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tricktster · 5 years

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the twilight series suddenly makes 100% more sense if you read them under a specific premise that, i contend, is heavily supported by the text:

Much like Amy’s diary in Gone Girl, the books in the Twilight Saga are verbatim reproductions of in-universe diary entries carefully and deliberately created and curated by badass unreliable narrator Bella Swan as a means to achieve immortality.

Prerequisite assumptions:

1) Bella actively and persistently wants to become a vampire, both diagetically and (I contend) non-diagetically. The average vampire novel format often fails to capture realistic human behavior in one highly specific area: the protagonists are frequently mortals who grapple with the choice of whether to become a vampire. This is stupid, because being a vampire would obviously be dope as hell; particularly in the Twilight Universe, where vampires are not required to take a human life to survive, and indeed, have the capacity to live full and rewarding lives while integrated* into the human community.

(*integrated-ish; see Assumption 6)

2. There are too many coincidences for Bella to have encountered the Cullens by sheer chance, only to be the ONE person that Edward can’t live without (due largely to the novelty factor of not being able to read her ding-dang thoughts.)

3. Diagetically, the Volturi don’t even know Bella’s psyonic gifts until New Moon, but we also know that the Volturi scour the globe for recruits to enlist into the protection of their governing body.

4. Nobody wants to be a voiceless cog in a bureaucracy.

5. Nobody, and especially nobody in high school, wants to be a high school student forever.

6. Vampires in twilight are, as a group, cartoonishly terrible at disguising their true nature.

7. Forks is a backwater town approximately 3.5 hours away from the biotech hub of Seattle.

7. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney can eat my farts and they deserve to be preserved in this snapshot of an innocent author’s mind slowly unraveling.

Proposed timeline:

In 1993, there is a key system meltdown at a improvised biohacking startup in Seattle, rendering all innovative genetic modification experiments into a puddle of brown sludge that nobody can figure out how to dispose of per Federal regs, since they don’t even know what it is.

The broke founder of the startup, who for the purposes of this timeline I will call Jeff Bezos because that’s who it was, eventually grows tired of all the discussion about what to do, and just pops it in a barrel, drives a few hours out of town, and dumps it in a pond.

Bella Swan, a small child, is hanging out at a park with her family friend Jacob Black (and a ton of his friends) when they all decide to wade in a slightly murky pond. Thereafter, they are transformed.

Bella grows up as a normal, highly powerful mutant with a +20 to deception checks and wisdom saves. She lives in Arizona, but up until 2002, summers in Forks. While in Forks, she picks up on the local lore about a family of vampires who don’t eat people.

Because Forks (population: 17 + Charlie’s mustache) is boring, Bella bones up on the only interesting thing about it, i.e. Vampire Hometown baybeeeee.

In 2000, George W. Bush gets elected president, and his evangelical politics and general bumbling ineptitude informs Bella’s opinions on authoritative governmental entities.

In 2001, the Cullens make their intention to move back to Forks known, but they take a while because they need to pack all their stupid graduation hats and volvos, etc.

Later in 2001, a psychic Volturi scout rolls through Forks to ensure that nobody within living memory recalls the Cullens, and notices an anomaly in the psychic field.

The scout goes to confront Bella about joining the Volturi, and Bella immediately clocks him as a vampire, because vampires in the Twilight Universe fucking suck at looking/acting human. This leaves the scout in a bind: she’s too valuable to kill, but she’s a pre-teen, and therefore too young to be transformed per Volturi authority.

The scout warns her he’ll have to kill her if she discusses the existence of vampires with any human. He then tells her he’ll be back in five years, and begins to sweet talk her on how good life will be when she’s a vampire, beautiful, immortal, powerful, etc. Bella asks if she has to kill, and dude says “nah, actually there’s a bunch of vegetarian vampires who are moving back here soon. Fucking nerds, but otherwise they’re doing well.” Bella is all about becoming a vampire, because Bella is a rational actor.

Bella moves to Arizona, and as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are unjustifiedly initiated, she recognizes that while she DOES want to be a vampire, she does NOT want to be a foot soldier in any war that she can’t support. She needs a plan.

In 2004, Bella is watching her step-dad’s minor league baseball game when it occurs to her. On her own, she’s a target for the Volturi, but if she had some people to watch her back, she might be okay. Of course, nobody fucks with the Volturi on behalf of some rando human. She’ll need to con her way into a coven who’ll have her back and also give her that +10 to constitution via vampiric transformation, which she desperately wants because she’s a rational actor. And where are the non-volturi vampires that might have her back? Fucking Forks.

Bella moves to Forks in 2004, and upon seeing the Cullens, she immediately clocks them as vampires even though they left their “we’re all vampires” booty shorts at home, because, as previously discussed, vampires in the Twilight Universe fucking suck at looking/acting human.

Bella notes that all the vampires but one are paired off in heterosexual bliss, and takes note of the straggler as a potential vehicle to vampyrdom.

Bella figures out that Eddie can read everyone’s mind but hers, because Edward Cullen fucking sucks at looking/acting like a human who can’t read minds. Bella further observes that Eddie has a huge undead boner for her.

She’s found her mark. Now she just needs to convince him that she’s better off as part of the coven than on her own. Problem: Eddie’s a self-pitying insufferably guilt-striken perpetual adolescent who keeps himself busy by feeling sorry for himself because he’s a vampire, angst angst angst etc etc. Also, I think he’s Catholic, so add some more guilt in. She’ll have to win him over by convincing him that they’re destined to be soulmates.

What does a vampire used to having complete insight into everyone’s mind but his crush’s want? A method to know what she really thinks of him. Bella begins writing a “diary” knowing that there’s no way in hell Eddie won’t sneak in and read it. So she Gone Girls it, and begins to lay a trap to lure him in. That first diary? Twilight.

This was just in the movie but a stoner chases her around with a worm on a stick. Nothing to do with this theory, I just like that part of the movie. Where’s my spinoff about that guy?

Eddie won’t give Bella what she wants (eternal life) by the end of book 1, even though she asks him to EXTREMELY POLITELY. Time to hit the diary with some more promises of undying love.

Bella reconnects with her old friend Jacob and the rest of the Mutated By Jeff Bezos Boys. Alas, they cannot turn her into a physically powerful sexy immortal with a bite, so she’s still stuck with plan A) win over a whole family of vampires with big Mormon energy. It’s the long con.

Edward’s angst abruptly takes a swing towards terminal. He’s absolutely your classic sadboy, perhaps because Bella now has one (1) friend that he knows about.

When Eddie begins to drift away on account of Angst, Bella conjurs up a secondary love interest who, coincidentally, is ALSO a sexy supernatural entity, and is much less coincidentally just Jacob.

We should establish here that Edward is like a 107 year old white dude and so even though Diary!Bella pretends not to see it, Metatextual Frame Story!Bella knows that dude is super racist.

Jacob Black is three things: 1. Like Bella, a mutant (although one with shapeshifting abilities), 2.one of Bella’s oldest and most trusted confidants, and 3. down to clown on an elderly teenage vampire who keeps stereotyping him. Sure, says Jacob, I’ll take the form of a werewolf. He seriously thinks we’re all just beastmen, huh? Hey look at me now, I’m Regis Philbin because this is 2005 and Who Wants to be a Millionaire is still sort of relevant. Sick.

Edward does not like that Bella has one (1) other friend. Bella and Jacob plot to use this to their advantage and lure Edward back on the wings of jealousy.

Eddie gets himself into trouble on account of Angst and poor communication, so Bella has to go rescue him from himself/the Volturi.

Aro finally meets her and gets to test her powers, which impress him. Now she’s back on the fucking radar.

I forget everything that happens in Eclipse, so i have chosen to omit that part.

Eventually she extracts a quid pro quo from Eddie; i’ll marry you if you turn me into a dracula.

We don’t really call ourselves that, Wet Blanket Cullen replies, entirely earnestly.

Bella gets married at 18 in 2006, and Eddie starts to backtrack his promise about changing her. This won’t stand.

Well, look, he’s an elderly guilty catholic/mormon teen who probably still uses super racist terms, but she’s stuck on honeymoon island, he has certain angles that work for him, and seriously what are they gonna do but fuck? Bella’s alternative is listening to her “husband” drone on about his interests, which are almost certainly Car, How Do I Post a Minion Picture on Facebook, and Licorice Used To Be a Lot Cheaper in the Good Old Days.

Whoops a fetus.

Bella recognizes that she’s GOT to have this baby: time’s running out, and Bella knows that at least two of the Vamps in her coven will cut ties if she terminates or otherwise fails to carry this baby to term because of the conservative religious subtext. She’s going to have to stick it out for 9 months, even though it’s a risky call.

Bella gets what she wants after giving birth. “My time as a human is over, but I've never felt more alive. I was born to be a vampire.” That’s a direct quote. Except now she’s got a (pretty cute and easy) baby that she desperately wants to protect from Turning Into A Vaguely Religious Cullen Dressed Head To Toe In Cream Colored Wool.

Bella decides to fake her own death and escape with the kid and Jake so they can form i guess a detective agency. Bella will get “killed” by the Volturi, move to Sydney, and open up shop, and Jake will take the kid after her a few months later.

They’re gonna need a reason why Jake gets the kid though, and there’s only one reason to do anything amongst the Cullens: a heterosexual love interest with a super problematic age gap.

Jesus, Jake sighs, is Eddie really going to believe I’m in romantic love with your actual infant? Does he really think that little of me?

Yup.

Bella tries to draw the Volturi’s attention.

Works too well.

The Cullens call up all their vague acquaintances, who are at least kind of fun. Particularly that one dude who keeps getting angry about British conduct during the American Revolution.

Well, fuck, now the Volturi are bringing an army to fight their ragtag army of Vampires Who Are Cool And Interesting Enough That We Can Safely Presume They Are All Definitely Gay. Bella can’t let those guys die, they’re the first actually compelling vampires she’s ever talked to.

Bella saves the day because she’s OP.

All the Cool Vamps start packing up to leave and Bellz almost goes with them, but the Cullens would just keep sending missionaries after her if they knew.

Bella finishes her fourth journal with the vague warning that the Volturi are still out there somewhere and they miiiight just try and get her.

Two days later, she stages a scuffle and gets the fork out of Fucks. Her journals are the only clue.

Sirius Black and baby nessie follow once edward has stopped sobbing into his cream colored sweater and moved on to Extended Power Pouting.

Bella recruits her own army of fledglings.

Bella stages a coup against the Volturi and succeeds.

Bella sits on the iron throne with a hot lady vampire on each knee and they all kiss and stuff.

Nessie I guess forms a post punk band?

Edward dies from aspiration of a brussel sprout that he ate because he just wanted to feel something.

Charlie and Billy get married.

Charlie’s mustache develops a cult instagram following, providing them with a modest retirement income.

Jacob shapeshifts into Bill Murray and is always crashing weddings.

Bella’s stepdad is off in the B plot this whole time winning the world series with the help of a kooky angel.

There. Fixed. My soul is at rest.

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inventors-fair · 2 years

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In a Pinch: Flavor Copy Runners-Up ~

Our runners-up this week are @grornt, @horsecrash and @simsarwel!

@grornt — Weatherlight Sepulcher

I’m honestly not sure what Tendrils of Despair is originally trying to say—like, Karn feels pain but can’t cry? It’s a little odd here, and this card definitely clarifies it. I think, mechanically, having “other” in there isn’t great because it would be better to at least get a cantrip all things considered, but the rest of the card is fantastic. Erasing the past and getting new memories while using the strength to honor those in the present? Great work. This one stirred up a lot of judge buzzing. I’m not the most familiar with the Weatherlight saga and all those shenanigans (those deadly, deadly shenanigans) but I understand some of it from how you posed Karn here. I do really like Karn as a character, and this makes him feel a little more sadly stoic to me. I enjoyed this card a lot.

@horsecrash — Vermin King

Ha, because they’re worms! It’s certainly more substantial than Goblin Bully as a card. You didn’t need to completely twist any meaning here because it was fairly open-ended, but there’s also this notion of zombies losing their bones and having no spines, too. I think this card’s really darn powerful and the cost is appropriate for where a zombie deck wants to be on turn four, giving lots of potential bodies and death triggers. All those worms and corpses. Yeah, I don’t hate it! It’s a viscerally disgusting image too, and I like that a lot. It’s more “haha cool” fantasy than grimdark fantasy, which I...sometimes skew towards, even though I try not to as much these days. Does it tell a story through mechanics? No, it’s an action-oriented card about wormy dead bois. And that’s all it needs to be. Live long and fester.

@simsarwel — Curse of Intrusion

It was pointed out to me that, as amazing as this card is, it’s not always practical to look at the top card of your opponent’s library in paper. All the same, what an incredible use of multiplayer mechanics with how it both encourages AND discourages attacking, changes up politics, AND in single-player, it shifts the way that you can adjust your draws. Because you can enchant yourself! It makes attacking weird, and huh. I just thought about that. You can enchant yourself. Does that make this card... Does it need a nerf? Hm, that’s interesting. I think that it’s definitely a complicated card and it may need tweaking. All the same, the radical departure from Lyra Dawnbringer’s “I’m your guardian angel” text is worth it to me. This card, I feel, is a mechanically ambitious take on a creepy notion. I like it a lot, from the first time I saw it. Seeing it a second time and with some feedback, there’s a little bit of tweaking that needs to be done before it’s truly there. All the same, a worthy card to showcase.

Thank you all once again for your entries! I’ll be writing the commentary through today and answering questions along the way.

— @abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #flavor text copy contest #runners up #commentary #inventor's fair

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do-a-reference-properly · 5 years

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AO3′s users alert! Unauthorised fanworks copying

26/09/2019. Important update on this mess: we found a way to delete fanworks via take down request to the hosting provider. Please check it here https://do-a-reference-properly.tumblr.com/post/187926459079/finally-some-good-news

Dear AO3 users,

We would like to bring your attention to an ugly situation with unauthorized copying of works posted on AO3.

A lot of works from AO3 have been copied to fanfics.me (we’ll call this site FFM for brevity’s sake) and are still being copied right now, either:

— automatically by a code specifically created by FFM’s owner for this purpose, or

— by unaware or unscrupulous FFM’s users via semi-automatic method (by inserting a link to a work from AO3 into a web-worm on FFM).

All works from AO3 — with a few exceptions (I’ll elaborate on this below) — can end up on FFM without authors even noticing. Even fanarts or podfics.

FFM doesn't comply with DMCA which means that such reposts endanger fanworks' creators in case the copyright holder demands to delete the fanwork.

Authors of the copied works do not have any control over them; if the work is edited it won’t be updated on FFM until someone manually updates it.

Additionally FFM’s owner makes money out of reposted free fanworks from numerous Google and Yandex ads on each and every FFM’s page by having people go to this site when searching for fics on Google etc. So we recommend using an Ads Blocker when visiting this site in order to prevent the owner from earning more. Ghostery or Adblock Plus work just fine, but you can use any other Ads Blocker that is convenient to you.

Oftentimes FFM even shows up before the original post with the work on Google search results.

The owner’s e-mail: [email protected].

The owner at AO3.

We are trying to bring AO3’s users attention to this situation and help authors with taking their works down from FFM.

Briefly about the website and its owner

Let me start from the very beginning as it will bring into the light the nature of FFM and give a good example of its owner characteristic behavior.

At first, some person with nickname Refery created FFM as a web archive where authors — mostly from Harry Potter fandom — could publish their fanworks.

Time passed, the site grew and added some features (blogs, pre-moderation and etc.), and all was good and well up till the moment when Refery decided that it would be a great idea to copy to FFM fanworks published on other Russian fanfiction archives — among them from the biggest and most known site ficbook — without asking authors for permission. Even those works that had “Ask me before posting the story somewhere else” mentioned in its text or summary were copied.

For some time nobody noticed, but when finally and inevitably this came out the authors were outraged. It took a lot of time to finally persuade Refery to at least not to copy fanworks bearing a special tag “Уточнять у автора” (Ask the author first).

But after some time Refery — without giving any notice — violated his own promise and resumed copying to FFM fanworks that had the agreed upon tag. The authors complained again, so very reluctantly and after many painful discussions this feature was reinstalled.

So FFM has been notoriously known, mostly amongst Russian fandom, for claims on re-posting fanworks without the consent of the authors.

We're mentioning this situation just to give you a detailed portrait of a person we are dealing with here.

Not only fanworks are copied to this website, but original works, too. Even those which were already published. There were all 7 of Harry Potter novels (both original text and translation), The Hobbit: There and Back Again (translation) and Vorkosigan Saga (translation) available for everybody to read and download. They were taken down only recently due to the attention this whole situation had drawn, but nothing ever goes away once it’s posted online and you can access the proof via Internet Wayback machine. We know for a fact there are other books on FFM and some actions have been taken in this regard, but still it takes time to find published books on this site.

Recently Refery decided that Russian archives are not enough for him and started copying all fanworks into FFM without any permission from the authors from numerous sites, like AO3, fanfiction.net, fictionpress.com, fanfiktion.de and likely other web-archives.

Moreover, the authors of these works can not delete their works from FFM and/or manage them. The site is in Russian only and, hence, we strongly believe that non-Russian speaking authors even do not know that their works are reposted somewhere else.

As a Russian fan-community, we have tried to stop such activity of FFM many times; however, we have not been successful in achieving our goal completely. Our most recent achievement is that the FFM’s owner implemented the "Don't copy to another site" tag created specifically for AO3 (here is the link to FFM’s owner post on his personal blog regarding this tag. Please use Ads Blocker!). This tag should be added to each work presented on AO3 in case the author does not want their works to be copied to FFM.

We are of the opinion that no work should be taken without permission in the first place, but this tag is all we’ve got.

Please note that it seems that some time ago there was similar case of unauthorized copying with other site. Please check this link, they give useful advice.

How to prevent copying from AO3

If you check AO3 you may notice that "Don't copy to another site" tag has hugely emerged in the recent weeks, but mostly amongst Russian users and there is a good reason for this: the owner of FFM announced this tag only in Russian and only on his private blog, so naturally there is no way for non-Russian speaking AO3 users to know about this — albeit non-satisfactory — solution.

There are no guaranties that the FFM’s owner won’t change the rules again as has already happened numerous times before (few examples we described above) and that works with this tag won’t be reposted in the future, but for now it’s the only quick and working solution besides making your works visible only to registered users, which is not ideal.

This situation is highly unpleasant, but we ask you not to delete your works from AO3, because if the work is deleted from AO3 it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM: we won't be able to refresh it manually and remove the text.

Please note that adding this tag won’t work for texts that have already been copied. Only users who have accounts at FFM will be able to delete them. Each work needs to be deleted manually.

However, the Russian fandom — except for the owner of FFM — strongly condemns reposts without the consent of the author, so feel free to contact our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing the links to the works stolen from AO3, so we could delete them for you.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to cover all authors and works manually. So, we contacted AO3’ Technical Team with the aim to bring their attention to this situation and inform about it all AO3 users, and hope that AO3 team will find a general solution to resolve this problem, possibly, in collaboration with the AO3 lawyers.

We are trying to warn as many authors as possible and recently started spreading this information via comments on AO3; but considering the number of works copied to FFM informing all authors will take considerable time, and we can easily miss someone, especially since the copying is still in progress and new works from AO3 are appearing on FFM every day.

Please help us spread the word!

We tried to make a comprehensive FAQ about this. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear!

FAQ

Q: Can I check if my work was copied to FFM?

A: Yes, you can.

FFM makes money on Google and Yandex ads, so we recommend turning on the Ads Blocker of your choice before visiting this site.

Please follow this link, insert the title of your work or your AO3/other web-archive nickname into the field containing the words "insert-title-nickname" and hit "Искать" (Search).

For works rated Mature or Explicit you will be able to see only the caption "Текст произведения доступен только зарегистрированным пользователям старше 18 лет" ("The text of the work is available only to registered users over 18 years old"), but FFM users are able to read and download the story.

Q: My work from AO3 was copied. How can I take it down?

A: First of all add the tag "Don't copy to another site" (without “ “) to the stories you want to be taken down.

Actually we would recommend adding this tag to all the works you don't want to be copied.

Contact one of our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing links to your works or send an e-mail with your deletion request directly to the FFM owner at [email protected] or at AO3.

There is a third option: to register on FFM and delete the work yourself by hitting the refresh button, but considering that the site is in Russian we do not think it will be very convenient to those who do not speak Russian language.

Q: I got the message that my work has been deleted. How can I check if it is true?

A: You can go to FFM, search for you work, click on its title and scroll down.

After the summary there is a field that should look like this for those fics that have been deleted.

Basically it says that the author of this particular work has forbidden its copying and that only the information on its title, author’s nickname, rating, pairings, summary and the link to original post on AO3 are available.

For works that are still available on FFM this field looks like this (if the work is open for non-registered users).

Q: My work copied from AO3 was deleted, but FFM still shows some information on it. Can it be deleted?

A: Even though the text of the fic is not going to be on FFM anymore after it has been deleted, the fic's title, author's name, rating, pairings, summary and link to original post on AO3 will remain there.

The deletion of this leftover information can be done only by the site owner himself.

Some Russian authors tried to make him to delete it, but in most cases the FFM’s owner refused them mentioning that publication of such information is in line with fair use concept and doesn’t violate authors’ rights.

We are yet unsure how to delete this leftover information. In case you need it as well, try contacting the FFM owner at [email protected] or at AO3. Maybe e-mails of a large number of authors will work, but unfortunately we can’t guarantee anything. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Q: My work from fanfiction.net/fictionpress.com/fanfiktion.de/other web-archives was copied to FFM. How can I take it down?

A: Unfortunately, there is no possible way for us to delete from FFM the fanworks that are copied from web-archives other then AO3. Only FFM’s owner can delete these works, please try contacting him at [email protected] or at AO3. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Please do not delete your works from the web-archive it was stolen from, because if the work is deleted it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM.

Also it seems that some time ago there was similar case of unauthorized copying with other site. Please check this link, they give useful advice.

#ao3 #archive of our own #alert #fanfiction #fanworks #fanart #please reblog

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adreamingofguns · 3 years

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The Breach is no more, Corypheus’s threat all but forgotten. Now, the threat of the Dread Wolf, Fen’Harel, threatens more than just Orlais and Ferelden. The entire world is to be subject to Solas’s plans, whatever they may be. The Inquisitor reports that he intends to destroy the world and re-build his own, but his plans are unknown. All anyone seems to know is that the Dread Wolf cares not for modernity, nor do the scarce few ancient elves who serve him. Even the modern elves seem blinded by their desire for superiority rather than fearful of his consequences.

Still, life moves on. The Qunari’s thwarted plot does not mean the Northern people will give up, and the Inquisition has much to fear from the Qun, should they fail to detect them again. The Wardens still seek an end-but it is not clear if they wish to end the Calling, the Blight, or themselves.

Join our ranks, choose your side, and be prepared for war. This server is an 18+ server with moderate literacy requirements. Ocs ok, canon timeline preestablished. In need of most canon characters. Multiple played characters allowed.

We are an LGBT-safe server. We welcome headcanons and interpretations of all kinds for both our canons and ocs.

We have:

Awesome and friendly mods that will help you if you need it!

Plenty of open characters

OC availability

An easy to understand application process

A Dwarf inquisitor

Headcanon friendly and flexible lore

No brain worms or bad takes

Several lgbt mods so its definitely a safe space

18+ so no children and sex/violence is ok!

Come join us today!

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #da4 #dragon age rp

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freebooter4ever · 4 years

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The Thrilling Conclusion to the Naked Snafu Invades Eugene's Apartment Saga, inspired by this and also this drawing by @badgerms - I needed to make Snafu happy

Warnings: nudity, brief mention of Snafu's dick, more goofy intimacy than explicit

"Though after tonight, now that Eugene knows how miserable his couch is, he might have to start saving up for a new one. He can't let Snafu continue to sleep on this reddish-orange, lumpy, prickly thing from the 80's.

Better that Snafu sleep on something reddish-orange, soft, and born in the 80's - like, say, Eugene himself."

Eugene chooses the couch. The minute he lies down, he regrets his choice. The cushions are so thin they almost don't exist. Whenever he moves the damn things squeak. And he swears each individual spring is poking into his body. Even if his thoughts weren't racing in circles trying to understand Snafu's behavior, Eugene thinks he'd still be kept awake all night by this uncomfortable couch.

How does Snafu sleep like this three days out of the week?

It's never three set days - some weeks it's more; some weeks less. As far as Eugene knows, Snafu technically doesn't rent a place anywhere and instead divides his time amongst his friend's couches.

"Semper-fi," Snafu says, if anyone asks.

Eugene never questions it, and maybe that's why Snafu seems to spend more time here than anywhere else. Though after tonight, now that Eugene knows how miserable his couch is, he might have to start saving up for a new one. He can't let Snafu continue to sleep on this orange, lumpy, prickly thing from the 80's.

Better that Snafu sleep on something orange, soft, and born in the 80's - like, say, Eugene himself.

Eugene rolls over restlessly and promptly receives a sharp poke to his ass from one of the springs.

He definitely needs to replace this couch.

If only because the other option - suggesting Snafu share his bed instead - is completely inappropriate.

Eugene opens his text messages and scrolls past the various group chats that take up half his phone storage. Snafu starts these chats with random friends of his and then somehow pulls Eugene into them.

Eugene scrolls and scrolls until he finds Eugene Number Two. He needs expert advice. And there is only one other person in the world who knows more about Snafu than Eugene does. It's only a strange coincidence they have the same name.

Eugene needs to know if Snafu's exhibitionism is equal opportunity or selective. After much deliberation about how to ask this, he decides to go with the direct approach.

Eugene to EugeneTwo 3:45am - 'does snafu ever sleep naked on your couch?'

EugeneTwo to Eugene 2:46am - 'If he ever tried his bare ass would be tossed out into the snow.'

EugeneTwo to Eugene 2:53am - 'Why do you ask? Is Snafu sleeping nude on your couch right now? You have my permission to toss him out. Be merciless. I know how you get when he gives you that kicked puppy look. Don't fall for it.'

Eugene to EugeneTwo 2:54am - 'right now hes sleeping in my bed naked but it started on my couch.'

EugeneTwo to Eugene 2:55am - 'Ok, I do not need to hear about your sex life'

Eugene to EugeneTwo 3:00am - 'no sex'

Eugene to EugeneTwo 3:01am - 'i took the couch''

Eugene to EugeneTwo 3:01am - 'do you think he would though?'

Eugene to EugeneTwo 3:02am - 'trying to gauge my chances here'

EugeneTwo to Eugene 3:05am - 'He's in your bed naked Sledgehammer, what do you think?.'

EugeneTwo to Eugene 3:05am - 'You are both dumbasses though so 0% chance is my prediction.'

EugeneTwo to Eugene 3:05am - 'Good luck.'

EugeneTwo to Eugene 3:07am - 'Use protection. Snafu's backpack, side pocket with the snap. You should have no trouble finding it.'

Eugene Number Two, aka Roe, is studying to be an EMT, so he's always harping about health or venereal diseases or something or other. Eugene never pays attention to any of it. He kinda hopes Snafu does.

Eugene sits on the couch and surveys the room. Snafu's backpack seems to be missing. It's either in Eugene's room with Snafu or as mysteriously disappeared as Snafu's clothes.

Eugene sighs. Sex with Snafu was a zero percent chance for him anyway, Roe said so. And Roe tends to be irritatingly accurate when it comes to Snafu. It's always been a bit of a competition between them over best friend status in Snafu's heart. The other Eugene usually wins. Roe has more history with Shelton - they grew up in the same state, raced boats with homemade dangerous motors in the same swamps, ate the same weird fish.

Except Snafu doesn't get naked when he stays over at Roe's place. Eugene doesn't know if this new development can be considered a win or not.

Probably not. It's just another thing to add to the list of weirdness Snafu knows he can get away with around Eugene.

Eugene opens his phone again and rereads the messages. With noted emphasis on the one telling him to be merciless. He does give in to Snafu's esoteric demands a lot more than is probably healthy. He should stand up for himself more.

It's that thought that gets Eugene off the couch and into his bedroom. He stands in the narrow space at the foot of his bed and stares at Snafu's peacefully sleeping form. All he can see is the top of his curly head. The rest of him is a lump underneath the covers, smack dab in the center of the bed, like goldilocks. There's maybe a foot of mattress space left for Eugene on either side of Snafu's body.

Snafu is sleeping curled up with his head pillowed on his arm, so Eugene struggles with a brief internal debate over which side he should take. He settles on the front - logic being that he's already seen everything there once. He might be immune to the sight now. Quickly, before he can have second thoughts, he slides underneath the bedspread and sheets.

Snafu's eyes pop open immediately. Eugene suspects he wasn't actually asleep. Snafu grins at Eugene, but doesn't move, not even to make more room on the bed. It's an awful tight squeeze, with the three of them on there.

Because sure enough, clutched tight in Snafu's skinny arms, is Eugene's childhood favorite stuffed animal. Eugene thought he hid Minky well enough this time. He put the stuffed animal at the bottom of his underwear drawer and assumed his friends would never dare paw through his unmentionables. Eugene needs to adjust the assumptions he makes based on previous life experiences. Previous life experiences rarely apply to Snafu.

"I can't believe you still sleep with a stuffed animal, Gene," Snafu says mockingly, even while his chin is neatly tucked over Minky's plush shoulder and one of his arms is wrapped around the stuffed monkey's body.

Eugene breathes deeply and resists the temptation to throttle his hypocritical best friend.

"My mom sent him to me," Eugene protests.

"She send you the baby food in your kitchen cupboards as well?" Snafu asks, his grin widening.

Eugene can feel his face getting hot. "She worries about me," he says, "She thinks I'm lonely. I think she's projecting. My dad bought her two giant life-sized teddy bears after I went away for college. They sit at the dining room table when Edward and I aren't there. I think that gave her the idea to mail my old stuffed animal to me. Minky just shares my bed sometimes. I don't cuddle with it. Not like you're doing right now."

"You lonely, Gene?" Snafu asks, turning the words into something far more provocative than they should be.

"No," Eugene says firmly. He swallows with great difficulty.

Snafu's smile disappears. He slides himself backwards in the bed to give Eugene more room. Eugene takes it. But he quickly discovers Snafu failed to move his feet over as well, and his feet are ice cold. Snafu worms one foot in between Eugene's calves, and Eugene bemusedly accepts the fact that if he is going to get the use of his own bed, he is also going to be used as a foot warmer.

"You're definitely the baby in the family, Sledgehammer," Snafu decides.

"I was," Eugene admits readily, unashamed, "What about you?"

"Eldest," Snafu yawns, "More like a crappy parent than a brother."

Snafu curls tighter into a fetal position. His foot migrates from between Eugene's calves to between his thighs. A highly distracting position. But Snafu looks so...sad...that it's hard to read anything into it more than Snafu's constant need for contact. There's a wall up between them tonight that isn't normally there. Snafu holds Minky in front of his body, with his elbows and knees poking into Eugene's space like a barrier.

Eugene is seized with a sudden desire to hug him.

He wonders, if he picked the other side of the bed, if Snafu would've let Eugene wrap his arms around him. If Eugene could hold him, just as Snafu is cuddling with the damn stuffed monkey. To press his hand against Snafu's bare stomach. To feel Snafu's back against his own chest. To kiss his shoulder. To whisper 'I love everything about you, even the weirdness. I don't understand it, but I get it. I see it in myself sometimes, too,' in his ear.

"Are you lonely, Snaf?" Eugene asks.

Snafu is already asleep.

Eugene takes a while longer to fall asleep. It's one thing to have already seen Snafu stark naked. It's another thing entirely to have the same situation play out in this context. Where he can't see it, but he knows it, and that's almost worse.

Eugene reaches his hand down to lightly hold Snafu's ankle where it's wedged between Eugene's legs. He runs his thumb along the knob of bone and the dip underneath where Snafu's ankle connects to his heel. There's dried dirt caked there - of course there is, this is Snafu after all - and Eugene chuckles. He softly rubs Snafu's skin clean.

Snafu smiles, once again not actually asleep though his eyes are still closed, and wiggles his toes.

Eugene smiles back, helpless in the wake of affection he feels, and squeezes Snafu's ankle comfortingly.

This time Eugene does fall asleep.

He dreams of Snafu on top of him, kissing him. It's warm and sweaty underneath the thick blankets, the air cold as sin outside them.

When he wakes Snafu is gone. The first thing Eugene sees when he opens his eyes is Minky's button-eyed face. The stuffed monkey's plastic nose is pressed right up against Eugene's like a kiss. Snafu must have placed him there after getting out of bed.

Eugene reaches out, grabs Minky, and pulls the stuffed animal tight to his chest, hugging it like he hasn't done since he was...well...if he's honest maybe fourteen or so - he was a soft child. His heart aches terribly right now, and he figures that's as good an excuse as any for a cuddle. He burrows deeper into the covers and tries to hide from his thoughts.

Fuck, he hopes Snafu doesn't decide to do this again. His heart can't take it. It's reduced Eugene to this. Lying here while his heart aches. And aches and aches.

Wait. Actually, that might be his stomach.

As soon as he thinks about it, he feels a grumble. And, yup, that pain he feels is his stomach. He might have forgotten to eat before bed last night, what with his living room being too full of a sexy cajun exhibitionist to leave room for anything else.

Still not completely awake, he staggers out of his room and starts towards the kitchen to answer his grumbling stomach. He notices a crop of curls crouched down on the kitchen floor and forces his eyes open wider to see what it is. When he does see, he is momentarily dazed in shock.

Snafu is sitting in the middle of Eugene's dropped pile of graded papers. His face is scrunched tight in concentration as he sorts where one sentence leaves off at the end of a page and where it begins on another.

"You're reorganizing my papers?" Eugene asks.

Snafu looks up guiltily, "Yeah."

"Thank you…" Eugene stutters.

"I felt bad," Snafu explains, "My fault you dropped them…" He lets go of the page he is reading and scratches the back of his head self consciously.

The messy pile surrounding Snafu's bare knees is significantly smaller than Eugene remembers it being last night. As evidenced by the neat stack on the kitchen table beside Snafu's head. Snafu must have been up for hours already to have gotten this far in the organizing.

And menial labor is the thing Snafu hates most in the world. ("I grade tests for no man," Snafu once said when the two of them were locked in a hotel for a week with a whole host of science professors to score the AP exams)

Yet here Snafu is, calm as he pleases, kneeling on Eugene's floor in his boxers and sorting through the most boring essays on cell biology ever written.

Hold on - Eugene recognizes those lime green and orange boxers.

"Snafu, what happened to all your clothes?" Eugene asks.

"That fucker Mackenzie cheated in poker," Snafu scowls, "Hate that guy."

"Are those my boxers?" Eugene asks.

Snafu shrugs and without turning away from his work, says, "Yours are more comfortable."

They should be, Eugene thinks, they're silk.

And fuck, that's the last straw. For some reason Snafu wearing his best - his favorite - underwear is the thing that breaks the camel's back. Eugene is fed up. There is no excuse, not for this big of a breach in personal boundaries. Friendship be damned.

Snafu fails to notice the turn in the tide, innocently shuffling the last few pages around. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say these kids never opened a biology textbook before," Snafu comments, "Gene, half of these essays don't make sense even when the pages are put back in order…" Snafu continues rambling on about the unfortunate state of the American collegiate system and our unfortunate focus on standardized testing over deeper literacy, due to it being more expensive and time consuming to test writing skills and critical thinking.

It's a well traveled train of thought for them, and one both Eugene and Snafu have discussed at length often enough that Eugene doesn't even need to pay attention to know where Snafu's headed. There is a comforting familiarity to hearing Snafu chatter half to himself and half to Eugene while he works. And Eugene agrees on all his points. Normally he would join in. But...

"Snafu…" Eugene tries to interrupt.

"If we just had more bodies in the public school system, instead of allowing people with means to circumvent communal education by paying for elite charter and private schools…" Snafu rambles on.

"Merriell," Eugene says desperately.

When even the use of Snafu's given name fails to catch his attention, Eugene knows for certain Snafu is a lost cause in his train of thought and not about to surface anytime soon..

Thus he is caught unawares when Eugene leans down, pushes demandingly into Snafu's space, and plants a firm kiss smack dab on his lips. Eugene squeezes his eyes shut - his mouth is hard, and the kiss is less romantic and more an act of desperation - to see if Snafu's incessant goading and prodding actually means anything - and to put in his own request for something more. Eugene pulls away quick and opens his eyes to see the answer.

Snafu immediately drops the papers and grabs onto Eugene instead. His large, warm hands slide around the back of Eugene's neck and pull him in. He kisses Eugene like nothing else matters.

Eugene, still standing awkwardly, tips over and loses his balance. He careens into Snafu and knocks them both to the cracked linoleum floor. Their kiss breaks and Snafu is laughing. He cradles Gene's face in his hands, stares up at him with enigmatic eyes, and laughs at him.

Eugene stares back in panic, beginning to worry he just made the biggest mistake, and ruined the deepest friendship he's ever experienced.

Snafu sits up, not taking his eyes off Eugene, and brings their faces closer together again. Neither of them speak. Eugene hardly dares to breathe.

He calms down a bit when Snafu places his palms flat against Gene's chest. Snafu smooths the wrinkles out of Eugene's pajama shirt, and runs his fingertips across Eugene's initials embroidered into the breast pocket.

Eugene watches all this exploration unfold, trying to pretend he's not heavily invested in the outcome. He adds no commentary either, for fear of changing Snafu's mind.

It tests his patience, waiting. The time it takes Snafu to undo the first button on Eugene's shirt would make a slug seem speedy by comparison. But one by one, the buttons open up, and the shirt comes off, and Snafu moves on to Eugene's sweatpants, painstakingly untying the drawstring. Snafu manhandles Eugene into a standing position in order to get those off. Eugene's boxers are last, pulled down without ceremony. And then Snafu stands with him, and takes a step back.

He draws his eyes slowly down Eugene's form - Snafu's face a picture of concentration as hard as it was when reading the biology papers. Finally, he brings his gaze back up, and meets Eugene's eyes. A knowing smile crawls across his face.

"Wow," Snafu says. The tilt of his head is a little too sarcastic for Eugene's comfort.

Eugene straightens his shoulders, and tries to stand a little taller.

"Got all your clothes off, and I didn't even need to beat you in poker," Snafu says with pride.

Eugene's shoulders slump in defeat. If he had thought Snafu would magically transform into something other than his emotionally-distant, constantly-deflecting-real-feelings self, he was wrong.

"I'm going back to bed," Eugene grumbles. He ignores his painful stomach telling him he forgot to eat again and stomps through his living room.

"Don't you need your pajamas?" Snafu calls after him teasingly.

"Read the sign!" Eugene replies and slams his bedroom door shut to drive his point home.

He dives underneath the covers and intends to stay there for the rest of the day, hunger and bathroom needs be damned.

But sure enough, not too long after Eugene's tantrum, the door of his bedroom opens once more. He is not surprised.

"Didn't you read the sign," Eugene accuses, loud enough for Snafu to understand his muffled voice underneath the covers.

"I did," Snafu says. The bed dips in a way that suggests Snafu is sitting next to him. "And I'm willing to take that risk.".

Eugene flops the covers off his face and looks begrudgingly at Snaf.

Snafu grins. He reaches over and drags his fingers through Eugene's hair. Eugene can feel the static cling crackle against his skin where his hair is sticking out at odd angles.

"Snaf, it's not a risk if you like me too," Eugene complains wearily.

"Yeah it is," Snafu says as he stands and wiggles out of Eugene's expensive silk boxers, "It's always a risk." He pulls the covers back more to reveal Eugene completely, and climbs onto the bed.

Eugene tries to maneuver out of his way to give him room, but Snafu rests his hand over Eugene's arm, and Eugene stops moving.

Until he shivers.

"I turned off the heat, like you asked," Snafu says proudly.

"A few hours late on that," Eugene points out.

Snafu shrugs. He climbs over Eugene, and sits on his stomach with a knee on either side of Eugene's body. His eyes never leave Eugene's face. Snafu is looking at him with a funny little smile, the one Eugene only sees when Snafu is well and truly enjoying himself.

And there - for one minute - there is that face, those eyes, that look, that Eugene can never resist as Roe so kindly pointed out. Snafu looks happy, but in a nervous way like he doesn't trust his own happiness.

Eugene could probably be content simply sitting and admiring Snafu all morning. Except for one small detail that suddenly consumes all of Eugene's attention.

Snafu's dick is hard.

Eugene can both feel and see (if he is brave enough to cast his gaze a little lower) the state of things.

"Did Mac take your backpack too?" Eugene asks.

"Yeah," Snafu says, looking confused, "Why's it matter?"

"Roe stashed some condoms in there," Eugene explains.

"Oh yeah?" Snafu asks with a triumphant grin sitting straighter and cocking his chin, "What you gonna do with a condom if you had one, Sledgehammer?"

Eugene sits up, wrapping one arm around Snafu's lower waist in order to slowly slide him down off Eugene's chest and into his lap. It puts them more on an even level.

"I don't know," Eugene says honestly, "Anything you wanted, probably."

Snafu's devilish grin disappears. He falls completely silent, and lets his hands rest lightly on Eugene's shoulders. Eugene's never seen Snafu timid, until now. He doesn't like it. He wishes he knew how to restore that confidence. Maybe this was Eugene's mistake. Maybe he turned this too serious, made it mean too much. Maybe he wants too much.

"It's okay, Snaf," Eugene whispers and holds him close while trying to read his thoughts through his eyes, "It's okay."

This time Snafu is the one to break the tension. He cups his hands behind Eugene's head and brings their lips together. The kiss is sudden and intense - as if when Snafu finally gives himself permission, he releases all his emotions at once. It's a little overwhelming, being the sole focus of Snafu's unleashed feelings. Like Eugene is holding an uncontainable ball of energy.

And Snafu won't stop pressing closer, and Eugene refuses to take his hands off him - so he responds to every roll of Snafu's hips by pulling him in even tighter. They tip backwards and land flat on the bed, and Eugene relishes in the full weight of Snafu on top of him, kissing him - more vivid and warm and alive and clumsy than any dream could imagine.

Eugene is fumbling, and a bit shy. Snafu more than makes up for it, guiding Eugene's hand to all the right places. They never do find any condoms. Just as well - neither of them last long, rutting up against each other like teenagers brand new to this game.

Eugene definitely is new to this. He technically still classifies as a virgin. On the other hand, Snafu's experience hovers somewhere around expert level. It's cute though, to see all Snafu's experience and bravado humbled in the face of wanting to impress Eugene.

It's also extremely messy, which isn't something Eugene had ever considered. And he is fastidious enough to insist they shower off together. Eugene gives himself a perfunctory scrub down, and then leaves Snafu lingering in the steam filled bathroom in order to go out to the kitchen and make breakfast. Eugene starts cooking bacon - the only food he never ruins - before he even puts on clothes. He fails to consider the hot grease. He learns pretty quickly why some things shouldn't be done naked, so he wraps a towel around himself for safety's sake.

Snafu doesn't leave the warm shower till the bacon is done, and then the two of them curl up together on the couch to watch a movie. It feels like any other slow moving Saturday morning they've spent together. Except this time before Eugene can seat himself, Snafu drags the towel off him, as if nudity is a requirement to this new shift in their relationship. The silly, ebullient grin on Snafu's face when Eugene complies with his silent request is enough to quash any of Eugene's insecurities about being naked in front of him though.

Snafu takes one end of the couch and maneuvers Eugene into sitting between Snafu's legs, with his arms around Eugene's waist and the plate of bacon within easy reach on Eugene's lap. Every so often one of Snafu's hands slides underneath Eugene's elbow, steals a slice, and retreats back behind his shoulder, and then Eugene hears the sound of munching in his ear. In between bites, Snafu places gentle kisses on Eugene's neck, and Eugene knows he'll be smelling like bacon for days.

When the bacon's gone, Eugene slides farther down his seat so he can lean his head against Snafu's shoulder and get more comfortable. Snafu gives a pleased hum and twists his fingers into Eugene's still damp hair - either detangling knots or creating them, Eugene can't tell.

"Do we need to go out on a date to make this official?" Eugene asks.

"Official?" Snafu wonders.

"You're gonna be my boyfriend, right?" Eugene asks, twisting so he can look up at Snafu. He realizes belatedly how childish that sounds. More like a naive, inexperienced spinster too old to be asking or caring about such questions.

"Sure Sledgehammer," Snafu laughs, "You gonna give me your class ring? Get me one of your orchestra letterman jackets that I can wear around? Let everyone know you're mine?"

"I'm not in orchestra Snaf, and it's marching band that gets the jackets," Eugene says.

"Fine then, one of them marching band jackets," Snafu drawls.

"I'm not in marching band either," Eugene says, amused.

"Then what is that thing you get all dressed up for every morning?" Snafu asks.

"The NROTC?" Eugene clarifies.

"Yeah, that," Snaf says.

"That's not a marching band, Snaf," Eugene says patiently.

"Whatever it is, you always look hot," Snafu says, "marching around in that tight little uniform."

Sledge coughs, startled by the compliment and the leer Snafu gives him to go along with it, "Hot? Well. Yeah I guess the uniform can be really sweaty sometimes. Especially in the sun."

"Can I have the jacket to wear?" Snafu asks hopefully.

"No, I need the jacket," Eugene tells him, "It's not like a letterman's jacket, Snafu. It doesn't even have my name on it."

"I'd like to fuck you with the hat on," Snafu comments.

Eugene closes his eyes, as if that hides his reaction to Snafu's words, as if Eugene can't feel his face burning, "We are leaving my uniform completely out of this relationship, Snaf."

"Relationship?" Snafu echoes, sounding lost.

"Yeah," Eugene says softly,

"That what you want?" Snafu asks, disbelief in his voice.

"Of course, Snaf," Eugene says, unwilling to be intimidated out of making this decision. He shifts in Snafu's lap and turns around so he can look his boyfriend in the face.

"Okay then," Snafu says cautiously, "Sure. We can date. If you're serious."

"I am serious, I want all of you Snaf," Eugene leans forward and places a hand on Snafu's hip, " - want to spend time with you intentionally, not only the random evenings you crash here just 'cause you have nowhere else to go."

"That's not true," Snafu drawls dismissively.

"What's not true?"

"That I got nowhere else to go. Burgie and Flo set up their extra bedroom for me. S'where all my junk is," Snafu explains, "I just like your place more. It's comfortable."

"Snafu," Eugene admonishes fondly, "I happen to have first hand experience that says this couch is the least comfortable sleeping couch I have ever laid down on." He leans closer and closer, brushing their noses together, a soppy smile on his face.

"Better not use it for sleeping then," Snafu retorts, in a dangerous tone that really Eugene should be recognizing by now. Somehow Snafu slips out from under Eugene, flips them over, settles himself at the opposite end of the couch, removes the bacon plate from Eugene's lap, and goes down on him.

Eugene lets out an involuntary yelp of pleasure, and snags his hand in Snafu's unruly hair (neither of them bothered with personal grooming after the shower).

No one hears the front door of Eugene's apartment click unlocked.

"Hey Eugene, I heard you yell, so I know you're awake. I just need to borrow a cup of sugar. I'm making pop tarts from scratch and I didn't realize I used all my sugar last week for the apple crumble...HOLY FUCK!"

"Bill!" Eugene exclaims, "Not now!" Snaf's mouth is still on him, but as soon as he pulls off he'll leave Eugene bare to the world.

Eugene's warning comes too late, Bill is already clutching at his face, "Oh, my eyes!! My eyes!" Bill staggers backward and crashes into the wall next to the door.

Eugene's skin is turning hot pink. He's never been this embarrassed. He scrambles to sit up and belatedly realizes he never got around to buying throw pillows for his couch. He pries a cushion from the frame instead and hides behind it. Snafu sits upright next to him and casually reclines against the couch. He spreads his legs obscenely and glowers at Bill, but otherwise is as calm as you please.

"My eyes!" Bill cries out again, flailing desperately.

Fully covered and feeling more confident, especially given his new status as Snafu's boyfriend, Eugene finds it in himself to be annoyed. After all, it was Bill who used the spare key Eugene gave him for emergencies to walk into his apartment uninvited. "Bill, quit acting like you've been shot," Eugene snaps.

"I think I have been shot," Bill complains, "What is this searing pain behind my retina??" He dramatically slides down the wall and flops to the ground where he lies boneless.

"Bill…" Eugene says patiently.

"I have never, ever wanted to see that much of Snafu's ass," Bill moans.

"You would be so lucky," Snafu retorts, still scowling.

"Bill, if youl want the sugar, the bowl is in the narrow cupboard beside the oven," Eugene says, and then glances sideways at Snafu, "I don't think Snafu is gonna cover up, though."

"No! Fuck, I'm leaving," Bill reaches blindly for the door knob and pulls himself to his feet. He hobbles the few steps through the doorway, "Those stark tan lines...they'll be etched in my brain forever after this. Why??? Why me?"

The minute the door closes, Snafu stands. He stalks over to Eugene's bedroom door, rips the warning notice down, stomps over to the front door, opens it wide, slaps the sign on the front of it, and slams it shut.

Eugene sighs. He follows Snafu's lead and gets up to shove the couch cushion back in place. He also goes into the kitchen and finds the sugar bowl. Nudging Snafu out of the way, Eugene opens the front door and sets the sugar bowl down on the welcome mat.

"He'll be back to get it," Eugene explains.

Snafu says nothing, but after Eugene closes the front door for a final time, Snafu pushes him up against it and kisses him silly. At first Eugene's a little overwhelmed by the ferocity. Then Snafu kisses slowly down Eugene's neck, then his sternum, then his belly, then continues to do that which was so rudely interrupted before, and then Eugene is very extremely overwhelmed. In a good way. so good he almost collapses, but Snafu holds him up.

He's pretty sure he makes a number of new noises too, and he desperately hopes Bill returns to retrieve the sugar bowl later rather than sooner.

When they finish and Eugene slumps on the ground and leans against the door - and Snafu sprawls in his lap facing him and leans against Eugene's shoulder with a smile like the cheshire cat - there is a loud rap on the door.

"So Eugene, from the sound of things, I take it you aren't a virgin anymore," Bill proclaims loudly through the door.

"Go away, Bill," Eugene calls back.

"Thanks for the sugar," Bill yells as they hear his footsteps retreat down the hall.

Snafu stays at Eugene's place again that night, and keeps staying every night after.

To save Bill's eyes they start putting Snafu's warning sign on the apartment door in the hallway whenever it's necessary. Which is quite often. And everytime they do, without fail, Bill walks by at least once and hollars, "Congrats on the sex," at them through the door.

("Stop yelling in the hallway," Burgie complains, "Bad enough they announce it with a sign, you needn't act as town crier for the two of 'em. We don't need this, Bill.")

Snafu finds this hilarious, and glows with pride. Eugene's feels a little more awkward about it all, but he is grateful for the privacy the sign offers (he can never remember how many spare keys he gave out to friends, and he knows for sure Bill duplicated the key and gave it to another friend at least once), and he is a little relieved to no longer be known as the blushing virgin of the apartment complex anymore.

Honestly, he doesn't see how it was anybody's business in the first place.

"You can't go through college and remain a virgin, Eugene," is what his brother Edward told him.

Somehow Eugene doubts Snafu is quite what his brother had in mind for Eugene, but he doesn't care. Snafu and Eugene go on a couple dates, just to make it public. And everyone acts surprised - not by them being together but by the realization that they weren't before.

Even though Eugene steadfastly refuses to wear it himself, Snafu does wear Eugene's spiffy Marine Corps hat in bed once. For the next week afterwards, Eugene finds it hard not to get turned on every time he dons his uniform. Nevertheless, Eugene still won't let Snafu borrow his jacket and wear it around campus. As a compromise Eugene pins his extra insignia to the collar of Snafu's own jacket. Snafu wears the jacket daily - despite the humidity of summer afternoons.

After a couple months, Snafu finally officially moves all his stuff from Burgie's place to Eugene's. Burgie buys the two of them a slow cooker to celebrate. At first Eugene is confused by this gift because he can't cook to save his life and everyone knows it. But Burgie just smiles, gives him a knowing look, and says "I'd offer Snafu ours - he uses it more than we ever do - but Florence would have my head."

Snafu's cooking is never conventional, and never includes the same ingredients twice, yet it always tastes amazing. Eugene chalks it up as another one of Snafu's personal mysteries that probably should never be explained. Eugene tries to return the favor by surprising Snafu with dinner one saturday night. He ends up setting the oven on fire.

Snafu arrives home after work and finds Eugene sitting on the kitchen floor, his back against the fridge and his feet stretched out across the linoleum. He taps his foot impatiently against the oven door and stares intently through the glass. Snafu bends down and peers into the oven from a distance.

"That little ball of flame in there our food or a science experiment?" Snafu asks cautiously.

"Our food," Eugene says curtly, "Don't worry, I cut the heat off. And the fire'll run out of oxygen soon, anyway."

Snafu delicately steps over Eugene's legs and then settles next to him on the floor. "Promise me you'll never use my slow cooker?" he asks.

Eugene holds up his hand and sticks out his pinky finger.

Snafu grins wide and hooks their pinkies together, shaking on it.

"Wanna see what I've been working on?" Snafu asks, shrugging his canvas duffle onto his lap. The duffle conspicuously has "Eugene Bondurant Sledge" stamped on it's side, but Eugene lets it go.

"Sure," Eugene says, leaning in closer to rest his chin on his boyfriend's shoulder.

Snafu unrolls the duffle and sticks his hand in. He hesitates, and says, with a teasing glint in his eye, "You won't try to throw it on the fire for kindling?"

"No, Snafu," Eugene rolls his eyes.

Snafu pulls his hand out to reveal a beautiful, meticulously detailed, carved wooden pipe.

Eugene immediately sits up straight and holds his hands out, all his cooking woes forgotten.

Snafu chuckles and drops the pipe into Eugene's outstretched palms.

Eugene gingerly stabilizes it, glaring at Snafu for dropping it like it's nothing. One day Eugene will convince Snafu that his handiwork is worth something. He holds the pipe up and runs his hands across the carvings in awe. The shapes and markings on the intertwined leaves are accurate enough that Eugene can name each plant species.

"Snaf…" Eugene whispers.

"See? I do pay some attention to all that useless bio knowledge you try to cram in my head," Snafu boasts.

"Snaf," Eugene reaches with his free hand to cup Snafu's face and tilt his chin towards him for a kiss.

Snafu goes in smiling.

Eugene throws a leg over Snafu's waist, and Snafu guides him into his lap. Before things get too heated, Eugene carefully slides the pipe onto the nearest counter. And then they fuck on the cold bumpy kitchen tile.

They forgot to put the sign on the door, but thankfully no one needed sugar tonight.

Eugene smokes his pipe for the first time that night while Snafu has his preferred cigarettes. He and Snafu lean over the air conditioner unit on opposite sides, and pretend that the tiny two inch crack of fresh air between the unit and the wall helps their apartment smell less like smoke.

Eugene proudly lights his new pipe, and watches Snafu's eyes and teeth glow with joy as he does it.

For as long as Eugene has known him, Snafu spends nights and weekends working as the foundry and wood shop manager at the college. During most of the year this means he's responsible for keeping students alive and in one piece. Surprisingly, he's actually good at it. Accidents went down by seventy percent after they hired him. Which is why the college looks the other way when Snafu spends most of his summer hours experimenting.

It's where they met, actually. Eugene made the inadvisable choice to take a ceramic paint and glaze chemistry class. What he didn't realize was that he would actually need to sculpt something. He spent many many long nights and weekends in the clay studio, and still ended up with a lumpy blob instead of a self portrait. Luckily, his long hours also meant he ran into an offbeat looking, bright-eyed artist who never introduced himself by name but sculpted Eugene's final project for him anyway. In return Eugene did Snafu's science homework. It became routine, and when Eugene discovered Snafu was sleeping on the shitty foundry couch each night, he offered Snafu the use of his apartment then and there. Snafu took him up on that offer regularly, and the rest is history.

Come to think of it, Eugene still does Snafu's science homework. Although after having tried to sleep on his own couch, Eugene isn't convinced Snafu didn't get the worst end of the deal. It baffles him, why Snafu would've kept sneaking into Eugene's place to lose sleep on a shitty couch.

Till one evening, over a year into their relationship, Eugene is once again reading before bed. This time Snafu is dozing on top of him, stark naked in a comfortable familiar way, with his arms wrapped around Eugene's waist and his face turned in towards Eugene's stomach ("Your gut is softer than your bony chest, Gene"), Snafu lifts his head up, scoots forward, and rests his chin atop Eugene's textbook. He lays there, studying Eugene's face and thoroughly distracting Eugene from his reading for a while until Eugene gives up and looks at him.

"Maybe it wasn't your couch," Snafu admits, "Maybe it's just you that's more comfortable."

Eugene smiles, pulls Snafu in for a long, lingering kiss, and abandons his book to the nightstand. "I put the sign up already, before we went to bed," he whispers to Snafu, trying to make his voice as seductive as possible.

Snafu grins and eagerly drags Eugene's shirt off over his head, "Always on top of things."

"You know me," Eugene teases. He rolls them over to get Snafu underneath him - sweet and precious and butt naked.

Snafu wraps his legs around Eugene's waist and gives him an encouraging kiss.

But instead of escalating, Eugene pauses to bask in the warmth of their embrace. "Merriell," he croons into his boyfriend's neck, "I lov…"

"Congrats on the sex!" they hear Bill yell loudly as he stumbles drunkenly home through the apartment hallway.

Screw the new couch, maybe it's time Eugene got a new apartment.

Snafu starts laughing, but with the way he is looking at Gene there is no doubt in Eugene’s mind that Snafu returns his interrupted sentiment.

#sledgefu #bad germs

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sablesides-ask-blog · 4 years

Note

Mociet au where they both raise Virgil and the twins?

Patton was, hyperactive, to say the least. This wasnt a bad trait to have in his family of course. His husband Ethan was the calm one, also not a bad trait to have. They had three sons, Virgil, Roman, and Remus.

Patton handled Roman and Remus most of the time, he could chase the two youngest children around the garden for hours at a time without once getting tired.

Ethan primarily took care of Virgil, despite being 14, Virgil was still to young to be able to do certain things on his own. Ethan sent out periodic texts reminding Virgil to take off his binder at some point when he got home. Ethan kept the fridge stocked, the fidget toys in mint condition, Ethan handled all the practical aspects of life, Patton handled the fun stuff.

"Dinner's ready kiddos! Come and get it!" Patton set a large plate of chicken on the table, along with a bowl of green beans, mashed potatoes, and pasta.

Virgil trudged out of his room and flopped into the seat closest to the window, he wasnt the type of kid you would expect to like sunlight, but it reduced his anxiety, so if you needed to find him, chances were he was in whatever part of the house had the most access to the sun.

Roman and Remus flooded in next, Roman brandishing a sword made out of used up paper towel rolls, Remus holding what looked to be. . . a dead rat.

"Remus, put that outside will you, you know the policy about dead animals in the house, you dont want to upset your brother," Ethan was the last to come down. He smiled at Patton, who was shielding Virgil's eyes from the sight of the dead rat. Remus groaned and stalked outside, tossing the rat over the edge of the balcony, which landed with a sickening splat on the concrete below.

"Now go wash your hands you two, I saw you picking worms out of the garden earlier," Patton said, letting go of Virgil and ruffling his hair.

Roman set down the make-shift paper towel sword and ran out of the room, Remus following suit.

Dinner, as usual, was an all but quiet event.

"Dad! Remus keeps putting his hands in my food!"

"Skin flakes make it taste better!"

"Maybe to you you weirdo!"

"At least I dont sleep with a stuffed bat!"

"HE IS THE SECOND IN COMMAND IN MY ARMY OF DARKNESS HOW DARE YOU,"

"ENOUGH." Ethan gently brought his fist down on the table, not hard enough to cause anything to shake, only loud enough to be heard.

"Now now kiddos, let's not fight, Remus, dont put your hands in your brother's food, Roman, stop chewing on your nails and finish your green beans, Virgil, roll up your hoodie sleeves before you get something on them," Patton said, a soft smile tracing his face.

"Ok papa," came a chorus of three voices as they did what was instructed of them.

Bed time was another ordeal entirely.

"Remus, dont touch the ceiling fan or I'm moving you to the bottom bunk!"

"Roman it's time for bed, get under the covers!"

"Virgil if I see you stayed on that laptop all night again I'm going to move you back in with your brothers!"

"But DAAAAAADD!" would come the voices of the upset children, content in their chaos and not wanting it to change.

"No buts except yours under the covers sleeping," said Ethan. Patton joined the bedtime police soon enough, guitar in hand, and began to play for the twins until they fell asleep. Then he moved onto Virgil, the guitar didnt work for him now that he was older, so Patton had bought him a white noise machine, and fairy lights in a soft purple hung in just enough spaces that the room still had a small amount of light, even when the regular lights were turned off.

"Goodnight my little misunderstood shadowling," said Patton once Virgil's eyes dropped and then shut.

Their little family was far from normal, but who wants a normal family when you can have crazy adventures all the time? Patton certainly didn't, and Ethan welcomed challenges.

"So now that there asleep, wanna continue that Harry Potter marathon?" said Patton, laying on the couch with his feet propped up on the table.

Ethan sat next to him and grabbed the remote, switching on the TV and selecting the next movie in the saga. Patton rested his head on Ethan's chest as they watched, burying it anytime something he didnt like happened.

And that was what an average night looked like in the house of Patton and Ethan Ramirez.

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

Yknow I actually have a series with a similar plot under #moceit family au on @sablesides

#cori answers #moceit #ts patton #ts deceit #ts virgil #ts remus #ts roman #ts creativitwins

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scifigeneration · 4 years

Text

Love the parasite you're with - the entertaining life of unwelcome guests from flea circuses to Aliens

by Anna-Sophie Jürgens and Alexander Maier

Alien vs. Predator/IMDB

Bloodsucker, leech, tick – few things have a reputation worse than parasites. But these biological hangers-on also have a comic cultural history.

In biology, a parasite is an organism that lives on or in a host organism and gets its food (or other benefits) from (or at the expense of) its host. Scientists have just documented the oldest known example of a parasite-host relationship – a nutrient stealing worm over 500 million years old.

Due to their complex and often hidden life cycles, parasites seem to appear suddenly. They thrive in oozing wounds or are transmitted via explosive diarrhoea. No wonder parasites occupy a vivid role in our cultural imagination.

In fiction and popular culture, parasitic characters appear as a metaphor for the threat and spread of disease. They infiltrate human bodies and transform them into monsters, like Dracula. Or they act as extraterrestrial biological weapons like in the Alien saga. The quintessential parasite narrative – per 2019’s Oscar-winning Parasite – showcases it as a physiological, psychological and social threat. But they’ve also played for laughs.

Humbugs

Italian showman Louis Bertolotto’s “extraordinary exhibition of industrious fleas” from the early 1820s is the first documented flea circus. It featured a 12-piece flea orchestra playing audible flea music, a Great Mogul Flea (with harem!), a ballroom with flea ladies and frock-coated gentlemen dancing a waltz, a mail coach drawn by four fleas (with a cracking whip) and a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo including Wellington, Napoleon and field marshal Blücher – all played by miniature warrior fleas.

Today, traditional flea circuses can still be found. Flohzirkus Birk and his fleas have entertained small crowds at Oktoberfest in Munich for decades. Humans play fleas and other insects in the Cirque du Soleil show Ovo – leaping through a day in the life of bugs.

youtube

In Germany, the flea circus still entertains.

The flea fiction literary genre exists for those who prefer to use their own imagination. It includes humorous 19th century texts such Hans Christian Andersen’s The Flea and the Professor and German Gothic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Master Flea, both of which feature tame flea companions and collaborators.

The genre also includes flea porn, which features the little bloodsuckers in all kinds of interesting perspectives. An example is the The Autobiography of a Flea (published anonymously in 1887).

Google Books

My funny parasite

Use of the word “parasite” predates its biological label.

In 1755, Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary defined parasite as “one that frequents rich tables, and earns his welcome by flattery”.

The comic heritage of the parasite shimmers through Honoré de Balzac’s 1847 novel Le Cousin Pons (which had the working title Le Parasite) and Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Parasite, first published in 1894. The latter is about a professor who is turned into a clown, “the laughing-stock of the university”, by a mysterious person, parasite-like influencing his mind and behaviour.

In our recent journal article, we expanded on the work of philosopher Michel Serres and literary scholar Enid Welsford to discuss the parasite as a cultural force. Our paper – a fairly rare collaboration between a biological scientist and a humanities scholar – also looked to more contemporary examples such as the hilarious parasitic remote control in Tim Burton’s 1988 film Beetlejuice.

Beetlejuice looks like a morbid clown with green hair, heavy makeup and a stripey suit. He is a supernatural creature whose job is it to help recently deceased adjust to their eternal afterlife. In this in-between space, Beetlejuice performs what Michel Serres defines as a parasitic communication role: making “productive and creative noise”. By forcing his “hosts” to act differently, this parasite transforms the relationship between two parties and invents a new logic and cohabitation.

In 1988’s Beetlejuice, the central character occupies an in-between realm and acts as a parasitic clown. IMDB

Do gooders

By pushing boundaries and exploring notions of self, parasites are a cultural force and source of comic inspiration. What does it feel like to be a leech? How does the host feel? Where is the line between the two bodies?

There are comic scenarios and narratives hidden in anxieties of involuntarily shared identities. In biology, the sustained and intimate relationship between parasite and host challenges the concept of individual boundaries. The distinction between host and parasite becomes blurred and they form a new entity altogether.

Human louse (Pediculus humanus Linnaeus) bears an uncanny resemblance to the monsters in Alien when viewed under the microscope. Shutterstock

It might come as a surprise that the appreciation of parasites in the arts took place long before biologists acknowledged their contribution. Only in recent decades have parasites been recognised as stabilisers of ecosystems and drivers of evolution and biodiversity.

Their footprints can be seen in genetics, epidemiology and medicine; and a better understanding of parasites has significantly increased our appreciation of them. Exploring the cultural imaginarium of the parasite and its comic dimensions pays tribute to the many positive aspects of parasites.

Whether we like it or not, pathogens like parasites are around us and inside us. They determine us biologically and they influence our cultural norms.

Delving deeper into the cultural world of parasites brings to light droll artistry: from funny domesticated creepy crawlies to clown parasites and dark villains.

About The Authors:

Anna-Sophie Jürgens is a Lecturer and Assistant Professor in Popular Entertainment Studies and Science in Fiction Studies at Australian National University and Alexander Maier is a Professor of Biomedical Science and Biochemistry at Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#science fiction #science fiction and fantasy

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whiterosebrian · 4 years

Text

Nazism and Romanticism

This is something that I mean to write and post a good while ago. I meant to offer it shortly after putting up my thoughts on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (but I deleted that text on some of my pages due to mentions of my own mistaken appropriation of Jewish mysticism). I suppose that I needed the extra time to gather my thoughts into a delicate whole. I have meant to offer a take on how Nazism rose in the first place.

There has been much written on how the original Nazi party seemed so attractive in the 1920s and 1930s. You might already have read about the harsh punishments for Germany within the Treaty of Versailles, the grinding poverty that so many citizens faced, the viciously polarized politics, and the failures of a liberal-democratic government to maintain peace. As a man with a not only artistic but also mythical and mystical bent, I would like to focus on one aspect of what helped Nazism lure so many souls.

To better contextualize my following thoughts, let me go further back in time. During the nineteenth century, intellectuals and artists in different countries reacted to the apparent sterile rationalism of the Enlightenment. They became known as Romantics. In part they recovered the old myths and legends, finding much romance (pun intended, I admit) within them. In regards to Germany, the Germanic and Nordic sagas and poems were becoming prominent. The composer Richard Wagner is notable for his heroic and tragic operas. Wagner has since developed a reputation as a proto-fascist, largely due to a notorious essay depicting Jews as rootless, parasitic, vulgar, and dreary.

Wagner was dead for decades by the time the Nazis took power, so of course he had nothing to do with them. Nonetheless, Nazi leaders drew upon historic myths and legends as a means of stirring minds and hearts. A populace hungry for nobility and transcendence glommed onto the total package that the Nazis presented, both in terms of promises to lift up the nation and the heroic facade. The rest is terrible, terrible history.

Take a look at the Nazi party’s ideological successors. Yes, there is hatred and bloodlust and nihilism. However, they project their nihilism onto their enemies. Neo-Nazis promise heroism and romance to their fellow-travelers and those whom they funnel through the pipeline. They promise to turn recruits into more than worker-bees and pleasure-seekers (or “small-souled bug-men”). The fruits of fascism are all too clear from a march in Charlottesville turned deadly or multiple shootings and attempted bombings. Incidentally, religious fundamentalists promise mental and spiritual boons as well.

Furthermore, some within “geek culture” employ disturbingly similar rhetoric, however unintentionally. I’ve seen some of their videos. They appeal to beauty. They appeal to heroism. They appeal to romance. They appeal to purpose. In the process, though, they neglect the need for marginalized and vulnerable people to be lifted up as equal partners. That’s the idea behind the push for representation and the wider discourse over intersectionality. These nerds seem to ignore the subtler ways that fascism can worm its way into people’s minds and hearts.

What I’m getting at is that romanticism can be turned towards good or evil. Romanticism can, by nature, easily become utterly detached from reality and feed into toxic delusions. Some may decide to cut off mythology, idealism, and mysticism when provoked by such abuses. That would be a mistake. If friends of humanity and the earth don’t pay attention to human wishes for high aspiration, fascists will. If friends of humanity and the earth don’t guide such human wishes towards common goals, fascists will. What I mean is that mythology, idealism, and mysticism can become anchored in the real world and in real humanity. Human wishes for high aspiration can be directed towards healing and rebuilding instead of oppression and destruction.

Where does that leave me, a man who is beginning to delve into Nordic mysticism and magic along with the revived religion? The sad thing is that the Nordic neopagan community is notorious for its vocal minority of folkish reactionaries and outright Nazis who threaten to suck out all of the oxygen. The more conscientious Heathens vocally oppose those ideologues and do their best to educate others about the real meanings of their myths and symbols. I became drawn to the runes their associations due in part to my own Northern European ancestry. However, another reason is that I gradually became drawn to gods with whom I can stand and walk. I’ve come to appreciate a sense of connection to the whole web of life as well. If I’m going to be even remotely associated with Heathenry, I’ll have a duty to publicly oppose Nazism whenever I can.

Even though I’m only beginning to learn about the historic culture associated with Heathenry, I’ve learned much that resonates deeply. I’ve learned of the reverence for the web of life. I’ve learned of the emphasis on community, both among humans and among different groups of spiritual beings. I’ve learned of the travels that Vikings embarked on while meeting interesting people in far-off lands (and they were traders and not just raiders). I’ve read of the emphasis on freedom along with responsibility. Essentially, the ideals of contemporary humanist neo-pagans are far closer to the old ways than are the ugly caricatures from fascists.

Admittedly, I do write a lot of words. I trust that you can understand that I genuinely try to say a lot. Here is where I’ll try to tie everything together into something more cohesive and succinct. A life of repetitive consumerism and pleasure-seeking can leave one feeling empty, especially when one is well-off or privileged in some major way. There is surely more than that in life. That may sound like a cliché, but it’s true.

Yes, let us have mythology and heroism and romance and beauty and mysticism. Let us not leave them for fascists to exploit. Let us take in mythology, heroism, beauty, and mysticism then spread them as gifts to our peers and fellow citizens across all demographics. Let us also root them both in well-informed, nuanced history and in the real world in which we now live and continue to grow and learn. There is a reason why classical myths and legends still resonate. There is a reason why a growing number of people show serious interest in neopagan and occult practices rooted in ancient religions.

As for myself, as always I wish simply to do great and good things as a magician, writer, and cartoonist. Perhaps what I’ve been reading lately will be a great influence on what I create and share with the public. Count me as an enemy of Nazism and, more importantly, an earnest worker for justice and peace.

#mythology #heathenry #idealism #fascism #history

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ebficnotes · 4 years

Text

Lorebook notes on Worm Saga

Mannimarco’s manifesto taken at face value. With copious comparisons to certain Summerset content, fair warning.

Text taken from UESP

Collection:

Words of the Poets

Found in the following locations:

Bookshelves in Deshaan, Grahtwood and Stormhaven

Worm Saga

by Mannimarco

Rhyming autobiography of Mannimarco

His actual name is on here! He’s openly a necro, worm reference and all. He is out, loud, and proud and is making zero attempts to hide it. At least for whenever this note is supposed to have taken place.

Mage from infancy, blood-selected for magicka, descended from isles of Artaeum forever! Destined was I from long before birth to exceed all mortals.

Blood-selected - Actually born on Artaeum to Psijic parents, or otherwise powerful mages. Which could be legit because why not? Was a child prodigy of course. Yeah right, every power tripper says that. Or maybe it’s true, who knows?

My pet theory is he’s actually not that great a caster, at least not at first. A common theme of necromancy in TES seems to be empowering people who can’t get it any other way. Manny himself complains in [world of corpses] and [oblivion book?] about his practice always drawing the lowest common denominator and it does, both morally and aptitude-wise. Not every one of course, but an awful lot. Also, a huge part of the practice is reanimating servants/helpers to fight for you, presumably because you are all alone and somehow summoning bones is easier than pulling Daedric servants out of Oblivion? So, Necromancy is a path for people who have an iron will and can-do attitude but don’t have the raw magic skill or reserves needed to fling fireballs at shit. It’s a power that suits the weak. Which is kinda cool/egalitarian if you think about it. Maybe Manny is like a necro teddy Roosevelt.

Destined long before birth - May allude to his future godhood, if during the dragon break he could see himself as the necro-moon. Or just garden-variety destiny schitk.

Forever - could be a fun theory that as a future god, he forevermore engineers it so he always is born in the best possible place for him to succeed and re-become a god every kalpa. Which means that, at some point, he was NOT born on Artaeum, but somewhere else. Maybe.

Altmer? Nay, Aldmer: scion of et'Ada by direct descent, summoned to Ceporah, and there was I sent: to Iachesis, to tutor, to test and ferment.

Unless there are actual Aldmer on Artaeum, this probably refers to growing up among the practiconers of the old ways, i.e. not being brainwashed by the watered down faith on the mainland. He equates faith in the old ways as equivalent to being descended from the gods. Probably literally too, given his obsession with becoming a god.

And/or, he can actually trace his ancestry all the way back to the Aldmer who first founded Artaeum. And why not? If he was born on Artaeum, he certainly could be this as well. The Psijics are both collectively old as fuck and consist mainly of massively inbred High Elves after all.

Summoned to Ceporah - Just because you are born on Artaeum doesn’t mean you are automatically a Psijic. He has to run the gauntlet just like everyone else. I did always get the impression from past lore that Artaeum was more like a college town than a monastic hideaway in its own right. Like, the monastery is the big draw, but the local economy is made up of non-Psijics as well, maybe family of the actual monks, etc. Too bad we don’t get to see that in ESO at all.

Also sounds like he was asked to come directly. Like Ulfric Stormcloak with the Graybeards in Skyrim? I feel a type coming on…

Iachesis was his mentor too, just like Vanus. Is Iachesis the defacto mentor for everyone, like a distant professor who fobs his students off on teaching assistants, or was he personal with it? I need to play Summerset again to get a better read on his character, because I didn’t pay enough attention at the time.

No magicka handler Iachesis Ritemaster, sage of the Elder Way, gentle spellcaster! To warp not the wind, unlike guild of the latter day, courting disaster.

No magicka handler? Not a cowboy maybe? Cool and calm under pressure, poised, dispassionate, etc. Not reckless or showy.

Sage of the elder way: Immense power that he refuses to use, in the name of Psijic neutrality? Manny admires Iachesis here, says he is a true believer who walks the walk. Lore says that Iachesis is famous in song and story too though, so this could also just be name-dropping.

To warp not the wind. Winds of change? Psijic Neutrality and their mandate to study Change (which apparently also goes by ‘Sithis’ too, take that as you will). Iachesis is good at staying out of stuff that’s not his business - unlike the mages guild (the only guild he’d care about). Might be that Iachesis didn’t mess with Manny until Vanus insisted. In the 3rd and 4th memories in traitor’s vault, it really does sound like Vanus is the only one who gives a shit about his actions. “You’ll pay for this eventually”? Like prosecuting murder - or even plain old necromancy - in that place is an uphill battle.

Courting disaster - This whole thing could be a dig at Vanus’s worm hunts, as seen in that memo on soul trapping! He’s telling Vanus to butt the fuck out, comparing Vanus to his beloved mentor Iachesis - who he name drops every chance he gets despite his giving him the finger and leaving on his own - and telling him he’s coming up short. Maybe the mages guild/Vanus threw the first punch, and Manny is telling him to back off before he gets Really Mad. Who else do we know who’s a magicka cowboy Rambo wannabe who literally rides the lightening? Magicka handler lol.

It could also be that Mannimarco is a traditionalist about magic being an isolated and/or solitary practice, and not a big public institution like Vanus has done. Which would explain his cult set up and his penchant for caves and isolation in general, despite supposedly being some big shot politico and man-about-town.

Necromancy, death art, chose me stern and fast. To change not the present, but call up the past, obverse of Elder Way, forbidden without cause, deep-delved in death’s way, against Gray Cloak laws.

Death-art - whatever his rationale for it, he was drawn to dead shit from the beginning. He’s a true blue death fetishist. Or maybe just an especially creative and socially minded taxidermist? He’s even a friggin bone-sculptor, as shown with that bone-golem in the vault. Or maybe he’s just tes’s answer to morbid goth guys lol. See HERE and HERE for bone and taxidermy art. Because that’s a thing of course.

Call up the past - would be fun if this alludes to the RL necromancy practice of psychics and such channeling the dead to talk to them. Also/is another reference to the “True” old ways. Maybe lost knowlege of the ancestors? Knowledge so old that even the Psijics have forgotten it? That library again…

Obverse, forbidden w/out cause - he claims that necromancy is a natural part of the old ways and he deliberately flouts their unjust rules against it. And the general way this game treats necromancy suggests to me that he isn’t completely full of shit about this. Also the Old Ways as a religion is said to be ancestor worship. Who else do we know who practices a form of necromancy under the guise of ancestor worship? Makes me wonder if Manny and Veloth would have been bros, at least on some points. Or not. I know the Tribunal hate necromancy, but I don’t know if OG Veloth’s stance on it was the same or not. Of course, the Morrowind stance on necromancy i believe, was “if its not Dunmer, it’s fair game”, so maybe yes?

To change not the present? A big part of tes lore is the mostly undisputed fact that everyone on Nirn from a worm (lol) to a sabrecat to the emperor himself was at some point descended from the original god-spirits that formed the mortal plane itself. I.e. every living thing in tes is a god-baby and theoretically, everyone can re-become a god if they have the stones to try. Maybe this is where he and Vanus split views? Vanus wants to improve the world for future generations by making magic accessible, while Mannimarco is a tes-style gnostic who only cares about magic in as much as it lets him and any like-minded types get back to heaven. He doesn’t consider any atrocities he or his order commits as anything special because the world was fucked from the start. And the Psijics don’t bother to lock him up (which they are totally ok with doing when it serves their purposes, see Val’s husband) is because he’s partially right? Oooh boy…

Ill-timed then arrived one, Trechtus by name: ambitious, obstreperous, blind and deaf to shame, talented, reckless, thought himself my equal, his arrogance and envy determined our sequel.

Ill timed - he was already actively studying necromancy and flouting Psijic authority when Vanus shows up like a bull in a china shop. This is funny because Vanus is 11 years old when he first arrives there. Wtf is a shy 11 year old kid gonna do, even if he is a super-mage? Gotta say though, I think the idea of kid!Vanus holding his own in a philosophical pissing match against a 900+ year old Mannimarco is the greatest thing ever.

Even funnier, that first vault memory shows Vanus at least in his 16-20’s if not older (so they’ve known each other a while now?) and makes them look downright friendly to each other. Vanus’s exclaimation and exceedingly casual “come let’s explore” makes it sound like they were the first two in the door. Guess it’s ‘ill timed’ in the 20/20 hindsight sense? He thought Vanus would be a good bet but he wasn’t. Hell, maybe Manny thought that Vanus would be interested in godhood too because of his shit life experiences, but Vanus is either too optimistic about the world or too grossed out by the necro shit to get on board. Or something else?

Those vault scenes diverge from MQ Mannimarco in several different ways. They almost feel mundane, like whatever their disagreement was, it was literally about undead drones and nothing more. No godhood, no anything. There’s a mention of him murdering his classmates, but that feels weak somehow. My first thought in fact was they ripped this off of Nelacar’s quest in Skyrim, right down to the dead students, only they didn’t do as good a job explaining it. Maylen was driven crazy by Azura. What’s Manny’s reason? Sociopathy? Yeah maybe, but it still feels like a copout. Or an opportunity lol. Half formed understandings and all.

Arrogance and envy - arrogance yeah. Vanus barging in waving a bible around shouting about good and evil - something that Manny’s hardcore old ways don’t acknowledge. Envy though? Vanus is a legit extremely powerful mage and the other smartest guy on the island. Manny himself is saying so here, so envy over what?

His shyness? That load screen for the vault and Vastarie’s note suggests that the order lost a LOT of people when they booted Manny out. Maybe Manny already had a solid following on Artaeum and Vanus wasn’t nearly as charismatic, i.e. Manny has all the followers and Vanny doesn’t. Or just garden-variety wallflower shit. Him and Manny are friends but all the girls/guys want Manny or whatever.

Power envy? That doesn’t seem to jive with the Vanus we meet in the game. He’s an overly boastful and/or massively insecure little shit that needs a good spanking (and would probably love it lol), but he doesn’t seem selfish like that to me. And what is “power” but either material resources or influence over other people? He’s got resources to spare now, and as said above, he is intelligent and magically powerful in his own right, so social/political shit is all that’s left. So we’re back to shyness.

Could be just Manny slandering him, but I like to think there’s an element of truth to all his lies, since he’s supposed to be a very good liar and that’s how you lie good. Besides, this is a poem and poems are supposed to be all about feelings, right?

Could be him projecting here too I guess, i.e Vanus was really the popular/smart one, and psychological shit doesn’t need to make sense to be true.

Class envy? now that would both make sense and be a nasty one for both of them, and would fit with his next line too.

Obstreperous = loud/crass/graceless. He’s either calling Vanny inelegant because of his low class former life, which would be really shitty of him, or calling him willfully disrespectful of the Order’s mores of poise and grace, or literally just a clumsy, awkward little fucker.

Or hell, all three. He’s really pissed isn’t he? Mannimarco himself doesn’t seem all that inclined to shame either, go figure. Notice how every word he uses could just as easily be used to describe himself. MQ Mannimarco certainly is ambitious, reckless, and loud. They’re like caricatures of each other.

Thought himself my equal. Well Manny sure as hell treats him like one! Oops.

Trechtus - Vanus’s old serf’s name. How did Manny learn this? And the fact that he is lowborn? That Orc in the delve says the Psijics discourage talking about their former lives and Vanus also doesn’t appear to tell anyone about his past except his closest, whoever they are. His Artaeum lost says “those of you who know me well.” -Hermaeus mora’s anachronistic book dropping notwithstanding.

Also, entertainers/bards/etc. are an artistic class, so as a member, Vanus wouldn’t be seen as low in Altmer society. Except Vanus was not an entertainer, he was an errand boy. But I think that entertainers are one of the few ways of social mobility that exist in Summerset. That house of revelries lets anyone join I think. So he could have just as easily been an apprentice, or in the running to be, if he hadn’t joined the Psijics. He was only eight years old when they found him and they kept him around for three whole years instead of just dumping him into an orphanage, so he must have been good for something. Mannimarco could have coaxed the name and what she knew of his history out of Heliand I guess. Or Maybe that shit hold was/is infamous to the resident npcs and we don’t get to read about it. Or Vanus could have told Manny himself…

Magic he practiced: open, raw power, flouted the Elder Way, endangered the tower, then with lowborn cunning cast me as the villain, engineered exile, made me Tamrielan.

Endangered the tower?- Vanus is supposed to be a one of the most powerful mages on the planet. Maybe he’s saying Vanus threw a fit and almost burned down the dreaming cave. I can def see Vanus doing something like that, even if accidently. He doesn’t have the greatest judgement around personal squicks, even 300 years later.

Flouted elder way - messing with whatever Manny was doing down there instead of butting out like a good Psijic? Vanus later claims the tower shook at their arguing - not at Manni’s ritual. He didn’t cast him as the villain there even with every opportunity and incentive to do so, so maybe it’s legit. I find it hard to believe Vanus hasn’t seen this little missive either. This appears long before his “Artaeum lost” does. Btw, I love the idea that the tower is actually sapient/sentient enough to express an opinion on the weird little dudes inside it having a tiff.

Or more boringly, Vanus’s tower “lurching” could a euphanism for their fight, Which to me just makes Vanus look even worse here. I.e. he’s admitting in Artaeum lost that he DID start the fight alluded to here and almost burnt down the dreaming cave, by trying to be all vague and poetic about it.

Lowborn cunning - refers to the prejudice in Summerset of the lowest castes being morally degenerate. He’s saying that Vanus is ghetto-trash talking lies about his betters to get his own way. Think how Republicans (USA) often talk about welfare recipients. Ouch. That is a low fucking blow damn. Vanus would NEVER forgive him for pulling that card I don’t think.

Or at least not before decorating his basement with the intestines of every worm cultist within portal calling distance lol. Maybe this is the impetus for those attacks in his soul gem note! Vanus may hate necromancy, but he has zero issue with violence in general. After all, that dremora calls his and Vanus’s mission an orgy of destruction. Coming from one of Molag bal’s, that’s really saying something.

In very slight sympathy for the devil though, if Vanus did start that fight and did blame Mannimarco for fucking up the tower and thus getting him expelled, then I can see why he would call him probably the nastiest insult you could call a person in Summerset. He’s pissed remember?

He’s already condemming Vanus for bowing to what he probably considers religious whitewashing by both the Altmer and his former order, why not a lowborn liar while he’s at it? And given the Psijics themselves are, in the Altmer pecking order, socially/symbolically above even kings and other heads of state, it’d be weird for him NOT have been exposed to those ideas growing up, even among the egalitarian Psijics. In his mind, Vanus doing what he did probably confirmed every prejudice he’s ever heard about the lower casts. [I may do more on this later. Talk about a can of worms…]

Engineered exile? Seems like he’s saying Vanus got him kicked out on purpose by starting a fight in the tower and then blaming him for the fallout. In all the other sources though (including the last vault scene), Vanus appears to NOT have wanted Mannimarco to be let loose on Tamriel, his fault or not. So this is either gross misunderstanding or just lying through his teeth to push even more hate for the mages guild, as if necros didn’t already have enough reason for that, or he’s once again, just really pissed and resentful. He may not sound too torn up about leaving Artaeum in those scenes, but getting thrown out probably wasn’t in his plans either. Or some combo of all the above, because that’s where the truth often is.

All undervalued my will and resolution, my knowledge formidable, my wit and acumen. Thus found I new allies to study the death-rites, the sacrifice rituals, the summons of ghost-wights.

Seems to be claiming that he did have a solid network on Artaeum, but when he got kicked out, they abandoned him and he had to start again from scratch. Sounds like a sympathy lie considering Vastarie’s note and that loadscreen, unless all those people who left Artaeum left, not to follow him directly, but because these events exposed the hypocrisy of the order on both sides and so they decided to go off and do their own thing.

I found new allies: so poor Manny is all alone now and just want’s some new necro friends, awww. I can imagine Vanus’s own guild recruiting poster being nearly identical to this, persecution complex and all. IS there a Guild recruiting poster somewhere like this?

Robed all in black goes the Order of Black Worm, bringing wisdom to seekers who see beyond death-term, but Trechtus-now-Vanus pursues us to continent, to persecute worm-wrights his evil intent.

All in black - yeah goth boy lol. I bet he dyed his Psijic robes black too. Though he does go through a red phase at some point 😁

Bringing wisdom - sounds like missionaries. So he’s mister goodwill here, now committed to bringing forbidden knowledge to anyone who wants it.

See beyond death-term - the science of Undeath, or just being willing to work with the dead in general maybe. It’s weird: in gameplay we talk with, summon, and use tons of spirits, trapped and otherwise, and the npcs aknoledge them too, and i guess this isn’t considered necromancy? Maybe becasue they’re allready trapped down here anyway, so it don’t count? Or maybe it is and its just not called that? I’ve heard some people eat fish but claim to be vegetarians after all.

Trechtus now Vanus - ooh outing him. Is directly calling Vanus an evil crusader who’s persecuting him and his religion. And of course he’s making Vanus’s leaving Artaeum all about himself, pegging his leaving to follow him and persecute him for for his beliefs, and not because Vanus himself was dissatisfied with things on Artaeum. Depending on how you see Vanus though, this may or may not have an element of truth. Also, there’s at least one lorebook that suggests Vanus used this line of thought to get his guild chartered in Firsthold, nevermind fucking Kinlord Rills himself was a necro. He sure knows how to pick’em doesn’t he?

Come, all necrotics, defend practice and life, against Mages who wield magicka like a knife, heedless of heresy and ignorant of Elder Way, hating necromancy yet heralding doomsday.

Heedless of heresy - he’s definitely pegging his thing as a legit religion. Calling Mages with a capital M, no shit who he’s talking about here. Calling the guild and it’s anti-necromancy stance a heresy against the Old Ways. Wow.

Wield like a knife - the guild mages are the ones cutting and doing harm, while he and his are just trying to defend their way of life. This may imply that Vanus has been making life hard for necros long before that mess with Bal goes public, otherwise what reason would already isolation-inclined hedge-mages like his ilk want with what seems to be just another magic club with its own set of problems? According to UESP, this thing is found in the capital cities, so it seems to be meant as a sort of recruiting poster for the Worm Cult. Something had to make those unaffiliated necros think this was the better deal.

Heralding doomsday sounds like boilerplate end times shit but idk. He says this in “later” works too and I never could make heads or tails of it. There isn’t any Christian style Apocalypse in tes as far as I know. There’s that “second coming of Talos” stuff in Skyrim, but that is long after Tiber Septim ascends. As far as I know, he didn’t push that stuff himself.

Awful Thought: what if Vanus’s persecution leads Manny to step up his godhood timetable by trying to mantle Molag Bal instead of just waiting around for Zurin Arctus to lose his mojo? Holy shit. (Assuming he actually remembers that bit in his dragon-break experience anyway.)

Another awful thought: Vanus and his guild are directly responsible in lore for normalizing daedra summoning and conjuration. Daedra summoning is heavily linked to daedra worship in general, and as we all know, those princes don’t need much of an excuse to break Sohta’s no-meddling agreement, or at least to bs their way around it. Maybe Manny is accusing Vanus of tempting fate just as much as he is, by giving the people at large the ability to contact Oblivion. Heck, given his focus on bone-puppets and escape-proof soulgems, Manny might even think of necromancy as the “safer” form of conjuration!

Yet heralding doomsday? Maybe it’s not doom in the RL sense of the word? Doom in tes has a different meaning in lore, though I’m not really clear on it. I don’t think its entirely negative though.

Child of Nirn ponder, which would you choose: tyranny of mages, restricting spell use, or necromancy, communion with thy dead, ancestors returned, generations reunited?

He’s in direct competition with the mages guild here. Follow Vanus and have to hide who you are, or follow him and practice among like-minded fellows. Awww. And given Vanus’s incredibly easy to misinterpret stance, if not outright lie, about soul gems, he’s got a lot of potential followers from this - me included, oy. What can I say? Freedom of information, man. Dammit Vanus, stop making me go dark side!

Communion with thy dead, ancestors, etc. RL necromancy yay! He is, or at least appears to be, a proper old school believer, at least on some fronts, appealing to all those marginalized necros, or necro-curious, who want a community but are clearly not welcome in Vanus’s shiny new guild.

Other Thoughts:

This reminds me of RL minority religious practices like voodoo and Santeria, that are vastly perceived as not good by mainstream (white/christian/western) society, but are actual religious beliefs with a long history. And even a vilified one. Has there EVER been a movie or TV show that cast voodoo in a good light?

I have no idea if tes necromancers actually deserve the hate or not. We sure as hell don’t see much in-game to suggest they aren’t anything but bad news, especially the worm cult itself, but whatever. That’s what fic is for I guess.

#book notes #vanus galerion #mannimarco #tes #eso #worm cult #mages guild #tes religion #analysis #speculation #mine

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crystalninjaphoenix · 5 years

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Gray Out

Switch AU

Another entry in the thrilling saga of the AU I never meant to make. An important one, too! Because so far all the boys have separate bits and pieces of the story, but they need to put them together. Also there’s some stuff with Jackie’s family in the beginning because we haven’t seen too much of them but I think they’re neat. ^-^ Enjoy!

More of this AU found here

Weekday mornings were always a bit of a rush for Jackie. But at least it was the same routine most days. Wake up, get ready, make breakfast for Michelle, help her get ready, drive her to school, come back home to make sure he had everything for work, and then drive to work. Some days his shift started later, some days Michelle had to be early for a field trip, but the routine varied very little. In all honesty, Jackie kind of liked it that way. Which might be why he ignored the first phone call, rationing it away as probably being a spam number. But by the third call, it was obvious it wasn’t just spam.

After making sure Michelle was munching happily on her toast for breakfast, Jackie finally picked up the phone to check the ID, and was immediately overwhelmed by an emotion that was combination annoyance, exasperation, and a little worry. “You ever notice how you’re the one who always calls people?” He commented upon answering the phone. “Why don’t people ever call you?”

“What?” Schneep was clearly not expecting that answer. “Never mind. Jackie, we need to talk.”

Jackie glanced over toward the dining room table where Michelle was sitting. “Well, make this quick, I have to take Michelle to school.”

“No, I mean in person. And I mean we all need to talk.”

Jackie blinked. “Who’s ‘we all’?”

“You, me, Anti, and JJ and Marvin,” Schneep clarified. “It’s very important. Can you meet up with us soon?”

“I—I just told you I need to take my daughter to school. And then after that I work until two today.”

“We can do it in the evening.”

“Henrik,” Jackie sighed. “You work this evening, remember? You said you traded your shift yesterday for one today.”

“Fuck, I forgot.”

“You forgot...about your job.”

“To be fair, last night was eventful,” Schneep said defensively.

“Did. Did you go to sleep at all last night?” Jackie thought he already knew the answer, so he continued anyway. “Dude. Take a nap or something before you work. Even if you don’t fall asleep and instead just lie there, it’ll do you good.”

“Ah, whatever, whatever,” Schneep said dismissively. “So we have to meet tomorrow. Do you work then, too?”

“Yeah, until two again.”

On the other side of the line, Schneep’s voice became momentarily muffled like he was covering the receiver with his hand and talking to someone else. Jackie waited patiently, tapping his fingers against the dining room table with a satisfying clacking pattern.

“Daaaad!” Michelle called, even though she was just on the other side of the table. “I finished.”

Jackie glanced over. “You have to eat the crusts, Michelle.”

“Awwwww!” Michelle set her head on the table and groaned. “Ren lets me skip the crusts.”

“Well, you can skip then when I’m not here, then.” Jackie smiled a bit. “But I hear bread crusts make your hair curly.”

Michelle’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“It’s what I hear.”

Michelle looked down at the bread crusts on her plate and began shoving them in her mouth.

“Hey slow down, you might choke!” Jackie warned.

“What?” Schneep’s voice on the phone returned.

“No, I’m talking to Michelle, Schneep, not you,” Jackie said.

“Ah, I see. Anyway, we are now planning to meet at my apartment tomorrow at four. Would that work?”

“Well, that depends. What’s this even about?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Schneep laughed nervously. “It...remember the window incident a while ago?”

“How could I forget?” Jackie shivered internally. He still couldn’t quite believed that happened.

“Yes, well. It is about that. The creature that did that...it...all the rest of us have seen it too. And we need to talk about it.”

Jackie went suddenly cold, as if a bucket of ice water had been dunked over his head. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll see you then.” And then he hung up. He stared blankly at the phone for a bit longer.

“Dad?” Michelle asked. “Are you okay? You lost all your color.”

Jackie shook his head. He smiled at his daughter. “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you finished?”

“Mm-hmm.” Michelle played with the ends of her hair. “Is it curly now?”

“Well, it doesn’t work instantly, but I think it is a little wavier. Now come on.” Jackie walked over to stand next to her while she hopped off the chair. “Let’s finish up and get you to school.”

———————

Jackie couldn’t concentrate the rest of the day. His work at the hospital slipped up enough for his coworkers to notice something was wrong, but he denied anything, just saying he was tired. If any of them noticed he was avoiding the second floor, they didn’t say anything. He’d never told them he nearly got pulled out a window. Because honestly, if one of them told him that a strange creature nearly killed him and that they couldn’t even really remember what the creature looked like, he would probably recommend they see a therapist.

He got off work at two like usual, then just as usual he drove over to the school to pick up Michelle at two-thirty. Upon coming home, he immediately excused himself to his room, where he lied down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

A few minutes later, the door to the bedroom burst open. “Jackie if I wanted to stab someone in the stomach area how quickly would they have to be rescued?!”

Jackie burst out laughing; he couldn’t help it. A question like that would be suspect, if it wasn’t coming from Rama, who was a crime fiction writer and also Jackie’s spouse. “Hi to you too. I’m home.”

“Yep, I heard you and Michelle come in.” Rama walked over and sat down on the mattress next to Jackie. Their black shoulder-length hair was tucked under their red beanie, and Jackie noticed they were wearing one of their favorite shirts: it had a picture of Shakespeare with sunglasses on with the caption ‘It’s hard to be the Bard.’ “Soooo?” They poked his arm. “Stomach stab wound?”

“Well I mean, it depends on where it happened and how deep it was. There are, like, organs in your torso.”

“Oh I didn’t think of that. Uhhh...it’s like, this-ish area I guess?” Rama made a circle with their fingers around a spot a little bit left of their belly button. “And pretty deep, I dunno, a switchblade went all the way in there.”

“Uh, okay, there aren’t any organs that are too dangerous to hit there. But if it’s a switchblade going all the way in...” Jackie scrunched his eyes closed as he thought. “That’s probably still going to puncture something, not to mention the blood loss. Maybe between one to three hours?” If Jackie was being honest, he was partially drawing on experience of having to patch up Schneep’s wounds after a fight, which happened way too often.

“Alright, that’s enough time,” Rama nodded.

“Are you going to stab Alice again?” Jackie asked, referencing the main character of Rama’s short stories.

“No, I’m stabbing her brother.”

“Noooooo!” Jackie whined. “You put him in danger too much, give him a break!”

Rama grinned. “Neverrr!” Their grin faded when Jackie only smiled lightly, and proceeded to drop the subject. “Hey. You okay, Jackieboy?” they asked.

“...I don’t know,” Jackie admitted. “I feel a bit...I don’t know.”

Rama stood up, walked over to the dresser, picked something up, then returned to their spot on the bed, handing the item to Jackie. It was a black-and-red fidget cube. Jackie took it and began idly pressing the buttons. “You have any idea what could be causing that?” Rama asked.

He did have an idea. Because he kept thinking about the window incident, and every thought tied to it was accompanied by a worm of anxiety in his stomach. “...yeah,” he said, and didn’t elaborate.

“Hmm.” Rama pursed their lips. “Well, you don’t have to talk about it. Anything I can do to help?”

Jackie shrugged awkwardly, still lying down. He traced the patterns in the ceiling with his eyes.

“How about we watch a movie? I’m gonna get my laptop, we’re gonna power it up, and find something that can distract you.”

“...yeah, that sounds good.”

The rest of the night was spent curled up on the bed watching Disney animated movies on Netflix. Michelle joined at one point, squeezing in between her two parents. And Jackie started to feel better, surrounded by his family. When night fell, it wasn’t too hard to fall asleep.

———————

And then the next morning dawned and it started again as he had to go through another shift at the hospital where he had to suffer through repeated instances of anxious thoughts assaulting him. What even was that creature? What did it want with him and the others? Was it going to kill them? Why were so many details about it fuzzy? Did it somehow affect your mind? That prospect caused Jackie to shudder every time he imagined it.

When four o’clock finally rolled around, Jackie had managed to calm down again. They were lacking in information, but if they all pooled their knowledge, they had to come up with something. They had to. Didn’t they?

Jackie texted Schneep when he was outside the front door of the apartment building. About a minute later, Schneep opened the door. “Jackie!” He brightened. “Come in, come in, you are the last to arrive, we were waiting for you.”

“Well, thanks for waiting, then,” Jackie smiled. He followed Schneep down the hall and up a single flight of stairs to the second floor. He’d been here many times before, to the point where he didn’t even have to look at the apartment numbers to know which one was Schneep’s.

The layout of the apartment was familiar as well. It was a simple studio apartment, with an attached bathroom and a single wall separating the sleeping area from the rest of the apartment. A corner of the floor was taken up with a kitchenette, while the rest was a combination living/working/dining area. There was a section for the dining table and chairs. There was a section taken up with a couch, two chairs, a coffee table, and a TV. And there was a desk with a computer shoved against a wall, next to a bunch of shelves overflowing with various stuff. Other than the shelves, everything in the apartment was very neat and clean, modern-style furniture in shades of blue. There were also a couple potted plants that Jackie knew from experience not to touch unless he wanted Schneep to freak out on him.

Currently, the other three of the group were scattered about the apartment. Anti was sprawled on the couch, eyes closed and probably half-asleep. JJ was looking about the kitchen section, opening cabinets, though he looked embarrassed about it when Schneep and Jackie appeared. Marvin was sitting in the desk chair, playing with the computer but honestly looking like he had no idea what he was doing.

“Alright, everyone is here!” Schneep said. He was trying to sound enthusiastic, but it fell flat. “Now we can start.”

“Well, where do we start?” Jackie asked, sitting down in the nearest chair, not relaxing.

JJ approached the living area, choosing to sit in the other chair. “Well, I guess we should put all our cards on the table. We don’t know much about whatever this...person is, but I bet that if we shared all our encounters, we’re bound to figure something out.”

Anti opened his eyes. “Well, then I think you and Marvin should go first. You saw him first, right?”

“You did?” Jackie asked, surprised. “When was this?”

“Oh. Well, you remember that night I texted you because Marvin was acting strange and wandered off?” JJ looked over at Marvin, who remained silent, over by the desk.

“Yeah?”

JJ kept looking at Marvin, raising an eyebrow. But when Marvin didn’t say anything, he sighed and stopped. “Well, most of what I told you was true. Marvin did disappear, and I did find him in an entirely different part of town. And everything that you said might be dissociation, that happened too, but—”

“I’m still not quite sure what happen’d,” Marvin said suddenly. “I t’ink at some point I...I’m not sure, but...I remember seeing a man dressed in gray, whose eyes were bleedin’.” He looked down, as if worried they might not believe him.

Jackie cleared his throat. “I know who—or what—you’re talking about. I saw it, not too long after you.”

As the minutes passed, the pieces were puzzled together. Marvin and JJ’s unplanned walk that night, Jackie’s encounter at the window, and Anti’s recent stint of nightmares and sleepwalking.

“I’ve been running into this...person,” Schneep said. At some point, he’d moved to sit on the couch, forcibly pushing Anti’s legs out of the way. “Not very often, perhaps once a week, but it has occurred enough. He has tried to kill me.”

“What? Does he, like, stab you or something?” Anti asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, no.” Schneep shook his head. “It is...really whatever is available. The first time I saw him, we were in a construction site, I almost got impaled on that steel rebar. Then again, we were on a high building, and he tricked me into stepping off. I was lucky no bones were broken.”

Jackie furrowed his brow. “Wait, was that the night you broke into my house looking like you’d been hit by a car?”

“Ah...no?” Schneep said unconvincingly.

“How do you just step off a building?” Anti mumble-asked.

“Well, I did not know the edge of the building was so close!” Schneep snapped. He folded his arms. “It was like a hallucination, an illusion. It looked like I was in the middle of the roof, but I was on the edge, and I did not know.”

“So, this thing can create illusions, hypnotize people, and give them nightmares that make them try to kill themselves,” JJ summarized. “And he doesn’t seem to get hurt, if he can fall out a second story window and walk away.”

“It’s like a brain demon,” Jackie said, playing with his hoodie strings.

“Yeah, it messes with your mind,” Anti agreed. “But here’s the thing I’m wondering: can I stab it?”

“Anti!” Jackie gasped. “Is this the time?” Meanwhile, Schneep sighed.

“No, really, this is relevant. Because how the fuck are we supposed to get rid of it?” Anti scowled. “If it falls out a window and skips off afterward, how do we kill it?”

“Maybe we don’t need to,” JJ said. “Maybe we can ward it off, somehow.”

“What, with like garlic or something?”

“Maybe, we don’t know,” JJ shrugged. “I’ve never heard of a creature like this, but there has to be some sort of records of something like it. If not, I could probably set up some sort of protection spells.”

Anti blinked. “Oh yeah, I forgot you could do that.”

“It’s fine, to be fair you did only find out yesterday,” JJ smiled.

“But can you even set up protection from this thing?” Jackie said, looking down at his lap and pulling his fingers. “What if it just slips through your defenses? If it can make illusions, what if it can make you think you set something up, but you didn’t?”

“Well, there has to be a way to double-check,” Schneep said casually.

“And besides, wouldn’t we, like, see him nearby whenever he showed up to trick us?” Anti asked. “So we could like, stab on sight. Arm ourselves, you can all borrow my knives.”

Marvin, who’d been mostly silent this whole conversation, suddenly spoke up. “T’is might sound strange, but bear with me for a moment.” He waited until he was sure the others were paying attention before continuing. “T’is...t’ing t’at’s been following us...what color is his hair?”

Anti rolled his eyes. “What does this have to do with—”

“Answer. The question.” The others had never seen Marvin so serious.

Jackie responded first. “Well, okay, it’s...” He blinked. “It’s...” He frowned, scrunching his eyes closed as he tried to picture the gray man in his mind. “...I...don’t remember.” He could clearly see the man in his mind, yet somehow...that detail was not part of the image. Jackie opened his eyes. “Volt? What about you?”

Schneep crossed his arms, brows furrowing. Gradually, his look of concentration turned to one of discomfort. “I-I do not know. I do not know, how is that possible?”

“Alrigh’,” Marvin stood up, walking from the desk to the living area with the others. “How about how tall he is? Does anyone r’member how tall he is?”

“He’s...” Jackie trailed off. Anti stood up straight, making gestures with his hand like he was measuring someone’s height. Jameson shook his head, baffled. Schneep made an odd choking sound and covered his mouth, eyes wide.

“No, we don’,” Marvin said. “None of us know anyt’ing about what he looks like. Oh, sure, we got the monstrous swathes of it, but we cannae r’member the details. Now, Jackie.” Marvin turned to look at him. “How did t’is man get into your hospital, looking as odd as he does, and have no one even mention it?”

“That...I don’t know,” Jackie said slowly.

“Exactly!” Marvin threw his hand in the air.

“Wait, Marvin, are you saying that this...sort of illusion-casting this person can do,” JJ asked, “could possibly mean he can...make it seem like he’s not there at all? Like, maybe like the Silence from Doctor Who?”

Marvin frowned. “I don’ know what t’at is.”

“Oh. Right. That’s on me, remind me to show you that some time.” JJ laughed nervously. “Anyway, the Silence are...well, they’re sort of supernatural creatures that make it so that, while you’re looking directly at them, you know they’re there and what they are. But when you look away, you forget all about them.”

“Ah. T’en yes, t’ats what I’m tryin’ t’say. He migh’ be able to do somet’ing to t’at effect.”

Schneep visibly paled. “Well, what would we do in that situation? If that was true, then...mein Gott, then he could be anywhere. And we would not even know.”

“But...that doesn’t mean it would be anywhere, right?” Anti’s eyes darted back and forth between the others’ faces.

Everyone was silent.

And then they heard the laughing.

Everyone who’d been sitting down shot to their feet. Anti reached into his jacket and pulled out a handgun. Schneep leapt into a defensive stance, hands half-raised in front of him. Jameson’s eyes changed color to a brighter blue than usual.

“Lock the doors and close the blinds, we’re going for a ride!”

“What the fuck?!” Jackie was the first to see him, and practically tripped over himself in an effort to put the chair between himself and the gray man—who was just casually sitting on top of the dining table, one leg folded over the other, as if it was the most natural place in the world for him to be.

Schneep stepped forward. “How did you get into my apartment?” he demanded.

“You mean you didn’t notice?” The man pressed a hand to his chest as if he was offended. The attempt at expression was ruined by the grin on his face. “I was right behind you the entire time, Zaps.”

“Jesus,” Marvin muttered, inching closer to the rest of the group.

“Yeah, okay, that’s nice to hear,” Anti growled. “But you know what? I don’t care. You are going to get out of here or there’s going to suddenly be a new hole in your head.”

“Oh, I’m afraid I beat you to the punch there.” Even though the smile never wavered, the man’s tone suddenly became a lot colder. “So your threats are poor excuses for threats, just like how you’re a poor excuse of a person. Works out perfectly, you know?”

Anti took a step back. For a moment, true hurt flashed across his face.

“You have no right to say such things!” Jameson suddenly shouted. “Not when you are just as poor. You’re not even human, why do you have such authority to speak on others? And why should we listen to a distorter of minds?”

The man sat up straight. “A distorter of minds? I love it, I’m going to use that from now on.”

“Good try, Jems, but don’t encourage him,” Marvin hissed.

“Aw, I’m hurt, Marvin!” The man—Distorter—seemed to smile wider at the way Marvin jumped when he said his name. “I wouldn’t expect such dismissive words from you!”

“Wh—” Marvin visibly flinched, stepping back. “What do you...?”

“Oh well. Guess nothing lasts forever. Unless you make it.” Distorter stood up. He raised one blackened hand and snapped his fingers, tilting his head to the side. “Smile for me.”

Something clattered to the floor. Everyone sharply turned to look over at Marvin—Marvin, who had dropped his cane. He’d suddenly gone limp, posture slacking and a blank expression on his face. His eyes were empty.

“That’s better.”

“Marvin?” Jameson was by his side before he even knew it, shaking him gently, trying to get a response. To no avail. “Marvin, wh...what...?”

“What...what did you do?!” Jackie was emboldened by the sight of his friend in distress, forgetting all previous fears about Distorter’s unnatural powers. He rushed to Marvin’s side as well, immediately jumping into assessment mode.

“He’s fine,” Distorter dismissed. “If anything, this is better. You don’t have to worry about anything if you can’t feel anything.”

“Okay, that is it.” Schneep’s expression was more than stormy—it was outright thunderous. He quickly closed the distance between him and Distorter and grabbed the gray man by the shirt. “I am getting you out of here if you will not leave yourself.”

Distorter seemed untroubled by being grabbed, though maybe that was just his unchanging smile. “Oh, come on.” He wrapped a hand around Schneep’s wrist, nails digging into skin. “The fun part’s just about to start.”

Everyone tensed. Jameson and Jackie were momentarily distracted by the statement, looking away from Marvin for just a moment. Anti did the opposite: he happened to glance toward Marvin at the exact time the other two looked away. And because of that, he saw when Marvin stiffened, a flash of something—something not exactly friendly—entering his eyes. “Watch out!” Anti cried, suddenly lunging across the room.

The following sequence of events happened very quickly. Marvin bent over, grabbing his cane from where it had fallen to the floor. At the same time, Schneep shrieked and stumbled back, the sleeve of his shirt now shredded as long slices leaked blood through the fabric. Distorter laughed, the nails of his hand dripping red. Immediately after, Marvin stood up and swung his cane until the topper connected solidly with the side of Jameson’s head, who cried out and staggered backwards, falling against the nearest chair. Marvin wound up for another swing at Jackie, but Anti arrived just in time, grabbing the cane and attempting to wrench it out of Marvin’s hands.

Marvin’s head whipped toward Anti. His eyes were unusually wide, and thin streams of blood began to drip from them. He hissed, and instead of trying to pull the cane back toward him, pushed with a surprising amount of force. Anti was shocked enough at the movement to lose his footing, and next thing he knew his head hit the ground and he was lying on the floor. Marvin pressed his advantage—quite literally. He knelt on the floor and began pushing the cane down on Anti’s throat, the length immediately cutting off air supply. Anti made a choked sort of gasp, and tried to push the cane away, but Marvin showed no sign of letting up.

“No!” Jackie sprung into action, grabbing Marvin around the torso and trying to pull him away. Marvin resisted, continuing to press down, but Jackie wasn’t about to give up, and was slowly winning.

Jameson climbed to his feet, pressing a hand to his head where the topper had hit it. There was a bit of warm liquid soaking his hair, but this wasn’t the time to focus on that. He was about to help Jackie, when he heard a cry of pain. He spun around to see Schneep on the floor in the dining area, scrambling backwards and clutching his bleeding arm. He looked unhurt apart from that arm injury, but his head was turning wildly on a swivel, seeming to latch onto things that weren’t there at all. Distorter approached him slowly, his grin wider than ever.

“Oh no you don’t,” Jameson muttered to himself. He cupped his hand and let the magic flow down his arm, until he was holding a handful of swimming blue light. He tossed the light, and it scattered into droplets. The drops arced across the room until they hit Distorter, each drop making a surprisingly solid impact that made him reel back, until he was finally knocked over. Jameson ran to Schneep as soon as Distorter was out of the way, murmuring vague reassurances as he patted him down for further sign of injuries.

Schneep shook his head like he was clearing it of ghosts. “What..?” He blinked several times, looking around.

Distorter stood up in one single motion, flicking away remaining drops of blue magic. “And here I thought you might be alright, magic man.”

Jameson threw an arm in front of Schneep, shielding him. “To you? No, I’m afraid not while you’re trying to kill my friends.”

“Who said I was going to kill all of them?” Distorter spread his arms. “What would that do for me, hmm?”

Jameson’s hand curled into a fist, streams of magic responding to the motion. “Then what do you want?”

For a moment, Distorter’s smile shrank. “I just want companionship. Friends. Well, and to get rid of anyone who’s going to stop me from getting that. Which, unfortunately, includes some of your—”

Bang!

Distorter staggered back, looking down at the sudden red staining his shirt, the vivid crimson standing out against the gray. Jameson blinked, then looked over to were the other three had been scuffling in the living area. Jackie had his arms wrapped tight around Marvin, who was squirming and struggling to get free. Anti was half-standing, half-kneeling, his hand extended and pointing his handgun directly at Distorter. “There’s more where that came from,” he said.

Distorter stared at him. And then he began laughing again. “Weren’t you paying attention earlier?! I told you that wouldn’t do anything! Or did you not bother to check?” His head turned to the side, farther than it should’ve been able to, with a crack. Everyone in the room was able to see that which none of them had, somehow, never noticed before. A neat hole in the side of Distorter’s head, going all the way through and dripping thick red blood.

Everyone stared; they couldn’t help it. It was like a car wreck. Some things you just couldn’t tear your eyes from, no matter how gruesome it was. “...how?” Jackie finally whispered.

“You can’t kill what’s already dead.” Distorter chuckled. “But I’ll give you points for trying.This has been fun, hasn’t it? Hasn’t this been fun? I can’t wait until next time.”

None of them could say what happened next. All they knew was that one moment Distorter was there, the next their heads were filled with fuzz, and he was gone.

Anti was the first to recover. “What...was that?” He scrambled to his feet. “Where did he go?!”

“That...really happened, yes?” Schneep asked.

“Yes, it did,” JJ said, nodding. “I’m not sure where he—”

A scream. Marvin pushed Jackie away, practically falling over himself in trying to get away. He ended up crawling over to the nearest chair and pressing his back to it, wiping at the trails of blood on his face and breathing quickly.

“Marvin!” JJ grabbed Schneep by the hand and pulled him to his feet before running over to where Marvin was and kneeling next to him. “Are you okay?”

“No! What? No, what? T'at wasn’—no!” Marvin was pulling at his hair with one hand, while using the other to grab for his cane. He was shaking his head.

“Hey, I know it’s a lot, but it’s going to be okay,” JJ said in a gentle voice. “Do you need anything right now? Anything I can get you?”

A strange sort of half-whimper half-yell escaped Marvin’s throat. He was holding the cane close to his body, running his fingers along the designs in the topper. “I-I dunna—I dunnae. I-I dun...t’at didn’ feel...good.”

Jackie had appeared at one point, leaning over JJ’s shoulder. He pursed his lips. “Hang on a second, let me try...” He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a small black cube with various attachments in red. He handed it to Marvin. “Here, just look at the for a bit, okay?”

Marvin seemed doubtful, but he took it anyway. Within only a few moments he was engrossed in the various parts of the cube. He seemed to especially like the switches and the rolling ball. JJ looked at Jackie and gave him a smile, which Jackie returned before standing up to go look at Schneep’s injured arm.

———————

It took a few minutes, but eventually they all settled down. They were all back in the living area, with Jackie and Schneep on the couch, Anti in one of the chairs and Marvin in the other, JJ standing nearby Marvin’s chair. Jackie had found Schneep’s first aid kit in one of the kitchen cabinets, and managed to bandage up the cuts on Schneep’s arm.

“I’m going to say it: I’m super paranoid that he’s just...somewhere.” Anti looked around the apartment.

“I think he left,” JJ said. “Otherwise why would he make that comment about ‘next time’?”

Anti nodded. “Good point. Still...maybe he’s always there. Always watching.”

“Please don’,” Marvin muttered. JJ and Jackie glared at Anti.

Schneep cleared his throat. “Marvin...are you ready to talk about...what that was back there?”

“I-I don’ know what it was,” Marvin said simply. “It was just...t'ere was not’ing. Just a daze. But also, t’ere was...I-I don’ know. An...urge...to do certain t’ings. An I know it was coming from him.”

“Mind control?” Jackie asked. He looked at JJ. “Is that possible?”

“Um...” JJ folded his arms. “I know that there are spells out there that can do that. And strange creatures that can influence your thoughts. But I’ve never even heard of something like...him.”

“Um, Marvin?” Anti asked tentatively. “Is it okay to ask how you know that...thing?”

Marvin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’ know how I know him. I just know he’s familiar. I don’ r’member much, and I know less. I don’t even know how I got to now—to here!”

Schneep blinked. “I’m sorry, did you say—”

“Not!...now,” Marvin interrupted, opening his eyes. “I’ll explain it to you t’ree anot’er time, righ’ now it’s...too many t’ings.”

Jackie nodded. He looked around the room quickly. Everyone was tense, uneasy, and/or upset. “Well!” He clapped his hands. “I think that’s too many things for all of us today. We need to do something to calm down.”

They all looked at him in surprise. But none of them disagreed. Or, well, Anti did, but he just liked to disagree. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Don’t you need to get home soon?”

“Rama and Michelle could do with some time together,” Jackie shrugged. “Why? Are you worried about Will?”

“I mean, I paid the sitter for the whole afternoon because I didn’t know how long this would take, so I guess I could technically stay a bit longer?”

“Good. So we’re going to do that.” Jackie stood up and walked over to the TV. He began rummaging through the cabinet under it. “Trust me, sometimes you just need a distraction. And I think we all need one right now. I don’t know what kind of movies people like, so you’re going to have to tell me so we can pick something everyone likes.”

It’s surprising how quickly a mood can change.

It’s surprising, sometimes, how easy it is to bounce back to reality after being in a grayed-out zone for a while.

Maybe all it really takes are five friends laughing and shouting so loud that you can’t really hear to movie, until someone makes popcorn and someone else takes out the spare blankets, and eventually everything seems right again.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye fanfiction #jacksepticegos #septic egos #septic egos au #jackieboy man #dr jackie parker #dr schneeplestein #von voltage #antisepticeye #programmer anti #jameson jackson #the jaunty jackson #marvin the magnificent #1920s marvin #chase brody #distorter #septicswitchau #brigid writes fanfiction

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knife-em0ji · 4 years

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evens for the ask game! (or as many of the evens as you wanna do lmao)

oh ho ho i’ll do all of them !!

2. how many houseplants in your room, and what kinds are they?

I don’t have many in my room proper since i’m in the basement lol, but I have a snake plant, a philodendron, and a mysterious cycad whose tag i lost but i bought at a botanical garden lmfao

4. an account on social media whose posts make you smile

this is a trade secret but i’ll give u one guess ;^)

6. how you get relaxed when you’re struggling to sleep

I either read or watch reddit text to speech videos bc i’m a freak w brain worms

8. if you were going to write a non-fiction book on any topic, what would it be?

HHHHNGNGHHHH i would write an entire expose treatise on the saga of jennifer cornet, ranging from FF7 house to tattle-crime.org, with asides for the sarah saga and otherkin culture in general....it would be my magnum opus

10. something you’ve created in the last year that you’re proud of (a playlist, a piece of art, some writing, a craft hobby, a social media account, etc)

oh ; ~ ; ....definitely my epic length bagginshield fic....i’ve been taking an extended break due to life stuff but i’m hoping to get back into it again ;;

12. if you could make a candle that smelt like anything, what would you pick?

my spice cabinet....it’s the best smell in the world....

14. an artist (of any kind) whose work you look forward to seeing

idk if this means something specific im looking forward to in the future or just in general ??? but im excited for orville peck’s new album lmfao...i was supposed to see green day, weezer, and fallout boy this summer in concert but idk if that’s going to happen anymore :^(

16. how you wake your body up when it’s feeling tired, achy or needs a stretch

Power through it, take my adhd meds, and guzzle cawfee lmfao

18. a book series you can always escape in

hhhhh i feel so stereotypical for saying this but lol lotr....or lindsey davis’ falco series?? idk thats been a recent fav of mine when i can gather the energy to read fiction lol

20. a skill you’ve picked up in the past few years

cooking, most def lol

22. if you were going to dye your hair any colour of the rainbow, what would you choose?

my life for the courage to dye my hair dark green that eventually fades a bit...

24. describe the most wacky, weird and wonderful at-home outfit you’ve put together

RED LINEN JUMPSUIT, BLACK KNEE SOCKS W ANATOMICAL LEG & FOOT ILLUSTRATIONS, DENIM BUTTON DOWN WORK SHIRT TIED AT THE WAIST, GREEN BOOTS !!! GAY CLOWN RIGHTS !!!

26. the film you watched most recently that you could watch again and again

T W I L I G H T !!!!!!!!!!! i watched it recently on my birthday and i rewatch it at least once a month ;;;

28. a good-will story you’ve heard on the news that’s made you feel hopeful

The story about the two 100 year old married jewish lesbians who have survived everything from the early flu epidemics to shoah, and are now quarantining together....they seem happy and fulfilled together, and it reminds me that all things shall pass, and love will survive.

30. a song that makes you want to have a boogie round your bedroom

i wanna be your lover by prince lmfao

#ask tag #twelvemagpies

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fortunatelylori · 5 years

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Political Jon is pretty obvious to me. The letter he sent to Sansa was already coded. Sansa knows what is going on and is playing along. In the meantime she got him a real army, I bet her uncle Edmure will join them as well. Jon got the dragons and I am sure once he knows he is Targaryen he will "steal" those dragons under Dany's nose. And what is then left of her? Instead of being the special one, a silly, not very smart girl with a huge ego. She will go berserk. Can't want for it.

Hey, nonnie!

I’ve read a few metas on the theory that Jon’s letter to Sansa was coded. For everyone’s convenience I’m going to include the scroll text here:

“Sansa,

Cersei Lannister has pledged her forces to our cause, as has Daenerys Targaryen. And if we survive this war, I have pledged our forces to Daenerys at the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. We are both coming to organise the defence of the realm.

Jon Snow. Warden of the North.”

As a side note, just want to say that Jon Snow has many, many qualities. Expressing himself in writing isn’t among them.

I’m not completely sold on the idea that Jon’s scroll is coded or that Sansa understands exactly what he means by what he says, although I do think she assumes there are some underlining motives for Jon doing what he did. That shouldn’t stop people from reading up on this theory, though, since it’s very interesting and it may very well be true, even though I can’t see it at this time. I’ve been firmly on the political Jon train for a long time so with or without the scroll being part of the clues for pol!jon, this theory is very much in play.

In regards to Edmure, I keep thinking whether or not he’s going to play a part in season 8. Plot wise, it would make sense because the Freys are dead and the Tullys are probably back in charge of the Riverlands. Cersei would want to get control of the region as soon as possible but I don’t see Edmure being all that happy with that, considering what Jaime did to him in season 6. On a personal level I’d love for Edmure to make a comeback in season 8 because I adore Tobias Menzies and think he’s an absolutely brilliant actor.

It would also be interesting to see how Edmure’s relationship with his Frey wife is developing. I’m assuming she and their baby are with him now but there’s bound to be some resentment there on Edmure’s part considering his imprisonment.

During one of my private conversations with @and-holly-goes-lightly, she mentioned that perhaps Jaime doesn’t arrive all by himself at Winterfell but gathers some Lannister forces on his way there. I’ve been thinking that perhaps he makes a stop at Riverrun and convinces Edmure to join the fight. That would certainly be an interesting conversation, considering the way their last discussion went.

Jon got the dragons and I am sure once he knows he is Targaryen he will “steal” those dragons under Dany’s nose.

I’ve argued that Jon is going to bond with and ride Rhaegal for a while now so I can’t help but agree. However, I do think Drogon is staying with D*ny. He’s her favorite child and the dragon she rides. Drogon and Jorah I think are team D*ny to the bitter end. I’d probably add Missandei and Grey Worm in there as well. As much as I’d like them to break free and live their own lives, the cult mentality is strong with those two. They might wake up when it’s far too late for them.

And what is then left of her? Instead of being the special one, a silly, not very smart girl with a huge ego.

I’ve never been one not to make fun of D*ny because of her ego, her lack of intellectual curiosity, her hypocrisy and her God-like complex. However, I wouldn’t call her a silly girl.

She’s a girl who got way too much power way too quickly and has been losing the plot steadily for years.

She’s a tragic fallen hero who started out with lofty ambitions and empathy, with good intentions but not enough impulse control when it comes to violence, who always dreamed of home and thought that home was Westeros, an utopia where she would finally find happiness and peace. She dreamed about ruling over a realm of happy, fat children and honorable knights but she’s going to end up with a legacy of fire and blood.

Instead of leaving the world a better place, she’s going to leave it in ruins. Instead of Good Queen D*ny and the Breaker of Wheels, as she probably hopes she’ll be remembered, she will be the Queen of the Ashes.

In terms of character arc, hers is probably the most fascinating and interesting in the whole of A song of Ice and Fire saga. That’s, of course, if Dark D*ny comes to pass.

Thanks for the ask!

#poltical jon #anti-daenerys #edmure tully

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walteinsamkeit · 6 years

Text

Information about the Courtiers

So, here we are. This is a huge post with all the information I could possibly gather about the Courtiers. The idea for this post was born out of sheer interest in this kind of stuff and the desire to know more about it, and I figured other people might as well be interested in it. Some of this might be far-fetched, so I would like to say that this isn’t a theory in any way, shape or form. It’s just a collection of information that caught my eye or facts that I found particularly interesting. Some parts involve me drawing conclusions or making assumptions. This is how I interpreted these things. You are allowed to disagree with me, but please be respectful. More might be added to it at a later date. If you see anything that isn’t correct (including typos/spelling mistakes), or would like to add to this, make sure to contact me! If you’re missing something here and have a question that you would like answered or a thing you want to see explained, don’t hesitate to shoot me a message either. Finally, I would like to thank @gummy-vitamin-gobbler for being my proof reader. I honestly didn’t want to put anyone through reading this entire thing and I’m super grateful you volunteered. You’re the best <3 Proceed with caution as this text does contain spoilers! This post is in alphabetical order based on their names, with a few general facts at the bottom of it.

General information Vesuvia’s royal court consists of five members. Their titles were given to them by Lucio when he became the Count. As reported by Valerius, the other four Courtiers were present on the night of the murder outside of Lucio’s room, thus making them key witnesses. Quaestor Valdemar is the palace’s head physician and Julian’s former boss. They seem to be obsessed with the Red Plague and delight in the chaos the disease brought to the city of Vesuvia. Not much more is known about them. Consul Valerius, as his title suggests, is a consul to the royal Palace and reportedly a key witness to Lucio’s murder. A tarot reading done by the apprentice reveals that Valerius has his own agenda, despite seeming supportive of Nadia and her aims at first. Praetor Vlastomil, besides serving as a judge, was Lucio’s business partner. He is an eccentric man obsessed with insects, particularly with worms, and has entire rooms dedicated to them at his manor. Procurator Volta is in charge of the city’s food supply and was essential during the Plague according to Nadia on account of her being able to smell the Plague off of people and other things. She is always hungry and never seems to be satisfied. Pontifex Vulgora is described by Nadia as a warmonger who has won many battles in Vesuvia’s name. They are extremely aggressive and obsessed with destruction, often threatening others. Quaestor Valdemar Name • Valdemar is a Scandinavian masculine name that finds its origins in the Old High German name Waldemar. It consists of the elements wald (meaning “to rule”) and mar (meaning “fame”). This German form was introduced to Scandinavia as Valdemar in the 12th century with King Valdemar I of Denmark. It’s particularly famous for being the name of many Scandinavian monarchs, and is sometimes considered to be the equivalent of the Slavish name Vladimir (meaning “of great power” or, in folk etymology, “ruler of the world”). The Old Norse form is Valdamarr (or Valdarr), which occurs in many tales and sagas. Title • A quaestor, back in Ancient Rome, was a public official. The term quaestor translates to “investigator”. The position served many different functions that differed per time period. In the Roman Kingdom, the quaestores parricidii (quaestors with judicial powers) were appointed by the king to investigate and handle murders and capital crimes. Headdress • The type of wrapped, horned headdress Valdemar wears is called a hennin. It was worn by European women of nobility in the late Middle Ages, and although it’s not clear what distinct styles of headdress the word hennin specifically referred to at the time, it has been recorded to be used in France as far back as 1428. However, the word wasn’t used in the English language until the 19th century. There are many different styles, such as the conical hennin generally accompanied with a veil (which is called the cointoise), the escoffin (a more heart-shaped hennin), the truncated hennin (with a flat top), the divided hennin (which was often covered in white cloth), the beehive hennin and the related Lebanese tantour headdress. The particular style worn by Valdemar seems most inspired by the butterfly hennin (thank you for this suggestion @gummy-vitamin-gobbler!) Appearance • As stated on the Arcana Wiki, Valdemar has dirty blonde hair (as can be deducted from the color of their eyebrows) and red eyes with slit pupils, like a cat. It is to be noted that their facial structure seems very similar to that of Nadia (and her sisters), with the same nose shape and eye color, and what seems to be the same skin undertones. It is a possibility that Valdemar is from Prakra. They wear a white lab coat with an overlapping mandarin collar on which they wear their beetle brooch, shoulder length gloves, a black waist apron and a white surgical mask. While there is no existing labcoat design that looks like Valdemar’s, the buttoning style is somewhat similar to the “Howie” style lab coat, although it might be a bit of a stretch. This is a variant of the basic lab coat adopted for the added safety. The Howie coat was named after J. W. Howie, who was the President of the College of Pathologists. This style has the buttons on the left flank, elasticated wrists and a mandarin collar. Tarot card • The card Valdemar represents is Death. Death is ruled by Scorpio, suggesting that their zodiac sign might be Scorpio. There is, however, a discrepancy at play here, considering Valerius’ sign, which we will come to later. The number of the card is 13, which is a number sacred to the Goddess as there are 13 full moons in a year. In Asra’s tarot deck, Death is portrayed by a skeleton horse. It’s not clear whether Valdemar represents the upright or reversed card meaning. Considering Valdemar’s seeming inability to let go of the Red Plague and desire for it to return, one might argue they represent Death Reversed. In traditional decks, Death is often portrayed by an armored skeleton riding a white horse and carrying a banner. The armor is symbolic for the fact Death is invincible and unconquerable - no one can triumph over him. The white horse stands for purity, as Death is the ultimate purifier, and doesn’t discriminate between age, race or gender. This card is probably the most feared and misunderstood out of all of them, as people often take the meaning of it far too literally. Upright, it is actually a positive card that stands for significant transformation, change, transition and new beginnings. Reversed, Death reflects reluctance to let go of the past and a refusal to accept change.

Consul Valerius Name • A masculine name of ancient Roman origin. This was a patronymic family name derived from the Latin valere “to be strong” or “to be healthy”, and was the name of several early saints (this ties in with him representing the Hierophant card). The Valerius family was prominent from the very beginning of the Republic to the latest period of the Empire, and a lot of its members were among the most celebrated statesmen and generals. This even went as far as several of the Roman emperors claiming to be descendants of the Valerii. It’s also to be noted that there were a lot of consuls who bore the name Valerius. Valerian is also an herb with sweetly scented pink or white flowers that has sedative and anxiolytic effects. The name of the herb is derived from the verb valere, just like the name Valerius. It has many other names, one of which is all-heal. This name is also used for plants in the genus Stachys, although one of the nicknames for this specific plant is lamb’s ears. Nicholas Culpeper, a seventeenth century astrological botanist, said that the herb was of special value against the plague. Title • Consuls, back in ancient Rome, were magistrates comparable with prime ministers or presidents. Apart from the oldest, it was also the most important position in the cusus honorum or “course of offices”. Consuls always came in pairs and served for only one year to prevent corruption. They were the chairmen of the Senate (which served as a board of advisers), commanded the army and exercised the highest juridical power in the Roman empire. Consuls had the right to interfere with the decisions of praetors and quaestors. Appearance • Notable about the Consul’s clothing is the golden ram brooch he wears on his shawl. In the tarot deck used in The Arcana, The Hierophant is represented by a ram. Valerius is also the only courtier who doesn’t wear a red beetle brooch, so this makes it an exceptionally remarkable feature. Valerius wears his ombre hair French-braided and draped over his shoulder. Ombré, literally meaning “shaded” in French, describes the gradual transition from one hue to another, usually from dark to light or vice versa. Ombre was popular in fabric printing as far back as the early 19th century. His underclothing seems to consist of what is either a jumpsuit-like one piece or two separate pieces with gold trim on the cuffs and collar. On top of this he wears an asymmetrical, taupe, frock-inspired, tunic-like overcoat with three-quarter bell sleeves, a golden cord in the front and what seems to be some kind of button and loop fastening, also called “frog fastening” or “Chinese frog”. This is a type of ornamental braiding of sorts consisting of a button and a loop and serves for fastening the front of a garment. This particular type of closing is often found on clothing of Asian design. Frogging was also a popular type of fastening for military uniforms from the 17th to the 19th century. His shoes have gold decoration, red soles and spool heels. The hand that Valerius keeps near his body also seems to be lighter than the rest of his skin, leading me to believe he wears a glove on this hand. Tarot card • The card Valerius most likely represents is The Hierophant. The Hierophant, in Asra’s tarot deck, is depicted as a ram. Valerius’ ram brooch seems to allude to a connection between the two. There is however one problem concerning this theory, namely that The Hierophant is ruled by Taurus, and not by Scorpio, which happens to be Valerius’ canon zodiac sign. This would make him the only known character in the entire story representing a card that does not match their zodiac sign. The card’s number is five and it is commonly depicted as a religious figure sitting on a throne. The three elaborate vestments of his office that he wears represent the three worlds. He wears a crown and his right hand is raised in benediction - this is the same hand that the Magician has raised, but where the Magician draws raw power from the universe and manifests it on the material plane, the Hierophant channels his power through society (in the form of religion). The crossed keys of the Hierophant represent a balance between the conscious and subconscious mind, and are used to unlock mysteries. Upright, the Hierophant means religion, group identification, conformity, tradition and beliefs. Reversed, it means restriction and challenging the status quo. What is interesting to note is that the Hierophant is also known as the Pope, the High Priest (as a masculine counterpart to the High Priestess), the Shaman, and Chiron. Chiron is a comet with an erratic orbit. In astrology it symbolizes the “wounded healer” in the natal chart. Chiron represents our deepest wound and our efforts to heal it. In Greek mythology, Chiron was a centaur who was a healer and teacher who ironically enough could not heal himself. The symbol for Chiron is a key, much like the keys that the Hierophant himself holds, used for unlocking secrets. The wounds of a Chiron in Scorpio native are nihilism, sexual addiction, power struggles, jealousy and obsession and trouble leaving bad relationships. Praetor Vlastomil Name • While Vlastomil isn’t an actual name (I know, I was surprised too), Vlastimil is. It’s a common Slavic masculine name consists of the elements vlast (meaning “homeland”) and mil (meaning “favor”). This however is the modern meaning of these words and it should be said that they are derived from volsti (power, government, rule, sovereignty) and mil(a) (kind, loving, and gracious). The Latin form of this name is Patrick (I have no idea how). Patrick can be found as a name derived from the Latin Patricius, which means “nobleman”. Title • Praetors served as judges of the Roman Republic and, in the absence of the consuls, commanded armies. It was a title granted by the government and was inferior only to senators and consuls. One could only become a praetor after serving at least one term as a quaestor. The Praetor Urbanus acted as the chief administrator of Rome and wasn’t allowed to leave the city for more than ten days. They were the main magistrate responsible for trying the people of Rome. Hat • Vlastomil’s feathered cap is called a beret. It is a soft, round, somewhat floppy, flat-crowned hat for both men and women that originates in France and Spain. It fits snugly around the head and can be shaped in a variety of ways. There are many different styles of berets and aside from it often being seen as headgear in the military it was very much beloved by European nobility and artists throughout history. The Basque style beret, which is probably the most well-known and most simple style of all, was first commercially produced in the very South of France in the 17th century. The beret that Vlastomil wears seems to be inspired by berets worn during the Renaissance, and in particular those worn by the German Landsknechte. The Landsknechte (a word combining land “land/country”, here in the sense of “lowlands”, and knecht “servant/vassal”, here in the sense of “foot-soldier”) were mercenary soldiers who were an important military force in Europe during the 15th and 16th century, consisting mostly of pikemen and foot soldiers. They wore large, slashed berets (sometime referred to as starfish hats) that, when puffed out, showed a different color fabric underneath, and were adorned with big feathers. Although it doesn’t have much to do with the hat on itself, it should be said that the Landsknechte had a reputation for unprincipled, ruthless violence and were infamous for the fact it wasn’t unknown for entire regiments of Landsknechte to swap sides in the middle of a battle if they were offered more money or to desert en masse when there was no more gold to pay them. Appearance • Vlastomil has grey hair and white eyes with slit pupils, much like the other Courtiers minus Valerius. A very striking feature is his one visibly pointy ear with a golden earring in his stretched earlobe. There seems to be another gauge right behind the first one, but he doesn’t wear any jewelry in it. He wears a gown that is most likely inspired by traditional ceremonial court dresses/judicial robes, although I don’t know enough about these to be able to determine which one exactly it is most similar to. The open puff sleeves with white insets are reminiscent of the slashed style of his beret. They seem inspired by the paned sleeves that were popular during the 15th and 16th century European Renaissance. Furthermore he wears fabric chausses, worn in the 14th century when they served as leg armor made from chain maille. These could extend to the knee or cover the entire leg. Tarot card • Vlastomil’s card is Justice, ruled by Libra and bearing number 11. It was in fact confirmed by the devs that Vlastomil’s zodiac sign is Libra. In Asra’s deck, Justice is represented by a boar. The traditional depiction is that of Lady Justice sitting in a throne, holding a sword in her right hand and her scales in the left. The sword signifies impartiality and victory, and the scales show that logic must be balanced by the intuition, as the left hand is the intuitive hand. It is to be assumed that Vlastomil represents the reversed meaning of Justice. Justice upright symbolizes fairness, truth, cause and effect and law. Reversed, it stands for unfairness, lack of accountability and dishonesty. Considering the Praetor’s course of action during Julian’s trial, it’s evident why he would be Justice Reversed. The card shows an unwillingness to understand, refusing to take responsibility for one’s actions and blaming others for your mistakes. It reflects a very judgmental, biased, black-and-white view of the world and under-handed behavior, all of which is incredibly dangerous while swinging the sword of justice. Procurator Volta Name • Volta isn’t an actual given name either, but there are a lot of things that is is. In a poem, the volta, or turn, serves as a rhetorical shift in thought and/or emotion. It has gone by many different names such as fulcrum, modulation, torque, swerve. Leslie Ullman called the volta the poem’s “center”, which is largely the poem’s dramatic and climactic turn. Phillis Levin said that “we could say that for the sonnet, the volta is the seat of its soul”. It’s interesting to note that the stomach was once thought to be the seat of the soul, instead of the heart or the brain (particularly in Buddhism if I am not mistaken). The Volta also a quick-moving Italian dance that was mostly popular during the 16th and 17th centuries. Title • Procurators were officials who were in charge of the financial affairs of a province in ancient Rome. Although they worked alongside the imperial governor they were not subordinate to him and reported directly to the emperor. The procurator had its own staff and agents and had a few primary responsibilities, such as the collection of taxes and rents and the distribution of pay to public servants. Headdress • The headdress Volta wears is a cornette, which is essentially a type of wimple. A wimple is a large piece of cloth worn around the neck and chin and covering the top of the head. The wimple was popular in early medieval Europe, where during many stages of medieval Christian culture it was unseemly for a married woman to show her hair. Originally the wimple was creased and folded in prescribed ways. Later, elaborated versions such as the cornette were supported by wire or wicker framing. Both the wimple and cornette are perhaps most famous as a headdress for nuns. Like the horned hennin, the cornette was folded in such a way as to create the resemblance of horns. In the mid-17th century, it was worn by the Daughters of Charity: a Roman Catholic society consisting of women that took care of the sick and poor and attempted to resemble ordinary middle-class women as much as possible in their clothing. Appearance • Volta has curly, reddish-brown hair and brown eyes, although one of them is invisible due to what seems to be a lazy eye. One sharp snaggle-tooth sticks up from her bottom row of teeth. She wears what seems to be some sort of nun dress, or a habit, which were traditionally plain garbs worn by members of a religious order. The reason for this uniform outfitting was that nuns and monks had to be recognizable as such. Considering the cornette Volta wears (which is tied to the Roman Catholic society Daughters of Charity as explained above), it is most likely that her dress was based on the typical Roman Catholic habit. Ironically enough, the habit was a symbol for living a sober life in poverty and consecration, all of which seem to be the opposite of the tarot card Volta represents (as described below). Her dress has puffed sleeves and, considering the shape of it, probably an empire waist. Her shawl is clasped in the front by her beetle brooch, and she wears what seems to be a tasseled fabric and a lace fabric draped over her dress. Finally, she wears fingerless lace gloves. Tarot card • Volta represents Temperance Reversed, as seen during the lunch scene with Vulgora and Volta in Nadia’s route where the apprentice can read the cards for one of them. Its number being 14, it is ruled by Sagittarius; traditionally the teacher of truth, enthusiasm, tolerance and beauty. In Asra’s deck, Temperance is depicted as a dove, but traditionally it is a winged angel we can see on the card. The angel, being a child of Hermes and Aphrodite, is both male and female, symbolizing a balance between them. One foot stands on dry land (the material world) while the other stands in the water (the subconscious). It represents a need to “test the waters” before jumping headfirst into unknown circumstances. The angel carries two cups with water that are being mixed, thus mixing the sub- and super-conscious minds. Upright the card means balance, moderation, patience, purpose and meaning. Reversed it is imbalance, excess and lack of long-term vision. As Volta is known to be extremely hungry and greedy when it comes to food, it’s clear what the element of imbalance and excess is. This conflict creates a lot of stress and tension. Temperance Reversed is also about people you are dealing with proving to be uncooperative. It may feel as though your interests are in conflict or competition with each other, and solving this may seem like an impossible feat. Although not consciously, one might still realize something isn’t quite right, and it may lead to role reversal. Pontifex Vulgora Name • In Roman mythology, Fulgora was the female personification of lightning. She is a minor goddess and the Roman equivalent to Astrape. Astrape was a shieldmaiden of Zeus, and was given the task of carrying his thunderbolts together with her sister. She is described as “flashing light from her eyes, and raging fire from heaven that has laid hold of a king’s house”. There isn’t a lot of information to find on her, sadly. Another possible origin for Vulgora as a name could simply be the word vulgar, meaning “not suitable, simple, dignified or beautiful” or “rude and likely to upset or anger people”. Title • The pontifex (literally “bridge builder”) was a member of a council of priests. The college of the pontifices was the most important Roman priesthood, responsible for regulating the relations of the community with the deities recognized by the state, called the jus divinum. They fulfilled duties such as for example regulating expiatory ceremonials needed as the result of pestilence or lightning. The pontifices were probably advisors of the king in all matters of religion and all held office for life. Headdress • Like Valdemar, Vulgora wears a hennin - albeit a perhaps somewhat more historically accurate version without the fabric wrapping. Their headdress seems to be slightly more similar to an escoffin in general shape but features the same horns as Valdemar’s hennin instead of the open-centered top a normal escoffin would have. Aside from that, their hennin is veiled with a sheer cointoise attached to both steeples. They wear a neck-covering wimple much like Volta’s, making their headdress into what seems to be a combination of these three styles. Appearance • Vulgora has red hair and yellow eyes with slit pupils. They seem to wear some sort of diamond-quilted knee-length tunic with a fabric waist tie and a tasseled golden rope on top. The red-and-gold striped, puffed sleeves are alike in size to gigot sleeves. Introduced to the English court by Anne of Cleves (one of Henry VIII’s wives), these sleeves were extremely wide over the upper arm and narrow from elbow to wrist. Once more, and much like the clothing of the other courtiers, Vulgora’s garbs seem to be Renaissance-inspired in design; specifically by the Tudor clothes worn during the reign of Henry the Eighth. Back then, the type of tunic Vulgora wears was also called a petti-cote; technically a waistcoat with sleeves. Furthermore, they wear a skirted, somewhat flaring, sleeveless cloak lined with gold near the bottom. These particular pieces of clothing were worn to make physical proportions appear larger, with padded shoulders and stuffed sleeves enlarging the figure. This was done to accentuate manly features that made the wearer appear bigger and stronger. It is hard to tell what the lower half of their arms might look like considering the clawed silver gauntlets they wear. Gauntlets like these were worn as armor, made out of hardened leather or metal plates protecting the hand and wrist. An interesting fact is that the term “gauntlet” is used in the idiom “throw down the gauntlet”, meaning “to issue a challenge”. A gauntlet wearing knight would challenge another to a duel by throwing one of his gauntlets on the ground. Picking it up meant that the challenge was accepted by their opponent. Tarot card • The card Vulgora represents is The Tower upright. It is ruled by Mars (the planet named after the god of war), which in turn rules Aries and Scorpio. It is assumed Vulgora is an Aries to tie in with their theme of war and strife. Its number is 16. In Asra’s deck, the Tower card shows a stag surrounded by red beetles (also note that Vulgora’s masquerade mask was a red stag beetle mask). Traditionally it is depicted by a tower aflame, tormented by lightning strikes. People are seen leaping off of it in desperation, fleeing from the destruction and turmoil. The Tower is generally one of the more negative cards in the deck. It signifies physical darkness and destruction as opposed to spiritually, and represents ambitions built on false premises. It is however important to note that the destruction of the tower also signifies the creation space for something new to grow in a sudden, momentary glimpse of truth and inspiration. Upright the Tower means disaster, upheaval, sudden change and revelation. Reversed it symbolizes avoidance of disaster and fear of change. The Tower is about the destruction of inadequate foundation of false thought, belief and action. It is humbling, frightening, but necessary. It is often descriptive of a major upheaval, disruption, emergency or crisis, and is likely to bring chaos in the aftermath of such an event. Only after this will come change and regeneration. Beetle brooches All courtiers, except for Valerius, wear a red and gold beetle brooch on their clothing. As we know, these pieces of jewelry are shaped after the red beetles that are occasionally seen and mentioned in the story. They are found in a specific room in Vlastomil’s manor, as well as burrowed in the ground beneath a spring nearby Nopal and kept in a well by Valdemar in the dungeons beneath the palace. Nadia mentions that the beetles were once used to dye fabric a bright crimson red, and in Asra’s route, a local named Saguaro tells a story of how a giant red beetle was once defeated by Lucio before turning into thousands of smaller red beetles that then hid in the ground. Finally, the red beetles appear on the Tower card in Asra’s deck. They seem to play a significant role in the spreading of the Red Plague. Judging by the general shape of the beetle, it is assumable they are based on scarabs. Scarabs held great meaning to the people of Ancient Egypt, who saw the them as symbols of creation, life, rebirth and immortality. The scarab-headed god Kephri was responsible for rolling the sun across the sky every day, where it died at night and was reborn in the morning. The sacred beetle also had protective abilities that they lend to its wearer. The scarab beetle was also sacred to Khepera, the god of creation, resurrection and immortality (all of which seem to allude to Lucio, the ritual, the apprentice and perhaps the Arcana). It is a highly spiritual bug that carries messages that bring our attention to renewal, spiritual maturity, and the powerful influences of the invisible side of life. When a person died, it was believed that their heart was weighed by Ma’at, the goddess of truth. If the heart was heavy with sin, the spirit of the deceased was not allowed to move on to the after life. In an attempt to convince Ma’at that a person was good and deserved her mercy, scarab beetle amulets were placed over a mummy’s heart. With the update of Lucio’s tale I feel like it’s safe to draw a few careful conclusions here. Lucio is from a wartribe referred to as the “scourge of the South”, depicted as red beetles on the tapestries that tell their tribe’s story, and referred to as “the swarm” by Lucio himself. In fact, Lucio describes his tribe as “a plague of voracious beetles, leaving nothing but bare bones in our wake”. It must be noted that the beetles kept in a well in the dungeons by Valdemar were used to dispose of the bodies of their deceased patients, as the insects were “[...] so effective at disposal” according to them. It is hinted that Lucio contracted the Plague from a beetle bite while fleeing from his mother after he failed to kill her. As stated previously in the story, the Plague is directly tied to Lucio’s life and will follow wherever he goes - as are the last words of his tale. The Four Horsemen In my previous Arcana plot theory post, I mentioned and quickly explained the Four Horsemen theory. While you could go and read it there I will here once more explain what exactly this theory is about. Quite a while ago when the Valerius sprite first was released, the devs jokingly mentioned that the Courtiers were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and that Valerius was the fifth Horseman. While I do not remember the precise context or interactions that took place, this was the gist of it. At multiple points in the story it is mentioned that the Courtiers (minus Valerius) are not exactly human, or as not perceived as such by the apprentice. They are frequently described as “[having] a presence like a dark chasm” (Valdemar), a “beast” (Volta) and “not necessarily human” (Vulgora). Last but not least, Vlastomil’s manor is described by the apprentice as “confusingly designed [with] doors that lead to nowhere [and] halls that suddenly stop in dead ends, as if the manse itself were trying to disorient us” (Nadia’s route: Book VIII). It seems as though the four Courtiers represent the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This idea is now further supported by the wyrm in Lucio’s tale introducing himself as “the worm of pestilence”. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are described in the Book of Revelation - the last book of the Bible’s New Testament. The chapter says that God holds a scroll in his right hand that is sealed with seven seals. The Lamb of God, or Jesus Christ, opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on a white, red, black, and pale horse. The four riders are called Pestilence (on the white horse), War (on the red horse), Famine (on the black horse) and Death (on the pale horse). The colors of the horses also match the color schemes of the Courtiers. The Four Horsemen, as harbingers of the Last Judgement, set a divine Apocalypse upon the world. We can now with (near) certainty say that Vlastomil is Pestilence, Vulgora is War, Volta is Famine and Valdemar is Death. During the Last Judgement, the dead will rise from their graves after which the Second Coming of Christ (the Lamb of God) occurs. Everyone will then be judged, and will “receive what they deserve” depending on how they have lived their life. What goal this serves story-wise we can’t say just yet.

#the arcana #the arcana game #courtiers #valdemar #valerius #vlastomil #volta #vulgora #spoilers

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