masculinity there, too.

Elend who grew up under the thumb of an abusive father and an oppressive system, but still had the softness, and the hope to dream of building something better. Who was more than comfortable having his wife protect him, and having everyone know that, who took pride in Vin, without ever once having it be hinted as some sort of slight to his masculinity. Who was able to accept the correction and guidance of another woman everyone else scorned and ignored who helped shape him into a better king, and a better man.

Sazed who was portrayed both as the gentle, reserved scholar, but also a rebel and an instigator, who went against his people to build a better world. Someone who was presented as rational, and calm, and arguably nonbinary, and mostly shuns pretty every typically ‘masculine’ trope in the book.

Kelsier who had the fairly typical ‘dead wife, revenge plot’ story, but that was explored in a thoroughly atypical way tbh. A man full of darkness who insisted upon fighting with a smile, and encouraged others to do the same. Cocky, and arrogant, and selfish was balanced by a little flash of sentiment, the hope for a new world, and the picture of a flower he carried with him to remind him what they fought for.

Adolin who’s regarded as one of the best swordsmen in the world, but who talks to his weapon before battle and thanks it for serving him. He wears his mother’s necklace as a good luck charm in battle, and goes against cultural expectations by being physically affectionate with the people he loves. Also has a keen interest in fashion he refuses to be ashamed of, and while his actions characterise him as a womaniser, his thoughts/behaviours display his dissatisfaction with that, and his desire for stability. Also very emotionally aware of those around him, and takes care to look after them when he reads them being in trouble.

Dalinar’s honestly fascinating journey from a bloodthirsty, violent soldier, to a depressed, traumatised alcoholic, to a struggling general, a hero of mankind, and then again struggling with PTSD is honestly so well-written. This man is literally a military legend, renowned for his prowess in war and we see him, in the course of the series: give away a legendary blade that is literally more valuable than kingdoms for the lives of a group of slaves, and consider it a genuinely good deal as he’s learned that all lives are precious. Struggle with very obvious flashbacks and panic attacks as a result of war trauma. Meekly align himself with distinctly feminine things to quietly support his son and stop him feeling awkward.

Renarin, who is a canon autistic character, who cannot be a soldier in a distinctly war-driven society, and is allowed to explore that, to feel bitterness and frustration with his condition. But who is also slowly starting to learn, with the support of his family, that there are different kinds of strength, and that they love him and are proud of him even if he can’t march into battle at the head of their armies. Who is allowed to stim openly, who is largely accepted for his differences, and is defended fiercely on the occasion that he’s not. Who is a goddamn super hero in this world, and is a massively progressive piece of honest autistic representation, in which he is not a character with autism, but an autistic character.

Kaladin who is honestly one of the most visceral, honest portrayals of depression I’ve seen in a fictional character. Who still, three books on, suffers from depressive episodes, who acknowledges that this kind of thing sometimes doesn’t just go away, or get better, that it’s always there, somewhere, and he fights it, and keeps fighting it, with the help and acceptance of those around him. Who is also a goddamn super hero who is warned by his surgeon-father that he’ll have to grow calluses, that he can’t care so deeply about his patients. Who becomes a soldier to support his younger brother, and tries to strike the balance between killing and protection, and to deal with his soft heart that has never truly hardened.

Male characters that have genuine, honestly explored mental illnesses, insecurities, and who are frequently depicted crying, and otherwise being allowed to freely show and explore their emotions and honestly, i could say a hell of a lot more but this is quite long enough so that’s enough of that.

4K notes · View notes

hypnoidvoid · 6 years

Text

Key to the Jungle (Reddie AU): Chapter 1

A/N: This is my first Reddie fic that I’ve ever written, so I hope you guys enjoy! I hope to post once a week and I have predicted that it will be around 12 chapters. Dedicated to @j0ys for all the encouragement and being my first tumblr friend, I love ya.

Summary: Ecologist!Richie and Nature Photographer!Eddie. Eccentric Dr. Richard Tozier has graduated with his Ph.D in Ecology and was given grant money to conduct his own research in the Amazon basin. He gets a research team, one of them being the very talented nature photographer Eddie Kaspbrak of National Geographic. They could not have predicted the beauty and chaos of the adventures that will ensue.

Pairings: Richie Tozier x Eddie Kaspbrak, eventually Stan Uris x Bill Denbrough

Word Count: 2,647 words

Warnings: Vulgar language; future chapters will contain angst and NSFW scenes

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4

// Link to Read on Ao3 //

[Chapter 1: Preparation]

[Friday, February 21, 2018]

The sun was searing bright in the dead center of the sky, as 1:00 PM was signalled by the aggressive pings going off on Richie’s watch. He hurriedly wrestled with papers, and their accompanied color coordinated post-it notes threatening to fly off, as he jostled them into his shoulder bag that he threw over his head and trotted down the hall from his office to meet with Stan about this upcoming Tuesday. And he knew that if he was even a few minutes late, Stan was going to grumble and roll his eyes into the next dimension. The good ol’ Stanley Uris eye roll, ladies and gentlemen. There was something special about Stan’s signature eye rolls: they were comically dramatic and looked borderline painful, but left you feeling disappointed in yourself even if you did abso-fucking-lutely nothing wrong. Well Richie had quite the reputation of being late, even as a part time professor, and he was making a solid effort to improve his habits.

He rounded the corners of the university’s biology department halls with little to no grace and excitedly threw open Stan’s office door with a loud *THUD* knocking off a poster that had been pinned to the back of the door. He was a mess of frizzy black curls, sporting a toothy grin extending from ear to ear in the archway of Stan’s office. Spatters of freckles painted his pale complexion on just about every patch of his body along with numerous tattoos (some large, some minimalistic), he wore thick horn rimmed glasses of severe prescription, and was overall a whimsical fashion anomaly.

Richie had been waiting for this Tuesday to come for approximately a year now and couldn’t contain his unbearable excitement from any person.

Not no way. Not no how.

He was beaming. After finishing his Ph.D in ecology in record time at the early age of 23, he was given the opportunity at the university to not only teach part time for extra cash, but was also given a significant amount of grant funding to conduct his own research in the Amazon basin for a few months where he’d be able to bring along a team for his trip. His own team?!

My own Justice League of nerds….yowza.

The university was confident that Richie would be producing highly acclaimed work in the future and wanted to provide him the services to do so (and to get their title slapped on his published reports in big, bold, obnoxious lettering). The University of California, Los Angeles was one of the top universities in the entire United States. Man was he a prestigious son of a gun, but he never really took it to heart about how much he naturally excelled. He just always did. It was a normality.

The lanky man was loud, lacked a filter, but carried a magnetism with him that was crafted through wit and overwhelming charm. And over everything….. he was fucking brilliant. Nearing genius. Dr. Richard Tozier could do differential equations in his sleep, but couldn’t coordinate an outfit that matched if his life depended on it. He was a wildlife ecologist who focused primarily on conservation, taking a keen interest in tropical habitats. There was so much dangerous shit in the jungle. Spiders the size of your fingernail that could make you bleed from every pore?

Cool.

Twelve foot snakes that were known to eat small children if they were hungry enough?

Fucking awesome.

Hell, even pissing in the water could send a fish swimming up your dick. Richie was enthralled with the uniqueness of everything in the jungle, because frankly, it seemed like the jungle just didn’t play by any of the rules that the rest of the world abides by. And he admired that.

Stan finished his Ph.D in ornithology about a year after Richie had, despite being the same age. He loved everything about birds, and like Richie, wants to focus on their conservation. Stan thought that birds were God’s gift to the world, and needed to be protected by all means. He began bird watching at a very early age, making careful note of the ones that he observed, and keeping color coded lists of ones he wanted to one day see.

“Stan my Right Hand Man! What a lovely day to see my favorite bird man. The sun is SHININ’, cancer is CURED, racism is ERADICATED, the planets have ALIGNED. Today, my good chap, is a fantastic afternoon”. Richie promptly plopped himself onto the edge of Stan’s desk buzzing with contagious enthusiasm, meanwhile completely ignoring Stan’s pristine organization of his desk.

“Get off my desk Richard, for the last time this place is not the ‘jungle gym of dumbass’” Stan retorted, but with little malice in his voice. A slight smirk even tugged on the corner of his lips. “You’re on time though, so I’ll let you keep your limbs. Now let’s get to business. Did you bring the grant pap-”

“Duh” Richie cut him off with.

“Okay how about the permission sli-”

“Mhmmmmmmmm”

“You’ve gotten all your vaccinations, corre-”

“YES. Yes, and yes to the next two questions I know are about to tumble out of yo’ damn mouth. So instead, let’s go fi-”

Richie tried to diverge, but was in turn cut off by an equally diligent Stanley. “How did you know what I was going to say, dipshit? So please let me finish, my goodness-”

Richie sharply interrupted once more. “Yes, I’ve prepared the laptops with all the data analysis software, and yes I am in touch with Mike about our dock time. He’s even contacted the others and all is set, what did I tell you Staniel?”. With narrowed eyes, Stan slouched in defeat, “Really? Staniel? You are exhausting. I really don’t know how I’ve put up with your incredulous idiocrities for this freaking long. I must be sick in the head”.

Stan was stubborn and hated to be proven wrong, but had a massive soft spot for Richie in his heart (Stan himself may have called it a sore spot), and knew he could never hate the fucktard. Or even slightly dislike him, despite his annoyances. Richie and Stan had been best friends since childhood where they grew up in the quaint town of Derry, Maine. The air in Derry was stifling, the people cold, and the aura of in its entirety was unwelcoming and intolerable. They were each others only comfort and true friends for years, bonding inseparably over their love for science, the environment, and the creatures that inhabit it. And needless to say, they spent a large chunk of their young lives finding creative ways to escape bullies. Richie could be crass, and disgusting, and blatantly rude but Stan ultimately loved him deeply and considered him family. It was a friendship that most would not encounter in a lifetime, and he was grateful for this friend that he could share his life with.

Both were accepted to UCLA the same year, moved to Los Angeles as a team, and were roommates for their entire bout in college only just recently being able to afford to get their own places (a few blocks being the gaping distance from each other).

Looks like acquiring a doctorate would after all pay off in more ways than one, Stan thought mindlessly.

“Ahhhhhhh you love me, I know ya do Stanny boy! Now, let’s go snatch Bev and grab some grub, my stomach is beginning to digest itself”. And with that, Richie slung a long, gangling arm around Stan’s shoulders, and they departed to retrieve Beverly from the lab, both with jovial smiles on their faces.

________________________________________

KNOCK… KNOCKNOCK……KNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCK

From behind the thick, iron door of the lab Beverly could be quaintly heard shouting “One minute please, I’m getting the samples out of the centrifuges!”

“Bev dearest open the door love, I can’t be waiting all day for this lame centrifuge excuse of booty calling my fine ass, Stanley knows about our insatiable coworker lust!”, Richie sang. Stan groaned and soothingly pinched the bridge of his nose with slight embarrassment, so that his ash blonde curls were forced to shade part of his face.

The door opened in a slow motion, revealing a lively Beverly with raised eyebrows, and a mischievous smirk; her hands boldly rested on both of her hips. Richie loved the way her smile was endearingly crooked, and left front tooth faintly chipped. The perfect people after all, had the most unique imperfections.

“Richie I swear to God I would have gotten you kicked out of this place years ago for sexual harassment if I didn’t find you so entertaining”.

“M’lady you wound me! Now come give papa a hug ya beautiful, wench”. Richie held out both of his arms expectantly and Beverly flung herself into his, as a small child would do to their father after he came home from a long day’s work. They both let out familiar chuckles, and swam in the endearment that they had for one another in that brief moment. Her fiery ginger hair cascaded softly down her back in waves down to her hips as she let herself be immersed in Richie’s bearhug. Richie then placed both his palms on Bev’s shoulders and held her at an arm’s length, staring her straight in the eyes with a mock sternness. The extreme height difference between the two of them would have made this tableau as seen from a stranger very intimidating with Richie standing 6’3”, and Beverly Marsh an average five foot and six inches.

“Now, Miss Marsh. I trust that as my most talented, and may I say favored, field assistant you have prepared my lab materials to endure a long flight as well as waterproofing for the rainforest. The Amazon is unforgiving, and so am I. Do we have an understanding, little dove?”

Beverly lightly shoved Richie’s arms off of her shoulders and snapped into a marine’s saluting position, lowering her voice to crack a “Sir, yes sir!”. As much as Stan found Richie and Beverly’s relationship dysfunctional, he could feel the loving platonic electricity between them and couldn’t help but smile at their banter. They were a refreshing drink of rambunctious tonic water.

Beverly Marsh was in the midst of completing her Master’s degree at UCLA for environmental sciences, and while Richie never had the pleasure of being her professor, he was gifted her assistance for field work and immediately favored her. The other field assistants could go to hell, they all had barbed spikes up their asses and couldn’t handle Richie’s demeanor. Not to mention she was smarter than the others. Maybe not academically (Einstein failed math, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard yada yada yada), but she had a wit that strongly matched his own and that in itself exemplified enough intelligence. Bev was also wildly freckled, with beautiful red hair that resembled her illustrious personality for adventure. She was an uncontrollable flame; one that could birth innovative creation, and in the blink of an eye cause deadly destruction. Richie hoped he would never have to see that side of Beverly.

_________________________________________

Stan, Beverly, and Richie trolloped towards a small trendy café about a half a block down from the biology department corridors, off of campus to satisfy their growing hunger. Richie ignited the end of a menthol cigarette and puffed on it ferociously to try and curve his appetite, before ashing it on the bottom of his sneaker and tossing it in a proximal trash bin. Just because he littered his lungs didn’t entail him being a litter bug, he was a conservationist remember?

All on the edge of their nerves, at a similar state of “hangry”, they waltz into their favorite local eatery named “Cafe Synapse”***. An appropriate place for a group of biologists to eat at. Stan ordered a black, medium roast coffee complemented with a club sandwich (minus the turkey, due to obvious reasons); Beverly kindly requested french onion soup and side salad along with hibiscus lemonade; Richie ordered a chocolate chip frappuccino and a croissant. The last thing Richie ever needed was more sugar to indulge his ADHD habits, but not even God Almighty himself could stop the Trashmouth from consuming an unhealthy quantity daily.

Stan delicately placed a folded napkin onto his lap, to protect his neatly ironed slacks. He bled order; the tucked in, baby blue button up shirt, the combed curls that could easily become unruly, the freshly polished dress shoes. His cheekbones were even as sharp as his tongue. Everything Stan wore, and did, was thoroughly considered and executed with an impeccable grace.

Except when Stan drank. He could toss back whiskey like nobody’s business and was even roudier than Richie at times. He was the perfect alcohol parallel of a pure Christian girl getting freaky in the sheets behind closed doors as their opposite public persona. And it was priceless to witness, if you were so lucky.

Richie placed both of his hands behind his neck and reclined in his wooden chair to a dangerous incline, “Jesús Crísto Stan, you look like you’re covering up a hard on with that origami napkin on your lap.”

“Fuck you, beep beep Richie” Stan countered with a light-hearted giggle.

Beverly sat forward in her chair and flirtatiously twiddled her finger around a curl framing her face, “Dr. Richie please stop staring at Dr. Stan’s lap like the pervert you are, now that’s just rude”. Richie furrowed his eyebrows, and steadied his chair back on to solid ground. “Just because I float my boat both ways sweetheart doesn’t mean Stan is my type m’kay? Plus Stan denied me access to those pretty li-”

“Oh my god Richie fucking sto-” he intervened.

Richie threw up his hands in a submissive gesture, “Okay okay princess, no more smut I promise.”

“So please do inform Bev and I about your talk with Hanlon. What’s our living situation like? And who are the others joining us on our research trip?” he continued with sincere curiosity.

“Well, Mike said that we’d be living in our own netted huts on the nature preserve. Running water will be provided in certain locations Stan, so don’t worry. I know how much powdering your face at night means to you. And from what I know, Mike will be our host and also act as a guide since he owns and lives on the research station. A fellow named Ben Hanscom will be our medic. A Bill Den-whatever will be our botanist, also there to gain inspiration for his ulterior fictional narratives that he writes for his online blog. I heard he wrote a horror ficlet about a possessed venus fly trap….”. Richie trailed off into a fit of sniggering fidgety squirms imagining a large carnivorous plant taken over by supernatural powers wreaking havoc in Tokyo. That would be an honorable death, Richie thought.

Death by occult man-eating angiosperm. At least it’s not a boring trip to the grave.

“….and I’m not finished yet folks”. Richie motions for a drum roll, and Bev and Stan joyfully play along, using their hands to pat the table.

“We even get our very own nature photographer to document our tomfoolery. Edward Kaspbrak, born and raised in New York City. Oh man, he sounds like a mama’s boy, even more than you Staniel”. Stan followed this remark with presenting Richie with the bird from both hands. Stan never called this action “flipping someone off”. It was giving someone “the bird” or the “double bird”, because god damnit he was an ornithologist with a Ph.D and he deserved this unalienable right to give someone the bird whenever he wanted to. Even rude children.

Little did they know that their future research teammate, Eddie Kaspbrak, had been packed for weeks now and heavily anticipated his Amazonian adventure that would ensue for the next few months.

_________________________________________

CHAPTER NOTES:

**** Cafe Synapse is a real place around UCLA in Los Angeles, and I thought this was a perfect addition to this fic.

I hope you guys loved the introduction, I have SO much more planned, and I am quaking to share the rest with everyone <3 You will also meet one of my favorite versions of Eddie very soon…. Leave me comments, I’m a sap! And let me know if you want to be on the tag list :)

123 notes · View notes

13thhr · 5 years

Text

Episode #209: Empty Hands Reading – Elemental Alignments

https://archive.org/download/podcast209_201908/Podcast%20209.mp3

This week, I’m reading a short excerpt from the martial arts novella, Empty Hands, as a follow up to last week’s episode on the Dungeons and Dragons influences. This section touches on the five elements in nature (more back in episode 151) and how they fit the characters:

Jake and Aurora both fell into a character class Wally the wizard had called the “earth type.” As the guys had mentioned, we’d done a little presentation detailing our strengths and weaknesses early in our training (I had to do mine twice since I didn’t understand the assignment the first time and had instead talked about Aurora). Wally used that assignment to go into something he called “The Elemental School of Personality Assessment,” which he said was an important part of not only our magical studies but our training in general. There were five main personality types corresponding to the five divisions of elemental forces in nature – earth, water, wind, fire, and space, as well as an infinite combination of blends.

Pure earth types were grounded, practical people who, like strongly rooted trees, were good at weathering the vicissitudes of life but could be a bit stubborn at times. Dependable, practical, and steady types like Jake and Ben fell into that category. Pure water types were kind of the opposite – adaptable and fluid, like water conforming to whatever container it finds itself in, though they could be a bit all over the place. Phil, an easy-going sort who tended to go with the flow, fit this category. He was not, however, a fickle person, prompting Wally to categorize him as an earth-water blend.

“You mean like mud?” Phil had said when Wally passed him the sheet of paper containing his alignment and its characteristics.

We’d laughed, but then Wally shrugged. “Water is flexible, but it can be hard, if the force is right. Earth is not fluid but mixed with a little water, it moves easily from one place to the next until it dries. Too much, though, and it just becomes dirty water. Do you get my drift?”

“Um … no,” Phil had said after a long pause.

“You will. For now, it basically means you have the best of both worlds.” Then to all of us, he said, “Keep in mind these are just predictions. It’s up to you to figure out if they’re accurate and how to apply the knowledge to your training.”

Like Phil, Aron also ended up a blend – part water and part wind. Pure wind types, like Allan, were open-minded and peaceful. Like birds soaring above the clouds, the day-to-day troubles of the earth-bound held little meaning for them. They craved freedom, which fit Aron, but could be a bit impractical and out of touch with reality (definitely Aron and sometimes Allan, who preferred to think everything through prior to acting on anything). Pure fire types, like Lance and Blake, were no-nonsense folk who believed the best defense was a good offense. It was pretty clear that dynamic, straight-forward weapons like the bow and sword fit guys like that. The downside of fire, of course, was that not all problems could be solved in direct ways.

That left the last category, which Wally had initially called “empty space.” Aron had burst out laughing at this, muttering something about it being the one that fit me best, and the others had joined in. Wally silenced them, then paused and said that, actually, Aron might have been right for once. This caused me to redden in anger and disappointment as Aron went bug-eyed and laughed hard enough to fall out of his chair.

It wasn’t like I was especially taken with any of the previous categories, but as the youngest and physically smallest of the Rangers, it would have been nice to not be different at something – anything – for once. I didn’t really care about not being able to run, swim, climb, fight, navigate, or use magic as well as the others. Unlike some, I couldn’t imagine myself “a career man,” so excelling at soldiering skills (assuming I lived long enough), seemed a bit irrelevant for me and my life in the long run. Frankly, I couldn’t have cared less whether I fit earth, wind, water, fire, or some blend of the four – but “empty space?” Come on!

As if reading my thoughts, Wally frowned and said, “Empty space is perhaps not the right term. The magic books sometimes use the word void (which produced a burst of hoots from Aron), but that, too, has always seemed a poor choice. It’s …” he frowned, sighed, then continued. “At some point in the future, science will catch up to what we wizards have known for eons – that all matter is composed of tiny particles too small to see. They are the essence, the anima, that gives substance and life to all things in the natural world. And, as such, particles from the void can become any of the four. Add enough of them packed together, and they become earth. Space them out far enough, they become wind. Push them a bit closer together, they reform as water. Add a bolt of lightning or some other energy source, and they become fire.”

Allan nodded, saying, “Most interesting. So this is the essence we harness when we generate magic.”

“Exactly! You are pulling directly from the void,” Wally said.

There was silence for a time as we mulled this over. Finally, Jake turned around in his seat and looked at me with his steady, cool brown eyes. “I’m sorry we laughed, Logan. It was wrong of us.”

I reddened further and stared down at my notebook, doodling with my piece of charcoal. “It’s okay,” I finally said, still avoiding Jake’s eyes. When I look back on that experience, I wish I had met and held the man’s gaze to let him know I appreciated his apology. But … there are some things I suppose that only come with age.

After a moment, Aron asked quietly, “So … do you think there’s maybe a little void somewhere in me?”

Wally rolled his eyes and said “Aron, be grateful for what you have.” After the lesson finished, Wally handed me the piece of paper containing information on my alignment. On the side, he had written:

Read this over, and see if you think it fits. Find me if you have any questions.

~Wally

P.S. The woman you told us about from your town – the one you grew up with – sounds like more of an earth type, though at least from your description, she sounds like an earth – void blend. I can see why you would enjoy her company. Hope that gives you some more information about yourself that will be helpful in the coming months.

To be honest, it wasn’t then, but looking back years later, it sure has been.

Here’s a little character sketch I did about a year ago (a little different from their final iteration) when I was coming up with the ideas presented above:

—————–

This page formerly had what I affectionately dubbed a “starving artist” section on little side hustles you could do (mostly on the internet, often with a phone) to make a few bucks here and there, often in gift cards. Well, now you can listen to this show (as well as other podcasts) and get paid to do so! Check out https://www.podcoin.com/ to listen to the show and start earning points that you can redeem for gift cards (Amazon, Target, Starbucks, etc) or donations to a number of charities. Use the code “Thirteen” when you sign up to get 300 extra points. The Thirteen Hour Podcast is now on BONUS this week, so you can earn more than normal (1.5x).

Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.

Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!

Have this podcast conveniently delivered to you each week on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, Tunein, and Googleplay Music.

Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.

Listen to Long Ago Not So Far Away, the Thirteenth Hour soundtrack online at: https://joshuablum.bandcamp.com/ or Spotify. Join the mailing list for a digital free copy. You can also get it on CD or tape.

Website: https://13thhr.wordpress.com

Book trailer: http://bit.ly/1VhJhXY

Interested in reading and reviewing The Thirteenth Hour for a free book? Just email me at [email protected] for more details!

#TheThirteenthHour #Podcast 209: reading an excerpt from the martial arts novella, "Empty Hands" on the 5 elemental alignments (earth, wind, water, fire, void) #dandd #fantasy #rpg Episode #209: Empty Hands Reading - Elemental Alignments This week, I'm reading a short excerpt from the martial arts novella, …

#80s #dandd #dungeonsanddragons #emptyhands #martialarts #podcoin #reading #storytelling #storytime #thethirteenthhour #writing

0 notes

furynewsnetwork · 7 years

Link

LISTEN TO TLR’S LATEST PODCAST:

By Jonah Bennett

Former employees of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, one of the largest veterans’ advocacy organizations in the country, allege that the charity’s CEO has abused staff and pressured employees to lie about grant funds and project success to mislead donors.

Seven former employees of IAVA spoke to The Daily Caller News Foundation and said among other things that CEO Paul Rieckhoff, who served in Iraq as an Army first lieutenant, has fostered an environment that puts pressure on employees to aggressively fiddle with numbers so that grant finances and grant project goals can be listed as complete.

“We’re tired of seeing funds misused with no support for actual programs,” the first former IAVA employee told TheDCNF on condition of anonymity.

This employee explained that IAVA doesn’t set aside its grant funds that it receives for specific projects and instead lumps them in general accounts, where the funds are subsequently spent on all manner of other, unrelated expenses.

“IAVA does not set aside their grant money for specific grants,” the first former employee noted. “They don’t do particularly good bookkeeping when it comes to grants, and I don’t think anyone could say definitively that the money that they get from one grant to another goes specifically to match specific grants.”

“Everything goes into one account and then the bookkeeping happens when it’s time to do reports,” he added, saying the bookkeeping would be done in an ad-hoc, after-the-fact manner.

The problems with reporting don’t center purely on the finances, but also extend to grant project goals, said several former employees who managed grant processes at IAVA.

In one particular example, IAVA received a grant for mental health funding to combat veteran suicide through a national training initiative. This grant included holding training events across the country. When not enough mental health events happened, normal membership-type events were counted in the final grant report as mental health events.

“This is not something that the staff is okay with and not something the staff would do on their own,” he said. “This is about a fundamental culture at IAVA that Paul has created.”

“Paul is the mastermind of this stuff.”

Another program former staffers spoke to was the Rapid Response Referral Program, which has suffered chronic staffing issues. While RRRP had grants to hire the employees necessary to complete the task, the money has allegedly been spent elsewhere.

Several former employees said that at one point, RRRP was funded for nine social workers, but had only four. Management consistently told employees that they had no money for more employees.

The program has never in its entire existence had nine staffers, according to a source.

RRRP is intended to help veterans coming home transition seamlessly back into the civilian world.

A second former employee, who worked as a grant writer, told IAVA management in early 2015 that grants had reached “new lows of noncompliance” and expressed frustration that the organization was bleeding away its grant money because it kept disappointing or offending grant foundations by not achieving basic grant goals.

“[W]e essentially threw away our grants … because as an organization–as a culture–we can’t be bothered with grants compliance, even though grants keep us afloat.”

Still a third former employee with direct knowledge of the grant process said reports were exaggerated and doctored to reflect things that either didn’t happen at the scale reported or didn’t happen at all.

“There would be discussion about what needed to be included in a grant to make the funders happy, but that wouldn’t necessarily include facts,” this third former employee said.

“In an effort to be honest, I would say ‘Well, this isn’t real, this didn’t happen’–and I would just be rebuffed.”

Sometimes officers rebuffed the corrections. Other times, Paul himself would reportedly rewrite huge portions of the grant to include accomplishments that were simply fabrications, in order to please donors, the third former employee said.

Since IAVA takes an enormous amount of pictures of each of its events and posts them to social media, this employee added that it would be fairly easy to cross-reference events written up in grants with photos publicly available. If there aren’t any publicly available photos of an event listed in a grant, it likely never happened.

“There were some definite issues around grant compliance,” a fourth employee added. “If anyone ever looked at the books, the problems would be obvious.”

Staffers also spoke to an environment of extreme paranoia, micromanagement and pressure to fill job roles that had nothing to do with their current positions. When employees decide to leave, one former staffer said that “they become the enemy.”

As such, turnover has been a prominent issue at the highest levels. In 2015, the CFO left a resignation letter on his desk the day of a board meeting. All six employees on the communications team, management included, had departed by mid-2016, leaving just one person in 2017 to man the desk.

Since the organization has such problems with staffing, employees are routinely asked to fill functions far beyond the scope of their job descriptions.

A fifth former and senior employee said that the incredibly high turnover rate was indicative of Paul’s terrible management and pointed to reviews of the organization on Glassdoor, a site where employees rate organizations.

“I’ve never seen a company torn apart like IAVA,” the senior employee said.

“I would also say in some ways Paul was abusive. He would be very demeaning of people, frankly including me. Micromanaging to an insane level.”

“Everybody is right down the line about this, he scares good talent away. I’m not saying that about myself. The people who are really good and want to do good things and think they’re coming into a great organization, I saw them head out the door really quickly,” he added.

Several other problems have plagued IAVA over the last several years.

Other former employees, particularly female and minority employees, told TheDCNF they were used as pawns and paraded around in front of donors, told they would receive promotions and then were later totally disregarded.

One former female veteran employee said IAVA is continually hiring more and more civilians, who lack any kind of experience working with or relating to veterans. Veterans are apparently quite poorly treated at IAVA, in comparison to civilians. And morale is so bad at IAVA, she added, that many current employees are starting to send out their resumes to other organizations.

Former employees have further noted that the organization has drifted leftward in alignment with Reickhoff’s priorities, despite the fact that the drift has alienated many of the veterans who are disappointed that the non-partisan nature of the organization exists in name-only. Veterans hit back hard against IAVA during this past presidential election for excluding Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson from the commander-in-chief forum at a time when Johnson was the most popular candidate with veterans.

The problems are so horrendous that a letter dating back to 2014 allegedly written by now-former IAVA employees has recently surfaced. The letter, directed to IAVA’s board, asks for Reickhoff to step down as CEO, citing a long history of poor relations with donors, high staff turnover and misspending grant funds.

IAVA did not respond to a request for comment from TheDCNF by press time. Calls to Reickhoff’s personal cell phone went unanswered.

Follow Jonah Bennett on Twitter

Send tips to [email protected].

Click here for reuse options!

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

WATCH TLR’S LATEST VIDEO:

The post Former Employees Say CEO Of Large Veteran Org Pressured Them To Falsify Grant Reports appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

via Headline News – The Libertarian Republic

#IFTTT #Headline News – The Libertarian Republic

0 notes

journeysintowebcomics · 7 years

Text

Worm Liveblog #2

UPDATE 2: The Wannabe Heroine’s First Outing

Last time Taylor had introduced herself, shown the awful place that’s her high school, and showed her powers. Also she wants to be a superhero and plans to try get into that world very soon. Let’s see if her dreams are torn to shreds in this update.

There were no doubts Taylor takes seriously her training, and if anyone had doubts, she proceeds to dispel such doubts by describing her exercise regime. Running, mostly. There was a time jump here, straight to the day when Taylor will try her hand at being a hero. That was quick! I was sure it’d take longer than that, that there’d be a couple scenes more at school, but nope! Here we are, she’s ready to go outside and kick ass. You know, I had been warned a couple times that Worm had a slow start – slow burn, is that what they call it these days? – but this wasn’t slow at all! It took just like 5000 words! That’s like the blink of an eye! It’s almost as ridiculous as when one calls a 4000 chapter in a book ‘a long chapter’.

But yeah, Taylor is prepared and dyed her costume, buying the rest of the pieces to save time. Some of the armor wasn’t ready so she went ahead without it. I really hope that won’t be as troublesome as I have the impression it could be...you sure you know what you’re doing, Taylor? Her mask design includes lenses and bug mandibles. I admit I’m a bit surprised there’s no antennae, but that’s a good election. Antennae would provide foes a way to grab someone. It could be said the same about long hair, now that I think about it, but it doesn’t sound to me like Taylor has unnecessarily long hair, so she should be fine.

While Taylor walks to the bad side of the town, she proceeds to do some worldbuilding for the reader’s benefit. ‘From pretty much any point on the Docks, you could see one of Brockton Bay’s landmarks, the Protectorate Headquarters. Besides being a marvel of architectural design with its arches and towers, the PHQ was a floating base of operations that a squadron of local superheroes called home, outfitted with a forcefield bubble and a missile defense system.’ That’s cool. Not the subtlest of headquarters, but at least it has defenses. I thought the superheroes’ need for secrecy would include not having headquarters in middle of the city like this, but I suppose not as much secrecy as I thought is needed. Just enough to keep their real identities away from their hero work. I wonder who are the three leading members of the Protectorate. Surely they’ll appear at some point in the story.

The need for money and the lack of work made the blue-collar workers of Brockton Bay fueled the supervillain population of the city. Henchmen are always on high demand, aren’t they? And this is a job, so those workers had to join and do their best. Hope they at least got good enough pay for that. Villains thrived until heroes started to fight them, and now there’s a balance between the two factions. It’s all a familiar setting, in some ways. It feels like I have heard something similar to it before.

Now that Taylor finished her worldbuilding, she arrives to the bad part of Brockton Bay, where she avoids anyone she sees. I had been about to comment it was amazing no one in the Boardwalk or anywhere before that had seen her and commented about her costume or anything, but then I reread and noticed she was going outside after midnight. Either way, she encounters trouble. A gang, called ‘Azn Bad Boys’. They’re no small fries, and their leaders are said to be people with powers, and given that they’re all gathering and doing thuggish faces, something is afoot. Be careful, Taylor.

There he is! The big leader of the gang makes his appearance, and he has all the signs of being the bad guy. ‘He had an ornate metal mask over his face’. That screams that he’s the leader, yeah. His powers are interesting, though. He transforms gradually the more he fights, gaining advantages and making him a tougher match. Oh, and also can control fire. Hm. He’s not...exactly the best target for the first fight as a hero, especially since he has overcome superheroes that surely had more experience and skill than Taylor.

Honestly? I think Taylor has bitten way more than she can chew. I don’t know how Mr. Wildbow starts his stories – or if he has written anything else before Worm – so I don’t know if he’d start a tale with the main character being badly beaten up. I won’t be surprised if it happens. Frankly, I’d be surprised if she does manage to hold her ground.

So, the leader’s name is Lung and he’s giving orders to the gang members. To listen better, Taylor decides to take a risk and climb a building, thankfully having made her outfit with soft soles. Once she’s on a nearby building, she listens to Lung’s commands. “…the children, just shoot. Doesn’t matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?” ...alright, that’s certainly alarming. Any chances of aiding the targets escape instead of confronting the gang members, Taylor? That seems to be like it’d work better than fighting the gang members directly.

‘They were going to kill kids?’ Yeah, apparently they will. The chapter ends here. It was mostly a chapter of worldbuilding. I suppose the next chapter will be when Lung and his gang start doing what they plan to do. Children, hm...well, I know pretty much nothing about what Lung may have in mind, but I doubt he routinely gets his gang to kill children just because. I mean, it wouldn’t be unheard of, but I’d like to believe there’s a reason to do it. Maybe those children are important to someone else. Maybe they’re in the way of something. Or maybe Lung simply hates children. It’d be boring if it’s villainy for the sake of villainy, despite the powers. Either way, next chapter, please!

The first thing Taylor does is wish she could call other heroes – quite significant she calls them ‘the real heroes’, that is a detail that shows how much Taylor is doubting herself right now. Kudos, Mr. Wildbow -- and makes mental note to carry a cellphone and spare change next time. Then she tries to see if there are any alternative meanings to what Lung said. ‘Children’, did it really mean ‘children’? But no, Taylor doesn’t think that, she’s thinking why anyone would go out of the way to kill children. There’s no time to think about that for long, a car comes by and the group starts walking down the street.

‘As much as I didn’t want to face it, there was really only one option that I could have no regrets about.’ And that is to try to stop them, of course. Looks like Taylor has her moral compass aligned correctly at this point of the story. All swarms in the vicinity, every single bug around, is ordered to attack them. Hmmmmm...well that is bound to deal with the normal gang members. Guns and knives aren’t good against insects. Lung, though, I really doubt that’ll affect him. His powers give him the edge here. If there’s something Pokemon has reinforced in me, it’s that Fire is super-effective against Bug. Hah! Kidding, of course that doesn’t matter here, but my point is that it’s going to be very difficult to attack Lung with bugs if he can control fire. The gang members are more or less defenseless, and if Lung directed his fire against them in an attempt to kill the bugs it’d kill them.

So, the fight starts! Taylor stays on the roof of the building she had gotten on last chapter and directs the swarms from there, using the data she feels from the insects to know what’s going on. It doesn’t take long for Lung to use fire. Taylor isn’t worried about it, though, she’s...suppressing a laugh. It’s the adrenaline.

‘Was that all he could do? I directed the swarm to gather, so those who weren’t already biting and stinging were in the midst of the gang. If he wanted to turn his flames on the swarm, he would have to set his own people on fire’. Oooooh, she realized it! Nice, I’m warming up to Taylor. Not enough for me to really think of her as an invaluable character, but she’s decently clever and can see how the situation is like. It also speaks well of the author. It’s often said smart characters can only be as smart as the author is.

Hm. It’s a disappointment that it’s not said what the gang members are doing right now other than being bitten and stung, if they’re panicking or if they’re even screaming or loudly wondering what’s going on or anything. That was a missed chance, it could have added a sense of franticness that would have benefitted the scene. You kind of dropped the ball here, Mr. Wildbow.

Taylor decides to go into the next part of the fight: attacking Lung with the poisonous bugs. She knows she’s going to need to overwhelm him with venom to affect him, and the fact he’s large and strong makes it even more difficult. She’s running out of time to do anything, he’s starting to get covered in armor.

‘I felt a sadistic glee as I organized the attack on Lung’ Is that so, Taylor? It never speaks well of a main character when one feels something like ‘sadistic glee’ without the conscience coming by to douse it with guilt. It’ll be fine –and frankly I think it’d be awesome-- if Mr. Wildbow decides to go on have a main character who does feel things like sadistic glee at causing pain on her foes...as long as he doesn’t try to paint her in some kind of positive light later. I have seen many authors do that kind of mistake way too often with some flaws.

Taylor doesn’t play around; she goes straight to causing as much pain to him as possible and that involves doing the proverbial punch below the belt, just that here it’s done with bugs. Haha!

Oh, there it is! In the next paragraph. ‘Rationale aside, I did feel a stab of guilt about taking pleasure in someone else’s pain’. I see, I see. Taylor had no trouble quieting that stab of guilt by telling herself Lung was going to kill children. Interesting. Not that Taylor now has long for things like dealing with the guilt, Lung explodes in a ball of fire.

The explosion pretty much cripples Taylor’s swarms, leaving her in disadvantage. He’s furious! Methinks you should start going away now, Taylor! Lung and the gang have been alerted there’s something going on, the gang members must be in quite some pain from being stung who knows how many times...I don’t think they’re in state to do whatever they were going to do tonight. It doesn’t mean they have been stopped – other different gang members may do it – but it’ll at least be inconvenient. But nope, luckily for the children Taylor is willing to go all the way to the end. She prods Lung with some harmless swarms, testing him, but he’s indeed getting stronger and that’s bound to continue.

The gang members still are inexistent. I’ll pretend they ran away or something.

‘Despite my earlier glee, I wasn’t sure I could win this anymore.’ Yeah, I think you’re over your head on this one. Not that it stops Taylor from trying her best, she decides to get creative and meaner. That involves aiming wasps and bees at Lung’s eyes. There’s a rather effective description of stingers on the eye. It wasn’t descriptive to the point of gore, but it certainly painted a vivid image that made me cringe. Jeez! I’m both impressed and dismayed at the same time, hahaha. Bonus points to Mr. Wildbow for remembering the existence of eyelashes and blinking.

Lung had enough of this all and sets himself on fire, effectively disabling any attack Taylor could hope to make. He’s also getting even more armored than before. Taylor figures that the gang members were unable to carry out any plan and that it was time to leave. Yeah, that’s what I thought, Taylor! But unlike me, she also plans to contact the Protectorate Headquarters, just in case. That’s...something that didn’t cross my mind. Oops. Not a bad first outing as a hero! Taylor starts her retreat, steps on the gravel and that’s enough to alert Lung. ‘A victorious roar filled the air, less human than the outcry he had made earlier, and I felt a kind of resignation. Enhanced hearing. The package of powers the bastard got from his transformation included superhuman hearing.’ Well I suppose it was illogical that everything would go okay...even if I honestly had gotten so engaged in this I was hoping she’d get away safely. Dang. Well it was kind of a foregone conclusion that something would go awry at some point. Worm isn’t the story of a successful superhero, after all. I don’t know where this’ll go now, but she wasn’t going to get out of this as a celebrated hero. Oh well.

That’s where the chapter ends. Good show of strategy and action, nicely done, Mr. Wildbow. Next chapter!

Lung is less than elated to find the person who may or may not have anything to do with the insects that ruined the plan. Yeah, if he wasn’t sure, I bet once he sees Taylor’s mask he’ll confirm she’s the one who did it. He jumps almost all the way to the roof and Taylor quickly thinks about her options. Luckily for her, Lung is taking quite a while in climbing the building, so she has enough time to consider what to do. Escaping isn’t going to work, so what’s in the proverbial utility belt? Or...utility pocket on her back, same thing.

...I forgot chalk dust was for gaining traction on the hands while climbing or doing anything like that. I had thought it was to throw into people’s eyes. Hah, my bad. But yeah, looks like Taylor’s items won’t be very useful against a superhuman madman that’s covered in fire. The pepper spray is her only option. Hm. It’ll be difficult to get close enough to someone that both has a metallic mask and is on fire, right? I mean, the heat is going to be a problem here. Taylor seems to have decided it’s worth a try, though, and she gets ready. Once Lung appears she goes ahead and shoots...missing the first time. The second time it’s a hit, and...Lung is actually affected by the pepper spray! Alright! Not that it does much other than making him even angrier than before. Now that Taylor sprayed him, she...she decides escaping is wise. Hnrg. Maybe you should have done that instead of taking your chances with the pepper spray...or maybe not. Lung has superhuman hearing right now, he could have heard her try to escape and would have stopped climbing the building.

All in all, this is an extremely dangerous situation. I can’t think a way for her to get away unharmed.

Lung managed to hit Taylor! Thankfully nothing of her is set on fire. She falls and gets in fetal position, waiting to see what she could do because...because yeah, things look bad and Lung keeps advancing. The pepper spray seems to have been a lucky move, though, it has blinded Lung enough for him to not be able to see that well in the darkness. He aims flames to the roof of the adjacent building, which has the perk of not being where Taylor is at right now, and she tries to look at what he’s aiming at.

Huh. Taylor is certainly lucky. Guess it’s true what people say, fools can be lucky sometimes. Yeah, this was kind of a foolish endeavor for her, but it’s too late to repent about it. What matters is that three people arrived along with beasts! Beasts that look like a cross between a lizard and a tiger and also no skin. Not the shining image of heroism, I’d say, but given that Taylor wants to be a hero and she has bug powers and costume I think it isn’t fair for me to immediately assume those things’ owners aren’t superheroes. ‘He was dressed entirely in black, a costume I realized was basically motorcycle leathers and a motorcycle helmet. The only thing that made me think it was a costume was the visor of his helmet. The full-face visor was sculpted to look like a stylized skull, and was as black as the rest of his costume’ There aren’t many heroes either that wear skulls as their emblems!

The newcomer with the helmet tries to help Taylor stand up, but she doesn’t trust him. Good. He doesn’t seem to really care, instead he reveals they were Lung’s target. “When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked. We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day. We eventually decided, fuck it, we’d meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah.” So these are the children Lung was talking about. Huh! Certainly not what Taylor was imagining, I bet, and certainly not what I imagined. There was the chance Lung hadn’t meant children, but I had chosen to take it more or less literally.

The fight is over before I know it. Lung has been driven away by the beasts despite the many advantages Lung has, so either he was defeated despite them, or he knows he doesn’t have a chance. The second in charge Oni Lee is around but he’s such a non-entity to the chapter right now he isn’t even shown. Hah! Oh well. The guy with the black helmet sounds kind of impressed that Taylor did something that hurt Lung like that, and one of the other girls describes all that happened. How long were they around while Taylor did her work, I wonder?

‘“Introductions. That’s Tattletale. I’m Grue’ Tattletale. Hah! Of course she’s called Tattletale, look at what she just did. Grue as in ‘gruesome’, buddy? Ah, yeah, and the other girl ‘“-We call her Bitch, her preference’ Edgy, but who am I to criticize what she wants to be called like? If she says Bitch is her name, then that’s what I’ll have to use here. The last person is Regent, but...but I’m not sure who Regent is. May be introduced later.

What’s important here is something Grue said in middle of the introductions: “...interests of being P.G., the good guys and media decided to call her...” The good guys, he says. Hoh. So this is it. These are the villains Taylor will join. This certainly wasn’t how I thought she’d meet them. That’s awesome! Taylor doesn’t seem to notice it yet, though.

Regent gets his description, no hint about power or role in this band. Now that Grue finished the introductions, he asks Taylor if she’s okay. Tattletale continues doing honor to her name and reveals Taylor is shy, which seems accurate enough to me, and suggests it’s time to leave. Taylor is offered a ride on one of the dog creatures. Ah, yeah, forgot to point that, they may be dogs. They’re not a cross between tigers and lizards, they’re like dogs. Where did Bitch get them, did she make them appear out of thin air? That’d be impressive! Taylor rejects riding one, but it isn’t like there’s much time to be picky here.

“Well, Bug, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute. You did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from the Protectorate shows up, finds two bad guys duking it out, they’re not going to let one walk away. You should get out of here,” Bug. Oh well. Leaving the newly christened name aside, that’s advice I can’t measure. Would the Protectorate believe Taylor if she stayed and said she meant to stop Lung and his gang? I mean, it doesn’t seem like Lung has been subdued. She can’t offer a villain to the group and introduce herself as a hero. It’s possible they’d say she screwed up, which’d be unfair, but what else would one think without proof? Besides, if Taylor rejected the offer, that’d be...suspicious for them, right? And who knows, Tattletale may even find out why she stayed, if Taylor doesn’t go straight home. I don’t know how Tattletale’s skills works, but better safe than sorry. Hm.

...yeah, looks like Taylor got into something she never imagined, hahaha. The group leave Taylor alone, not having insisted with the rides. Lucky for her! But Taylor finally realizes what everything that happened means.

When I realized what had just happened, I could have cried. It was easy enough to pin down Regent, Tattletale and Bitch as teenagers. It wasn’t much of an intuitive leap to guess that Grue had been one too. The ‘children’ Lung had mentioned, the ones I had gone to so much effort to save tonight, were bad guys. Not only that, but they had mistaken me for one, too.

Sad trombone music goes here. Hah, but no, really, that was certainly a deviation of plans I hadn’t thought would happen. Everything I read in these three chapters were pretty much unexpected for me. In hindsight, what I imagined last time that would happen in Taylor’s first time as a superhero was kind of illogical. I’m pleasantly surprised Mr. Wildbow went in this direction and subverted my expectations. The writing was rather good, too. There were some flaws – the biggest one being the missed chance I pointed earlier – but other than that he did a rather good job with the pacing of the action. I think I may have learned a thing or two from how he did it? Writing action scenes is very difficult, but I find the way he paced it and how he used descriptions and movements be rather vivid and fun to read. It’s something one as a writer and as a reader can appreciate.

All in all, I’m starting to warm up on this story, I think I can say I’m starting to like Worm. I’m not modifying the meter in this update, but if it manages to subvert my expectations again I’ll do it. Not that...I honestly have any concrete expectations right now. For the moment I’m letting Mr. Wildbow lead this wherever he wants, I’ll just sit back and see where it goes.

Next update: next time

#worm #worm liveblog #story liveblog #liveblog #book liveblog

18 notes · View notes